The Smoke is Rising (20 page)

‘So, can you imagine, if you bumped into Mrs Mishra today?’ Jaydev asked.

‘Oh God, please don’t even say that as a joke. You know, I think I’d have to tell her that, regardless of her best efforts, I managed to pick my way into her fridge every afternoon and eat one of her horrible imported chocolate hearts.’

Jaydev’s wife, Debashree, had suffered a stroke eight years ago and died a few months later. At the first mention of his late wife, Susheela found herself in foreign territory, her normal social equilibrium deserting her. Would it seem inappropriate for her to display greater curiosity or would a delicate circumvention of the topic appear uncaring? It suddenly dawned on her that men in their seventies with dead wives were not her forte. But Jaydev required neither prompting nor guiding. His allusions were brief but numerous.

Jaydev had known his wife, Debashree, at college. She was the first girl in his year to have her hair cut short and arrive at college on a bicycle. They had married in spite of the objections of Jaydev’s mother, who for years afterwards spent hours detailing disastrous predictions for their future in her letters to him. He had once shown Debashree a letter in which his mother had claimed that not only would his wife abandon their children one day, she would do so by running off with one of her dissolute colleagues at the Institute of Education. Debashree’s reaction had been typically brassy. She had written to her mother-in-law, setting out in laborious detail the combination of defects in each of her male colleagues that rendered them unsuitable for adulterous couplings.

The telephone wrapped Susheela and Jaydev in the folds of its invisibility, giving them a safe haven for their pauses and reflections. An hour would pass, sometimes two or three, before Susheela emerged from the bedroom, her capillaries swollen with the sound of Jaydev’s measured voice, his quizzical teasing and that almost inaudible chuckle.

‘Are you an only child?’ he had once asked her.

‘Yes, how did you know?’

‘I can tell. You have that constant watchfulness that an only child has.’

‘I am a sixty-four-year-old widow with knee pain and you think I have the constant watchfulness of an only child?’

She felt almost gratified when he had laughed so hard that it brought on a choking fit.

The gloom inside the room was so dense that it had a texture, like cotton wool ripped from a bale. Through the open window Mala could hear rainwater dripping off the roof into the choked gutter, the last sobs of the dying downpour. She looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was still only eleven o’clock. At half past nine she had called the office to let them know that she would not be coming in. Shipra had answered the phone, sounding bored and distant.

‘Okay fine, are you coming in tomorrow? Actually, just hang on. Mr Tanveer wants to talk to you,’ she had said.

‘Ms Mala? What is the matter, not feeling well? What
exactly
seems to be the problem?’

Mala had explained that she had a migraine and, she thought, a temperature.

‘That is
most
unfortunate, Ms Mala. Have you taken the opinion of a good doctor? Oh, I see. Well, you must not neglect these
matters, of course. But I am sure that you will recover
very
soon; after all, you have youth on your side, not like us old fuddy-duddies. Shipra will call you later today to make sure you are not in need of anything. But in any case, I am sure we will see you tomorrow, isn’t it?’

Mala lay in bed, looking at the damp patch where the wall met the ceiling. The surface of the wall had bubbled up like a pancake and now little flakes dangled over the dusty suitcases shoved on top of the cupboard. The last time they had been used was on the honeymoon to Ooty. On returning, as Mala had stood on the bed, reaching up to push them against the wall, she had suspected they might not be required again for a long time. She had been right. But now Girish had become obsessed with the idea of a trip to Sri Lanka, an indulgence they could not afford and which, as far as Mala could tell, held no significant attraction for either of them. The thought of following Girish around ruins or beaches far away from home made her want to cocoon herself away. It was taking every strand of equanimity to pilot her way through her everyday existence; the anxiety that would be engendered by new experiences on distant shores was terrifying.

There was a knock at the door. Gayathri had said she would be late today. Mala got out of bed and let her in. As usual, there was minimal conversation. Mala returned to the bedroom, sinking down on the sheets that seemed to have sucked in the moisture from the walls. She could hear Gayathri opening the windows in the sitting room.

She turned on to her side, away from the window, desperately tired but knowing sleep would not come. Living a secret life made innumerable claims. Every day she had to guard against the erosion of her will with a heightened watchfulness, induced at great cost and leaving her winded.

Mala had considered leaving Girish, but her conception of leaving
was shapeless. It was only a vaguely sensed mood, not something that could yet be termed a real choice. She stumbled at the first steps, trying to recall a time before the essence of her life became violence and humiliation, alternating with boredom. The intervals between Girish’s random acts of cruelty should have been periods of relief. But an enormous tedium took over and battered her with its slow, steady beat: the routine tasks that Mr Tanveer assigned her, looking equal parts stricken and suspicious; the organisation of life in that dark house, with its corners full of contempt and derision; Girish’s lengthy speeches, girdling a subject on which he had decided she needed instruction.

Yet thoughts of any alternatives left her incapacitated, a sharp chill penetrating into her bones. When she married, Mala had made a mental break with her maternal home and Konnapur. She had departed for the legitimacy of adulthood. Picturing herself at home with her parents again was impossible, if it meant returning to Konnapur with nothing to show for her married life but the corrosive shame of her inability to make her husband love her.

Gayathri stuck her head around the door.

‘Not well? What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘Headache.’

‘Shall I quickly do the floor here?’

‘No, just leave it. You can do it tomorrow.’

Gayathri nodded and walked to the bathroom, tunelessly humming a song; an odd sound that lay somewhere between a gasp and a croak.

The old man next door turned on his radio. His sitting-room window was so close to Mala’s bedroom window that she could have stretched her arm out over the low wall and touched it. A radio play was in progress. A woman had been accused of infidelity and she was proclaiming her innocence. The tremors in her voice were wrapped in a static echo as she tried to defend herself against
her accusers. A smooth baritone cut in, a voice with the lacquered timbre that made it ideal for radio. His mother and his brother had discovered the truth, said the male voice, and he preferred to believe the people who shared his blood, rather than a stray he had rescued and married out of misguided compassion. The wife’s denials began afresh, swearing that she could never betray a man who had been so kind to her.

Gayathri walked into the room again.

‘Finished for today. I’ll see you tomorrow then.’

‘Wait, can you do something for me before you go? Can you get me some tablets from the medical shop? Here take this chit, I’ve written down what I need.’

Gayathri nodded and reached for the note and the money. She turned to leave but then stopped.

‘Not everything can be cured by a tablet, you know.’

Mala propped herself up on her arms: ‘Meaning?’

‘Nothing. I’ll be back in five minutes. You better take some rest.’

With that, Gayathri left the room.

The lunchtime rush had thinned out at the Vishram Coffee House. The two public-sector bank officials had decided to take a late lunch and were at their usual table.

‘That Prakash called me yesterday,’ said the senior official, his eyes narrowing.

‘What for, sir?’

‘By mistake. I got the call but I didn’t recognise the number. I answered it anyway and you know what?’

‘No sir, what?’

‘He asked me who
I
am.
He
calls
me
and he asks me who
I
am. Can you believe?’

‘That man has no shame, sir.’

‘Who is he to phone me and demand to know who I am?’

‘His character is not at all good, sir. His background also.’

‘I recognised his voice at once.’

‘Did you tell him who you were, sir?’

‘No, why should I?
He
is the one who called
me
.
He
should tell me who
he
is first.’

‘Hundred per cent correct, sir.’

‘If he calls me again and asks me who I am, I will really let him have it.
Kappalakke yeradu.’

‘No shame, sir. You can never teach such third-class people.’

‘Can you believe how much they have started charging here for extra rice?’

‘It’s fully looting, sir.’

‘
Che
.’

‘Sir, this HeritageLand? You think it will ever be built?’

‘Why not? Once those farmers shut their mouths, I have full faith in that project.’

‘It says in the paper today that the Mughal Waterworld will be one of the greatest examples of engineering ever seen.’

‘Very possible. We are the mother of invention, you know. Algebra, buttons, snakes and ladders, all invented here. Also, one rupee shampoo sachets and
idli manchurian.’

‘Very true, sir.’

‘And let me tell you another thing, it will be a great opportunity for this city. I mean, who had heard of Florida before Disney World?’

‘Nobody, sir.’

‘What was there before?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘Just swamps and a few crocodiles. Now look at it.’

The junior bank official left the table to wash his hands and returned, wiping them with a neatly pressed handkerchief.

‘Sir, they say that inflation has gone into negative figures – deflation.’

‘My foot. They use some godforsaken measure that includes nothing useful that people buy. No food, no medical, no rent. I think it only counts made-in-China mobile phones, which are the only things coming down in price.’

‘
Alwa
, sir, seriously. You tell the
aam aadmi
that the government thinks prices are only falling, what will he say?’

‘Nothing. He will nod like a sheep and say, “No problem, sir; whatever you say, sir.” People in this country will just accept anything. The things that go on here, you think they could happen in any other country?’

‘No, sir. It is our cursed fate.’

‘For example, you have some gangster with twenty criminal cases pending in various courts. He decides to stand for election and knows he will win because he will bribe all the fools in his constituency to vote for him. Saris, TVs, cash, liquor, whatever rubbish you give them, they will happily accept and shut their mouths for a few days.’

‘This has really happened in Tamil Nadu, sir.’

‘It is happening everywhere. Then after he is elected, he can make sure none of his cases ever come to court. And if by chance some even bigger political gangster manages to send him to the lock-up, he will send his son or daughter-in-law or grandson’s donkey to take his place at the next election and the whole thing will go on like that.’

‘Every criminal politician says he has been framed by his political opponents.’

‘Of course. Are we all fools to believe that every single MP is spending his time doctoring video tapes and finding impersonators so that he can fake all the evidence? Even our movie writers can’t be as skilled at creating these stories as our
netas
.’

‘
Nodi
, sir, India Shining.’

‘India Whining.’

‘India Pining.’

‘Okay, enough. Get the bill.’