‘When Sumi married you, she was too young; but I was not anxious for her, you were older, you were sensible and you cared for her, yes, you did. I can still remember how you scolded me for being angry with her when she refused to nurse Seema. She can’t help it, Amma, you said to me, she isn’t depriving the baby of milk on purpose. How can you change so much, Gopala?’
She goes on, moving from surmise to surmise. Has anyone poisoned his mind against Sumi? Has she done something wrong? Can’t he forgive her? She knows—and she says this placatingly, so humbly that it hurts—he is a generous man. And Sumi too—he shouldn’t think that her friendliness with others means anything.
‘Amma, it’s not that, I know Sumi ....’
But she doesn’t let him speak. I know she was careless, she says, I know she didn’t bother too much about her home, ‘But, Gopala,’ and now she hesitates, ‘how could she have known what being a good wife means when she never saw her mother being one? I taught her nothing, it’s all my fault, Gopala, forgive me and don’t punish her for it.’
Once again he tries to tell her that he has nothing against Sumi, he tries to convince her that he never expected her to create for him the world he wanted, that he did not make her responsible for giving him all that he wanted in life, but Kalyani hurries on.
‘Is it money, Gopala? If it is, you know that Sumi and you will have everything of mine. Premi is comfortable, I am not worried about her. Even my jewellery—most of it is for Sumi ....’
This time he does not have to speak. She looks at his face and stops. And begins to cry. He watches her distress helplessly.
‘Look at me, Gopala,’ she says when she can speak. ‘My father died worrying about me, my mother couldn’t die in peace, she held on to life though she was suffering—she suffered terribly—because of me, she didn’t want to leave me and go.’
She is crying uncontrollably now, she can’t speak. And so he does. He tells her that this has nothing to do with the relationship between Sumi and him, it has nothing to do with Sumi, she has done nothing wrong, she has done him no wrong, on the contrary, it is he ....
Listening to him, she begins to understand that nothing she says can affect him. He can see the anger rising in her, anger she tries to conceal, afraid, perhaps, that she will alienate him by that. Once again, this hurts.
‘What about your daughters? Have you thought of them? Look at that girl standing out there—she didn’t want to come, she came here for my sake. Have you thought of what you have done to them?’
‘I thought of everything before I took this step. Do you think, Amma, I haven’t?’
There is a long silence after that. Then Kalyani stands up.
‘Charu,’ she calls out.
Charu stands at the door, blinking, trying to adjust her eyes to the dimness after the strong light outside. She gives Kalyani a quick look, taking in the fact that she has been crying, but she says nothing.
‘Let’s go, Charu.’
‘I’ll get an auto, you wait here, Amma.’
‘No, don’t, Charu. Let’s start walking, I’m sure we’ll get one on the road. We will, won’t we?’
Before leaving, she looks about the room for the first time since she had come in, taking it all in—the thin mattress rolled into a dingy striped carpet, the rough wooden planks of the bed, the bare table, the string on the wall on which he has hung a towel and a shirt ....
‘You live here?’ she asks him.
‘Yes.’
‘And who’s this Shankar?’
‘A student of mine.’
‘Oh!’
She is no longer able to sustain interest in anything. The purpose that had upheld her when she came has receded from her. She goes down the stairs like a woman much older than her years, putting both her feet on a step before going to the next one. Charu follows, her dupatta trailing on the floor behind her as usual. Gopal has an urge to pick it up, to put it back on her shoulder, but as if she has guessed his thoughts and wants to forestall him, she picks it up and adjusts it herself. Watching his daughter move away from him, he has a sense of loss so acute, it is like a physical pain. Unable to follow them, he goes back to the room and sits down, listening to their steps recede.
This is part of it, I have to go through all this, I cannot escape. What had I expected, that I could inflict pain and feel none in return?
If Kalyani came as a supplicant, Aru is an adversary, holding her hostility before her like a weapon. A sword, scrubbed to a beautiful silvery sheen, sharp-edged, ready for war. She is determined to behave like an adult, or rather, as she imagines an adult should be—cool and reasonable. She asks the polite questions of a visiting acquaintance, about this room, about Shankar, his press and what work does he do there? He imagines that this is the way a prisoner would feel with a visitor—uneasy, longing for it to be over. He can see the effort she is making, he wants to tell her to stop, he would rather see her grief and anger pour out of her; but she holds him at bay, she won’t let him do anything but reply to her questions—until her questions finally peter out and they are left in silence.
‘Papa,’ she begins, then stops as if this is not how she wants to address him. But the word has opened a valve and now it gushes out. The confusion in her mind is reflected in her language—she skips from Kannada to English and back again, her sentences incomplete, leaving out words that she can’t get hold of. Her voice rises, trails away, suddenly becomes gruff and guttural as if something is choking her.
And then she can’t go on any longer; she breaks down and begins to sob. But there is no relief in this outpouring, either; she fights against it, her body shaken by the effort to control herself. He gets her a glass of water, tries to make her drink it, but like a petulant child she pushes his hand away. The water slops over, spills, drenching her skirt, his trousers, yet he continues to hold the glass before her until she hiccups herself into silence, wipes her eyes and drinks the water.
But it is not over. She begins again. And this time, like a surgeon who has opened up a patient, she begins to probe, knowing it is there, the tumour, knowing it has to be found and removed for the patient to survive.
Is it because of something Sumi did, something she said? Is it because of us, because of me? Is it because I was rude to you, because I always argued with you? Is it because of what I said to you when you decided to resign? Is it money?
He can see that his silence, his negatives, drive her to desperation and she goes on to memories: ‘Do you remember, Papa?’ This time the appellation comes easily, she is unconscious of it.
‘What can I say to you, Aru?’
‘Say it, whatever it is, tell me, I am not a child.’
But it’s no use, he cannot give her what she wants, what she has come here for. When she gets up to go, they have both of them the same sense of failure, they are equally exhausted.
Nothing can touch me, I had thought, I’m wearing a bulletproof vest. But what do you do when your opponent comes with a knife, gets under your skin and begins to twist it between your ribs? Aru, in her anger, reminds me of Sumi. But Sumi’s anger is sharp: one clean cut and it’s over, Sumi is wiping the blade and putting it away. Aru, on the other hand, is hitting out with a blunt weapon, uncaring of where the blow falls, even hurting herself in the process. Her questions are like the Yaksha’s questions; a wrong answer will cost me my life. At one moment I almost blurted out what is perhaps the only thing I can say to her: I was frightened, Aru, frightened of the emptiness within me, I was frightened of what I could do to us, to all of you, with that emptiness inside me. That is the real reason why I walked away from Sumi, from you and your sisters.
Frightened—yes,