Eating Women, Telling Tales Page 6

  Gita and Savitri smiled back at her. Then the words began to flow. As they cooked, stirring the huge pots with long-handled ‘karchis’ which had been brought from home, the three women talked in soft voices. Sometimes they heard each other and then their words disappeared, flowing into the cauldrons to mingle with the simmering bhog. Bit by bit they poured their intense longing for home along with measured cups of hot water, threw in their loneliness with the fragrant basmati rice, sprinkled their forgotten dreams and disappointments carefully along with the salt. A few tears washed the peas, carrots and beans but the potatoes held a tinge of shared laughter. Then they chopped their sadness into fine, almost invisible bits and mixed it with the cinnamon, cardamom and clove powder.

  Slowly as the bhog began to bubble, its fragrance rising to fill the entire temple, the empty playground, the silent classrooms, the women fell silent. They dipped a ladle in to taste the bhog. It needed a little something sweet. With a gentle twist of their fingers all the three women placed their palms on top of each other, like fish making love and poured in all the love that remained in their hearts. They wrung it out, squeezing, till it flowed like a stream into the cauldron, spilling on the floor, staining the clean white tiles. When the bhog was served the people who gathered for the feast at the temple were surprised at the rich flavour and Purohit Baba smiled quietly and said, “It is only the Lord’s benevolence.”

  Five

  The hibiscus shrub had finished flowering but one lone flower still clung stubbornly to the lowest branch. Just below the shrub, in a shallow hastily scratched dusty bowl, sat a dull brown hen, her wings tucked neatly under her stomach. The crimson red flower dangling right above her ruffled head gave her a false and somewhat lopsided bird of paradise appearance. She was fast asleep and the rooster’s incessant calls made no difference to her. The crisp winter sunlight made the shabby backyard with its dusty plants look much brighter this morning and even the discarded old furniture had taken on a gleaming patina quite pleasing to the eye. The rooster gave one more lament and flew up clumsily to sit on the wooden fence that divided his patch from the neighbour’s garden. From there he watched his enemy.

  Jogen stood on the roof of his two-storied, freshly painted house and glared at the rooster with puffy eyes. “Let the bastard even think about flying into the garden and I will wring his neck,” he muttered to himself, taking a sip of lukewarm tea to soothe his throat before he gave his first warning cry of the day. How beautiful his roses looked this morning he thought, keeping a wary eye on the rooster.

  His garden, though only a small one, was an oasis in this desolate street where every other backyard was a patch of moth-eaten rugs, dying plants, old furniture and discarded tyres. Jogen was the village postman, a proud third generation government employee. He still had his grandfather’s cap with its gold embroidered emblem of the Royal Mail. He loved the soft faded woollen cap and often wore it secretly at night, savouring the delicious pangs of guilt. “I am not being unpatriotic, just faithful to my grandfather’s memory, the first postman of Dhompur,” he chanted, stroking the emblem with his fingertips, tracing the intricate pattern. Of course he would never betray his country and government by wearing this English cap in public, no, not even in front of his wife.

  There were many things Jogen did not do in front of his wife, a plump, sharp-eyed girl who everyone said was young enough to be his daughter. Some whispered it behind his back while others, like his mother, had said it to his face. He took no offence at this since it was the truth. Soni was the same age as his daughter from his late wife and he clearly remembered the day both the girls were born. Soni’s father was a good friend of his, a kind and generous man who died in his prime, choking over a betel nut at his son’s wedding. Some guests, his side of the family mainly, said he was poisoned by Soni’s mother but why speak evil of the dead even when some late people deserved it. Soni, unfortunately, took after her mother, who was a loud woman with a big mouth which was always open like a tiny red cave to let out a stream of words, raucous laughter or take in endless amount of food. Yes, he could see Soni growing more like her mother each day.

  The white rose bush was doing really well, each branch laden with heavy bunches of roses falling in a curve which almost touched the ground. Though there was no scent in the flowers, the bees loved to hover around the rose bush. He would try and plant another one of the same variety but with pink flowers. Maybe he would go to the Koti nursery and get one next time he had to go to the head office. At the end of the month when it was pay day. Yes, he could go on pay day and get some manure too. There was a new English kind made with crushed bones. Bone-meal it was called. But was it all right for vegetarians to use this manure made with dead animals? Jogen pondered over this with a deep frown. He was not eating it, was he? Only giving it to the roses so that they could grow healthy and produce more flowers. It was like feeding special food to a pregnant woman. No harm done. But if his mother was alive he could never have brought the bone manure home! Not even talked about it. What a scene she had created when Dhani opened his butcher’s shop though it was far down the road, screaming abuses at his wife, cursing them so that they could never have a son. Her curses seem to have worked and poor Dhani managed to produce only a daughter. So what if he was a butcher, he had to earn a living like everyone else. Not everyone could get a good government job in the post and telegraph service like him. He was a lucky man – if only the rooster would leave his roses alone and Soni would give him a child. The rooster seemed a bit off colour today and was not strutting about like he did every morning. He just kept calling out in his harsh voice as if he was complaining about something. As long as he kept to his side of the garden it was all right.

  Jogen rubbed his chest and thought, even a daughter would be better than no child. A lovely little girl who would gather the roses and talk to him. There was a flutter under the rose bush and Jogen leaned forward to see what it was. The stray cat who lived in the ditch outside their garden, had arrived to inspect the rubbish heap now. That would keep the rooster away for a while. Why was he not happy to stay in their patch, with their rubbish and that single hibiscus plant which caused a ripple of envy in Jogen’s heart each time it burst shamelessly into flower. No one looked after it, watered it, dug the earth under it or even admired it from that house yet it was always producing bright crimson blossoms. Maybe it liked all the rotting flesh and blood on the ground that the butcher brought to throw here.

  He wished Dhani would not throw the bloodied chicken heads, claws and innards into his patch. Bad enough to have those wretched chickens roaming around the house, clucking all day long. Dead they were even worse. Sometimes he could smell the fresh blood from Dhani’s patch floating right up to the roof.

  “Haaaah..harraaaeeee…mmmeee,” he shouted as the rooster rose from the fence and flew down to his rose patch. A bit of tea spilt down his chin and he quickly wiped it as his wife came up the stairs. He could hear her panting heavily, her numerous bangles making a tinkling sound but he did not turn around. The rooster was still in his rose patch, strutting about and leaving a trail of droppings behind him. “Let the poor creature be! Anyway, they say chicken shit is good for plants,” Soni said and came up to stand close to him. He could smell her strange feral smell which was strongest at this time of the morning. Soni broke a green twig off the jasmine he had planted in a flower pot and began picking her teeth. As the flowers fell one by one from the broken twig, she raised her head and twisted open her mouth. Jogen did not look at her but he knew she was rolling her tongue around her mouth, jabbing it deep into her cheek and then she would spit loudly in the flower pot. He saw the leaves tremble and said, “I have told you not to do that so many times. Now you will say that your spit is good for my jasmine plants.” This in the patient voice which he used to talk to his wife. Soni stretched and raised her arms above her head as she yawned. Her kurta was torn under the armpit and he could see a soft curly patch of hair peering out.

  “
Haaa ttt aa ja ja…” he shouted once more and this time picked up a small piece of wood from a pile he kept under the flower pots only for this purpose. Wooden chips were a good missile since they would not kill the bird but frighten it away, at least most of the time. He aimed it at the rooster but it missed and fell on his rose bush instead, scattering a cloud of white petals. Soni clucked her tongue in irritation and clapped her hands, her bangles jangling loudly. The rooster, startled, began to run and then flew up suddenly and crossed over to his side of the patch.

  “I am going to oil my hair, wash it and then cook lunch. It will take time. So have something to eat now,” she said and went down the stairs. As the sound and smell of his wife receded Jogen gave a sigh and began watching his roses again. Later he would go down and pick up the broken one.

  Soni picked up the bowl of oil she had kept in the sun to warm and began slapping it on her head. Then she parted her hair carefully and rubbed a bit of warm oil in each section, humming under her breath. “Lotus-eyed beloved…come to me beloved mine…” she sang in a tuneless voice, watching the fence which separated her husband’s garden from her lover’s patch. Dhani must be still asleep, the lazy swine she thought, a ripple of warmth tingling her skin as she thought of Dhani’s large body sprawled on his bed. She blurred his wife’ s face which suddenly appeared next to him on the bed. Bloody woman, why does she not go back to her mother’s house? She is going to drop that baby any day now…the scrawny bitch. She had not met Dhani for four weeks and five days now. They saw each other everyday across the fence or outside on the street, or near his shop. But what use was that? They had to be together, skin to skin, breath to breath otherwise it was as good as not seeing him. He could be a stranger for all she cared. “Go home, you bitch…go and breed another ugly black female child – Mother…my goddess make it another girl. Please…do not give her a son…please Devi. I will fast every Friday for you – do not give her a son…” Soni shook her hair and picked up the bowl of oil, now quite warmed by the sun, and poured the remaining oil on the top of her head. She shut her eyes and gently rubbed her scalp with her fingertips, the oil making a soothing chapp…chapp sound on her scalp. Then she wiped the bowl with the ends of her hair and turned her back to the sun to let the oil soak in. Soon she was fast alseep.

  She dreamt not of her lover – the handsome, eagle-eyed butcher Dhani – but of his thief rooster and her husbands’s white roses. They were sitting in Dhani’s bedroom, she and another woman, maybe his wife. A table covered with food was before them. In the middle next to a bouquet of white roses lay the rooster – now simmering in a rich, almond studded curry. Soni could not bear to eat the curry yet the other woman, she was sure it was Dhani’s wife as a young girl, was eating it greedily, tearing the flesh with her hands.

  The sound of the cock crowing woke her and for a second she panicked, then when she realized she was in her own courtyard and not in her dream or in Dhani’s bed with the first light of dawn streaming in through the window, she cursed under her breath. The oil, cold and clammy now, was trickling down her forehead and she wiped it off with the end of her duppatta. She put a cauldron of water on the fire, wrapped an old shawl around her shoulders and then sat down to watch the steam rise with half-closed eyes. Before his wife came, she used to meet Dhani every night. She would wait for Jogen to fall asleep, counting hundred till his breath became even and low. Then she would climb to the terrace in her bare feet, licking her lips to make them moist and red, she would raise her salwar and jump over the low wall. Sometimes Dhani would be waiting for her at the window, his body eager and urgent but there were many nights when he would be snoring gently, his arms folded neatly over his stomach, the moonlight making him look like the corpse of a saint. She would wake him gently and be rewarded with a sleepy embrace.

  Then the night would pass too soon and the wretched rooster would begin to crow. She would rush back to the terrace, vault over the wall and crawl into her bed, pulling the covers over her head. Jogen would always be asleep, his face turned to the wall.

  But those nights seemed so long ago. One whole year ago. Now his wife was there in his bed, breathing heavily, moaning as the child stirred in her womb. His young daughter, hardly one year old also slept in the same room and Soni would often see her crawling about on the terrace. If she and Jogen had a child he would never treat her like that! Five years had passed but they had no child, despite Jogen’s clumsy fumblings in the dark and her ardent prayers to the goddess of the womb, many offerings to the goddess of barren women, to the tree shrine, to the dumb Babaji.

  Now, maybe, Dhani would give her a child. Surely the love she felt surge through her veins would bring fresh blood into her womb. Sometimes, when no one was around, they would steal a kiss in the corner of the garden where they threw the rubbish. There amongst the dead chickens bones, and feathers, rotting flowers and dry cowdung cakes, he would quickly squeeze her and pinch her lips till she cried out in pain.

  Dhani was not a real butcher. He explained to her when she met him for the first time on the terrace on his daughter’s naming ceremony. “I buy the chicken and goats from the mandi, selecting only the best. I never touch them, just point with my stick. My boys clean and cut them and get them ready for the shop They are low caste and very poor so it does not bother them if their hands get bloody,” he said, laughing in that shrill way he had. Yet whenever she looked at his plump, slightly crooked hands, caressing her, squeezing her flesh, she would see them wringing a chicken’s neck.

  Soni heard her husband coming down the stairs and threw some rice into the boiling water. She would wash her hair later, what did it matter if it looked all oily and unclean. Jogen never even looked at her except when he was startled by something rude she said. These days she did not care enough to annoy him.“O Dhani.. send her away…” she whispered over the hissing cauldron.

  “The rice is not cooked properly,” said Jogen, looking down at his plate.

  “Then cook it yourself, I have no time to put up with your fussing – drink the lassi and don’t whine,” said Soni but her heart was not in her curt words. Any other time she would have loved to get into a quarrel with her husband so early in the day because that meant she could sulk all day till late at night and go to sleep in the other room. This gave her a chance to get away to the terrace earlier; but of what use now to sulk when the bitch was still stuck like a leech next door?

  I will make some halwa and send it to her. That will make her have false labour pains. I will smother the semolina with pure ghee, almonds, dates, and raisins. Maybe add some chilli powder – with lots of sugar – she won’t know. It will make the wind rise in her belly and she will think it is her time and run farting to her mother! Hai…that is what I will do, she thought, her eyes blazing with malice. Suddenly the cock crowed outside though it was noon and Soni laughed out loud as her husband spilt his glass of lassi on his lap.

  “You should have not taken the trouble sister,” said Dhani’s wife breathing heavily as she put her hand out for the plate of golden halwa. “No, no, one should feed a pregnant woman – the gods will bless one,” said Soni, narrowing her eyes. “Eat it while it is hot – I will make some more tomorrow,” and by the day after you will head home my sweet sister Soni thought, as she jumped over the wall. She could have gone downstairs and come up but she loved vaulting over the fence just to keep in practice. Placing one bangled wrist on the ledge she would twist her body and leap gracefully over the brick wall in one quick movement. What a pity Dhani could not see her athletic prowess but his stupid wife watched her with her mouth open, a handful of halwa gleaming in her fist.

  For one week she sent halwa every morning to her rival but nothing happened. The woman had a cast iron stomach and digested even the raw leaves of senna she had put in to give her wind. Then, just when Soni was giving up hope, the halwa worked its magic and on the ninth day, at the first light of dawn, just when the cock began to crow, Soni heard the first scream through the thin wall which se
parated their houses. “Ma… Mai…help, the pains have come…ma…” began the wail. Soni leapt out of bed. “What…what…” mumbled Jogen. “I must go next door, she needs help,” she said, pulling her duppata over her head.

  Dhani was snoring in his usual saintly position while his wife crouched at the foot of bed, groaning. She did not dare touch him to wake him up or call out his name since it was forbidden. She was his wife but since Soni was not she was not bound by any rules so she shook him rudely and said “Arree wake up…take you wife to her mother…I think her time has come…” Dhani stared at her stupidly and then jumped out of bed, clumsily tripping over a fallen pillow. “My God you…you…how did… you…” he stuttered looking for his wife who was now lying on the ground. Together they picked her up and put her on the bed. “Stay with her, I will get a rickshaw…” said Dhani and stumbled out blindly. “Ma, ma…” moaned Dhani’s wife clutching Soni’s hand and pressing it to her stomach. “Don’t leave me…please don’t go…” Soni felt her heartbeat thumping wildly against her palm. What was her name? She had never asked Dhani his wife’s name. “There … there, sister…stay calm…do not fear… we will take you to your mother soon…hush.” She had stopped moaning now and her eyes were half shut. In another hour she would leave the house to go to the hospital or her mother’s – who cared – and tonight she would come to this room and take her rightful place in this bed. Oh, the joy of being with him again. Suddenly, without warning, the baby moved under her hand and Soni moved back in fear. Dhani’s wife seemed to be half asleep now, tears staining her face. Had she fainted? Soni tried to shake her and then suddenly she gave a loud cry and sat up as her clothes were drenched in water. Then she began to cry, her hands over her ears, trying to shut out Dhani’s wife’s screams of pain. “Oh Devi… don’t let her die. I did not ask you for this… please let her live….” She tried to hold Dhani’s wife but she thrashed about pulling her down like a drowning person. Where had that idiot Dhani gone? The streets were crawling with rickshaws. Where was he? Then suddenly with a piercing cry Dhani’s wife arched her back, lifted her stomach in the air and came down with a crash. She bit her hand. There was blood on the sheets and the little girl hiding behind the door began to sob and then she heard another cry – a baby’s wail. Soni could not bear to look down but forced herself. It was something she had seen thrown outside Dhani’s butcher’s shop – a bundle of flesh, blood and mucus. She recoiled but something forced her to touch it – but it was attached by a bloody rope to Dhani’s wife. Soni felt the room spin and then her head filled with the baby’s wailing cries, she hit the ground.