Eating Women, Telling Tales Page 8

  LATE BHANURAI JOG’S STORY

  Jog hated the flowers. His son, who could not come for the funeral, had sent a huge bouquet of evil looking white flowers from London. Jog was not sure whether the flowers came all the way from London or were sent by a florist in Delhi. Mala would have known such things but she was not here. And he would never know now.

  He did not really care where the flowers came from and wished they had not sent them – Raman and his shopkeeper wife. He hated them, their white, cruel petals which were shaped like claws filled him with revulsion. Their heady, sweet fragrance, artificial like the expensive perfumes many fast women used, filled every room in the house and made him nauseous. A swarm of tiny midges had settled deep inside the flowers, scarring the fleshy white petals with black spots.

  He had told the servants to throw the bouquet and its unopened letter into the garbage heap at the far end of the garden but they had kept it somewhere because the breeze carried the scent, now stale and sweeter, into the house for days, till he asked the mali to burn them in the rubbish bin. But when he came into this room where Mala had died, he could still smell the flowers, burnt and rotten. Someone must have hidden one flower under her pillow.

  Mala had been a good wife to him, quiet, well-behaved and obedient. She had looked after him for thirty years, putting up with his dark moods and keeping the world at a safe distance. Their son had gone away to live in England: though trained to be an engineer with offers of jobs from many prestigious firms, he worked in a post office shop. His wife’s father, an uneducated immigrant from Punjab, owned it and when he died Raman had decided to take it over. Jog could not believe it when the letter arrived to tell them that Raman had quit his job and was going to sell stamps, butter and sugar. His only son, a qualified engineer from IIT, Raibahadur Verma’s only grandson, was now a full-fledged shopkeeper in some terrible working class area outside London. Fortunately all this happened when both his parents had passed away, otherwise he would never have been able to tell them this shameful thing. The other relatives made snide remarks but no one had the guts to say anything to his face. They probably did to Mala but she never said anything about it.

  Three years ago Jog had gone to England to help an old client – the Raja of Jaunapur – with a tax case the Indian Government had slapped on him. Mala had just found out about the lump under her armpit and did not want to travel. She had never wanted to go anywhere except to Delhi to visit her family but he made sure that was just once a year for ten days. The driver dropped her and then he went back exactly after ten days to fetch her. Her mother never asked her to stay longer and neither did any members of the family inquire about him. They were polite and friendly if he happened to answer the phone when they rang for Mala, only on Sundays, but they understood that he liked to keep his distance. He could sense from their hushed voices that they respected him greatly. It made him feel good. But he kept his guard up in case they got more friendly.

  Mala had asked him to meet Raman and his wife. She had just started her course of chemotherapy and her voice trembled as she spoke. “Please give them these – a few old pieces of jewellery and a silver framed photograph of Raman as a baby. They might like to show them to his children when they have them.” She looked away as she spoke. “I will not be around to see them but what does that matter. They don’t need my care. They will grow on their own like my plants,” she said and then began to pack his suitcase, folding each shirt in a thin muslin bag so that it would not get creased. She did it slowly, her thin fingers moving over the cloth like some graceful winged creature. Jog shut his eyes to bring her shadowy face closer to him. But there was nothing but a square of light from the window imprinted in his closed eyes. He got up and walked out of the house into the garden. He felt someone was watching him but when he turned around there was no one.

  It was just the driver who stood up, startled by his sudden appearance. Jog waved him away and then went back to the house. The day seemed to stretch ahead endlessly as he walked around the empty rooms. What had Mala done all day? When their son was a baby there was probably something to do though the amma was there to do everything. Then he was sent to boarding school, the same one Jog had been sent to at the age of six. What did she do then all day? Sleep, read, eat, walk. He was at work all day and never asked her. Jog tapped his foot on the wooden floor, tracing its lines.

  How had she filled all these hours that now weighed him down? Did she have a secret that made time fly and months go past without you noticing ?

  Jog walked into Mala’s room, slowly moved the curtains aside in case the flowers were hidden there. Their invisible scent was irritating him

  He had felt so ashamed and angry to see his son standing behind a counter, handing out packets of tea and sugar to old English ladies, joking and laughing as if he had known them all his life. Some argued with him about the price, calling him an Indian dacoit. “Thugee, that’s what you are,” and he teased them about being misers. “What are you hoarding all that money for, my love? Planning to run away, are you?” His wife, a sullen girl with a slight squint in her eyes, sat behind a little caged cubicle selling stamps and weighing envelopes, holding them against the light to check what was in them. “I made you an engineer, sent you to England, yet you prefer to be a shopkeeper,” he said trying to keep his voice low. Raman had laughed and winked at a young English girl who had come into the shop. “Come in love, meet my Dad from India. He is giving me his favourite lecture.” The girl had smiled at him and put her hand out. But Jog had walked out of the shop, blinded by a sudden rage which made his body tremble. He had bumped into a butcher’s trolley which was being unloaded on the street. His shirt was stained with streaks of blood and he had thrown it away before catching the plane back to India. He never wanted to see his son again and for some strange reason Mala never asked him about his visit. Anyway even if she had asked he would have had nothing to say. He had wiped the memory of his son, the country that had made him into a common shopkeeper, a clown who danced and joked to amuse his clientele of old women.

  This farm with its twenty acres of black, rich soil where the best wheat grew, this house and the money in the bank would last his lifetime and then he did not care who got it after he died. Mala had never been interested in farming and when they came here after he retired from his duties as a judge, she had seemed very quiet but she had never said anything to him and he assumed she liked being here just as much as he did. He went in to Chandigarh, a town nearby, three days a week to advise a law firm on difficult cases and the rest of the time he read his law books and made notes. He was planning to write a book on criminal law which students of the evening law school could use.

  He liked to help students, especially bright and poor ones because they were always so grateful. It was a pleasant feeling to have young boys bow and touch his feet when he walked into a room. In winter he often gave a lift in his car to one or two law students who hung around their office, hoping to get some work. But he made sure they sat in front with the driver and he only exchanged a few words with them during the entire journey which lasted an hour. There was no need to be too friendly with them, they might mistake it for weakness or even loneliness in him and that would be terrible since he had nothing even remotely to do with anything like that.

  Sometimes when he came home late in the evenings from town he would see Mala roaming about behind the house and as the car headlights caught her slender figure, lit up her face, he was always surprised to see how beautiful she was still. She did not seem so beautiful when he had seen her for the first time in her father’s house, dressed in a simple cotton sari with white flowers in her hair. He had recently seen those flowers somewhere in the garden. Jog looked around the room to see where the butterflies had settled but could not find them anywhere. Their black and white wings had merged with the curtains and now they could live here safely for ever. Mala would have liked that. What did she really like? He knew she liked this room which was the smallest in the
house with windows that looked out into the garden. The ceiling was made of wood unlike the rest of the house and the floor was a deep red colour which shone even at night. Mala had moved into this room soon after they came to live on the farm. “I like it here. It is so cosy and friendly,” she had said.

  Was she lonely here? Her family lived in a crowded area of Delhi where you could not even take the smallest car in. His mother had grumbled about walking through the narrow lane to meet Mala’s family, holding a handkerchief to her nose, but his father had insisted on the match. “Her father is a very learned man. They are a decent family. The girl will make a good wife for Jog.”

  Mala’s brothers and their wives talked loudly and argued endlessly sitting around their tiny dining table, the men in their vests. They drank sweet strong tea which their mother brewed in a dark kitchen. Jog got a headache each time he had to visit them which thankfully was very seldom since Mala was often ill and could not travel. There was no question of having them to stay – not that Mala had ever asked. Though one night she had called out for her mother but when Jog had asked her what she wanted she had kept quiet.

  Now he would not have to see them ever again. They had come for the funeral and had left immediately. Jog felt a sudden emptiness in the house as if many people had lived here and had suddenly gone away. The ceiling seemed too high, the walls too white. There were so many empty rooms where people seem to whisper all day long. Mala’s bed had a clean white sheet on it but someone had rested their head on her pillow, he could see the hollow filled with blue shadows. Had he slept here last night? Jog could not remember. As he turned to go, the butterfly came out and flew out of the open window.

  Jog walked out into the verandah that circled the house. Raman used to rollerskate round and round, singing at the top of his voice till Jog had put a stop to it. The skates made a terrible screeching sound which grated on his nerves and the floor got scratched with white lines. Mala had kept all irritating sounds away from him, forming a safe barrier around him. No hawkers ever came to the house while he was there, the servants hid behind doors and even the birds called in soft tones in the garden while he was at home. Mala had seen to it. She stood like a loyal, silent sentry guarding his temper, shielding his moods and now he felt a sudden anger surge through him. She had no business to die and leave him to deal with the world. Most of the time he was left alone in the house; the servants, well trained by her, cooked, cleaned and vanished out of sight when he was at home. He was hardly aware of their existence except when he saw their hands as they gave him his cup of tea or handed him a letter or took money from him.

  Jog looked out at the lawns which now were turning brown in the heat. The rains were about to come but though the sky turned dark each morning, the clouds floated away by the time the sun had set, leaving a moist heaviness in the air. Mala had managed to keep the lawn green even in summer by diverting the water from the kitchen into the garden. She had asked him if mali could hire some extra labour to do it and though he had not really been listening to what she was saying, he had said yes. Now he could understand what she had been saying. The narrow channel, edged with pebbles, ran along the verandah and opened out into the lawns and then flowed down to the flower beds beyond. Jog could hear the water gurgling and followed the sound to see where it led. He should have changed his slippers but the sound of the flowing water seemed to call him urgently. The shade of the mango trees fell on his eyes and he had to blink to adjust to the dim light. A sudden splash of bright red surprised him, the tomatoes, hanging from the green stems, looked almost artificial amidst all the dry grass.

  As he came out of the shade of the mango tree, a green and gold patchwork quilt of plants spread out before him and he stopped to inhale the sharp, fresh scent. At first he was not sure what these green plants were, they all seemed to look alike except some had yellow leaves but when he went closer he could see chillies hanging like long green nails, purple aubergines, heavy with seed, green tomatoes and tiny cucumbers with white dots on them. He walked through them, the wet mud staining his shoes and he could feel the warm earth on his tongue. A creeper trailed along the path, scattering yellow flowers and then he saw a huge green pumpkin half-eaten by ants. He bent down to see if there were any more pumpkins hiding under the leaves when a thin dog with a black patch on its eye came out of the bushes and lay down at his feet, wagging its stumpy tail as if he knew him. They had never kept a dog in the house. Jog did not like the way their canine smell took over the entire house, especially when they were old and sick. “Bibiji used to feed him. He keeps looking for her…What is written by the gods we have to accept,” said Mali rising up from the flowerbed. “She gave him biscuits, bread, now he won’t eat my chappatis. She taught him to chase the crows away from the flower beds, gave him a biscuit each time he did it. Though she never allowed him to catch one.” Jog looked down at the dog, rolling in the dust at his feet. He did not know Mala had liked dogs. They could have kept one – a good highly pedigreed Alsation. Many of his fellow judges kept guard dogs to scare away trouble-makers from the courts.

  Mali had gathered a basketful of tomatoes. “I was just bringing these into the house. Bibiji had planted all these seedlings just before she went away,” said the old man, wiping a tear from his eyes. How easy it was for this wily, uneducated man to cry. He must be planning to sell the tomatoes. Probably sold all the fruit and vegetables from our garden. I am going to keep an eye on him. When did she have time to plant all these flowers? Jog touched the plants gently with his hands as he walked down the garden, the dog running after him. A flock of crows flew past them and the dog suddenly went mad barking and leaping around the plants. “Stop, don’t trample the flowers,” said Jog and the dog sat down at once, panting heavily, his dark eyes full of happiness. “She called him ‘Daku’,” said Mali and suddenly Jog felt very irritated that the old man should know so much about Mala. “Go and do your work. From tomorrow you must bring all the flowers and vegetables into the house. I will check them all,” he said as Mali nodded and hurriedly moved back a few steps.

  So this is where all the mogras in her hair came from. She always wore fresh flowers in her hair but when she fell ill, she just kept a bowl of buds by her bed. The nurse was not very happy about it but Mala pleaded with her to keep the flowers. “Please, they make me feel I am still alive,” he had heard her say one day. That seemed many years ago. Her voice was fading from his memory now and Jog felt a sudden finger of fear touch his heart. He would forget her face too very soon, her skin which had been like silk under his touch, her fragrance. The mind would not hold her. Jog walked aimlessly through the garden, his clothes tinged with pollen and dirt. He came to a makeshift wooden bridge and then stepped into a circular patch.

  Mogra flowers grew on every shrub, even the ones that were hardly a foot high from the ground and butterflies sat in close groups on the white flowers.They were yellow with orange tips on the edge of their wings, very different from the ones that had flown into Mala’s bedroom, Jog laughed as he tried to remember the pattern on their wings. “She would have found it so strange if I had ever asked her what colour a butterfly’s wing was.” He wandered down to the grove of guava trees but the scent of the mogra flowers seemed to grow stronger as he walked away. Mala’s face rose before him, her soft brown eyes smiled as she tucked a garland of mogra flowers in her hair. Had I ever seen her doing that? Sometimes a garland lay near her bed but I never saw her actually putting the flowers in her hair. All he could remember was that she always carried a faint pleasant perfume wherever she went in the house but it was only now as he stood in this garden that he realized these were the flowers she wore in her hair.

  The next day Jog woke up at dawn. Mali, surprised to see him in the garden, dropped his cup of tea and leapt up. Daku ran around him and then suddenly stopped when Jog reached into his pocket to take out a packet of biscuits. He unwrapped the cover, took out one biscuit then folded the packet neatly before putting it back in his pocket. Daku
watched him, his dark eyes worried yet happy with anticipation. “You will get only one biscuit, my boy. Understand? Just one,” Jog said. Mali was pulling a plastic pipe out from under his charpoy. “Bibiji liked to water the seedling herself. The water channel never had enough water in summer. So we dug this tube-well. I mean Sahib had it done. I told her so many times, you will get your hands dirty. So much mud here. But she just laughed. ‘Baba, I had to water twenty-five flower pots in my house. My father had made it my duty. We brothers and sisters all had different duties to do around the house. Mine was to be a mali like you,’ she used to say.” Jog looked at the heavy water pipe. How could her slender hands have carried this heavy thing? He could not imagine her watering the garden, playing with the dog, chatting about her family to this old man. Yet she must have spend all her time here while he was away at work, tending to these plants, planning what seeds to sow, where to grow vegetables and how to divide the flower beds so that they got the maximum sunlight. She must have discussed all this with Mali, asked his advice, let him help her with the heavy tasks. A stab of jealousy hit him in his stomach. Jog wanted to shake the old man, to snatch all the memories he had of Mala in his head. He desperately wanted to ask Mali so many things about her but he could not speak.

  Jog pulled the waterpipe across the chilli patch, taking care not to touch the plants and then let the water run into the tomato plants. For a minute the water stopped and then gushed out with force, creating a furrow in the earth. A sweet fragrance of wet earth rose as the water ran around the plants and slowly soaked into the ground. He stood very still, Daku sat next to him, his thin body pressed warmly against his leg. The sky was clear with just a streak of white feathery clouds, like it had been the day Mala died.