The
Guests
Trisha Bora
Four, five, six, seve–
A crow, perched on the lemon tree outside her
window, caws, and for a moment Promila Borthakur’s mind goes blank.
What comes after seven?
She looks at the tiny shapes in her shrivelled
palm – pink, blue, white, multi-coloured, oval, round, flat – and they wink
back at her mutely. What are these? she begins to wonder, slipping into that
sensation which has lately been creeping up on her, unannounced. It is
comfortable, this feeling of not remembering; like a room with white walls or a
child with a perfect future ahead, endless possibilities of starting anew. She
can get used to it. But it doesn’t last long. Her memory kick-starts and drags
her back to the present. ‘Medicines for Anku,’ she affirms aloud. As she begins
counting the pills once again, a stray thought assails her – how many times has
she done this already? Three, four, five, six–
‘Ma…’
The intrusion startles her, and the pills spill
from her hands. They scatter across the table – like sea creatures on the ocean
bed – slipping into the safety of shadows. She picks up whatever she can find
and turns to the voice.
‘What is it?’ she says sharply.
‘There’s no water.’
The man standing in the doorway is
bare-chested, a worn brown towel wrapped tightly around his waist. A cigarette
burns in his left hand, which he tries to conceal behind his back.
Promila’s glazed eyes clear. Ah. Anku – her
son. She takes in his grey dishevelled hair, his sunken stomach, and the white
curls on his chest, and thinks, how old he seems.
‘Ma?’
‘Yes,’ she snaps out of her thought.
‘There’s no water…’ Anku scratches his hair
with his free hand.
‘Switch on the pump then?’
‘Didi is outside…’ He gestures to the towel
wrapped around his waist.
Promila sighs. She goes to the other room,
where Reena, her day help and cook, is wringing a dirty rag into a bucket of
slopping brown water, and turns on the pump.
Back in her bedroom, Anku is where she left
him. She goes to him and palms the pills into his hand. ‘Here,’ she says, ‘and
don’t be late. We’re expected at eleven o’clock.’
As he dry swallows the pills, his Adam’s apple
bobbing like a buoy, Promila tries to brush away the guilt that is snapping at
her. Did she give him the right medicines? Counting them out correctly is
proving harder each time. The doctor upped his dosage to three – or was it
four? – times a day, and since Anku cannot be relied upon to take his
medicines, she has to do it. The doctor was firm about this. Or you can hire a
nurse to come in, Mrs Borthakur, he had said. Nurse? She had laughed. They
barely had money to eat at the end of the month.
She’s muddled his dosage before. And every
time she does, Anku brings back something from the market. Last week it was
three loaves of bread, even though there was a fresh one at home. Another time,
a whole fish. Last month, he’d brought home a dozen eggs. Neither she nor he
have ever eaten an egg.
But it’s not just Anku. She too has started
bringing home things they don’t need. The maid told her so. ‘Sugar? Again,
aita? You already have plenty.’
At least he’s not bringing back stories,
Promila thinks as she absently dusts talcum powder on her face. Their visit to the
hospital in Bangalore put an end to that a few years ago. But today, of all
days, she should have got it right. Anku’s future is at stake. If everything
goes well today, she can finally breathe easy.
The thought itself makes her nervous. Anku’s
future. She feels her breath thin out, and goes to sit on her bed. Her bed is
too high, her legs dangle a few inches above the floor, numbing her feet. She
slips her hand under the pillow and pulls out her pump. She takes a few
strangled breaths before positioning the pump in front of her mouth. Just as
she’s about to take a greedy burst of air, she catches her reflection in the
faded mirror of her dresser.
A woman with hollowed cheeks, a bent spine,
sparse white hair tied into a small bun looks back at her. She recoils in
horror.
*
In the auto, Promila notices that Anku is
wearing his best shirt – the one his uncle from London had given him when he
visited a few years ago. It is an ordinary blue and white checked shirt. But he
wears it only on special occasions. Like Bihu or Puja.
In the weeks leading up to this, she’d never
once thought about how he’d feel about meeting a woman. One that he might end
up marrying. She’d only been concerned with finding someone to care for him
once she was gone. Anku can’t be left alone to fend for himself, the doctor had
clearly said.
Anku, marry?
I don’t know about a wife, Mrs Borthakur, but
he definitely needs someone to take care of him.
When she’d found a match, a
twenty-seven-year-old divorcee, her sister advised her against it. ‘Will
you tell them about his condition?’ she had asked.
Promila thought for a moment. ‘No.’
‘It’s not right, Paro, you’ll be lying to
them.’
‘But Anku’s a good man.’
‘Yes, but it’s not fair to not tell them. She
will have to give him his medicines. Then what?’
‘It’s just a few times a day…. Our family name
still has some weight….’ Her sister snorted.
‘Think what you want, they’re not even the
same caste. This match is beneficial to them.’
‘You’ll ruin a girl’s life,’ her sister had
said curtly.
It is a lemon-bright morning. Anku’s grey hair
has turned hot silver in this light. ‘Don’t be nervous,’ she tells him.
‘She’s a good girl, from a good family.’
Anku smiles at her thinly, and then looks away
into the traffic.
*
Mr Gohain is at the gate, ready to receive the
guests. After they say their hellos, Mr Gohain asks Promila in a deep rumbling
voice, ‘And Anku will be joining us soon?’
‘This is Anku,’ Promila says,
pulling her son by the elbow.
Anku folds his hands into a Namaste and
mutters an inaudible hello.
Promila notices the surprise in Mr Gohain’s
eyes and says, ‘He doesn’t like to dye his hair.’
Mr Gohain is embarrassed by the statement and
ushers them down his garden path. At six feet, he towers over his small built
guests. Inside the small, neat living room, walls painted a sickly pista green,
the rest of the family is gathered with tea, biscuits, fish cutlets, and
samosas. Greetings are exchanged and tea is served by Mrs Gohain and her
daughter, Maina. They settle down with steaming cups in their hand, and an
awkward spluttering conversation begins.
‘It’s getting warmer now,’ says Mrs
Gohain. She’s a short, full woman with a ready smile. Maina is like her
mother; her clear bright eyes take in Anku and Promila without hesitation. Her
plump cheeks have the shine of cold cream and a healthy appetite. In contrast,
the Borthakurs look weathered and ancient. ‘Yes,’ Promila agrees, ‘much
better for my asthma.’
‘You have asthma?’ Mrs Gohain’s face is
twisted in sympathy. She, on the other hand, looks like she never falls
ill. Promila backtracks. ‘Very mild.’
‘Maina, I hear you’re a very good cook?’ she
beams at Maina. ‘I like cooking, you can say,’ she smiles. ‘It’s because
of Maina we’re all so fat,’ Mrs Gohain laughs. ‘Anku will suffer the same fate
very soon,’ she adds cheerily.
Everyone manages an awkward laugh, except Mr
Gohain, who is sitting with his arms crossed, a frown rippling his
forehead.
Anku shifts in his chair. For the first time
since they’ve got here, Promila looks at her son. His face is scrunched up in
tension, his fingers are restless, picking up a samosa, putting it down,
scratching his chin, his hair, then back to the samosa. She wishes he would
stay still for just a bit.
‘He’s shy…’ Promila says looking from her son
to Mrs Gohain.
‘Perhaps he and Maina would like to talk
alone?’ Mr Gohain suddenly growls at them.
After a bit of cajoling, Anku agrees. He
follows Maina out to the garden.
The instant they are out of earshot, Mr Gohain
turns to Promila. ‘I am going to say this plainly, Mrs Borthakur.’ He pauses.
‘How old is Anku … really?’
Promila is about to shoot off a reply when her
mind goes blank. How old is Anku?
‘Mrs Borthakur?’ The baritone interrupts.
‘Yes?’ Promila’s glazed eyes look at no one in
particular.
‘How old is your son, Promila?’
Perhaps it’s because he’s used her name, but
Promila is wrenched back to the living room with green walls.
‘Thirty-three,’ she says.
A heavy silence hangs in the air. Mrs Gohain
is about to say something when her husband holds out his hand, silencing
her. ‘To tell you the truth, Mrs Borthakur, I don’t think he is. And I
don’t think he’s all there too.’ He indicates his head. ‘If there’s anything
you need to tell us it’s best to be open about it. We told you about Maina’s
divorce. I could have kept it a secret but these things come out one day or the
other. If they marry, they will have to live together … and to begin a
relationship with secrets, in my opinion, doesn’t bode well.’
Promila’s hands tremble, which in turn makes
the cup clatter against the saucer. She puts the cup down on the table. ‘I’m
not lying, Mr Gohain,’ she says in a steady voice, this time she looks him
in the eye, ‘You have my word.’
Mr Borthakur stares hard at her, then he gets
up. ‘I leave this to you,’ he says sharply to his wife and leaves the
room.
*
After sitting in silence for a good fifteen
minutes, Maina gets up. ‘Why don’t we go for a walk by the river?’ she
suggests.
Anku follows her without a word.
They sit in silence, watching the river, the
kids playing cricket, the ferries leaving the harbour.
‘This is the only river with a masculine name.
Did you know that?’ she says, turning to look at Anku’s profile.
Anku hasn’t come to the river in years. It
doesn’t fall on his way to work. He used to when he was a child, for picnics
and boat rides, and every time they visited, it was a thrilling experience. But
he senses its presence every day – in the cool winds it blows inland, in the
hoot of its engines, in the promise of its escape. He doesn’t come here anymore
because he had been asked not to. Too much space, too many variables – the mind
can get carried away.
Up ahead he notices a figure emerge from the
river. A fisherman hauling in his nets. His taut body glistens in the afternoon
sun.
‘It must be nice working in the
library…’
Anku doesn’t reply. His eyes are fixed on the
man, growing larger with every step, sure-footed in the sand.
‘You must read a lot…’
The sun is overhead, the river gleams like a
silver snake. Perhaps it is the brightness that burns his eyes or the fact that
there’s a woman sitting next to him, a stranger who is looking at him with
expectation, but he begins to feel it surging inside him. His fingers tingle,
his bones turn to water. The fisherman closes the distance between them. He
stops in front of Anku, towering, blocking out the sun. Anku is relieved, he
can see better in the shade. The fisherman begins to tell him the story. The
one about the river, and the city underneath it. His words are garbled but it
doesn’t matter. Anku’s already heard this one before – more times than is good
for him.
When the story fills his frame, Anku turns to
Maina. His pupils are enlarged, his face contorted in pain.
She gasps, instinctively shrinking away from
him.
‘I don’t read much,’ he says finally, ‘but I
can tell you a story. Would you like to hear it?’
Trisha Bora studied Literature at Miranda House, and started a career
in publishing soon after. She has worked as editor at Random House India, Rupa,
and Dorling Kindersley – and is currently editor at Juggernaut Books. Her short
stories have been published in literary journals, including Out of Print. Her debut novel is being
published by HarperCollins India in 2017.
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