House of the Sun (14 page)

Mrs Murjani let the binoculars drop and sat down in shock before the window. Her heart pounded in her chest. The day, until now, had developed well. There had been a phone call after lunch from a woman journalist, wishing to interview her for an article in a national magazine about the wives of prominent
businessmen
. A date had been set for the interview and, putting down the phone, Mrs Murjani walked to her bedroom window and its pinnacle view. The panorama of the sea always filled her with a powerful feeling, and now she felt it was in tune with her new importance. All India would see her in the magazine as a leader of society; her heart already fluttered. Slowly, she allowed her gaze to wander from the far corner of Nepean Sea Road, over thick trees and the red tiled roofs of government bungalows, to the apartment blocks about Sadhbela. The sea extended in an arc beyond the squalor of the hutments, the cremation ground, where smoke hung in the air, and the
dhobi
ghat
with its plethora of washing draped over rocks behind the tide. To the far left was the huge and legendary tank of fresh water, said to have sprung from a single arrow shot into the ground by Rama. Upon the steps about it the pious bathed. Temples and the houses of priests were crammed about the tank. Beyond stretched the sea about Malabar Point. On the rocky shore before the
dhobi
ghat
, a splash of yellow on a moving figure halted Mrs Murjani’s gaze, and made her step closer to the window. She rushed to retrieve from her husband’s cupboard a pair of binoculars, the pleasant flutterings of her heart turning to uncomfortable pounding. There
was no mistake; dressed in jeans and a bright yellow shirt, Rani stood on the rocks beyond the
dhobi
ghat
with that disreputable Sham Pumnani. Mrs Murjani, her hand shaking slightly, held up the binoculars again. As she watched Rani turned and threw her arms in embrace about Sham. Mrs Murjani dropped the
binoculars
with a gasp, and sank down in the chair behind her.

*

‘The thing is, are you really in love with him?’ Pinky had asked the day before, lying on her bed, frizzy hair tied back, her face covered by a face pack. It had been laboriously made from rice and blanched almonds, ground to a paste in a pestle and mortar. Rani smoothed some of the mixture on to her own face before Pinky’s mirror.

‘And the other thing is,’ Pinky continued, ‘is he in love with you? Has he tried to kiss you yet?’

‘No …’ Rani was forced to admit. ‘He’s fighting his feelings,’ she decided, staring at Pinky out of great flesh-edged holes in a white face. Pinky tried to smile, but could not beneath her tightening skin. Her eyes, bright in an equally ghoulish face, stared back at Rani.

‘Being noble and honourable and not wishing to ruin you?’ Pinky remarked, her voice small because of her fast constricting mouth. ‘If only he would kiss you. You can tell immediately they kiss you how experienced they are. It’s always so much better with an older man!’ Pinky spoke casually. She had once been kissed by one of her father’s friends and, although she had run from him in horror, she always referred to the incident as an enlightening experience.

‘Do you think I should tell him then, how I feel?’ Rani asked.

‘You mean he doesn’t know?’ Pinky screamed. The drying mask had cracked from talking, bits crumbled
from her face down the front of her blouse. Rani shook her head.

‘There has never been the right moment to tell him,’ she explained.

‘You have to make the opportunity,’ Pinky said in exasperation. ‘That’s what life is like.’

*

There was no excuse that would allow her to hang about waiting for Sham in the small, rutted courtyard of Sadhbela, filled with parked cars, squatting servants and stray skeletal dogs. Nor could she sit aimlessly upon the low wall across the road bordering the beach, prey to beggars, lepers, or the pestering of the hutment children. Instead, she went down to Dr Subramaniam’s surgery; it was a protected-enough environment in which to wait. To her relief Sham appeared at his usual time. He worked half-day on Saturday, and returned home for a late lunch. She saw him walking up the road to Sadhbela from the bus stop, and ran from the surgery to meet him. She led him beyond Sadhbela towards the hutments, walking slightly ahead of him in an agitated way.

‘What is it?’ he asked, catching up and walking beside her. ‘I haven’t had my lunch yet.’ There was impatience in his voice.

‘Let’s go down there, it’s more private,’ she said when they reached the
dhobi
ghat
. Before he could answer she turned down a path to the rocky beach, slowing her pace to peer into the low doors of the makeshift hovels that lined the way. An old crone in a magenta sari squatted outside a hut, her earlobes
hanging
down in long flaps of loose skin, stretched by the weight of her silver earrings. She grinned toothlessly and touched the tattoo on her forehead. In the hut behind her a child lay sleeping; there was the cool green reflection of weeds beyond the hole of a window.

‘I shouldn’t mind doing social work,’ Rani said
suddenly
,
‘but Mummy won’t hear of it. She says you have to go to such awful places to do it. She thinks she does her share, organizing committees to raise funds for the blind or orphanages. All she does is put on her best sari, and drink orange juice at some charity party at the Taj. I hate my mother,’ Rani said.

‘Is this what you’ve come here to tell me?’ he asked.

It was not easy picking their way over the uneven rocks, strewn with a mass of sheets, towels and cotton saris. Before the hutments the laundry consolidated on a slope like a mound of debris. The tide had already been out some hours, the rocks were dry and, between the washing, spotted with fresh excrement. Upon a stretch of pebbles some chickens ran about.

She had turned down to the beach on an impulse. The sea, pounding beyond the rocks, had seemed wild and romantic and the kind of place in which to tell him what she wanted. She had not expected the profusion of washing that was suddenly revealed, nor the sickening mounds of excrement, nor the figures who still squatted amongst the rocks, relieving themselves. She held her handkerchief to her nose against the smell. At last she reached the sea, where spray dampened the rocks, free at last of laundry and filth. He came up beside her, walking carefully on the slippery stones. The air was salty and fresh. She drew a deep breath, turning towards him.

He was standing close to her. The beach behind them was alive with activity, figures moved amongst the rocks, gathering up or laying out washing. Beyond the hutments were the pink domes of the crematorium temple and the corrugated metal roofs, painted a deeper pink, above the pyres. A backdrop of smart apartments soared up towards the sky. At this distance even Sadhbela appeared altered in appearance,
luxurious
in comparison to the ragged hutments clustered at its base. The sun glittered upon the windows of her
own home, like a crowning flame atop Sadhbela. It crossed her mind that they were vulnerable to a
thousand
eyes but, turning back again to the sea, she and Sham seemed encompassed by another entity, as if they were no part of the world behind them. It seemed then the most private of places within which to reveal her feelings. But the words appeared locked deep within her, she found her hands were shaking.

‘What is it? I must get back,’ he said, impatient with hunger.

In desperation, and for want of those words that refused to appear, she threw her arms suddenly about him, pressing her mouth upon his. He staggered against her weight, his lips closing before her in an
uncommunicative
way. It was not what she had thought a kiss would be. She kept her eyes tightly closed. She was aware of him suddenly loosening her hold about his neck. She opened her eyes in surprise, unable to interpret the emotions in his face.

‘I think we had better go back,’ he said.

‘Not yet, please. We must talk.’ Tears of
disappointment
rushed up in her.

‘There is nothing to talk about. This is crazy,’ he answered, already turning away. ‘It is easier to get to the road from over there.’ He pointed to a natural path of pebbles a distance away, that would bring them near Walkeshwar Tank. He began to make his way towards it, scrambling from rock to rock. Rani followed, tears streaming down her cheeks. The spume hit the rocks below her, curdling in tributaries, running in towards the land.

‘I love you,’ she shouted at last. He did not seem to hear. The words left her lips, were torn by the wind and thrown away behind her.

*

There were times when Mrs Murjani journeyed the few hundred yards up the road, to one or another of the
temples about Walkeshwar Tank, and viewed the
hutments
and the
dhobi
ghat
from the bunker-like safety of her car. Now the spindly heels of her sandals tottered over the uneven road, and the stench from the moat of mud before the hovels near Sadhbela’s gates hit her bluntly. The sight of her in a green georgette sari embroidered with pearly beads, gold chains swinging about her neck, ears and wrists ablaze with diamonds, quietened the unruly, thin-limbed children pushing the rusty frames of wheel-less tricycles through the mud. They turned to stare, and made no attempt to waylay Mrs Murjani with their outstretched palms.

Binoculars tumbling to the floor, she had run from her home, and urged Gopal to speed in his lift, babbling incoherently about Rani and the
dhobi
ghat.
Gopal’s lethargy left him before such prospective excitement. He would have rushed along with her had he been able to leave his lift. Instead, he shouted to the watchman, and clanked his cage as fast as he could, back up the shaft to Mr Hathiramani.

As she hurried along the road, the tiny picture in the binoculars came before Mrs Murjani again. She was sure now she had been mistaken, and that it had been Sham who reached out to grab hold of Rani, pressing her unwillingly against him. How had Rani gone with him on to those rocks, so far from the shore? Was it the first time or had she accompanied him before, and if so what might he already not have done to her? Mrs Murjani drew a sharp breath at these thoughts. If anything had happened, if any suspicion leaked out, who then would marry such a girl? Mrs Murjani,
panting
hard, quickened her pace. She judged she must be along the right part of the beach. A gate was suddenly beside her, a path led downwards.

Sweat poured off her and her sari straggled untidily. She kept her eyes low so as not to stumble on the steep slope. There was a strange, sickly-sweet smell and the
odour of smoke. A sudden roar jerked her gaze up to meet the dark, wide-boned face of a small angry man in khaki shorts, hopping about upon bandy legs before her. Behind him, smouldering still in a high metal cradle, were the half-burned remains of a funeral pyre. Mrs Murjani looked wildly about, and saw she had turned in by mistake at the gates of the crematorium. She backed away, her heart pounding.

She hurried on again. A colony of squalid houses lined the road. She passed a bald man in a
dhoti
sitting beneath a tree. In the branches above him hung a bicycle. Two dogs copulated in the middle of the road with high-pitched barks of excitement. A barber shaved a client seated on a stone. Small, booth-like shops painted bright blue revealed dark recesses, filled with provisions and flies. Soon she reached the
dhobi
ghat,
and a path to the rocks she recognized as being the beach of her destination.

The path was stony and lined with hovels. Behind lay the
dhobi
ghat
itself, great wooden vats of bleach and starch grouped about a well. Half-naked men scrubbed mounds of laundry, swinging soapy bundles over their shoulders, slapping them down on the stone. The rhythmic swat of beaten washing filled Mrs Murjani’s head. Old rickety houses, propped up with poles,
surrounded
the well and appeared in imminent danger of disintegration, but women still gossiped on balconies, old men squatted in the shade. Before the houses a number of white enamel bathtubs stood about at odd angles, as if beached by the tide. Washing lines strung the area with the spiritless bodies of shirts. Mrs
Murjani
hurried on only to face further laundry, spread over the rocks on the beach.

‘Rani,’ she called. ‘Rani.’ There was no sign of her daughter or of Sham Pumnani.

She could not proceed in her shoes and so took them off, and gathering up her sari began to step from rock
to rock. A terrible smell assailed her and, looking down, she saw fresh excrement about her feet. In horror she stepped back upon her sari, too long without her shoes, and pulled out several pleats. It dragged about her, trailing over the filth and through the malodorous pools of water, left in places by the tide.

‘Rani. Rani.’ The breeze lifted her voice in plea.

On the far rocks a man waved, pointing down the beach. Mrs Murjani, concentrating on her balance, picked her way towards him. The man was naked to the waist and his green checked
lungi
, wet as if he had stepped from a bath, clung revealingly about him. Mrs Murjani stepped back in shock at the quality of his smile; he looked fixedly at her breasts. She saw her sari had fallen away, to reveal the full, thrusting shape of her body beneath her blouse. A hot flush of shame passed through her, she pulled the garment up tightly about her. He pointed again down the beach and turned back to the shore; Mrs Murjani was left alone.

The sea, spitting in anger as it hit the rocks, reared up suddenly in a great swell of spume. It would thrash her to bits as easily as the washermen slapped their laundry down on the stones. A shiver passed through her. Looking down at the churning surf made her dizzy, as did the stench from shore, and the wind and sun beating upon her. She stumbled, and a sharp corner of rock cut her knee. She discovered she carried only one shoe, and that her sari was pulled almost free of her waist. She bunched it back into the drawstring of her petticoat.