Song of the Cuckoo Bird: A Novel (21 page)

“No,” Subhadra said adamantly. “Tell her to leave and tell her that I won’t come for her daughter’s wedding.”

“Have you thought how hard it must’ve been for her to marry your husband? She had to live in the same house you lived in, sleep with the husband you slept with, and live your life,” Kokila said. “I think it must’ve been very hard to marry a man who was already married to her sister. She must’ve hated you for being there before her and for dragging her into your husband’s life. I certainly would have. But she still invites you to her daughter’s wedding. How can you be so petty?”

Subhadra shrugged. “I have to cook and you’re wasting my time. Get out of my kitchen.”

Narayan Garu was sitting at the dining table when Kokila came out of the kitchen. He nodded toward her. “We have a new guest today,” he said.

Kokila smiled. “Subhadra’s sister.”

“I didn’t know Subhadra had a sister,” he said. “Will she be staying for dinner?”

“Yes, Subhadra’s sister will be staying for dinner,” Kokila said loudly, making sure Subhadra heard, which she did because she peeped out of the kitchen, looking horrified.

Kokila spoke with Chandra then and assured her that she wouldn’t go back empty-handed. Subhadra, Kokila was sure, would soften at her sister’s presence and would give in. Despite her feelings of jealousy and anger, Subhadra’s heart was soft, like hardened
ghee,
and a little emotional heat was all that was required to melt it.

Chandra was a softer version of Subhadra but she also had that spine of steel Subhadra wore with grace. She spoke very softly and gently and had only good things to say about her older sister.

“My husband, my children, and I will be so happy if she comes for the wedding,” Chandra said to Kokila. “And if you can make it happen, I will pray for you every day at the Venkateshwara Swami temple so that you have a happy and fruitful life.”

Kokila didn’t disabuse the poor woman of her notion that those who lived at Tella Meda did so because their lives were barren. No one at Tella Meda had prospects for a happy and fruitful life.

Kokila had been trying to get to talk with Charvi for a week now but with devotees and guests pouring in constantly, there just hadn’t been time. Finally, after the evening
bhajan,
Charvi granted her an audience in her rooms.

“What’s this about?” Charvi asked with a broad smile.

“Ah . . .” Kokila didn’t know how to say what she had to say without sounding mercenary. “It’s a delicate matter but an important one. I would like to talk to you without worrying about the niceties. I hope you won’t take offense.”

“Of course not, Kokila,” Charvi said calmly.

“Last weekend, you didn’t give all the envelopes with money to me,” Kokila said, not looking away from Charvi’s face. “We’re going through a financially difficult time and we need all the money that is given.”

“They leave the money for me,” Charvi said, not a hair ruffled, not a tense speck in her eyes. “It’s my money. The gifts are mine as well. I decide what to give and what to keep.”

Kokila nodded. “I understand,” she said, though she didn’t understand at all. What did Charvi need the money for? “But we need the money to buy food for the devotees and the guests. All of us who live here pay for our stay, but with Chetana and Bhanu . . . expenses are a little high. Bhanu’s formula costs so much money. And—”

“How dare you come in here and make me feel bad for keeping something that is mine?” Charvi demanded, still in a soft voice.

“I thought that everything belonged to Tella Meda,” Kokila retorted, trying to not get angry. “And frankly, I don’t know what you need the money for. All your desires are fulfilled. If you want to eat something, we buy it for you or make it. We buy all your clothes, slippers, jewelry for the temple room, everything. We buy whatever you need and everything you want. But if you’re going to keep more than half of what people leave behind, it becomes very hard to please anyone at Tella Meda.”

Charvi’s eyes narrowed. “Just because you are sleeping with my father doesn’t make you the queen of Tella Meda.”

Kokila’s ears started to burn at the words. Her heart was beating fast and she felt her legs turn to jelly.

“Oh, you thought no one knew?” Charvi demanded, the veneer of the peaceful
guru
slipping away. “You whore yourself to my father, that’s your business, but don’t come here begging for money.”

“Begging for money?” Kokila finally found her voice. “In that case, you need to start paying for all your clothes to be starched and ironed. And the special food we have to buy for you? Raisins, almonds, pistachios, soy milk, and all of that. You will also have to pay—”

“Shut up,” Charvi said, rising from the chair she was seated on. “I’ll give the money to Subhadra like I used to, but not to you, never to you.”

“I maintain the finances of Tella Meda. That’s why we have a maid now, that’s why we have food every day. Subhadra, as wonderful as she is, is not capable of managing money. But if you feel more comfortable giving her the money to give to me, that will be all right as well,” Kokila said in an alarmingly calm voice. Her insides were on fire; she didn’t know how she would get past this. Charvi knew. Who else knew? Did everyone know? And did everyone think she was whoring herself with Ramanandam?

“I’ll give the money to Subhadra,” Charvi said serenely. “Make sure Chandra is comfortable. Thank you for talking to Subhadra and convincing her to speak with her sister. I wasn’t successful in doing so and I’m pleased that you were. They are talking again and it’s wonderful to see family united like this. Isn’t it?”

The change in Charvi’s tone of voice and words was jarring. Kokila left Charvi’s room confused and feeling just a little battered.

The next day Chandra left Tella Meda after extracting a promise from Subhadra that she would attend Chandra’s daughter’s wedding in two months in Warrangal. Subhadra waved her sister away with tears in her eyes. She hugged her several times before she let her get into the cycle rickshaw waiting to take her to the bus station.

“All my life I turned her away from me but she forgave me and kept coming back,” Subhadra said to Kokila. “Without you I wouldn’t have spoken with her.”

“Yes, you would have,” Kokila assured her. “It might’ve taken you longer but you don’t have a mean heart, Subhadra.”

Subhadra sniffled and wiped her wet eyes with her
sari.
“I have a confession.”

Kokila nodded, knowing what the confession would be. Subhadra had promised she wouldn’t tell anyone about Ramanandam and her relationship, but Kokila knew that Subhadra didn’t think of Charvi as just anyone. A goddess was meant to be confessed to and told the truth to.

“I know,” Kokila said. “I understand.”

Subhadra smiled. “You have a pure and clean heart, Kokila.”

Kokila wasn’t sure if her heart was all that pure or clean. In a way she did forgive Subhadra but she also knew that she would never completely trust Subhadra again. For all her goodness, Subhadra couldn’t help how she felt about Charvi. Her loyalty to Charvi was beyond corruption.

“She already guessed and I just confirmed it. She already knew,” Subhadra said in explanation. “She had an argument with Sastri Garu yesterday afternoon when you went to the beach with Manasa. He was very upset.”

Kokila smiled vaguely. She hadn’t seen Ramanandam almost all day, which was not unusual, especially since Chetana had started staying in Kokila’s room again. And Kokila had been too tired to seek Ramanandam out in his room the night before.

But as soon as she could, she hurried to Ramanandam’s room to make sure he was all right. The opinion of his godlike daughter mattered immensely to Ramanandam. He was as much devotee as father. And now as Charvi grew older he was becoming more of a devotee than a father.

Ramanandam was sleeping, his arm covering his eyes, his body stretched tightly on the bed. He never rested, Kokila thought with a smile. He was always tense, always aware of the world around him. He woke up as soon as she came closer to his bed and let his arm slide away.

He didn’t smile.

“How are you feeling?” Kokila asked.

Ramanandam shrugged and sat up on the bed. “Did she talk with you as well?”

Kokila nodded.

“She said some harsh words to me,” Ramanandam said tightly. “Those words made me realize how cruel I’m being to you.”

Kokila’s heart started beating fast. Was it going to end today? Was it going to end because of Charvi?

“She told me that I shouldn’t think of myself as the queen of Tella Meda because of us,” Kokila said, and Ramanandam snorted.

“Queens don’t work as hard as you do,” he said, and the compliment soothed Kokila. But he still hadn’t said anything to make her believe that their relationship was over or would have to be even more clandestine or maybe . . . maybe he would marry her? Would he? That possibility made her heart leap with joy.

“What are we going to do?” Kokila asked as she moistened her lips.

“Nothing has to change. Of course, if you have any issues . . .”

Kokila stared at him, her disappointment evident even as she tried to hide it behind a bright smile. “No, I have no issues.”

“I can’t give you more,” Ramanandam said in frustration. “Why do you keep asking me to?”

“I have never asked anything of you,” Kokila said quietly.

“Your silence, your face . . . I know what you want but I can’t give it, do you understand?” Ramanandam demanded.

“Yes,” Kokila whispered, and left the bitter old man alone in his tired room to ponder his life and its failures some more.

The next week, Kokila felt immensely guilty for the argument she’d had with Ramanandam. He came down with a high fever and vomited several times. Dr. Vishnu Mohan said that it was a viral fever and “it will go away in either seven days or a week.” He used to always joke about viral fevers like that. No matter what you did, he would say, the virus is going to stay as long as it has to.

Their argument was quickly forgotten in the light of Ramanandam’s illness. He once again started calling her his little tigress and confessed his love for her and she let him. However, Kokila felt that her role as his lover had already changed. His health had been deteriorating from the day she came to the
ashram.
She was his nurse now and she played that role with as much devotion as she had her previous one of lover.

Charvi didn’t mention Kokila’s relationship with Ramanandam again; no one mentioned it but everyone at Tella Meda knew. Renuka hadn’t said anything but from her actions it was obvious she didn’t approve.

“My Bhanu won’t stay here any longer than she has to,” Renuka said, glaring at Kokila one afternoon. “I’ll get her married to some nice boy as soon as she is old enough and get her out of here. Look at your life.
Chee-chee,
young girls like you ruin your own lives. You have no one to blame.”

Kokila didn’t take affront. Renuka was entitled. The woman wore white, shaved her head in deference to her widowhood—how would she understand what it meant to be reckless enough to fall in love with an older man and consummate that love without marriage?

Chetana was amused. “You left your husband and you’re stuck with an old man. My husband left me and I’m stuck with a young baby. It’s destiny, Kokila, we were never meant to leave Tella Meda.”

Ananta Devi left behind a thick envelope filled with money after her and Manasa’s two-week stay at Tella Meda.

Kokila was sad to see the mother and daughter go. Despite her treatment of Manasa, Ananta Devi was actually a good woman, a good wife, trying to make her husband happy at any cost. She was prepared to do anything to get pregnant again and give birth to a male child.

It was a funny thing, Kokila thought, that pundits and people talked about love, devotion, respect, and obedience as being the cornerstones of a good marriage. No one said that the ability to have sex and give birth to male children were the most important things. Yet Subhadra had left her husband because she was unable to copulate with him, Chetana’s husband had not come back to her because she didn’t provide a male child that would have appeased his parents, and Ananta Devi was going from one
guru
to the other hoping to conceive. From where Kokila stood, it didn’t appear as if love and devotion even mattered.

“Will you write letters to me?” Manasa asked Kokila before she left. “I’ll write long letters to you.”

“If you write to me, I will definitely respond,” Kokila said. “But even if you don’t write, I will write to you.”

“Ottu?”
Manasa demanded.

Kokila nodded. “Promise.”

Manasa’s letter came three months after she and her mother left Tella Meda.

Dear Kokila,

We are all doing well here and I hope this letter finds you in the best
of health and spirits. Amma is visiting Kanyakumari until the end
of the month. I couldn’t go as my teacher said that I shouldn’t miss
school anymore. I didn’t want to go anyway.

My father is very happy these days. He even plays with me and
talks to me. He takes me to the store and buys me soft drinks and
Cadbury chocolate bars. One day he even bought me a whole box of
Cadbury Gems. He seems so happy now that Amma is gone and I
secretly wish that Amma never comes back so that Nanna will
always be this happy and always, always love me.

I hear the servants talk about him getting married again. He
keeps bringing this woman to the house. She eats with us but sleeps
in the guest house. But I see my father go there at night after he
thinks I am sleeping. The woman’s name is Mallika and she is very
pretty. She talks to me nicely and even combs my hair. Yesterday she
took me to the bazaar and bought me three dresses. I like Mallika
very much but I don’t think Amma is going to be happy about her
being here. But whenever I talk to her about my mother, Mallika asks
me not to worry as Amma will be gone for a while now.