A Breath of Fresh Air (12 page)

SIXTEEN

PRAKASH

I placed a call to her husband’s college and asked for Anjali’s address. The man who answered the phone didn’t know exactly where Professor Sandeep Sharma lived, but he knew the general area.

I hadn’t been to that part of Ooty and I drove slowly, looking around, assessing the status of the neighborhood. When I got there, I asked directions from some children who were playing cricket on the asphalt road, with a worn-down bat and a tennis ball. They showed me the way to the professor’s house. I parked the Maruti a couple of blocks away and decided to walk the rest of the way. Like a thief, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself entering her house.

It was a nice house; a small wooden board with SANDEEP, ANJALI, & AMAR stenciled on it hung on the gate. I took a deep breath and opened the gate. It made a harsh rattling sound. I wished it hadn’t made the sound because I needed a last-minute escape route. But the people who lived in the house had probably heard the gate opening and closing. They knew someone had entered their garden and were waiting for the knock on the door. The people in the house were probably peeping through the keyhole or looking out of a window by now.

I don’t have the courage to go through with this, I thought, desperately wanting to run back to my car and drive away. Once I was inside her house, I would have to tell them what I had done and I didn’t really want to do that. I would have to admit that Anju had been right and I had been wrong—my male ego was not prepared to make that admission.

It was a cool October day, yet I could feel a burn inside my body. My ears were hot and my heart was thumping like I had run all the way from my house to Anju’s. Why was I here? I knew why I was here. I wanted to know about the boy in the wheelchair. I wanted to know all about Anju’s new life as some other man’s wife.

I raised my hand and gently knocked on the door. Maybe they wouldn’t be at home; maybe they wouldn’t hear the light knock and I could go away, believing I had tried my best to tell her parents the truth.

I was not that lucky.

I heard her voice. It was a soft lilting voice, like the voice heroes sang about in Hindi films.

“Sandeep, can you get the door?” I heard her ask. There was movement on the other side and my courage almost abandoned me. Not her husband, I thought frantically. Not him! Anyone but him!

I then heard a young voice insist that he would open the door. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”

The door opened and I stared down into the eyes of a boy. I took a step back—he was Anju’s son all right. He had Anju’s eyes.

“Namaste,”
the boy said, holding his thin hands together. He looked weak, as if some grave illness had bested him. This was the boy in the wheelchair. Anju’s son was obviously not a cripple, because he was standing in front of me. But I could see he was not well.

Indu was wrong, I realized; Anju was not happy. I would be devastated if either Mohit or Mamta looked this ill and needed a wheelchair.

“Namaste,”
I responded hoarsely. “Could I . . .”

Anju’s mother peeped through the doorway, and her face went white. “Prakash?” she gasped.

“
Namaste,
Mummyji.” I shouldn’t have called her that. It was appropriate to do so when I was married to Anju, now it was not.

“Come in,” she said weakly, and the young boy stepped to the side.

A familiar head bobbed out of the kitchen and then went right back in. The head and the body came out a second later, with a plastic smile on the face.

“Hello, Prakash,” Anju said carefully. “Amar, why don’t you get Daddy from the backyard.”

Amar smiled and walked very slowly, grasping the walls as he moved to get to the kitchen and then beyond. I didn’t know what to say, or how to say what I thought I wanted to say.

“
Arrey,
Prakash?” My ex-father-in-law gasped as he walked into the living room from inside the house.

“What can I do for you?” Anju asked, talking over her father. Her mother sat down on the sofa, her face still pasty with shock. My ex-father-in-law sat down next to her, his expression mimicking hers.

The sofa was old, but well maintained. The rocking chair next to it looked inviting. The lamps on the tables next to the sofa were new, but the tables looked beaten and old. There was a dining table next to the drawing room in a cramped area. It had a plywood top, and the chairs seemed to have received new upholstery several times.

I looked at my surroundings in blunt appraisal. They didn’t have money, but the house was cozy. Indu and I were well off, but our house was not cozy. It was a house decorated for parties and entertaining.

Anju knew how to make a house cozy. She had done it with our army flat in Bhopal. She had grown plants that died when she left. She had sewed beautiful curtains that I had torn in anger when she had lain in the hospital demanding a divorce. She had . . .

“Prakash,
beta
?” Anju’s father asked again.

“Namaste.”
I folded my hands together again and cursed the impulse that had brought me here.

“Prakash?” Anju inquired again, and I lifted my hands a little in frustration. I didn’t know how to start. All my courage and resources had been spent on just getting here and now that I was here, I didn’t know how to say what I knew I had to.

“I am sorry to disturb you, but I saw you yesterday at the parade grounds and . . .” I let my words trail away. I was a little scared about her husband showing up. But I wanted to meet him, compare myself to him.

“I wanted to talk you,” I then said to Anju’s parents.

“Please sit down. Would you like some tea?” Anju asked.

I didn’t expect her to be so polite, but maybe she knew why I was there. But could she know? Was I that transparent? Had our short marriage given her an insight into me that I was unaware of?

“No thank you, I just had breakfast,” I refused as politely as the offer was made.

Anju’s parents seemed unsure of what to do. There was no traditional precedent regarding how to treat an ex-son-in-law. I could see their confusion and I was glad I wasn’t the only one lost in this mire of ex-relations and protocol.

“Well, I will leave you alone,” Anju said, and walked out of the drawing room into the kitchen.

I could see that I was not going to meet Anju’s husband. The line was drawn. I was to talk to her parents and take my sorry face out of her house. She didn’t want me here and I didn’t blame her for that. But I had been her husband, damn her. I had some rights.

“I don’t think we have anything to say to each other,” Anju’s father said. “Except that we are still very sorry for what our daughter put you through. But . . . you are probably settled now and so is Anjali.”

Did the man have to apologize? By the time I finished what I knew I had to say, they’d be throwing stones at me.

“Please don’t apologize,” I said. “I came to tell you what really happened. It was not Anju’s fault. I . . . was to blame.”

Anju’s father shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what you did, she still should have stayed to make the marriage work. Once you had children, everything would have been fine.”

“I didn’t want children,” I said lamely. “I wanted to wait a couple of years.”

“And that was very wise,” Anju’s mother chirped, like a nervous bird set in front of a hungry cat.

Even after all these years, they felt it was necessary to please me. I was not their son-in-law anymore, but they were still being nice to me. I didn’t even want to think what they had done to Anju after the divorce. But I knew what they had done; they had abandoned her and I had refused to give her a
paisa
.

“No,” I said, taking a deep breath. “You see, I was in love with a married woman, Mrs. Bela Chaudhary, and . . .” I stopped because they both looked like they were going to have seizures. I licked my dry lips and continued. If they were going to have a seizure, they could have it after I said my piece.

“I was transferred out of Udhampur because I was seeing a married woman, and the brigadier there suggested that getting married would subside the scandal about my affair with Mrs. Chaudhary. So I got married. I didn’t make Anju happy because I was in love with another woman,” I said, looking at my shoes. They were not polished well, I kept thinking, as the words poured out of me. It was a nice diversion, because I couldn’t bear to hear what I was saying.

“I treated her very badly and then Bela’s husband was posted to Bhopal. I started seeing her again. Anju . . . Anjali . . . questioned me and I . . . hit her. Then she wanted to visit you in Hyderabad. I let her go because I wanted to spend more time with Bela. The night I was supposed to pick her up at the train station I simply forgot, and Anju almost died. I didn’t do it on purpose, I didn’t know that it would turn out to be the night of the Bhopal gas tragedy.

“I lied to you then and I am sorry about that.”

I didn’t look up after I was done, but I could hear them breathe and think.

“If she had been a good wife, you would have started to love her and you wouldn’t have seen this other woman,” Anju’s father said. “I am sure she did something that—”

“Didn’t you hear me?” I was shocked. Didn’t the old man get it? “I cheated on her and I hit her. I left her to die.”

“Men slap their wives around a little when they get angry,” Anju’s mother said. “That doesn’t mean they are bad, that’s how they show their anger. And about this other woman . . . things happen. But you make the marriage work, one way or the other. Every marriage has problems, but wives don’t just run and get a divorce.”

Her parents were insane. Completely out of their minds to still think that Anju was to blame. I realized that even if I had told them the truth earlier, they would have blamed Anju. It was the curse of the society. The woman was to blame. Always! If she was raped, it was her fault. If she was beaten, it was her fault. If her husband cheated on her, it was her fault.

I stood up slowly to leave. I wanted very much to grab Anju’s father’s shirt and make him understand what I was saying, but I knew it was futile. “Anju was not to blame. She was brave to have left me,” I tried again.

“Well, it is nice that you have no ill feelings toward her,” my ex-father-in-law said.

I moved to leave and then stopped. “Is that boy her son?” Their faces lit up. “Yes,” Anju’s mother said. “Amar just turned twelve. Such a sweet boy.”

I swallowed before I spoke. “What is wrong with him?”

“He has a bad heart and . . . they operated but it didn’t help. His lungs are also bad.” Anju’s mother had tears in her eyes and Anju’s father’s face had become bleaker than before. I could see the pain in their eyes. “He is very sick. He is such a smart boy—but he isn’t very strong. Anjali and Sandeep take very good care of him.”

“What happened?” I asked.

Anju, who had probably been listening in the kitchen, walked into the drawing room. “You did,” she said succinctly.

“Come again?” He couldn’t be my son, he was twelve and . . . I started to calculate in panic.

“The gas . . . remember? I breathed in that gas and then a few years later I had my son. The doctors didn’t tell me that any child I had could be harmed because of the gas,” she said, almost without feeling. But I could feel her anger beneath the calm veneer.

“You left me there to die, but I lived. All I have is chronic asthma, while my son has a whole gamut of diseases.”

I was speechless. Did she blame me for her son? Was I to blame?

“Is he . . . going to be okay?” I asked.

“No . . . we hope,” Anju’s mother said. “But he doesn’t have much time.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Anju protested. “He is getting treatment and it will work. He will . . . the treatment is good.”

The boy was going to die. My eyes filled with tears and my heart started to race. I had forgotten about her that night because I had spent the evening with Bela. I had been tired when I got home and went to sleep. It just slipped my mind that Anju was waiting for me at the railway station. It was not done out of malice. I hadn’t left her there because I somehow knew that she would almost die that night. It was not intentional. But whatever my reasons, she had a son who was going to die. It was my fault and I couldn’t deny that.

“Now if you are done speaking with my parents, please leave. We are getting ready to have lunch,” Anju said in a controlled voice. It was the same voice that had told me she wanted a divorce.

I wanted to say something before I left, but what could I say? What could anyone say in a situation like this? Would a mere “I am so sorry” do the trick? How did one apologize for an error as great as mine?

I nodded my head toward her parents and without looking at her walked out of her front door with fear and guilt burdening my soul. I now knew about Amar and his sickness and I knew who was responsible. I didn’t know how I would live knowing this. Now I couldn’t ignore what had happened that night. I had left her there and for years I had consoled myself that she had lived, but I couldn’t do that anymore. She had lived, but at what cost? Her child was sick and dying and it was my fault.

The night of the Bhopal gas tragedy I had slept while Anju had fought for her life, and now she was fighting for her son’s.

It wasn’t fair.

I had slept that night. Peacefully, breathing clean air.

SEVENTEEN

PRAKASH

I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t go to work. I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t know how to face my children. They were around Amar’s age and they were healthy because I hadn’t left Indu in the railway station on the night of the Bhopal gas tragedy.

I had gone to Anju’s house to find out about Amar and compare her husband to me. Compare? I was almost a murderer—there was no comparison.

I drove aimlessly around Ooty, going through narrow roads in between valleys and curvaceous roads around hills. I saw through the waterfalls, ignored traffic lights, and stayed out until late in the night.

Finally, tired of the day and my own company, I drove home.

Indu was waiting for me in the drawing room, wearing a “party” sari and jewelry.

“Well, at least you are home now,” she jibed. “I had to go alone to Brigadier Pradhan’s daughter’s engagement party and answer questions about you.”

I ignored her. I had other things on my mind. I had Anju on my mind.

But Indu was my wife. She needed to know the truth. It was a little late for revelations, but I was burning with the need to confess.

I walked to the wet bar in the corner of the drawing room and poured myself a peg of Scotch. I downed it in one swallow and then poured and downed another. Finally I faced her.

“Where have you been?” she asked, looking me in the eye.

“I went to Anju’s house,” I said, without flinching or looking away. The Scotch was single malt and good. “Her parents are in town. I saw them yesterday at the parade grounds. I went to tell them the truth.”

Her eyes widened questioningly.

“They think Anju was to blame for our divorce.”

“And wasn’t she? You said that she simply couldn’t get used to army life and that—”

“I lied,” I said, and looked appreciatively at the bottle of Scotch.

Indu smiled as if she had finally found a buried secret— one she had been looking for for a long time. “She divorced you.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I was a son of a bitch.” I poured myself another drink.

“Get me a drink, too,” Indu said, instead of all the other things I thought she would.

We took our drinks out onto the veranda. I knew Indu was waiting to hear the rest of the story, I just wasn’t prepared for what she might say when she heard it all.

I told her in as much detail as I could what had happened and how I had ruined my first marriage. I told her everything, except about Amar. I didn’t have the guts yet.

Indu listened patiently, without interrupting. When I was done I looked bleakly into the darkness.

“You were very young,” she said. “And so was she.”

“But she didn’t make the mistakes, I did.”

“She married you. That was a mistake.”

I chuckled. “You married me, too.”

“Because I wanted to marry you.”

“Why? I was divorced, not the perfect catch,” I demanded.

She set her drink down. “I don’t know why. Maybe I was in love with you. My parents thought I was—according to them no decent woman ever marries a divorcé.”

“Are you in love with me now?” It was an important question, though I didn’t know what I would do with her answer. I didn’t know if I was still in love with her. I cared about her, because she was my wife and because she was the mother of my children.

When Indu and I got married, I promised myself I would not stray and ruin this marriage as I had my previous one. I had not strayed, but I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t ruined my second marriage all the same.

“I don’t know if I am still in love with you,” Indu said, then sighed. “But does it matter so much? We have a life, and we have children. We are hardly living in a movie. Love isn’t particularly important.”

We both fell silent for a few minutes.

“Are you in love with me?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want a divorce?”

I was shocked that she would even think it. “No.”

“Good, because I wouldn’t just walk away like your Anju did. I would make your life hell,” she said sincerely.

I didn’t doubt her. “But I didn’t divorce Anju. I am not that type of a man. I—”

“Oh, you divorced her all right,” she interrupted. “Don’t you see, Prakash, you made her life miserable and you forced her into divorcing you. You didn’t want to be married to her, so you created a situation where your marriage couldn’t survive. And it didn’t.”

She was wrong, I thought defensively. I never wanted a divorce. I was married and I didn’t like it, but I knew for sure that I would have come to terms with it.

“You married her because you wanted to avoid a scandal and then you let her divorce you. Don’t tell me the divorce didn’t create a big scandal.”

“I told everyone that she only wanted to leave me after the gas tragedy. I . . . made it sound like . . .”

“She was a little mad? A little confused because of all that gas? Or did you just tell them that she was an imperfect wife and you were leaving her?” she asked, arching a perfect eyebrow.

I looked at Indu then. I had avoided looking at her while I told her my sordid tale. I was afraid of what I might see.

Even when Indu was being sarcastic and insulting, she was beautiful. She had borne me two children and she was still beautiful. Her slim body, her soft skin, her face, everything about her was beautiful. Anju on the other hand bore the scars of her life. Her face and her eyes reflected her experiences. Her clothes were not sophisticated as they once were. She didn’t wear any makeup. She used to be beautiful and now she was just another average-looking woman.

“But people must have guessed the real reason,” Indu continued, her full lips twitching a little.

Indu wore makeup—always. Anju didn’t—anymore. What had I done to my ex-wife?

“Did you meet her husband?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Does she have any children?”

“A son.”

“Did you meet him?”

“Yes.”

“So? What was he like?”

I shrugged.

“Why did you tell me all this, Prakash?”

I shrugged again. I had no answer to that question.

Indu fidgeted with her whiskey glass and then suddenly threw it out onto the garden. The glass shattered against a cement pathway.

Her face contorted as she tried to hold back what looked like an onslaught of emotions. Her eyes seemed darker than usual, bright, and her lips were pursed together as if opening them would open floodgates she wanted closed.

“I can’t believe I married a man like you,” she said after a long pause, after she seemed to be in better control of her emotions. “You cheated on your wife! Have you cheated on me?” Her voice was not soft anymore.

“No.”

“How am I supposed to believe that?” she demanded. “How can I believe anything now?”

She dragged her hands through her hair, ruining her perfect chignon.

“You slept with another woman. Was it in your bed . . . the bed you shared with Anju? How could you, Prakash?” she asked, tears filling her eyes.

She had been calm up until now, talking as if she didn’t care one way or the other about my first marriage. But she did care. She loved me.

“I was young and stupid.”

“No one is that young or that stupid!” she yelled. “You cheated on your wife,” she repeated in disbelief.

We sat there silently for several minutes before she spoke again.

“I need a large drink,” Indu said, and I went to get the bottle of Scotch and a fresh glass for her.

She filled the glass and swallowed the searing liquid. She winced, but I wasn’t sure what was hurting her more, the sudden intake of whiskey, or the sudden knowledge that her husband was worse than she thought he was.

In the past, every time she said how well she knew me, I used to be tempted to tell her the truth about my first marriage and myself. Just to wipe away her smugness. Now I had and I felt no relief, no pleasure, and no pain. I was in a limbo of emotions. Feeling nothing but numbness. What Indu would say didn’t matter right now. A boy was going to die because I had left his mother to die. I couldn’t get over that.

In a deep corner, in a very small deep corner of my mind, I was glad Anju divorced me. If we had stayed married, Amar could have been my child and I would have had to live with a sick boy. I would have had to live with a boy whose life I knew I ruined. I would have had to watch the life being taken away from my child, breath by breath. And know that I was to blame.

“Did you love her?” Indu asked. Her voice shook and tears freely rolled down her cheeks.

“Don’t cry, Indu,” I whispered. “Your makeup is getting ruined.”