This story was chosen as the best story from India, winner of the Theodora Roscoe Award of the Society of Women Writers and Journalists, UK. Published in Short Story International, 1971

“Women were his pawns .. almost always”

“INDIRA,”  he called me. He looked at me as if I were a person instead of just a piece of furniture. It is always Indu baby or Indu sweetie at home.  They don’t realize how one can grow and grow inside all by oneself and never show it. Sometimes, I look at the girls in class and  think I might belong to another planet. There are so many things I can never discuss with them. Would they understand if I simply said ”He is so handsome”. They will only giggle and gaze at me slyly. I really had no business being there that night, but Mother said ” It’s time Indu met a few people and we are only going to Anand’s,  it’s just the family.” I decided to wear my orange, for it usually shows off my dark skin to advantage. It could have been another evening of  “Hello are you Anand’s niece ?..  What are you studying ?” If I had said zoo-keeping they would have certainly gone on with “How interesting, and what will you be later on ?”  with half an ear cocked  towards the person on  the left. But he looked at me silently for a  moment and said,  ” What lovely hair you have, Indira.” I flushed and didn’t know what to say . “Here,” he said, handing me a glass of tomato juice,  “why don’t we sit down for a while.” After a short pause, I blurted out “I liked “The Strange Noon” very much.” “It was one of my good books”,  he replied gravely. “What did you think of “A Fool’s Mountain?” “Ohhh, I haven’t read that yet” I answered. He settled himself more comfortably in the chair and said, “Tell me, do you write ?” I had never told anyone about them before, but within ten minutes I was promising to show him my poems.  I was sorry, yet glad in a way when he rose saying “Bring them to me tomorrow , will you ?” All eyes appeared to be staring at us. Afterwards it was good to watch him from across the room. How easily he mixed with the others. Even that teacher, Uncle Anand’s neighbor, he was being kind to her, though she was so old and dowdy. I went over the poems mentally, thinking I’d like to write them all out neatly again, wondering which lines he would like. The grey at his temples, how distinguished it looked.  His eyes met mine over the heads of the people and he smiled.

You sit at the mirror and wonder. The past doesn’t unroll and the future is far away.  It is now that counts. Just once, Oh  God ! you pray, just once ..let me kindle that special look, just once before it is too late. Always there is the impending doom of time.  The sands are running short. Every time you add that extra dab of perfume and carefully go over the already darkened  eyelid;  it has to be today, the special day. But eyes everywhere are glazed and dull and you keep searching each face,  avoiding the avid, predatory hands that press yours moistly. Every summer that could be yours, leaves only another strand of grey which is artfully hidden behind the ears. Then you think of him, you’ve only seen him once, and say to yourself it can’t be and it must be and you don’t know whether to hate yourself for everything; the summer with no stacks of exercise books to sweat over; the summer with its hordes of new faces, thrust upon the carefully cultivated crust of peace. “Drop in  Thursday evening” says Mala, “we are having a friend staying  with us for the season and I would like you to meet him”.

Premnath  the novelist, tall, grayingly handsome at the temples, world-weary and most charming. He has seen them all before and you little mousy are the most interesting person he has met. “Oh, you could see through it all, when you have been on the search a whole lifetime. You can see how he sums you up at first glance; widow, young enough to want a man’s attention. Sometimes you wonder yourself what it is you want,  turn sour when you intercept a smug smile on a woman’s face. This man, he is  subtle. There are no crude, insincere compliments to make you draw into your shell. He talks like a man of the world,  with just that spark of interest in the right places,  till you soon begin to feel you are somebody, you are a wonderfully different person than the rest. You go along with the game, crying inside; just this once couldn’t it be true,  just this once? Can you say when it is that you steel your heart against  life and smile into his eyes ? At the doorstep, he places the wrap around your shoulders as Mala says, “Now,  don’t forget, we are off at nine. It is a stiff climb, so have a good night’s rest.”

They are all the same, young or old. A little flattery, a little attention and they are at your feet begging for it. The secret is to know their tender spots, their pet vanities and before you realize it you will have them falling all over you. Oh! It needs a lot of working out alright. You need the same perfection of technique as for the book you have been working on. But both ways you can’t say I haven’t done well. There is such a thing as a public image and it does help sales if you have that extra charm. The pretty ones, they know they are alright, but it’s those in the background that thaw out most perfectly. You work on them gently or they shy away. Many a time, I’ve laid bets with myself ..this one should be eating out of my hand before desert is served or that ..she is not the type at all. You’d be surprised how they all like hearing about Uma. “My wife, ” I say, “she loves this shade of blue ” and already some kind of barrier seems to go down. It never does to go in for that old ‘my-wife-doesn’t-understand-me’ routine and bachelors seem to have that little disadvantage when it comes to scoring with them. Now, this evening I have already marked the field. There are two of them, but what a contrast. There is this young slip of a girl, she should flower out beautifully with correct handling, but I will be strictly on the level…I am no heel. The other, she is different, could be something there for a pleasant summer. The picnic in the morning would be the right time to shorten Sumitra to Sumi; perhaps a quiet talk in a corner, but compliments are definitely out. This one I have to watch my step with. She should be quite a few years younger than I, but I keep forgetting that I am forty-five if a day! The red shirt should do nicely for tomorrow, with a scarf maybe. She could go into one of my books, there is something latent here that might be worth getting on paper.

They were quite a lot of poems to choose from and I could take only a few to him the first time. It was not very hard to select; I had my own favorites. But I threw in a couple which I felt were not too good. How could I guess what he would like?  He read through them silently at first and my heart hammered, suffocating me… Suppose he said they were terrible! Then he read them again more slowly. “A horde of dancing suns…, “he read aloud. “That is a good line, and also the next,” he remarked with a smile. “you can write sensitively, but I feel your endings could be tidier. For instance…” ; I only half-heard what he said after that. My eyes were down, my knees shock and I could only look at his strong, brown hands as they held my poems. “Have you any more ?“ he asked me and I nodded dumbly. “Well, let me have a look at them and I could get you to go over the bad patches again period. You could make something really worthwhile out of them if you tried.” As he handed over the papers to me, he took my hand in his. “What beautiful fingers .. smooth and delicate!“.  But in a moment everything was spoilt, for this school teacher came over to speak to him. I went home without even thanking him.

I saw him the next Friday, when Aunt Mala had arranged another picnic for all of us. Mother was about to let me out of it but I wangled and hinted and got asked too. It was a glorious day. He spoke to me about a lot of things and for once I felt I was a person in my own right without hearing that I was going to put my foot in it every time I open my mouth. He was so strong and yet I felt he could be tender when I looked into his eyes. I should have realized that it wouldn’t last. Oh! Why did she have to come and spoil it all.  I saw them walking in the dark that night, so close to each other, her head almost on his shoulder. They turned in at the gate and stopped by the door for a minute. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her, crushing her to him with all his strength. She reached up and twined her arms behind his neck abandonedly. The door opened and they vanished into the blackness beyond. I ran. I ran all the way home crying to myself. “How  hateful, beastly horrible – .” I shut myself in the bathroom and retched for a long time, sobbing and beating my hands on the cold basin. Later, I washed my face and went to my room. The first thing I did was to open my desk and take out my file of poems. In five seconds I had reduced them all to a heap of fragments, which I angrily swept into the waste-paper basket.

Who are you to draw the line between light and shade? It is uniformly grey here and if your eyes are blind enough the sun will rise and dance for you today. For one thing you give thanks, he never once does he call you darling, never, when that hot word could burn up the fragile scaffolding you are ascending on. You watch as it builds up piece by piece,  black on white, mix and match., You watch as he twists that young girl around his finger, watch with amusement and pity as he deliberates over the scrupulously neat lines on the foolscap. There is just that mixture of careful attention, judicious praise and spotting of weak points that holds her enthralled, a slave for life. Soon he turns to you and remarks with a casual shrug “These youngsters have to be humored you know. Now, where are we–? ”  His eyes flashed a conspiratorial look. A fortnight is too long to know him, you’ve had him tagged the first minute. You play the game his way, match his five with a two, thinking you can shake yourself out of this dream any time you choose. And don’t forget that unless you dream you will never see the sun. So, who wants to wake up anyway? The secret is to live the dream with your eyes wide open.  But the moment his arms close around you, you know you will never awaken from this, for it is no dream. In some dim recess of your mind you can hear yourself whispering Arun, Arun, but that was 20 years ago. Now is all that matters. There was no past and they will not be a future after the death of this moment. Now they can be nowhere to hide yourself so you come out on the stage as you are. You can’t say when the light disappears from between the two of you, when the game ends and reality begins. One thing is clear, common people like you can’t live the truth forever. No two persons can face each other for long without layers of grease paint. Thank God, there are no complications. He doesn’t say what shall we do. You can almost see it coming when he decides to go back to his wife soon. What else is there to do? This surfeit should last you all your life. You go to the station to see him off for the last time and you are relieved that he has no common place cliché to offer you as a parting gift. The trains teams out and soon you are the only one left on the platform.

I tell myself I am going to enjoy this holiday. There is a peculiar thrill when I am half way down a book, a sense of contentment. There is no going back, you want to write the last word in a hurry and get it out of you. That is what I feel now. About the girl, there is no trouble, I have a tailor-made role; one that I have played before. She is too young to learn that one lives a thousand lives before a page can be written. Sumitra, she appears to be ripe for the occasion. My judgement of seems to be correct and I can plan each move confidently. It is quite an experience, almost like living a chapter in a book when the chips fall where you want them to, she appears to be ripe for the occasion. My judgement of her seems to be correct and I can plan each move confidently. It is quite an experience, almost like living a chapter in a book when the chips fall where you want them to. But as soon as I touch her  I think “Oh God ! What have I started?” Only for a moment I realise that I should have a mask, but now, suddenly, there is no line between what I see and what I am. No woman should give so much of herself. She makes me a beggar. I who have always been the dispenser of arms. The lot of them, all the tender little speeches in my repertoire remain unsaid. I cease to be the director even when I whisper “Sumi” once or twice involuntarily. A nameless, faceless being is what I am, all my props knocked down from under my feet. At Anand’s,  I explain to Mala that my wife wants me back home urgently and wave one of Uma’s old letters around. The next train is at five in the evening. It has to be this way, both of us know it and there is no need for words. The alternative is beyond contemplation. So little is said and so much understood and I don’t even wonder it is so. Somewhere along the way the masquerade has ended, and I have faced a moment of truth. Hands meet for the last time and I get into the train. This is when I might have said “I love you, “but somehow I am glad I didn’t and I am sure she is too.