Mistress by Anita Nair Read Free Book Online

think of the morning. Of the young man. Of Radha and Shyam. Of all three of us and Chris.
    I am too tired to think. I close my eyes and let the bird sounds lull me into calm.
     
    I wait for them. The evening is warm and still. Then I see them. How perfectly they complement each other, I think. I feel a great sadness. There is grief in this, I can already see it happen.
    The two of them, Chris and Radha, oblivious to the mischief destiny can wreak, smile happily at each other, at the evening, at me.
    ‘You are looking refreshed.’ Radha’s voice swells to include me in her circle of joy.
    Her face wears the radiance of a minukkuvesham: the lovely damsels of kathakali who have chanced upon an inner grace. As for Chris, he is the hero. Nala to her Damayanti. Arjuna to her Subhadra. Krishna to her Radha.
    ‘Chris has so much to ask you,’ she says.
    He smiles almost shyly. ‘I really don’t want to tire you, but I do have a few, actually several, questions.’
    I nod. This is what he is here for. ‘What would you like to know?’
    Chris draws out a file. ‘Philip helped me put this together.’ He turns the plastic sheets. ‘It has a bio with dates of performances, facts and details that are very impressive, but I do need to know more.’
    Radha comes out of the kitchen with three glasses of tea. ‘You’ll have to drink from a glass. Uncle doesn’t have any cups in his kitchen.’
    Chris holds the glass carefully. It is hot and the tea will scald his mouth. I can taste tea only if it burns my tongue. Tobacco has numbed
my taste buds and now only the heat can make them bloom.
    ‘Would you like me to cool the tea for you?’ Radha asks.
    Chris puts his glass down. ‘Oh, I’ll wait for it to cool,’ he says. I realize then that he doesn’t like the intrusion.
    Chris touches the file to take up the thread of our conversation.
    ‘I’d like to know everything about you,’ he says.
    I hold up my hand. I am not ready for this. ‘You are not writing my biography. Or is this for a novel, maybe?’
    His eyes drop and then rise to meet mine. ‘I don’t know what I intend to use this material for, or how. All I know is that to understand you as an artist I need to know the man. I know so many artists—writers, painters, musicians, dancers—and they all talk about their art as if it’s a living creature. Something that possesses them to the exclusion of everything else.’
    ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Art can be a very demanding mistress …’
    Chris taps his pencil against the table impatiently. ‘I think I will understand what art means to you only when I know how much you have let your art rule you. Your dreams, your hopes, your compromises, your sacrifices—everything that your art has demanded of you.’
    Radha sucks in her breath. She knows how reticent I am and how much I hate to talk about myself. ‘I don’t know if Uncle will …’ she says, rushing in to protect me as she always does.
    I throw her a smile. It’s all right, I tell her with that smile. The honesty of his reply draws me. The man and the artist. I have never thought of myself as split into dual parts. Is it possible?
    ‘Before I begin, I must tell you something that is intrinsic to kathakali. This dance form requires the performer to interpret. It demands that the veshakaaran imagine beyond the poet’s—what is that word you use, libretto …In my story, what I think is real could perhaps be the imagined, and vice versa. Do you understand?
    ‘I have to imagine and interpret not just my own life, but the lives of all the others who have been part of my life. My facts could be wrong, the details could be missing, but I shall hide nothing. That much I can assure you. When you’ve heard it all, you can tell me if the man and the artist are one or dual creatures. You can tell me who rules, the man or the mistress.’

    Chris peels the flap of a pocket on his trousers. He brings out a small tape recorder. ‘May I?’ he asks.
    I nod. It is