said, stunned. âYou killed my child, and now you are hitting me also? Evil man.â Again she launched herself at him. Now her blows caught Sripathi deliberately on his nose, his cheeks, his mouth. He was enraged by her lack of restraint. He got to his feet so that he loomed over her, and she was obliged to swing upwards at him. He grabbed her arms and she struggled to release herself. âLet me go!â she screamed. âLet me go!â
âWhat are you doing? Mamma. Appu. Stop it!â Arunâs voice brought Sripathi back to his senses. His son was running down the stairs, and at the foot of the stairs, staring up in horror, stood the rice-seller, Koti, the maidservant, and his sister Putti. In all these years, Sripathi had never touched his wife in violence, only with desire and affection. Now he had hit her in front of his whole family
and
the maidservant
and
the man who sold them rice.
âWhat happened?â Arun asked again. âMamma, stop this nonsense and tell me.â He pulled Nirmala away from Sripathi, held her firmly against him and glared at his father. âArenât you ashamed of yourself?â
Sripathi noticed that his son was wearing a faded green kurta that he himself had thrown away only days ago. The wretched boy had fished it out of the garbage bin! He looked so much like Maya, thought the father painfully, and then threw the thought away. Only the shape of his face. Only that. Nobody looked like Maya. Certainly not this shabby creature standing before him.
Nirmala raised her voice again. âI told him, begged him so many times. Let us forget the past, I told him and told him. But no, when has he ever listened to me? I am a fool, no? Canât use big-big words and say clever things.â
â
Calm down
and tell me what is going on. Who was that on the phone?â
Sripathi sat down again and held his trembling hands folded tightly on his lap. He was afraid of what they would do to him if he let them loose. He didnât think he could control them. Now his legs were beginning to shiver, so he crossed them as well, tucking the loose folds of his lungi in betweenâonce at the knee and again at the ankles, until they looked like bright, twined snakes. There was a large purple bruise stretched across his ankle. He had missed the starter pedal on his scooter and hurt himself badly. Funny he had never noticed how purple it was. Like an aubergine. A roasted one. Did Maya have purple scars on her poor body? And her husband? His skin would surely bruise in different shades. He was so much fairer.
âAppu?â he heard his son ask.
âHer head used to fit into my palm,â Sripathi said, to no one in particular. âDo you remember?â Mayaâs baby breath had seemed like the touch of a feather on his neck as she slept on his shoulder, he thoughtâand he, too frightened to take a deep breath or move his head in case she woke up. Her face a bright portulaca flower, waiting for him, her Appu, to return from work. She always had her feet wrong in the tiny green Hawaiian slippers he had bought her from the Bata shop on the casino corner.
âThis is your
left
foot,â he would tell her. âIt goes into
this
slipper. And your
right
foot goes into that one.â
But of course she never listened, dancing around impatiently for him to take her for their ritual ride around the tulasi planter in the front yard, checking his pockets to see if he had hidden a treat for her. And as they rode round and round in slow, tight circles, she would bring him up to date on her day: âAppu, I saw an enormous spider. It wanted to eat me. It was green and yellowâ; âAppu, I hurt my left toe on my right footâ; âAppu, I did susu in my pants by mistake because Ammayya would not come out of the toiletâ; âI ate a
big
mango, and Mamma said I must drink milk to cool the mango in my stomach. But Appu, I waited for
you
to come