33

The next morning had gathered dark from earliest dawn. After days of insufferable heat, the sky was at last cooled and shadowed by a dense spread of green cloud. Mahendra had left for college before his time. His discarded clothes lay scattered across the floor; Asha was counting them methodically, noting them down, readying them for the washerman. Mahendra was by nature a careless, absent-minded man; he had long ago asked Asha, as a particular favour, to go through the pockets of his soiled clothes before sending them to the dhobi.

Putting her hand into the pocket of one of his cast-off shirts, Asha felt the edge of a letter. Had that letter taken the shape of a venomous serpent and bitten her finger on the spot, it might have been better --- for a deadly poison entering the body works its last extremity within minutes; poison entering the mind brings the agony of dying without the mercy of death. She drew out the open letter and saw, in an instant, that the handwriting was Binodini's. The colour drained from Asha's face.

Letter in hand, she went into the next room to read it --- "Was last night not enough for you? Why have you sent me another secret letter through Khemi today? Good God --- what must she think of me? Will you not leave me a shred of reputation before the world?"What is it you want from me?

Love? Why this begging? From the moment of your birth you have had nothing but love --- and still you are not satisfied.

"I have no place in this world to love or be loved. And so I play at love to relieve the ache of it. While you were idle, you joined in that game. But does play-time never end? You have been called home --- why then do you go on peering into the playroom? Go, brush off the dust and go home. I have no home of my own; I shall sit alone with my game; I shall not call you to join it."You write that you love me.

In the midst of a game one may say such things --- but if truth is demanded, I do not believe it. Once you thought you loved Asha: that was a lie too. Now you think you love me: this is equally false. You love only yourself.

"The thirst to love and be loved burns me from the heart to the bone --- but you have nothing in your hands to quench that thirst, I have seen it clearly enough. I tell you again and again: leave me, do not follow at my heels; do not in your shamelessness bring shame upon me. My taste for this game has passed; if you call, you will not find me answering. You have called me heartless in your letter --- perhaps that is true. But I have some measure of pity too; and it is out of pity that I now release you. If you reply to this, I shall know that flight is the only way to be free of you." The moment she finished reading, every support fell away from Asha on all sides; every nerve in her body seemed to give up at once.

There was no air left to breathe; the sun seemed to have lifted all its light from before her eyes. She groped first at the wall, then at the almira, then at the chair, and finally sank to the floor. When consciousness returned after a moment, she tried to read the letter again, but her bewildered mind could make no sense of it --- the black letters danced before her eyes. What was this. What had happened. How had this happened. Was this utter and complete ruin? She did not know what to do, whom to call, where to turn.

Her chest heaved and struggled like a fish flung up on dry land. Like a drowning person who thrusts up a hand above the water in desperate hope of something to grip, she clutched in her mind at whatever she could reach --- and at last, pressing her hands to her breast, she gasped out the word: "Masima!" The moment that name of love broke from her lips, the tears came in a sudden rush.

She sat on the floor and wept, and wept again, and went on weeping until the weeping was spent. Then she began to think: what am I to do with this letter? If her husband came to know that she had found it, the thought of his humiliation in that moment made Asha feel deeply uneasy on his behalf. She resolved to put the letter back in the pocket of the shirt, hang the shirt on the peg, and not send it to the dhobi. With this intention, letter in hand, she went to the bedroom. The dhobi had in the meantime fallen asleep propped against the bundle of soiled clothes.

Asha had taken up Mahendra's discarded shirt and was in the act of pushing the letter back into the pocket when she heard a voice: "Bali, dear." She flung the letter and the shirt hastily onto the bed and sat down on top of them.

Binodini entered and said, "The dhobi is making up the loads. Let me take the things that haven't been marked yet." Asha could not look Binodini in the face.

For fear that her expression would betray everything, she turned towards the window and fixed her gaze on the sky, pressing her lips together, fighting to keep the tears from coming. Binodini paused and studied Asha for a moment. Ah, she thought to herself, I understand. So you have found out what happened last night. And all the anger is directed at me --- as though the fault were entirely mine. Binodini made no attempt at conversation. She gathered up a few items of clothing and left the room with swift, decisive steps.

Even in the midst of her acute sorrow, Asha felt a new wave of shame at the guileless friendship she had extended to Binodini all these months. She wished to hold the letter against the image of that friend she had known --- to compare them once more. She had just unfolded the letter to look at it again when Mahendra came bursting into the room. On some sudden impulse he had broken away from a lecture in the middle and come rushing home. Asha thrust the letter into the fold of her sari.

Mahendra, seeing Asha in the room, stopped short for a moment; then began casting urgent glances about the room. Asha understood what he was looking for. But she could not think how to return the letter to its place unobserved and slip away. Mahendra began lifting the soiled clothes one by one, searching through them. Watching him in that futile, fruitless effort, Asha could bear it no longer. She dropped the letter and the shirt onto the floor, caught the bedpost with her right hand, and hid her face against it.

Mahendra snatched up the letter with the speed of lightning. For one instant he stood rigid, staring at Asha. Then she heard the sound of his rapid footsteps down the stairs. The dhobi's voice rose behind him: "Mistress, how much longer must I wait? It's late --- my home is not around the corner."