40

Rajlakshmi had lost both sleep and appetite in her dread of what had become of Mahendra. Sadhucharan was searching for him in every conceivable place --- and then Mahendra returned to Calcutta with Binodini in tow. He settled her in lodgings at Pataldanga and came home to his own house late that night. Entering his mother's room, he found it almost dark --- the kerosene lamp had been set aside behind a screen. Rajlakshmi lay in bed like a woman taken ill, and at her feet sat Asha, very gently drawing her hand over her mother-in-law's feet.

After so long, the house's own daughter-in-law had found her place at the feet of her husband's mother. The moment Mahendra came in, Asha started and left the room. Mahendra forcibly overcame every kind of hesitation and said: "Ma --- it is not convenient for me to study here. I have taken lodgings near the college; I shall stay there." Rajlakshmi patted the edge of the bed and said: "Mahin --- sit here a moment." Mahendra sat down uncomfortably on the bed.

Rajlakshmi said: "Mahin --- stay where you like, but do not cause your wife suffering." Mahendra said nothing.

Rajlakshmi said: "It is my misfortune that I did not recognise what a true daughter I had in my daughter-in-law---" her voice broke --- "but you --- you who have known her all these years, loved her all this time --- how could you bring her to such sorrow at the last?" Rajlakshmi could contain herself no longer; she wept.

Mahendra would have given anything to get up and escape, but he could not bring himself to rise at once. He sat motionless in the darkness at the edge of his mother's bed. After a long silence Rajlakshmi said: "Tonight at least you will stay here?"

"No," said Mahendra.

"When will you go?"

"Now." Rajlakshmi struggled to sit up.

"Now? Will you not at least say a proper farewell to your wife before you go?" Mahendra made no answer.

Rajlakshmi said: "Do you understand at all what these past days have been for her? You shameless creature --- your cruelty has broken my heart." And with this she fell back like a broken branch.

Mahendra left his mother's bedside. With soft, soundless steps he went up the stairs to his bedroom above. He had no wish to encounter Asha. At the top of the stairs he saw that Asha was lying on the floor of the covered terrace outside the bedroom. She had not heard his step; seeing him suddenly before her, she started and quickly straightened herself and sat up. Had Mahendra called her name then --- even once --- "Chuni" --- she would have gathered up every wrong he had done her as though it were her own fault, and wept all the tears of her whole life clasped about his feet.

But Mahendra could not bring himself to say that dear name. However much he tried, however much he wished it, however deeply he ached, he could not forget that to offer her comfort and affection now was an empty and hollow mockery. What use were soft words, when with his own hands he had sealed off every road by which he might have turned from Binodini? Asha sat there dying of embarrassment, unable to rise, unable to go, unable to make the slightest movement without shame. Mahendra said nothing and began to pace slowly up and down the terrace.

In the moonless sky no moon had yet risen; in one corner of the terrace, in a small tin pot, a tuberose plant had put forth two stems of blossom. Those stars above the open roof --- the Great Bear, Orion --- had been silent witnesses to many a hushed and private happiness on evenings past; now they watched in silence still. Mahendra thought: if only the few days of upheaval between now and then could be blotted out with this sky full of darkness --- if he could simply spread a mat beside Asha, as of old, and take his old effortless place there on this open roof.

No questions, no accounting, only that trust, that love, that uncomplicated joy. But in all the world, the one small place he could return to no longer existed. The share of the mat beside Asha on this rooftop --- Mahendra had forfeited it altogether. For so long he had enjoyed a relatively free relationship with Binodini --- the intoxication of loving her, without yet any irrevocable bond. Now with his own hands he had torn Binodini from the fabric of society and brought her away; there was nowhere left to keep her, nowhere to send her back to --- he alone was her sole recourse.

Whether he wished it or not, the whole weight of Binodini had to be borne by him, and borne without end. The thought pressed on him inwardly like a stone. The domestic life of their rooftop --- the quietness, the peace, the sheltered intimacy of marriage nights unimpeded --- seemed to him, suddenly, the most desirable comfort in the world. Yet that ease, which had been his by right alone, was now the dream of a man for whom it was lost. The burden he had chosen to take up on his head for the rest of his life --- he would never draw a free breath from under it again.

With a long sigh Mahendra turned and looked at Asha. With her breast full of silent weeping she sat motionless; the darkness of the night wrapped her hurt and her humiliation as a mother's garment wraps a child. Mahendra broke off his pacing and came suddenly to stand near Asha, as though to say something. The blood of Asha's whole body rushed into her ears; she closed her eyes. Mahendra had come to say --- what? He could not think. What was there left for him to say? Yet he could not turn and go without saying something.

He said: "Where are the keys?" The keys were under the mattress.

Asha rose, went into the bedroom, and Mahendra followed. She drew the bunch of keys from beneath the mattress and set them down on top of it. Mahendra took them and began trying them one by one on his clothes-almira. Asha could keep silent no longer; she said softly: "That almira --- I did not have the key to it." Whose keeping the key had been in --- those words would not pass Asha's lips.

But Mahendra understood. Asha hurried out of the room; she was afraid that this time she could not keep her weeping hidden from him. Facing the wall of the terrace in a dark corner, she turned her back and with all the strength she possessed silenced the sobs, and wept. But there was no great time to weep. It came to her suddenly that Mahendra had not eaten. She went quickly down the stairs. Rajlakshmi asked: "Where is Mahin, daughter-in-law?"

"He is upstairs," said Asha.

"But you have come down."

"His food---" said Asha, her face averted.

"Never mind the food --- I am seeing to it. Daughter-in-law, go and change your sari. Put on that new Dacca one of yours and come to me quickly --- I want to do your hair." She could not refuse her mother-in-law's kindness.

But the proposal to dress and adorn herself was a mortification unto death for Asha. As Bhishma, when he chose to die, lay still and endured the arrows that rained upon him, so Asha bore every article of Rajlakshmi's adornment upon her body with the patience of one beyond all worldly hope. Dressed and adorned, Asha climbed the stairs with slow and soundless steps. She looked out and saw that Mahendra was not on the terrace. She came softly to the bedroom door and looked in --- Mahendra was not there either; his meal sat untouched on the table.

He had forced open the clothes-almira for want of the key, taken out several garments and his medical books, and was gone. The next day was the eleventh day of the lunar fortnight, the day of the fast. Rajlakshmi lay ill and spent in her bed. Outside, dark clouds were massing towards a storm. Asha came quietly into the room, sat softly at her mother-in-law's feet, and touched them gently.

"I have brought milk and fruit," she said.

"Come, let us sit together." At the sight of this gentle and sorrowful figure making the unaccustomed effort to serve her, Rajlakshmi's dry eyes flooded.

She sat up and gathered Asha into her arms and kissed her damp cheek.

"What is Mahin doing now, daughter-in-law?" she asked.

Asha flushed deeply with shame and said softly: "He has gone away."

"When did he go? I did not even know."

"He went last night," said Asha, her head lowered.

The moment she heard it, all Rajlakshmi's tenderness seemed to drain away --- the warmth faded from her touch. Asha felt the silent reproof, and with her head still bowed she rose and slipped quietly out of the room.