7

Rajlakshmi arrived at her native place. Bihari had intended to see her settled and return, but on seeing the state of things there, he did not go back. In Rajlakshmi's ancestral home, only one or two very old widows still remained alive. All around was dense jungle and bamboo groves; the water in the pond was green; and the wailing of jackals in the middle of the day unnerved her utterly.

"Ma," said Bihari, "this is your birthplace, I grant you --- but I cannot call it 'dearer than heaven.' Come back to Calcutta. To leave you here and go would be a sin on my part." Rajlakshmi's soul was suffocating there too.

At this juncture, Binodini appeared and became both refuge and refuge-seeker for her. Binodini has already been introduced at the outset. There had been a time when both Mahendra and, failing him, Bihari had been proposed as husbands for her. It pleased fate that the man she actually married was one in whose entire inner constitution the spleen was the most vigorous organ. The excessive weight of that spleen proved too great a burden for him to carry through a long life. From the day of his death, Binodini had been living in a state of dull and joyless existence in that dispiriting village --- like a single garden-creeper lost in a jungle.

Now this orphaned young woman came and reverently prostrated herself before Rajlakshmi, her grand-aunt by marriage, and surrendered herself entirely to her service. This, now, was service indeed. Not a moment's idleness. What neat and precise work, what beautiful cooking, what sweet and gracious conversation.

"It is getting late, dear," Rajlakshmi would say.

"Go and eat something." Would she listen?

She would not stir until she had fanned Masima to sleep.

"You will make yourself ill, my dear," said Rajlakshmi.

"Bodies that have known sorrow do not fall ill, Pisima," said Binodini, with an expression of the greatest indifference to herself.

"Ah, after all these years you have come to your native place --- there is so little here; what have I to offer you in welcome?" In two days Bihari had become a sort of local dignitary in the neighbourhood.

People came to him with ailments needing medicine, or disputes needing advice; some pressed him to secure their sons a post in some important office; others had him write petitions for them. From the old men's card-playing sessions to the Bagdi women's toddy-drinking gatherings, he moved about everywhere with his cheerful curiosity and his natural easy warmth --- no one felt he was a stranger, yet all accorded him respect. Binodini, from behind the inner curtain of the women's quarters, tried her best to ease the exile of this Calcutta young man cast into so alien a place.

Each time Bihari returned from his rounds of the neighbourhood, he found that someone had once again made his room neat and orderly; in a brass tumbler, two or three flowers with their leaves had been arranged in a little posy; and along one side of his cushion, the collected works of Bankimchandra and Dinabandhu had been stacked with care. Inside the cover of each volume, in a feminine but assured hand, was written the name of Binodini. This was a little different from the customary hospitality of a country village.

When Bihari remarked on it and expressed his admiration, Rajlakshmi would say: "And this is the girl you all turned away from." Bihari laughed and said: "We did wrong, Ma --- we were fools. But it is better to be deceived before marriage than after." Rajlakshmi kept thinking to herself: "Ah --- this girl could have been my daughter-in-law. Why did it not come to be?" Whenever Rajlakshmi raised the subject of returning to Calcutta, Binodini's eyes would glisten.

She would say: "Pisima, why did you come for only these few days? When I did not know you, the days somehow passed. Now --- how am I to go on without you?" In a rush of feeling, Rajlakshmi would blurt out: "Dear girl, why did you not become the bride of my house? I would have kept you clasped to my heart." On hearing such words, Binodini would find some excuse and leave the room in quiet confusion.

Rajlakshmi was awaiting a letter of piteous entreaty from Calcutta. Her Mahin had never in his life been separated from his mother for so long --- by now, surely, the pain of her absence must be making him restless. Rajlakshmi thirsted for that letter full of her son's wounded pride and yearning. Bihari received a letter from Mahendra. Mahendra had written: "Ma is probably very happy, having gone to her birthplace after so long." Rajlakshmi thought: "Ah --- Mahendra has written this in wounded pride. Happy! As though his wretched mother could be happy anywhere away from Mahendra!"

"Bihari --- read me the rest of what Mahin has written, dear boy."

"After that, nothing, Ma," said Bihari --- and crumpling the letter into his fist, he stuffed it inside a book and flung it with a thud into a corner of the room.

Could Rajlakshmi be still? Surely Mahin had written something so furious at his mother that Bihari would not read it out to her. As a calf strikes the udder and releases both the milk and the tenderness of the mother cow, Mahendra's anger struck Rajlakshmi and released the store of affection she had been holding back. She forgave Mahendra. She thought: "Ah --- let Mahendra be happy with his wife, let him be happy indeed; whatever the manner of it, let him be content. I shall not trouble him any further over the question of his wife. Poor boy --- the mother who could not bear to be apart from him for even a moment has gone away, and Mahin is angry with her for it!" Again and again the tears welled and overflowed.

That day Rajlakshmi came to Bihari again and again: "Go, dear boy --- go and have your bath. You are keeping very irregular hours here." Bihari too seemed, on that day, disinclined to eat or bathe; he said: "Ma, a vagabond like me does well enough on irregularity." Rajlakshmi pressed him: "No, dear, do go and bathe." After being urged a thousand times, Bihari went off to bathe.

The moment he left the room, Rajlakshmi quickly retrieved that crumpled, folded letter from inside the book. She handed the letter to Binodini: "See, dear, what Mahin has written to Bihari." Binodini began to read it aloud.

Mahendra had written a little about his mother at the start --- no more than what Bihari had already read out; nothing beyond it. After that came Asha. Mahendra had written as if intoxicated with wit, mystery, and joy. Binodini had barely read a few lines when she stopped, flushing, and said: "Pisima --- what is there in this worth hearing?" The look of eager, anxious longing on Rajlakshmi's face turned stone-hard in an instant, as though it had set fast.

She was silent for a moment; then she said, "Let it be" --- and walked away without taking the letter back.

Binodini took the letter into her room. She bolted the door from within and sat on the bed and read. What flavour Binodini found in that letter, Binodini alone knows. But it was not the flavour of amusement. As she read it again and again, her eyes grew scorching-hot like the sand at noon, and her breath came warm as the wind over a desert plain. What Mahendra was like, what Asha was like, what the love between them was like --- these thoughts swirled round and round within her.

She pressed the letter against her lap, stretched out her legs, leaned against the wall, and sat gazing before her for a long while. Mahendra's letter was never found by Bihari again. That same midday, Annapurna arrived without warning. Rajlakshmi's heart gave a sudden lurch, fearing bad news --- she dared not ask any question, and sat looking at Annapurna with a face gone ashen.

"Didi, all the news from Calcutta is good," said Annapurna.

"Then what brings you here?" said Rajlakshmi.

"Didi," said Annapurna, "take the cares of your own household upon yourself. I have no more heart for the world. I am setting out for Kashi --- and I have come to take your leave. I have done much wrong, knowingly and unknowingly --- forgive me. And your daughter-in-law---" (her eyes filled and the tears began to flow) "--- she is but a child, she has no mother --- whether she is at fault or not, she is yours." She could say no more.

Rajlakshmi hurried off to arrange food and bath for her. Bihari, hearing the news, ran from Gadai Ghosh's Chandimandap. He prostrated himself before Annapurna and said: "Kakima, how can you do this? Will you abandon us --- be so merciless?" Annapurna held back her tears and said: "Do not try to dissuade me, Bihari --- may all of you be well; nothing will be wanting on my account." Bihari sat in silence for a while.

Then he said: "Mahendra's fate is ill --- he has let you go." Annapurna said with a start: "Do not say such a thing. I am not the least bit angry with Mahin. If I do not leave, there will be no peace for the household." Bihari gazed into the distance and sat in silence.

Annapurna took from her sari-fold a pair of thick gold bangles and said: "Dear boy, keep these bangles --- when your bride comes, give them to her with my blessing." Bihari touched the bangles to his forehead, suppressing his tears, and went into the next room.

At the moment of farewell, Annapurna said: "Bihari, watch over my Mahin, and my Asha." She handed Rajlakshmi a document and said: "My share in the property left by my father-in-law --- I have made a deed of gift transferring it to Mahendra. Only send me fifteen rupees a month." So saying, she prostrated herself on the ground, touched Rajlakshmi's feet and took their dust upon her head, and took her leave, setting forth on the road to the sacred city.