Mahesh Rao - The Smoke is Rising

Four months later Girish and Mala were married and on their honeymoon in Ooty.

The papaya seller meandered down 7 thMain in Mahalakshmi Gardens most mornings between ten and half past ten. His cry usually began as a bellicose challenge; by the time he had negotiated his way to the final syllable, it emerged as a squall of triumph.

‘Uma, look in the basket. Is there a papaya for tomorrow?’ asked Susheela, from the armchair in the sitting room.

‘Yes, amma , there is.’

Uma’s voice was always only just audible, as if greater volume would instigate a sudden vocal collapse.

A few moments later she moved into the sitting room, sweeping the floor with a brisk circular motion. Susheela took off her reading glasses, folded up the newspaper and stood up to move to a different part of the room.

‘No sign of any rain,’ she announced, looking sternly through the patio doors.

The brittle whisper of the broom continued against the floor.

Susheela sighed and walked towards the bookshelves. She had no idea what it would take to get any conversation out of this girl. She did not expect Uma to discuss politics or philosophy but even coaxing out a bland observation seemed impossible.

Uma had come to her on the recommendation of a friend in Yadavagiri. She had only been working with them for an hour each day but the friend could confirm that her work was neat and she arrived mostly on time. Susheela had sent word that she wanted to see Uma. Her previous maid had moved away and she needed to employ someone else in a hurry. She had already asked two girls to come to the house for a preliminary assessment. The first had arrived on the back of a pink scooter, tittering into a mobile phone. Susheela had stared at her long silver fingernails and the jangly accessories that hung off her handbag. Would this girl scrub pans or just use the house as a convenient base to conduct sundry love affairs? The second said her name was Jolly. As if that weren’t bad enough, she had turned up three hours late, taken a good look at every room in the house and decided that the job was not for her.

‘Perhaps she did not care for my choice of curtains,’ Susheela had remarked to Priyanka, with a voice that could slash through sisal.

Uma seemed the type who would be grateful to work in a decent house. She had arrived slightly early, dressed in a plain yellow sari, the pallu pulled over her slender shoulders. Susheela noticed that her neck was bare. A single gold bangle glinted against her dark wrist. She was engaged on trial for a month, her breakfast and lunch would be taken care of and she would get Sundays off.

Susheela could not find any fault with Uma’s work but this wraithlike behaviour was beginning to irritate her. She was not accustomed to people in her pay rejecting an invitation to conversation.

Susheela tried again: ‘The corporation men were outside earlier. Did they say when they would finish all the digging?’

‘No, amma , I didn’t see them.’

Uma left the room without making eye contact, her anklets tinkling faintly with each step.

Susheela climbed the stairs, her tread heavy. She went into the study, opened a drawer and began to look through a freezer bag full of old cheque book stubs.

As soon as Mala arrived home she reached into the plastic bag and picked out a mango. She held it under the harsh spray from the tap and then dried it, swaddling it in the kitchen towel. She placed the fruit on a board and pushed a knife through the skin into its immodestly ripe flesh. The heady smell intensified at once and redoubled its attack on her senses. Expertly she judged the presence of the stone’s edges and extracted it without letting any of the honeyed pulp go to waste. She sliced the fruit into five rectangles. Picking up the largest piece, she pushed her hair back, leant over the kitchen sink and sucked hard on the skin. Her tongue burrowed into the belly of the mango and her lips closed around its juices. Mala’s eyes were shut; suspended in the darkness of her absorption, she negotiated every fibre in the fruit’s marrow.

She gulped noisily and, putting aside the mangled skin, reached for another slice and sank her teeth into it. Unaware that her pleasure was now audible, she drew more of the flesh into her mouth, her grunts escaping into the air. She lifted her hand and plugged her lips around her knuckles to catch the juice that was beginning to trickle towards her wrist. Her tongue skimmed across the trails in the fruit left by her teeth. She wrung out the last of the slice.

A troublesome shred was caught between her front teeth, trying to provoke her into interrupting her gratification. Mala ignored it and slid a strip of peel out through her pursed lips. She reached for the mango’s stone, cocooned in its rich sheath, and slipped it into her mouth. Her lower teeth grated against the knobby ridge at its heart as she stripped it clean. Easing the stone into her fist, she bit down on the tip and then swallowed hard.

She picked up another piece and then paused. Sensing a presence she spun around, flinging the fruit into the sink.

Gayathri stood at the kitchen door. Neither woman spoke until Gayathri let out a rasping guffaw.

‘Enjoy, enjoy! They are the last ones of the season, after all,’ she grinned.

A tuft of fruit clung to Mala’s chin. Juice was dripping off her fingers onto the floor. She stared at Gayathri, a vicious flush spreading up from her neck to her ears.

Gayathri’s face settled into a detached repose.

‘I came to return the three hundred rupees that you lent me. Shall I just leave it here?’ she asked.

Mala looked at the notes, rolled tightly in Gayathri’s hand. She nodded, turned back to the sink and began to wash the juice off her hands.

Uma gathered her sari around her haunches as she squatted down to grate a coconut. Her hands made rapid, practised motions around the blade, its serrated edges devouring the white flesh.

‘Uma, what news?’

Uma looked up at Bhargavi’s head, which had suddenly appeared over the compound wall.

‘Nothing at all. What about you?’ asked Uma.

‘Oh just working, going home, sleeping and back to work. And did I tell you? My landlord died.’

‘No, was he sick?’

‘He was all right. It was suicide. He drank pesticide and died at the hospital. Couldn’t take any more harassment from his wife. For once, it was the husband that drank poison, eh?’

‘So the wife is your new landlady?’

‘Yes, I don’t know whether she will keep the place or sell it. So I may need to move soon.’

Uma wiped the blade clean with a corner of her pallu and stood up with the plate of grated coconut.

‘I’ll see you,’ she said.

‘No wait, did you see the police jeep on 6 thMain yesterday morning?’ asked Bhargavi.

‘No.’

‘They had come for the man from the blue house, you know, the one with all those dogs.’

Bhargavi paused for any indications of excitement and, receiving none, went on: ‘I found out from the watchman. The woman who lives there with him is not his wife, her husband is in Bombay, some MP or MLA. She left him there to come to live with this man, so the husband used his influence to put a police case on him, saying he kidnapped his wife.’