Mahesh Rao - The Smoke is Rising

‘She won’t open the door. But she is inside. It’s obvious that she’s inside.’

‘Why don’t you come back tomorrow? Are you a relative?’ he asked soothingly.

‘No,’ she hissed. ‘I am nothing. She needs to open the door now.’

She gave the door another kick.

‘No, no, please, this is not the way,’ said the man, reaching out to stop her.

Janaki shrugged off his arm and pressed her whole body against the door, heaving at it with her hip. The veins in the wood shuddered, the jamb creaked, the whole frame shook, but the door remained locked.

A group had begun to form outside Uma’s door, leaving just enough space around Janaki for the heat of her rage to tear into the ground.

‘Is the woman inside sick? Has she fainted?’ someone asked.

‘Should we call a doctor?’

‘I think it’s this lunatic at the door that needs the doctor.’

Word had made its way to the owner of Uma’s room, who lived a short distance away. There was a commotion, someone was trying to break into the room, there might be damage, a police case, a whole month of unnecessary hassle.

The landlord pushed through the group.

‘What is this, madam? Why are you trying to break this door?’ he demanded.

‘What has it got to do with you?’ Janaki asked.

‘It is my door, it is my room, it is my business. Will your grandfather pay for the damage?’ he shouted, primed for battle.

‘Get out of the way,’ she spat.

‘Why do you need to get inside so urgently anyway?’ asked the older man, trying to intercede.

‘I need to speak to that whore inside and I will speak to her today no matter who tries to stop me,’ she said.

‘But why? What has she done?’

‘When she has finished fucking your son, you can come and ask me what she has done,’ said Janaki, wild-eyed.

‘This woman is crazy. Someone take her away,’ went up a cry.

‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ screamed Janaki.

The crowd closed in and soon a whistle pierced through. A police constable was on his way.

‘Let her taste the policeman’s lathi . She’ll remember her way home,’ said a smirking boy.

Janaki managed to get a few more kicks at the door before she was edged away by the crowd towards the entrance of the row. There were more jeers, more appeals for calm. It was another half an hour or so before the constable managed to convince her to leave the area.

To those who had gathered outside, each blow on the door had seemed heavier than the last. To someone on the inside, each impact might have sounded like the head of an axe cleaving the wooden frame, a hinge shattering into fragments and the thud of thousands of splinters embedding themselves in every part of the room’s walls and floor. It might even have sounded like the deafening blast of demolition, a structure being ripped from its foundations, setting off a series of seismic currents. Or maybe to someone on the inside it had all been curiously noiseless; maybe all that could really be heard was the sound of the deep hush that lay thick at the heart of any betrayal.

As Girish approached home, the muezzin’s call to prayer echoed through the evening air. It was an invisible kite wavering on the breath of faith, a sound no longer heard so much as simply absorbed every evening. His footsteps were heavy, kicking up a little dust as he moved up the lane. He lifted the bolt, walked through the gate and noticed that no lights were on. Could Mala be asleep at this hour? He rang the bell, its fierce jangle alerting only him. He rang again, this time holding the button down. Irritation swamped him like a sudden rash, unseen welts of annoyance rising up. Where had she gone at this time when she should be packing? He fumbled in his jacket pocket for his keys, let himself into the darkness of the house and slipped off his shoes.

‘Mala?’ he called, turning on the light in the hallway.

‘Mala?’

He walked into the bedroom and then the kitchen, still holding his shoes. He walked back into the bedroom, pressed the light switch and then opened the cupboard door. As he flung his shoes down, the other cupboard door swung open. Moving to close it, he stopped. It was nearly empty. Most of the clothes were gone. Had she packed already?

He looked up above the cupboards and saw that the smaller case was missing. So she had packed. But where had she gone? He looked for the case in the bedroom and then in the corridor and the sitting room. He walked back to Mala’s cupboard and began to pull open the drawers. Most of them were bare.

There was a rush of comprehension.

He grabbed his keys and opened the locker at the back of the cupboard. As far as he could tell, the cash was undisturbed but Mala’s jewellery was gone. He shut the locker door and returned to the sitting room.

The light from the hallway threw a pale arc across the floor, lending a spot of colour to the objects in the room: the collection of Air India Maharajas, the ceramic frogs in the glass-fronted cabinet, the waxy sofa. It was only when Girish turned towards the front door that he noticed the television. The screen was smashed all the way across, two almost parallel lines racing from one corner to another. In between these cracked tributaries, a black void took the form of a visceral wound, reflected minutely in his own dark iris.

When Mala arrived in Konnapur, it was late. Only the most wretched residents of the temple town were to be seen outside at that hour, along with one or two disorientated travellers. She managed to share a rickshaw with an elderly gentleman who was going her way. After she had paid her share, the rickshaw rumbled away, leaving her in the road with her bags. The moon was nearly new and there were no streetlights. The outline of her parents’ house seemed to have been cut into the night’s dark pelt.

She was worn out from the journey. The leisurely pace of the bus had made her restless but she had also dreaded arriving at her destination. At the halfway point there had been a halt and everyone but her had got off the bus to stretch their legs. Through the dust-coated window she had caught glimpses of a young girl feeding an infant on an upturned crate and a chicken being chased by an angry woman. The wait had seemed endless. Vendor after vendor pushed trays of fried snacks up at her window, making her move across to the aisle seat. A boy selling musical pens had boarded the bus and persisted in trying to make her buy one until the conductor returned. The driver had turned the engine on, the frame of the ancient bus shuddering with intent, and then just as suddenly turned it off again. Finally they had resumed their journey, a group of girls on the back seat singing ‘ Sare Jahan Se Achcha ’ over and over again.

Their dissonant voices still rang in her head as she prepared herself to knock at the door, the chorus scratching at her tongue. The only other sounds she could hear were the hymns of the cicadas melded in with her own uneven breathing.

It was only after her second set of knocks that a light appeared in the front window. Minutes later Babu appeared at the door, his eyes puffy, the neck of his vest sagging indecently.

‘Mala? At this time? What has happened?’ he asked.

‘I’m sorry I woke you up,’ she said softly.

Babu caught sight of the bags and stared at them, as if they were more likely than his daughter to provide a sensible answer to his questions. Rukmini had also emerged into the dim light of the hall, her hair standing up in a series of fearful crests.