Manu Joseph - Serious Men

Lavanya was dreaming, and these days, she knew she was dreaming. She was walking through a rain forest. She had never been inside a rain forest, but it was so obviously a rain forest. Gigantic tree trunks, black and wet, stood like creatures. The floor was a bed of wild creepers. There was also a board that said ‘Rain Forest’. It was raining so heavily now that when she stretched her hand she could not see beyond the elbow. But she was not wet. Because she did not like getting wet. She was carrying a maroon shopping bag and she was searching for a shop that sold cashews. From the dense mist of rain a huge elephant head appeared. The rest of its body was hidden in the rain. It was a wise lovable elephant. ‘Arvind,’ she said, ‘what are you doing here?’ And she opened her eyes.

She saw his huge silhouette lurking beyond the other side of the bed. She reached for the switch above her nightstand. ‘You’re wet,’ she said, getting out of bed. She opened the dresser sleepily and took out a towel. ‘I don’t know why you like getting wet,’ she said, reaching for his head with the towel. ‘The house was a mess, Arvind. Are you really mad, or are you doing this to annoy me? It was filthy when I walked in. I am going to give the keys to the maids now.’ He did not move as she wiped his head and his face.

‘You can say you are happy to see me,’ she said.

‘I missed you.’

‘You are working late these days? Is it the balloon?’ she asked. Her shoulders ached, so she stopped drying him. ‘Now go to the bathroom and change. Put the wet clothes in the washing machine.’ When he left the room, she wondered what the smell was. It was sweet and it reminded her of something she had known a long time ago. But she could not recognize it. The smell of rain on a man’s body maybe?

He walked in dry and tidy, in a loose tracksuit, his chest bare. He lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

‘What is worrying you, Arvind? What has happened?’

‘Nothing.’

‘And what is this? You sprayed deo?’ she said with a chuckle. ‘Two weeks I am away and you become totally crazy?’

His chest was still moist and she dried it, muttering that he was making the bed wet. And unknowingly, she dug her finger into his navel. ‘There is no lint at all,’ she said. She went to the corner of the room to put the towel away. ‘How can you not have any lint at all in that well of a navel? Are you having an affair or something?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he said.

Lavanya wondered if she should go to the balcony and put the towel on the wire, or if she should just put it on the floor for the time being. She was too sleepy to go to the balcony, but the floor was not the place for a towel. And, obviously, she did not want to put it on the dresser. The thought of a wet towel on polished wood was repulsive. Then she wondered why the word was hanging in the air like sorrow. ‘Yes,’ he had said. She turned to him slowly.

‘Her name is Oparna,’ he said. ‘She works with me.’

Lavanya collapsed slowly and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘This is not a hiccup cure, is it?’

‘You don’t have hiccups.’

‘I am confused,’ she said. ‘What did you say? What was it that you had said?’

She went to the nightstand and searched for her glasses, as though that would make her hear better. ‘What did you say, Arvind?’ she asked, putting her glasses on. She sat on the edge of the bed again.

‘Her name is Oparna,’ he said.

The rain outside the window was furious. They listened to it. She said, a bit dreamily, ‘I cannot believe this. You? You don’t know anything. You don’t even know if your nose is long or short.’

He did not understand the connection between his nose and the situation. But he realized that she was right. If someone asked him to describe his own nose, he wouldn’t know what to say.

‘How long has it been going on?’

‘After you left. Just before, actually. But, in a way, after you left.’

The silence returned and the rain appeared to grow even more violent. He looked at the ceiling. She stared at the dresser.

‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I feel as though I have murdered you.’

‘Is she young?’

‘Yes.’

‘Pretty?’

‘Yes.’

‘How young?’

‘As old as Shruti, I think.’

‘Did you bring her here?’

‘No.’

‘You slept with her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘In the basement of the Institute.’

‘That’s sick,’ she said. She began to fold the towel. ‘Do you love her?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’

Lavanya walked out of the bedroom. She heard him say something, but she would understand it only moments later — ‘But you’re still my email password.’

She sat on the couch in the hall, her legs tucked beneath her. I am tired of funerals, she thought, and she wondered who had died now. It did not feel as though he had died. She still felt his looming presence. The quiet turbulence of a man was very much there in her life. But certainly it felt as if someone had died. She sat there that way the whole night until she could hear the birds and see the first light of the morning in a small patch of sky that was visible through the suspended shrubs in the balcony. She recognized the wound now. It was fear that she was feeling. Fear at not feeling sad at all. It was shocking to imagine him having an affair. It was pathetic. But it did not make her feel sad and that’s what made her feel afraid. People usually feared the future, but this fear was about the past. She wondered why she didn’t care. Did she ever love this man enough? What was it that they had for over four decades? Another arrangement? But she also knew she loved him. He was some sort of a stranger now, but when she remembered him as a memory, she loved that memory very much. In fact, she wanted to go to him and run her hand on his bald head and tell him it was all right. She felt a heartbreaking compassion for him. She wanted him to be happy. As he was on that distant day when he was a boy groom and for some reason he had whispered to her eagerly, ‘Lavanya, you know, the Earth moves at forty kilometres a second.’

She saw a shadow in the passage that connected the hall to the kitchen. He was standing at the doorway of the bedroom. She could not see him but she could see his shadow. His head peeped out. He was surprised to see her on the couch. They looked at each other and turned away. After a few minutes, the shadow came to the hall and stood by her side. She did not look at him. He went to the dining-table and sat on a chair. Occasionally, he turned to look at her. At 7.45, the sound of Shruti’s alarm pierced through their silence. And both of them felt that they should hide.

He sat in the hall all morning toying with a spoon, or wrinkling the edges of the newspaper, or raising his legs for the maid to sweep the floor, and raising them once again when she came to mop. Lavanya went to the kitchen to be with the cook. It was the cook who brought him coffee that morning, and then breakfast. He drank the coffee and ate the breakfast without budging from the chair, as if he were encroaching and he would lose his home if he rose. Around noon, he went for a bath. He stayed at home the whole day. The cook did not come in the evenings. And Lavanya did not cook that night. So he fumbled through the fridge for food and heated whatever he could find.

And that’s how it was all week. He would wake up and sit silently on a chair, or stand in the balcony, and not utter a word. He would eat what was served on the table and when he realized that food was not coming to him, he would go to it.

On the morning of the third day of his exile, Lavanya was in the hall reading the paper. She realized that the maid was staring at her.