Anjali Joseph - The Living

She turned on her side, towards me.

Who knows, I said. I may drop in to see him one evening.

A bony, warm hand patted my arm.

I rolled over too, away from her. How strange our conversations could be. I like to talk things through. I need comfort. She can be like an animal in its shell, perfectly content. You see her drinking her tea, or listening to the radio while she cooks, reading the newspaper or watching a serial, and there’s nothing missing. It’s not that I want her to be unhappy, but for someone like me, always teetering from one desire to the next, it’s hard to be around her. Yet it’s to her that I return when I’ve tired myself out.

She turned over again and so did I, our slow synchronised dance in the bed.

She told me about her childhood only after we’d been married some time — after we moved into the new house. I should have been happy. For a while I was. Then I was discontented. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Prakash was already on the way. I was used to being crammed into the old house, used to being able to be forgotten.

I would get angry about nothing. You make yourself unhappy, she said. Well, I said, if we relied on you where would we be? You think everyone is nice, wanting to help you. We’d probably be cheated, lose our livelihood. Someone has to be a grown-up.

As I shouted I wanted, I remember, to weep at the idea of having to be a grown-up.

It was after that argument that she sat down and sighed. No, she said, it wasn’t easy for her. She told me things I’d half known — that she’d grown up at first living with her grandmother, in Bhimashankar. I thought she was my mother, she said. Then when I was seven I had to go back. My father came for me. I didn’t know who he was. I cried and cried. I was back in the city, living with everyone else, and there was no space. The air didn’t smell the way it did at home. My mother — wasn’t good to me.

She shrugged.

My mother — I began.

But she went on and I thought with resentment, Oh, now I have to listen to her.

I waited every day for the time when I’d be able to go back to my grandparents. But both of them died before I could visit. I wasn’t taken to the ceremonies. I wanted to die. I was such a young child, but I thought about it all the time, death, and when it would come, so I could be with my grandmother again, in the forest where the air smelled different and there were a hundred things to see every hour, and I was free.

Her eyes clouded. Her face looked as I had never seen it — inward, bitter. I was thrilled, yet repelled. The moments when I understood her best, accepted her as she was, were also the moments when I was absolutely without desire for her. As though in being a person it was impossible for me also to be a man.

For a while I was like that, very unhappy, she said.

And then things improved, I said quickly.

She smiled at me, her lopsided smile. There was a neighbour near my parents’ house who took an interest in children, she said. Particularly me. He used to call me to his house when his wife wasn’t there.

What?

She was shaking slightly. I didn’t tell anyone, she said.

What did he do?

She shook her head. It wasn’t that bad, but it was enough.

Did he —?

No, she said, and I was ashamed, because I was thinking of myself, and what someone might have done to my wife before I knew her.

A tear rolled down her face. She said, I couldn’t tell anyone. But then he did it to someone else, and he got beaten up and had to move. My mother told me if anything had happened to me it was my fault.

I took her hand then, and she let me. I was crying too. I didn’t know what I felt.

She took away her hand, and wiped her face. The baby in her was starting to show.

And then, she said, I decided that I would never be unhappy again; that I would expect nothing from life, but just enjoy whatever I could — a cool breeze, clean clothes, walking to school, or being alone. If bad things happened, I knew they would pass. I knew I would live a long life. But I also knew I couldn’t depend on anyone or anything to be happy. She looked at me again, and her eyes were clear and warning. It’s a choice, she said.

But still, I argued with her now, as she slept next to me, it’s easier for you. You don’t need people. And everyone loves you. Whereas I …

When I woke it was bright. I was late for the start of the day.

*

Outside, said the girl at the counter.

But I want to see the doctor, I said. An older man with white hair, spectacles, a stick, looked at me. He was sitting on one of the three chairs inside the door.

Chappals.

Oh, I said.

I went to the door, removed them, came back, and helped her fill in a form about me. A pert young thing, dark-skinned, in a pink kurta and dupatta, with shiny pink nails.

She pointed to the chairs. I sat a little away from the older man. Perhaps he was in his seventies or eighties. The future, I thought. He looked fine, apart from the cane and the thick spectacles.

In the afternoon, she’d asked me, Shall I come with you? No no, I said, though I wanted her to.

Arun Pawar, said the thin figure in the office door.

I padded in.

Please sit. He closed the door behind me and retreated behind the desk, on which there was a computer, a calendar, pens, little statues.

And what’s the matter? he said.

My wife thought I should see you, I said. There’s nothing wrong with me.

What are the symptoms?

I looked over at the high bed. Well, I said, basically nothing. Some, ah, irregularities when I piss.

He nodded, waving his long hands. Your age?

Sixty-seven.

How long has this been going on?

Not long. A few months. Maybe a year. It bothers me at night, I said. I wake up, then I can’t go back to sleep.

How’s the stream?

What stream?

When you urinate. Is it weak?

I had a sense I should save being irritated for later.

Sometimes, I said.

When you’ve urinated, do you find your bladder is empty?

No.

The stream starts and stops? He kept writing.

Yes, I said. I rubbed my forehead.

This happens often?

Yes.

He nodded. His face was smooth, oddly comical.

You’re fully qualified? I found myself asking.

My certificates.

I peered behind him at a row of framed documents. Sorry, I said.

I’m going to check your prostate.

My what?

Just a minute. He got up, took down a large book and began leafing through it until he got to the diagram of a man’s lower half, all kinds of pink tubes inside the body. This is your bladder, he said. This is your prostate. Its function is to do with helping the semen come out when you ejaculate.

He looked into my eyes. His were large and brown, framed by oblong wire spectacles. But after the age of fifty, he went on, this tends to enlarge. Most of the time that doesn’t mean something bad.

And the rest of the time?

First let me explain. So this — finger circling one of the pink things — is your prostate. It’s normally the size of a bor. But when it becomes enlarged, it presses here on your bladder. Which could be causing these difficulties regarding your urination.

I nodded quickly.

Now I just need to examine you, he said. There’s nothing to be alarmed about.

Examine my —?

Come to the bed here. Take down your trousers and bend over. Put your hands here. I’m –

I heard the sound of rubber being stretched. I whipped around, pulling my neck. Agh! I said.

He was putting on a rubber glove. It’ll only take a short time, he said. Bend over and try to relax.

No, I thought. Pull up your clothes and run. But I felt myself bending, and holding the end of the rickety bed.