SONA

I

I RECLINE ON MY beanbag, a cadmium orange, the colour of my toenails today, and look at the lovely cobalt-and-silver day outside. I think of you. You called such days gold-leaf-showered, pointing out the small gulmohar leaves falling at every gust. The smell of grass wafts through the open picture window. It is green, like a compound of copper. Shade is sprinkled under the trees like soft, powdery carbon. I can see the bricked walking path from where I lie. I can’t go for a walk, of course, but I don’t need to close my eyes to imagine you walking thoughtfully along the path, gently parting pink and magenta leaves of Red Iceton crotons to reveal a mole’s nest or tapping the bark of the jackfruit tree to bring a perfectly camouflaged stick insect to life.

Today I want to talk to you, not about this beautiful day, but another one, a summer day, the day you had come home for the first time. It was that awkward time of the weekend when people wake up from naps and do things that can be done in a half-awake state. I had removed the chipped colour off my nails and was painting them. Mummy had mentioned you were coming but I had not paid much attention. Mummy’s friends were either pot-bellied and boring or shrill and poetry-spouting, or both. The doorbell had rung, but I had stayed put in the love seat, busy with my nails.

‘Sona, this is Bhaumik. He has recently accepted the professorial chair at the university in world literature,’ Mummy had said. I had looked up, fully expecting a bald man with a goatee and vague eyes. Instead, there you stood in the late afternoon light, in a white linen shirt and a pair of worn khakis. Your hair was wavy, the crests frosted. You looked levelly at me through rimless glasses, eyebrows slightly raised. A drop of golden-yellow polish fell on my T-shirt leaving a comet-like tail down the front. You smiled and held out your hand. I became conscious of my scruffy clothes and hair sticking out in all directions; I had fallen asleep without drying them.

‘Glad to make your acquaintance,’ you said, and glancing at my nails, added, ‘This is the first time I have had the privilege of shaking such golden hands!’ In my confusion I quickly put my hands behind my back. You laughed, and I watched with fascination the sternomastoid muscles move smoothly under the clear skin of your throat. Mummy laughed too.

‘Sona will entertain you while I get us tea. She is very clever, aren’t you, Sona? She has a gift for science. Her teachers have recommended she apply for the undergraduate science programmes abroad this year. She is only fifteen and has at least a couple of years or so to go before college, but her teachers think she is ready.’

I resented her saying I was only fifteen. I could see what she was doing. She was pointing out that I was just a precocious child, not to be taken seriously by someone like you.

‘I am going to be sixteen in three months,’ I said.

‘You see how it stands, Bhaumik? My own daughter would not allow me to underplay my age by a few months!’ Mummy shrugged her shoulders in mock resignation.

‘Age can’t wither your beauty, and though we have not given custom much chance yet, I am sure it cannot stale your variety.’ You spoke to her in the same laughing voice in which you spoke to me. Mummy blushed. She is, of course, beautiful; Papa used to say so even during their fights. ‘This accursed beauty,’ he’d say between gritted teeth. I was only six when Papa left, but I remember everything. Arguments, things being thrown around, Mummy screaming in her shrill voice. Although she said he beat her, I never saw Papa raise his hand at her. I know she bruises easily. She’d show off bruises on her arm, on her waist, in sleeveless blouses and sarees tied low, to get people to look at her, to say – what a monster you’ve married. She’s always liked attention, you know that, you’ve seen how she’d always butt in when you talked to me. Granted Papa used to get angry sometimes, but I know he loved me. He always bought me sweets and things. Even after he left us, without a word as Mummy always adds – up sticks and left, didn’t have the courage to tell his daughter and his wife that he was abandoning them. But he never abandoned me; he couldn’t stand Mummy, but he missed me. That’s why he sent gifts for me every birthday until Mummy insisted we move cities. She’d say to her fat, boring friends that we had to leave the city because Papa threatened to kidnap me. I couldn’t let him hurt my child, she’d say in that irritating, sniffling voice of hers; I have to think of her. As if Papa would have hurt me. It was only Mummy he hated. He loved me, I know he loved me. He didn’t have any mental issue like Mummy claims. She simply could not accept that he hated her. You don’t know all this. I didn’t tell you when there was opportunity. Now it is too late.

Anyway, that afternoon Mummy’s beauty was on full display. The saree she wore, the colour of red Manganese crystals, set off her creamy complexion, and she had lined her eyes with kohl. She had put on weight over the years, a fact that bothered her, but the soft material of the saree fell around her in flattering folds. You took one of the occasional chairs and stretched your long legs in front of you, looking directly at me. Light from the picture window, this same window by which I sit today thinking of you, fell on you. I noticed the deep brown alternating with a sort of golden in your corneas, making your eyes shine unlike any others I had seen.

‘So, you are a science prodigy. Very interesting. Instead of the riches of literature which are all around you,’ you waved your hand at the bookshelves crowding the room, ‘you chose science. What is it that you like about science?’

I thought of the attraction science, particularly chemistry, held for me. Of course, Mummy had tried to interest me in literature ever since I was a kid. She made up funny rhymes and limericks and story cycles, bought pretty notebooks for me to write in, but I found all the make-believe wordiness silly. I liked playing with the Chemistry Lab set that Papa had sent me one birthday far more than the stories and poems Mummy droned on. When we moved to this city, Mummy had more work; she began taking evening classes at a nearby college besides teaching at the university during the day. My schoolwork also increased, and there was less and less time for reading together, which was just fine with me. You were waiting for me to answer your question.

‘I like science because it does not lead you one way and lets you imagine you are going the other. Actually, with science there is no need to imagine anything; you can do experiments and discover things and prove what’s true, what’s false. Imagination is so imprecise. Science is full of certainties. That is very cool—’ I had stopped to draw a breath. You had clasped your hands behind your head and were looking earnestly at me with your golden eyes. I got flustered. ‘And I like the formulas and shit and the possibility of things turning into other things in a controlled sort of way,’ I ended lamely.

‘That is profound, Sona. A fairly succinct analysis of what science does. However, do not underestimate imagination. It can show you things which could exist before you discover them through science. Do you see what I mean?’ I wanted to ask you to explain to me, tell me why imagination was important, but just then, Mummy entered with the tea. ‘I am impressed, Sumi,’ you said to her. ‘There are flashes of philosophy there among the dross of science.’ You smiled at me, your eyes rested on me. You had wanted to say more, but Mummy began to fuss around.

‘You are getting late for your class, Sona. Drink your milk quickly and run.’ I should have known then that she would never let me be with you. You waved to me as I left. ‘Till we meet again, Sona, the golden girl. And I hope it shall be soon.’ I felt the hot blood in my cheeks and ears, and Mummy laughed.

II

After that first visit, you came often. You would drive Mummy back from her evening classes or come over on Saturdays, staying until late in the night. Soon I identified a pattern: when Mummy took a cab to the university, it meant you would come home for dinner, and when she brought tall, fragrant fronds of rajnigandha home on Fridays and arranged them carefully in vases around the house, it was a sign you would spend the Saturday with us. Mummy, of course, monopolized you, but I knew you liked me to be around. You spoke soothingly to Mummy when she was annoyed with me about chewing my nails or not carrying my plate to the kitchen after dinner or being tardy with my assignments. She was irritable with me a lot those days, and she and I were always having arguments. Only you brought laughter and light into the house. You called me ‘Golden Girl’ and asked me which chemical compound I had painted my nails with this time and whether I had managed to blow up the school yet. ‘Not even a small explosion?’ you’d ask pulling a disappointed face. You made the tired joke sound funny. Even Mummy forgot her annoyance and laughed.

When you came over on the weekends, you liked to stretch out on the acid-green futon with its sulphur-yellow cushions. It used to be placed right here where my beanbag is. It was your favourite seat in the house, and I am very sorry that it got ruined. Mummy brought out the large floor-cushions from her room and reclined on them beside you, reading or chatting. Often, I, too, ensconced myself, with my books and laptop, in the love seat not far from the futon. I knew you looked at me from time to time, I could feel your glance on me. You usually stayed for dinner, and I liked how you were quite at home with us. You would go for a run up the hill, come back and shower, help Mummy lay the table, and occasionally try your hand at cooking. Mummy laughed when you mistook powdered sugar for salt or couldn’t tell cumin seeds from carrom seeds and you appealed to me for support. ‘Golden Girl, you hear the mocking laughter? I ask you, is it charitable to laugh at an honest mistake? Can I be blamed for not being able to tell one brown seed apart from another? Now if I made a mistake between Marlowe and Shakespeare, then she’d have just cause to mock!’ Mummy laughed until tears moistened her eyes. She looked so beautiful that even I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

After dinner, Mummy and you drank coffee. Mummy sometimes sat on the arm of your sofa or on the floor beside you. I felt heat surge inside me when I saw her sitting that way, reciting her new poem to you or reading an excerpt from a book, softly, casually leaning against you. She’d shoo me out of the living room. ‘You have sports tomorrow morning. You must get your sleep. She is such an early riser,’ she’d say to you. ‘No matter when she sleeps, she is always up by seven. Sometimes I wonder if they switched babies on me!’

I retreated to my room, but I knew you would have liked me to stay by the way you looked at me and quoted with mock-seriousness, ‘Thus we part for the night, dear heart. Sleep well, Golden Girl.’

A few months later, everything changed. It was the peak of summer, humidity intense, and monsoon still a couple of weeks away. Heat-haze hung late into the evening, and Mummy was restless. She read less, forgot what she was saying mid-sentence, overwatered the house plants. In that restive month, you took Mummy and I out for dinner on a Friday night. I wore a new white, sleeveless, eyelet cotton dress, reaching just above my knees. Mummy had a number of white outfits; white was her favourite colour, and she wore it often in the heavy heat of the city. But she didn’t think it suited my dark complexion. ‘There are plenty of colours, Sona, white’s just not yours.’ I believed her too until I learned that you thought differently.

Earlier that week, Mummy had had a heat rash. Instead of making her look ugly, the deep pink on her cheeks only made her buttery complexion more attractive. I returned from my athletics class and found you standing by the window, waiting for her. ‘Out playing in this heat, Golden Girl?’ you commented, turning. ‘You are lucky not to have Sumi’s sensitive skin. Otherwise, you’d not be able to step out into the sun without dabbing the evil-smelling lotion.’

I wasn’t able to hold myself back. I had grown up hearing how I had not inherited Mummy’s classical beauty. ‘I would suffer anything for Mummy’s complexion.’

You looked at me for a moment. ‘Come here, Sona,’ you said gravely. I joined you at the window. ‘You see the lovely, deep shade of the mango tree?’ You pointed towards the garden. ‘Don’t you think it is beautiful? Your complexion is like that shade – dark, velvety, soothing. Why do you compare it with Sumi’s?’ You placed your arm around my shoulders. I could smell the citrusy scent of your cologne. ‘You will never see your own self clearly if you constantly look towards Sumi. You are not her reflection and you most definitely don’t need to be her copy. You are perfect the way you are, full of promise and hope. You have your own unique beauty, like that of a young, slender shade-tree. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’ I felt my eyes prick with tears and stole a sideways glance at you. You were looking at me. Your eyes had the liquid brilliance of the day we had first met. I felt your gaze like a spotlight, something exclusively on me, for me, making me sparkle. You bent down and kissed me on the forehead. The next day I bought the white cotton dress.

I enjoyed our evening together. The restaurant had a live band, and you made them play old English songs I had never heard. You joked with me, gave me your portion of ice cream, and asked Mummy didn’t I look like a cool Champa tree in my white dress. Mummy, dewily beautiful in a peach salwar-kameez, put her arm around my shoulders. I knew she was only pretending, showing off her plump, fair arm against my bony shoulders. Only a short while ago she had complained about my untidy ways – leaving towels strewn on the floor, the jar of hair mousse unscrewed and daubs of toothpaste in the washbasin. But I was not afraid of comparisons any longer. You brought us back home after dinner and sat chatting late into the night. I could hear the soft drone of voices as I fell asleep.

The next morning, I emerged from my room for the milk and toast I always ate first thing in the morning, even before brushing my teeth. I found you sitting at the dining table in a white kurta-pyjama, a cup of tea by your elbow, reading the morning papers. I stood stock-still, in shock, trying to understand the meaning of your presence in the house, of your rumpled hair, of the faint red mark on your kurta. You looked over your reading glasses at me and smiled. I felt a jolt in my stomach and wanted to run to the toilet to throw up the bile I could feel rising in my throat.

‘Slept well, Golden Girl? Sumi told me you feel peckish in the morning, so I made your toast with my tea. Sit’ – you pointed to the chair next to yours – ‘and keep me company.’ There was a glass of milk and two pieces of toast on my favourite blue and white plate on the placemat. ‘I hope the milk is the right temperature and toast the right crispness! I will, of course, improve with practice! I think you and I will have these early mornings to ourselves a lot. Your mother is not an early riser.’ You were smiling, your eyes fixed on me, intent, penetrating. I sat down, and pushing the nausea away, nibbled at the toast. You returned to the newspaper. As I sipped the warm, sweet milk, you folded the paper, removed your reading glasses and looked at me. ‘Sona, your mother and I are planning to get married. I wanted to tell you myself. I think we can be very happy together. You know how fond I am of you. And I think you and I understand each other. You are very important to Sumi and to me. I hope you understand that, Sona.’

I understood. The panic in my abdomen slowly ebbed. You wanted to tell me yourself, you said we’d be happy together. It was me you really wanted, not Mummy. That was just a sham, an excuse. I was determined we would be, you and I, despite Mummy. I nodded and smiled. You caressed my hair and kissed me on the cheek.

III

Mummy and you married in a civil ceremony. There was a reception in the evening for your and Mummy’s friends and colleagues. There was not much family on either side – a frail, elder sister from your side and Mummy’s elder brother who rarely visited – but both you and Mummy had many friends, and the banquet hall was crowded. I wore a deep magenta lehenga, a colour not found in the visible spectrum of light, with a small, snug brocade choli and a tissue dupatta. You had said I looked like a bougainvillaea flower in it. It was a special occasion for me; you and I were to finally live under the same roof. You stood with Mummy at the main gate welcoming the guests – Mummy in a cream-and-gold tissue saree and you in the dark bandhgala, taller, more elegant and more handsome than anyone else in the room. I stood awkwardly at the entrance of the dining area, trying not to shift from foot to foot or chew my fingers, inviting the guests to eat. I had turned sixteen a fortnight ago, and you had said I was just right for the dinner-hostess duty. Putting your arm around my shoulders and cutting through Mummy’s misgivings, you had said, ‘It is a special occasion, and you are a special girl, Sona. I want you to look after our guests, please.’ Blood had hammered at my temples. I was special, and you wanted to show that to everyone. During the evening, you left Mummy’s side at the main entrance and walked over to me. ‘How is it going, Golden Girl? You are being gracious as ever and guests are feeding well?’

‘All well, Doc.’ I smiled.

The question of how to address you had come up. You preferred being called by your name and Mummy suggested adding your honorific ‘Doctor’ to it. I decided upon ‘Doc’.

‘That’s great! It makes me sound like a character out of the more disreputable of the nineteenth-century spy novels!’

I watched you all evening as you walked among the guests, talking, laughing. You are one of the very few people who have perfectly symmetrical bones – spine straight, shoulders perfectly aligned, neck carried at the right angle. It was a joy to see you move. From time to time, you came over to me or flashed me a look or a smile. I knew that you loved me.

Mummy and you went to a seaside resort for a few days for your wedding trip. You had said you were not keen on the short trip. I knew the real reason: it was because I could not come along. But in the end, you had given in to Mummy whose idea it was. Those days were unbearable for me. I thought of you with Mummy, and nausea overpowered me. I could barely eat and threw up every time images of her with you floated before me. The doctor came and prescribed medicines which only made me drowsy and sluggish. By the time you returned, I had lost five kilos and was unable to get up from the bed. Mummy immediately stopped all medicines, cooked soups and dal for me, and read my study material to me as I lay in bed. I could see you were impressed; in fact, you had said that very few mothers would be so devoted. You could not see through her. It did not occur to you that the reason she wanted me to be healthy and well-prepared for my exams was because she wanted so badly for me to get admission into an undergrad programme abroad and go away. She couldn’t wait for me to leave so she could have you to herself.

After the marriage, you had moved into our home. Mummy had said she did not wish to disrupt my life – my school, my tuition classes were all close to our home. I would have liked to live in your home where everything was yours, where I could have felt you everywhere. Life settled into a new pattern. Mummy and you left for work together and, most evenings, returned together. The two of you often went out in the evening for concerts or plays or dinner at the homes of mutual friends. I was not included in any of the outings, ostensibly because I needed to focus on my studies and preparations for the college entrance exams, but in reality, it was because she could see you liked me. In fact, those days I hardly got a chance to speak to you. By the time I returned from my classes, you would be out with Mummy, and when you returned, I would be asleep. I know this wasn’t what you wanted, but you were trapped. By marrying Mummy to be close to me, you had given her all the power.

One evening, I returned early from my classes. You were in the sitting room. ‘Golden Girl! At last! You’ve been overdoing the whole committed student thing, I hear. You have grown even more elf-like while I am becoming portly and old.’

Just seeing you there, relaxed and smiling, was overwhelming for me. You looked smilingly at me. ‘You are not old,’ I replied. You laughed. Mummy entered, dressed in a white chikankari outfit, mogra flowers in her hair. She always came at the wrong moment.

‘Do you hear, Sumi? Golden Girl here says I am not old. Next time you comment on my white hair, please to remember!’

‘I wish she’d remember to eat and rest. She has been worrying me this last month. Just look how thin she is. Just skin and bones.’

I hated her for saying that, pointing out my thin arms, my jutting shoulder blades. ‘I was just remarking on her growing slenderer.’ You looked at me. ‘It is becoming, in fact you remind me of a rather lovely girl I mooned over in my lost youth, but you must listen to Sumi and take care of yourself. You need stamina for writing those monsters of exams.’ You would have continued, but Mummy rushed you. ‘We are getting late. I am reciting today, and it won’t do for us to arrive after others.’

Mummy’s complaints about my thinness increased, although she herself was desperately trying to lose weight. She said she was worried about my immunity, my growth, but I knew that in reality she resented that you admired my slenderness. She laced my food with ghee, knowing very well that I disliked it. All that slimy stuff made me feel queasy and I had to make myself throw up secretly. There was absolutely nothing wrong with me. If Mummy would have just left me alone, just let me have you occasionally to myself, all would have been well. But she wouldn’t. She took me to see a doctor. The doctor was a pale-faced, tight-lipped man. I could see he took a dislike to me the first time he met me, and all that he has said to you about me is because like Mummy, he hates me. He examined me and asked silly questions, like was I being bullied at school, did I have a crush on some boy. In the end, he said there was nothing wrong with me, physically. Then he spoke to Mummy separately. I heard a bit of it as the door was not pulled shut. He mumbled about my vomiting being a response to something I did not like, that I perhaps resented your presence and could not accept you in place of my father.

Mummy must have told you what the doctor had said because after that consultation, I often caught you looking at me with anxious eyes. I wanted to tell you that the doctor was a fool. Why would I resent your presence in my life? You are my life. It is Mummy who is in the wrong place, always in the way. She became quite sticky, would not leave me alone with you, would take me to my favourite places without you, make every effort to keep us apart. You, of course, saw through it all. Your birthday was approaching. Mummy had planned a puja at home for the occasion and had invited friends. I wanted to get you something nice, but you said, instead of receiving gifts, you wanted to give gifts to mark your birthday.

‘How about buying you both sarees to wear for this puja that you have rigged up, Sumi?’

Mummy looked very pleased. ‘That’s a good tradition to begin, but I doubt if Sona would want a saree. She has always refused to wear one.’

That was true, but this was different – this was you offering to gift me a saree. I said I would love to have a saree of my own. You took us to the most famous saree emporium in the city. The salesman unfurled saree after saree, the colours and smells of the new sarees, their embellishments and texture, made my head swim. Finally, I picked a deep red silk one with gold paisleys that you had been fingering. Mummy looked doubtful. ‘This really isn’t the right style for a young girl…’ she said. The salesman sided with her. ‘I think the blue chiffon or the pink crêpe de Chine with silver work and crystals would suit her better. This red and gold is just right for madam herself. It would suit her fair—’ You had cut him off. ‘What nonsense. It would look very well on Sona. This peacock-blue one is the right one for you, Sumi. Here, drape it on and see.’ You had glanced at me over Mummy’s shoulder and smiled conspiratorially.

I wore the crimson saree and make-up for the first time on your birthday. Mummy was arranging flowers and offerings in large platters for the puja when I emerged from my room. She raised her head and looked at me. ‘That foundation is a shade too light for your skin, Sona, and the lipstick is too bright. Come here, the saree needs to be tucked right to give you some volume.’ She dabbed at my face with a bit of tissue and began rearranging my saree. Tears pricked my eyes. You came over.

‘What’s the matter Crimson Glory? Why the unhappy look? Doesn’t she look like a young pomegranate tree today, Sumi?’

Mummy gave my saree a final tug and smiled. ‘The colour does look better on her than I thought.’

It did not matter what she said. You thought I looked beautiful. That was the only thing that mattered. After the puja and lunch, some of your friends lounged about and recited poems. Mummy read some of her own compositions. I could see you enjoyed them very much. You recited several too. One of them was about a pomegranate tree, its fragile flaming flowers and secretive ruby fruits, and the intensity that lives in its slender trunk and branches. You smiled at me as you intoned the lines. I made two resolves that day – one, to write poetry. If it gave you so much pleasure, I was determined to learn to write it. And two, that Mummy must go for us to be together.

IV

My preparatory holidays had begun, and I was at home except for the coaching classes I attended. I stayed up nights, drawing up and discarding plans for getting Mummy out of the way. I fell asleep during the day and missed my classes a few times. Mummy was very angry when she found out about it. ‘I am fed up, Sona. You are not taking the medicines the doctor has prescribed, you are missing your coaching classes, your temper is growing worse by the day. Rekha said you threw the glass of milk at her when she tried to wake you up this morning. You are turning out to be more and more like your father. He could not see me happy and neither can you. If this goes on, I will wash my hands off you. I will send you to a boarding…’

The next evening, I prepared some soap-solution and poured it on the floor near the bathtub in the bathroom en-suite to your room. I just wanted to hurt her. How was I to know that Mummy had a seminar that day and you would return alone, that you would decide to take a shower immediately after coming back instead of going for your evening run like usual? I heard you fall, and sickness swept over me. I rushed to the bathroom and found you on the floor, your ankle bent at an unnatural angle. You were gasping with pain. I snatched a towel from the towel rail, wiped the slippery floor and helped you to the bed.

When I returned with an ice pack from the refrigerator, you were trying to sit up on the bed. ‘Seems like you’d need to help take your Doc to the doctor, Sona’ – you tried to smile – ‘Sumi is on her way, but it will take her some time to reach in this traffic and the doctor wants to see me immediately.’ I couldn’t speak. I had caused this pain to you. I wanted to bang my head against the wall, hurt myself for hurting you, but there was no time. You needed my help. I sent Rekha to fetch a taxi and helped you get up from the bed. You placed your arm around my shoulders and tried hard not to lean fully on me, but your injured leg could not take any weight. The intensity of the pain made you break out in a sweat, a groan escaped you and you gritted your teeth. I begged you to let me help you, to not put any weight on the injured foot. My voice sounded raspy, breathless in my own ears. As always, you saw my distress. ‘Don’t cry, Sona. There, I will place the weight of my hoary years on your tender shoulders.’ You even managed a smile to reassure me.

At the hospital, I did not wait for nurses or attendants and got a wheelchair for you, wheeling you to the emergency ward myself. I held your hand as the doctor examined you and, shaking his head, said he suspected a fracture. I wiped the sweat from your forehead as you were moved to a stretcher and taken to the radiology room. Through all the pain and suffering, I still felt a sweet relief – I was with you, I had you all to myself. But it was short-lived. While your foot was being X-rayed, Mummy arrived.

You had a fracture of the fibula, a lateral malleolus, the doctor said. A firm cast was put on your foot, from ankle to calf, and six weeks of complete rest prescribed. I threw up violently in the hospital washroom; the cleaning-woman made me sit on a plastic stool and fetched some water for me to rinse my mouth. We returned home. Mummy cried and thanked God alternatively all through the car ride home. ‘It could have been so much worse. You could have hit your head on the bathtub … How could Rekha leave the bathroom floor slippery like that? Oh God, Bhaumik, Bhaumik…’

I am sure you had guessed that it was I who had poured the soap-solution in the bathroom, that it was meant for her not you. You spoke in your soothing way: ‘Don’t cry, please, Sumi, just be still. It is all right. I am all right.’ You held Mummy, and I gritted my teeth.

At home, Mummy helped you to your room and closed the door behind her. I went to my room. You don’t know how I suffered that evening. I imagined your pain. I wanted to kill myself. After a while, Mummy came to my room. ‘Come, Sona, Bhaumik wants to see you.’ You were lying in bed dressed in fresh clothes and smelling of cologne. I stood near you, unable to say a word. You reached out and touched my cheek gently. ‘Poor Sona, you’ve had a rough time of it. I never suspected you could cry enough to fill a moderate-sized pool while fetching and carrying quite so energetically!’ I was unable to control myself and buried my head in your chest. ‘Don’t cry, Sona, don’t cry, honey…’ you said as you stroked my head and shoulders. It was bliss.

The next few weeks were our best time together. After a couple of days at home, Mummy had to return to work, and then it was just you and I. You spent the day in the living room on the futon, surrounded by books and papers and your laptop. I brought my books and sat beside you where Mummy used to. I watched over you. It was I who placed a small cushion under your ankle for elevation, got you juice, water, more books, your phone’s charger, anything you needed. We ate lunch together, and I helped you to your room to rest before leaving for my coaching class. Neither you nor I spoke much. There was no need. The understanding between us was perfect. You and I both knew. When you were allowed to walk a little, I accompanied you to the garden. We enjoyed peaceful walks. You told me the names of birds and trees. We gazed in silence at the melting western sky. But those short weeks passed quickly, and all too soon, you were permitted to go back to work. My exams began, and Mummy regained her ascendancy over you, helping you to and from the car, taking you for physiotherapy sessions. She virtually banished me from your presence on the pretext that I needed every bit of time for studying. I wasn’t fooled. She had seen how happy we were without her and wanted to separate us.

But I wasn’t worried. I had already formulated a plan. I brought home some sodium azide crystals from the chemistry lab. We used it as a preservative, and I knew it was highly toxic. I also brought a bottle of buffered isotonic saline. I prepared a solution of saline and sodium azide and stored it in an old jam jar in the back of the medicine cabinet in my bathroom.

V

The night my final exams got over, I filled a carefully cleaned small bottle of eye drops with the sodium azide solution I had made. I felt an intense energy in my body as I put the bottle in the pocket of my shorts and went to fetch my milk from the kitchen. As usual, both your and Mummy’s coffee mugs were on the tray, small plumes of steam rising from them. I had bought the mugs for Mummy and you right after your marriage and had got them personalized. Yours had a pair of glasses on a glazed yellow background with the words ‘Dr.’ on each lens, and Mummy’s a couple of mogra flowers. You liked your coffee without sugar and Mummy liked hers sweet, and the cups came in very handy. I took out the eye-drop bottle. I wasn’t sure how much solution I should administer and emptied half the bottle into Mummy’s cup. I carried the tray to the dining room just as Mummy entered, wearing a white muslin tunic, her hair loose. She smiled as she took the tray from my hands. ‘You should do something fun for a few days, Sona, before writing your SAT. Go to a salon tomorrow and get that unruly hair cut.’ She touched my hair with the tips of her fingers and kissed my cheek.

The next morning, the first day of my holidays, I woke up a little later than usual. The house felt empty. No one seemed to be around. I went to the kitchen to get my toast and milk and saw the note on the fridge, stuck, interestingly, with one of the coffee-mug-shaped magnets Mummy had brought back from the seaside trip. In a harried scrawl you had written that Mummy was very unwell, that you had rushed her to the hospital, and I was to call you when I woke up. It seemed to have worked. I warmed my milk and switched on the toaster. I thought carefully as I ate. Before giving you a call, I retrieved the jam jar from my bathroom and poured the contents down the toilet. Next, I wrapped the bottle in layers of newspaper and smashed it with one blow of my shampoo bottle. I then placed the bunched-up newspaper in a plastic bag, threw it in the communal trash bin outside and washed my hands carefully. Then I called you. Your voice sounded tired over the phone. ‘Sona, Sumi is not well at all. Doctors have stabilized her in the ICU, but you should come quickly.’

Mummy’s blood pressure had dropped dangerously, and she had difficulty breathing. Doctors said it was a near-fatal cardiac episode. If you had only waited a half hour before taking her to the hospital, all would have ended. But you did not know, I hadn’t told you about the plan. Though no one seemed to suspect anything, I was scared. You gently circled me with your arms and held me to your chest. My heart hammered in exhilaration and tears fell. ‘Don’t be afraid, Sona. Everything will be all right. I am here for you, do you understand?’ I did. There was still hope, but there were doctors and nurses all around and we must be careful.

As you know, things did not end as planned. After a few anxious days, Mummy was out of danger, and in a very few more days, back home. Doctors had concluded that perhaps her crash-diets, the supplements she was taking, and stress were responsible for the episode. She was very weak, though, her pretty complexion sallow and lustreless, her hair dry and lifeless. She took your place on the futon during the day now, reading and writing or simply gazing out the window. You called during the day, and I could not hide my loathing at the smile that played around her mouth, the way her eyes shone exultantly as she spoke to you. She noticed it and I caught her looking at me from time to time, her eyes troubled, brooding. I had to do something before she made her move, for I was sure she was plotting something. I still had the small eye-drop bottle, half-full with the sodium azide solution. Though I had been very careful about the jam jar, I had forgotten all about this bottle and it had remained in the pocket of my shorts. Rekha had found it, and I had snatched it from her. I had hidden it carefully in my cupboard. But I did not want to use the azide salt so soon. Another unexplained cardiac episode might raise suspicion. So I thought up another plan. I began mixing a strong laxative in her coconut water, cooled soy milk, lassi. I thought if she was weak and the hypotension recurred, doctors would put it down to her dehydrated condition. She declined rapidly and soon needed help to and from her room, but I could see she was uneasy. She insisted upon getting a nurse. ‘I don’t want Sona to spend her entire holiday cooped up at home, looking after me. She will go to the US soon, she should go out, resume her athletics class, spend time with her friends.’

I had, of course, not told her that I hadn’t written my SAT, that I had no intention of letting her separate me from you. The nurse supervised the preparation of Mummy’s meals, and I had no opportunity to slip in the laxative. Soon she began to regain her strength.

You remember the evening I came back from my athletics class to find you and her sitting at the dining table like old times? She had my notebook, the one in which I had begun composing poetry, open on the table, and was laughing helplessly. Seeing me, she wiped her eyes and held out her arms to me. ‘Sona, sweetheart!’ In an auto-reflex, I went to her. Holding me close she said, ‘Please, stick to your science, beta. Poetry is really not for you unless you want to attempt the comic! To call someone a perfect skeleton, balanced and integrated, and extol the length of the femur and the firmness of the humerus might be good science but is very bad poetry!’

I felt a hot wave of anger rise inside me. I stood stiffly in the circle of her arms as she mocked me. And you, even you, smiled. That night, I retrieved the eye-drop bottle. I had to use it again; she was turning you against me, making me look ridiculous before you. I went to the kitchen, the bottle held in my fist. The mugs were on the tray, but they were not the usual mugs. These were a pair, exactly alike, deep blue in colour with pink elongated rhombuses on them. As I stood hesitating, Mummy entered. ‘What’s the matter, Sona?’

‘I … I came for my milk,’ I stuttered.

She looked at me strangely. ‘You’ve had your milk. You had it immediately after dinner. What’s that in your hand?’

‘It’s … it’s just some eye drop … I have dry eyes…’ I turned quickly and went back to my room. My heart was pounding. I was certain she suspected me. I had to do something quickly.

The next day, when Rekha went out on an errand, I made two cups of tea. I poured the remaining sodium azide solution into hers and placed the two cups and a plate of her favourite biscuits on the tray. She looked almost her usual self as she lay against the cushions on your futon. She smiled upon seeing me. ‘Spoiling your old mother before you go away to college, Sona?’ She reached for the cup, the wrong cup.

‘That’s mine. It has no sugar,’ I said quickly and handed her the right one.

‘Since when have you stopped taking sugar in your tea?’ She looked surprised.

I took a hasty gulp. I was worried that she might ask to taste my tea and find out it was sweet. She placed her cup on the floor beside her and went back to the book she was reading. I wanted her to drink the tea quickly. Rekha would return soon. I wanted it to be over by the time she came back. So I told her to drink the tea before it got cold. She looked at me, the strange look from last night in her eyes again, her brows drawn together. ‘Why are you in such a hurry for me to drink the tea, Sona?’ she asked.

And then it dawned on me. She knew. She knew all along, perhaps even before I brought her the tea. She had taken the cup so she could send it for a chemical analysis, so that she could accuse me of trying to kill her, hand me to the police, take me away from you forever like she had always wanted to. A red curtain fluttered before my eyes and my body throbbed. I placed my cup on the floor carefully and picked up the heavy stone candlestick that stood against the wall. I swung it with all my might towards her head as she lay there reading. She must have sensed the movement and flinched away. The candlestick missed her head and connected with her shoulder instead. The impact tore the seams of her tunic. The skin on her shoulder broke.

‘Sona!’ she shrieked and raised her arms to protect her head as I brought the candlestick down again and again on her body, swinging it each time with all my weight. I could barely see through the rippling red curtain, but I heard each impact distinctly. She rolled off the futon and frantically jabbed at her phone, still trying to duck from my blows. I did not realize she had managed to dial your number. I learned later from you that you had heard her shrieks, her calling my name again and again as you raced to your car. I did not hear Rekha enter the house, but suddenly she was in the living room, letting out piercing screams. I am not certain what happened after that. All I remember is there were red splotches on the green silk of the futon, and I was crying that your favourite seat had been ruined.

That evening you came to my room and stood at the door. You were not smiling, you did not call me your ‘Golden Girl’. She had managed to turn you against me. You said you knew everything – the tea, the stone candlestick. ‘Sumi has begged and begged that the matter not go anywhere. Do you realize what you have done, Sona? Her right arm is smashed, she has a head injury and two of her ribs are broken. You need help, Sona, and I cannot bring Sumi back here until you are here. Tomorrow, I will take you to a hospital where they can help you.’

I, of course, understood that you were doing this to protect me from being handed over to the police. She must have insisted that I be sent to the mental asylum. After you left, I rooted around the cabinet in your room and found the X-ray of your fractured ankle. I studied it carefully, holding it in front of one of the lamps. Then I sat on the stained futon and carefully marked the exact spot on my ankle. I lifted the stone candlestick and brought it down on my ankle with all my strength. I passed out with the pain.

The next day, the doctor at the hospital identified it as a fracture of the fibula, almost in the same place as yours.

VI

I am back home now. You can’t put me in the asylum until my ankle heals. You say she has told you not to, but I know better. I see you sometimes, but you never stay for long. She is out of the hospital, and you have moved her into your old apartment. It is almost four weeks now and soon it would be time for the cast to be removed. I have already picked the next bone. Another ankle fracture would look suspicious, so it will be the left wrist this time. I will break all the bones in my body before I allow us to be divided.