the nuptial bed

Upendra Nath Ashk

        Keshi looked up from his newly-wedded wife’s eyes to the head-board of the old-fashioned bed, in which was framed a miniature of his mother. She was a lovely woman, fine-featured with large eyes and curling lashes; a smile hovered on her slightly parted lips, revealing a row of pearl-white teeth. Unconsciously his mother’s image was projected on that of his bride’s. How closely the two women resembled each other! His head went into a whirl; a shiver ran down his body. He shook his head vigorously and tried to take his eyes off the picture. It was of no avail.

Till a few years ago, he had lain on his mother’s bosom just as he was now lying on his wife’s. The memories of those years came flooding back into his mind. Instead of kissing his bride’s almond eyes and eager lips, he slid off her body and lay down beside her like one utterly exhausted. He stared at the long strings of jasmine beads which hung like a canopy over his bed. His hand fell on the jasmine petals which were spread like a thick counterpane over the bed sheets. He wanted to leap from his bed and break out of the fragrant nuptial room in which he found himself imprisoned.

Keshi did not jump off the bed. He lay where he was, still and silent. What would his bride think! That fear alone kept him on the nuptial bed. He shook his head again, even more violently than before. But instead of ridding his mind of his mother’s image, it produced a myriad more, which came tumbling down through the spate.

...It is the same bed in the same room. His parents are lying side by side. He is staring at them from his cot in the verandah. How petite and pretty his mother looks beside his father.

...His mother is doing her hair in front of the mirror. He stares at her from behind the door. She is as beautiful as the fairy that his ayah tells of in her stories. His mother, seeing his reflection in the mirror, asks him to come to her. He goes to her and buries his face in her lap. She ruffles his hair with one hand and continues to comb her own with the other.

...What’s wrong with Papa? A man comes in to see him everyday. He has a pair of snakes hanging round his neck. He puts the tails of the serpents in his ears and feels Papa’s chest with their head. Then he sticks long needles in Papa’s arms. Papa does not cry but Keshi begins to howl. His mother clasps him to bosom and takes him to the next room.

...Papa is lying on the floor. He does not move. Everyone is crying. His mother is crying; she kisses him and continues to cry. Women help his mother to break all her bangles and then wipe off the vermillion in the parting of her hair. They drag Keshi out of her lap. He shrieks and howls but no one bothers to comfort him.

...It is the same bed. He lies where his Papa had lain before him. His mother is beside him. She is dressed in a plain, white sari. The morning sun is streaming through the fanlight but she sleeps on, without a care in the world. He stares at her face. Her features are truly as delicate as a fairy’s. Her eyes are closed, her hair scattered about her shoulders. She is like the princess who was woken out of her spell by Prince Charming. He edges towards her and kisses her on the cheek. She opens her eyes, stretches her arms and takes him in her embrace. She kisses him on his forehead, eyes and lips.

...He lies with his head on his mother’s bosom. She tells him the story of the prince who crossed the seven seas to marry the princess of his heart’s desire. She finishes the story and asks him. ‘Will you marry a princess?’

‘I will marry you.’

‘Silly boy! Whoever heard of a son marrying his mother!’

She promises him that she will find him a bride just like herself.

‘Then I will have this bed as well,’ he says looking at his mother’s beautiful portrait in the head-rest.

‘Yes, of course! This bed will be my wedding present to you and your bride.’

‘What’s the matter? Aren’t you feeling well?’ His bride turns over, feels his forehead and runs her fingers through his hair.

‘It’s nothing at all,’ he answers shaking his head to snap the chain of thought. He tries to laugh, it turns into a long sigh.

His mother had been true to her word. The bride that she had chosen for him was an exact image of herself — slender and comely. Her eyes were large, her features clear cut, het lips soft and her teeth glistened like a row of pearls. A large bed had been sent with the dowry; but his mother had fulfilled her old vow and laid out her own precious bed for him to consummate his wedlock. She had even given up her own bedroom to the bridal pair.

The bride bent over her groom. She gazed into his eyes to see if she could find out why his ardour had cooled so suddenly; but she got no closer to the truth. She hesitated a little; then began to fondle his hair.

For a while Keshi lay still; then he put his arms round his bride’s neck and drew her close to him. He stroked her hair, her cheeks and her lips. The cobwebs were swept out of his mind. The soft, fair body of the woman imparted some of its warmth to him and hot blood began to course in his veins. He kissed her, laid her beside him and buried his face in her warm breasts. It was time he made love to his newly wedded wife, he thought, but he could not bring himself to face the picture. Without raising his head he pushed his pillow against the head-board. Then he looked up. His mother’s face still peered at him from behind the pillow. ‘No, no, no,’ he cried within himself and again lay on his back like one defeated. Angry with himself he leapt out of the nuptial bed.

The full moon sieved through the chick-curtain; and lit the verandah with a soft silvery light. Keshi paused by the niche and looked at the moon-beams playing on the lawn. The cool breeze soothed his overwrought nerves. He went out into the garden amongst the beds of phlox and verbena. Dahlias, heavy with their own weight swayed in the breeze. Bordering the lawn was a neatly pruned hedge of henna, and beyond it a bed of marigolds. A rambler rose climbed in spirals over a cluster of nasturtiums. Keshi examined some of the flowers, smelt some and caressed the others. In the daylight these flowers dazzled the eyes with their gaudy colours; now they were soft in the moonlight, like a balm for strained nerves. The bright yellows and pinks had turned pale whites; the deep crimsons, the blues and the mauves were repainted in sombre hues.

Keshi came to the cottage wall where the jasmine blossomed. In the dark shadow of the wall, the jasmine flowers gleamed like petalled pearls. Jasmines in moonlight reminded him of the lines of a song:

‘After a long time the jasmine has blossomed

My courtyard is filled with fragrance,

A heavenly fragrance.’

Now that his courtyard was in fact fragrant, the words of the song were lost in a pit of oblivion. Keshi walked stiffly up and down between the cottage and the gate. When he was walking back to the cottage for the second time he noticed a light in the window of the corner room. His mother had obviously not gone to bed. Perhaps his aunt and other kinswomen were also awake discussing him and his bride. What infinite pains his mother had taken in decorating his nuptial bed! The women had cleared the dining room of the table and chairs and adorned it to receive the bride. They had carried out the ceremonial connected with the reception of a new bride, lifting her veil with infinite care. While he sat amongst his friends, they were arranging the wedding presents, and the furniture, which had been received in the dowry, in his room and also decorating his mother’s room for the first night of the married couple. The innumerable guests and the hundred odds and ends to attend to, had given his mother little time for sleep. He had seen her going in and out of her bedroom with his aunt and a young woman who was a distant cousin of his mother’s, busy in their task of beautifying the bridal suite. His mother’s face was lit with joyful radiance. It seemed that the sleepless nights, the running about and the endless bother about everything were in fact all centred round the embellishment of that one room. Many a time he went in on some pretext or the other to see what his mother and aunt were up to, but each time they bustled him out: even a casual glance at the room was forbidden till the nuptial night.

Often while talking to his friends during the wedding ceremonies, or listening to women’s banter, Keshi’s eyes would settle on his mother. Although she was nearing forty and the twenty-two years of widowhood had hardened her expression and etched dark rings around her eyes, the wedding of her only child seemed to have wrought a miracle in her. Not a trace of fatigue showed on her face; the circles around her eyes had vanished. She looked exquisite in her white sari. To Keshi she was the most beautiful of all women he had ever seen.

Keshi feared that the fatigue and the sleepless nights would make his mother ill. Every night before he retired he would go to her and plead, ‘Mother, go to bed now!’ Far from resting herself she would instead come to his bed, gently rub oil on his temples and brow till he fell asleep. Then she would go back to her work.

Keshi had formed a habit of having oil rubbed into his scalp. During his examinations when he stayed up all night and wanted a couple of hours of sleep during the day, his mother would rub oil on his head. Even then Keshi, unable to stop gazing at her, would refuse to fall asleep. His mother would press the palms of her hands on his eyes and kiss them; she would run her fingers across his forehead, their soft silken touch laden with love that gradually made his lids heavy with sleep and at last he would fall into a deep slumber.

Keshi had learnt this art from her. Whenever his mother had insomnia because she was tired or worried, he would sit by her pillow and rub oil behind her ears till she fell asleep. When he was younger — thirteen or fourteen — his mother would often pull his head down and kiss him on his lips. When he grew into manhood, got his bachelor’s and then his master’s degree and was appointed professor of psychology in the local college, his mother began kissing his forehead instead of his lips.

All through the festivities Keshi wished he could rescue his mother from the crowd of women who had come to the wedding, lift her up bodily and force her to go to bed. But there she was as busy as ever, weaving garlands around the nuptial bed. When the flowers ran out she sent out people all over the town to bring more. She squandered money as it were of no value. He wanted to say to her, ‘Ma, why take all this trouble at the expense of your health? Your love means more to me than these ceremonial festivities, more than all these festoons and garlands. You mean more to me than such things. You will make yourself ill.’ But he knew that she would pay no heed to what he said. ‘Son, my own wedding was a non-descript sort of affair,’ she had told him when he tried to protest. ‘Your father was only a low-paid clerk; he hadn’t yet taken the competitive examination for the covenanted service. I do not want your bride to have any regrets. You just wait and see how lavishly I shall decorate the nuptial-bed for your bride!’

His aunt had pushed him on to the bed and said with a laugh, ‘Don’t you waste your time expounding philosophy!’ It took him some time to catch the insinuation.

He had had this room for a long time and he was familiar with everything in it — the bed and the rest of the furniture. His mother’s dressing table, her vanity case, her papier mache bangle box, her table lamp for which she had paid a tidy sum in Bombay, had been left just as they always had been. What made it look brighter were the garlands of jasmine buds — the first of the season. They were hung in long strings round a canopy frame to look like a floral mosquito net. They were also spread thick over the bed sheets. His bride lay on them like the goddess Flora. Her face was half-covered by her veil. The bed sheet was a virginal white.

Keshi imagined the scene of his mother’s wedding. She was the bride of a low grade clerk in the canal department. It must have been in a hovel, on a coarse stringed charpoy; in the dim light of a hurricane lantern. It all seemed so hazy and dreamlike. Later, his father had risen to the post of an executive engineer, and then his mother had had everything she wanted. But she never forgot the disappointment of her wedding night. She had adorned her son’s nuptial-bed as she would have liked her own to have been. In this way she was fulfilling a desire which had been frustrated. But in so doing she had unwittingly wrought instruments of torture for her son. Whichever way he turned in that bedroom, memories of past days came crowding into his mind.

‘Be sure not to waste your time expounding philosophy.’ His aunt’s words and her laughter echoed in his brain...Was he caught up in a web of his own fancy? What was his bride thinking? He thought of the many lives which he had heard were tragically destroyed by the groom’s impotence on the first night. But was it necessary for a man to prove his manhood on the first night of his marriage? Why did women set such store by it? Did they take a vicarious pleasure in preparing the bed, and live their own nuptial night over again? Did his mother also...?

The trouble she was taking in decorating the bed giving up her own for the purpose... bedecking it with flowers to demonstrate what her own nuptial-bed should have looked like — if her husband’s poverty and other obligations had not robbed her of the pleasure... Keshi beat his head violently with his fist. What was wrong with him? Why had he asked his mother for that bed? Yet he was only a child when he had asked. His mother should have known better.

He went back into the verandah. He saw his bride standing by the alcove. ‘Are you not feeling well?’ she asked him anxiously.

‘I am all right.’

‘Have I upset you in any way?’

Keshi wanted to laugh out as loudly as he could; even his wife had just one obsession. He put his arm round her waist and led her indoors, resolving firmly to lay aside his complexes and do what was expected of him. He pushed her on to the bed leaned over her and snapped open the buttons of her blouse.

She had put the pillow back in its place. And once more Keshi’s eyes fell on his mother’s picture. And once more his brain became fuddled. He shook himself free and rose from the bed. His wife caught at his hand.

‘What is the matter?’

Keshi glanced towards the door. How much easier it would have been if his mother had decorated his room instead of her own! His room was stacked with furniture received in the dowry, and other oddments collected for the wedding. He did not even have the key of his room. Keshi cast a dispirited glance towards the verandah. Moonbeams played on the floor. He exclaimed: ‘Look, how lovely it is in the moonlight! Let’s take a stroll outside.’

The bride rose and re-adjusted her clothes. She took a quick glance in the mirror, tidied her hair, drew her veil across her forehead and followed her husband.

They strolled up to the gate and back to the verandah twice without speaking to each other. She tried to break the ice by saying something about the moonlight, but Keshi made no response; the two continued to stroll in silence.

The heady spring moonlight did not change their mood. The bride was perplexed at her groom’s extraordinary behaviour. From her girl friends (some of whom were now mothers) she had heard of what happened between newly married couples on the first night. Her husband had started in the same way and then suddenly changed his mind. She had heard people praise his good looks, his learning, his gentleness. He was a lecturer at the university. Her father had made enquiries about him not only from his fellow lecturers, but also from the students and had only finalised the marriage negotiations after he was fully satisfied. No one had suggested that the boy was eccentric or slightly unhinged. Yet when she thought of him in his efforts to make love, her future seemed extremely bleak to her. Glancing furtively at him, she continued to walk beside him, barely noticing the lovely moonlight.

And Keshi’s mind was like a quagmire; he could not find a way out of his dilemma. He continued his monotonous pacing with his hands clasped behind him as if they were chained to each other. When they came to the gate again he spoke brusquely, ‘Come, let’s go out for a while.’

‘It is rather late,’ she protested gently.

Keshi recalled that one of his friends, relating an amorous affair, had told him that the lane between the water tank and the Grand Trunk Road was lonely and shaded — an ideal place for lovers...

‘Only as far as the water tank,’ he pleaded.

He opened the gate. His bride followed him in trustful silence. Keshi began to explain the topography: It was once an exclusive residential area for senior English officials of the Railway; after Independence the bungalows had been taken over by Indians. When they passed by the flour mill, he explained to her how wheat and corn were ground. At the cold storage plant he recounted how 40,000 maunds of potatoes could be kept, to be marketed out of season. When they came to the press building, he peered through the window-panes and loudly began to explain the miracle of the rotary machine: how a blank sheet went in at one end and emerged at the other as a newspaper. He was heading for the railway station when he recalled what his friend had said about the lane connecting the water tank and the Grand Trunk Road. They turned towards the gate of the level crossing. It was closed. Keshi saw the red light and explained: ‘This gate is an awful nuisance. There is always some train or the other passing through. The station had been extended, but no one has bothered with this gate. They should have an over-bridge here.’

There was still some time for the train. They crossed the line by a side gate and came to the water-tank. The right half of the road was open and lighted; the other half was dark. When Keshi turned towards the dark, his wife protested, ‘Let’s go home; it is very late,’ but Keshi put his right arm round her waist. ‘Just a little further,’ he coaxed, ‘see how the moon comes through the branches!’

‘Why not the other side? It is a wide open road.’

‘Are you scared?’ he mocked gently, bending over to kiss her forehead.

The girl shook herself free in embarrassment. ‘What are you doing... right on the road...’

Keshi laughed. Once more he put his arm round her waist and exclaimed, ‘Who on earth will see us here at this time of the night!’ Again, he bent to kiss her, but before he could do so the head-lights of a motor caught them in a blinding glare; a truck roared past. Barely had they recovered when another truck came along — followed by a whole convoy of trucks. ‘Lonely, quiet road indeed,’ muttered Keshi himself. The romantic mood vanished.

‘Let’s go back,’ pleaded the girl in a tearful voice. ‘I am tired.’

‘This is the main road; trucks and cars run at all hours of the day and night,’ explained Keshi. ‘Let’s go to the M.T. Lines. The road up to the church should be quite deserted.’

‘I am very tired,’ she begged.

He took her firmly by the waist and led her towards the open road to the military training lines.

The bungalows on either side of the road were bathed in the moonlight; still, as if taken by surprise. Beneath, the trees, the light and the shade were like fretwork forming a new pattern each time a gust of breeze shook the branches. Keshi tried to guess where the Queen-of-the-night blossomed; it breathed its fragrance into the atmosphere. He twined his arm round his wife’s waist and took her under the shade of the trees.

‘Are you very tired?’ he asked.

She did not answer, but put her head against her husband’s chest. He drew her face to his and kissed her on the lips.

The beam of a torch flashed from across the road; the couple sprang apart. Keshi went pale; his heart began to beat rapidly. He remembered that no one was allowed to come to the M.T. Lines after midnight.

A group of soldiers in dark-green uniforms came by singing a song from the latest film they had seen.

‘Are you the moon when it is full

Or the sun in its glory?

Whatever you be

By the grace of God you are matchless in beauty.’

Despite the moonlight they flashed the light of their torch on the couple.

Keshi had wanted to take his bride in his arms, look into her eyes and repeat the opening lines of the song: ‘Are you the moon when it is full or the sun in its glory?’ But the bad manners of the soldiers quelled the romantic upsurge. He remembered an incident in which a friend and his sister who came to dine at a bungalow in the M.T. Lines were involved. They hadn’t realised how late it was and were unable to find a rickshaw. When they were walking homewards at half past twelve they were stopped by the soldiers. They had to go back to their hosts to prove they were brother and sister...

Before his bride said anything again about going back, Keshi turned his steps homewards. When the soldiers had flashed their torch on his bride’s face, Keshi had been roused to such a temper that he wanted to grip the fellow by the collar and slap him on the face. But, had there been a scene and if anyone had asked what the professor and his bride were doing at the late hour in the deserted lane, what could he have replied? ...He had resisted the impulse and all his spleen was vented on his mother — on the bed she had given him — and on his impotence.

He walked back at a brisk pace; his bride followed, dragging her feet a few steps behind him. When he entered the gate, he slowed down. The girl, clearly annoyed, went ahead at a quickened step, leaving him to follow. When Keshi came into the bedroom she was lying on the bed. One end of her sari was on the floor. The low cut blouse revealed the contours of her soft, warm breasts. Keshi wanted to go down on his knees and put his head in her lap. But once again (and without any volition on his part) his eyes travelled from his bride to his mother’s portrait.

He stood in the centre of the room lost in thought. The girl stared at the ceiling, tears brimming her eyes. Keshi glanced at the door to his room. ‘Isn’t this door bolted from the outside?’

‘Yes,’ she replied with her gaze still fixed on the ceiling. Keshi walked round the room twice. ‘Where is the key?’

‘Probably with aunty; she had all the furniture put inside.’

Keshi went out to the other end of the house. The light in his mother’s bedroom had been switched off. The other women had obviously gone to sleep too. Should he wake up his mother? If the aunt happened to wake up too, she would make fun of him. He came back and walked about the bedroom for a while. He stole a glance at his bride. She was still gazing stonily at the ceiling. He went to the door of his bedroom and put his shoulder against it. The bottom latch was firm and would not yield. His mother always used bottom latch. If it had been the upper latch he could have smashed the glass pane on the top of the door and undone the bolt.

He stepped back and examined the door. Both sides had three panes of glass each and the woodwork. If he broke the third pane he could get his hand to the bottom latch. He wanted to smash the glass with his fist; but the thought of waking up his mother was like a cold shower. He clenched his fists and resumed his wanderings in the room. He went round a few times and again stopped in front of the door. He looked at its base. The right side was somewhat damaged. He peered more closely. A crack showed clearly through the paint. He squatted on the floor, rested his back against the bed and pressed his heel against the crack with all his strength. The bed slid backwards but the door did not yield.

The bride lay stiff and unmoving; her gaze remained fixed on the ceiling. She seemed to take no notice of the bed sliding. Keshi stole a glance at her. She turned towards him. Their eyes met. Wasn’t there just a trace of contempt in her eyes? Didn’t she look at him as if he were a little mad? An insane impulse possessed Keshi, his rational faculties vanishing into thin air. He leapt up and with one powerful blow smashed the central pane of the door. The glass splintered and fell on the other side.

The bride sat up with a start. A look of astonishment came on her face as she rose and stood by her husband. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ she asked irritably.

Keshi did not reply. He did not even look at her. He put his arms through the broken pane and undid the latch on the other side. The door yielded as he hit the pane. Holding it with his left hand, he carefully withdrew his right arm. Even so his elbow was scratched.

Blood began to ooze through his torn sleeve.

‘Hai, what you have done!’ The girl cried. At once her voice was full of concern. She looked around to see if she could find something to bandage the cut.

Keshi paid no heed to her. He pushed the door open with both his hands and went in, switching on the light. The room was packed with wedding presents and the dowry furniture — dressing table, almirah, bundles of clothes, trays of sweets and dried fruit. The bed that had been sent in the dowry was also there. It was loaded with all kinds of garments. He picked them up in both his arms and flung them on the couch.

The bride had come in behind him. In her eyes was not bewilderment but fear. Keshi turned round and put his hands on her shoulders. He gazed into her frightened eyes; then drew her to him and kissed her on the mouth. Through her fear, she felt her husband’s indifference change suddenly to passion; she felt his hot breath behind her ears. Slowly her petrified limbs relaxed in his warm embrace and she began to fondle his hair.

Early next morning Keshi’s mother woke up and came to the bridal chamber. Alarmed to see the door open, she tip-toed in and parted the curtain. What she saw, made her gasp. The decorated room was as empty as a mausoleum. Her eye fell on the other door and the splinters of glass on the floor and her alarm grew. Was there a robber in the house? She crept forward to see for herself. On the threshold she stopped dead in surprise. The bridal pair lay fast asleep on the rough unmade bed, with just the cushions of the sofa beneath them.