III. Puli Raja #3
I heard the gate creaking, the rattle of the stopper falling into the holder.
Through the window I spotted my father. Instead of coming inside, I saw him stop by the garden tap.
He turned it on, and after a minute he picked up the hose and began watering the hibiscus tree.
In response, I heard my mother pull out the dining chair, set down a plate, the chink of a spoon, the ice tray in the freezer, the chink of cubes hitting the crystal glass in which my father drank brandy.
Just one glass, every night. My mother stood by his side every day, for as long as he ate, serving him the stir-fry or the rasam without him needing to ask, neither of them saying one word to each other the whole time.
This is how their truce held, and continued to hold for twenty-two years. It was as strong as it was delicate.
I continued to watch my father. At his age, most men looked shrunken; smaller.
But my father had remained a handsome man, had maintained his posture, his head thick with mostly gray hair.
When talking on the phone, if anyone interrupted him, he still snapped his fingers, just once, but in such a decisive, authoritative way that it would quieten you in an instant.
I was his spitting image, anyone who ever saw us together always said so, my mother said so with pleased resignation.
It was comforting to know my future, what I’d look like twenty years from now.
My father finished watering the plants, he turned off the tap and came inside.
I hesitated, went into the hall and asked my mother to give me a rag.
She looked at me quizzically but she was distracted; we could hear my father in the hall, turning up the television, the news jingle.
She went into the kitchen and brought me a clean rag.
In my room, I began dusting. I pulled out all the books from the shelf next to the door, wiped the shelves clean one after the other.
I banged the books against the floor before putting them back on the shelf in order.
They were a jumbled mess, I sorted them by height and color.
After that, I went into the bathroom and washed the rag in the sink.
I squeezed out the dirty water, washed and wrung it again and came back out.
I took everything off my desk, wiped the surface, rearranged everything.
From my pen stand, I fished out my fountain pen, and everything else I emptied into the rubbish bin.
I cleaned out the bottom of the pen stand and put the fountain pen back in.
I opened the drawers, upturned them on the floor.
I crouched and sorted through the things there.
The report cards, I hesitated for a moment, I opened them and closed them.
Kindergarten, first grade. The comments from my teachers.
Obedient child. Plays well with others. Does not fight.
A yellow plastic star badge for good behavior. A class leader badge from sixth grade.
I ripped up the report cards into fourths, put them in the waste basket along with the star badge.
The class leader badge was metal, it was old and rusty, I tossed it on top of the report cards.
I was wiping the wet rag against the empty bottom of my desk drawers when my father came into my room.
He turned on the lights. I hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten.
In clear light I saw that on my bed I’d upturned everything from the closet. The piles of old clothes. He didn’t sit down. He looked around the room for a moment, then met my gaze. “Don’t start all this,” he said.
“Your mother told me. You know why you shouldn’t. You won’t be able to control yourself, you’ll tell her. It is not easy to keep secrets from the people you love. You marry her. Then what? You’d have ruined both your lives for no reason. Stop it now, all right?”
“I won’t tell her,” I said.
He looked at me incredulously. He lowered his voice, “Need I remind you, Arjun? Do you really need me to say it out loud? Maybe it has been long enough that you forgot. You need to be reminded, Arjun.”
I shook my head, “Please, Daddy, don’t―” He snapped his fingers, and I fell quiet.
“You murdered the boy she loved. You beat his head in with a cricket bat. And if you start things with her now, you will tell her. Your life will be over. Your mother’s life will be over. You will not see this girl again, is that clear?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
He turned to leave, but frowned and turned back again.
“What is that?”
His eyes were on the cricket bat leaning against the windowsill. “Surely it is not the same bat. It can’t be.”
I turned to look as well. I always wondered if my mother stood where I was standing now.
If she saw us―me and my father―standing in the yard outside, the tap turned on.
Standing there in my underwear, in the dark, not wincing when the ice-cold water from the rubber hose hit my body.
My father telling me to scrub my nails with an old toothbrush.
Ganesh’s blood, trickling down my body into the roots of the hibiscus tree.
“No,” he shook his head. “No. No. Surely it is not the same bat. Surely you are not that stupid.”
“No, Daddy.”
“No. You aren’t. You are my son.”