Company of Women by Khushwant Singh

Author:Khushwant Singh
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788184753264
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2016-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

I went to see Sonu every morning. The fever left her, her throat cleared up. She missed her period. She was angry.

‘Why didn’t you use condoms?’ she demanded.

‘You didn’t ask me to; I didn’t take any with me. If you did not want to get pregnant you should have taken precautions. In any case if you don’t want a child you can have it aborted. At an early stage it is a very simple operation.’

She turned her face away. I noticed her breasts looked bigger: just five days of hectic sex had filled her up. Her mother came in looking as sour as ever. ‘You could have been more patient: she is only a child of twenty-one. There was plenty of time to start a family.’

I didn’t answer back. Only noticed how closely her daughter resembled her. A little more fat round the face, bottom and belly and the two would be like twins, though over thirty years apart.

The family now had yet another grouse against me. However, I made it a point to visit them once every day; if not mid-morning then on my way back from the office. My father wanted to see Sonu but I put him off with one excuse or the other to spare him the indignity of being cold-shouldered.

In ten days Sonu was up and about. But every time I suggested she come home she had some excuse to put it off. ‘I’m not well,’ she would say one day, and on another she would whine, ‘I keep throwing up …’ And each time she would add, ‘You are out all day, who will look after me? Not your old man. Mummy says I should stay here till the baby is born.’

I did not like her calling my father ‘old man’. I also thought she was behaving badly. ‘It’s a strange marriage,’ I said with some sarcasm. ‘A five-day honeymoon and the bride refuses to return to her husband’s home. Did I rape you or treat you badly? Don’t you want me to make love to you again? You seemed to enjoy it while it lasted.’

She did not have any answers. ‘Mummy says pregnant women should not have sex. There is the danger of the child being aborted.’

Frustrated, I did not go to see Sonu for a whole week. Nor did I ring up to find out how she was doing. It was a bad beginning for a marriage meant to last a lifetime. I was determined to call her bluff. If necessary I would move the court for the restitution of conjugal rights. Fortunately better sense prevailed as the Rai Bahadur’s family realized they were in the wrong. It was Sonu who rang me up. She complained, ‘You haven’t come to see me for a week or more; are you angry with me?’

‘Yes, I am,’ I replied bluntly. ‘And with your parents. They have no right to keep you away from your lawfully wedded husband. They make me feel as if I have committed some crime making their daughter pregnant.

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