Memory of Light by Ruth Vanita

Author:Ruth Vanita [Vanita, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143497660
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
Published: 2020-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

4

It comes back to me in scenes, not so different from the way she comes back to me in dreams. Sharad frequents my dreams but not as much, usually inhabiting some odd version of the old house in his village.

An autumn evening—while waiting for the men to start drifting in, we went up to the roof just after maghrib. The pigeons had retired and could be heard stirring and murmuring. We sat on the low ledge and as I told her more about Maryam, the heavy golden moon made its way upwards. Behind us, the city glimmered. She listened with her usual sympathy, as if completely absorbed. Later, when I knew her better, I could tell when her mind was dividing itself, one part watching. Later, too, she told me that was the moment she knew it was only a matter of time. Now she knew she could lose me, knew too that I was not a virgin bold only in verse.

We drifted to the middle of the terrace, arms around each other, and our lips almost touched when Chand appeared at the top of the stairway and announced sardonically, ‘Your guests are waiting for you’, so we ran down the stairs, hand in hand, into the lamp-lit room and their amused gazes.

Shortly after Diwali she fell sick and, fleeing her mother’s ministrations and Kishen’s importunings, took refuge in my room. Her awkwardly graceful body rolled up in my quilt, her narrow forehead beaded with fever, her eyes shrinking into her fine-boned face.

As she recovered, the air cleared, the stars brightened, the first tinge of a chill appeared. Often, we sat up almost till dawn; that particular night she was showing me her mother’s collection of old paintings. Only one light burnt as she unfolded the silk wrappings. We sat close together, heads bent over the delicate fabrics.

‘Raga Bihag,’ she said. A woman in mustard-gold and red on a flowered bed, shoulders bent backwards, arms stretched above her head as if awaking from sleep, another stepping towards her with a hand-mirror, and a third turning away to pick blossoms from a tree just outside the canopy. As we looked down at the picture, our fingers touched, entwined, sent lightning coursing up my arm, our hands opened, covered each other, closed, bone fierce against bone. A gust blew in from the gallery, set the little bells on the hookah tinkling, and the flame went out. In blessed darkness, we slid back on the divan against the wall, her lips travelled up my arm. Moonlight showed me her face, mouth half-open as if in agony. One instant suspended, then I grasped her face with both hands; her gasp as our mouths met and held goes through me like a shock as I write. The moon sent in its silver greyness, we talked meaninglessly about Maryam, about Champa, about the meaning of what we were doing, then fell back into kisses. I see it sharp as a carving, moonlit shadows slanting across the

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