The Lesson by Sowmya Rajendran

Author:Sowmya Rajendran
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India
Published: 2015-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

The eunuch was watching television with his legs up on the beanbag, a mug of beer in his hands. The house was quiet. His wife was asleep or pretending to be asleep. His mother was tossing about in her bed, praying to the gods to take her to heaven soon. His father, who had worked for the Adjustment Bureau as a scientist, was dead. Had been so for years. And yet, whenever the eunuch saw his unsmiling photograph on the mantelpiece in the drawing room, he felt as if he were still alive. It was a creepy thought, the idea of his father watching them lead their everyday lives. His father had been a great believer in after-life, holing himself up in his lab with an assortment of dead things, trying to record movements and noises that nobody else could discern. Often, the eunuch would do something his father would have disapproved of right in front of the photograph. Like scratching his crotch or digging his nose. It was juvenile of him to behave this way at the age of forty-four but the eunuch did not care. There was precious little else to celebrate in his life.

‘Look, Father, they’re showing pregnant couples on TV!’ said the eunuch in the falsetto he always used when talking to his father. His father’s work at the Adjustment Bureau, the invention of the Prison of Illusion, had won him the Noble Prize, the highest civilian award for extraordinary contribution to the maintenance of social order. The eunuch got up shakily from the floor, spilling a little beer on his way to the mantelpiece. He turned the photograph of his father posing with his prize, towards the television and said, ‘There, can you see better now?’ He increased the volume and sat down on the floor again. His paunch nearly touched the floor. ‘Maybe I am pregnant!’ he giggled to his father.

Soon after discovering that he was sterile, the eunuch had suggested to his wife that they adopt a baby.

‘For what?’ she had shot back. ‘Do you think I want to wipe the shit off somebody else’s child?’

The eunuch’s mother stopped attending all family functions and became even more pious. She tied various threads on his wrists, swearing that their magical powers would make him a real man. The eunuch wanted to believe her very badly though he knew her efforts were futile. He indulged his mother’s devotion, unable to rebuff her for the love that she showered on him. Something he no longer received from his wife.

But one day, as the eunuch was bathing, one of the threads, the red one, came loose and fell on the floor. The eunuch watched it with fascination as it slithered towards the drain like a worm. It disappeared down the hole and the eunuch waited for something to happen, something terrible or something beautiful, his heart in his mouth. When nothing did, the eunuch dressed quietly and left the bathroom, smiling at the mirror wryly. The next

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