THE SISTER-IN-LAW
(A
Story)
By
ANNADA SANKAR RAY
(Translated
by Lila Ray from the original story in Bengali)
Nirmal’s
wife, Shephali, was as beautiful and good as the goddess Lakshmi. Her eyes
shone as steadily as evening stars. Her face was as limpid and tranquil as an
autumn dawn. The rhythm of her movements was as gentle as the flow of an
autumnal river.
Who
could resist such a girl? Nirmal married her at once!
On
the wedding night he saw his wife’s sister, Sohini, for the first time.
If
Shephali was autumn personified, Sohini was the rainy season incarnate.
Lightning fell from her eyes. Lightning lurked in her smile. Lightning was in
her teasing, in her pleasantries. She was dark girl to whom abundant health
lent good looks. Otherwise she was not really beautiful. Her voice was
constrained and husky, but it had an exciting quality. Her sweetness
had, perhaps, been lost through her marriage in harsh upcountry. But how
well-formed her figure was! Fashioned a thunder-bolt, her manner electric, some
part or other of her was always speaking. It was as though the Creator had used
an alloy of quicksilver in the making of her.
Sohini
talked to Nirmal, her laughing face averted, throwing
him a glance now and then that was alive with interest. She seemed to read his
thoughts and find them amusing. Looking quickly away again, she continued to
talk to him without excluding others present.
Her
complexion was dark, and it had not been possible in her time to find a good
bridegroom for her. Her husband was a middle-aged man, a widower, a native
doctor of
Shephali’s luck was as fair as
she was. Nirmal was a young lecturer of the
Sohini,
however, looked upon him only as the husband of her younger sister, therefore
of the younger category in relationship. Nirmal was a
mild, well-mannered young man, for, unless he set an example to his students,
how could he be a professor?
Nirmal smiled in a dignified
way. The scene of his wedding was like a class room, and the ladies about him
were like his pupils. He did not notice the various liberties that were being
taken with him.
Sohini
lifted her hand in warning to the others, and shook her head lightly.
“You’re
a fine lot!” she protested. “Instead of giving ear to the teacher, you are
pulling his ears! Your clowning ought to have a place in the Jamnastami procession this year!”
Seeing
his opportunity, Nirmal asked, “Have you seen the
Dacca Jamnastami procession?”
Sohini,
looking elsewhere, shook her head significantly, and immediately afterwards
threw him a look that sent lightning flashing through him from end to end.
When
he got his wife alone, Nirmal asked, “How much
schooling has your sister had?”
“Up
to the Fourth Class,” Shephali answered, with much hesitation. The shyness of
new wifehood overwhelmed her. She had no eyes for him but only a voice, and she just managed to speak.
“Fourth Class! Only the Fourth
Class!
The
young lecturer was amazed!
He
thought of his wife’s sister as he lay beside his wife sharing her bed….Fourth
Class! Yet how quick and intelligent she was, how lively, how brilliant!
Shephali was a matriculate, but she could not compare with Sohini! If only
Sohini had been his wife instead of Shephali, Nirmal
thought! Would that have been a mistake? If he had become acquainted
with the family three years sooner, would his father-in-law have given Sohini
in marriage to Nagendra Babu
in preference to him?...But three years ago he had no job. He was then only a
research scholar. At that time he was thinking more of becoming an ascetic than
of becoming a husband. He made faces at any suggestion of marriage. He spoke of
women as mothers and not as wives.
His
friends and companions had been monks of the Ramakrishna Mission. They looked
upon him as one of themselves. In anticipation of his taking the vow of
celibacy, they even nicknamed him Nirmalananda. That
foolishness, regretted Nirmal, cost him all that
brilliance, that liveliness, that charm! He had
changed his mind only after he found a job. His mother’s pleading had broken
down his resistance, and he had married. Now he was a family man. He had taken
the responsibility of providing a mother with children. His relationship with
his wife would have been quite different if he had married three years earlier,
and married the right person. She would have played with him, boxing his
ears instead of being so shy.
Most
of his conversation with his wife that night concerned her sister. Ignorant
Shephali suspected nothing. And monotheistic, monogamist Nirmal,
or so he thought he was, did not notice the injustice.
Nirmal returned to
But
Nirmal could not forget Sohini.
The
sight of Shephali reminded him of Sohini. Where was here her
brilliance? Her vivacity? Her wit?
Here could be seen only beauty, only modesty, only sweetness! These were
not rare. Nirmal had enough of these in his own
family, his mother, his sisters. Were these an
adequate recompense for having relinquished the glory of celibacy in order to
become a husband?
As Nirmal looked at his wife, he thought to himself, “She is the motherly type. One hesitates to think of her in the role of wife.”
Nirmal had his bed made in
the library. When the neighbours came to know of it
they decided that he was a superman. Such self-restraint! And with such a wife!
The
monks approved, saying, “How few are the homes in which Ramakrishna’s precepts
are kept! What if he is worshipped in many!”
His
mother was offended. She took her daughter-in-law to the temple of Dakeswari, and vowed that she would offer a goat on the
birth of a grandson.
And
Nirmal, the ascetic, sat meditating, eyes closed, on
the absen quick-flitting glance of a crystal pair of
shining eyes, on the radiance of a certain other face, on another pair of lips,
on a tall shapely figure, on a complexion the colour
of steel, and on a low slightly-husky voice–all far away.
“Doesn’t
your sister write to you?” he asked his wife.
“She
writes one letter to my ten,” Shephali answered.
Nirmal was chagrined. He
did not know that her letters revealed a different Sohini. Sohini herself could
scarcely read the jumble that was her own writing. Mis-spellings and stilted archaic expressions betrayed her
lack of education.
Shephali,
too conscious of her own ignorance, was studying for the Intermediate
examination. Bimal, Nirmal’s brother, was her
classmate. If she had any idea why her husband spoke to her so often about her
sister she would have realised
that she had no need to study any more.
Nirmal made up his mind to
go to Allahabad during the Puja vacation.
“You
want to see Puri, don’t you?” he said to his mother. “Now do take Bimal and go. I’ll leave Shephali at her father’s, and go
Upcountry alone. I must see the castles and the forts of Agra. Delhi, Gwalior and Allahabad for myself. As you know, I am going
to write that book, ‘The Military Strategy of the Moguls’.”
It
was common knowledge that Nirmal would not rest until
he had a doctorate, that a mere P. R. S. would not content him. So his mother
consented…...
Nagendra Babu
of Allahabad had rented out his paternal home, and had taken a small house that
would encourage patients to come to him, a house in a quarter convenient for a
native doctor. His father had been a very welt-known doctor, and his practice
was brought to him on the echo of his father’s name. The family consisted of
himself, his three children by his first marriage, and his second wife, Sohini.
He managed to make both ends meet, on the rent from the big house and on his
patients’ fees. But little of his former comfort was visible.
“Good,
so you’ve come. I’ m very glad to see you,” said Nagen
Babu, receiving Nirmal.
“There’s not much likelihood of our going anywhere. Patients start clamouring for me before the day begins. ‘Doctor Nagin!’ ‘Doctor Nagin!’ Unless at
least I just look at them they do not get well!”
His
patients crowded up when they caught sight of him. He put his stethescope to the chest of one, and his hand into the
mouth of another, examining teeth.
A
servant came and said, “Madam would like to see you.”
Nirmal followed him. As she
greeted him, Sohini asked, in a whisper, “How long do
you intend to stay?” Her hands were busy. She was frying luchis
for Nirmal.
“That
depends,” Nirmal answered gravely, “upon how much
material for study there is in the fort here.”
“Upon
what!”
Sohini
threw him a curious glance.
Avoiding
her eyes, he said, “If there is much to see in the fort, it will keep me here
some time. Otherwise not.”
“But,”
Sohini repeated her question, “at the very least, how long? Tell me!”
“Of
course,” Nirmal replied hastily, “let us say, three
days.”
“Oh
no!” Sohini showered lightning. “You must stay for more than three days.”
Nirmal wanted to. He smiled
with dignity. Then he admired in silence the adroit movement of her shapely
hands and the rise and fall of her bracelets. With those lovely strong hands
she could have been conducting the affairs of a kingdom like a Nur Jahan instead of merely
frying luchis! Could Shephali have done
it with such grace? Uf! Nothing but study, study!
“Why
didn’t you bring her!”
“Whom!”
“Chobi……Shephali.”
“Oh,
your mother and father didn’t want her to come.”
“Are
you able to bear the separation?”
Sohini
glanced sideways at him mischievously as she arranged the luchis
on a platter.
“A
historian has to put up with many things,” Nirmal
answered, with trepidation.
“What
is a his–historian?”
“A
person who writes history.”
“Oh,
I see!” Sohini nodded. “You find out whether Akbar
was the son of Babar or Babar
the son of Akbar, don’t you?”
Nirmal suppressed a smile.
“And you find out how many elephants King Asoka
had…..”, she continued. He laughed.
“Well,
our history too will be written a thousand years from now, won’t It?”
asked Sohini.
“For
sure!”
“Some
day people will dig up this house and find this dish and this bowl, won’t
they?”
“Quite
likely,” he answered.
“Then
I ought to put some luchis aside for
the historians of the future. What do you say, Mr. Teacher”
Nirmal observed that she did
not know the difference between an ordinary teacher and a professor. To her a
Civil Surgeon and a native practitioner were both doctors of the same status!
He
said, “I’m a professor, not a teacher”
“Isn’t
a professor a teacher?” Sohini frowned “Doesn’t he teach?”
“What
does it matter?”–Nirmal
was thinking. “Her gestures are more delightful than her learning.”……
Nagendra Bhusan
spoke as he chewed a luchi. “My dear
fellow, Gora is giving me a great deal of trouble.
What do I know about the Scindia of Indore or the Gaekwar of Gwalior?”
“That
can be fixed all right,” Nirmal said, smiling. “I’ll
make him an expert historian before I leave.”
Gora, Kala and Tuni became his three pupils. In accepting the
responsibility of teaching them history Nirmal
acquired a position of some permanence in the household. Around noon he would
go to visit the fort and come back with various plans drawn neatly in a note
book. Then he worked on the draft of his great book. And in this process managed
to consume quite large quantities of halwa and
luchis.
Above
all else, tea...
“Mr.
Tea...no, no, Mr. Professor,” Sohini said, “here is your tea.”
“Has
Nagendra had his?”
“He
had, and he went out long ago.”
Sipping
from his cup, Nirmal exclaimed, “Oh!”
“You
do like tea, don’t you?”
“Rather
I...When a hand like yours makes it!” Nirmal
gradually grew bold. No one could call him shy with women now!
Sohini
looked at him in amazement. “What sort of hand?” she asked, with her usual,
steady, flashing smile.
Nirmal caught hold of her,
and drew her towards him. “This sort of hand!” he answered, looking into her
eyes.
Sohini
was the stronger. Without releasing her hand, she gave him a light slap on the
cheek with the other. “How do you like that?”
“Very
much!
She
slapped him again; harder.
“This
time?”
“Better
still!”
Sohini
struck him over the ear quickly, and asked, “And this one?”
“The
best of all!”…..
Two
days later:
“Have
you finished seeing the fort?” Sohini asked.
“No.
Why?”
“You
don’t go to look at it any more.”
“I
wish to write the description of as much as I have seen already before I go
back to it. Then I’ll look at it again.”
“You
don’t appear over-anxious even to write.”
Nirmal understood the
insinuation…..
He
spent hours fooling with Sohini. Nagendra had opened
a new dispensary, and he spent the noon hours there answering calls and making
and filling prescriptions. The two boys were away at school, the girl at a neighbour’s.
“Yes,
I must settle down to writing. One has to do a lot of thinking first.
Thinking!…..You wouldn’t understand!”
“I
suppose... this...is your method of thinking?”
“Ah-ha!
But can you see what’s going on inside my head, Sohini? My mind is
always busy.”
“Why
don’t you call me didi?” Sohini asked, looking
at him obliquely.
“Why
should I?” Nirmal answered. “You are not really my
didi. It is relation only by marriage.”
“Relationship
by marriage doesn’t count, does it?”
“It
could have been different!”
Sohini
hid her face with the end of her sari. Nirmal
at once imagined that she was hiding her tears! Poor unhappy girl! What else
could it be? Married to an old widower!
Nirmal stood up. Laying a
hand on her shoulder, he drew the sari away from her face...Good
Heavens! Where were the tears?
Sohini
was laughing. Now she burst out gaily. Pushing the astounded Nirmal aside, she fled with a parting sally: “I’ve promised
to visit a friend today: Please excuse me, Professor. Look after the house!”...
The
next day Nirmal went to the fort. He even managed to
do a little serious writing. In reply to his wife’s letter he wrote that he was
working very hard. He even sent her one of his drawings by way of proof....
Then
as before:
“What
was Nagen Babu scolding you
for last night?” he asked.
“How
did you know?”
“Why?
Have I no ears?”
“But
you were asleep?”
“I
can hear in my sleep!”
Sohini
bent her head to one side. “Really! You amaze me! People who practice magic are
also called professors. There was a performance by one such Professor Somebody
here recently! I suppose you are one like them-too!”
She
refused to confess that her husband had been scolding her. “It was
nothing….That is just his manner….When he is pleased, he scolds!”
Nirmal laughed her to scorn.
“Why
do you laugh? Doesn’t a husband ever scold his wife?”
Nirmal laughed harder than
ever. Then he caught hold of Sohini’s hand and made
her sit down beside him. He said, “Tell me the truth. Do you love him?”
Sohini
answered with heat, “Why this question all of a sudden? What has he done that
you should be so curious about him?…..You think that, because he is not a
professor, he cannot be loved! That’s what is in your mind, isn’t it?”
“Of
course, not. Why should he be a professor?...I mean, is he suited to you?”
“Am
I suited to him?”
“Sohini,”
Nirmal broke out passionately, “do you know that you
are better than the most beautiful, the most learned and the most virtuous?
Sohini, I regret that I did not meet you or know about you three years ago. I
would have married you, for sure, if I had met you.”
Sohini
smiled her accustomed smile, and raised an eyebrow.
“But
suppose I had not consented to marry you?”
“Why
would you have refused?”
“Why
not? A professor is not quite a man, is he?”
“What!
Say that again!”
“Go
away, I won’t repeat it!”
“What
did you say a professor was?”
“A
giraffe!”
Nirmal pleaded. At last
Sohini repeated what she had said.
“A
professor is not quite a man, is he?”
Nirmal caught Sohini, and
drew her close.
Sohini
made no attempt to free herself.
She
whispered, “Let me go! Let me go! Shame on you!”
“You’ll
not say that again?” Nirmal demanded.
“Say
what?”
“That
a professor is not quite a man!”
“Is
he?”…….
Nirmal’s
reply was very adequate……
“Be
a good boy and go away,” Sohini said, some four days later.
“I’ll
go,” Nirmal answered, “but only if you come with me!”
Sohini
shook her head.
“In
my sister’s house you belong to my sister. Not to me.”
“Are
you crazy? Can I ever be hers again?”
“No,
don’t say that again! You won’t make her unhappy, will you?”
“But
I can’t make you unhappy either, my Rani!”
“Some
one has got to be!”
“Then,
not you”
Sohini’s disposition changed.
The spontaneous liveliness of her accustomed smile was replaced by a grave
pathetic glow. She protested, “She will not be unhappy if I am, but I shall be
unhappy if she is.”
“No,
Sohini, I can’t ever let you be unhappy!” Nirmal
repeated that over and over again. Pressing his face against her bosom like a
child, he prattled, “No-no, no-no, Chohini, you mus’n be un’appy, no!”
Sohini
broke out, laughing, “Baby Professor! Go away!”
“Baby
am I?”
“Yes,
Baby Professor!”
So
was he both professor and baby to her!
Tuni, Nagendra Bhusan’s daughter, arrived at this very juncture. She was
six or seven years old. Sohini freed hereself, and
fled at the sight of the child, an amused expression on her face. Not fear! She
was afraid of no one!
Nirmal was glued to his seat
as immovably as a doll of Tuni, for fear of Tuni.
He
pulled an impossibly long face.
“Uncle,”
asked Tuni, “what were you doing to Mother so to
frighten her away? Do grown-up men start in anger to bite like dogs?”
Her
uncle’s face at that moment was doggishly long! He tried to find a reply. An
indistinct sound got stuck in the bottom of his throat.
“Tell
me, Uncle,” Tuni became stubborn, “were you about to
bite Mother?”
“Tuni!”–Her mother called from the other room. Tuni ran to her. Her mother gave her a coin by way of
bribe, saying, “Now run along and buy yourself some plums.”
Tuni was quieted for the moment. But only for
the moment!
That
night, in front of her father, Tuni started off: “Do
You know, Daddy...?”
Sohini
forbade her with an imperious look.
“Do
you know, Daddy, Uncle...”
Sohini’s eyes blazed. Nirmal was almost in a state of coma. His face was as pale
as a Corpse’s.
“Do
you know, Daddy, Uncle Was about to...”
Nagendra Babu
was in an irritable mood that day. He burst out, imitating, “Do you know,
Daddy! “What do you know, Daddy’!”
Tuni was instantly offended. Her brothers
began to laugh, echoing: “Do you know, Daddy!” and “What do you know,
Daddy!”...Oh! Tuni!”
“Then
I won’t tell you!”
And
Tuni marched indignantly out of the room, and hid
herself and her anger and her shame somewhere…..
The
next day Tuni came home from the neigbbours
at exactly the same time. Peeping, he saw Uncle and Mother lying side by side. Nirmal began to groan the instant she entered the room. He
had a fearful headache!
“Uncle!”
Tuni called.
“Ah!
Uh!..It’s Tuni, is it?..My dear child, I’m dying.”
“Shall
I call Daddy? Or bring medicine for you?
Nirmal was inarticulate in
his agony. He groaned. But he spoke out.
Sohini,
in delight and with amusement, was gently caressing his head. “I have
the medicine for this,” she said. “You need not send far for any!”
Tuni began sympathetically massaging her
uncle’s feet. She refused absolutely to leave the room!
Nirmal had of necessity to
begin to feel better!……
That
night Tuni said to her father, “Uncle was so, so sick
today! Such a headache!... But, of course, if in anger you start to bite
people, your head will ache!”
Nagendra Bhusan’s
professional curiosity was stirred by the mention of headache in connection
with biting. As a doctor it was his duty to investigate! His investigation had
to be complete!…..
(Thereafter,
whenever a patient came and said, “I have a headache”, he would ask him, “Were
you out to bite anybody?”)
“Who
was about to bite whom?” he asked Tuni.
Tuni stared at Sohini, and dropped out of the
picture.
Nagendra looked first at Nirmal and then at Sohini.
Indra
and Ahalya!
Ahalya was unabashed! But
Indra was trembling!
Even
if not himself a rishi, Nagendra Babu was a descendant of
rishis. Intuitively he understood
everything. Immediately he said nothing. He ate well deliberately. Then he
washed his hands wiped them on a towel, belched comfortably once or twice, and,
taking a betel nut, he munched it slowly as he entered Nirmal’s room. He had to
inspect the room! He had to see whether Nirmal’s research was real or feigned!
The
note book was full. Not with notes, but with poems! So Nirmal
wrote poetry! Apparently he had begun to write poems quite recently!
Turning
over the pages, Nagendra Babu
discovered that some twenty-eight poems had been strung together out of
plagiarisms. Twenty-eight poems during the last fourteen days! Nagendra Babu cleared his throat
loudly when he found four or five long dark hairs pressed between the pages.
“My dear friend,” he called, “please come here!”
Nirmal abandoned all hope,
nay, even desire, to live. He entered, trembling violently.
“How
far have you gone? Tell the truth!”
“Ah….h….h”
Nirmal muttered, in visible agony.
“Why
play the hypocrite? Am I going to cut off your head?…..I only like to know just
how far you have cut off mine?……Have you, as historian, stopped at the outposts
and the outer battlements…..of…..this….fort? Or have you completed the
study…..of…..this….fort….altogether?”
“Ah……h…..h”
“You’re
a fine fellow, I must say!”
Nirmal whimpered something
inaudible.
Outside,
Sohini was laughing. She could scarcely keep her balance, standing.
Nagendra changed his tone. “The
sons-in-law may change places. But the father-in-law remains the same. It is
nothing to worry about!…..”
Nirmal hid his face in his
hands. Sohini, peeping, saw him. She too hid her face in her hands.
Suddenly,
Nagendra roared out, “Go, taking this one with you!
But remember to send the other one to me!”
Sohini
stopped laughing!
Nirmal felt his hackles rise!