WOMAN

(A Story)

By S. K. POTTEKKATT

(Rendered from the original Malayalam in an abridged form by N. Kailasam)

In the glory of the evening sun, Vanalakshmi Vilas shone with added splendour. In a large room of this inland mansion standing on the top of a hill, Bhargavi, the only daughter of a multi-millionaire, lay a-dreaming like the evening twilight itself.

Bhargavi is ill. She is expecting Prof. Rajasekharan; leaving the college at four, he would reach Vanalakshmi Vilas in a half-hour, He usually takes his evening tea with Bhargavi.

It was Rajasekharan’s love that poured manna into the roots of the weak creeper that was Bhargavi’s life and made it sprout. He was a distant cousin of her father. Even during the days of her innocent childhood, she had longed to get him as an inseparable companion. Their mothers also had looked forward to their marriage. But before the children stepped into youth, the two women died. The strange ways of destiny did not end there. In Bhargavi’s twentieth year, while she was in her school final class, the first symptoms of consumption appeared. Her father did whatever could be done through doctors and medicines, but her shattered health could not be recovered, and before the first year examinations in the college were over, she was completely bed-ridden. Rajasekharan was then reading in the final honours class. The news of her illness thoroughly upset him. But controlling his sorrow and despair, week after week, he wrote to her love-letters that gave her hope and relief.

From the beginning of the next academic year, Rajasekharan got an assistant English Professor’s post in the college. Though his residence was in the town, he was coming every evening to Vanalakshmi Vilas to see her.

Yet during the past few days, there has been something strange, something wanting in Rajasekharan’s behaviour, which the clever Bhargavi had not failed to note. No doubt she is lying awaiting the sound of death’s steps. At this juncture, it seemed as though his love was taking the shape of pity. It was something she could not bear. She is thirsting to die embalmed in love. Once she realised that married life with him was an impossibility for her, she wanted to dedicate every minute of her remaining life to the company of her dear lover.

The clock in the room has struck five, five thirty, and six in order. Yet there was no sign of Rajasekharan’s arrival. Her chest rose high in a deep sigh, as she reflected that ninety precious minutes that could have been spent in his dear, dear company had gone waste. This was not the first occasion in recent days that he failed to keep his time. Could it be that the gems of those minutes were being stolen away by the sneaking glance of another woman?

Through the window opposite her, Bhargavi cast her eyes towards the foot of the hill and then to the bare fields beyond. Through their midst, a rough road ran winding and finally lost itself into a grove of coconut trees in the distance. She looked steadfastly in that direction.

At the farthest end of the road, a black dot became visible. Bhargavi’s heart fluttered for once. It was Rajasekharan’s Baby Austin car!

In another five minutes she could hear the sound of his familiar steps on the carpeted stairs, and it made her heart beat faster. Bidding farewell to her fancies and summoning upon her lips a smile intertwined with shyness, she got ready.

“No temperature today, I suppose,” said Rajan, as he approached her bed slowly and sat in a nearby chair. Bhargavi shook her head indifferently. She never relished enquiries after her illness. Especially before Rajan, she even forgets that she is ill.

Rajan picked up a magazine lying on the table and opened it where she had left off reading. The first to catch his attention was a portion underlined in red ink by Bhargavi–the words of the heroine in a short-story. They read, “What you love is but a dream that will fade out tomorrow.”

Rajan felt a pain in his bosom. He lifted up his eyes and looked pitifully at her. That small dear face, looking pale and soft like the tender mango leaves, touched his heart to its depths. He cursed the Maker who stealthily placed untimely death in it.

The maid entered the room. “Tiffin and tea for Rajattan *,” ordered Bhargavi.

“No tiffin; mere tea will do,” Rajan intervened and said in a sure voice.

“?” Bhargavi looked at his face suspiciously.

“I have already taken tiffin,” said Rajan as be pulled out a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped the sweat from his face.

Bhargavi’s eyes fell on that handkerchief. It was a new one, of white silk. In a corner, Rajasekharan’s name was knitted in.

Rajasekharan knew that Bhargavi was observing that handkerchief keenly. He pretended not to have noticed it, and changing the ends of the kerchief, wiped his face once more and put it back in his pocket.

But Bhargavi would not leave it there. She stretched forth her hand and said in a tone of command, “Let me see that kerchief.”

Without any change of expression, Rajan handed her the kerchief.

Bhargavi spread it out and, keeping her eyes on it, asked, “Who presented this?”

“It was not presented, Bhargavi, but merely given,” said Rajan, with an artificial cough.

“Who?”

“Sunanda.” Without any emotion, Rajan told the truth. Bhargavi’s face did not colour or turn pale. A faint smile was seen on her lips.

Rajan continued, “There are only two weeks more for Sunanda’s examination. It is a long time since she began pressing me to give her a few lessons in English. For the past few days, I am spending an hour in her house on my way here.”

Then there was a small pause, after which Bhargavi said in a casual manner–“Perhaps it is due to the approaching examination that Sunanda is not seen here nowadays.”

Picking up the scattered flower-petals from her bed, Rajan said, “Yes, don’t you know her condition? If she does not pass her examination and take up a job, she and her aged mother will both have to starve. She is daily making enquiries about you.”

The servant-maid brought a cup of tea for Rajan. Then he took out a few oranges from the bag he had brought and, carefully skinning them all, squeezed the juice into a glass vessel and held it out for Bhargavi. She sat up slowly and, leaning on her pillow, sipped the juice little by little. Rajan also began to sip his tea. They spoke nothing for some time. Yet is was a silence soaked in love. Bhargavi slightly moved in her bed and directed her eyes through the room. There she saw on the stand her own clothes lying side by side with Rajan’s coat, which he had removed and put there on arrival. That sight must have revived all her old fancies and hopeful visions. A pleasurable sensation passed over her, followed by a sigh. Are they all ending up as mere dreams?

The sun has set; the last traces of red in the sky have melted into the darkness.

Rising slowly from his chair Rajan said, “May I take leave now?”

She did not answer, but caught Rajan’s hand and looked at him with moving eyes. A request shone in them. A colour that had escaped the onslaught of the disease, ran into her cheeks. The next moment her eyes flooded.

Rajan bent down and wiped her tears, saying, “Weeping like children? Life is not to be spent in weeping. It is to be kept wrapped up in smiles.”

She could not speak for a while. Later, with a broken voice, she said, “I am not sorry to die; whatever pleasure could be had through wealth and social status, I have enjoyed. But having to part from you! The very thought breaks my heart.”

Rajan had no reply to give. He could only look at her with eyes reflecting great sorrow.

She sighed and coughed slightly. Then after a pause, she said: “My days are numbered. Rajetta, my dear, I have a last request to you; till I die, you should not love another woman. Now that death is tightening its grip on me, will you not accede to this last request of mine? You must swear to do so.”

Rajan held her hand affectionately, and, speaking in a tone brimming with sincerity, said, “Dear one, I swear; myself and my love are entirely yours.”

“Ah!” she closed her eyes and placing Rajan’s hand on her chest, said, “Enough, that is all I yearn for.”

After staying for a little more time, Rajan left for the town.

Rajasekharan’s car reached within about a mile from the city. Sunanda’s house was at hand. It was his intention to pass it without her knowledge. But she was waiting for him at her gate.

“Can’t you wait a bit?” he asked from that distance. Rajan applied the brake with some hesitation. “Can’t you spend another half-an-hour for me?” Her voice was heard echoing again from the gate.

Rajan slightly yawned and got out of the car. The next moment he was sitting opposite her in her room dictating the paraphrase of a Shakespearean poem.

The light of the lamp made Sunanda’s beauty almost blaze out. An uncontrollable impulse made Rajan lift his eyes frequently towards her. Some vague, dreamy thoughts ran through his mind and paralysed his actions for a while; one, two minutes passed. Sunanda was waiting for him to proceed, with the pen idle in her hand. Rajasekharan came to himself, bit his lower lip, pretended to have been thinking, and continued his paraphrase.

Three-fourths of an hour passed. Rajan finished his lesson and stood up. “Won’t you come tomorrow?” Sunanda asked, as she closed her note-book.

“If there is time,” Rajan answered curtly and turned to go. Then, as though he recollected something suddenly, he turned back with, “Bhargavi has made enquiries about you.”

With a childish smile, she said, “Kindly do tell her that it is the examination that prevents my going there.”

Rajan got into his car, and as the engine sounded, said in a slightly choked voice, “Good night, Sunanda.”

“Good night, sir,” from the moving car he heard her voice, sweet as the cooing of the dove. He could not help turning, to have another glance at that smiling face, shining in the brightness of the lamp she held.

Rajan had seen Sunanda as a young girl. She was Bhargavi’s class-mate. They had often come together to Rajan’s house. Sunanda was not so beautiful then. But when the spring of youth touched her, the beauty that lay latent in her awoke suddenly and she changed almost beyond recognition. It was this change in her beauty that first struck Rajan as he returned from Madras. As a worshipper of beauty he began to go to her house occasionally.

But Sunanda expected more from him. When in the immediate future Bhargavi would go behind the curtain of Rajan’s love-arena, in that conjugal chamber, Sunanda found herself as if in a dream. Rajan also knew that ‘lovely cuckoo’ was little by little stealing his heart. Though at first Rajan held his heart in check, with Bhargavi’s death seeming imminent, he decided to let go the reins of his heart slightly. Sometimes in the evenings, he began to take her in his car for pictures or to the sea-shore. This new relationship between Rajan and Sunanda became the subject matter for discussion everywhere. People concluded that Bhargavi’s death meant Sunanda’s marriage. Rajan guessed that its echo must have reached the ears of Bhargavi too, and that, in turn, must have made her ask for that unexpected promise from him.

The next evening Rajan reached Vanalakshmi Vilas at ten minutes to five. He saw Bhargavi in a happy mood. But Rajan appeared deeply absorbed in thought. This disappointed Bhargavi. The broad smile withered on her face. Something that she wanted to speak was aborted in her throat.

A long pause ensued. Both found the silence unbearable, but neither knew how exactly to begin the conversation. Only the light sound of the clock’s vibration broke the stillness in the room.

The clock struck five. Bhargavi’s eyes flew in that direction. The pendulum, moving briskly to and fro, looked like a village water-lift emptying a pond. Yes, this too was a ‘lift’, trying to empty the pond of her life!

Bhargavi’s colour changed. The corners of her mouth appeared to be pressed lower than usual. “Rajetta! stop the swing of that clock!” she shouted.

With a slight smile reflecting wonder, he looked at her. “Please hurry up. That clock should never again move.” she said in a firm voice.

Rajan slowly got up, fulfilled her wish, and came back.

After a while, Rajan asked her, “Are you not reading Nowadays?”

“A little,” she lifted her eyes up to Rajan’s face and said, “‘For some reason, it is a happy day for me. This morning I translated an English poem–the one written by the great French poet Gilbert a week before his death in the Paris general hospital. That poem touched my heart. I tried to translate it. Here is the result.”

She pulled out a piece of red paper from under her pillow and placing it in Rajan’s hand, said, “Read it aloud.”

Rajan sang it aloud and again read it over once. There was a flash in Bhargavi’s eyes. She cast a meaningful look towards him.

“Very good,” Rajan remarked.

“It is the burden of that song that my heart too is singing. Caught within the orbit of death–death, sweet to think of–anyone would be inspired to true poetry. That is what I feel.

“May be,” Rajan was looking carelessly at those round, shapeless, big letters.

Bhargavi continued, “But my disposition is different from that of Mr. Gilbert. Though I too do not want anybody to come to shed tears on my final resting place, I want my beautiful bedroom to remain for ever like this. This beautiful room, the bedding kit, these pictures on the wall, these window curtains, this clock showing eternally five–all must remain for eternity exactly as they will appear at the time of my death. Even a century after my death, a casual visitor here should feel as though I had gone out only five minutes before. To the room lying so, will you not also come some evenings and remember me?”

Rajan smiled sympathetically. Bhargavi also smiled. Then lifting her eyes, she said, “You may call it childishness or selfishness, or whatever else you like. It has not been possible for me even to taste life properly. I want to prolong my earthly presence in an artificial manner. I want to cheat death at least playfully, once–death, the eternal lover of life.”

“Enough, my dear,” Rajan said, looking at her lips gone dry through fatigue. “Enough, you are tired due to long talk.”

Both were silent. After sometime she rang the bell. The maid brought tea.

After spending a half-hour more, Rajan took leave. He returned home.

When Rajan got down from his car before Sunanda’s house on the night of her final examination, it was her sweet music that welcomed him. Shaking off her discomfort and burden after the examinations, that damsel was singing carefree, playing on a harmonium. When she saw Rajan, she stopped her song and got up with a touch of shyness.

“How did you fare in your examination?” Rajan asked her, looking at her with wonder and joy. In his eyes, she appeared especially charming that day.

“I hope to pass,” was her reply.

“That is good; I wish you success. Here is a letter of invitation for you from Bhargavi.” Rajan handed a cover to her, adding. “She is inviting you for her birthday.”

She opened the cover and read the letter and said, “Why, there are fifteen days more. Why should she send it through you? I myself going to Vanalakshmi Vilas tomorrow.”

Rajan did not stay there long. After taking one more glance at her with his greedy eyes, he took leave.

It must have somehow struck Bhargavi that it was going to be her last birthday, for she requested her father to celebrate it in a gala manner. All her friends and relatives were invited.

It was a grand birthday function. She got valuable gifts from many. Rajan arrived early to participate in the reception. He presented her a diamond brooch made in the shape of an aeroplane. Sunanda’s gift was a table-cloth with beautiful embroidery–all done by her own hand. Bhargavi liked it very much.

The guests found it a touching scene. It appeared as though she had summoned them all to have a final farewell. There was a heavenliness lurking in her voice.

When the college work was over in the evening, Rajan started again for Vanalakshmi Vilas.

When he entered the room, Bhargavi was tired, and lying with eyes closed. She had not changed the sari nor removed the ornaments she wore in the morning. When she heard Rajan’s footsteps, she slowly opened her eyes a little.

Rajan found the shadow of an anxiety on her face. At first he thought it was only the result of her exertion in the morning. But on looking at her more closely, his heart misgave him. He said to her in a tone of suspicion, “Darling, what is the matter with you? This morning’s celebration seems to have crushed you. Or has something else happened to you? I have never seen such a change of colour in your face before.”

Bhargavi at first did not make any answer. Then, slowly turning her eyes towards Rajan, said, “My necklace and locket have been lost!”

Rajan’s face turned pale. “What! Your necklace and locket gone! How?”

“Yes, my golden necklace and the big diamond locket. I do not know how they were lost. In the afternoon, when all the guests had left, I was talking to Sunanda for a long time. I had removed that lace and locket and put them on your photo there. When it was about three O’ clock I felt slightly sleepy. Sunanda took leave of me and went. Due to my great fatigue, I slept the moment I closed my eyes. When I got up after an hour, the chain and locket were not on the photo.”

“Did you tell this to anybody?”

“No.”

“Do you suspect anybody?”

Bhargavi lay silent for a while, but it was clear that she wanted to say something.

“Why don’t you reply?” Rajan asked.

With her eyes fixed in the void, Bhargavi said slowly, “I learned that Sunanda left the house after a considerable time.”

Rajan coloured in the face like a chameleon. His eyes seemed to come closer to each other. His nose swelled.

“Bhargavi, is it Sunanda that you are suspecting?” His tone had the sharpness of a shaft.

Softly moistening her lips with her tongue, Bhargavi said in a very indifferent manner, “I am also sorry that I have to suspect her. But, except her, none will have the courage to come up here.”

Mustering all his strength Rajan said, “Bhargavi, are you talking after due and intelligent thinking? Do you think that Sunanda would stoop to such a wretched level?”

“My dear, I too do not suppose that she is so bad. But the evidence points that way. I well remember that the lace and locket were there even after all the guests had left. Then, can the chain dissolve into the air?”

“We must enquire,” Rajan said with a firm voice.

“But how can you do that? Is it possible to leave out Sunanda in the investigation? How can I insult her–her, my dear friend and an honoured guest? Notwithstanding all this, suppose, after a search, the necklace is found with her, will it not wreck her life? I am not prepared for all that. Let my ornament go. I am affluent enough to do without it!”

“But Bhargavi, you are saying that it is Sunanda who stole the necklace. Is it not a dangerous suspicion...?”

Bhargavi intervened and said, “I have never said that she has stolen it. It is only a suspicion.” Then, with a lifeless smile on her face she added, drawing invisible lines on the wall with her nails, “Rajetta, have my conjectures ever gone wrong?...I have only sympathy for Sunanda. I am only eager that her future should not be sullied.”

As Rajan drove back with a heavy heart, a way out suggested itself to him. Sunanda. would be away from home, having to give tuition to the children of the Munsiff. He had complete freedom in that house. Then, why not make a secret search in her room?

Rajan entered her room and closed the door. Then he took out her keys from under her bed and searched her box and bureau carefully. The necklace could not be found. Finally he opened the box in which she kept her daily wear and took out the clothes one by one...A small flash! and there the lace and locket lay curled and thrown in a corner.

He could not believe what he saw. He felt it with his hands. His hair stood erect. He felt a chill inside his body. His nerves lost their vigour. His legs faltered. With great difficulty he seated himself on a chair near-by.

Rajan wrung his hands as he thought aloud, “Is divine beauty so rotten within?”

Rajan kept the chain and the locket, the clothes and the keys, all as before, and went out hanging his head down.

He still had the last trace or a hope left in him. That necklace with the locket was not a toy but it was lying in a box which she handled everyday. Will not Sunanda who opened out all her secrets to him, make a hint about this too?

But no such thing happened. After fifteen days, Rajan once more searched her box secretly. The necklace and the locket lay there as before.

When he met Sunanda, his heart ached. It slowly changed into hatred. Without showing even the shadow of a disappointment, without being in any way niggardly in his smiles and playful sallies, he withdrew his heart little by little from her. Finally he had only his cheap, empty smile to give to Sunanda.

Bhargavi did not survive long; within a month after her twenty-third birthday, her soul left its mortal coil.

To honour her last wish, her father preserved Vanalakshmi Vilas in the same condition. To make sure that not even a pin disappeared from her bed-room, he appointed a special curator.

Five years passed.

Prof. Rajasekharan is evincing keen interest in reading and writing books. He is giving all his time, barring the college hours, to reading and writing. He tried mostly to study the human mind. His entire happiness in life seemed centred on this subject.

Some evenings, an undefinable urge from within would attract Rajasekharan to Vanalakshmi Vilas. His hearted would beat louder, as he ascended the carpet-covered steps. His feet would shake as he entered through that open door. He would control his breath and sit on the chair near the cot. He would not have the courage to look straight at the vacant bed! He would look all around with a vague apprehension. He would slowly run his glance over every article in the room. There lay that yellow sari on the stand which he selected for her. This parasol here in the corner, got from Burma–she has not been able to use. That banian lying above the cot–he got the knitting wool for that from Cawnpore. She intended it as a present to him on his birthday, but she fell ill when it was half done and could never complete it. That photo of his own, standing on the table–with what devotion and love she kept it near her! She enclosed it in a frame of solid gold!

After spending an hour in this manner, as though in a world of the dead, he would stand up to go out. He would have an illusion that in the strange silence of that room Bhargavi’s presence lingered and was trying to stop him. He would even feel like looking at that snow-white bed and asking, “Bhargavi, may I take leave?”

Sunanda is leading the life of a school-mistress. Though she passed her Intermediate examination, her financial position did not permit of her continuing her studies.

For Rajasekharan, she was now no more than “a pause after the play”. He would occasionally meet her and smile and even talk. He cared little beyond that for her.

One day he was returning after a visit to a doctor friend in the mofussil. He had to go within about a mile of Vanalakshmi Vilas. Though he had gone there only the previous day, he felt as though an unknown power goaded him to go there again. He turned his car that way.

As the professor ascended the stairs with his bare feet and reached the door–he was taken aback. Sunanda stood at the door!

In the confusion created by Rajasekharan’s unexpected arrival, something slipped from Sunanda’s hand. Looking down, he saw his photo, so carefully kept by Bhargavi and still in its golden frame, lying on the floor, with the broken pieces of glass scattered all around.

Sunanda trembled from head to foot. The professor looked into her eyes. There was no colour left in them. Then, stooping down, he picked up the photo and the pieces of glass, and was leaving.

Sunanda slowly stretched her hand. She seemed to be fumbling for words. Finally she said, “I shall attend to its mending.’” But the professor did not seem to have heard her.

“This photo slipped from my hand and broke. I will mend it and bring it back tomorrow,” the professor told the curator on the ground-floor and left.

On that day he wrote in his observation note-book: “5-5-19... Though I had no idea of visiting Vanalakshmi Vilas today, somehow my conscience pressed me to go there. When I went there, I found Sunanda trying to steal my photo. I am not able to understand what force it was that persuaded me to go there. Even if it were to be dismissed as merely accidental, I was able to know yet another thing. Theft is a great disease of the mind. This disease is born with certain people and develops its symptoms as the individuals grow up. However one might try to restrain oneself, when a suitable opportunity arises, this evil tendency asserts itself. For this type of people, stealing is more a source of pleasure than a dire necessity.”

Eighteen more years went by.

Professor Rajasekharan has now become a renowned writer and a celebrated scholar. The books in which he expatiated on the principles of psychology attracted the learned men of not only India, but Europe and America too. He had even got a number of foreign honours.

The professor is still a bachelor.

He is now engaged in writing up a book greater than all his previous ones. This book, the result of a quarter century of untiring research and investigation, is to be called ‘Woman’. It will portray the various mental reactions and transactions of the feminine mind, especially its sexual and amorous side, and will particularly try to explain what is hitherto considered to be the unknown aspect of the feminine nature. Though work on that great book is nearly over, he is still making fresh additions by way of ideas and arguments.

It was late evening. As the professor sat deeply absorbed in thought with the manuscript of ‘Woman’ before him, it was announced that somebody was waiting, outside, eager to see him. As he came out, a stranger handed a slip of paper to him. He went towards the lamp, put his glasses on and read:

“Dear Professor,

I am on my death-bed. I have some important things to talk to you. Will you be kind enough to go over here at once?–Sunanda.”

The professor thought for a minute. Then without further hesitation, he got ready and followed the stranger.

Sunanda lay in the same room where the professor used to give her lessons long ago. It was six months since she fell ill. But he knew of it only now.

The professor looked attentively at Sunanda, in the dim brightness of the small lamp that burned there. What a change had come over that woman! Feminine beauty, no doubt, is a

fading work of art in colour.

Both were silent for some time. Then Sunanda spoke in an unsteady yet determined tone:

“I could gather sufficient courage to talk to you about this only now–about this affair which I long yearned to hear from you, but only got disappointed. Now let me speak to you without any sense of shame. I loved you deeply and still love you...”

Her words produced no change in the professor. It was something that he had known always. He simply stared at her face, his looks almost seeming to ask, “Is it only to tell this that you summoned me here?”

Sunanda continued: “Life is made of desires patched up. You taught me to yearn, yearn passionately. Your sweet smile provided the colors for my thoughts. Your penetrating looks tied my soul down without the aid of strings. Your visits opened out new paths in my life–or it all appeared so to me. But enticing me in every way, you found rare pleasure in laughing at me from behind. You call yourself a great psychologist; but what do you know about the incurable agonies of the human heart? I spent five years, hoping everyday to hear from you the echo of a love. My hopes were beginning to fade. Then you gave them new life. You may remember that incident at Vanalakshmi Vilas. Even trivial incidents do sometimes give room for big hopes. When that photo slipped from my hands and broke, you took the responsibility for it on yourself...”

“True, I took that guilt upon myself; but at the same time, I concealed a bigger offence also,” the professor broke silence and put in.

“You concealed a big offence? What is that offence, sir?”

“Don’t you know it yourself.? Do you want me to speak out?”

“I do not understand.”

“How well she acts?” the professor told himself, and then in a rather severe tone, he asked, “Were you not stealing that photo from there, Sunanda?”

He clearly watched the expression on her face. There was no considerable change. But her eyes were welling up.

“Sir, am I hearing these words from your own mouth? Alas! I steal that picture! Did you take me to be so mean? That Bhargavi–may her soul rest in peace!–was a lady who loved me heartily. Only to revive those associations did I enter her room that day. Then I saw your photo on the table. An exciting sensation arose in my heart. I happened to slowly lift it up and

give a gentle kiss. Due to the emotional strain, my hands shook….That photo fell down.

“But Sunanda, was it not at the door that I met you?” There was great severity in his tone.

Sunanda moistened her lips with her tongue, slightly coughed and said: “When you saw me, it was falling from my hands for the second time. I was going to tell the man in charge about it. It was your unexpected arrival that upset me...”

The professor had come to Sunanda hoping she would speak everything without reserve. But here she was, trying to convince him that even what he actually saw was unreal. “Poor woman, does she realise that I have knowledge of even a greater offence than this? But there is nothing surprising in this. This is woman,” he told himself.

Sunanda went on: “But leave it alone; I did not send for you to talk about that. Many who observed us during the early days had predicted our marriage. My friend Bhargavi also had heard it. She did not envy me. On the other hand, she blessed me.”

The professor found it impossible to remain there. The whole atmosphere of the room seemed surcharged with falsehood. Hi smiled a smile, replete with mockery and hatred.

Sunanda’s face was changing. Her eyes grew dry. She asked for water in a gesture.

The professor picked up a glass from the table, poured out some barley water from a jar in the cupboard, and gave it to her little by little. After some time, she felt slightly relieved and proceeded: “You may be remembering Bhargavi’s 23rd birthday. When all the guests had left that afternoon, she secretly called me to her and made me sit by her side on the cot.”

Sunanda’s condition was deteriorating. She had scarcely strength to talk. Her eyes wandered. Rajan got upset at her condition, and, picking up something, gently fanned her.

Sunanda continued with great difficulty: “Bhargavi lovingly embraced me and spoke with tears in her eyes. ‘Rajettan is a lovable young man. You can trust him entirely. I am leaving his future in your hands. The great good fortune that I was not destined to have, may it come to you! I am the first to greet you on your wedding.’ Having said so, Bhargavi placed her hands on her chest.”

Sunanda slowly stretched her hand and drew out something from under her pillow.

The professor gave a loud shriek in spite of himself. It was that golden necklace with the diamond locket!

Sunanda continued: “Bhargavi removed this costly ornament from her neck and said, ‘This is my present for your wedding. At that time, I will be in heaven.’ Bhargavi wrote it on a small white card and kept it in a chamber at the back of the locket. You can read it yourself.”

She pulled out a card from behind the locket and placed it in his hands. The professor recognised the round, big, shapeless writing of Bhargavi.

“For Professor. Rajasekharan and Srimathi Sunanda, with hearty good wishes–Bhargavi, from heaven.”

Sunanda continued: “Bhargavi gave the necklace to me and said, ‘But you must give a promise. This gift of mine should come as a surprise to Rajettan. So you should mention about this gift to him only on the day after your marriage. You should keep it a strict secret till then. You must promise to do so.’ I gave her that promise with tears streaming down my eyes. I brought it here, and, eager to see my wedding gift everyday, I kept it in my trunk.”

Sunanda cried out, “Water! Water!” and held her mouth open. With trembling hands the professor poured out a little more water into her mouth.

Sunanda finished with great difficulty: “I lived in expectation of that marriage. But it did not come off. My friend Bhargavi’s wedding gift went to waste. Now that I am bidding farewell to this world, you are the rightful owner of this necklace. I have entrusted it to you. My duty is ov..er.”

Sunanda struggled for the last time and closed her eyes. She had made her last movement.

The professor’s face turned pale. He embraced her. Tears poured from his eyes. With a piercing voice he said, in between sobs, “Ah, my Sunanda! Poor little girl! Alas, that Bhargavi! She cheated both you and me! Oh! the inscrutable mind of woman! My twenty-three years of research!...not worth a blade of grass..”

All the while that diamond locket shone on her bed, like the burning smile of victorious jealousy.

* The Malayalam word ‘Attan’, which is a corruption of the Sanskrit ‘Jyeshta’, literally means ‘elder brother’ but is used as a term of endearment to anyone senior to oneself. Bhargavi has been calling Rajan so from early years.

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