Dinakar walked on the clean pure sand of the beach, looking with pleasure at the sea which rose in waves, approaching and then receding, enjoying it in silence. Then Narayan turned to him, held his hands, and said, ‘I must tell you something. I have wanted to say it all these twenty-five years, but was unwilling to speak. I had even thought it might be better not to meet you. When I saw you today, I thought, “Why on earth did he come?” But after seeing Gangu this morning, I decided that I must tell you.’ Then he stopped.
For a while, both men stood gazing at the sea, not saying anything. The setting sun bathed the whole sky in colours that changed every moment. There was no one else on the beach except for a few fishermen who were spreading their nets. Dinakar sat on the sand, began pushing it into small mounds, and waited.
Although he was a man of forty-five years, Dinakar felt himself becoming a boy again. He could hear anything, say anything. And Narayan seemed free from the English which in public he used so carefully. Now he unthinkingly mixed in Kannada words, speaking as if talking to himself. Yet Dinakar had not brought himself to say what he wanted to say. He thought that he should speak out, yet he was reluctant to interfere in Narayan's inner conflict. The sky was becoming bare, losing its colours, returning to its own true state as it had done from time eternal.
‘Dinakar,’ Narayan began, ‘you know after my wife died I didn't marry again. Gangu came as a maid servant and became part of the family. She brought up Gopal. Back then, she had been married off to someone on her mother's side. Her mother had belonged to the prostitutes' community. As was the practice, for the sake of appearance, she had given Gangu in marriage. The husband was one of her own dull-witted cousins — the man who came this morning to our house. The fellow is as gentle as a cow and he actually lives by tending cows. Gangu hadn't wanted to follow the profession of her mother, so she came to our house. She had by then finished her high school. After coming back from Hardwar, I put her in a college. Her mother, who had always been after her, had died, so Gangu felt free to do what she liked.’
Narayan stopped talking. Dinakar, who had been digging the sand, began to take out wet handfuls, and shaped them into shivalingas. He remained silent, certain now that he could never tell Narayan what he wanted to say. Narayan began speaking again.
‘You did not know that I had a sexual relationship with her in Hardwar. And I did not know that you had a relationship with her.’
Dinakar suddenly felt very light. For a moment he wanted to say, ‘But I possessed her first, when she was still a virgin.’ Then, ashamed of his crude impulse, he quietly went on listening to Narayan.
‘Only a few days later, after we came back from Hardwar and she began college, did I come to know she was pregnant. I was scared, though also relieved knowing that people would assume the child belonged to her husband … I am by nature a practical man. Gangu insisted that she should have an abortion, otherwise it would be difficult for her to study. Although I thought the same, I felt I should say, “No, have the child.” After she became pregnant, Gangu began to love me so much that I developed an attachment for her which I never had for my own wife. The way she felt helpless made me love her more. I bought a house for her, and saw to it that there was a little garden and a cowshed at the back. My mother also pressed me about this. What I bought then for half a lakh would now cost at least twenty lakhs. Land prices in Mangalore have become like Bombay.
‘Never mind. Gangu was four or five months gone in pregnancy, the baby inside her had begun to kick, and again she kept after me that she wanted to abort. Then one night, as I was lying beside her, she began to sob and tell me of the affair between you and her. “I don't know whether this child is yours, it could just as well be his,” she said. “Leave me if you don't like me,” she said, and kept on sobbing.
‘A great rage against you and her arose in me, more for her than you. I wanted to beat and kill her. Maybe my lawyer's cautiousness held me back, or the merit of my ancestors. Never mind. I thought she must be an enchantress and I suffered, thinking about the power of this woman who could hide from me in Hardwar her love for you.
‘I stopped seeing her for a few days, but then I went to her again. I couldn't check my desire for her. They say that when you lust, you have neither shame nor fear.
‘I took her to Bangalore secretly and found a doctor willing to do the abortion. The night before the abortion, as she slept in a hotel room by my side, she herself looked like a child. I cannot explain what happened to me then. It must have been the doing of my god.
‘Suddenly I thought, “What does it matter if the child is mine? What does it matter if it is Dinakar's? It is still a child that is floating and growing in her womb. Let it be born and let it grow. I will believe that it is mine.”
‘When I thought all this, I woke Gangu and told her. She embraced me, weeping with joy. The next day I brought her back from Bangalore. Who knows what Mother felt when she saw me? She scolded me, “You have not worshipped God in so many days. Take a bath, then go to the puja room.”
‘I believe there must be something of my mother's grace in the change that took place in me.’
15
In the sky, the sun's love-play was over and the moon's grace appeared. While the sky seemed serene and peaceful, frothing waves moved over the sea, like thousands of white horses rushing forward in battle. The waves wet the feet of the two friends. Dinakar got up first. Then Narayan, who seemed to have been in deep meditation, lifted his heavy body by bracing his hands against the sand. The rudraksha beads on Narayan's neck caught Dinakar's attention, and Narayan Tantri in turn looked at the amulet on Dinakar's neck.
‘You've always worn that, haven't you?’ Narayan Tantri said.
Dinakar felt eased of tension by this casual question, although he was still aware of the profound effect that Narayan's earlier revelation had created.
‘That is matra-raksha,’ Dinakar said. ‘My mother hugged me and tied it around my neck before she went to bathe in the river. Inside me there is a painful knot of unanswered questions. Did she tie the amulet around my neck knowing she was going to kill herself, or did she accidentally fall and die? Who is my father? They say my mother wore a tali around her neck and kumkum on her forehead. That means she was not a widow, she must have left my father. But why did she leave him? And whose gold was in the trunk? My father's? My mother's? That gold must be tainted … because of it my benefactor's children became greedy. It also led to the shamelessness of the woman I married.
‘By today's reckoning, the gold must be worth a crore. Sometimes I am tormented, wondering “Did my mother steal it? Is it dirty gold?” But I feel lighter because I have lost half of it. That is another big story, I shouldn't go into it now,’ said Dinakar. Then he went on to tell it just the same.
‘You remember how Tripathi used to sit on that chair, a stick in his hand, kumkum on his forehead, neatly shaven, with a big white moustache, a gold-bordered shawl around his shoulders. Even now I can see him sitting there like a king. He had a very strong voice. He would sit on his chair and get everything done in his masterful way. Exactly the image of a feudal lord. Yet he was also a great philanthropist. Every day food was given to people in the dharamshala he got built. He never touched any of the gold from my mother's trunk. He educated me in English schools with his own money. But the son he had who was my age, he sent to a Sanskrit school, trying to bring him up as another Tripathi. From the beginning, that son didn't like me. When his father couldn't hear what he was saying, he would insult my mother and make me cry. He hated me because I was his father's favourite. So Tripathi himself bears some of the fault. A man who looked after everyone else with such lordly kindness did not treat his own son with enough kindness.