“Who on earth is Ruth?”
“Ruth is the girl in my shop. .”
“Again, Ramen!”
“Can’t you understand, she has no one of her own. . And the way she’s pursuing me — I’m very unlikely to get married again, but if I ever. .”
I said angrily, “So an Anglo-Indian’s ploys matter more to you than a Bengali girl’s tears?”
“Say what you will. I’m off to bed.”
Ramen yanked his jacket off and threw it on the floor, rolled his trousers up to the knees, and stretched himself out on the couch.
Enraged as I was, I said nothing more.
Sleep eluded me that night. I could see Bina’s woebegone expression, puffy eyes, unkempt hair. I felt pain, and yet it wasn’t quite pain, it was an unfamiliar pleasure. I imagined I was pacifying Bina, consoling her. She refused to listen, but I kept talking; once, she smiled, said something, and then I suddenly realized that Ramen and the girl who was so besotted by him were no more in my thoughts; I had forgotten about her. Embarrassing myself, I decided straightaway that getting involved in others’ affairs was not wise. It didn’t make any sense to visit the Duttas anymore, it was best to mind my own business.
But Ramen wouldn’t let me be, he forced me to go along with him the next day. As I had said earlier, I enjoyed the atmosphere there. And in a few days I became addicted in any case; I stopped being a footnote to Ramen and started frequenting the place on my own. In that time Bina had finally got hold of herself, her face had acquired color and a smile, she spoke beyond the dialogue she had begun delivering again with such talent. With her recovery the pace of rehearsals rose; the intense level of socializing that went on before, after, and during the rehearsals was something I witnessed only that one time, in my entire life.
In the first week of March, a couple of months after the first time I had been to Mr. Dutta’s house, in winter — possibly in January — The New Nest was staged. There were four performances. I was present on all four nights, sometimes observing audience reactions in the theater, sometimes helping to arrange the actors’ costumes before the enactment began, backstage. I wasn’t spared the driving around to perform various chores, nor was I deprived of the honorable responsibility of dropping three members of the huge cast home after the performance.
The production came to an end, but the aftermath lasted another whole month. First at Mr. Dutta’s place, then at a restaurant, then at his friends’ country home, and finally again at Mr. Dutta’s — feast after feast, celebration after celebration. Although I had not contributed much, having spent most of my time watching, I was invited to every celebration; the Duttas were flawless hosts. By now, I’d had the opportunity to get to know several members of the troupe quite well, I no longer felt like a fish out of water among them. Although I was only a doctor, and far from well-versed in literary and related matters, several members of this glittering group had accepted me warmly. Of all of them, it was Bina I knew the least; we hadn’t gotten beyond the tight confines of a formal relationship. I’d observed in her something of an antipathy for me. Maybe she didn’t care for the way I looked, or perhaps she was aware that Ramen had told me everything about her — whatever the reason, she seemed to avoid my company. I did not mind this, for it was hard for me to fathom how to talk to, how to conduct myself with, a love-struck, love-singed young woman. This distance was far better.
In April, the Duttas went off to Kalimpong. I paid a visit the day they were leaving, and no one else was present except them, for a change. After some casual conversation, Mrs. Dutta announced, “Some news for you, your patient has recovered completely.”
Wonderful news, I thought to myself, but why tell me? My relationship with them was ending.
As though she had read my mind, Mrs. Dutta said quietly, “You know the whole story, after all, so I thought I’d let you know.”
After a pause, I responded, “I do feel Ramen didn’t do the right thing, in refusing to marry her.”
“He has given his word to someone else, there’s no changing that.”
“Given his word? Rubbish. In truth, he doesn’t want to get married.”
“Well, you can’t force a person to go against his will either. I explained to Bina, ‘You can’t have him, then why behave this way? Don’t you have any self-respect? It’s always the man who begs and pleads with the woman, and you, being the woman. .’”
Mr. Dutta quipped, “Everything has been turned upside down these days, it’s the women who do the pursuing and the men who do the running now. Poor Ramen. He wasn’t in a position to be envied.”
Mrs. Dutta said, “Well, it was Ramen who managed to get things under control. I have to commend him, considering how taken she was, there would have been no escape for her had he been even remotely wicked.”
After heaping some more praises on Ramen, Mrs. Dutta said, “Now Bina says fine, let Ramen not marry her, but she’s not going to marry anyone else either, not in her entire life. But we’re going to be planning for her marriage soon. For now we’re leaving her with my elder sister — you’ve met her, she was in charge of women’s costumes for the play, and my mother’s going to be visiting next month. She too will be relieved once the last of the brood is married off. Will you keep your eye open for a suitable boy?”
I nodded in consent, but her words seemed heartless. Bina had barely survived a major crisis — and to talk of marriage again so soon afterward! Maybe what she had said was not entirely true, surely she wouldn’t stay unmarried all her life, but it couldn’t be easy for her to forget Ramen so easily. Not everyone could brush things away as easily as Ramen could!
Mrs. Dutta said, “My sister’s house is on Southern Avenue, it would be lovely if you could visit them sometimes! They’d be delighted. And Bina’s health, too — I’d really like it if she could live according to a doctor’s regime for some time. .”
“Certainly,” I said. “I’ll do my best.”
And thus began my visits to Southern Avenue. One or two people from the cast of The New Nest used to visit too, but most did not — the Duttas’ home had been the destination of their pilgrimage; as soon as the Duttas left, the gathering broke up. And even if one ran into the others now and then, there was neither hide nor hair of Ramen — he seemed to have been waiting for just such an opportunity; when the Duttas disappeared, so did he.
I put Bina through a round of calcium injections, prescribed two patent pills — one after meals and one before going to bed — and fixed a diet for her. The treatment appeared to be working; her cheeks grew redder, her eyes, brighter, her skin, silkier. Her eldest sister joked, “Bina’s blooming — marriage beckons.”
Her mother arrived from Benaras, and the matchmaking began. But whenever a prospective groom was mentioned, Bina would fling her hands up, make a face and say, “Oh, spare me, please.” By now the ice had thawed between us. Her mimicry of potential suitors, ranging from a young shawl-wearing professor to a widower landowner of Rangpur, accompanied by her comments, made me both laugh and feel sorry for those unknown gentlemen.
Her eldest sister scolded her. “Bina, stop this tomfoolery. You don’t seem to like any of them, you’ll never find a husband this way.”
Bina said, “Am I heartbroken because of that?”
Her sister retorted, “Why should you be heartbroken. These days girls turn twenty-five, even thirty, and still don’t get married, they just go on being teachers till they’re ready to drop. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen to you.”
“If that’s what fate holds how can I avoid it?”