Unfriendly face. Mr. Singh hated Jemubhai and he hated Gujaratis and, in particular, he hated Patels, always out to seek their own advantage, like jackals.
Jemubhai drove home along the canal road. He knew the efficiency of the spies they employed, but his jaw had clenched and unclenched: How could it be?
"Out of kindness I invited her," Mrs. Mohan had said when confronted by Jemubhai.
"Out of diabolic slyness," Jemubhai fumed.
"Out of naughtiness," Mr. Mohan said, placing a mithai in Mrs. Mohan’s mouth to congratulate his politically astute wife.
But what would Nimi say?
His back was to her as she entered. Slowly he fixed himself a drink, poured a cruel shimmer of Scotch, picked up ice cubes with silver pincers in the shape of claws, dropped them into his glass. The ice cracked and smoked.
"What is it?" he asked, swiveling the cubes and turning around, an expression on his face as if he were holding court, preparing to follow a careful rational process.
He swallowed and the whiskey half paralyzed his esophagus. Then the numbness dissipated in a delicious release of heat.
He counted on the fingers of his free hand:
1."Are you just a country bumpkin?" Pause.
2."Are you a liar?" Pause.
3."Are you playing foolish female games?" Pause.
4."Are you trying deliberately to make me angry?" Long long pause.
Then, a venomous spat-out sentence:
5. "Or are you just incredibly stupid?"
When she said nothing, he waited.
"Which of the above? We are not ending this conversation until you reply."
Longer wait.
"Which? Are you bloody stupid, I ask you?!"
Silence.
"Well, I will have to conclude that it is all of the above. Is it all of the above??"
With fear that grew as she spoke the words, summoning up the same spirit of the powder-puff night, she defied him. To his amazed ears and her own shocked ears, as if waking up to a moment of clarity before death, she said: "You are the one who is stupid."
For the first time he hit her, although he had wanted to before and fought the urge for some time. He emptied his glass on her head, sent a jug of water swinging into the face he no longer found beautiful, filled her ears with leaping soda water. Then, when this wasn’t enough to assuage his rage, he hammered down with his fists, raising his arms to bring them down on her again and again, rhythmically, until his own hands were exhausted and his shoulders next day were strained sore as if from chopping wood. He even limped a bit, his leg hurting from kicking her.
"Stupid bitch, dirty bitch!" The more he swore, the harder he found he could hit.
Blotchy bruises showed the next morning in disastrous contrast to the sight of contented civilization – eggs in eggcups, tea cozy on the pot, newspaper. The bruises didn’t fade for weeks. Ten blue and black fingerprints clamped on her arm, a thunder-dark cloud loomed up on her side where he had pushed her into the wall – a surprisingly diffuse cloud for that one hard precise push.
The anger, once released, like a genie from a bottle, could never again be curtailed. The quieter she was, the louder he shouted, and if she protested, it was worse. She soon realized that whatever she did or didn’t do, the outcome was much the same. His hatred was its own creature; it rose and burned out, reappeared of its own accord, and in her he sought only its justification, its perfection. In its purest moments he could imagine himself killing her.
At this point he grew circumspect, meticulous in every other area of his life – his work, his bath, his hair-combing – uneasy with the realization of how simple it would really be for him to skid from control and jeopardize his career to commit a final violent act.
Spring came to Bonda in milk-swilled colors and newly hatched caterpillars, lizards, and frogs hopped and crawled about in adorable baby size. He could bear her face no longer, bought her a ticket, and returned her to Gujarat.
"I can’t go," Nimi said, waking from her stupor. She could take it for herself – in fact it would be like a balm, a dark place to hide herself – but for her family – well, the thought of their shame on her behalf was too much to bear.
"If I don’t send you back," he had said to her at this point, in a tone almost kind, "I will kill you. And I don’t want to be blamed for such a crime, so you have to go."
Six months later a telegram arrived in Bonda to announce the arrival of a baby.
Jemubhai got drunk that night and not out of joy. Without seeing his child, he was sure what it would look like: red as a blister, going off like a kettle, spilling liquids, waves of heat and anger emanating from it.
Far away, Nimi was staring at her daughter. She was fast asleep, and in those early months of life, peace seemed to be deeply anchored in her nature.
"Your wife is ready to return. She is rested," wrote the uncle in the haveli, hopefully. He had mistaken the reason for Nimi’s arrival home and attributed it to Jemubhai’s concern for his wife’s health, because it was appropriate, after all, to have a daughter return for the birth of a first child. They hoped this baby would bring the father back to their community. He was influential now – he might help them all.
Jemu sent money with a letter. "It will not be suitable," he replied. "My work is such. No schools. Constant travel…"
The uncle turned his niece from the door. "You are your husband’s responsibility," he said angrily. "Go back. Your father gave a dowry when you married – you got your share and it is not for daughters to come claiming anything thereafter. If you have made your husband angry, go ask for forgiveness."
Please come home, my dear, my lovely girl.
She had lived the rest of her life with a sister who had not married as successfully, as high up, as Nimi. Her brother-in-law resented every bite that entered Nimi’s mouth. He watched for signs that she was growing fat under his generous care.
Jemubhai’s father arrived to plead.
"Our family honor is gone. We are lucky Bomanbhai is dead, thank God. It’s the scandal of the town."
"Why are you talking like this?" he said to his father. "You’re following the script of a village idiot. She is unsuitable to be my wife."
"It was a mistake to send you away. You have become like a stranger to us."
"You are the one who sent me and now you come and say it was a mistake! A fine thing." He had been recruited to bring his countrymen into the modern age, but he could only make it himself by cutting them off entirely, or they would show up reproachful, pointing out to him the lie he had become.
His father stayed only two nights. They didn’t talk much after the first conversation, and Jemubhai asked no questions about anyone in Piphit, since he realized that it would have been a mockery to do so. But when his father left, Jemubhai tried to give him some money, shabbily trying to transfer it between hands. He wouldn’t take it, turned his face, and climbed into the car. The judge felt he should call him back, was about to, the words began in his throat – but then he didn’t say anything and the driver took his father back to the station where, not so long ago, Nimi had, unknown to herself, seen Nehru.
War broke out in Europe and India, even in the villages, and the news of the country disintegrating filled the newspapers; almost a million were dead in riots, three to four million in the Bengal famine, thirteen million were evicted from their homes; the birth of the nation was all in shadow. It seemed appropriate.
The judge worked harder than ever. The departure of the British left such a vacuum of power, all Indian members of the ICS rose to the very top, no matter what side they had taken in the independence movement, no matter their talents or expertise.