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Chapter 8
RK sat in his office, alone, staring at the papers in front of him. It had been two months since that night when his world had turned upside down. Two months since he had been cruelly taught how deceitful the ways of the world can be. Two months since he had stopped believing in the world and shut down emotionally.
Two months since he had first met her.
In the weeks she had been residing under his roof, RK had come no closer to understanding her. In fact, everything he assumed or imagined about her somehow came undone.
Some days he felt she was calm, stoic, strong, almost unfeeling. Her presence relaxed him.
"You're okay" she had whispered repeatedly, while her had laid in her arms a week ago, outwardly 'normal' but mentally deep in anguish.
And yet, some days, she made him restless.
"I looove this pink." She was smiling to herself, standing in front of the mirror, admiring one of the anarkalis RK had gifted her some days back, not knowing that RK was watching her from the door. Her dimples curled up a bit, and for a second she felt alive. With no makeup and no jewelery, she truly did look beautiful, RK couldn't help thinking to himself.
Then, without warning, her smiles receded and she shut her eyes tight as if exhausted by the effort. RK continued to stare at her, hoping she would open her eyes and smile again. But she didn't, and a minute or so later, something familiar, something indescribable crept over her face.
What kind of a battle raged inside her?
Restless, RK knocked on the door, making her aware of his presence. She immediately turned, opening her eyes and whatever that was on her face was no longer there. Neither was that smile that RK had unknowingly hoped for. Instead there was the polite yet warm smile she always had when greeting RK.
Her perceptiveness made him anxious.
"Stay" she had gently whispered one night when he had tried to leave for his room as usual after having sex with her in her bed. He hadn't told her anything, but somehow she knew that the monsters in his head were unusually loud that night. His Bangalore factory was being put for an auction by Dipali, and he was letting her, even though she didn't legally own it yet. They needed the money for the movie sooner. But why was he letting them? Frustrated at his own inaction, he had been seething inside all day. Somehow, it seemed, Madhu knew. Her eyes knew. He lied down again, and she held him tight with her hand caressing his back. It was one of those rare instances when she initiated physical contact with him of any kind. Soon, RK had drifted into a deep sleep that he hadn't thought possible, waking well past his usual waking time to find her already gone.
She did not talk much, at least to him. When she did, most of her words had an innocence that caught him off guard. Sometimes while talking she even smiled in a way that made him want to believe her. And then, sometimes she said things which stirred him up. Her words betrayed something that he didn't understand...something that smelt like pain.
He didn't know what she wanted. She didn't show a greed for money, yet couldn't hide her excitement at little things.
"Wow kaka! This is a TV? So huge?" RK heard her voice coming from one of the groundfloor rooms. She sounded genuinely amazed, like a little kid. He had come home in the middle of the day only to pick up some papers in the morning and her voice made him stop in his tracks on the stairs.
"Haan pagli. This is called a home theatre. You don't go there, you'll trip on the wires." Patil replied
"But you promised you would let me help."
"Ok ok. But not there. Those wires are seriously messy. I always told Sikky baba..."
"Who?"
"Nobody. Come here. You clean the chairs and change the bedsheet. I will clean that side. Be quick. We have to clean and lock all these rooms before Rishabh beta comes home."
"Okay. Waise kaka, why is this house so big? Rishabhji never uses anything outside his room, his balcony, the kitchen and the living room."
'And her room' Rishabh wondered why she didn't add her room to the list. Was she embarassed?
"How much can you talk Madhu rani? You and your questions."
"Haww...oh wow this painting is so pretty.."
Rishabh couldn't help but note that she didn't talk like that or that much in front of him. Initially, he had been irked, even angered at the sudden camarederie between Patil kaka and Madhu. He hated her, and then over night he didn't. He didn't know what happened. But slowly, he had come around. Patil kaka seemed to believe she wasn't as bad as they thought, and that she was an innocent who had suffered enough. He could not make himself agree, but he had let them be, so long as it was away from his eyes.
But he could not make himself disagree either...
Quickly, he walked up to his room, picked the papers and left before either of them noticed him, not wanting to disturb their comfortable bonding.
RK didn't quite understand what Madhu's true feelings were behind her calm, grateful demeanor. What was she grateful to him for? She was his mistress, he was his master. He owned her and her destiny. In that circumstance, he would have understood if she was afraid of him, like she was when he had met her for the very first time. But how could someone be grateful for servitude?
"Thank you!" she gently said, as she looked at the books he had taken for her the previous evening, trying hard to hide her excitement. He had noticed her reading a lot of books on economics from the library, and had picked her some more on the subject.
Why did a call girl read macroeconomics? The more he tried to understand her, the more mysterious she felt, the more she made him suspicious. He couldn't trust her.
And yet, he wanted to.
Outside his cabin, the lights were dimmed out. It was well past 11 in the night and he was the only one in the building. He stared at the darkness comfortably, never having been someone who was scared of the dark. Eerily, the darkness stared back at him, or so it seemed. Was the darkness mocking him too? Or was it challenging him?
"Misery is a choice. So is happiness."
Madhu's words suddenly came back to him out of nowhere. It had been weeks since that night, and somewhere inside he still felt guilty about it. At one level, it was nothing like that first night he had met Madhu...the night when he had raped...
That was monstrous and horrifying, but at least RK knew he wasn't himself that night by a huge margin. He was betrayed, drunk, in painful rage and had no idea what he was doing. But this time it was different. He was in pain, but it wasn't the same thing. This was more than the transaction it was the first time. She had given him comfort and solace which was not part of her job description. She had tried to be there for him, when she didn't need to.
Most importantly, this time, unlike the first time, Madhu wasn't a stranger any more. She was no longer something transient that disappeared when senses returned him. This time, she was there in the morning, looking at him, being hurt by him and yet not complaining. This time, he should have known better. She wasn't Dipali, like she had pointed out. She hadn't wronged him. All she had done was caressed him with a gentleness that took away his feeling of defeat...yes it was the caress. It reminded him of Radha, the woman he had worshipped and loved more than his own mother. When his father had married Radha, that night she had come to him and taken him in her embrace for the first time. He had accepted her, and she had caressed a small, anguished child to sleep with a reassuring caress. Madhu's caress had felt exactly like that - reassuring and protective - and had unexpectedly taken RK to that moment from his childhood which was a foundation to the man he had become. And along with that had come the reminder of how it was all fake, a lie. How everything Radha had done was for money. The realization broke the little boy inside RK apart and in rage and frustration, he had overpowered Madhu, punishing her.
Only she didn't deserve to be punished.
She wasn't Radha. She wasn't that little trusting boy. And what kind of a punishment was physical assault anyway. It was humiliating, not for the victim but for the perpetrator, because ultimately it came from a filthy, deprived place inside him. RK was humiliated by himself, by his own actions. The first time, his guilt wasn't allowed to surface as his pain had a blinding hold on him. But this time, his guilt weighed at him every time he touched her. This time, the absence of his apology stung at him.
What kind of a person had he become? Had they done this to him, or had he done this to himself? Was he really choosing to be miserable, as Madhu had seemed to say? Was darkness only mocking him because he was letting it? Was he going to let it?
Suddenly standing up, RK walked out of his office and switched on the lights on the rest of the floor.
He picked up his bag and decided to go home, throwing the divorce papers he had been staring at all evening in the trash on his way out.
Anupamaa
