Authors: Anita Nair
Ladies Coupe (13 page)
Why was he trying to convince me about something I already knew for a fact? But I nodded and smiled, pleased by his words. I wanted everyone to love Ebe – as I called him those days – as much as I did.
‘He looks so strong and capable. But he has a soft heart. He’s a sensitive soul,’ my father said in a quiet voice. ‘Any man who is as passionate as he is about literature has to be sensitive,’ my father, an engineer with the electricity department and a secret poet, added.
I stared at him bewildered.
‘You have to take good care of him and take care never to hurt him. He won’t be able to bear it if you hurt him.’
I nodded again. I hurt Ebe? What was my father talking about?
When I was alone in the room, I let my eyes linger on Ebe’s photograph, which after our engagement was allowed
resident status on my dressing table. My family loved him as much as I did. We were going to be so happy together.
resident status on my dressing table. My family loved him as much as I did. We were going to be so happy together.
Love is a colourless, volatile liquid. Love ignites and burns. Love leaves no residue – neither smoke nor ash. Love is a poison masquerading as a spirit of wine.
In that first year, my love for Ebe worked like a solvent. It loosened the tenacity, weakened the purposefulness that had until then been a part of my mental make-up. I was so drunk on my feelings for him that all I wanted to do was be with him. Please him. Show him in a thousand ways how much I loved him. Everything else was unimportant.
It was as if someone had clamped a gas mask over my face and made me inhale chloroform. Count backwards. First day of marriage. Wedding night. Wedding day … Everything that came before was wrapped in many layers of cellophane paper and packed away.
Of that year, all I remember is the trade fair that came to Kodaikanal. We spent an evening there buying things for our house. Coir mats for the doorstep; a rag rug for the doorway to the kitchen; glass plates and a bedspread with two good sides. This way or that. Two for the price of one. We bit into our candyfloss and felt pinkness dissolve into sugar crystals in our mouths. We held hands and beamed at each other. Love was a liquid fuel propelling our lives forward.
Eighteen months after we were married, I discovered I was pregnant. When we came back from the maternity clinic, I was so excited that I didn’t notice Ebe was quiet and withdrawn. I wanted to call my parents and tell them the news. I wanted to stand on the rooftop and holler, ‘I’m going to have a baby!’
‘Maragatham,’ Ebe said in a voice that was softer than usual. Ebe called me Maragatham then. He said Margaret Shanthi was what everyone else called me. He said both Margaret and Shanthi were common sounding names and I deserved a more lyrical one. So this was his special name for
me. Maragatham. Emerald in Tamil. ‘Maragatham’. And I glowed. A fiery-green inner flame.
me. Maragatham. Emerald in Tamil. ‘Maragatham’. And I glowed. A fiery-green inner flame.
‘Maragatham, I’m not so sure if we should have a baby now,’ he said.
Was it then that the first whiff of a fragrance akin to the oil of wintergreen sped up my nostrils? Toxic, destructive methanol when heated with salicylic acid and a few drops of concentrated sulphuric acid produces methyl salicate. A compound that has the fragrance of the oil of wintergreen. Ethanol, or what I thought love to be, produces no such fragrance. I should have known then. But I was so much in love that I wanted only what he wanted.
What’s the point in working for a doctorate? Do your B.Ed. so you can become a teacher and then we will always be together.
Long hair doesn’t suit you. Cut it off. You’ll look nicer with your hair in a blunt bob.
Do we really have to go to church every Sunday?
I don’t think it is wise to eat bhelpuri from these roadside stalls. We could always go to a restaurant …
Let’s wait till we’re both settled in our careers before we have our baby. We have each other. What more do we want?
So I agreed to an abortion.
‘You won’t feel a thing,’ he said as we walked down the corridor of the semi-private wing at the hospital. He had made all the arrangements. All I had to do was go along.
‘I’ve spoken to the doctor at length about this and she said there was nothing to fear. At seven weeks, that thing in your uterus is little more than a zygote.’
I looked up in surprise. Ebe rarely used scientific terms. He preferred the poetic and sometimes incorrect versions. And so it was because he used the word zygote that from some recess of my mind came the memory of a textbook: ‘At conception the haploid sex cells, the sperm and the egg, each of which contains only part of the genetic material required to form a person, merge to form a new biological
entity. Unlike the sperm or the egg, the diploid zygote possesses a unique human genotype and the power of full differentiation, without which no human life can be expressed. The haploid sperm and egg are only parts of the potential for human life. The zygote is biological human life.’
entity. Unlike the sperm or the egg, the diploid zygote possesses a unique human genotype and the power of full differentiation, without which no human life can be expressed. The haploid sperm and egg are only parts of the potential for human life. The zygote is biological human life.’
I stopped and pulled at his sleeve. ‘Ebe, I’m not sure. I don’t feel right about this.’ When I saw his mouth thin, I added, ‘I don’t think the Church would approve of this either.’
He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. ‘First of all, the Bible never mentions the word abortion. Secondly, if you study Church history you will find that it prohibits abortion only after a certain point. After “ensoulment”, which happens only eighty days after conception. Aristotle said that too. That the soul enters a human life only after it has survived eighty days of physical life. Right now that cell in you is just that: a cell with no soul or feelings. If you had a boil that turned septic, wouldn’t you have it lanced? Just think of this as a tumour that has to be removed.’
I sought the clasp of his hand. I was afraid. I was uncertain. And I felt guilty.
The semi-private room could be divided into two cubicles by pulling a thick green cloth curtain across. I had the window; not that I was going to be there long enough to enjoy the view.
I lay there and stared at the sky. All of yesterday I had organized my home and our lives in preparation for the next three days. ‘You can leave in the afternoon but try and get as much rest as you can,’ the doctor had said.
All of yesterday, I had readied myself for this morning. I had the maid wash the windows and mop the floors. I changed the sheets on our bed. I cooked enough food to feed a score of starving Ebenezers and put it into the fridge. And still not content, I sent the maid out to buy a fish.
She brought back from the market a medium-sized mullet. I began to scale it. ‘Let me do it,’ Kasturi offered.
But I wasn’t going to let her. I had to keep my hands and my mind occupied. ‘No, I’ll do this. Why don’t you start washing the clothes? I’ve left them to soak in the bucket.’
I could hear Kasturi grumbling in the bathroom, ‘Is she planning to go on a holiday? Why has she emptied out the clothesbasket? It’s going to take me forever to finish …’
I paused for a moment and wondered if I should tell her. Kasturi, who lived in a hut with her four children and a husband who was a drunk. What would Kasturi understand about being settled in one’s life before one had a baby?
I went back to the fish. As I was gutting it, along with the entrails, roe slid out of the belly of the fish; golden roe oozing through my fingers …
I stared at the wetness and heard a voice that whispered in my ear. A faint voice that stemmed from the faith that had once been an intrinsic part of my life: Your hands shaped and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? … You created my inmost being; you knit me together in your womb … My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in that secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be …
A slow tear slid.
The nurse didn’t mean to be unkind. But she had little patience for such procedures. She helped me on with the hospital gown, braided my shoulder-length hair, rolled it and fastened it tightly at the nape. ‘Please take off all your jewellery and give it to the bystander,’ she said in an extra loud voice, darting what I thought was a scornful look at Ebe. Perhaps she had seen many such husbands stand at the foot of the hospital bed on which their wives sat, slowly removing their jewellery. Perhaps she had been a bystander
for many such women – racked with anguish and guilt, while their husbands hovered unseeingly.
for many such women – racked with anguish and guilt, while their husbands hovered unseeingly.
My wedding band. I hesitated. How could I take that off? It was with this that he had promised to love and cherish me through sickness and health, till death did us part. ‘Take it off too,’ she said, not bothering to hide the impatience in her voice. ‘You can’t have any jewellery on when you are in the operation theatre. No nail polish. No hair pins. Nothing …’
I pulled my wedding ring off and gave it to Ebe. He held it in the palm of his hand and shot me a look of reproach. What else could I do? Hadn’t I done everything he wanted me to? I didn’t know what it was he expected of me now. And suddenly, I felt much too weary to care.
‘Please wait outside,’ the nurse told Ebe, shooing him out of the cubicle and the room. ‘We have to prepare the patient for surgery.’
I lay back on the pillows and waited for her to come back to me. To take my hand in hers and tell me that there was nothing wrong in what I had agreed to do. That there was plenty of time left for me to be a mother. I waited for her to reassure and comfort me; to prepare me.
She drew the green curtains so that I was shielded from all eyes and set a tray on the bedside locker.
‘Have you taken your panties off?’ she asked.
I gazed at her stupidly. What on earth did she mean? Where were the kind and compassionate words she was meant to speak?
‘Madam, I asked you, have you taken your panties off?’
I nodded.
She rolled the hospital gown up, till it rested on my abdomen. Then she covered my thighs with a towel and said, ‘Don’t move. If you do, I might nick your skin.’
And so, as I stared at the pattern on the ceiling, she shaved my pubic hair off. So carefully and so coldly.
On the other side of the curtain, I heard a murmur of voices. Soothing. Comforting. The ministering angel had
chosen to be with my neighbour. On the other side was an old woman and what was happening to her body was no fault of hers. Whereas I was solely responsible for this wanton destruction of life.
chosen to be with my neighbour. On the other side was an old woman and what was happening to her body was no fault of hers. Whereas I was solely responsible for this wanton destruction of life.
A slow tear burnt.
Through the blur of tears, I saw the nurse’s face soften. ‘It’s still not too late. You can change your mind if you want. Why are you doing this anyway? It isn’t as if you are not married, and this is the first one, after all,’ the nurse said, patting my arm, mopping me up, splattering the room with words that had echoed in my head for the past few days.
Ebe came in when she left. ‘I suppose she told you that what you are doing is wrong; a sin in God’s eyes,’ he murmured. But his eyes were fierce and his tone, though low, was scathing.
How did he know?
‘Don’t look so surprised! She’s a Roman Catholic. Don’t you know what they think of birth control and abortion? She has no business pumping her perverse beliefs into you. I have a good mind to complain about her.’
I was shaken by this new Ebenezer. A bigot? Or, was it that she had threatened his authority? No one had ever done that before.
But suddenly his voice changed and his eyes softened. He stroked my brow and said, ‘Maragatham, darling, I hope you understand that this is for our good. For our future.’
As always, I let his voice smoothen away my fears. He was Ebe. My Ebe. He was right. He was always right.
Half an hour later, an entourage of hospital staff arrived with a stretcher on a trolley. ‘Have you passed urine?’ the nurse asked in her brusque manner.
As they wheeled me away, Ebe walked by my side to the end of the corridor where the elevator banks were. ‘All the best!’ he said.
For the first time, I felt angry. All the best! What did he mean by that? Was I going in to write an exam or recite a
poem? Was I going to run a race or perform an experiment? All the best for what? I had nothing to do but lie there while they scraped my baby off the inside of my womb. Zygote off the inner membrane of my uterus, if you please, Ebe.
poem? Was I going to run a race or perform an experiment? All the best for what? I had nothing to do but lie there while they scraped my baby off the inside of my womb. Zygote off the inner membrane of my uterus, if you please, Ebe.
In the pre-operative room, the anger dissipated and nervousness took its place. Nurses and doctors dressed in green scrubs and caps bustled around. There were six others like me waiting their turn.
Voices floated around. Disjointed voices that penetrated my closed eyelids like prodding lances. But I kept my eyes tightly shut.
‘Whose patient is this?’
‘It’s a long procedure but nothing to worry.’
‘Why isn’t Sister Sheela here? Wasn’t she supposed to come in this morning?’
‘Relax. If you relax, it won’t hurt.’
And always at the foot of my stretcher trolley, different voices came and paused. I would hear the flip of the chart as it was examined. Then a voice brimming with judgement and laced with scorn would dismiss my presence with an ‘Oh, MTP!’
Medical Termination of Pregnancy. Read: wilful woman. Unnatural creature. Resister of motherhood and God’s handiwork. I told myself it didn’t matter what they thought. Ebe knew what was best for me, for us.
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