All troublemakers were kept in prison most of the time till the end of the Second World War. I visited Kamal every day. We would sit on the floor at one end of the cell, leaning against the wall, iron bars separating us. But our shoulders touched, and, if I leaned hard enough, I could put my head to his.

Verve presents award-winning novelist, Indu Sundaresan’s evocative tale about a lifetime
of shared moments and cherished desires

I watch as Parvati bends over Kamal, lifting his arm to tuck the sheet around his body. Her movements are gentle, as though she takes care of a child. She smoothes the fabric over him, then reaches out to even the hair on his forehead. Her fingers linger on the side of his still face. She does this for me, I know, for then she looks up and winks. I smile slowly as she leaves the room. My gaze drifts back to Kamal and a sharp pain gnaws at my insides. This once vibrant man is an empty shape lying on pale sheets that engulf his skin. Veins stand out on the fragile face I once covered with kisses. Somewhere in the chest a tentative breath catches his lungs, fills them briefly and then flees.

I remember leaning over my first daughter a few days after her birth to check if she was breathing. My fingers would meet the little throb on the side of her head, or I would hold my hand in front of her nose as her little, warm breath condensed on my palm. This I did every night, many many times, waking from a deep sleep, feeling I must go to her. For Kamal, the man who gave me that daughter, I cannot do this. I can only watch over him. I can only guard him, knowing that inevitably one day even that shallow rise and fall of his ribs will stop.

This will last for a long time, they say. Why wait like this? Why stand vigil over an already empty bed? Do you notice, as you go through life, how many people think they have a say in it? How many people give you advice for various useless reasons? They’ve lived longer, they know better, they are just smarter. I, who have known this man more precisely than anyone else, can tell he will not last long. Until then, I will be here, by his side, waiting for the minutes to inch by. And then he will be gone, his life extinguished after 70 years, 45 of which we spent together, rarely apart for more than three days at a stretch.

I cannot talk to Kamal; I know he cannot hear me. In any case, we don’t need words anymore. A glance, a raised eyebrow, a smile, these are enough for us to communicate with after so many years of marriage, and in the early, turbulent years we rarely had the time for talk anyway. When I was pregnant with our first daughter, I spent one night in jail for demonstrating on the streets the night the Indian Congress passed the Quit India resolution. As we demanded the British leave India, they swept us haphazardly into overfull prisons. By the next morning, they had started culling us out. I was let go first, my stomach round with the child, my face blanched from a sleepless night. Kamal, president of the local chapter of the Congress, had to stay in jail. Freed, he would create problems, for, outside our little realm, beyond our burning purpose, the whole world raged in war.

All troublemakers were kept in prison most of the time till the end of the Second World War. I visited Kamal every day. We would sit on the floor at one end of the cell, leaning against the wall, iron bars separating us. But our shoulders touched, and, if I leaned hard enough, I could put my head to his. For the next three years, Kamal made brief appearances at home, only to be yanked back to jail at the smallest pretext, sometimes leaving his dinner to cool as he left.

So when that child, our first daughter, was born in 1942, Kamal was still in jail. And when she died a month after her birth, Kamal still hadn’t seen her, hadn’t touched her. We have 12 other children. Now, when all I do is wait with each passing second for the breath to leave Kamal’s chest, I wonder about the daughter who died, who we never named because I was waiting for Kamal to do so. I wonder if she would have been different.

My eyes cast over the chalky whitewashed walls within my range of vision and then to the beds lined in a military row along the sides of the room. Twelve to each side. This has been our home for the last 10 years, from the day Kamal retired from the Indian Railways as chief engineer.

I remember the day he was promoted from foreman to engine driver. He had come home, his face flushed and handsome, tripped over three of the children, patted them absently and then hugged me and my growing belly in his warm arms. As the children watched round-eyed we danced around the room, the one room we could afford to rent then, where we ate, and slept, and made love. But all that changed that day. We rented another room.

Kamal’s job took him away from me more often now than before, but never for more than three days. Each time he left, I touched his face with cold lips and would not stop trembling until he returned. Such an attitude toward a husband was not healthy, they said, distance makes a marriage work. Love was a word to be used in public, if you are asked whether you love your husband, you say you do. But you must never love him too much – not enough to allow your whole self to be overcome by him. Before we were married, they came to me with advice. Listen to your husband, or pretend to do so, at least at first. He will do strange things to you under cover of darkness, but that is a woman’s lot in life. And make sure you provide him with many sons, they said, daughters are a burden on parents. If you do all of this, you will rule the house in a few years.

I had met Kamal only once before we were married – as was the custom in those days – when he came to see me with his parents and the marriage broker. My mother made me dress up in a purple and gold silk sari she had kept for the occasion. I wore that sari three times, twice before Kamal came visiting. The other two times, one prospective groom said I was too dark, the other thought me too tall. Kamal, no indecisive Goldilocks, found me just right. He later told me I glowed like a butterfly. I showed off my meagre skills, twanging the veena strings until even my mother flinched, singing classical songs with a hoarse defiance until Kamal put a hand up to his mouth to hide a smile. My mother served them gold-tinted, saffron-scented halwa and lied as usual when she said I had made it. Kamal taught me to cook when we were married. But long before that, after he had said yes to me, there were tales of how I should be not just a good wife, but eventually, a powerful one.

From our first time together I knew the advice to be useless. The hot still nights under the clanking ceiling fan were welcomed and during the days we would look at each other with a secret, precious laughter. It was as though I had lived my life in a vacuum for 20 years – and then there was Kamal. Everything – every breath, every thought, every deed, every feeling – centered around him. The sons came, the daughters came, but my connection with Kamal flourished stronger every day. The children grew sturdy and strong and brilliant. I think we taught them to laugh, but they don’t do so very often anymore. They say life was easier in our time. I wonder. I know we taught them to laugh for we never stopped as time went by. Kamal’s promotions came with an increasing regularity. The rooms of our houses grew. And, in some years, all the boys went to engineering college, except one who is a doctor. And the girls all married well. We have a lot of grandchildren, how many, I could not say at this moment because we have not seen them in almost 10 years.

The day after Kamal retired, we had to move out of our palatial white-pillared mansion courtesy the Indian Railways. For months we had waited to hear from our sons, expecting each of them to insist that we stay with them. For months there was silence and I saw Kamal droop visibly. His hair suddenly became white, the lines on his face grew more pronounced and his shoulders stooped as though he was carrying a large burden.

They say women are stronger than men. But each time I looked at Kamal, my heart broke. I kept my tears inside with a fierce pride. When neighbours, well meaning or not, came to ask of our future, I laughed and made a joke about not being a burden on our children, and they left, some with sympathy written over their faces, some with barely veiled contempt. I could almost hear them think. Twelve children, so many sons, and nowhere to go? What a pity. Finally, I mustered up the courage to call my oldest son home one evening when Kamal was out, and asked him where we were going to live.

My heart burns even today when I think of that meeting. This boy I had cherished. He had come to us in 1947, the year India became independent. I know that after so much time, few people remember those days of danger and heady joy. When freedom comes too easily it is not valued, but for us that year was important, because we were a free people, and because this son lived, whereas she had not.

Now our son sat in front of me, hemming and hawing about the inconvenience of having his parents stay with him. No place, he said at first, and they live in a six-bedroom house with quarters for a maid and a gardener. Too expensive, said our general manager son, when Kamal would receive a large pension from the Railways for all his years of service. We were too liberal, said our son, who last year beat his 18-year-old daughter with a broom for bringing her male classmate home for tea and biscuits. Tea and biscuits. This I still do not understand. Many years before this son was born, I stood by fiery youths and listened to Congress propaganda. I marched with them, I spent a night in jail with them. My reputation stayed intact. But in today’s world, if I am to believe my son, no decent man will marry his daughter if she so much as spoke to a person of the male sex. And so he went on and on, one justification after another, while I listened in dulled silence.

His mouth moved in meaningless garble, and my mind drifted back many years to when he was newly come to us. It had been five years since her death, that ink-haired child I had sung to sleep every night. Kamal had not let me bring her to see him. Not like this, he had said, not in jail. Let her see her father as she ought to, a free man, a victorious man. She never saw her father after all, only heard of him from me, in songs, in my prayers, in my voice. So when this boy was born, I reached trembling, yearning hands for him, thinking, let him live. They put him on my chest and I saw the tiny mouth move in protest, eyes shut against a new world, hands clutching at my skin for protection. I hugged him fiercely, wanting to guard him all my life.

But he was no longer that child. He sat in front of me, his stomach hanging over his too tight belt, his face more wrinkled than mine and I thought I did not know this stranger I turned to for help. Then, for the first time, I wondered if Kamal and I had gone wrong somewhere. Maybe the neighbours were right. Twelve children, so many sons, and we had nowhere to go, it seemed. Had we done wrong? But no, we had loved them, we had doted on them, we had taught them right from wrong, we had taught them what we knew…yet, we went wrong. Twelve children.

I let my son escape to his wife and children and didn’t mention the visit to Kamal. But I think he knew, for that night as we lay in bed, my back cupped in his chest, he said softly, “Don’t mind, jaan.” He has always called me this, his life. When I didn’t reply, he kissed me and drifted off to sleep. I waited a few days and then talked with our other sons; daughters I could not and would not demean myself by asking for help – the moment they married, they belonged to someone else; they were ours no longer. The boys all came up with some excuse or the other and the final one, when all else failed was always that it was the eldest son’s duty, not theirs. Finally, they came up with a solution. A retirement home.

What was that, I asked in apprehension. And I was right to be frightened of this western concept that had invaded our existence. Kamal and I moved into this dormitory ten years ago and haven’t left it since. The retirement home is too far from the city, so our grandchildren and our children rarely come to visit. All of Kamal’s pension goes toward paying the rent here, for two beds in 24. Our children took everything else we possessed. We did not need it here, they said. And so my daughters-in-law and daughters took away my jewels and silver vessels, my sons bullied us until they were allowed to raid our bank account and empty our savings. We had fought, at one time, so long ago, for our country’s freedom, but it simply hurt too much to fight for ours.

Then I watched Kamal age faster than he should have. And, God help me, I hated my children as I saw grief eat away at him. He lost weight, became frail, the veins on his hands stood out green and ugly, his eyes sank into his skull. Physically, he was not the Kamal I knew and loved for so long, but mentally he was as sharp as ever.

And that made our stay here more difficult. After years of building our fortunes and futures and enjoying them both, we were herded around like cattle. Perhaps worse than that. There was no privacy. We could not talk to each other or walk in the grounds without some orderly lurking in the bushes. The food from the kitchen is not worthy of that name. But more than the physical discomfort it is the indignity of the whole situation.

It broke Kamal completely. A month ago, Kamal had a heart attack and has been in a coma ever since. He doesn’t open his eyes to look at me or say anything. The only sign of life in him is the shallow rise and fall of his ribcage.

Parvati has come back into the room. I look at her kind face and gentle eyes and my heart warms. She has helped me with Kamal, and we owe a lot to this young girl who works here, this child not of our flesh. I wonder sometimes if our daughter – the one who died – would have been like her. The ones who lived are not.

She leans over me. “Shall I turn your head?” I blink rapidly. Or at least I think I blink, in any case she understands and leaves my head the way it is, on its side, so that I can see Kamal. For four months I have stayed in this bed unmoving after the stroke. One moment everything seemed all right but the next I awoke to a view of the flaky whitewashed ceiling. Kamal was at my side and strangely his eyes were unafraid, full of a smiling courage. There was no way of communicating with him; my throat is frozen up. But he understood me, read to me, talked to me, held my hand (or so he said; I could not feel it).

Our children have not come to visit. Even the news of Kamal’s heart attack did not bring them to us. I wonder, briefly, stupidly, if she would have come. And I think, to satisfy an old woman’s fantasies, that she would. But none of that matters anymore. Kamal will go soon, I know, and I will follow him. We have not been parted for more than three days at a stretch in all the years we were married. And there is no reason to do so now.Bedside Dreams: Copyright, Indu Sundaresan.