Mistress by Anita Nair Page A

polite gesture a man made to a woman, like opening a door for her. I shouldn’t be reading subtexts into it, I told myself. So I laid my hand in his.
    His grip tightened. I knew then that he knew what I was feeling. And that there was no escape.
     
    I am here. But I am also elsewhere. I wonder what Chris is doing. Has he unpacked his bags? Is he playing his cello? Maybe he is writing
an email to the woman he loves. Is there a woman in his life? A girlfriend? A live-in partner? A wife?
    I feel jealousy corrode me. Who is she?
    Then I feel Shyam’s breath ruffling my hair. What am I doing, I ask myself. I lie here in my bed in my husband’s arms and think of another man. What kind of woman am I? I feel contempt for myself.
    I stroke Shyam’s hair. Shyam, I whisper. Shyam, wake up. Shyam, wake up and love me. Shyam, you must.
    Shyam opens his eyes. His pupils are sleep washed.
    ‘Aren’t you asleep yet?’ he murmurs and snuggles deeper into my side.
     
    In the morning, I wake up thinking that I will stay away from the resort.
    Shyam peers at me from above his newspaper. He reads the Malayalam paper over breakfast. It feeds his lust for the bizarre and trivia. Dog bit baby—baby’s mother bit dog back and its ilk. ‘If you live in Kerala, you need a Malayalam newspaper to give you all the local news,’ Shyam defended his choice, when I asked how he could read such nonsense.
    In public, though, Shyam prefers it to be known that he reads the Hindu , and on Sundays the New Indian Express as well.
    He folds the newspaper and places it neatly by his plate. Then he takes the newspaper I am reading and folds that as well. He reaches for a banana, peels and eats it slowly. He leaves the skin on his plate. It looks as if the plantain slunk out when no one was looking, the skin is so perfectly arranged. Shyam is fastidious. Newspapers have to be folded and stacked; clothes ironed and put away on their shelves; all surfaces wiped clean of dust; and glasses placed on coasters so they don’t leave water marks. Candles are not allowed to drip nor are dead leaves allowed to remain on a plant. His music collection is arranged in alphabetical order and his office table looks as if he does no work on it, ever. Everything is in its place and in order.
    I thrive on chaos and it vexes Shyam to see my closet and bedside table. ‘How do you know what is where? How can you be so disorderly?’
    It irritates me to see Shyam as he goes about regulating his universe and mine. But this morning, his need for symmetry and love of order
comfort me. They contain my thoughts and pace the unruly meanderings of my mind.
    ‘Oppol will be here this weekend,’ he says.
    I look down at my plate and try to hide my grimace. Rani Oppol. Shyam’s sister. She is a good woman, but her insensitivity would make even a buffalo blanch. Her visits usually leave me infuriated and feeling totally worthless. But she is Shyam’s sister and I know there is nothing I can say to prevent her from visiting us.
    ‘They are on their way to Vishakapatnam, where Manoj is, and she wanted to stop over and spend some time with us,’ Shyam says.
    My heart sinks.
    ‘How long will Rani stay?’ I ask.
    ‘Just a couple of days. Radha, you really mustn’t call her by her name. It is so disrespectful, and you know she doesn’t like it at all.’
    I agree, I want to tell him. She shouldn’t be called Rani. She ought to be called harpy, vixen, whinger, nag, bitch …
    I can hear her voice in my head. That affected, little-girl voice that grates on my nerves. How is it, I wonder, that she knows the exact thing to say, to rob me of all self-esteem? For years now, I have been enduring it.
    ‘But Radha, why don’t you drive? All girls of your generation do.’
    ‘I do. I used to in Bangalore,’ I would protest. ‘But Shyam won’t let me. He says …’
    ‘Ah, Shyam probably has a reason.’
    Another time, she told me, ‘The other day I met Susie, that girl who was in