The Widower

It was a foggy dawn in late autumn. Closing a sound, nocturnal sleep, I gave a broad yawn. As I opened my eyes, I gazed upon a lizard by the black beam at the ceiling of the room. For a while, I watched it with a vague and cold stare. Being a Sunday, I was in no hurry to get up. I might not have slept any longer, but the sheer thought of whiling away another hour or so in bed filled me with ample content.

The half of the bed to my right lied empty. I could never sense when Sabita had left the bed in the morning. By the time I was awake, Sabita had finished washing up the utensils, and the kitchen-fire had been put on. Even after depriving herself of the pleasure of lying idle in bed at an early hour of a day, day after day, Sabita appeared rather happy to me. I used to get my breakfast ready as soon as I could wrap up brushing my teeth. It was easy to guess from her words that used to come along, that she found lying wakeful on her back post sunrise, even for a minute, extremely painful.

I stretched my right hand to the blank on the bed in a gesture to get rid of my inertia. The bed was cold as if it had dispelled the warmth of Sabita’s body.

All at once I recalled the quarrel I had with Sabita the previous night.

So far it had not occurred to me even once. As soon as I refreshed my memory, the joy of carrying the traces of a night-long, deep sleepover to a dim and chilly morning vanished in no time. Unknowingly, I folded and shrank my limbs which had been loosened up at ease.

What a bitter fight we had yesterday!

We? I replied to myself with utmost brevity and without enough time for consideration – No! Call it a fight or a quarrel, it was all by me. Sabita’s only participation had been limited to producing few sobs as a mark of a feeble and pitiable protest. Whatever had transpired between us last night, it could not be termed a conjugal argument, even if exaggerated wildly.

All I had done to Sabita was teaching a ‘lesson’.

I had attacked her most brutally, out of severe spite. Words had flowed out freely from my mouth towards Sabita. The more rude and nastier an adjective had sounded to me, the more delightful I had found it to address her with. Perhaps I had exhausted an entire human vocabulary that could pierce the core of a woman’s soul. In the end, I, in an uncontrollable fit of rage, had stricken her by hurling a slipper.

That had been the end of it. Sabita had covered her eyes with the fringe of her saree holding it with both the hands. She had then been weeping. The slipper had hit her hard on the chest puffed up from weeping. At once, she had uncovered her eyes to look at the slipper and then at my face. I had no clue about what exactly she had been seeing with her two teary eyes, but I could vividly remember her facial expression even now.

Still it had not interrupted my deep sleep at night. Even if not for disciplining Sabita, nor for observing the inexplicable look on her face on being hit by a slipper, the cause of my flying into a fury and bringing her to book alone could have sufficed to keep me awake on a bed of thorns through the night. Could it not? I wondered recalling the solid bliss I was enjoying a little while ago. How can a husband, who pelts a slipper at his wife at night questioning the fidelity of her character, wake up in the morning after a sound sleep to immediately feel so relaxed? Can he manage to cheer up smelling the advent of winter?

I should have turned repentant right after waking up. I had overdone yesterday, indeed! So much of fuss over a mere suspicion! When evaluated with a mind at rest, one would never find justification in its favour. It is certainly good to discipline a wife now and then. Wives are quite a wicked race. Keep pampering them, and they will go insolent. Still, I do not deny that there must be a limit to disciplining. Did I love Sabita any less? For whom did I grind away at an office with a pen in my hand every ten to five? Was it not for Sabita? She needed to be corrected once in a while for her own good. Had I stayed silent last night and let things pass, in the end it would have been bad for her, and only her. Man cannot always judge what is good for him and what is not. Females in particular! By pointing out a mistake, or by scolding a bit in order to correct a mistake, they are actually done good.

Nevertheless, I might not have gone that far. There was no harm in toning the air down to the levels of normalcy before falling asleep just by asking her for a glass of water or letting her nurse me for a few minutes pleading an ache in my legs.

I turned over in bed. Looking about, I could spot the slipper I pelted at Sabita lying exactly where it had landed last night. It dawned on me that I might have started to feel true regret.

It did not take me long to seek and find solace though. Let bygones be bygones! A stone fallen off hands, or a word slipped off lips never returns. There was no room for regret or sorrow. I was out of luck for a round of lazing in bed. I would have to get up to please Sabita a bit.

I was pondering over the means to adopt for pleasing Sabita a bit. I would never be able to ask for pardon. Expressing sorrow or begging for an apology in front of my wife – these were not in my constitution. Even the idea embarrassed me and made me hesitate. I would not even raise the topic of last night. I would act as if nothing had been said to her yesterday. Like every other day, I would make a noise with my slippers as I walked down the stairs and clear my throat audibly as I washed my face in the bathroom. On hearing me, Sabita would put the tea-kettle on the oven replacing the cooking-pot. However, I would not go upstairs after washing my face. For a change, I would rather step inside the kitchen, pull a seat for myself, and then be seated there. I would keep a cheerful face, not a serious one. She would be speechless and shrouded in gloom and the sulks. When she served my meal, I would speak haphazardly while gulping down. I would be blabbering on and behave as if I did not notice her choice of not being candid in her responses.

Sabita would surely be surprised in the beginning and confused by the turn of events. The man, who had showered abuse on her a day ago, made an unsolicited approach to talk so much today! Later at some point, she would realise that her grave wrongdoing had been forgiven by her husband, at least for this time. Scores of last night had been settled then and there – this morning bore no stain of that. As she grasped it, gradually she would start to speak easy.

Devoid of a way to stay angry for long, Sabita could not have afforded to object even if I resumed my ‘lessons’ of last night today. Instead, she was being given a free hand to talk and move around before she could ask for it. This obligation would induce in her mind a sense of devotion for the husband. What a big and light heart her husband had! Anyone else in his place would have killed the wife by now, but her husband stopped at a little upbraiding. Not only that; he, after waking up, saved her face and honoured her histrionics - of his own accord!

Sabita might not utter a word at all. One hell of a reticent woman she was! Her eyes, however, would be speaking of gratitude, her face glowing in the love and the pride for her husband. Her relief and joy would distinctly reflect on her neat execution of chores.

I rose up. My penitence faded and gave way to delight now. Whatever excessive correction I had applied on Sabita beyond her due, I would repay thrice that today, but in the form of a caress. Only the one who caresses is the one to correct! If the dosage of one exceeds the limit, the other can be allocated aplenty to more than compensate and leave a margin of profit. Today was Sabita’s day all the way.

Putting on a slipper, I limped till I reached its twin that I had hurled at Sabita. To my left stood Sabita’s dressing table. The glass of its mirror misted over and looked hazy. It was me who had provided for her luxury, this dressing table. Her father had not bestowed it upon her as dowry. As a matter of fact, Sabita might not have seen a dressing table ever before. The clothes-horse to my right had her colourful clothes piled up in order, but the haze subdued the colours. These too I had bought her, with love. On the bench in front, Sabita’s box, cashbox, suitcase, and harmonium were placed. These were her possessions which took on a somewhat dejected look due to the mist. I had bought these with the money earned by the sweat of my brow – only for Sabita. Looking at the countless proofs of my own generosity toward Sabita all around and convincingly assuring myself about the singular love that I had poured on her, I felt a deeper satisfaction. At length, I could see why I had run out of patience with her last night – because I loved her. My jealousy grew fierce in proportion to my intense love for her. Even a baseless suspicion could madden me!

Sabita had closed the door, but not bolted it. From inside the room, the door opened into a covered balcony of sorts, almost like a longish room. At night, the door next to this balcony was shut, but the door in the bedroom was usually left open. There was no need for closing it. In the morning, Sabita used to close the door without bolting while stepping out, as the noise, arising from her process of washing up the soiled dishes used at dinner, from the balcony could potentially disturb my sleep.

At the mirror of her dressing table, I observed my own face for a while. Then I pushed the door open and walked into the balcony. At first, I noted the soiled dishes, then the closed door of the staircase caught my eye, and next - Sabita, swinging.

Two large windows facing the yard were letting the sunlight in. In a moment, I understood that Sabita had hanged herself.

She had pulled in a light table from the drawing-room and placed a chair above it. The beam might have still remained out of reach. Therefore, she had pushed the table and the chair aside. There was a hook which Sabita’s son would have had his swing attached to, had she had a son. She had tied up a rope on that hook presumably by repeated throws. It would have cost a high degree of perseverance to accomplish such a task. Had she tied the rope on to the beam just by throwing it up? Well, a frenzy of desperation to commit suicide might be at work, but nothing substantial came in handy for me to corroborate this theory of trial and error. She might have resorted to some other technique to get the job done. To someone who embraces death behind a sleeping man’s back, the brain may rise to the occasion with all its keenness. It may invent devices to make the impossible possible. People who harbour hopes of sitting up in bed alive after waking up every single morning may not even dream of inventing those methods of a brain.

I would never know what exactly Sabita had done prior to hanging herself, nor could I ever think of.

This very problem apparently unsettled me. I suffered no lag or difficulty on my part in comprehending that Sabita had hanged herself, but I could not solve the mystery of her tying a rope to a hook so high at the beam. My inability gave me distress. Helpless as I was, I started to look around. It was not since she had hanged herself, rather her act of leaving her modus operandi inscrutable and mysterious made me feel dizzy. Who would ever explain to me how she had managed to arrange for her own death at the joist?

Barring this one puzzle, Sabita, by taking her life, explained everything else to me. Why then could she not resist her obsession with such trivial secrecy?

I had known Sabita from every side. Her favourite dish, ornaments and colours of sarees, the words that made her happy, the things for which she enjoyed indulging her narrow-mindedness, the layers of life at which she effortlessly turned liberal – I had answers to each of these questions. I kept accounts of whom in this world she held in affection and by how much. I could accurately fathom the depth of her love for her husband, except for those moments when she sank herself in leisurely fantasies. Sabita had been a most familiar wife to me.

About what I had not known, but suspected till yesterday, Sabita, by committing suicide, made me fully aware today. She had hanged herself in a move to divulge the fact that I had not been wrong to suspect. I did not lament over that too. That said, how on earth had she tied the rope on that hook?