Mukundo was alarmed on seeing the door open. Nobody was allowed in that room! And Piyali was no longer around.

“Who is it?” he asked sternly as he entered. And then he stopped in his tracks. It looked like he didn’t even breathe for several moments. Her appearance had changed substantially after marriage. Her hair was parted in the middle and tied in a single pigtail at her back. Earlier, she mostly left it open or tied it a ponytail, and it was always parted on the side. A thick line of sindoor was visible in her parting. Girls these days didn’t wear sindoor that prominently. But apparently she did! She was also wearing a saree. He didn’t remember seeing her in one except for some stage performance once in a while. Despite all that, even in the badly lit room, he could not mistake her! “Piyali!” Words barely came out of his throat, when he did finally speak.

“How are you, Mukundo Babu?” Piyali tried to converse normally.

What he did next, startled her, but it could no longer surprise her. He took long, urgent strides towards her and hugged her. She didn’t remember when it was last that he had even touched her. Not since she was twelve probably. That was all she could do to stop herself from reacting. She broke into sobs again.

“What happened?” he got worried. He broke the hug and held her by her upper arms, “What’s wrong, Piyali? Is something the matter?”

She wiped her tears and replied with a lie, “I was just overwhelmed to be back.”

He took a deep breath and calmed himself down. “When did you come?” he asked after releasing her from his grip.

“It has been an hour or so.”

“Your… husband?”

She could feel the pain and hesitation in his voice. “He is also here,” she replied in a small voice, which he attributed to her recent crying. “We will go back tomorrow afternoon.”

“So soon?”

“He doesn’t have any leaves left after the wedding. We will have to go back.”

“And our lover boy can’t leave you behind. I am happy Piyali, that you are happy.”

She just gave a small smile in reply. Her inner turmoil after reading his diary was almost giving her physical pain. She was unable to decide how to react. She was trying hard to behave just the way she had planned to before she read that cursed diary. What all had she thought of talking to him about? She tried to think hard and finally blurted out.

“Won’t you like to meet Pronab, Mukundo Babu?” she asked him about her husband, as he made to switch on the tubelight. Now that she had already cried before him, she didn’t care how her face would look.

As the room lighted up, she could notice the split second stiffening of his face.  She regretted asking this. But he turned back to her with a smile. “You have so little time. I am sure Mashi would want to have her jamai to herself so that she can feed him well. I won’t intrude.” He would have liked to say a plain, simple ‘No’. But he tried hard to be reasonable for Piyali’s sake.

What else had she thought of telling him? She was going to complain to him about not trying to contact her. But she didn’t have the heart now. She stood there in awkward silence.

“You… look different,” he broke the silence finally.

She chuckled slightly, “Must be the saree.”

“No. No. That I had imagined you very well in!” Yes. He could imagine her perfectly in a bridal dress. He must be able to imagine her in a saree, then. “It’s something else. Tell me honestly, Piyali, you are happy, right?”

She sighed. What could she honestly tell him? She herself didn’t know. She didn’t know how to feel about the situation where she hadn’t been able to visit her mother for two months. Haldia was not that far. The reason was that her husband was not willing to let her go without him. And even now, he wouldn’t let her stay for even one full day. Her mother told her that she should be happy that he loved her so much. “Women all over the world have only one worry. What if their husbands stopped loving them? You are so lucky. And what is a mother’s house to a married daughter? Nothing. It is now that you can think of visiting within months. In our days, years went by and the daughters never came back to mother’s home. In some cases they never came back for the rest of their lives.” She should feel lucky. Probably! But what about him being paranoid all the time? He didn’t like it if she as much as stepped outside the house in his absence. “Why do you want to go out, if he doesn’t want it? Take care of your home. You are lucky that you don’t have to slog to earn your keep,” her mother would argue. “There are all kinds of people in this town, Shona. I won’t be able to bear it if they so much said something bad about you.” “Shona! He called her Shona. A term of endearment. But for some reason, she cringed at it. He never noticed. Not even in the bed, where her reaction was no match to his passion. She just went through the motion, while he whispered all kinds of things in her ears. Some sweet nothings, some suggestive stuff, and some outright lewd things – turning her off even further. He didn’t notice. But he could not keep his hands off her. Even when they stepped out, he kept her close, often with his hands around her shoulder or waist. Everyone found it romantic that he was smitten with her and the few friends that she did manage to make teased her constantly about it. She smiled and blushed dutifully. But despite what everyone said, she didn’t feel lucky. Should she feel lucky that he wouldn’t even let her choose her clothes? He loved her so much! “I like you in sarees. And why shouldn’t you wear your sindoor well? The world should know that you are mine.” And he also didn’t like her open hair, or her ponytail. That made women look ‘available’ according to him. She would have liked to ask Mukundo Babu if she should feel lucky, and happy. But could she?

“I am fine, Mukundo Babu,” she said outwardly. Non-committal, but also non-alarming.

He looked hard at her. She felt like he would see right through her. She averted her eyes, and turned her head slightly away, in the process exposing the side of her neck to him. He noticed the scar.

“What is it?” he asked suspiciously.

“What?” she didn’t realize what he had noticed.

“That scar on your neck?”

She was flustered for a moment.  “What? Nothing… This was… I had stumbled once and… a door had a sharp edge…”

“A door? It hurt your neck? And also this?” he had noticed another one on the inside of her arm and pointed at that.

Damn! Pronab called them a sign of his love. If he lost his temper, if he hit her, it was because he loved her so much, cared for her so much. These marks seemed to make him happy. He was happy even to nurse them. “If you won’t act so childishly, I won’t lose my temper, would I? But you understand that now, don’t you, Shona? Huh? Tell me,” he would ask while putting a band-aid or antiseptic cream on her wounds. She would mumble a ‘yes’ to avoid enraging him again. “Of course. And you know, how much I love you, don’t you? I had to convince my parents to go to your mother for this match. Who has ever heard of boy’s family doing it? You are so precious to me. I will never let anybody lay eyes on you.” But he would do whatever he liked with her! She hadn’t told her mother about the physical assaults. What if Debangi told her that that was normal too. She would lose all hopes, then. She didn’t know what exactly she was hoping for; but whatever it was, she didn’t want to lose it.

“It’s an old house Mukundo Babu. And I am very accident-prone. But I am learning to navigate my way,” she stepped away as she said that with a hint of labored humor in her voice and a forced smile on her lips. She didn’t want him noticing anything else. She herself had stopped keeping track of small, little wounds. And her mother seemed blissfully unaware.

“Piyali…”

“Enough about me. What have you painted new?”

“Nothing,” he sighed.

“Promila Kaki told me you have been drinking non-stop.”

“What is the news in that?”

“More than usual.”

“I am the same, Piyali.”

“Why no paintings in two months, then?”

“Inspiration didn’t strike. It happens.”

“Have you been attending board meetings?” she didn’t know that he hadn’t been. But something told her that he wasn’t all right. So, she asked.

He looked surprised at her question and then could not lie. “No.”

“Promila Kaki is right then. Please don’t do this, Mukundo Babu,” her voice quivered. It was all because of her!

Mukundo looked at her puzzled. There was something in the way she spoke that he couldn’t quite explain. But before either of them could say anything else, they heard a knock on the door. Priyendra was there. Debangi was looking for Piyali and was getting furious. Piyali followed him, not wanting to create a scene while Pronab was around.

—

To be continued