Free Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya Page A

sorry I frightened you," he said. "You should not act like a timid calf at your age. As for your daughter, I will do what I can -- but remember, no promises."
    He turned and was gone. I sat down to think, and to collect my wits. When at last I rose to go, a full moon was shining, golden and enormous, very low in the sky. Bats went swooping silently by. I kept to the narrow footpath, clear and white in the moonlight, walking swiftly and absorbed in my thoughts.
    I heard no footsteps, only a voice calling my name from the shadows. I stopped, my heart hitting out wildly at my breast, and then I saw it was Kunthi, standing where the path forked with the moonlight streaming full down on her.
    "You startled me," I said, "I did not expect --"
    "That I can see," she said coolly, coming towards me. "You keep late hours, Rukmani."
    "No later than yours," I replied, not liking her tone. "I have my reasons."
    "Of course," she said softly, derision in her voice. "We all have reasons."
    "Mine are not the same as yours," I said with contempt, surveying her. She came very close, so close that I smelt the rose petals in her hair, saw the paint on her mouth.
    "Meaning?"
    "That we live differently. It is charitable to say no more. Let me pass."
    She stood squarely in my path. "I would not have thought it," she said slowly, "had I not seen for myself."
    "Thought what," I said. "Seen what?"
    "That you have so much passion in your body," she said insolently, "that you seek assuagement thus. Your husband would give much to know where you have been tonight."
    I saw her mouth forming these words, her eyes halfhooded and mocking, then I saw her face suddenly close to mine and did not realise I had thrown myself at her until I felt her body in my grip. An overwhelming rage possessed me, I kept shaking her furiously, I could not stop. Her slender body was no match for mine. I saw her head fall back, the thin sari she wore slipped from her shoulders. Then I saw that it was not tied at the waist but below the navel, like a strumpet's, and that she was naked below. Sandalwood paste smeared her swelling hips, under her breasts were dark painted shadows which gave them sensuous depth, the nipples were tipped with red.
    I released her. She stood there before me panting, with her hair shaken loose and coiling about her shoulders.
    "Guard your tongue," I said, "or it will be the worse for you."
    She said nothing for a moment, while she rearranged her garments, recovering herself a little; then once again that maddening, insulting half-smile curved her lips.
    "And for you," she said, with knives in her voice, "and for your precious husband."
    With that she was gone.
    I went alone to summon my daughter's husband.
    "Take her back," I said. "There is nothing wrong with her now, she will bear you many sons yet."
    "I would," he replied, with a hint of sorrow in his eyes, "for she was a good wife to me, and a comely one, but I have waited long and now I have taken another woman."
    I went away. Ira was waiting, eagerness shining from her.
    "You must not blame him," I said. "He has taken another woman."
    She said not a word. I repeated what I had said, for she seemed not to understand, but she only looked at me with stony eyes.
    Thereafter her ways became even more strange. She spent long hours out in the country by herself, spoke little, withdrew completely into herself and went about her tasks with a chill hopelessness that daunted me. No one could see in her now the warm lovely creature she had been, except sometimes when Selvam came to her, perching on her lap and coaxing a smile from her, for she always had a special love for him. As my pregnancy advanced she turned completely away from me. Sometimes I saw her looking at me with brooding, resentful eyes, and despite myself I could not help wondering if hatred lay behind her glance.
    Then at last my child was born, a nicely formed boy, smaller than the others had been, but of course I was older now. We nicknamed him