Mistress: A Novel

by Anita Nair

Overview

When travel writer Christopher Stewart arrives at a riverside resort in Kerala, India to meet Koman, Radha's uncle and a famous dancer, he enters a world of masks and repressed emotions. From their first meeting, both Radha and her uncle are drawn to the enigmatic young man with his cello and his incessant questions about the past. The triangle quickly excludes Shyam, Radha's husband, who can only watch helplessly as she embraces Chris with a passion that he has never been able to draw from her. Also playing the role of observer-participant is Koman; his life story, as it unfolds, captures all the nuances and contradictions of the relationships being made—and unmade—in front of his eyes.

Booklist calls Mistress "Tempestuously exotic, Nair's intricately woven multicultural and multigenerational saga pulsates with passion and desire."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429998710
Publisher:	St. Martin's Press
Publication date:	08/08/2006
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
File size:	401 KB

About the Author

ANITA NAIR lives in Bangalore, India. Her books have been published in several languages around the world.

Anita Nair lives in Bangalore, India. Her books have been published in several languages around the world.  Her last novel, Mistress, was long listed for the 2008 Orange Prize in the UK, and named a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Award in the U.S. The Lilac House was recently adapted for stage and film in India.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Sringaaram

Love. Let us begin with sringaaram.

Do we know other words for it?

Or do we know it by the widening of the eye, the arching of eyebrows, the softness of the mouth that curves, by that swelling of breath from each nerve-end wanting to cup a contour?

We have words for this flooding that can sweep away all other thoughts. Pleasure, longing, lust ... we call it by so many names. It is human to do so. To give a name to everything and everybody, to classify and segregate. For only then can we measure the extent of this need to know, to conquer, to hold this wondrous being, this creature that suffuses every moment with a strange and inexplicable yearning.

Look around you and tell me, what else is love?

Could it be this month?

August.

There are flowers everywhere. Balsam and hibiscus. Yellow trumpet-shaped flowers and the tiny, delicate ari-poo in the hedges. Marigolds, chrysanthemums, countless hues that shape our needs. The undergrowth is dense. Snakes slither through unkempt land. This is an untamed month, wild and wilful. Rain pours, so does sunshine.

The harvested fields stare at the skies with a forlorn vacantness: the past and the future. The present is the harvest that lies in homes, in wood-walled manjas, golden and plump. Love lives in the present. All else is memory and hope.

There are no fruits. Neither cashew apple nor jackfruit, mangoes nor palm fruit. Perhaps in some untended part of the garden, a pineapple rests, nestling among ash-green swords. The fruit of the month is paddy. Kernels filled with the sweet fullness of plenty. This is how sringaaram feels.

The skies are lit up with the moon. A night orchestra plays: crickets with malaccas strung on their wings, the frog with the rattle in its throat, the hooting owl, the rustle of palm leaves, the wind among trees.

During the day, high up in the skies, the crested lark sings. The vanampaadi. From heaven's doors, a trail of the unknown, caressing the soul, stoking desire, propelling needs into words ...

Love for the unknown. That, too, is the face of sringaaram.

Radha

We walk up the staircase, two to a row. Chris and his cello; Uncle and I; Shyam and the red-shirted railway-porter laden with bags.

Chris pauses at the top of the staircase and then walks towards the railing.

Beyond the railway lines is the riverbank. Or what is left of it. Most of the sand has been carted away to build homes. The river, when it is swollen with the monsoon rain, creeps into the houses that line the riverbank. Mostly, though, the Nila is a phantom river, existing only in the memories of those who have seen it when in full spate, swift and brown and sweeping into its waters all that dared stem its flow.

Chris stands there and takes a deep breath. I try to see the view as he is seeing it: the gleaming line of water, the many pools that dot the river bed, the herons fishing, the treetops and the tall grass that grows alongside the river, ruffled by a breeze, the distant hills and the clear blue skies, and I know fear. Already, in these few minutes of being with him, the familiar is endowed with a new edge.

I look at him. With every moment, the thought hinges itself deeper into my mind: What an attractive man.

It isn't that his hair is the colour of rosewood — deep brown with hints of red — or that his eyes are as green as the enclosed pond at the resort. It isn't the pale gold of his skin, either. It is the way he's combed his hair back from his forehead: a sweep of order that gives up midway and tumbles into disorderly curls. It is the strength of his body and the length of his fingers, that belies what seems to be a natural indolence. It is the crinkling of his eyes and his unhurried smile that throws his face into asymmetrical lines. It is the softness of his mouth framed by a brutish two-day stubble. It is how he appears to let order and chaos exist together without trying to separate one from the other. He looks as if he doesn't give a damn what anyone thinks of him.

I see Chris turn to speak to Uncle. 'Philip told me about this view. He said I should stand here at the fourth pillar on the bridge and what I saw would make me want to never leave.'

Uncle goes to stand alongside Chris.

When they had clasped hands at the foot of the staircase, there had been a peculiar silence, resonant with secret words they spoke to each other in a language that neither I nor anyone else had ever heard before. But Shyam, Sham as Chris calls him, broke that moment of grace with a carelessness that is so typical of him.

'What is this?' he asked, pointing to the instrument that Chris carried on his back. 'A violin's grandfather?'

'I don't think it's a violin.' I tried to interrupt Shyam before he made an ass of himself. 'I've seen it in films and a few times at musical performances. I can't remember what it's called, though,' I hastened to add. Was it a cello or a double bass? I wasn't sure.

Chris drew his hands from Uncle's and stepped into the conversation with the ease of one walking into a familiar room. 'This is a cello,' he laughed.

'A what?' Shyam asked. 'Did you call it a cello?' He turned to include me in the sweep of his joke. 'When you get to the resort, I'll show you our cellos,' he said with a broad wink.

Chris looked puzzled. He searched my face for an explanation. How could I tell him that Shyam was referring to the hot cases that kept the food warm in the buffet at the resort? It trivialized the magnificence of the instrument. I turned away in embarrassment. He wasn't just a sham, he was an uncouth boor, this husband of mine.

Now, he walks to where Uncle and Chris stand drinking in the view, and says, 'It's a pity that you can't see the resort from here. Haven't you seen enough of this? The view from the resort, I promise you, is even better. But first, I have something to show you. Come along.'

The two men prise themselves away and, with a look that I read as resignation on Chris's face and as long-suffering on Uncle's, follow Shyam. He leads them to a yellow board slung on the side of the staircase. 'Now this is what I can't tire of looking at,' he says, flicking a dried leaf off its frame.

'Near-the-Nila,' he reads. 'A river retreat with everything you wished for and more. A/c and Non A/c cottages and rooms. Multicuisine and Kerala Speciality Restaurants. Ayurvedic Massages and Cultural Extravaganzas. Business or Pleasure, Near-the-Nila knows your needs better than anyone else.' He pauses. And then, darting an earnest glance at Chris, he says, 'This is what I hope will make you want to never leave. In fact ...'

I can't stomach any more of this Near-the-Nila promotion. I nod to the porter and we begin the descent to the other side of the platform where the car is parked.

'Who is he?' the porter asks. 'Has he come to study kathakali?' Mohammed the porter is as much a fixture at the Shoranur railway station as the Non-veg Refreshment Room and the SLV newsstand. For as long as I can remember, Mohammed has carried our bags. It is part of the ritual of every journey. When I was a child, Mohammed took our bags, brought the biriyani parcels and then went with me to the newsstand to buy a comic. Later, when I was a grown-up and travelling to Bangalore where my college was, he would guard my bags while I bought a magazine.

These days I hardly go anywhere and seldom come to the railway station. But Mohammed had spotted me as I walked in and had rushed to my side, to fetch and carry as always.

'No, no,' I say, suppressing a smile at the thought of Chris studying kathakali. 'He's a writer. He's come to meet Uncle. And he will be staying at the hotel.'

Retreat and resort are words that have no room in Mohammed's vocabulary.

'What's that thing on his back?' he asks, gesturing towards the cello.

'That's a musical instrument,' I say.

'How does he play it? Do you know? Does he keep it on a table or does he prop it against a wall?'

The cello is going to be part of many a discussion, I realize.

I smile and unable to resist mischief, I say, 'I think he holds it between his legs.'

Mohammed flushes and looks away.

'Here, Mohammed,' I say, pressing a few notes into his palm. 'Some tea money.'

Mohammed pockets it carefully. He clears his throat and looks into the middle distance. Both of us know what the money is for.

'Ah, here they are,' Shyam says, opening the car door. 'Porter, put the bags in,' he orders.

'So how much will that be?' he asks, drawing out his wallet.

Mohammed lets the lungi he had hitched up when carrying the bags fall to its proper length. Then he crosses his legs as a measure of humility, and scratches his head to suggest ignorance.

'In which case, this should suffice,' Shyam says, drawing out two ten-rupee notes.

For a fleeting second, Mohammed's eyes meet mine. The twenty I had given him earlier was part payment, paid in advance.

Mohammed's mouth twists into a half smile. I can see contempt in the curl of his lips and I cringe. He rubs the notes between his fingers and I worry that he will say something caustic. But he holds his tongue and, as if they were five-hundred-rupee notes, he folds the money with great care, thrusts it into the pocket of his shirt and walks back to the station.

Chris looks at the car and asks, 'How do we all fit in?'

Shyam pats the bonnet of the car. 'This, my friend,' he says, 'is an Ambassador, the first car to be manufactured in India.'

I steel myself to show no emotion. When Shyam set up Near-the-Nila, all the staff who worked there and even I, mistress of the property, though only in name, were given a sheet with all that we were supposed to know. Everything a foreign tourist would ask about: Ayurveda, kathakali, kalarippayatu, Kerala cuisine, the Thrissur pooram, Mangalore tiles and, although the car is manufactured in West Bengal, the Ambassador.

Shyam pauses. He wants me to describe the car's features. I pretend not to understand. He sighs and begins, 'The Ambassador, like I was telling you, was the first car to be manufactured in India. It's fuelled by diesel, which makes for unparalleled economy in running costs. Petrol in India costs a great deal. This car has a fuel tank that can hold forty-two litres. It costs about US $42 to fill her up full tank. Not much by your standards, but that's monthly wages for a labourer here. The Ambassador has an easy cold start and 9" diameter brake drums for effective braking.' Shyam mimics with his hand the motion of the brake.

Three more lines and he will be finished. Hurry up, I want to tell Shyam. Can't you see Chris doesn't care whether it has a five-speed gearbox or independent front suspension?

'The suspension is what makes an Amby, as we call it, perfect for Indian roads. Now, I could get a Japanese or a Korean car or even a Ford, but in ten years, while my Amby will still run, these new cars will be scrap.'

Chris wipes his forehead and asks, 'But how do we all fit in?'

Uncle, who hasn't uttered a word for a while now, beckons to the driver of an autorickshaw. Chris says, 'I'll go with him. Problem solved, right?'

He opens the rear door of the car and lays his cello carefully on the seat.

Shyam doesn't say anything. I know he isn't pleased. There was so much more he had planned on telling Chris.

Uncle turns to me and says, 'We'll be at the resort before you. Where do I take him?'

'Cottage No. 12,' I say. 'But first, do take him to the restaurant for breakfast. We'll meet you there.'

I know that Shyam wants Chris to have the best cottage, the one closest to the river and farthest away from the main building. Chris, Shyam hopes, will include a glowing account of Near-the-Nila in the travel book he is writing.

So we drive to the resort, Shyam and I wedged in the front seat with the driver.

In the back lies the cello, a proxy passenger, foreign and aloof and stirring in me much of what I have steeled myself to never feel again.

I turn to glance at Shyam's face. Shyam is handsome. His skin is light and smooth; though he shaves every morning, by late noon, a bluish shadow appears, hinting at facial hair that he keeps ruthlessly under control. His features are even and chiselled; his body straight and supple; his hair jet black, abundant and neatly combed. He looks like a popular Malayalam film star. An action hero. Shyam knows that other women look at him. That he incites interest and perhaps even lust. I, however, feel nothing for him except perhaps a habitual annoyance.

I see that Shyam is upset with how the morning has progressed and suddenly I feel a pang of pity for him.

The car ride back to the resort is usually one of the highlights for him. Down the main road, and then Shyam would point to a stack of chimney towers by the river and say, 'That used to belong to Radha's family. The oldest tile factory in the region.'

'This,' he would say, pointing to a modern three-storey building, 'used to be a cinema house. Murugan Talkies. It belonged to Radha's grandfather. Some years ago, it burned down and this came up instead.'

And so the list would continue. A shopping complex. A rice mill. A row of houses. A rubber plantation. A mango orchard. A line of coconut trees ... all of which my family own or once owned.

Then it would be his turn. This was the moment he waited for, when he could point out his trail of acquisitions, leading up to Near-the-Nila. And sometimes, me. He has been cheated of this, I think now.

Everyone in Shoranur knows everything about us. It is only with strangers that Shyam knows the measure of his triumph.

I pat his arm and say, 'Don't be upset. There will be more opportunities.'

Shyam's eyes bore into mine. 'What are you saying? What makes you think I am upset? I'm just annoyed. Who does he think we are? His porters? To follow with his bags and his silly buffalo of an instrument ...'

'Ssh ...' I try to calm him down.

Shyam has an exaggerated sense of self-worth. Or perhaps it isn't as exaggerated as it is reduced. He sees slights where none are intended. And for this, too, 'Radha's family' is to blame.

Suddenly I know what it is I feel for Shyam. Neither pity nor even affection. Just responsible.

'I know, I know,' I say.

Shyam slides his fingers through his hair, which parts and falls back. Once, I used to run my fingers through it. Now, when I look at it, all I feel is a certain detached interest.

'You need a haircut,' I say, trying to change Shyam's mood.

'Do you think so?' he asks, tugging at a lock to check its length. It doesn't matter if he thinks otherwise. Shyam will cut his hair because I've asked him to.

Shyam would bring me the moon if I asked him to.

The car sinks into a pothole and lurches out, on to the road. The cello in the back moves precariously. 'Stop,' I tell the driver and we pull to the side of the road.

I get out and try to move the instrument case into a safer position. I think of what's within. The burnish of the wood, the satiny feel. I let my fingers slide along its length in a swift furtive caress. How is it that I have begun to care about something I haven't even seen before? How is it that I know that within this case is perhaps the most beautiful thing I would ever see in my life? I feel dread swamp me again.

When I sit beside Shyam, he smiles approvingly. 'The last thing we need is that instrument damaged. We don't want him going back and giving our resort, or our roads, caustic notices. Though I wish he had brought something easier to transport. Like a flute, maybe?' He sniggers.

The driver's mouth stretches into a smile. 'Do you think he's a flute man?' he asks, impishness flaring in his eyes.

Shyam darts me a quick look and grins. 'You never know with these arty types! I suggest you keep your distance, anyway.'

They smile at each other, pleased with their gutter humour. With being able to be ribald in my presence, secure in the knowledge that I wouldn't understand.

Playing the flute. Cocksucker. Wimp. Low-life ... They don't really mean it, I tell myself.

I keep my face expressionless. Shyam has forgotten what I know. Shyam has forgotten that I have lived outside this protected world he likes to keep me in.

In that hot car, I feel cold and shivery. I feel alone. I lay my hand on my thigh, palm up. I wish Shyam would take it. If he does, all will be well, I think.

My hand lies there, open and untouched. And then it occurs to me why I would never ask Shyam for the moon.

I hate having to ask.

Shyam

Why is Radha wearing her 'the woes of the world are on me' face? Sometimes she tires me with her unhappiness. What is she unhappy about?

I am the one who has a rightful claim to unhappiness, but I have put it all behind me. And so should she. Besides, we now have Near-the-Nila, apart from everything else.

I knew that taking Uncle with us to the railway station was a bad idea. I had told Radha so. But she was adamant. 'Christopher is coming here to meet Uncle. And Uncle's very keen to go with us.'

'I know,' I tried to persuade her. 'But we don't want him to focus only on Uncle.'

'Shyam,' she said, in that tone that makes me want to slap her. As if I were a little child who had to be made to see sense. 'As far as Christopher Stewart is concerned, Near-the-Nila is just another resort. If we shove it into his face, he'll either be dismissive about it or ignore it totally. He's staying with us, isn't he? We have all the time to woo him and impress him with everything you want to impress him with. But right now, we mustn't forget that Uncle is his top priority.'

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Mistress"
by .
Copyright © 2005 Anita Nair.
Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Title Page,
Prologue,
BOOK 1,
Sringaaram,
Haasyam,
Karunam,
BOOK 2,
Raudram,
Veeram,
Bhayaanakam,
BOOK 3,
Beebhalsam,
Adbhutam,
Shaantam,
Epilogue,
Acknowledgements,
ALSO BY ANITA NAIR,
ANITA NAIR,
The Kathakali Lexicon,
Bibliography,
Copyright Page,

Reading Group Guide

Christopher Stewart, a handsome, young scholar from the US travels to India to interview a famous musician, Koman. Christopher spends a lot of time with Koman and his beautiful, unhappy niece Radha. Radha is blessed with a husband who adores her and a luxurious life; however, she's desperately bored and discontented. She feels that her materialistic, ambitious husband is an embarrassment. Radha and Christopher have an instant connection and begin a passionate affair that will change everyone's life forever.