Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur

things to the kothi,’ she told the chowkidar as she stepped through the small inner door set in the gates.
    Briskly she walked up to the canal path, her dupatta fluttering in the pleasant dusk breeze. She turned left at the bridge, away from the direction from which the bus had come. It was more isolated here, and there were fewer chances of anybody seeing her. Now that she was actually going to merge her body with the canal she felt her confusion clearing. Her briskness increased as the chowkidar stepped out from behind the gate to stare thoughtfully at her disappearing figure.
    The place where the canal branches off is secluded and shady. The water pours into a small artificial waterfall, down under the pathway which rises a little to become a bridge. If you lean over it on the big canal side, you can see the gates that, lifting and falling, regulate the size of the stream that enters the mill. On the other side you can see the water emerging, whirling around in foaming eddies before straightening out for its onward course. As children, Virmati and her sisters loved to first throw things down one side of the bridge and then rush over to the other to see them emerge.
    Virmati walked a little beyond this point. She took off her chappals and folded her dupatta on top of them. She stared into the water. She knew that the spot where she was standing was where the water began to feel the strong pull of the small canal. Though a good swimmer, she did not expect to be able to resist the current. She hoped Paro would get the little presents, she hoped the Professor would forget her, she hoped her family would forgive her. With these thoughts she held her nose and jumped.
    *
     
    The Professor was on his last cup of tea that evening. He was sitting in the angan looking at the sky. His wife, watching him from the kitchen, could tell from his face how absorbed he was in the beauty of the sunset. His glasses, raised upwards, reflected the brilliant colours he was contemplating. In all her life she had never known anybody as crazy about beauty as her husband. He could talk about it at great length and in such detail that listeners would go away feeling that till the Professor had spoken, they had never really seen anything. She had heard him enough times to be able to predict the feelings of all involved. When the woman saw Kailashnath come to see the Professor, she thought, ‘Now they will discuss the sunset, and then he will tell him about colours, paintings, and whatnot.’
    She was about to turn her attention back to the cooking when she saw Kailashnath hand the Professor something. Her lips tightened, and the movement of her hands grew mechanical and listless in the dough she was kneading in the thali between her feet. She was suspicious, but what could she do with her suspicions? Even such a trivial thing as Virmati’s brother handing something to her husband was enough to unsettle her for the evening. She made up her mind to visit Kasturi the next day and make inquiries about Virmati’s wedding, and could she do anything to help?
    The Professor was by now getting up and making for his room. The woman finished kneading the dough, and got up to take his tea tray inside. All the breakable china on it she would wash and dry herself. Wash, so that the servant boy wouldn’t get a chance to crack or chip anything; dry, so that there wouldn’t be the water stains he hated on the crockery. Sometimes she would pass her fingers gently over the rim of the cup, thinking that his lips had rested there. She did this now. Suddenly she heard his tread, hasty, rapid coming towards the kitchen. She blushed and quickly put the cup down. The Professor lurched in and the woman stammered, ‘What … what’s the matter? Are you all right?’
    ‘Vir – Virmati,’ the Professor trembled over the name.
    The woman moved the tea things about on the tray.
    ‘Vir –’ he tried again.
    She put the tray down with a bang.

    ‘Tell them … Hurry, go