Mistress by Anita Nair

I just hope your time here won’t be wasted.’

    I hope Uncle will clam up. I hope you will be so frustrated by his reluctance to talk that you will give up and go back, I think. The sooner you leave, the better for all of us. I must have had an evil star eclipsing my good sense when I agreed to rent you the cottage for next to nothing. But I say, ‘I hope he will be more helpful.’
    ‘Do you think Radha will come by later this evening?’ he asks.
    Not if I can help it, I think. What is with this man? Doesn’t he realize that Radha is a married woman? My wife has other things to do, Mister, I want to tell him. ‘No, I don’t think so. In fact, it may be several days before she comes here again,’ I say, trying to hide how rattled I am by his need to see Radha.
    ‘Oh,’ he says.
    I put out my hand to shake his. ‘I will take your leave then,’ I say, giving his palm a good hard squeeze. I don’t go to the gym any more, but my hands haven’t lost their strength.
     
    It is a quarter past twelve when I reach my office.
    Unni walks in. ‘Yusuf called,’ he says.
    I frown. What can Yusuf want?
    Yusuf runs the match factory. He used to be the supervisor of a small unit that made agricultural implements at the Small Scale Industrial Estate at Kolapulli. When the unit closed down, Yusuf found himself out of a job. It was then he came to me with the suggestion that I open a match factory.
    I had stared at the tall man with the strong face who seemed to have worked it all out. He looked like an aristocrat, his bearing was so noble. As for his voice, it was a rumble when a whisper, and thunderous when he conversed. ‘Why do you think I need a match factory?’ I asked.
    ‘I heard that you asked the local match factory if they could make you some special matches and that you are still negotiating a price.’
    ‘That is true, but no one buys an orchard merely to eat a dozen mangoes, do they?’
    ‘That may be right, but I assure you that you won’t lose any money.’
    ‘What do you know about matches?’
    ‘Very little. But my niece works in the match factory. She has been there for several years and she will bring all the other experienced
workers with her. I can assure you of that. You will not lose any money and the investment isn’t all that much. You have that piece of land near Kolapulli. The old tyre retreading place. So even the shed is ready.’
    He seemed to know what he was talking about and that was how I set up the match factory. Yusuf kept his word. I didn’t lose any money and made only profits and well-wishers. The women who worked there sent me their brothers and sons and sometimes even their husbands to work in my other businesses.
    My friends who have labour trouble all the time ask me, ‘Shyam, how is it you always find good, hard-working people?’
    And I tell them, ‘Get the woman of the family to support you and she will ensure that her menfolk do.’
    Then I would feel a wrench within, for I hadn’t been able to get the woman in my house to support me in anything I did.
    But all that is different now, I think with a start of happiness.
     
    I hold the phone away from my ear to prevent Yusuf’s boom from bursting my eardrum. ‘Yes, Yusuf, tell me.’
    ‘You mustn’t misunderstand what I am about to tell you. I don’t mean any offence, but it is imperative that I speak to you about this,’ Yusuf says.
    ‘Go on, tell me, what is on your mind?’ I ask.
    ‘Well, it’s about madam.’
    ‘Yes?’ I feel my abdomen go hollow. What has she done now? When I started the resort, Radha took it upon herself to tell my staff that she and I were to be called by our names: ‘none of this sir and madam business’. It took me a long time to make her understand that they would never do it. While she may not respect such divisions, they were not foolish enough to transgress them.
    ‘Yes,’ I say, shaking myself out of my reverie.
    ‘Madam was here yesterday.’
    ‘Oh.’ Why didn’t she