The Inherited Custody

Chapter XIV

They were back to where it had all ended.

Nothing changed, except her. She grew again, in places that made her uncomfortable. Unlike before, she had a quiet pregnancy. Her expectation wasn't announced. Yet people knew. Where they lived, things could be seen, could be spoken about and could be shared like the heat. It was unwillingly, unknowingly, everywhere.

They still didn't speak or looked or ate together. They just lived, survived, without baring the other, floating as if boats sailed and sailed apart on the same stream. The silent stream. The violent stream.

Even though silence walked by the sidewalk of her path, her words, her love, her hatred, her unlivable misery, the turmoil she had had summed up into her belly, it swelled and packed it into the form of a child. Rumi.

When morning came, she rose from the bed in her nightdress, and the peacock tail dragged along the tiles. She stood outside the house, in the veranda where the clothes always hung to dry, where she could smell and listen to the world, look at the vast and unbound sea waving off. The thought of breakfast made her want to vomit. She didn't throw up that week at all.

But her stomach did churn. Her heart jumped as a fly flitting from one place to the other. She looked at the people-less, soundless lane where neighbours either slept or worked at home. Some went out to earn a living. Some to study. And some to live.

She was offended by sight. The world is so selfish, so tired, so fast, it walks at its own pace. She wasn't part of that world. She was never asked or considered. Nobody came to her. Neither did she go to anybody. She lived in a world created by herself, and when she looked out, with eyes closed, hands reaching in all directions, she didn't notice anything. She wore worn-out clothes, ate and ate and vomited, and held secrets in her heart, in her womb. She would give birth to a secret. A secret that would bear the burden of being her and Rustom. Both of them tied together in one being.

She couldn't bother it. Everything came together and fell apart like it was meant to be. It was all so much bigger than her. She seemed to not fit in this vast world. She climbed the grilled balustrade step by step. She would have to climb a couple more of them to be able to do what she was intending on.

Her hands settled on her belly, fitting as if books stacked in a bookshelf. Her eyelids fell on each other, and the world went off. She thought of what would happen next— that if she jumped, she would be able to get rid of the world. That the world she didn't want her child to live in would be gone. To raise a life in a lifeless world, where personal agony was always caged, was to give birth to a world without the sun. If she fell, everything, everyone would disappear. Perhaps people would see her and call her husband, as they did the last time. Or nobody would notice. Nobody would want to look at her. And she will be laying there, finally free, eternally breathable, tirelessly happy. The excitement was enticing.   

For some reason, she imagined Rustom behind her, guiding her, helping her gain the ultimate happiness of life. She still believed that he always loved her, that he always wanted to keep her happy.

She was used to the neglect.

The crease of her eyes opened and looked down on the concrete ground. But something stood in the way of her sight. Her goal was no longer clear.

——

She nevertheless tried to protect Rumi from the world. As a child, she wanted to keep him under her control, her sight following his every move, so that nobody would contaminate him.

Mysteries of her life unfurled with every curl growing on Rumi's head; his first tooth was the growth of his rebellion. He bit her breasts, and often tried to get away, squirming for freedom. Once he learnt to crawl, he began to drift away whenever she reached out to him. He looked away from the tangling tyranny of unconditional love, the unspeakable cacophony of silence. He wanted to hear more, explore.

By the time he knew to walk, a moment that made neither of his parents cry or swell with joy, he began running. Whether it was Rustom or her, he squirmed, tiptoed around the house like a mad child, and ran below the table or the bed and hid there and laughed, swallowing down giggles with hick-ups.

She grew tired. It made her angry. The neglect was so real, so known; it made her eyes squint with annoyance. She loved him so dearly (without a doubt. Even Rustom could see that) but his innocent wide eyes, his welcoming and affectionate smile, and the joyful vulnerability got to her, so much so that it would drive her out of her mind, wanting to hurt her child— a finger across the cheeks, two fingers on the forearms and three fingers on his fluffy buttocks.

Each punishment depended upon the size of the annoyance he created. She taught him to be silent, to learn that silence spoke much, much louder than stupid actions than affections. She read William Henry Davis to the infant—

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

— or at times Byron—

My heart is sad, my hopes are gone,
    My blood runs coldly through my breast;
And when I perish, thou alone
    Wilt sigh above my place of rest.

Rustom would also take him out for walks, lifting him from her arms without asking. And even though she didn't want that, she didn't want the wilting to begin already, she swallowed her disapproval in a gulp and let him go.

He was a good father. He always looked after him, changing the clothes, wrapping sheets around the child, putting socks on the fragile little fingers. He never got the time to feed or bathe as he'd leave for his cafeteria early in the morning and returned late in the evenings.

But when Rumi grew and learnt the alphabets in English well, he was stripped off reading his mother's poems. Not willingly, yet he was bestowed upon with his father's tiny collection of heavyweight novels. At first, he'd read with Rumi. Later on, Rumi was free to pick his own choice and read by himself.

It was through reading that he learnt more about life, about how people could be, that mistakes make humans real, that people say things they don't mean, and they hurt others even when they don't want to. That everyone has a secret. And that when those secrets spill, lives change.