Monika was aware that in her child’s universe, Snehasish didn’t seem to exist. She was his mum, his dad, his everything. Although he hadn’t seen his dad for months, he didn’t — even for once — utter the word baba, who was very much alive, breathing and probably fuming at her and their son Pupun.

“It’s impossible for a one-year old to remember that the man who cuddled and caressed him every evening only a few months back after office hours was his father.”

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Almost unsettled by the swell of reminiscence, she could not help but let out weak wails of pain despite herself even as Pupun held on to her with his two small hands, soft as moistened flour. Although a smile used to be her default facial expression, she looked ashen, eyes sunk with black lines around them, forehead furrowed.

As the sun started its rapid descent, daylight was fast giving way to darkness. The neighbourhood soon sparkled with the display of LED and fluorescent tubes in almost every house and street.

There were some unlit areas, like Monika’s, though. Her casual gaze didn’t miss the red and dusky pink tints about the sky. But she’d no time and leisure to indulge in the luxury of enjoying the beauty of the evening sky. Even while gazing, dark thoughts and a nagging feeling of shame gripped her mind. What was even worse, she found no way out of the tunnel of deception through which her life was cruising by.

She didn’t feel like lighting up her home as she could communicate with herself only in darkness. While her screams hang in the veranda like a lingering odour, the one-year old melted into her body as he fell asleep. She heaved a sigh, her nostrils convulsing like they always did when she was weighed down with sorrow, thinking that Pupun would be ashamed of telling the name of his father to his friends when he grew up.

She switched on her bedroom light to put her son to bed. Her swollen eyes darted about the southern wall, which was covered with photos of her with Snehasish during and after their marriage. Pupun was, however, nowhere there between his parents. He could be seen only in the arms or lap of his mother in quite a number of frames.

Her reminiscent gaze was again fixed on a single photo of her husband. He wore a moustache that seemed both mysterious and chivalrous. A few wrinkles in the corners of his grey eyes were unmistakable. Tall and muscular, he was, however, much younger than those crinkles might suggest. While studying at Jadavpur University, she came in contact with Snehasish employed as a laboratory technician in a central government organisation. She was in for an emotional roller coaster with him for more than three years and then decided to marry him against her parents’ wishes though they made no attempt to stand in her way and celebrated her wedding with all the splendour.
The first couple of years of their married life passed off as imperceptibly as when one sees a star fall.

And then she was up the stick. She felt excited and exhilarated but he didn’t. “What?” he squealed like a stuck pig. “Let’s consult a doctor to get the foetus aborted.” His reaction was like a straight punch to her face.

“I want to see you as my sweet ladylove at least for another three years and not as the mother of my child right now,” he resumed, puckering his lips.
“Do you think romance flies through the backdoor when a couple raises a family?” her voice was laced with sarcasm.

“But I can’t imagine myself in the role of a father right now,” he said with confident casualness.

“Is it a shame to be a father? Won’t you love me just because I’d always remain busy with the nursing of the child to be born?” She touched his chin lightly to ginger him up.

“Why don’t you understand motherhood comes at the expense of a woman’s beauty?” he said, sitting in a chair beside her and drumming his fingers.

She moved to a corner. It was next to impossible for her to tolerate his illogical nonsense but then she felt he’d become a prisoner of his delusions.

In a last-ditch bid to help him clear the cobwebs of misconceived notions, she sought to moralise like an elderly auntie, “God has designed womankind to give birth to babies to sustain His creation. Birth fills the vacuum caused by death. Isn’t it a sin to go against this divine design?”

“Sorry, I don’t think so. Abortion is both legal and moral,” he gave a curt reply while looking into her eyes.

She looked extremely aghast at this reply but hid her real feelings behind a mask of hurt. Her naivety was shaken and a feeling of anxiety and insecurity began to stalk her through the months of pregnancy. She was haunted by a premonition that as every good thing in life is short-lived; her marital bliss too was going to be evanescent.

She didn’t budge on her decision to prepare for motherhood despite her fears that it might drive a wedge between her husband and herself. Strangely, Snehasish restrained his impatience with a wry smile leaving the impression that he was reconciled to the inevitability of fatherhood. To make things look normal, he got busy with her, not once but twice, that night.

She could, however, sense a flicker of impending trouble in his eyes. His apparent composure smelt like a hoax, somewhat like the calm before the storm.

When she was three months pregnant, her parents took her to their ancestral home in Krishnagar.
***
It was a hot and humid summer day but moments after Pupun came out of the womb of his mother who had to have a caesarean, a hailstorm and heavy shower greeted him. The hostile weather played spoilsport with her joy and excitement. Allowed to move about within her cabin hours after the delivery, she peeped through a window and was stunned to view scenes of destruction outside. The makeshift hut, where she’d seen the young Nepali doorkeeper’s wife sweeping, was blown away. Two tall trees near her window also broke.

She wondered if all this was a precursor of things that were invisibly taking shape in her life too.

Shyamal babu broke the news in sheer ecstasy to his son-in-law over phone.
“Great!” replied Snehasish, his voice surcharged with emotion, “I’ll reach Krishnagar tomorrow or day after tomorrow to see my baby.”

When Pupun was three months old, Snehasish brought his wife back to their flat with the passionate longing of a lovelorn husband, separated for some time from his beloved. Her parents sent their most trusted helping hand Sarbani, a childless widow of about 35, to look after her and the baby.

Monika’s mental health worried Snehasish too. He engaged a cook to spare her the compulsion of standing near a gas oven and preparing food for the family. She had to have saline transfusion a number of times and he himself administered it in his bedroom.

Monika often got the creepy feeling that Snehasish was just acting and trying to show to her and others that he was really a sensitive and loving husband. Although she trusted him with all her heart putting all her confidence in him and loved him madly, he shared with her very little or no private information at all. It now dawned on her that deep in the soul of this apparently loveable man there was a solid, rock-like dark corner that was impenetrable to her.

Her emotional state deteriorated further. What made her condition worse was her failing eyesight that restricted her movements and activities. The situation peaked to severe crisis point when Snehasish informed her one evening that he’d been transferred to Bhubaneswar.

“I requested my boss to the point of touching his feet but he didn’t rescind the transfer order,” he said with tears in his eyes.

“Why land yourself in trouble for my sake? Accept the transfer and look for suitable accommodation at Bhubaneswar so that we all can stay there,” she sucked in air between sentences.

Next morning, after Snehasish had left for office, Srabani heard an agonised cry followed by a heavy thud coming from the toilet. She rushed at once only to find her mistress lying unconscious on the slippery floor with her left foot stuck in a bath tub.

“Didi might have knocked the tub and slipped over it,” she guessed. Acting with alacrity, she sought the help of an elderly lady — known to be a social worker living in the second floor of the same building — and had Monika moved to the Emergency Ward of a well-known private hospital in just half an hour.

When she could get her breath back, she gave a call on Snehasish’s mobile but it was switched off. The only other person Srabani could think of calling was Monika’s father.

After rattling off every detail of the day’s development, she requested him, to reach there soon, her voice choked by tears, “Uncle, please hire a car. Didi’s battling for life in the ICU. Doctors say they need at least 24 hours to comment on her chances of survival. Already 12 hours are gone… I feel so helpless.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be there soon,” Shyamal babu replied in a comforting tone. But there was no trace of Snehasish.

After 36 hours, Monika started responding positively to intravenous injections and drugs, and in another 12 hours she was described as stable but…

The doctors went into a huddle and decided to transfer her to the Isolation Ward.

“But why?”

A feeling of suspense hung over the prospects of her survival although she suffered no internal haemorrhage clinically.

“What’s her problem then?” Even the attending nurses wondered.

A week after she’d a strange visitor — a middle-aged police officer.

“Sorry to disturb you Mrs Acharya but here’s a piece of bad news for you. We’ve arrested your husband and …” he paused a while with a no-nonsense approach and then resumed, “his girl friend — a lady colleague.”

“Girlfriend! I’ve never heard of it. Well, their crime?”

“They stole a sample of HIV-infected blood from a laboratory six months ago. The authorities lodged an FIR after the incident.”

“How do you know they did it?”

“We could detain and interrogate them on the basis of CCTV footage and the day’s list of visitors.”

“Well, why did he do this?” she asked in utter confusion.

“To kill you with that. They couldn’t tie the knot because of you.”

“How can you be so sure?” Monika asked with an incredulous gasp, her dark brown tresses tumbling about her face and she seemed to be trying her best to muster the little mental strength that was still left within her.

“They’ve confessed everything to us. Do you remember being ever administered any saline that was red in colour six months back?”

“Yes, yes, I remember it. When I asked him about it, he explained it was mixed with some antibiotic medicines. I believed him,” she reeled back against the iron railing of her bed in horror.

She couldn’t think that he was capable of such murderous cruelty and that all his concern for her was just eyewash, a ploy to delude and eliminate her.

Monika was released from the hospital after about a month. Although her first-ever Elisa screening test suggested that she was HIV positive, her blood samples sent to two other specialised labs found her negative.

“Ah!” she cried out in relief. The stigma had left deep emotional scars in her but the reassured look changed into one of fury and outrage.