On the Road to Mamallapuram

"What happened?"

"Nothing. You were dehydrated. You were soaking in sweat. It was the heat. You're fine now. As soon as you can sit up, I'll give you some water."

I slowly sat up on the bed and moved so I could put my feet on the floor. My feet were bare, but I had all my clothes on. My dress clung to me, but the AC was blowing hard and the damp coolness felt good. Arush gave me a glass of water, and I sipped from it.

I looked around. The door was still open, and I saw the luggage where he had dropped it. I looked at him sitting next to me. I was suddenly as frightened as I had been when I saw his face at the door instead of Kama's. This time I didn't faint. I shivered, and he put an arm around me.

What was he doing there? How much did he know? Were we finished?

I thought of Miss Psycho as he sensed what I wanted to know.

"My meeting was shorter than I thought it would be. I texted you a few times and tried to call, but you must not have turned your ringer back on after dinner last night.

"Kama usually drives like a racer, but the two of you took a long time to get here. I arrived just as the luggage was being taken from Kama's boot. I followed the man to Kama's room, and he told me where you were."

I wondered if Kama had had a heart attack when he saw Arush.

There was a smell in the room that bothered me. I realized it was me. I shivered again. Maybe I was imagining it, but I could easily distinguish between the smell of my sweat and the other smell.

Suddenly, my whole life depended on doing something before Arush noticed that smell. I stood up.

"I'm going to bathe."

"Are you sure you shouldn't rest a while longer?

I didn't reply because I was closing and locking the bathroom door almost before he finished his sentence. I stepped in with all my clothes on and let the water pour down on me. I drenched myself and my clothes until all I could smell was the water.

I soaped myself. I soaped my dress, panties and bra. I rinsed myself. I rinsed my clothes and hung them up. I dried myself, put on the robe, sat down on the closed toilet seat and cried.

Arush had saved me from a Himalayan blunder. If his meeting had not ended early, I would have destroyed everything important in my life. Even if I never told him anything, he would eventually have realized something was different. You can't wash off shame in the bath. My children would have sensed something was wrong, too.

Maybe Kama's guilt would have made him confess to his brother. I was certain that somehow our disgusting animalism would have come to light and put me in that courtroom with my ghost children.

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To this day, I still can't explain what came over me. I had never done anything like it before or since. I've tried to put it out of my mind and mostly succeeded.

Sometimes when my friends talk about communication between men and women, it all comes back - Miss Psycho, the drive to Mamallapuram, the face of Arush in the doorway. No matter where we are or what the temperature, I begin to sweat as I feel what I felt that day and smell what I smelled. As soon as I can take control of myself again, I run to the WC and wash my face to make the imaginary smell go away.

Kama and I acted friendly during the rest of the vacation, but I made it a point to spend most of the time with his girlfriend and left the brothers to themselves during the day. I have never spoken with him or anyone else about what we did and almost did. Something I heard later made me think he told at least one person.

His girlfriend didn't last much beyond the trip, but two years later, we attended Kama's second wedding. My husband had met Mansi first, and he told me she looked a little like me. He was wrong. She looked a lot like me. She tried to be cordial, but I think when she saw me, she must have felt the same unease I felt looking at her.

She had a winning personality. She was sweet and gracious and never gossiped, made fun of others or spoke a sharp word to anyone. In other words, she wasn't like me at all. I could see that Kama was smitten, and the marriage turned out to be a good one as far as I can tell. We haven't seen much of them since Arush was transferred to America.

Recently, Arush flew to a conference in Kolkata. On his way back, he visited Kama for a few days.

He told me that Kama and Mansi seemed to be just as happy as when I had last seen them, but she was different than how I probably remembered her. Kama had explained that she was a good actress and hid her true personality when she was around most people. He thought it was a good sign that she finally felt enough a part of our family to drop her façade and let us see the real Mansi.

Arush warned me that next time I saw her, I should be prepared to be shocked by some of her opinions, language and behavior.

I asked him to give me an example.

"One night, when Kama and I were talking in the kitchen, she came in wearing a nightgown so thin that I could see everything. Kama got a strange look on his face. He got up without a word and went to her. She took his hand and led him away."

Arush began laughing.

"What?"

"I was thinking of what Mansi said when Kama jumped up from the table."

"Tell me!"

"She turned to me and said, 'The dog can tell when the bitch is in heat.'"