The Dowager

Ajay Patri

Illustrated by - Riley Stratton

I was in the study, my eyes on the mango tree outside, when Shankar peeked into the room and announced that he had readied the car for my trip to the hospital.

“I’ll be there,” I said. “A minute.”

He bowed and retreated from the study. I was ready – I had been, for a while – but I lingered by the writing desk and continued to look at the tree. Its crooked limbs were so close to the house that they brushed up against the wall. The gardener complained about this all the time. He wanted my permission to prune the errant branches, he said the eaves would sustain damage if the overgrowth was not taken care of. A scowl would take over his aged face every time I said no to his proposal. He didn’t like me but was far too mindful of his place to do anything more than seethe in silence.

Vaman had been very fond of the tree. There were many days when I had entered the study and found him by the window, caressing a leaf that had drifted in on an easterly breeze. His grandfather had planted the sapling soon after returning from his studies abroad. Vaman had never met the man but his grandmother had regaled him with stories of her dead husband during his childhood. She, like the gardener, hadn’t liked me much either.

The cuckoo clock on the wall struck the hour and I took it as a sign to make my way downstairs. In the foyer, the doorman snapped to attention and saluted me. I stepped out of the house and the first thing I saw was the old Bentley that Shankar had spruced up for the journey. A sheepish smile flickered on his face.

“I took the liberty, Ma’am. Hope you don’t mind.”

I had half a mind to demand that Shankar go back to the garage and bring out the Honda but in the end, I decided against it. The smile on his face grew wider when he saw that I was not going to berate him. He jumped forward and pulled open one of the rear doors.

“This will get us there in no time, Ma’am,” he said.
“Good,” I said. “Though I’m afraid that I may already be too late.”

*

Vaman and I met while studying for our masters at a university in England. I had picked the college because it was the only one which had offered me a full scholarship. Vaman had the place picked for him because several generations of the men in his family had studied there in the past.

It was immediately clear to everyone that his was a family of means. There were not many of us who wore cashmere sweaters to class or talked intelligently about wines and horse breeding. Vaman never hid that he came from wealth but neither did he ever make it a matter of pride. He was always gentle in his bearing and generous to a fault. In our second year, he paid the tuition fee for a mutual friend when she lost her source of funding. I didn’t know of this until months later and even then, it was our friend who mentioned it. Vaman himself never brought it up.

It still came as a surprise to me when the two of us started going out. He was a good man, I told myself, but wasn’t the chasm between us too wide to bridge? Love, though, came with its own sense of inertia and it wasn’t long before we had both graduated and returned to India. I started work at a consulting firm where I clocked in late hours and was often the only woman in the room. Vaman entered his family business to help his father keep track of their vast portfolio of properties and look for ways to diversify it even further. We met over weekends at the place I rented and spent many a lazy afternoon wrapped around each other in bed, the hubbub of the traffic outside dulled by the closed blinds and windows. We didn’t talk much on such days. Apart from our work, there was little else happening in our lives that merited long conversations. We luxuriated in the silence and let our breathing fall into sync until it felt like we were one being, one entity.

Let’s get married, Vaman said one day. I couldn’t think of a reason to say no.

*

Vaman’s parents and his grandmother visited the town where my parents lived to talk about our wedding. While the families exchanged pleasantries, Vaman and I slipped away from the house, eager to be by ourselves. I led him to a pond nearby where I had watched herons stalk the shallows in my childhood.

It was there, on the banks of that pond, that Vaman told me about his family’s peculiar tradition. If a man died without an heir, Vaman said, his wife adopted a grown man as her son and that son then became the head of the family. There was precedence in the not-so-distant past for this: Vaman’s grandmother had adopted his father after the death of her husband.

“You’re saying that you’re not actually related to your grandmother?” I asked him.

“Not directly, no,” Vaman replied. “But these adoptions always happen from within the extended family. My father was a distant nephew of her husband’s, or something like that. I know it all sounds very strange but this is a common practice in a lot of old noble families.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

Vaman shrugged and fixed his eyes on the far end of the pond. The overhanging branches of an old tree skimmed the surface of the water there.

“If we don’t have children,” he said, “you’ll need to do this after I die.”

“What a morbid thought! I thought we were here to talk about our wedding, not your death.”

“I wanted to be honest with you. The women who marry into my family often struggle to conceive. That’s the way it has always been.”

“What if I don’t want to have children at all?”

Vaman shook his head, the smallest of frowns gracing his wide forehead.

“I’m being serious here,” he said. “Anyway, part of me has made peace with it already. If we don’t have any children, I’ll do what my grandfather did: plant my own mango sapling and watch it grow.”

It was my turn to look away from him. I let my eyes roam over the still surface of the pond, so familiar and yet missing something crucial. It was a few minutes before I realized that the herons were all gone.

*

The years passed, neither too fast nor too slow. Relatives aged and died. Servants entered our service and left. On the street we lived on, old homes were demolished and new ones built to replace them. I climbed the ranks in my organization, eventually coming to head the southern division in the country. Vaman sold off pieces of the family property and invested the returns in other ventures, some of them successful, others not so much. Through it all, the mango tree outside the study provided us with a healthy harvest of its fruit every summer without fail. We never had any children.

*

It was the day after Vaman died that I heard the word for the first time. Dowager. That’s what they called me: the dowager. It was a strange word, stuffy and exotic, and one that sat ill in my ears.

It came up when a lawyer and the family priest – a combination that I would have scoffed at on any other day – approached me after I returned home from the funeral.

“We’ve always planned for this contingency,” the lawyer said. “Please don’t worry about anything. We’ll come back to you once we vet the candidates. There’s a list in place already. As the dowager, all we’ll need from you then will be a few signatures.”

The priest placed a hand on his chest and said that there would be a small ceremony as well, for which he would look up the auspicious dates.

“Is this all necessary?” I asked them.

“The ritual is part of the family’s custom,” the priest said. “It’s been performed for years and years.”

“I meant the whole thing. The adoption. Can’t we do without it?”

The two of them exchanged a glance, silent but knowing. When the lawyer spoke next, there was a stiffness to his voice that hadn’t been there before.

“This is what your husband wanted,” he said.

*

I met Raghuveer a month after Vaman’s funeral. Convention dictated that the adoptee had to be an adult – thus eschewing the need for an irksome regency arrangement – and a bachelor – it being in bad taste for a man to have a wife before he has a mother. And, of course, he also had to be a blood relation of the deceased. Raghuveer slotted well into all these categories. He also had an MBA from a university abroad, which, while not necessary, did continue the tradition of the men in the family having impeccable educational qualifications.

Our meeting took place in the study, with Raghuveer seated at the desk. It was odd to see someone other than Vaman occupy that chair, especially since the two of them looked nothing alike. Raghuveer was a good head taller than Vaman had been, his hair was straight and not curly, and the color of his eyes was all wrong. If we had ever had a son, this is not what he would have looked like.

The lawyer and the priest explained the adoption process that would take place over the following weeks. The affidavits to sign, the authorities to approach, the public declarations in newspapers, the relevant ritual to seek the permission of the family deities. The whole thing felt like a job interview, albeit one in which the outcome was a foregone conclusion. At the end of the discussion, Raghuveer and I signed the first of many documents to set the process in motion. The lawyer looked at our signatures, pronounced himself satisfied, and walked out of the room, the priest at his heels. Raghuveer got to his feet as well but he remained in the room.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.

I could only bring myself to nod because I still found it difficult, even after a month, to verbally acknowledge Vaman’s death. Raghuveer fixed his eyes somewhere on the floor next to me and cleared his throat.

“You can continue to stay here,” he said. “This place will always be your home. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you need anything. I promise that I’ll always take care of you.”

He waited for me to respond to this declaration of his. Perhaps he expected gratitude or perhaps he expected me to burst into tears. I did neither, my mind going instead to the savings I had built up over my long years of working. As the seconds ticked by and the silence between us threatened to fester, Raghuveer stuck his hands into his pockets and walked out of the room.

I went and sat in the chair he had vacated. From the window and through the branches of the mango tree, I saw him step out of the house and greet a middle-aged couple who stood outside. His parents. His real parents. Apparently, it wasn’t necessary for the adoptee to be an orphan.

*

A year later, Raghuveer married Janaki, a match found and approved by his parents, though it was I who sat through the wedding rituals as his mother. Two years after the wedding, on one of his monthly visits - he had continued to live with his parents instead of moving into the house with me - Raghuveer delivered the news of Janaki’s pregnancy. He brought the subject up at the end like it was an afterthought.

“We’re going to become parents,” he said. “Janaki is expecting. The child is due in March next year.”

I congratulated him and he bestowed a rare smile upon me, one that was little more than an awkward twist of the lips. It only occurred to me after Raghuveer had left that he hadn’t said that I was going to become a grandmother.

*

“So fresh, Ma’am,” Shankar said. “Look.”

We were at a traffic stop, behind a tractor that was spewing copious amounts of smoke into the still air. It had a trailer tethered to it that cast a long shadow on the soft silver bonnet of the Bentley. The trailer was filled to the brim with tomatoes, unnaturally bright in the morning sunshine.

“Best to buy them at dawn, Ma’am. All the good ones are gone by the afternoon.”

The signal turned green and the tractor lurched forward. Shankar manoeuvred the car around it and we were flying again.

“Back in my village, Ma’am,” he said, “people bring a basket of fresh vegetables and fruits whenever there’s a birth in the family.”

He caught my eye in the rearview mirror and grinned. Such a strange thing to do, I wanted to say before I stopped myself. I was no one to remark on the strangeness of family traditions.

*

There were very few people in the lobby of the hospital. A nurse at the reception desk, an orderly dawdling by the elevators, a handful of patients lying hunched on the stainless-steel benches in the waiting area. The overhead light fixtures were still on, the glow from them harsh and unrelenting. The lack of shadows and people made the lobby seem larger than it was.

The nurse at the reception desk was looking at her phone, chin supported by a hand. She didn’t raise her head at my approach.

“I’m here to see Janaki Devi,” I told her. “She’s expecting a child.”

“Are you family?” The nurse asked in a voice that was both mechanical and bored. “Only family can visit.”

I hesitated. It was only for a second but the nurse latched onto it anyway. She kept her phone aside and fixed me with an appraising look.

“Only family can visit,” she repeated. “You can wait until visiting hours. The waiting area is over there.”

“I am family.”

My words didn’t convince the nurse, which didn’t surprise me, not when they were unconvincing to my own ears. But either out of deference for my age or because she wanted to humour me, she brought out a register from a drawer and opened it.

“I can check,” she said. “What’s the name of the expectant mother again?”
“Janaki Devi. She’s in the Daffodil room here and is expecting her child anytime now. I can’t wait.”

The nurse’s demeanour changed immediately. The frown on her face disappeared, replaced by a look of wary concern. She did her best to mask it – she even pretended to consult the register – but it wasn’t a very good charade.

“The Daffodil room, Ma’am?” she said. “Yes, we have her here. Janaki Devi, is it?”

“Yes.”

“If you can wait for a few minutes, Ma’am, I’ll find someone to take you there. I’m very sorry about the delay.”

She ended her words with a tiny bow that almost upended the nurse’s cap perched on her head. The mention of the Daffodil room was responsible for the change in her attitude, I was certain of it. I remembered reading that it was the most exclusive private maternity ward in the city. It wouldn’t have reflected well on her if it had become known that she had stopped a visitor from going there.

“I’ll find my own way,” I said.

The nurse faltered, torn between agreeing to my idea – which would have meant not being in my company any longer – and showing that she was willing to bend over backwards to atone for her earlier misstep. I made the decision for her by walking away from the desk.

*

The waiting room of the Daffodil ward was opulent and comfortable. There were thick drapes on the windows, a sectional sofa in the corner, two armchairs, and a coffee table with a vase containing – not daffodils – but pink-throated lilies. One of the walls had a charcoal sketch of an idyllic countryside that reminded me of my hometown.

My arrival took everyone by surprise. Raghuveer’s parents jumped to their feet but it took them a little longer to rearrange their grimaces into bland smiles. His in-laws raised their eyebrows at each other before also smiling at me. Raghuveer remained on his armchair, the barest hint of a frown lining his face.

I walked over to the sofa and Janaki’s parents made some space on the seat next to them.

“Did the doctor say anything?” I asked.

“She was here a short while ago,” Janaki’s mother said. “She said anytime now.”

I murmured my thanks. She nodded and then adjusted the hem of her sari. I spotted an envelope clutched in one of her manicured fingers. A gift of money for the new-born, by the looks of it. I looked at Raghuveer’s parents and saw that his father had an identical envelope balanced on his knee.

I leaned back against the plump cushion of the sofa and imagined the four of them at the reception desk downstairs. We are the grandparents, they told the nurse in this vision of mine, we’re here for the birth of our grandchild. Except in my head, the voice I heard was Vaman’s.

*

A nurse arrived fifteen minutes later. She told us that Janaki had given birth to a baby boy and that both mother and child were doing well. The tension in the room dissipated at her announcement. Raghuveer slumped back in his armchair and covered his face. His parents hugged each other while Janaki’s parents brought their hands together to offer a silent prayer. I smiled at the painting on the wall as the tight knot of nerves which I had carried within me since I left home finally unravelled.

The nurse led us to a room that had the new mother and her child. Janaki looked spent and could only bring herself to nod when Raghuveer planted a kiss on her forehead.

“He’s beautiful,” she whispered.
There was a gleam in Raghuveer’s eyes when he picked up his son. The child made a sound halfway between a gurgle and a sob and Raghuveer laughed, an uninhibited, carefree laugh that I had never heard before.

“Here,” he said to his parents. “Look at him.”

His parents cooed over the baby together. Raghuveer’s father tried to press the envelope of money into the child’s dainty fingers. His wife giggled and rubbed his shoulder.

“He looks like you,” she said. “He looks just like his grandfather. That little nose of his, it’s your nose.”

Janaki’s parents were next to take the child into their arms. The baby opened its mouth wide in a yawn.

“Here,” Janaki’s mother said to the nurse. “He needs to sleep next to his mother now.”

The nurse took the child and then looked at me. “Ma’am? Would you like to hold the baby as well?”

There was an almost imperceptible change in the air, as if someone had lowered the thermostat setting by a degree or two. Janaki’s parents looked like they wished they had held onto the baby. Raghuveer’s mother pursed her lips while her husband took a sudden interest in the window blinds. Raghuveer himself shifted his attention to his wife, as if he wanted no part of this moment.
“Yes,” I heard myself say.

I accepted the child from the nurse and cradled him in the fold of my arm. Raghuveer’s mother took a step closer towards me.

“Here,” she said. “I’ll help you hold him.”

“Thank you.” I pivoted on my feet to get away from her grasping hands. “But I know how to hold a child.”

My voice as I said this was as polite as it could be but the woman flinched anyway. I was certain that our exchange had not gone unnoticed, that there could even be consequences for it later, but I didn’t think about any of that. I focused instead on the baby, his face the very picture of beatific calm. He was heavier than I thought he would be but his weight was reassuring to me; any lighter and it would have felt as if he wasn’t in my arms at all.

*

Shankar pestered me with questions about my grandson but I gave him answers that were vague and distracted. He gave up after a while and when we reached home, he drove the car to the garage without any further queries.

The doorman stood at the open entrance to the house but I turned left instead and entered the garden. I walked on the cobbled pathway until I reached the mango tree, where I stopped long enough to press my palm against its ridged trunk before forging on to the end of the garden. This was where Vaman had planted his mango sapling before he died.

He had used a graft from his grandfather’s tree. The superior stock, he told me, would make his sapling grow tall and healthy. It hadn’t worked. The tree that stood before me was a sickly thing, stunted and gnarled and offering no shade whatsoever. I took one of its leaves between my finger and thumb and rubbed it.

The old gardener had gotten wind that I was in his space; he lurked nearby, shrewd eyes fixed on me. I beckoned him forward and told him that I wanted the tree uprooted and removed from my property before the day was over.

***

About the Author:

Ajay Patri is a lawyer and writer from Bangalore, India. His short story, A Need for Shelter, was published in the Bristol Short Story Prize anthology and he's also the recipient of a fellowship from South Asia Speaks, a mentorship program for early career writers.