The Girl Who Could Make People Naked- Femina

Continued...

The first part of a short story by Manjula Padmanabhan

HE'LL be there," said Gautam's sister, smiling as she plaited her hair. "Don't worry!" Gautam felt the skin on his face stretch and thin out like an expanding gas balloon, with the walnut of his brain exposed to view, floating within it. Was he so transparent? "I'm not worrying," he said.

"Of course you are," said Sagari. "Look at your face. All wound up! Like a... like a... "She swung her hair forward over her left shoulder, her fingers plucking and taming the black delta of hair into a taut braid, the plump links glistening like paired beetle-wings. Outside the window of her room, the heat prowled and hammered at the glass, willing the air-conditioner to relent and let it in so that it could devour its human prey on this burning morning in May, in summer, the season of annihilation. "What?" said Gautam, interested. "A clock, I was going to say," said Sagari, "but who winds clocks these days?" Her left hand held the end of the plait close to her waist, while her right wove a gold fillet into the end of it, containing it. "So I don't know what you look like any more." She laughed at his reflection in the mirror. Her little brother, cho chweet! She could still see the traces of puppy fat on him, a lingering roundedness near his chin, stubbled now. Stubbled! "Better shave, Gogi. You look like a porcupine more than anything else. And what will she think of you then, your special friend"

Gautam leapt up in frustration.

"It's not fair!" he said. "I never teased you," But he rubbed his chin anyway. Sagari turned around. She made her mouth prim. "What was there to tease?"

"Yah, yah, yah," said Gautam, feeling a peculiarity in the pit of his stomach. Sometimes his sister's beauty made him ache. He didn't like to think of her going away, leaving them. Being with some man. Smiling at some man in that way that he had seen, when he had caught them alone, once some months ago, she and her - he had to force himself to pronounce the word: suitor. Not that it had worked out, but still. And now there was another. This one was going to work. He couldn't enjoy the idea. He knew he shouldn't entertain possessive thoughts about his sister, but he did. He felt helpless against the onslaught of such thoughts. Was he a pervert, after all? 'The Sunday Telegraph' had carried a quiz some weeks ago, called 'Your Sexual Appetites Revealed!' from which he had learnt that his love for his elder sister was almost unnatural. But what next? How did perverts atone for their perversions? Should he give himself up to the police? He silenced his mind and frowned. "There was that guy who came, the first one. You made eyes at him - I saw you-"

"Never," said Sagari, evenly. She had picked up the kajal and was leaning towards the tall mirror to apply it. Her breath fogged the glass. "You saw nothing." She muddied the tip of her right index finger with the oily carbon-black. The hand steadied itself against her chin, while the middle finger held down the skin beneath the lower lid, stained faintly blue with sleeplessness. The index finger lightly skated the rim of the lower lid, leaving a glistening track of night. She released the lid and stood back. The eye smarted and tears spilled out of the pink inner corner. "You must think you saw something."

"You're crying," said Gautam. "Silly," said Sagari, bending her neck so that the tears drained down her nose, where she could dab them away without smudging the eye. "Can't you see it's because of the whatsit? Kajal." She started on the other eye. "Let me..." she paused as her finger traced its line, "let me put some in your eyes and then we'll see who cries!" She stood back from the mirror, blinking, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue that came up in alternating colours, Mauve Ice and Emerald Hush. She whirled around, laughing, her fingertip raised in attack. "Come! We'll dress you like a village boy!"

Continued...

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