Kamini and Vrusala, the inseparable sisters sat one morning in the window-bay of their father`s house in Berkshire, working and talking. Kamini was stitching a piece of brightly-coloured embroidery, and Vrusala was drawing upon a board which she held on her knee. They were mostly silent, talking as their thoughts strayed through their minds. `Kamini,` said Vrusala, `don`t you REALLY WANT to get married?`
Kamini laid her embroidery in her lap and looked up. Her face was calm and considerate.
`I don`t know,` she replied. `It depends how you mean.`Vrusala was slightly taken aback. She watched her sister for some moments.
`Well,` she said, ironically, `it usually means one thing!
A shadow came over Kamini`s face.
Again Vrusala paused, slightly irritated. She wanted to be quite definite.
`Do you really think one needs the EXPERIENCE of having been married?` she asked.
`Of course ,Yes,` replied Kamini.
This brought the conversation to a close. Vrusala, almost angrily, took up her rubber and began to rub out part of her drawing. Kamini stitched absorbedly.
`You wouldn`t consider a good offer?` asked Vrusala.
`I think I`ve rejected several,` said Kamini.
`REALLY!` Vrusala flushed dark—`But anything really worth while? Have you REALLY?`
`An awfully nice man. I liked him awfully,` said Kamini.
`Really! But weren`t you fearfully tempted?`
`In the abstract but not in the concrete,` said Kamini. `When it comes to the point, one isn`t even tempted—oh, if I were tempted, I`d marry like a shot. I`m only tempted NOT to.` The faces of both sisters suddenly lit up with amusement.
`Isn`t it an amazing thing,` cried Vrusala, `how strong the temptation is, not to!` They both laughed, looking at each other. In their hearts they were frightened.
There was a long pause, whilst Kamini stitched and Vrusala went on with her sketch. The sisters were women, Kamini twenty-six, and Vrusala twenty-five. But both had the remote, virgin look of modern girls, sisters of modern world.
`So you have come home, expecting him to marry you here?` asked Vrusala.
Kamini laughed and replied, `Don`t you find, that things fail to materialise? NOTHING MATERIALISES! Everything withers in the bud`.
`What withers in the bud?` asked Vrusla.
`It means what exactly you were wishing and expecting` replied Kamini.
There was a pause, whilst each sister vaguely considered her fate.
Meanwhile the Bardwas Family just reached the enormously decorated house of these modern sisters in Berkshire. It`s the family of the same awfully liked man by Kamini. His name is Gerald and his family`s presence here is on the occasion of Kamini`s and Gerald`s marriage set on the eve of same day.
Gerald waited for this marriage to really happen. It was something crucial to him and his family.
As time passed by, Its only a couple of hours before the event to occur when Vrusala saw her sister and Gerald moving into a small room upstairs while she decided to wait at the staircase.
A few minutes later the Berkshire house was filled with a loud shriek of Kamini`s voice hysterically over and over again until a group of people including Gerald`s parents and few servants with bewildered father of the sisters entered the room.
Vrusala stayed at the staircase as if she was expecting Kamini to come. So did Kamini came to her and handed over the property papers.
`Was there a difficulty to get him sign the papers? Did u make sure you left no evidence?` enquired Vrusala.
Kamini replied in a shaken voice, ` I never asked him for the signatures, Vrusala. He already had the papers ready to give me and as per the death it was a natural death`.
`What the hell do u mean by natural death, Kamini ?` questioned Vrusala irritated.
`He had a sudden and severe cardiac arrest` replied Kamini firmly and headed to her room looking frighteningly pale.
After a few days when everything related to police affair and family quarrels had settled forever Vrusala took out the recorder from her drawer which she managed to get out of the room of Gerald`s death without the notice of the cops. As the tape winded it went on :
`Do you need Vrusala?` he asked.
`Yes,` she said.
`Aren`t I enough for you?` he asked.
`No,` she said. `You are enough for me, as far as a man is concerned. You are all men to me. But I wanted a woman friend, as eternal as you and I are eternal.`
`Why aren`t I enough?` he said. `You are enough for me. I don`t want anybody else but you. Why isn`t it the same with you?`
`Having you, I can live all my life without anybody else, any other sheer intimacy. But to make it complete, really happy, I wanted eternal union with a woman too: another kind of love,` she said.
`I don`t believe it,` he said. `It`s an obstinacy, a theory, a perversity.`
`Well—` she said.
`You can`t have two kinds of love. Why should you!`
It seems as if I can`t,` she said. `Yet I wanted it.`
`You can`t have it, because it`s false, impossible,` he said.
`I don`t believe that,` she answered.
There`s a pause at this and sound of bundled papers hitting the floor and a sudden fall of a chair. A moment later Kamini`s shriek echoed with people rushing into the room and followed by a little whispers and the tape ended.
