Lata wandered into the small drawing room that adjoined the dining room, got out a large volume on Egyptian mythology that no one ever read, and inserted her envelope in it. Then she returned to the dining room and sat down, humming to herself in Raag Todi. Arun frowned. Lata stopped. The servant brought her a fried egg.
Arun began whistling ‘Three Coins in a Fountain’ to himself. He had already solved several clues of the crossword puzzle while in the bathroom, and he filled in a few more at the breakfast table. Now he opened some of his mail, glanced through it and said:
‘When is that damned fool going to bring me my bloody egg? I shall be late.’
He reached out for a piece of toast, and buttered it.
Varun entered. He was wearing the torn kurta-pyjama that he had obviously been sleeping in. ‘Good morning. Good morning,’ he said. He sounded uncertain, almost guilty. Then he sat down. When Hanif, the servant-cum-cook, came in with Arun’s egg, he ordered his own. He first asked for an omelette, then decided on a scrambled egg. Meanwhile he took a piece of toast from the rack and buttered it.
‘You might think of using the butter knife,’ growled Arun from the head of the table.
Varun had extracted butter from the butter dish with his own knife to butter his toast. He accepted the rebuke in silence.
‘Did you hear me?’
‘Yes, Arun Bhai.’
‘Then you would do well to acknowledge my remark with a word or at the very least a nod.’
‘Yes.’
‘There is a purpose to table manners, you know.’
Varun grimaced. Lata glanced sympathetically in his direction.
‘Not everyone enjoys seeing the butter encrusted with crumbs from your toast.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Varun, driven to impatience. It was a feeble protest, and it was dealt with promptly.
Arun put down his knife and fork, looked at him, and waited.
‘All right, Arun Bhai,’ said Varun meekly.
He had been undecided as to whether to have marmalade or honey, but now decided on marmalade, since negotiating with the honey spoon was bound to bring reproof down on his head. As he spread the marmalade, he looked across at Lata, and they exchanged smiles. Lata’s was a half-smile, very typical of her these days. Varun’s was rather a twisted smile, as if he was not sure whether to be happy or despairing. It was the kind of smile that drove his elder brother mad and convinced him that Varun was a hopeless case. Varun had just got a Second in his mathematics B.A., and when he told his family the result, it was with exactly this kind of smile.
Soon after the term was over, instead of getting a job and contributing to expenses, Varun had, to Arun’s annoyance, fallen ill. He was still somewhat weak, and started at loud sounds. Arun told himself that he really had to have a frank talk with his younger brother in the next week or so about how the world did not owe one a living, and about what Daddy would have said had he been alive.
Meenakshi came in with Aparna.
‘Where’s Daadi?’ asked Aparna, looking around the table for Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘Grandma will be coming in a moment, Aparna precious,’ said Meenakshi. ‘She’s probably reciting the Vedas,’ she added vaguely.
Mrs Rupa Mehra, who recited a chapter or two from the Gita very early each morning, was in fact dressing.
As she came in, she beamed around the table. But when she noticed Aparna’s golden chain, which Meenakshi in an unthinking moment had put around her neck, the smile died on her lips. Meenakshi was blithely unaware of anything being the matter, but Aparna asked a few minutes later:
‘Why are you looking so sad, Daadi?’
Mrs Rupa Mehra finished chewing a bite of fried tomatoes on toast and said: ‘I’m not sad, darling.’
‘Are you angry with me, Daadi?’ said Aparna.
‘No, sweetheart, not with you.’
‘Then with who?’
‘With myself, perhaps,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. She did not look at the medal-melter, but glanced across at Lata, who was gazing out of the window at the small garden. Lata was more than usually quiet this morning, and Mrs Rupa Mehra told herself that she had to get the silly girl to snap out of this mood. Well, tomorrow there was a party at the Chatterjis’, and, like it or not, Lata would have to go.
A car horn sounded loudly outside, and Varun flinched.
‘I should fire that bloody driver,’ said Arun. Then he laughed and added: ‘But he certainly makes me aware when it’s time to leave for the office. Bye, darling.’ He swallowed a gulp of coffee and kissed Meenakshi. ‘I’ll send the car back in half an hour. Bye, Ugly.’ He kissed Aparna and rubbed his cheek against hers. ‘Bye, Ma. Bye, everyone. Don’t forget, Basil Cox will be coming for dinner.’
Carrying his jacket over one arm and his briefcase in the other, he walked, rather, strode out to the little sky-blue Austin outside. It was never clear until the last moment whether Arun would take the newspaper with him to the office; it was part of the general uncertainty of living with him, just as were his sudden switches from anger to affection to urbanity. Today, to everyone’s relief, he let the newspaper remain.
Normally Varun and Lata would both have made a grab for it, and today Varun was disappointed when Lata did not. The atmosphere had lightened since Arun’s departure. Aparna now became the focus of attention. Her mother fed her incompetently, then called for the Toothless Crone to handle her. Varun read bits of the news to her, and she listened with a careful pretence at comprehension and interest.
All Lata could think of was when and where, in this household of two and a half bedrooms and no privacy to speak of, she would find time and space to read her letter. She was thankful that she had been able to take possession of what (though Mrs Rupa Mehra would have disputed this) belonged to her alone. But as she looked out of the window towards the small, brilliantly green lawn with its white tracery of spider lilies, she thought of its possible contents with a mixture of longing and foreboding.
7.2
Meanwhile there was work to be done in preparation for the evening’s dinner. Basil Cox, who would be coming over with his wife Patricia, was Arun’s department head at Bentsen & Pryce. Hanif was dispatched to Jaggubazaar to get two chickens, a fish, and vegetables, while Meenakshi—accompanied by Lata and Mrs Rupa Mehra—went off to New Market in the car, which had just returned from Arun’s office.
Meenakshi bought her fortnightly stores—her white flour, her jam and Chivers Marmalade and Lyle’s Golden Syrup and Anchor Butter and tea and coffee and cheese and clean sugar (‘Not this dirty ration stuff’)—from Baboralley, a couple of loaves of bread from a shop in Middleton Row (‘The bread one gets from the market is so awful, Luts’), some salami from a cold store in Free School Street (‘The salami from Keventers is dreadfully bland, I’ve decided never to go there again’), and half a dozen bottles of Beck’s beer from Shaw Brothers. Lata tagged along everywhere, though Mrs Rupa Mehra refused to enter either the cold store or the liquor shop. She was astonished by Meenakshi’s extravagance, and by the whimsical nature of some of her purchases (‘Oh, Arun is bound to like that, yes, I’ll take two,’ said Meenakshi whenever the shopkeeper suggested something that he thought Madam would appreciate). All the purchases went into a large basket which a ragged little boy carried on his head and finally took to the car. Whenever she was accosted by beggars, Meenakshi looked straight through them.
Lata wanted to visit a bookshop on Park Street, and spent about fifteen minutes there while Meenakshi chafed impatiently. When she found that Lata hadn’t in fact bought anything, she thought it very peculiar. Mrs Rupa Mehra was content to browse timelessly.
Upon their return home, Meenakshi found Hanif in a flap. He was not sure about the exact proportions for the soufflé, and as for the hilsa, Meenakshi would have to instruct him about the kind of fire it needed to be smoked on. Aparna too was sulking because of her mother’s absence. She now threatened to throw a tantrum. This was too much for Meenakshi, who was get
ting late for the canasta which she played with her ladies’ club—the Shady Ladies—once a week, and which (Basil Cox or no Basil Cox) she could not possibly miss. She got into a flap herself and shouted at Aparna and the Toothless Crone and the cook. Varun locked himself in his small room and covered his head with a pillow.
‘You should not get into a temper for nothing,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra unhelpfully.
Meenakshi turned towards her in exasperation. ‘That’s a big help, Ma,’ she said. ‘What do you expect me to do? Miss my canasta?’
‘No, no, you will not miss your canasta,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘That I am not asking you to do, Meenakshi, but you must not shout at Aparna like that. It is not good for her.’ Hearing this, Aparna edged towards her grandmother’s chair.
Meenakshi made an impatient sound.
The impossibility of her position suddenly came home to her. This cook was a real incompetent. Arun would be terribly, terribly angry with her if anything went wrong this evening. It was so important for his job too—and what could she do? Cut out the smoked hilsa? At least this idiot Hanif could handle the roast chicken. But he was a temperamental fellow, and had been known even to misfry an egg. Meenakshi looked around the room in wild distress.
‘Ask your mother if you can borrow her Mugh cook,’ said Lata with sudden inspiration.
Meenakshi gazed at Lata in wonder. ‘What an Einstein you are, Luts!’ she said, and immediately telephoned her mother. Mrs Chatterji rallied to her daughter’s aid. She had two cooks, one for Bengali and one for western food. The Bengali cook was told that he would have to prepare dinner in the Chatterji household that evening, and the Mugh cook, who came from Chittagong and excelled in European food, was dispatched to Sunny Park within the half hour. Meanwhile, Meenakshi had gone off for her canasta lunch with the Shady Ladies and had almost forgotten the tribulations of existence.
She returned in the middle of the afternoon to find a rebellion on her hands. The gramophone was blaring and the chickens were cackling in alarm. The Mugh cook told her as snootily as he could that he was not accustomed to being farmed out in this manner, that he was not used to working in such a small kitchen, that her cook-cum-bearer had behaved insolently towards him, that the fish and chickens that had been bought were none too fresh, and that he needed a certain kind of lemon extract for the soufflé which she had not had the foresight to provide. Hanif for his part was glaring resentfully, and was on the verge of giving notice. He was holding a squawking chicken out in front of him and saying: ‘Feel, feel its breast—Memsahib—this is a young and fresh chicken. Why should I work below this man? Who is he to boss me around in my own kitchen? He keeps saying, “I am Mr Justice Chatterji’s cook. I am Mr Justice Chatterji’s cook.”’
‘No, no, I trust you, I don’t need to—’ cried Meenakshi, shuddering fastidiously and drawing back her red-polished fingernails as her cook pushed the chicken’s feathers aside and offered its breast for her to assay.
Mrs Rupa Mehra, while not displeased at Meenakshi’s discomfiture, did not want to jeopardize this dinner for the boss of her darling son. She was good at making peace between refractory servants, and she now did so. Harmony was restored, and she went into the drawing room to play a game of patience.
Varun had put on the gramophone about half an hour earlier and was playing the same scratchy 78-rpm record again and again: the Hindi film song ‘Two intoxicating eyes’, a song that no one, not even the sentimental Mrs Rupa Mehra, could tolerate after its fifth repetition. Varun had been singing the words to himself moodily and dreamily before Meenakshi returned. In her presence Varun stopped singing, but he continued to rewind the gramophone every few minutes and hum the song softly to himself by way of accompaniment. As he put away the spent needles one by one in the little compartment that fitted into the side of the machine, he reflected gloomily on his own fleeting life and personal uselessness.
Lata took the book on Egyptian mythology down from the shelf, and was about to go into the garden with it when her mother said:
‘Where are you going?’
‘To sit in the garden, Ma.’
‘But it’s so hot, Lata.’
‘I know, Ma, but I can’t read with this music going on.’
‘I’ll tell him to turn it off. All this sun is bad for your complexion. Varun, turn it off.’ She had to repeat her request a few times before Varun heard what she was saying.
Lata took the book into the bedroom.
‘Lata, sit with me, darling,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘Ma, please let me be,’ said Lata.
‘You have been ignoring me for days,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘Even when I told you your results, your kiss was half-hearted.’
‘Ma, I have not been ignoring you,’ said Lata.
‘You have, you can’t deny it. I feel it—here.’ Mrs Rupa Mehra pointed to the region of her heart.
‘All right, Ma, I have been ignoring you. Now please let me read.’
‘What’s that you’re reading? Let me see the book.’
Lata replaced it on the shelf, and said: ‘All right, Ma, I won’t read it, I’ll talk to you. Happy?’
‘What do you want to talk about, darling?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra sympathetically.
‘I don’t want to talk. You want to talk,’ Lata pointed out.
‘Read your silly book!’ cried Mrs Rupa Mehra in a sudden temper. ‘I have to do everything in this house, and no one cares for me. Everything goes wrong and I have to make peace. I have slaved for you all my life, and you don’t care if I live or die. Only when I’m burned on the pyre will you realize my worth.’ The tears started rolling down her cheeks and she placed a black nine on a red ten.
Normally Lata would have made some dutiful attempt to console her mother, but she was so frustrated and annoyed by her sudden emotional sleight of hand that she did nothing. After a while, she took the book down from the shelf again, and walked into the garden.
‘It will rain,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, ‘and the book will get spoiled. You have no sense of the value of money.’
Good, thought Lata violently. I hope the book and everything in it—and I too—get washed away.
7.3
The small green garden was empty. The part-time mali had gone. An intelligent-looking crow cawed from a banana tree. The delicate spider lilies were in bloom. Lata sat down on the slatted green wooden bench in the shade of a tall flame-of-the-forest tree. Everything was rain-washed and clean, unlike in Brahmpur where each leaf had looked dusty and each blade of grass parched.
Lata looked at the envelope with its firm handwriting and Brahmpur postmark. Her name was followed immediately by the address; it was not ‘care of’ anybody.
She pulled out a hairpin and opened the envelope. The letter was only a page long. She had expected Kabir’s letter to be effusive and apologetic. It was not exactly that.
After the address and date it went:
Dearest Lata,
Why should I repeat that I love you? I don’t see why you should disbelieve me. I don’t disbelieve you. Please tell me what the matter is. I don’t want things to end in this way between us.
I can’t think about anything except you, but I am annoyed that I should have to say so. I couldn’t and I can’t run off with you to some earthly paradise, but how could you have expected me to? Suppose I had agreed to your crazy plan. I know that you would then have discovered twenty reasons why it was impossible to carry it out. But perhaps I should have agreed anyway. Perhaps you would have felt reassured because I would have proved how much I cared for you. Well, I don’t care for you so much that I’m willing to abdicate my intelligence. I don’t even care for myself that much. I’m not made that way, and I do think ahead a bit.
Darling Lata, you are so brilliant, why don’t you see things in perspective? I love you. You really owe me an apology.
Anyway, congratulations on your exam results. You must be very pleased—but I am not very surprised. You must not spend your time sitti
ng on benches and crying in future. Who knows who might want to rescue you. Perhaps whenever you’re tempted to do so, you can think of me returning to the pavilion and crying every time I fail to make a century.
Two days ago I hired a boat and went up the Ganges to the Barsaat Mahal. But, like Nawab Khushwaqt, I was so much grieved that my mind was upset, and the place was sordid and sad. For a long time I could not forget you though all possible efforts were made. I felt a strong kinship with him even though my tears did not fall fast and furious into the frangrant waters.
My father, though he is fairly absent-minded, can see that there is something the matter with me. Yesterday he said, ‘It’s not your results, so what is it, Kabir? I believe it must be a girl or something.’ I too believe it must be a girl or something.
Well, now that you have my address why don’t you write to me? I have been unhappy since you left and unable to concentrate on anything. I knew you couldn’t write to me even if you wanted to because you didn’t have my address. Well, now you do. So please do write. Otherwise I’ll know what to think. And the next time I go to Mr Nowrojee’s place I will have to read out some stricken verses of my own.
With all my love, my darling Lata,
Yours,
Kabir
7.4
For a long while Lata sat in a kind of reverie. She did not at first reread the letter. She felt a great many emotions, but they pulled her in conflicting directions. Under ordinary circumstances the pressure of her feelings might have caused her to shed a few unselfconscious tears, but there were a couple of remarks in the letter which made that impossible. Her first sense was that she had been cheated, cheated out of something that she had expected. There was no apology in the letter for the pain that he must have known he had caused her. There were declarations of love, but they were not as fervent or untinged with irony as she had thought they would be. Perhaps she had given Kabir no opportunity to explain himself at their last meeting, but now that he was writing to her, he could have explained himself better. He had not addressed anything seriously, and Lata had above all wanted him to be serious. For her it had been a matter of life and death.