And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew!
Occasionally the ‘and’ was replaced by ‘but’ or ‘that’. Lata could scarcely believe that this was the poet of ‘Maud’ and ‘The Lotos-Eaters’. It was hardly possible, she thought, to be more racially smug than this:
Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart and in limb,
Strong with the strength of the race to command, to obey, to endure. . . .
Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer is no more. . . .
Blessing the wholesome white faces of Havelock’s good fusiliers. . . .
And so on and so forth.
She did not consider the fact that if the conquest had taken place the other way around, there would have been equally unspeakable poems, probably in Persian, possibly in Sanskrit, dotting England’s green and pleasant land. She felt a great burst of pride for Savita’s father-in-law who had played his part in throwing the English out of this country, and she momentarily forgot all about Sophia Convent and Emma.
In her indignation she had even forgotten about Kiran, whom she now found staring at the plaque commemorating poor Susanna Palmer. Kiran’s body was shaking with sobs, and people were looking at her. Lata put her arm around her shoulder, but did not know what else to do. She drew her out of the building and sat her down on a bench. It was getting dark, and they would have to go home soon.
Kiran resembled her mother in her looks, though there was nothing stupid about her. Tears were now streaming down her face, but she was speechless. Lata tried fumblingly to find out what had upset her. The death of a girl her age almost a century before? The entire atmosphere of the Residency, haunted as it was by desperation? Was there something the matter at home? Near them a boy was standing on the grass, flying an orange-and-purple kite. Sometimes he stared at them.
Twice it seemed to Lata that Kiran was on the verge of a confidence or at least an apology. But since nothing was forthcoming, Lata suggested:
‘We should go home now, it’s getting late.’
Kiran sighed, got up, and walked down the hill with Lata. Lata started humming a line in Raag Marwa, a raag she loved with a passion. By the time they had got home, Kiran appeared to have recovered. As they got to the house she asked Lata:
‘You’re going by the evening train tomorrow, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I wish I could visit you in Brahmpur. But Savita’s house, I hear, is so small, not like my father’s luxury hotel.’ She spoke the last words bitterly.
‘You must come, Kiran. You can easily stay with us for a week—or more. Your term starts fifteen days after ours. And we’ll get to know each other better.’
Again Kiran’s silence grew almost guilty. She did not even respond aloud to what Lata had said.
Lata was relieved to see her mother again. Mrs Rupa Mehra ticked them off for taking such a long time to return. To Lata’s ears the familiar reprimands were like music.
‘You must tell me—’ Mrs Rupa Mehra began.
‘Ma, first we went along the road past the Chief Court, and then we got to the Residency. At the foot of the Residency was an obelisk which commemorated the officers and sepoys who had remained loyal to the British. Three squirrels sat at the base of—’
‘Lata!’
‘Yes, Ma?’
‘You are behaving very badly. All I wanted to know was—’
‘Everything.’
Mrs Rupa Mehra frowned, then turned to her cousin.
‘Do you have the same trouble with Kiran?’ she asked.
‘Oh, no,’ said Mrs Sahgal. ‘Kiran is a very good girl. It is all due to Sahgal Sahib. Sahgal Sahib is always talking to her and giving her advice. There could be no father like him. Even when clients are waiting. . . . But Lata is a good girl too.’
‘No,’ said Lata, laughing. ‘Unfortunately I am a bad girl. Ma, what will you do if I do get married and move away? Whom will you be able to tick off?’
‘I will tick you off just the same,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.
Mr Sahgal had entered meanwhile, and, having heard the last part of the conversation, said in a calm, avuncular voice: ‘Lata, you are not a bad girl, I know. I have heard all about your results and we are very proud of you. Sometime soon we must have a long talk about the future.’
Kiran stood up. ‘I am going to talk to Pushkar,’ she said.
‘Sit down,’ said Mr Sahgal, in the same calm voice.
Kiran, white-faced, sat down.
Mr Sahgal’s eyes wandered around the room.
‘Shall I put on the gramophone?’ asked his wife.
‘Do you have any hobbies?’ said Mr Sahgal to Lata.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘She has begun to sing classical music very beautifully. And she is a real bookworm.’
‘I enjoy photography,’ said Mr Sahgal. ‘When I was in England studying law, I began to take an interest in it.’
‘The albums?’ asked Mrs Sahgal, breathless with the possibility of being of service to him.
‘Yes.’
She laid them on the table before him. Mr Sahgal started showing them photographs of his English landladies and their daughters, other girls he had known there, then a few Indian photographs, followed by pages and pages of his wife and daughter, sometimes in poses that Lata found distasteful. In one, Mrs Sahgal had bent forward, and one of her breasts was almost spilling out of her blouse. Mr Sahgal carried on an explanation, gentle and measured, of the art of photography, about composition and exposure, grain and gloss, contrast and depth of field.
Lata glanced at her mother. Mrs Rupa Mehra was looking at the photographs with puzzled interest. Mrs Sahgal’s face was flushed with pride. Kiran was sitting rigid, as if she had been taken ill. Again she was biting the base of her thumb in that unusual and disturbing gesture. When she noticed Lata’s gaze on her, she looked at her with a mixture of shame and hatred.
After dinner Lata went straight to her room. She felt an acute sense of unease, and was glad they were leaving Lucknow the next day. Her mother, on the other hand, was thinking of postponing their departure, since both Mr and Mrs Sahgal were very keen that they stay on for a few days.
‘What is this?’ Mrs Sahgal had said at dinner. ‘You come for one day, and then you disappear for a year. Is this the way a sister should behave?’
‘I want to stay, Maya,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘But Lata’s term begins so soon. Otherwise we would have been very happy to stay with you and Sahgal Sahib. Next time we will stay longer.’
Pushkar had held his peace throughout dinner. He could just about feed himself with help from his father. Mr Sahgal had looked very tired by the end of the meal. He had then put Pushkar to bed.
Returning to the drawing room, he had wished everyone goodnight and gone immediately to his room at the near end of the long corridor. His wife’s room was opposite his. Then came the guest rooms, and finally, at the far end of the corridor, Pushkar’s and Kiran’s rooms. Since Pushkar was fond of a huge grandfather clock—a family heirloom—Mr Sahgal had installed it just outside his room. Sometimes Pushkar would sing out the chimes. He had even learned to wind it up himself.
9.16
Lata lay awake for a while. It was the height of summer, so there was only a sheet by way of covering. The fan was on, but there was no need yet for a mosquito net. The chimes on the quarter-hour were soft, but when the clock struck eleven, then midnight, it resounded along the corridor. Lata read a little by the weak light at her bedside, but the events of the last two days swam between her and the pages. Finally she put out the light and closed her eyes, and dreamed, half-awake, of Kabir.
Slow footsteps padded down the carpeted corridor. When they stopped outside her door, she sat up, startled. They were not her mother’s footsteps. The door opened, and she saw the silhouette of a man against the dim light in the corridor. It was Mr Sahgal.
Lata turned on the light. Mr Sahgal stood blinking mildly, shaking his head,
protecting his eyes with his hand even from the weak light of the bedside lamp. He was dressed in a brown dressing gown tied with a brown rope with tassels. He looked very tired.
Lata looked at him in dismay and astonishment. ‘Are you all right, Mausaji?’ she asked. ‘Are you ill?’
‘No, not ill. But I have been working late. That is why—and I saw your light was on. But then you put it off. You are an intelligent girl—a great reader.’
He looked around the room, stroking his short-trimmed beard. He was quite a large man. In a thoughtful voice he said: ‘There is no chair here. I must speak to Maya about it.’ He sat himself down at the edge of the bed. ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked Lata. ‘Everything is all right, isn’t it? The pillows and everything? I remember when you were a little girl you used to like grapes. You were very young. And it is the season for them now. Pushkar also likes grapes. Poor boy.’
Lata tried to pull the sheet closer to cover herself better, but Mr Sahgal was sitting on one corner of it.
‘You are very good to Pushkar, Mausaji,’ she said, wondering what she could do or what conversation she could make. She could hear and feel her heart beating.
‘You see,’ said Mr Sahgal in a calm voice, his hands clutching the tassels of the band of his dressing gown, ‘living here there is no hope for him. In England they have special schools, special. . . .’ He paused, looking at Lata’s face and neck. ‘That boy, Haresh—he was in England? Maybe he also has photos of his landladies?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lata, thinking of Mr Sahgal’s suggestive photographs and trying to check her rising fear. ‘Mausaji, I am very sleepy, I have to go tomorrow—’
‘But you are leaving in the evening. We must have our talk now. You see there is no one to talk to in Lucknow. Now in Calcutta—or even Delhi—but I cannot leave Lucknow. My practice, you see.’
‘Yes,’ said Lata.
‘It would also not be good for Kiran. She already sees bad boys, reads bad books. I have to stop these habits. My wife is a saint, she does not see these things.’ He was explaining things gently to Lata, and Lata was nodding mechanically.
‘My wife is a saint,’ he repeated. ‘Every morning she does puja for an hour. She will do anything for me. Whatever food I want, she cooks with her own hands. She is like Sita—a perfect wife. If I want her to dance naked for me she will dance. She wants nothing for herself. She only wants Kiran to get married. But I feel that Kiran should complete her education—till then what is wrong with living at home? Once, a boy came to the house—actually to the house. I told him to get out—to get out!’ Mr Sahgal no longer looked tired but livid, though his voice was still low. Then he calmed down, and continued in a tone of explanation: ‘But who will marry Kiran when sometimes, you know, Pushkar makes such frightening noises. Sometimes I sense his rage. You don’t mind my confiding like this in you? Kiran is a good friend of yours, I know. You must also tell me about yourself, your plans. . . .’ He sniffed in an appraising way. ‘That is the eau de cologne your mother uses. Kiran never uses eau de cologne. Natural things are best.’
Lata stared at him. Her mouth had become completely dry.
‘But I buy saris for her whenever I go to Delhi,’ continued Mr Sahgal. ‘During the War, society ladies used to wear saris with broad borders; even brocades and tissues. Before she became a widow I once saw your mother wearing her wedding tissue sari. But now all that has gone. Embroidery is considered so vulgar.’
As an afterthought he added:
‘Shall I buy you a sari?’
‘No—no—’ said Lata.
‘Georgette drapes better than chiffon, don’t you think?’
Lata gave no answer.
‘Recently Ajanta pallus have become the craze. The motifs are so—so—imaginative—I saw one with a paisley design, another with a lotus—’ Mr Sahgal smiled. ‘And now with these short cholis the women show their bare waists at the back as well. Do you think you are a bad girl?’
‘A bad girl?’ repeated Lata.
‘At dinner you said you were a bad girl,’ explained her uncle in a kindly, measured way. ‘I don’t think you are. I think you are a lipstick girl. Are you a lipstick girl?’
With sick horror Lata remembered that he had asked her the same question when they were sitting together in his car five years ago. She had completely buried the memory. She had been fourteen or so at the time, and he had asked her calmly, almost considerately: ‘Are you a lipstick girl?’
‘A lipstick girl?’ Lata had asked, puzzled. At that time she had believed that women who wore lipstick, like those who smoked, were bold and modern and probably beyond the pale. ‘I don’t think so,’ she had said.
‘Do you know what a lipstick girl is?’ Mr Sahgal had asked with a slow smirk on his face.
‘Someone who uses lipstick?’ Lata had said.
‘On her lips?’ asked her uncle slowly.
‘Yes, on her lips.’
‘No, not on her lips, not on her lips—that is what is known as a lipstick girl.’ Mr Sahgal shook his head gently from side to side and smiled, as if enjoying a joke, while looking straight into her bewildered eyes.
Kiran had returned to the car—she had gone to buy something—and they had driven on. But Lata had felt almost ill. Later, she had blamed herself for misunderstanding what her uncle had said. She had never mentioned the incident to her mother or to anyone, and had forgotten it. Now it came back to her and she stared at him.
‘I know you are a lipstick girl. Do you want some lipstick?’ said Mr Sahgal, moving forward along the bed.
‘No—’ cried Lata. ‘I don’t—Mausaji—please stop this—’
‘It is so hot—I must take off this dressing gown.’
‘No!’ Lata wanted to shout, but found she couldn’t. ‘Don’t, please, Mausaji. I—I’ll shout—my mother is a light sleeper—go away—go away—Ma—Ma—’
The clock chimed one.
Mr Sahgal’s mouth opened. He said nothing for a moment. Then he sighed.
He looked very tired again. ‘I thought you were an intelligent girl,’ he said in a disappointed voice. ‘What are you thinking of? If you had a father to bring you up properly, you would not behave in this way.’ He got up. ‘I must get a chair for this room, every deluxe hotel should have a chair in every room.’ He was about to touch Lata’s hair, but perhaps he could sense that she was tense with terror. Instead, in a forgiving voice, he said: ‘I know that deep down you are a good girl. Sleep well, God bless you.’
‘No!’ Lata almost shouted.
When he left, his footsteps padding gently back towards his room, Lata began to tremble. ‘Sleep well, God bless you,’ is what she remembered her father used to say to her, his ‘little monkey’. She switched off the light, then immediately switched it on again. She went to the door, and found that there was no way to lock it. Finally she dragged her suitcase and placed it against the door. There was water in a jug by the bedside lamp, and she drank a glass. Her throat was parched, and her hands trembling. She buried her face in her mother’s handkerchief.
She thought of her father. During the school holidays, whenever he came back from work, he would ask her to make tea for him. She adored him, and she adored his memory. He was a jolly man and liked to have his family around him in the evenings. When he had died in Calcutta after a long cardiac illness, she had been at Sophia Convent in Mussourie. The nuns had been very kind. It was not just that she had been excused the test that had been set that day. They had given her an anthology of poetry that was still among the most valued of her possessions. And one nun had said, ‘We are so sorry—he was very young to die.’ ‘Oh no,’ Lata had replied. ‘He was very old—he was forty-seven years old.’ Even then, it had not seemed believable. The term would end in a few months, and she would go home as usual. She had found it difficult to cry.
A month later her mother had come up to Mussourie. Mrs Rupa Mehra had been almost prostrate with grief and had not been able to come up earlier
, even to see her daughter. She was dressed in white, and there was no tika on her forehead. That was what had brought things home to Lata, and she had wept.
‘He was very old.’ Again she heard her uncle’s voice saying: ‘You were very young.’ Lata put off her light once more, and lay in the darkness.
She could not speak to anyone about what had happened. Mrs Sahgal doted on her husband; could she even be aware of what he was like? They had separate rooms: Mr Sahgal often worked late. Mrs Rupa Mehra would hardly have believed Lata. If she had, she would have imagined—or wanted to imagine—that Lata had placed a dramatic construction on innocent events. And even if she had believed Lata entirely, what could she have done? Denounced Maya’s husband and destroyed her stupid happiness?
Lata recalled that neither her mother nor Savita had told her even about menstruation before it had suddenly happened to her with no warning while they were on a train. Lata had been twelve. Her father was dead. They were no longer travelling in saloons, but in the intermediate class between second and third. It was the heat of late summer—as now, the monsoons had not yet broken. For some reason she and her mother were travelling alone. She had gone to the toilet when she felt the onset of something uncomfortable—and there, when she saw what it was, she had thought she was bleeding to death. Terrified, she had rushed back to her compartment. Her mother had given her a handkerchief to absorb the flow, but had been very embarrassed. She had told Lata that she must not talk to anybody about it, especially men. Sita and Savitri didn’t talk about such things. Lata wondered what she had done to deserve it. Finally, Mrs Rupa Mehra had told her not to get alarmed—that it happened to all women—that it was what made women very special and precious—and that it would happen every month.
‘Do you have it?’ Lata had asked.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘Previously I used to use soft cloth, but now I use padded napkins, and you must keep a few with you. I have some at the bottom of the suitcase.’
It had been sticky and uncomfortable in the strong heat, but it had to be borne. Nor did it improve over the years. The mess, the backaches, its irregular arrival before exams—Lata felt there was nothing very special or precious about it. When she asked Savita why she hadn’t told her about it, Savita said: ‘But I thought you knew. I did, before it happened to me.’