The door below the stairs was kept closed because of the monkeys, and he rapped on it with his cane. A couple of faces appeared at the enclosed wrought–iron balconies of the Hoors above. His daughter’s face lit up when she saw him; she quickly coiled her loose black hair into a bun and came downstairs to open the door. Her father embraced her and they went upstairs again.
‘And where has Vakil Sahib disappeared? he asked in Hindi.
He liked to refer to his son-in-law as the lawyer, although the appellation was equally appropriate to Ram Vilas’s father and grandfather.
‘He was here a minute ago,’ replied Priya, and got up to search for him.
‘Don’t bother yet,’ said her father in a warm, relaxed voice. ‘First give me some tea.’
For a few minutes the Home Minister enjoyed home comforts: well-made tea (not the useless stuff he got at the MLA hostel); sweets and kachauris made by the women of his daughter’s house – maybe by his daughter herself; some minutes with his grandson and granddaughter, who preferred, however, to play with their friends in the heat on the roof or below in the square (his granddaughter was good at street cricket); and a few words with his daughter, whom he saw rarely enough and missed a great deal.
He had no compunction, as some fathers-in-law had, about accepting food, drink and hospitality at his son-in-law’s house. He talked with Priya about his health and his grandchildren and their schooling and character; about how Vakil Sahib was working far too hard, a little about Priya’s mother in passing, at the mention of whom a sadness came into both their eyes, and about the antics of the old servants of the Goyal household.
As they talked, other people passed the open door of the room, saw them, and came in. They included Ram Vilas’s father, rather a helpless character who was terrorized by his second wife. Soon the whole Goyal clan had dropped by – except for the Rai Bahadur, who did not like climbing stairs.
‘But where is Vakil Sahib?’ repeated L.N. Agarwal.
‘Oh,’ said someone, ‘he’s downstairs talking with the Rai Bahadur. He knows you are in the house and he will come up as soon as he is released.’
‘Why don’t I go down and pay my respects to the Rai Bahadur now?’ said L.N. Agarwal, and got up.
Downstairs, grandfather and grandson were talking in the large room that the Rai Bahadur had reserved as his own – mainly because he was attached to the beautiful peacock tiles that decorated the fireplace. L.N. Agarwal, being of the middle generation, paid his respects and had respects paid to him.
‘Of course you’ll have tea?’ said the Rai Bahadur.
‘I’ve had some upstairs.’
‘Since when have Leaders of the People placed a limit on their tea-consumption? asked the Rai Bahadur in a creaky and lucid voice. The word he used was ‘Neta-log’, which had about the same level of mock deference as ‘Vakil Sahib’.
‘Now, tell me,’ he continued, ‘what is all this killing you’ve been doing in Chowk?’
It was not meant the way it sounded, it was merely the old Rai Bahadur’s style of speech, but L.N. Agarwal could have done without direct examination. He would probably get enough of that on the floor of the House on Monday. What he would have preferred was a quiet chat with his placid son-in-law, an unloading of his troubled mind.
‘Nothing, nothing, it will all blow over,’ he said.
‘I heard that twenty Muslims were killed,’ said the old Rai Bahadur philosophically.
‘No, not that many,’ said L.N. Agarwal. ‘A few. Matters are well in hand.’ He paused, ruminating on the fact that he had misjudged the situation. ‘This is a hard town to manage,’ he continued. ‘If it isn’t one thing it’s another. We are an ill-disciplined people. The lathi and the gun are the only things that will teach us discipline.’
‘In British days law and order was not such a problem,’ said the creaky voice.
The Home Minister did not rise to the Rai Bahadur’s bait. In fact, he was not sure that the remark was not delivered innocently.
‘Still, there it is,’ he responded.
‘Mahesh Kapoor’s daughter was here the other day,’ ventured the Rai Bahadur.
Surely this could not be an innocent comment. Or was it? Perhaps the Rai Bahadur was merely following a train of thought.
‘Yes, she is a good girl,’ said L.N. Agarwal. He rubbed his perimeter of hair in a thoughtful way. Then, after a pause, he added calmly: ‘I can handle the town; it is not the tension that disturbs me. Ten Misri Mandis and twenty Chowks are nothing. It is the politics, the politicians –’
The Rai Bahadur allowed himself a smile. This too was somewhat creaky, as if the separate plates of his aged face were gradually reconfiguring themselves with difficulty.