A Suitable Boy(139)

The Nawab Sahib nodded his approval and turned happily from Macaulay and Cicero to Hassan and Abbas.

‘Are we eating on the floor or at the table today, Nana-jaan?’ asked Hassan.

‘It’s just us – so we’ll eat inside – on the rug,’ replied his grandfather.

‘Oh, good,’ said Hassan, who got nervous when his feet were not on the ground.

‘What’s in that room, Nana-jaan?’ asked three-year-old Abbas as they walked down a corridor past a room with a huge brass lock.

‘Mongooses, of course,’ said his elder brother knowledgeably.

‘No, I mean inside the room,’ Abbas insisted.

‘I think we store some carpets in there,’ said the Nawab Sahib. Turning to Ghulam Rusool, he asked: ‘What do we store in there?’

‘Sahib, they say it has been two years since that room was locked. It is all on a list with Murtaza Ali. I will ask him and inform you.’

‘Oh no, that’s not necessary,’ said the Nawab Sahib stroking his beard and trying to recall – for, to his surprise, it had slipped his mind – who used to use that particular room. ‘As long as it’s on a list,’ he said.

‘Tell us a ghost story, Nana-jaan,’ said Hassan, tugging at his grandfather’s right hand.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Abbas, who readily agreed with most of his elder brother’s suggestions, even when he did not understand what was being suggested. ‘Tell us a ghost story.’

‘No, no,’ said the Nawab Sahib. ‘All the ghost stories I know are very frightening and if I tell you one you’ll be so frightened you won’t be able to eat your lunch.’

‘We won’t be frightened,’ said Hassan.

‘Not frightened,’ said Abbas.

They reached the small room where lunch was awaiting them. The Nawab Sahib smiled to see his daughter, and washed his and his grandsons’ hands in a small wash-basin with cool water from a nearby jug, and sat them down, each in front of a small thali into which food had already been served.

‘Do you know what your two sons are demanding of me?’ asked the Nawab Sahib.

Zainab turned to her children and scolded them.

‘I told you not to disturb your Nana-jaan in the library, but the moment my back is turned you do what you like. Now what have you been asking for?’

‘Nothing,’ said Hassan, rather sullenly.

‘Nothing,’ repeated Abbas, sweetly.

Zainab looked at her father with affection and thought of the days when she used to cling onto his hands and make her own importunate demands, often using his indulgence to get around her mother’s firmness. He was sitting on the rug in front of his silver thali with the same erect bearing that she remembered from her earliest childhood, but the thinness of the flesh on his cheek- bones and the small square moth-holes on his immaculately starched kurta filled her with a sudden tenderness. It had been ten years since her mother had died – her own children only knew of her through photographs and stories – and those ten years of widowerhood had aged her father as twenty years would have done in the ordinary course of time.

‘What are they asking for, Abba-jaan?’ said Zainab with a smile.

‘They want a ghost story,’ said the Nawab Sahib. ‘just like you used to.’

‘But I never asked for a ghost story at lunch,’ said Zainab.

To her children she said, ‘No ghost stories. Abbas, stop playing with your food. If you’re very good maybe you’ll get a story at night before you go to sleep.’

‘No, now! Now –’ said Hassan.

‘Hassan,’ said his mother warningly.

‘Now! Now!’ Hassan began crying and shouting.

The Nawab Sahib was quite distressed at his grandchildren’s insubordination towards their mother, and told them not to speak in this way. Good children, he made it clear, didn’t.

‘I hope they listen to their father at least,’ he said in mild rebuke.

To his horror he saw a tear roll down his daughter’s cheek. He put his arm around her shoulder, and said, ‘Is everything all right? Is everything all right there? ’

It was the instinctive thing to say, but he realized as soon as he had said it that he should perhaps have waited until his grandchildren had finished their lunch and he was left alone with his daughter. He had heard indirectly that all was not well with his daughter’s marriage.

‘Yes, Abba-jaan. It’s just that I think I’m a little tired.’

He kept his arm around her till her tears had ceased. The children looked bewildered. However, some of their favourite food had been prepared and they soon forgot about their mother’s tears. Indeed, she too became involved in feeding them, especially the younger one, who was having trouble tearing the naan. Even the Nawab Sahib, looking at the picture the three of them made together, felt a little rush of painful happiness. Zainab was small, like her mother had been, and many of the gestures of affection or reproof that she made reminded him of those that his wife used to make when trying to get Firoz and Imtiaz to eat their food.