A Suitable Boy(175)

But Rasheed appeared to understand. ‘When I was younger,’ he said, ‘I – who now consider myself truly sober – would spend my time beating people up. My grandfather used to do so in our village, and he was a well-respected man, so I thought that beating people up was what made people look up to him. There were about five or six of us, and we would egg each other on. We‘d just go up to some schoolfellow, who might be wandering innocently along, and slap him hard across the face. What I would never have dared to do alone, I did without any hesitation in company. But, well, I don’t any more. I‘ve learned to follow another voice, to be alone and to understand things – maybe to be alone and to be misunderstood.’

To Maan this sounded like the advice of a good angel; or perhaps a risen one. In his imagination’s eye he saw the Rajkumar and Rasheed struggling for his soul. One was coaxing him towards hell with five poker cards, one beating him towards paradise with a quill.

He botched another meem before asking: ‘And is your grandfather still alive?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Rasheed, frowning. ‘He sits on a cot in the shade and reads the Quran Sharif all day, and chases the village children away when they disturb him. And soon he will try to chase the officers of the law away too, because he doesn’t like your father’s plans.’

‘So you’re zamindars?’ Maan was surprised.

Rasheed thought this over before saying: ‘My grandfather was, before he divided his wealth among his sons. And so is my father and so is my, well, my uncle. As for myself –’ He paused, appeared to look over Maan’s page, then continued, without finishing his previous sentence, ‘Well, who am I to set myself up in judgment in these matters? They are very happy, naturally, to keep things as they are. But I have lived in the village almost all my life, and I have seen the whole system. I know how it works. The zamindars – and my family is not so extraordinary as to be an exception to this – the zamindars do nothing but make their living from the misery of others; and they try to force their sons into the same ugly mould as themselves.’ Here Rasheed paused, and the area around the corners of his mouth tightened. ‘If their sons want to do anything else, they make life miserable for them too,’ he continued. ‘They talk a great deal about family honour, but they have no sense of honour except to gratify the promises of pleasure they have made to themselves.’

He was silent for a second, as if hesitating; then went on: ‘Some of the most respected of landlords do not even keep their word, they are so petty. You might find this hard to believe but I was virtually offered a job here in Brahmpur as the curator of the library of one such great man, but when I got to the grand house I was told – well, anyway, all this is irrelevant. The main fact is that the system of landlords isn’t good for the villagers, it isn’t good for the countryside as a whole, it isn’t good for the country, and until it goes…’ The sentence remained unfinished. Rasheed was pressing his fingertips to his forehead, as if he was in pain.

This was a far cry from meem, but Maan listened with sympathy to the young tutor, who appeared to speak out of some terrible pressure, not merely of circumstances. Only a few minutes earlier he had been counselling care, concentration, and moderation for Maan.

There was a knock on the door, and Rasheed quickly straightened up. Ishaq Khan and Motu Chand entered.

‘Our apologies, Kapoor Sahib.’

‘No, no, you’re quite right to enter,’ said Maan. ‘The time for my lesson is over, and I’m depriving Begum Sahiba’s sister of her Arabic.’ He got up. ‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, and my meems will be matchless,’ he promised Rasheed impetuously. ‘Well?’ he nodded genially at the musicians, ‘Is it life or death?’

But from Motu Chand’s downcast looks he anticipated Ishaq Khan’s words.

‘Kapoor Sahib, I fear that this evening – I mean the Begum Sahiba asked me to inform you…’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Maan, angry and hurt. ‘Good. My deep respects to the Begum Sahiba. Till tomorrow, then.’

‘It is just that she is indisposed.’ Ishaq disliked lying and was bad at it.

‘Yes,’ said Maan, who would have been very much more concerned if he had believed in her indisposition. ‘I trust that she will recover rapidly.’ At the door he turned and added: ‘If I thought it would do any good, I would prescribe her a string of meems, one to be taken every hour and several before she retires.’

Motu Chand looked at Ishaq for a clue, but Ishaq’s face reflected his own perplexity.