‘I don’t know,’ he replied.
‘If you had spent more time with them instead of going to the club every day, they wouldn’t have turned out this way,’ said Mrs Chatterji in a rare rebuke; but she was overwrought.
The phone rang.
‘Ten to one it’s for Kuku,’ said Amit.
‘It’s not.’
‘I suppose you can tell from the kind of ring, hunh, Kuku?’
‘It’s for Kuku,’ cried Tapan from the door.
‘Oh. Who’s it from?’ asked Kuku, and poked her tongue out at Amit.
‘Krishnan.’
‘Tell him I can’t come to the phone. I’ll call back later,’ said Kuku.
‘Shall I tell him you’re having a bath? Or sleeping? Or out in the car? Or all three?’ Tapan grinned.
‘Please, Tapan,’ said Kuku, ‘be a sweet boy and make some excuse. Yes, say I‘ve gone out.’
Mrs Chatterji was shocked into exclaiming: ‘But, Kuku, that’s a barefaced lie.’
‘I know, Ma,’ said Kuku, ‘but he’s so tedious, what can I do?’
‘Yes, what can one do when one has a hundred best friends?’ muttered Amit, looking mournful.
‘Just because nobody loves you –’ cried Kuku, stung to fierceness.
‘Lots of people love me,’ said Amit, ‘don’t you, Dipankar?’
‘Yes, Dada,’ said Dipankar, who thought it best to be simply factual.
‘And all my fans love me,’ added Amit.
‘That’s because they don’t know you,’ said Kakoli.
‘I won’t contest that point,’ said Amit; ‘and, talking of unseen fans, I’d better get ready for His Excellency. Excuse me.’
Amit got up to go, and so did Dipankar; and Mr Justice Chatterji settled the use of the car between the two main claimants, while keeping Tapan’s interests in mind as well.
7.17
ABOUT fifteen minutes after the Ambassador was due to arrive at the house for their one hour talk, Amit was informed by telephone that he would be ‘a little late’. That would be fine, said Amit.
About half an hour after he was due to arrive, Amit was told that he might be a little later still. This annoyed him somewhat, as he could have done some writing in the meantime. ‘Has the Ambassador arrived in Calcutta?’ he asked the man on the phone. ‘Oh, yes,’ said the voice. ‘He arrived yesterday afternoon. He is just running a little late. But he left for your house ten minutes ago. He should be there in the next five minutes.’
Since Biswas Babu was due to arrive soon and Amit did not want to keep the family’s old clerk waiting, he was irritated. But he swallowed his irritation, and muttered something polite.
Fifteen minutes later, Señor Bernardo Lopez arrived at the door in a great black car. He came with a lively young woman whose first name was Anna-Maria. He was extremely apologetic and full of cultural goodwill; she on the other hand was brisk and energetic and extracted a pocketbook from her handbag the moment they sat down.
During the flow of his ponderous and gentle words, all slowly weighed, deliberated and qualified before they could be expressed, the Ambassador looked everywhere but at Amit: he looked at his teacup, at his own flexed or drumming fingers, at Anna-Maria (to whom he nodded reassuringly), and at a globe in a corner of the room. From time to time he would smile. He pronounced ‘very’ with a ‘b’.
Caressing his pointed bald head nervously and gravely, and conscious of the fact that he was an inexcusable forty-five minutes late, he attempted to come straight to the point: ‘Well, Mr Chatterji, Mr Amit Chatterji, if I may make so bold, I am often called upon in my official duties, as you know, being Ambassador and so on, which I have been for about a year now – unfortunately, with us it is not permanent, or indeed definite; there is an element of, I might even say, or it would perhaps not be unfair to say (yes, that is better put, if I might be allowed to praise myself for a locution in another language) that there is an element of arbitrariness in it, in our stay in a particular place, I mean; unlike you writers who… but anyway, what I meant was that I would like to put to you one question directly, which is to say, forgive me, but as you know I have arrived here forty-five minutes in tardiness and have taken up forty-five minutes of your good time (of your good self, as I notice some say here), partly because I set out very tardily (I came here directly from a friend’s home here in this remarkable city, to which I hope you will come some time when you are more at leisure – or to Delhi needlessly – by which I mean rather, needless to say, to our own home – though you must of course tell me if I am imposing myself on you) but I asked my secretary to inform you of that (I hope he did, yes?), but partly because our driver led us to Hazra Road, a, I understand, very natural mistake, because the streets are almost parallel and close to each other, where we met a gentleman who was kind enough to redirect us to this beautiful house – I speak as an appreciator of not just the architecture but the way you have preserved its atmosphere, its perhaps ingenuity, no, ingenuousness, even virginity – but as I said I am (to come to the point) late, and indeed forty-five, well, what I must now ask you as I have asked others in the course of my official duties, although this is by no means an official duty but one entirely of pleasure (though I indeed do have something to ask of you, or rather, ask you about), I have to ask you as I ask other officials who have schedules to keep, not that you are official, but, well, a busy man: do you have any appointment after this hour that you have allotted me, or can we perhaps exceed… yes? Do I make myself clear?’