Maan did not want to have to pore over it for hours. He wanted to know immediately what Saeeda Bai had written to him. But whom should he ask for help? Rasheed? No. Netaji? No. Who would serve as his interpreter?
What had she written? In his mind’s eye he saw her right hand with its brilliant ring move from right to left over the pale yellow page. As he did so, he heard a descending scale on the harmonium. He realized with a start that he had never seen her writing anything. The touch of her hands on his face – the touch of her hands on the keyboard – these needed so little conscious interpretation. But here her hands had moved across the page in a pattern of speed and grace, and he had no inkling what it meant of love or indifference, seriousness or playfulness, pleasure or anger, desire or calm.
10.22
RASHEED was indeed in worse trouble than he imagined, but it was the next evening that he found out about it.
When, after an almost sleepless night, Maan had asked him that morning for help with Saeeda Bai’s letter, Rasheed had gazed thoughtfully at the envelope for a moment, looked uncomfortable (probably with embarrassment at the request, thought Maan), and, to his great surprise, agreed.
‘After dinner,’ he had suggested.
Though dinner seemed months away, Maan had nodded gratefully.
But the crisis broke immediately after the evening prayer. Rasheed was summoned to meet five men gathered upstairs on the roof: his grandfather; his father; Netaji; his mother’s brother who had arrived that afternoon without his friend the guppi; and the Imam of the mosque.
They were all seated on a large rug in the middle of the roof. Rasheed made his adaabs.
‘Sit down, Rasheed,’ said his father. No one else said anything beyond responding to the salutations.
Only the Bear appeared to be genuinely welcoming, though he looked profoundly uncomfortable. ‘Have a glass of this sherbet, Rasheed,’ he said after a while, handing him a glass with a red liquid inside. ‘It’s made from rhododendrons,’ he explained. ‘Excellent stuff. When I visited the hills last month…’ He tapered off into silence.
‘What is this about?’ asked Rasheed, looking first at the awkward Bear, then at the Imam. The Imam of the Debaria mosque was a good man, the senior member of the other big landowning family in the village. He usually greeted Rasheed in a warm manner, but Rasheed had noticed a distance in the last couple of days. Perhaps the Sagal incident had upset him as well – or perhaps the rumours that were proliferating had confused one Imam with another. Anyway, whatever his own theological or social errors, it was humiliating to be required to answer charges of rudeness to what looked like an accusatorial committee. And why had the Bear been called to join them from a considerable distance away? Rasheed sipped his sherbet and looked at the others. His father seemed disgusted, his grandfather stern. Netaji was trying to look judicious; he succeeded in looking complacent.
It was Rasheed’s father who spoke in his paan-rough voice.
‘Abdur Rasheed, how dare you abuse your position as my son and as a member of this family? The patwari came here looking for you two days ago. When he could not find you, he spoke to me, thank God.’
Rasheed’s face went white.
He could not speak a word. It was all too clear what had happened. The wretched patwari, who knew perfectly well that it was Rasheed who was supposed to visit him, had decided to find an excuse to talk directly to his family. Suspicious and worried about his instructions, and knowing where the ghee on his roti came from, he had decided to bypass Rasheed himself to seek confirmation. Doubtless he had come during afternoon prayers, when he could be fairly certain that Rasheed would be at the mosque, and completely certain that his father would not.
Rasheed clutched his glass. His lips felt dry. He took a sip of sherbet. This action appeared to infuriate his father further. He pointed his finger at Rasheed’s head.
‘Don’t be impertinent. Answer me. Your hair looks wiser than the mulch it is growing on, but – and keep this well in mind, Rasheed – you are not a child any longer and cannot expect a child’s indulgence.’
Baba added: ‘Rasheed, this land is not yours to give or take. The patwari has been told to undo your disgraceful instructions. How could you do this? I have trusted you since you were a child. You were never obedient, but you were never underhanded.’
Rasheed’s father said: ‘In case you are inclined to create further mischief, you should know that your name is no longer attached to those lands. And what a patwari writes is difficult for the Supreme Court to undo. Your communist schemes will not work here. We are not so easily taken in by theories and visions as the brilliant students of Brahmpur.’