A Suitable Boy(397)

It was, however, not the time for talk. The tonga was unloaded, hot soup offered and declined, goodnights exchanged. Mrs Rupa Mehra yawned, got ready for bed, removed her false teeth, gave Lata a kiss, said a prayer, and went off to sleep.

Lata stayed awake longer, but – unlike in the tonga – she was thinking of neither Kabir nor Haresh. Even her mother’s quiet and regular breathing failed to reassure her. The moment she lay down she remembered where she had spent the previous night. She thought at first that she would not be able to close her eyes. She kept imagining the sound of footsteps outside the door, and her imagination recreated for her the chimes of the grandfather clock that stood at the end of that long corridor, near Pushkar’s and Kiran’s rooms.

‘I thought you were an intelligent girl,’ the odious, disappointed, forgiving voice was saying.

But in a while her eyes closed of their own accord, and her mind yielded to a blessed exhaustion.





12.2


MRS RUPA MEHRA and her two daughters had just finished breakfast and had so far had no time to talk about anything of significance when two visitors from Prem Nivas arrived: Mrs Mahesh Kapoor and Veena.

Mrs Rupa Mehra’s face lit up at the thought of their kindness and consideration. ‘Come in, come in, come in,’ she said in Hindi. ‘I was just thinking about you, and here you are. You must have breakfast,’ she continued, taking over her daughter’s house in a manner that was impossible for her in Calcutta under the eye of the gorgon. ‘No? Well, tea at least. How is everyone at Prem Nivas? And in Misri Mandi? Why has Kedarnath not come – or his mother? And where is Bhaskar? School hasn’t begun yet – or has it? I suppose he is out flying kites with his friends and has forgotten all about his Rupa Nani. Minister Sahib of course is busy, I can imagine, so I don’t blame him for not visiting us, but Kedarnath should certainly have come. He doesn’t do much in the morning. But tell me all the news. Pran promised to, but far from being able to talk to him, I haven’t even seen him this morning. He’s gone to attend a meeting of some committee. You should tell him, Savita, not to over-exert. And’ – turning to Pran’s mother – ‘you should also advise him not to be so active. Your words will carry a lot of weight. A mother’s words always do.’

‘Who listens to my words?’ said Mrs Mahesh Kapoor in her quiet way. ‘You know how it is.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Mrs Rupa Mehra, shaking her head in vehement agreement. ‘I know exactly how it is. No one listens to their parents these days. It’s a sign of the times.’ Lata and Savita glanced at each other. Mrs Rupa Mehra went on: ‘Now with my father, no one dares to disobey him. Or he slaps them. He slapped me once even after Arun was born because he said I wasn’t handling him properly; Arun was being very difficult, crying for no reason, and it disturbed my father. I began crying of course when he slapped me. And Arun, who was only one at the time, began crying even louder. My husband was on tour at the time.’ Her eyes misted over, then cleared up as she remembered something.

‘My father’s car – the Buick – what has happened to it?’ she asked.

‘It was requisitioned to help with the casualties at the Pul Mela,’ said Veena. ‘I think it’s been returned; it should have been returned by now. But we haven’t followed things up these days, we’ve been so worried about Bhaskar.’

‘Worried? Whatever for?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.

‘What’s happened to Bhaskar?’ said Lata, simultaneously.

Veena, her mother and Savita were all greatly surprised that Mrs Rupa Mehra hadn’t been informed fully by Pran within minutes of her arrival the previous night of Bhaskar’s accident and its aftermath. Each filled in the picture with eagerness and distress, and Mrs Rupa Mehra’s cries of alarm and sympathy added to the concern, excitement and noise.

If five of us can make the racket we’re making, Birbal really did see a miracle under that tree, said Lata to herself, and her thoughts turned temporarily from Bhaskar to Kabir at the very moment that the conversation itself did the same.

Veena Tandon was saying: ‘And, really, if it hadn’t been for that boy who recognized Bhaskar, God knows what we would ever have done – or who would ever have found him. He was still unconscious when we saw him – and when he came to, he couldn’t even remember his own name.’ She began to tremble at the thought that an even worse disaster had been so close, so almost unavoidable. Even in her waking hours, even when holding her son’s hand by his bedside, she often remembered with frightening distinctness the sense of his fingers slipping out of her grasp. And the return of that hand had depended on so tenuous a chance that ‘there could be no possible explanation for it but the goodness and grace of God.