‘Ah, Kapoor Sahib. It must be months –’
‘No, it rnust be years –’ said Maan, getting out a two-rupee note.
The watchman pocketed the note calmly, then said: ‘You are in luck. Begum Sahiba has not instructed me about any particular guests this evening. So I think she expects to be alone.’
‘Hmm.’ Maan frowned. Then he brightened up. ‘Well, good,’ he said.
The watchman knocked at the door. The buxom Bibbo peered out. Catching a glimpse of Maan, she beamed. She had missed him. He was by far the pleasantest of her mistress’s lovers, and the sprucest.
‘Ah, Dagh Sahib, welcome, welcome,’ she said from the door, loudly enough that he could hear her at the gate. ‘Just a minute, I’ll go up and enquire.’
‘What is there to enquire about?’ asked Maan. ‘Aren’t I welcome here? Do you think I’ll bring the village soil of Mother India into the durbar of the Begum Sahiba?’ He laughed and Bibbo giggled.
‘Yes, yes, you’re very welcome,’ said Bibbo. ‘Begum Sahiba will be delighted. But I should only speak for myself,’ she added flirtatiously. ‘I won’t be a minute.’
She was as good as her word. Soon Maan was traversing the hall, walking up the stairs with the mirror halfway up on the landing (he halted to adjust his white embroidered cap), and then along the upstairs gallery that fringed the hall. Soon he was at the door of Saeeda Bai’s room. But there was no sound of voices or of singing or even of the harmonium. When he entered, leaving his shoes outside the door, he noticed that Saeeda Bai was not in the room where she usually entertained. She must be in the bedroom, he thought with a rush of desire. He sat himself down on the sheeted floor, and leaned against a white bolster. Soon afterwards, Saeeda Bai came out from the bedroom. She looked tired but lovely, and enraptured by the sight of Maan.
Maan’s heart leaped up when he saw her, and so did he. If she hadn’t had a birdcage in her hand he would have embraced her.
But for now the look in her eyes would have to suffice. What an idiotic parakeet, thought Maan.
‘Do sit down, Dagh Sahib. How I have pined for this moment.’ An appropriate couplet followed.
She waited until Maan was seated before she set down the parakeet, who looked like a proper parrot now, not a ball of pale green fluff. Then she said to the bird: ‘You have been very unresponsive, Miya Mitthu, and I can’t say I am pleased with you.’ To Maan she said: ‘Rumour has it, Dagh Sahib, that you have been in town for some days now. Twirling, no doubt, that handsome ivory-headed cane. But the hyacinth that obtained favour yesterday appears withered today to the connoisseur.’
‘Begum Sahiba –’ protested Maan.
‘Even if she has withered away only for lack of the water of life,’ continued Saeeda Bai, tilting her head a little to one side, and pulling her sari over her hair in that familiar adjustment that made Maan’s heart pound ever since he had seen it that first evening in Prem Nivas.
‘Begum Sahiba, I swear –’
‘Ah,’ said Saeeda Bai, addressing the parakeet: ‘Why were you away for so long? Even one week was like agony. What are vows to one who is wilting in the desert under a scorching sun?’ Suddenly tiring of her metaphor, she said: ‘It has been rather hot these last few days. I shall ask for some sherbet for you.’ Getting up, she went to the gallery outside the door and, leaning over the rail, clapped her hands: ‘Bibbo!’
‘Yes, Begum Sahiba?’
‘Get us both some almond sherbet. And be sure to mix some saffron in Dagh Sahib’s sherbet. He looks so worn out by his pilgrimage to Rudhia. And you have grown rather dark.’
‘It was absence from you, Saeeda, that weakened me –’ said Maan. ‘And it was the laughing-cruel one who exiled me from herself who now blames me for this absence. Could anything be more unjust?’
‘Yes –’ said Saeeda Bai softly. ‘If the heavens had kept us longer apart.’
Since Saeeda Bai’s letter to Maan, full of endearments as it was, had urgently enjoined him to remain away from Brahmpur for even longer – for reasons she did not explain – her present answer was hardly fair.
But Maan found it satisfactory; no, more than satisfactory, delightful. Saeeda Bai had as good as confessed that she was longing to take him back in her arms. He made a slight gesture of his head towards the door of the bedroom. But Saeeda Bai had turned to the parakeet.
12.16
‘THE SHERBET first, then conversation, then music, and then we will see whether the saffron has taken effect,’ said Saeeda Bai teasingly. ‘Or does he need the whisky that is peeping out of his pocket?’