‘Ma, please –’
‘Yes, yes, it is all very well, when you become a mother you too will find out –’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘You will make sacrifices, and then they will break your heart.’
Malati could not help smiling. Mrs Rupa Mehra rounded on her, the prime architect of this plot.
‘You may think you are very clever, but I always know what is going on,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. She did not mention that only a chance conversation had enabled her to discover that Kabir was acting in Twelfth Night. ‘Yes, you can smile and smile and smile, but it is I who will do the crying.’
‘Ma, we had no idea that Kabir would be acting,’ said Malati. ‘I was trying to keep Lata out of his way.’
‘Yes, yes, I know, I know, I know it all,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra in miserable disbelief. She reached into her bag for her embroidered handkerchief.
Pran stirred; Savita went over to stand by his side.
‘Ma, let’s talk about this later,’ said Lata. ‘It certainly isn’t Malati’s fault. And I can’t back out now.’
Mrs Rupa Mehra quoted a line from one of her favourite didactic poets to show that nothing was impossible, then said: ‘And you have had a letter from Haresh as well. Aren’t you ashamed to be even seeing this other boy?’
‘How do you know I have had a letter from Haresh?’ whispered Lata indignantly.
‘I am your mother, that’s how I know,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘Well, Ma,’ whispered Lata hotly, ‘you may trust me or not, but let me tell you that I did not know that Kabir would be in the play, and I am not meeting him afterwards, and there is no plot at all.’
None of this convinced Mrs Rupa Mehra, who – glancing at Savita for a second – had begun to think of the brood of misfits that this unimaginable match could create.
‘He is half mad, do you even know that?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra.
To her bafflement and shock, this only produced a smile from Lata.
‘You are laughing at me?’ she said, appalled.
‘No, Ma, at him. He’s achieving madness quite nicely,’ said Lata. Kabir had taken to the part of Malvolio alarmingly well; his initial awkwardness had vanished.
‘How can you laugh at this? How can you laugh at this?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, rising from her chair. ‘Two tight slaps will do you some good. Laughing at your own mother.’
‘Ma, softly, please,’ said Savita.
‘I think I’d better go,’ said Malati.
‘No, you stay there,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘You should hear this too, then you will advise Lata better. I met this boy’s father at the Subzipore Club. He told me that his wife was fully mad. And the peculiar way he said it made me think that he was also partly mad.’ Mrs Rupa Mehra could not entirely conceal from her voice the triumph of vindication.
‘Poor Kabir!’ said Lata, appalled.
Kabir’s long-forgotten remark about his mother began to make a horrible kind of sense.
But before Mrs Rupa Mehra could reproach Lata further, Pran had woken up. Looking around him, he said: ‘What’s going on? Hello Ma, hello Lata. Ah, Malati, you’ve come too – I asked Savita what had happened to you. What’s the matter? Something dramatic, I hope. Come on, tell me. I heard someone say someone was mad.’
‘Oh, we were discussing the play,’ said Lata. ‘Malvolio, you know.’ It cost her an effort to speak.
‘Oh, yes. How’s your part going?’
‘Fine.’
‘And yours, Malati?’
‘Fine.’
‘Good, good, good. Whether I’m allowed to or not, I’ll come and see it. It must be just a month or so away. Wonderful play, Twelfth Night – just the thing for Annual Day. How’s Barua running the rehearsals?’
‘Very well,’ said Malati, taking over; she could see that Lata was in no mood to speak. ‘He’s got real flair. One wouldn’t think so, he’s so mild-mannered. But from the very first line –’
‘Pran is very tired,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, interrupting this unpleasant description. She wanted to hear nothing positive about the play. In fact she wanted to hear nothing at all from that brazen girl, Malati. ‘Pran, you have your dinner now.’
‘Yes, excellent idea,’ said Pran, rather eagerly for a patient. ‘What have you brought for me? This lack of exercise makes me enormously hungry. I seem to live from meal to meal. What’s for soup? Oh, vegetable soup,’ he said, disappointed. ‘Can’t I have tomato soup once in a while?’
Once in a while? thought Savita. Pran had had his favourite tomato soup the previous day and the day before, and she had thought that this would make a change.