‘All right, then, what were you going to say?’ said Lata.
‘I’ve forgotten now,’ said Malati.
‘Please,’ said Lata, ‘I didn’t get up from my books for this. Don’t be mean, don’t be elliptical, and don’t tease me. It’s bad enough as it is.’
‘Why?’ said Malati. ‘Are you in love already? It’s high time, spring is over.’
‘Of course not,’ said Lata indignantly. ‘Are you mad?’
‘No,’ said Malati.
‘Then why do you have to ask such astonishing questions?’
‘I heard about the way he walked familiarly up to you while you were sitting on the bench after the exam,’ said Malati, ‘so I assumed that you must have been meeting off and on since the Imperial Book Depot.’ From her informant’s description Malati had assumed that it had been the same fellow. And she was pleased she was right.
Lata looked at her friend with more exasperation than affection. News travels much too fast, she thought, and Malati listens in on every line.
‘We have not been meeting either off or on,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where you get your information from, Malati. I wish you would talk about music or the news or something sensible. Even your socialism. This is only the second time we’ve met, and I don’t even know his name. Here, give me your textbook, and let’s sit down. If I read a paragraph or two of something I don’t understand, I’ll be all right.’
‘You don’t even know his name?’ said Malati, now looking at Lata as if she was the one who was mad. ‘Poor fellow! Does he know yours?’
‘I think I told him at the bookshop. Yes, I did. And then he asked me if I was going to ask him his – and I said no.’
‘And you wish you hadn’t,’ said Malati, watching her face closely.
Lata was silent. She sat down and leaned against a jacaranda.
‘And I suppose he would like to have told you,’ said Malati, sitting down as well.
‘I suppose he would,’ said Lata laughing.
‘Poor boiled potatoes,’ said Malati.
‘Boiled - what?’
‘You know – “Don’t put chillies on boiled potatoes.” ’ Malati imitated Lata.
Lata blushed.
‘You do like him, don’t you?’ said Malati. ‘If you lie, I’d know it.’
Lata did not respond immediately. She had been able to face her mother with reasonable calmness at lunch, despite the strange, trance-like event of the Drama paper. Then she said: ‘He could see that I was upset after the paper. I don’t think it was easy for him to come up and talk to me when I had, well, in a way rebuffed him at the bookshop.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Malati casually. ‘Boys are such louts. He could very well have done it for the challenge. They’re always daring each other to do idiotic things – for instance, storming the Women’s Hostel at Holi. They think they are such heroes.’
‘He is not a lout,’ said Lata, bridling. ‘And as for heroism, I think it does take at least a little courage to do something when you know that your head can be bitten off as a result. You said something to the same effect in the Blue Danube.’
‘Not courage, boldness,’ said Malati, who was thoroughly enjoying her friend’s reactions. ‘Boys aren’t in love, they’re just bold. When the four of us were walking to the grove just now, I noticed a couple of boys on bicycles following us in a pathetic sort of way. Neither really wanted to brave an encounter with us, but neither could say so. So it was quite a relief to them when we entered the grove and the question became moot.’
Lata was silent. She lay down on the grass and stared up at the sky through the jacaranda branches. She was thinking of the smear on her nose, which she had washed off before lunch.
‘Sometimes they’ll come up to you together,’ continued Malati, ‘and grin more at each other than at you. At other times they’re so afraid that their friends will come up with a better “line” than they themselves can think of that they’ll actually take their life in their hands and come up to you alone. And what are their lines? Nine times out of ten it is “May I borrow your notes?” – perhaps tempered with a lukewarm, feeble-minded “Namasté”. What, incidentally, was the introductory line of the Potato Man?’
Lata kicked Malati.
‘Sorry – I meant the apple of your heart.’
‘What did he say?’ said Lata, almost to herself. When she tried to recall exactly how the conversation had begun, she realized that, although it had taken place just a few hours ago, it had already grown hazy in her mind. What remained, however, was the memory that her initial nervousness at the young man’s presence had ended in a sense of confused warmth: at least someone, if only a good-looking stranger, had understood that she had been bewildered and upset, and had cared enough to do something to lift her spirits.