Philip Hensher - Scenes from Early Life

5.

Mr Khandekar lived in a wealthy part of Dacca, where Amit and Altaf had rarely, if ever, been. They had planned to get there early in the morning, so as not to intrude on Mr Khandekar’s day, and so that it would be more likely that he would be at home. Altaf, in explaining about Mr Khandekar to Amit, had stressed how important and busy he was in his law practice. Perhaps he had overdone it. The night before, Amit had interrupted Altaf’s explanation: ‘Let’s not bother him. I’m sure I will be perfectly all right. There are plenty of places to live. I don’t think I have a leg to stand on.’ But Altaf explained that Mr Khandekar would be very helpful, so long as they arrived at his house early enough and did not interrupt his working day. He was the most important person Altaf knew.

But they were not very familiar with Dhanmondi, where Mr Khandekar lived. They got off the bus on Mirpur Road, which circled the district, and it pulled away. The servants, drivers and other unimportant people who had got off the bus at the same time scattered swiftly in every direction. Altaf had been to Mr Khandekar’s house before, and had thought he would be able to find it easily. But in fact they had got off the bus half a mile too soon, in their nervousness. It took half an hour of doubling backwards and forwards to discover the direction in which the wide, leafy avenues were numbered, and an hour beyond that to find road number twenty. That was the road in which Mr Khandekar’s house lay. In this district, there were few people about, and none to ask for directions. In Altaf’s part of Dacca, a request for help would pull a small crowd, eager to explain that the goal of the journey was beyond the mosque, down the small road behind Suleiman’s hardware store and so on. Here, the only people to ask were scurrying ayahs or servants, late for their tasks, slipping behind high white walls. From time to time a large car murmured down the centre of the road, and behind a shining window, a small face inspected Altaf and Amit, unfamiliar figures in this rich and green-shaded neighbourhood.

It was quite late in the morning when they found Mr Khandekar’s house. The gate was ajar, and they pushed it open nervously. From the white-painted square house, the noise of a discussion was going on and, somewhere deeper in the house, the clamour and clang of cooking pots. They stood under the dense shade of the large mango tree at the entrance. ‘We should go in,’ Amit said. ‘Or knock on the door.’

‘I can’t remember,’ Altaf said. ‘There might be an entrance at the back. For clients.’

But Amit walked forward, quite boldly, and pushed a button to the side of the door. Inside the house, a bell rang – an electric two-note song. The door was opened almost immediately, and behind was Mr Khandekar – Altaf recognized him. He was obviously going out: he was wearing a black suit and a white shirt, and was struggling with a white cambric stock at his throat. His collar was detached, and flying away like the wing of a bird: it was clear that Mr Khandekar was trying to do everything in the wrong order. ‘Salaam,’ he said, fumbling with the stock. ‘Good morning to you.’

‘Sir,’ Altaf said, ‘if this is an inconvenient time—’

‘Please, introduce yourselves,’ Mr Khandekar said. Altaf did so, reminding Mr Khandekar of his family, and of his knowledge of his father’s family, his respect for Mr Khandekar’s father. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ Mr Khandekar said. ‘I don’t have the time to see you now. Come in, walk with me.’

They went into the dark wooden hallway of Mr Khandekar’s house and followed him through the salon into a room lined with books. ‘Explain, explain,’ Mr Khandekar said, as he walked. He had given them each one assessing look, from top to bottom, at the front door. But then he had averted his eyes and talked to them without looking, rummaging about in the drawers of his desk, pulling out a paper from a pile, picking up a clever neat little stud to hold his white collar down and pushing it into a hole, somewhere at the back of his neck. ‘Explain, explain,’ Mr Khandekar said, picking up a second collar stud and getting to work with it.

Altaf stood in front of this furious activity, and started to explain about his friend, his friend’s aunt, the nephew in Cox’s Bazar, the will and the legacy, the spare room, the terms of the lease—

‘Explain, explain,’ Mr Khandekar said. ‘I can’t find the last collar stud. It must be here. Explain, explain.’

Altaf explained about Amit, how his aunt’s landlord had known perfectly well that he was living there but now chose to say that he was flabbergasted to discover it, and that Amit wanted to stay on there, but the landlord’s view was that—

‘There it is,’ Mr Khandekar said, with relief, pouncing on a small silver stud, like a chicken on a seed. ‘Now I can go. Come with me.’

Altaf had feared they were about to be ejected – Mr Khandekar seemed so busy and unconcerned. But he knew that great men were not as you expected. He had expected that they would be asked to wait in an antechamber, rather than following Mr Khandekar about his house as he dressed. Mr Khandekar had his own ways, and he had been listening to them in his own fashion. He had been friendly, manly, and would now be helpful. Altaf had stumbled over the story, but Mr Khandekar had followed its disorganized path and had made sense of it, and now he would present them with a solution. Mr Khandekar led them out of his study. He paused at a looking glass in the salon, and with one hand smoothed down his greying hair; he licked the tips of the forefinger and thumb on his left hand and, in a gesture Altaf half knew, half remembered as being characteristic, wiped them across his eyebrows in a single opening gesture. ‘Come with me,’ he said again. They followed him across the crowded salon, stepping cautiously between little tables and low stools, and through the hallway. Mr Khandekar stopped at a closed door, knocked briefly and pushed it open.

‘I don’t have time for this,’ he said. ‘Two fellows from the village.’ He turned to Altaf. ‘What did you say your name was? A problem with accommodation. Talk to them. See if you can do anything. I have to be off. I’m fearfully late. How are you, Nadira? Always a pleasure.’

He turned swiftly, in his immaculate black-and-white dress, the white stock now quickly tied and beautifully neat at his throat. There was genuine warmth in the greeting or, Altaf supposed, the farewell to the girl. ‘I always like to see old friends from the village,’ he said. ‘Always, always. Explain everything to my wife – she is the true power in this house. She can do so much more for you than I can, believe me.’ The front door opened anonymously, smoothly, and in front of the house, under the mango tree, a car stood idling. A driver was waiting for Mr Khandekar.

‘Goodbye, goodbye,’ Mr Khandekar said. ‘Always a pleasure.’

6.

Mrs Khandekar was a tiny woman, dressed enchantingly in a pink sari and a single simple necklace. The room she came to the door of was also pink, and lit by the light of the morning sun, coming through the leaves of the tree outside. It was a graceful, charming room, with two Chinese vases on either end of a teak sideboard, the sofa and armchairs upholstered in pale green silk. On the low teak and glass table was a tray with tea things on it, a blue-and-white Chinese set, and a plate of sweet biscuits arranged in a little fan. In the small brown vase on the table, a branch of fruit blossom.

Mrs Khandekar had a guest. She was a girl of perhaps fifteen, who craned her head at the visitors as Mrs Khandekar rose and went to speak to Amit and Altaf at the door. The girl sat very upright, and her hair was arranged in an upwards style. She sat as if aware of the way she would be looked at. Mr Khandekar had called her Nadira.