Anuradha Roy - An Atlas of Impossible Longing

“That’s for you and your daddy to decide, ma’am. We’ve no preferences … ” Harold turned to me and said, “ … though the boss may fancy some of it, yeah? Likes a bit of good carved wood, does the boss. That ivory cupboard … D’you fancy some of this for y’self?”

I walked quickly ahead, wanting to distance myself from Harold’s predatory interest in Bakul’s furniture. I went out to the verandah and took a deep breath, wondering, hoping this was some complicated game Bakul was playing. Sooner or later Harold would get tough, demand the deed, then begin his search — and how would she stop him? He would find it eventually. For all his languor and his poetry, I had never known him to fail.

Quite far from the house, from the verandah, I could see the river, a sluggish stream now. It had retreated some distance from its original bed. “There’s a dam upstream now,” Bakul’s voice suddenly said next to me. “So this house is a viable proposition again. It once had two acres of garden, most of which has been under water all these years. Now it’s surfaced again. There are a good many acres of fields as well.”

* * *

We reached the head of the stairs, having completed our survey of the upper floors. Harold held back, saying to Bakul, “If you don’ mind, ma’am, I’d like to look around alone, at leisure. Investment of this size, y’know. Need to take a good long look.” He turned before she could say anything and ducked into one of the rooms.

I followed her down the stairs and into the front verandah. She was stalking ahead of me, as though hardly aware of my presence. Now that we were free of Harold for a few minutes, I had to ask her what it all meant: How could she really think I was here to wrest her house away from her? She had to know I was on her side, not Harold’s. How could she possibly doubt it? I had to warn her that Harold was no innocuous or trustworthy buyer, that he was in there trying to find the property papers, that it was dangerous to give him the run of the house — she needed me, Nirmal Babu was right, and regardless of how she perceived me, she needed to be told this.

“Bakul,” I began as we reached the front verandah, “I need to talk … ”

The verandah was no longer empty, however. Sitting in one of the cane chairs as if he owned it as well as the house was a man about as old as Nirmal Babu. He had a prosperous face that shone with fat and sweat. He wore a crisp, white dhoti with a fashionably crinkled kurta that had diamond buttons twinkling in it. Next to him stood a shrivelled up, sorry-looking servant waving a palm-leaf fan over his master’s balding head.

We stopped short. He got up when he saw us and said in a booming voice, “Namaskar, Shaheb! And you too, Bakul. You don’t know me, but I know you!”

Bakul gaped at him.

“Your grandfather and my father were great friends, the greatest of friends! You must have heard. Ashwin Mullick was my father’s name! And my own humble name is Rathin Mullick.”

“I had not heard,” Bakul said.

“Do sit down,” the man said, inviting Bakul into her own verandah as though it had always belonged to him. She followed in a daze.

“Oh well, it’s natural, how would you know me? You, poor child, have hardly ever come to this house! Strange,” he said opening a silver paan-case and passing it around “No? Don’t want paan? Well, as I was saying, strange indeed. You hardly know anything about this house, and I know every inch of it and all your grandfather’s family and friends. I played here as a child, floated paper boats in the river, and in your ground floor when it started flooding. What fond memories! And the wonderful jackfruit dalna your grandfather’s cook made! Even your mother … Shanti and I — for some years, we played together, in this very verandah! She was a timid sort. Whenever she lost a game she would burst into tears, floods of tears! Ah, but Rathin Mullick, stop, you must not use the word flood in this house, a bad word, a disastrous word! After what the house has been through!”

I was staring at the man dumbfounded. He sounded and looked like something out of a cheap film or jatra, laughable, yet somehow menacing.

Bakul was beginning to look impatient. In the crisp tone that I knew from years ago, she said, “How can we help you, Rathin Babu? This gentleman,” she looked at me, “has come here on some work, so I’m sorry, but … ”

“Ah, the young,” he said with regret, “always, always in a hurry. I know why this gentleman has come, child, and why the other gentleman with him has come. And that is why I have come. Dear child, for years and years, my father had been telling your grandfather, ‘Bikash Babu, sell this monster house, it will swallow you up, sell it, and if you like, I will buy it!’ My father even gave him money for years as a down payment, and Bikash Babu, your good grandfather, took it — otherwise how do you think your grandfather lived, eh?” The man sounded suddenly truculent. Then he softened his tone again, and continued, “My poor father, God rest his soul, looked after your grandfather, sent him food during the floods … and now I’m hurt, my trust in humanity is gone, my child! I hear — from other people — that this house is to be sold — behind my back! Behind my back, when my family has already paid lakhs of rupees for it! Can it be true, I asked, and came to see for myself.”

A frog began to croak, and then a rickshaw’s bells sounded. The withered servant, though half asleep, still stood behind his master waving the palm-leaf fan. Bakul looked as if she were trembling. She turned to me and said — and somehow the three words she spoke cleared the air as if a sharp gust of fresh breeze had blown over us — she said, “ Say something, Mukunda !”

“I’m sure Bakul’s father has no intention of cheating anyone, Sir,” I said. “We know nothing about any understanding you may have had with Bakul’s grandfather. Naturally, we need to see some documents, a contract between you and the property owner would be required for legal reasons … ”

“Documents! Moshai!” the man spluttered. “When an old friend helps another over years and years for the whole of Manoharpur to see, with food, with money, with medicines, with servants, on an understanding between friends, are there documents?”

“Still,” I said, with a new surge of confidence that came from all my years dealing with property. I knew that without papers he was a gnat I would brush off, a butterfly on a mill wheel. “I’m a mere agent for the seller, how can I do anything without the relevant papers?”

I could feel Bakul’s eyes on me, different now, surprised and not edgy. Rathin Mullick’s motive in arriving at Bakul’s family home was no less predatory than Harold’s, but his unexpected appearance had been my salvation, his intrusion had placed Bakul and me on the same side. He argued, alternating between threats and appeals to sentiment, and I let him. The longer he thrust, the more skilfully I parried, and the happier I felt at being able to wield my rapier — and before Bakul. I could not resist showing off a little, letting her know conclusively that I was on her side and Nirmal Babu’s, that I was here to rescue her and save her old house.

We argued for what seemed like an eternity and then Rathin Mullick left, vowing that we had not heard the last of him. I knew that probably we had not, but the danger seemed to have passed even if temporarily, and it had served a purpose: I could talk to Bakul before Harold reappeared. Now, I thought, now I could explain everything to her.

“Bakul,” I said, “I have thousands of times dreamed of us meeting again, but never like this. Listen to me now, we need to talk. There’s no time to … ”