Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘It almost seemed as if she was jealous,’ Maan went on after a pause and a few more shots. ‘But why would someone as amazingly beautiful as her need to be jealous of anyone else? Especially her sister.’

Firoz reflected that he would never have used the words ‘amazingly beautiful’ of Saeeda Bai. It was her sister who had amazed him with her beauty. He could well imagine that Saeeda Bai might envy her freshness and youth.

‘Well,’ he said to Maan, a smile playing on his own fresh and handsome features, ‘I wouldn’t take it as a bad sign at all. I don’t see why you’re depressed about it. You should know by now that women are like that.’

‘So you think jealousy is a healthy sign?’ demanded Maan, who was quite prone to jealousy himself. ‘But there must be something to feel jealous about, don’t you think? Have you ever seen the younger sister? How could she even compare with Saeeda Bai?’

Firoz said nothing for a while, then made the brief comment: ‘Yes, I’ve seen her. She’s a pretty girl.’ He didn’t volunteer anything else.

But Maan, while hitting the ball ineffectually across the top, had his mind on Saeeda Bai again. ‘I sometimes think she cares more for that parakeet than for me,’ he said, frowning. ‘She’s never angry with him. I can’t go on like this — I’m exhausted.’

The last sentence referred not to his heart but to his arm. Maan was expending a great deal of energy playing his shots, and Firoz appeared to enjoy seeing him huff and puff a little.

‘How did your arm feel when you made that last shot?’ he asked.

‘It got quite a jolt,’ said Maan. ‘How long do you want me to go on?’

‘Oh, till I feel you’ve had enough,’ said Firoz. ‘It’s quite encouraging — you are making all the standard beginner’s mistakes. What you just did was to top the ball. Don’t do that — aim at a point at the bottom of the ball, and it’ll rise very nicely. If you aim at the top, all the strength of the impact will be absorbed by the ground. The ball won’t go far and, besides, you’ll find as you did just now that your arm gets a sharp little shock.’

‘I say, Firoz,’ said Maan, ‘how did you and Imtiaz learn Urdu? Wasn’t it very difficult? I’m finding it impossible — all those dots and squiggles.’

‘We had an old maulvi who came to the house especially to teach us,’ said Firoz. ‘My mother was very keen that we learn Persian and Arabic as well, but Zainab was the only one who got very far with those.’

‘How is Zainab?’ asked Maan. He reflected that though he had been a favourite of hers in childhood, he had not seen her for many years now — ever since she had disappeared into the world of purdah. She was six years older than him and he had adored her. In fact she had once saved his life in a swimming accident when he was six. I doubt I’ll ever see her again, he thought to himself. How awful — and how strange.

‘Don’t use force, use strength—’ said Firoz. ‘Or hasn’t your instructress taught you that?’

Maan aimed a gentle swipe at Firoz with his stick.

By now there were only about ten minutes of daylight left, and Firoz could see that Maan was not happy sitting on a merely wooden horse. ‘Well, one last shot,’ he said.

Maan pointed at the ball, made a light half-swing, and with one smooth, full, circular motion of his arm and wrist, hit the ball squarely in the centre. Pokk! The ball made a wonderful wooden sound, and flew up in a fine low parabola, passing over the net at the top of the pit.

Both Firoz and Maan were astonished.

‘Good shot!’ said Maan, very pleased with himself.

‘Yes,’ said Firoz. ‘Good shot. Beginner’s luck. Tomorrow we’ll see if you can do that consistently. But now I’m going to get you to ride a real polo pony for a few minutes, and see if you can control the reins with the left hand alone.’

‘Perhaps tomorrow,’ said Maan. His shoulders were stiff and his back felt twisted, and he had had more than enough of polo. ‘How about a ride instead?’

‘I can see that, like your Urdu teacher, I’ll have to teach you discipline before I teach you your subject,’ said Firoz. ‘Riding with one hand isn’t hard at all. It’s no more difficult than learning riding in the first place — or learning your alif-be-pe-te. If you try it now, you’ll be in a better position tomorrow.’

‘But I’m not very keen to try it today,’ protested Maan. ‘It’s dark anyway, and I won’t enjoy myself. Oh, all right, whatever you say, Firoz. You’re the boss.’

He dismounted and put his arm around his friend’s shoulder, and they walked towards the stables.

‘The trouble with my Urdu teacher,’ continued Maan, apropos of nothing immediate, ‘is that he only wants to teach me the finer points of calligraphy and pronunciation, and I only want to learn how to read love poetry.’

‘That’s the trouble with the teacher , is it?’ asked Firoz, holding his friend’s polo stick to prevent retaliation. He was feeling cheerful again. Maan’s company almost invariably did that to him.

‘Well, don’t you think I should have a say in the matter?’ asked Maan.

‘Perhaps,’ said Firoz. ‘If I thought you knew what was good for you.’

After he got home, Firoz decided to have a word with his father. He was far less annoyed than he had been immediately after his exchange with Murtaza Ali, but just as puzzled as before. He had a suspicion that his father’s private secretary was misinterpreting, or at least exaggerating, his father’s words. What could his father have meant by issuing such a curious instruction? Did it apply to Imtiaz as well? If so, why was his father being so protective of them? What did he think his sons would be likely to go and do? Perhaps, Firoz felt, he should reassure him.

When he did not find his father in his room, he assumed that he had gone into the zenana to talk to Zainab, and decided not to follow him. It was just as well that he did not do so, because the Nawab Sahib was talking to her about a matter so personal that the presence of anyone else, even a beloved brother, would have put an abrupt end to the conversation.

Zainab, who had shown such courage when Baitar House was under siege by the police, was now sitting near her father and sobbing quietly with misery. The Nawab Sahib had his arm around her and there was an expression of great bitterness on his face.

‘Yes,’ he was saying softly, ‘I have heard rumours that he goes out. But one should not take everything everyone says as true.’

Zainab said nothing for a while, then, covering her face with her hands, she said: ‘Abba-jaan, I know it is true.’

The Nawab Sahib stroked her hair gently, thinking back to the days when Zainab was four years old and would come and sit on his lap whenever something troubled her. It was unbearably bitter to him that his son-in-law had, by his infidelities, injured her so deeply. He looked back at his own marriage, at the practical and gentle woman whom for many years he had hardly known, and who, late in their marriage and long after the birth of their three children, had entirely won his heart. All he said to Zainab was:

‘Be patient like your mother. He will come around one day.’

Zainab did not look up, but she wondered that her father had invoked her mother’s memory. After a while, her father added, almost as if he were speaking to himself:

‘I came to realize her worth very late in life. God rest her soul.’

For many years now, the Nawab Sahib had visited his wife’s grave as often as possible to read the fatiha over it. And indeed the old Begum Sahiba had been a most remarkable woman. She had put up with what she knew of the Nawab’s own unsettled youth, had run much of the estate efficiently from behind the walls of her seclusion, had endured his later phases of piety (not as excessive, fortunately, as that of his younger brother), and had brought up her children and helped bring up her nephews and nieces with discipline and culture. Her influence on the zenana had been both diffuse and powerful. She had read; and, despite that, she had thought.