Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

At breakfast the next morning, Mr Sahgal was absent.

‘Sahgal Sahib is not feeling very well. He is tired from working so hard,’ said Mrs Sahgal.

Mrs Rupa Mehra shook her head: ‘Maya, you must tell him to take it easy. It was overwork that killed my husband. And for what final aim? One must work hard, but enough is really enough. Lata, why aren’t you eating your toast? It will get cold. And see, Maya Masi has made that lovely white butter you like so much.’

Mrs Sahgal smiled sweetly at Lata. ‘She looks so tired and worried, poor girl. I think she is already in love with H. Now she is spending sleepless nights.’ She sighed happily.

Lata buttered her toast in silence.

Without his father to help him, Pushkar was having a hard time with his toast. Kiran, who was looking as sleepy as Lata, went over to give him a hand.

‘What does he do when he needs to shave?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra in a low voice.

‘Oh, Sahgal Sahib helps him,’ said Mrs Sahgal. ‘Or one of the servants does — but Pushkar prefers us to help him. Oh Rupa, I wish you could stay for a few more days. We have so much to talk about. And the girls can get to know each other also.’

‘No!’ The word was out before Lata could think of what she was saying. She looked frightened and disgusted.

Kiran dropped the knife on Pushkar’s plate. Then she rushed out of the room.

‘Lata, you must say sorry at once,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘What do you mean by this? Have you no decency?’

Lata was about to tell her mother that all she had meant was that she did not want to stay in the house any longer, and had not meant to hurt Kiran. That, however, would merely exchange one offence for another. So she kept her mouth shut and her head bowed.

‘Did you hear me?’ Mrs Rupa Mehra’s high voice held an edge of anger.

‘Yes.’

‘Yes what?’

‘Yes, Ma, I heard you. I heard you. I heard you.’

Lata got up and went to her room. Mrs Rupa Mehra could hardly believe her eyes.

Pushkar began singing to himself and stuffing the small squares of toast that his sister had cut and buttered for him into his mouth. Mrs Sahgal looked distressed.

‘I wish Sahgal Sahib was here. He knows how to deal with the children.’

Mrs Rupa Mehra said: ‘Lata is a thoughtless girl sometimes. I am going to have a word with her.’ Then she thought that perhaps she was being too harsh. ‘Of course, Kanpur was a strain on her. It was on me, too, of course. She does not appreciate the efforts I have made for her. Only He appreciated me.’

‘Finish your tea, first, Rupa mine,’ said Mrs Sahgal.

A few minutes later, when Mrs Rupa Mehra entered Lata’s room, she found her asleep. So soundly was she sleeping that she had to be woken for lunch a few hours later.

At lunch, Mr Sahgal smiled at Lata and said, ‘See what I have got for you.’ It was a small, flat, square packet wrapped in red paper. The wrapping paper was decorated with holly, bells and other Christmas paraphernalia.

‘How lovely!’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, without knowing what it was.

Lata’s ears burned with embarrassment and anger.

‘I don’t want it.’

Mrs Rupa Mehra was too shocked to speak.

‘And then we can go to the cinema. There will be time before your train leaves.’

Lata stared at him.

Mrs Rupa Mehra, who had been brought up never to open gifts when they were given but to wait till she was alone, quite forgot herself.

‘Open it,’ she ordered Lata.

‘I don’t want it,’ said Lata. ‘You open it.’ She pushed the packet across. Something jangled inside.

‘Savita would never behave like this,’ began her mother. ‘And Mausaji has taken the afternoon off just for you — just so that Maya and I can have the time to talk. You don’t know how much of an interest he takes in you. He is always saying you are so intelligent, but I am beginning to doubt it. Say thank you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Lata, feeling dirtied and humiliated.

‘And you must tell me all about the film when you come back.’

‘I will not go to the film.’

‘What?’

‘I will not go to the film.’

‘Mausaji will be with you, Lata — what are you worried about?’ said her mother uncomprehendingly.

Kiran looked at Lata with a bitter glance of jealousy. Mr Sahgal said, ‘She is like my own daughter. I will see that she doesn’t eat too many ice-creams and other unhealthy things.’

‘I will not go!’ Lata’s voice rose in defiance and panic.

Mrs Rupa Mehra was struggling with the packet. At this cry of rank rebellion, her fingers lost control of themselves. Normally she unpacked every gift with infinite care in order to be able to reuse the paper later. But now the paper ripped open.

‘See what you’ve made me do,’ she said to Lata. But then, looking at the contents, she turned to Mr Sahgal, perplexed.

The present was a puzzle, a pink plastic maze with a transparent top. Seven little silver balls were to be jiggled around the square maze so that, with luck, they would eventually come to rest in the central cell.

‘She is such a clever girl, I thought I would give her a puzzle. Normally she would be able to do it in five minutes. But on the train everything shakes so much that it will take her an hour,’ Mr Sahgal explained in a gentle voice. ‘Time passes so slowly sometimes.’

‘How thoughtful,’ murmured Mrs Rupa Mehra, frowning a little.

Lata lied that she had a headache, and returned to her room. But she did, indeed, feel ill — sick to the pit of her stomach.

Mr Sahgal’s car took them to the station late in the afternoon. He was working, and did not come. Kiran stayed behind with Pushkar. Mrs Sahgal came with them and chattered sweetly and vacuously throughout.

Lata did not say a word.

They were immersed in the crowds on the platform. Suddenly Haresh appeared.

‘Hello, Mrs Mehra. Hello, Lata.’

‘Haresh? I said you were not to come,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘And I told you to call me Ma,’ she added mechanically.

Haresh smiled, pleased to have surprised them.

‘My own train back to Cawnpore leaves in fifteen minutes so I thought I would give you a hand. Now where is your coolie?’

He installed them in their compartment cheerfully and efficiently, and made sure that Mrs Rupa Mehra’s black handbag was placed where it was both within reach and theft-proof.

Mrs Rupa Mehra looked mortified; it had been a hard decision for her to buy two first-class tickets from Kanpur to Lucknow, but she had felt she had to convey a certain impression to a potential son-in-law. Now he could clearly see that they usually travelled not even by second but by Inter class. And indeed, Haresh was puzzled, though he did not show it. After all this talk by Mrs Rupa Mehra about travelling in saloons and having a son in Bentsen Pryce, he had expected a different style from them.

But what does all that matter? he asked himself. I like the girl.

Lata, who had first seemed glad — relieved, he would have said — to see him, now appeared withdrawn, hardly aware of her own presence, or her mother’s, or her aunt’s, let alone his.

As the whistle blew, a scene came to Haresh’s mind. It was set at about this time of day. It had been warm, so it could not have been many months ago. He had been standing at the platform of a busy station, about to catch a train himself, and his coolie had been about to disappear into the crowd ahead. A middle-aged woman, her back turned partly towards him, had been boarding another train together with a younger woman. This younger woman — he knew now that it had been Lata — had had on her face such a look of intensity and inwardness, perhaps even hurt or anger, that he had caught his breath. There had been a man with them, the young man whom he had met at Sunil Patwardhan’s party — that English teacher whose name eluded him. Brahmpur, yes — that was where he had seen them before. He had known it; he had known it, and now it all came back to him. He had not been mistaken, after all. He smiled, his eyes disappearing.