Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Well,’ Arun had said just recently, ‘now that Savita’s married, that’s one less, you’ll agree, darling.’ Meenakshi had sighed, replying in a couplet:

‘Marry one — and what’s my fate?

Every Mehra on my plate.’

Arun had frowned. He had been reminded once again of the fact that Meenakshi’s elder brother was a poet. It was from long familiarity — almost obsession — with rhyme that most of the younger Chatterjis had learned to improvise couplets, sometimes of surpassing puerility.

The ayah brought the milk and left. Meenakshi turned her lovely eyes back to Buddenbrooks while Aparna sat on the bed drinking her milk. With a sound of impatience Meenakshi threw Thomas Mann on to the bed and followed him there, closed her eyes and went off to sleep. She was awakened with a shock twenty minutes later by Aparna, who was pinching her breast.

‘Don’t be horrid, Aparna precious. Mummy’s trying to sleep,’ said Meenakshi.

‘Don’t sleep,’ said Aparna. ‘I want to play.’ Unlike other children of her age, Aparna never used her name in the Caesarean third person, though her mother did.

‘Darling sweetheart, Mummy is tired, she’s been reading a book and she doesn’t want to play. Not now, anyway. Later, when Daddy comes home, you can play with him. Or you can play with Uncle Varun when he returns from college. What have you done with your glass?’

‘When will Daddy come home?’

‘I’d say in about an hour,’ replied Meenakshi.

‘I’d say in about an hour,’ said Aparna speculatively, as if she liked the phrase. ‘I want a necklace too,’ she added, and tugged at her mother’s gold chain.

Meenakshi gave her daughter a hug. ‘And you shall have one,’ she said, and dismissed the subject. ‘Now go to Miriam.’

‘No.’

‘Then stay here if you want. But do be quiet, darling.’

Aparna was quiet for a while. She looked at Buddenbrooks , at her empty glass, at her sleeping mother, at the quilt, at the mirror, at the ceiling. Then she said, ‘Mummy?’ tentatively. There was no response.

‘Mummy?’ Aparna attempted a few notches louder.

‘Mmm?’

‘MUMMY!’ yelled Aparna at the top of her lungs.

Meenakshi sat bolt upright and shook Aparna. ‘Do you want me to spank you?’ she asked.

‘No,’ replied Aparna definitively.

‘Then what is it? Why are you shouting? What were you going to say?’

‘Have you had a hard day, darling?’ asked Aparna, hoping to arouse a response to her imitative charm.

‘Yes,’ said Meenakshi shortly. ‘Now darling, pick up that glass and go to Miriam at once.’

‘Shall I comb your hair?’

‘No.’

Aparna got down reluctantly from the bed and made her way to the door. She toyed with the idea of saying, ‘I’ll tell Daddy!’ though what she could have complained about was left unformulated. Her mother meanwhile was once again sleeping sweetly, her lips slightly parted, her long black hair spread across the pillow. It was so hot in the afternoon, and everything tilted her towards a long and languorous sleep. Her breasts rose and fell gently, and she dreamed about Arun, who was handsome and dashing and covenanted, and who would be coming home in an hour. And after a while she began to dream about Billy Irani, whom they would be meeting later that evening.

When Arun arrived, he left his briefcase in the drawing room, walked into the bedroom, and closed the door. Seeing Meenakshi asleep, he paced up and down for a while, then took off his coat and tie, and lay down beside her without disturbing her sleep. But after a while his hand moved to her forehead and then down her face to her breasts. Meenakshi opened her eyes and said, ‘Oh.’ She was momentarily bewildered. After a while she asked, ‘What’s the time?’

‘Five thirty. I came home early just as I promised — and I found you asleep.’

‘I couldn’t sleep earlier, darling. Aparna woke me up every few minutes.’

‘What’s the programme for the evening?’

‘Dinner and dancing with Billy and Shireen.’

‘Oh yes, of course.’ After a pause Arun continued: ‘To tell you the truth, darling, I’m rather tired. I wonder whether we shouldn’t simply call it off tonight?’

‘Oh, you’ll revive quickly enough after you’ve had a drink,’ said Meenakshi brightly. ‘And a glance or two from Shireen,’ she added.

‘I suppose you’re right, dear.’ Arun reached out for her. He had had a little trouble with his back a month ago, but had quite recovered.

‘Naughty boy,’ said Meenakshi, and pushed his hand away. After a while she added, ‘The T.C. has been cheating us on the Ostermilk.’

‘Ah? Has she?’ said Arun indifferently, then swerved off to a subject that interested him—‘I discovered today that we were being overcharged sixty thousand on the new paper project by one of our local businessmen. We’ve asked him to revise his estimates, of course, but it does rather shock one. . No sense of business ethics — or personal ethics either. He was in the office the other day, and he assured me that he was making us a special offer because of what he called our long-standing relationship. Now I find, after talking to Jock Mackay, that that’s the line he took with them as well — but charged them sixty thousand less than us.’

‘What will you do?’ Meenakshi asked dutifully. She had switched off a few sentences ago.

Arun talked on for five minutes or so, while Meenakshi’s mind wandered. When he stopped and looked at her questioningly, she said, yawning a little from residual sleepiness:

‘How has your boss reacted to all this?’

‘Difficult to say. With Basil Cox it’s difficult to say anything, even when he’s delighted. In this case I think he’s as annoyed by the possible delay as pleased by the definite saving.’ Arun unburdened himself for another five minutes while Meenakshi began to buff her nails.

The bedroom door had been bolted against interruption, but when Aparna saw her father’s briefcase she knew that he had returned and insisted upon being admitted. Arun opened the door and gave her a hug, and for the next hour or so they did a jigsaw featuring a giraffe, which Aparna had seen in a toyshop a week after being taken to the Brahmpur Zoo. They had done the jigsaw several times before, but Aparna had not yet tired of it. Nor had Arun. He adored his daughter and occasionally felt it was a pity that he and Meenakshi went out almost every evening. But one simply couldn’t let one’s life come to a standstill because one had a child. What, after all, were ayahs for? What, for that matter, were younger brothers for?

‘Mummy has promised me a necklace,’ said Aparna.

‘Has she, darling?’ said Arun. ‘How does she imagine she’s going to buy it? We can’t afford it at the moment.’

Aparna looked so disappointed at this latest intelligence that Arun and Meenakshi turned to each other with transferred adoration.

‘But she will,’ said Aparna, quietly and determinedly. ‘Now I want to do a jigsaw.’

‘But we’ve just done one,’ protested Arun.

‘I want to do another.’

‘You handle her, Meenakshi,’ said Arun.

‘You handle her, darling,’ said Meenakshi. ‘I must get ready. And please clear the bedroom floor.’

So for a while Arun and Aparna, banished to the drawing room this time, lay on the carpet putting together a jigsaw of the Victoria Memorial while Meenakshi bathed and dressed and perfumed and ornamented herself.

Varun returned from college, slid past Arun into his tiny box of a room, and sat down with his books. But he seemed nervous, and could not settle down to studying. When Arun went to get ready, Aparna was transferred to him; and the rest of Varun’s evening was spent at home trying to keep her amused.