Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘At any rate, I would ride in the morning — it’s only four annas an hour to hire a horse — and I’d also row, and skate at the rink — I’d sometimes skate twice a day and forget to go home for lunch. The rest of the family were involved in their own activities. Now I bet you can’t imagine what happened.’

‘You had a fall, and some young gallant at the rink rescued you,’ said Lata.

‘No,’ said Malati. ‘I look too self-assured for any Galahads to come chasing after me.’

Lata reflected that this was quite likely. Men did fall for her friend at a rapid rate, it was true, but they would probably fear to pick her up if she fell. Malati’s attitude towards most men was that they were beneath her attention.

Malati continued: ‘As it happens, I did have a fall or two while skating, but I got up on my own. No, what happened was quite different. I began to notice that a middle-aged man was following me around. Every morning when I was out rowing, I’d see him looking at me from the shore. Sometimes he’d get a boat out himself. He’d even appear at the rink.’

‘Horrible!’ said Lata, her thoughts immediately turning to her uncle in Lucknow, Mr Sahgal.

‘Well, no, not really, Lata, I wasn’t disconcerted at first, just puzzled. He didn’t come up to me or, well, approach me or anything. But after a while it began to trouble me. So I went up to him.’

‘You went up to him?’ asked Lata. This was asking for trouble, clearly. ‘That was very adventurous.’

‘Yes, and I said, “You’ve been following me around. Is something the matter? Would you like to say something to me?” He said, “Well, I’m on holiday, and I’m staying at such-and-such a hotel in room number so-and-so; would you come and have tea with me this afternoon?” I was surprised, but he looked pleasant and sounded decent, and so I agreed.’

Lata was looking astonished, even shocked. Malati noticed this with pleasure.

‘Well,’ continued Malati, ‘at tea he told me that he had indeed been following me around, and for longer than I had realized. Don’t look so thunderstruck, Lata, it’s unsettling. Anyway, he told me he had seen me one day when he was out rowing, and, being on holiday with nothing better to do, he had followed me. Having rowed, I hired a horse and went for a ride. Later I skated. I did not seem to care, or so it seemed to him, about eating, about resting, about anything except the activity I was engaged in. He decided that he liked me very much. Don’t look so disgusted, it’s all true. He had five sons, he said, and he thought that I would make one of them a wonderful match. They lived in Allahabad. If I was ever passing that way, would I agree to meet them? Oh, incidentally, when we were making small talk, it turned out that he had known my family in Meerut many years ago, even before my father’s death.’

‘And you agreed?’ said Lata.

‘Yes, I agreed. At least to meet them. No harm in meeting them, Lata; five brothers — perhaps I’ll marry them all. Or none. So that was it — that’s why he was following me around.’ She paused. ‘That’s my romantic story. At least, I think it’s romantic. It’s certainly not physical, intellectual, spiritual or political. Now what’s been happening to you?’

‘But would you marry someone under those circumstances?’

‘Why not? I’m sure his sons are quite nice. But I have to have one more affair before I settle down. Five sons! How strange.’

‘But you are five sisters, aren’t you?’

‘I suppose we are,’ said Malati. ‘Anyway, it seems less strange. I’ve spent most of my growing-up years among women, and it doesn’t seem odd at all. Of course, it’s not the same for you. Even though you lost your father, you had brothers. But I had a peculiar sort of feeling when I entered your sister’s drawing room just now. As if I was back to an earlier life: six women and no men. But not like the feeling you get in a women’s hostel. It was very comforting.’

‘But now you’re surrounded by men, aren’t you Malati?’ said Lata. ‘Your subject—’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Malati, ‘in class — but what does that matter? It was far worse in Intermediate Science. Sometimes I think that men should simply be lined up against a wall and shot. It’s not that I hate them, of course. Now what about you? What has happened about Kabir? How have you dealt with him? And now that you’re back, what do you plan to do — short of shooting him and halting an innings?’

Lata told her friend about what had happened since the painful phone call — it seemed years ago — in which Malati had told her about Kabir and had made it plain (in case Lata could not see this herself — but how could she not?) that the match was impossible. They were walking not far from the spot where Lata had suggested to Kabir that they go away by themselves and ignore the closed-minded closed-hearted world around them. ‘Very melodramatic,’ commented Lata about her actions that day.

Malati could tell how hurt Lata must have been.

‘Very adventurous, rather,’ she said reassuringly, thinking, however, that it would have been disastrous if Kabir had agreed to Lata’s scheme. ‘You’re always telling me how bold I am, Lata, but you’ve outdone me.’

‘Have I?’ said Lata. ‘Well, I haven’t spoken or written a word to him since then. I can hardly bear to think of him, though. I thought that by not replying to his letter I could make myself forget him, but it hasn’t worked.’

‘His letter?’ said Malati, surprised. ‘Did he write to you in Calcutta?’

‘Yes. And now that I’ve returned to Brahmpur I keep hearing his name. Just last night Pran mentioned his father, and this morning I heard that he himself had helped at the Pul Mela after the stampede. Veena says he helped her recover her son, who was lost. And walking here with you, where we walked together—’

Lata trailed off into silence. ‘What’s your advice?’ she said after a while.

‘Well,’ said Malati, ‘when we go back, perhaps you’ll let me read his letter. I need to understand the symptoms before I can make my diagnosis.’

‘Here it is,’ said Lata, producing the letter. ‘I wouldn’t let anyone except you read it.’

‘Hmm,’ said Malati. ‘When did — oh, I see, when you went back to your room.’ The letter looked well read. Malati sat down on the root of the banyan tree. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ she said when she was already halfway through.

After she had read it once, she read it again.

‘What are frangrant waters?’ she asked.

‘Oh, that’s a quotation from a guidebook.’ Lata cheered up at the memory.

‘You know, Lata,’ said Malati, folding the letter and handing it back to her, ‘I like it, and he seems quite open and good-hearted. But it reads like the letter of a teenage boy who’d rather be talking than writing to his girlfriend.’

Lata considered her friend’s remark for a while. Something similar had struck her too, but had not reduced the letter’s slow-working effect on her. She reflected that she herself might well be faulted for a lack of maturity. And Malati too. Who, for that matter, was mature? Her elder brother, Arun? Her younger brother, Varun? Her mother? Her eccentric grandfather with his sobs and his stick? And what was the point of being mature anyway? And she thought of her own unbalanced, unsent letter.

‘But it’s more than the letter, Malati,’ she said. ‘He’s going to be mentioned by Pran’s family all the time. And in a few months the cricket season will start and it’ll be impossible to avoid reading about him. Or hearing about him. I’m sure I’ll be able to pick out his name from fifty yards away.’