Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

It’s much better this way, he decided. If I go home, they’ll insist I stay for dinner, and I just can’t. And Bhaskar won’t really mind. He only cares if I don’t give him sums. And how can I give him sums when my mind’s distracted? Anyway, he’s not well, he shouldn’t stay up late, he’s probably in bed already. No, it’s much better this way. I’ll visit him first thing tomorrow. He won’t be angry with me.

After a while he said to himself: And besides, Saeeda Bai would never forgive me if she heard I was in Brahmpur and didn’t come to see her before anyone else. I can imagine how hard it’s been for her while I’ve been away. This will be a wonderful reunion — she’ll be astonished to see me. And at the anticipation of their meeting he felt a pleasant weakness in his limbs.

Soon he was standing not far from the house, under a large neem tree, savouring in advance the delights to come. A thought occurred to him: I haven’t brought a gift along with me.

But Maan, not being one to savour anticipations for long, decided after half a minute that he’d waited long enough to collect himself. I’m my own gift, as she is hers! he said cheerfully to himself, and, first tapping and then waving his cane, he walked the remaining distance to the gate.

‘Phool Singh!’ he greeted the watchman in a loud voice.

‘Ah, Kapoor Sahib. It must be months—’

‘No, it must be years—’ said Maan, getting out a two-rupee note.

The watchman pocketed the note calmly, then said: ‘You are in luck. Begum Sahiba has not instructed me about any particular guests this evening. So I think she expects to be alone.’

‘Hmm.’ Maan frowned. Then he brightened up. ‘Well, good,’ he said.

The watchman knocked at the door. The buxom Bibbo peered out. Catching a glimpse of Maan, she beamed. She had missed him. He was by far the pleasantest of her mistress’s lovers, and the sprucest.

‘Ah, Dagh Sahib, welcome, welcome,’ she said from the door, loudly enough that he could hear her at the gate. ‘Just a minute, I’ll go up and inquire.’

‘What is there to inquire about?’ asked Maan. ‘Aren’t I welcome here? Do you think I’ll bring the village soil of Mother India into the durbar of the Begum Sahiba?’ He laughed and Bibbo giggled.

‘Yes, yes, you’re very welcome,’ said Bibbo. ‘Begum Sahiba will be delighted. But I should only speak for myself,’ she added flirtatiously. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

She was as good as her word. Soon Maan was traversing the hall, walking up the stairs with the mirror halfway up on the landing (he halted to adjust his white embroidered cap), and then along the upstairs gallery that fringed the hall. Soon he was at the door of Saeeda Bai’s room. But there was no sound of voices or of singing or even of the harmonium. When he entered, leaving his shoes outside the door, he noticed that Saeeda Bai was not in the room where she usually entertained. She must be in the bedroom, he thought with a rush of desire. He sat himself down on the sheeted floor, and leaned against a white bolster. Soon afterwards, Saeeda Bai came out from the bedroom. She looked tired but lovely, and enraptured by the sight of Maan.

Maan’s heart leapt up when he saw her, and so did he. If she hadn’t had a birdcage in her hand he would have embraced her.

But for now the look in her eyes would have to suffice. What an idiotic parakeet, thought Maan.

‘Do sit down, Dagh Sahib. How I have pined for this moment.’ An appropriate couplet followed.

She waited until Maan was seated before she set down the parakeet, who looked like a proper parrot now, not a ball of pale green fluff. Then she said to the bird:

‘You have been very unresponsive, Miya Mitthu, and I can’t say I am pleased with you.’ To Maan she said, ‘Rumour has it, Dagh Sahib, that you have been in town for some days now. Twirling, no doubt, that handsome ivory-headed cane. But the hyacinth that obtained favour yesterday appears withered today to the connoisseur.’

‘Begum Sahiba—’ protested Maan.

‘Even if she has withered away only for lack of the water of life,’ continued Saeeda Bai, tilting her head a little to one side, and pulling her sari over her hair in that familiar adjustment that made Maan’s heart pound ever since he had seen it that first evening in Prem Nivas.

‘Begum Sahiba, I swear—’

‘Ah,’ said Saeeda Bai, addressing the parakeet, ‘why were you away for so long? Even one week was like agony. What are vows to one who is wilting in the desert under a scorching sun?’ Suddenly tiring of her metaphor, she said: ‘It has been rather hot these last few days. I shall ask for some sherbet for you.’ Getting up, she went to the gallery outside the door and, leaning over the rail, clapped her hands: ‘Bibbo!’

‘Yes, Begum Sahiba?’

‘Get us both some almond sherbet. And be sure to mix some saffron in Dagh Sahib’s sherbet. He looks so worn out by his pilgrimage to Rudhia. And you have grown rather dark.’

‘It was absence from you, Saeeda, that weakened me—’ said Maan. ‘And it was the laughing-cruel one who exiled me from herself who now blames me for this absence. Could anything be more unjust?’

‘Yes—’ said Saeeda Bai softly. ‘If the heavens had kept us longer apart.’

Since Saeeda Bai’s letter to Maan, full of endearments as it was, had urgently enjoined him to remain away from Brahmpur for even longer — for reasons she did not explain — her present answer was hardly fair.

But Maan found it satisfactory; no, more than satisfactory, delightful. Saeeda Bai had as good as confessed that she was longing to take him back in her arms. He made a slight gesture of his head towards the door of the bedroom. But Saeeda Bai had turned to the parakeet.

‘The sherbet first, then conversation, then music, and then we will see whether the saffron has taken effect,’ said Saeeda Bai teasingly. ‘Or does he need the whisky that is peeping out of his pocket?’

The parakeet looked at Maan. It did not appear to be impressed. When Bibbo entered with the drinks, it cried out her name:

‘Bibbo!’

It said this in rather a commanding, somewhat metallic, tone. Bibbo shot the bird a look of annoyance. Maan noticed this; he had been feeling equally irritated by the parakeet, and when he looked at Bibbo in amusement and sympathy, their eyes met for a second. Bibbo, who was a troublemaker and a flirt, held his eyes for a second before turning away.

Saeeda Bai was not amused. ‘Stop it, Bibbo, you mischievous girl,’ she said.

‘Stop what, Saeeda Begum?’ asked Bibbo innocently.

‘Don’t be insolent. I saw you making eyes at Dagh Sahib,’ said Saeeda Bai. ‘Go to the kitchen at once, and stay there.’

‘The accessory is hanged, the principal goes free,’ said Bibbo and, having left the tray on the floor near Maan, turned to leave.

‘Shameless,’ said Saeeda Bai; then, thinking over Bibbo’s remark, she turned to Maan with annoyance. ‘Dagh Sahib, if the bee finds the bud of an inferior blossom more charming than the opened tulip—’

‘Saeeda Begum, you deliberately misunderstand me,’ said Maan, sulking a little. ‘Every word I say, every look—’

Saeeda Bai did not want him to sulk. ‘Drink your sherbet,’ she advised him. ‘It is not your brains that should be hot.’

Maan tasted his sherbet. It was delicious. Then he frowned, as if he had tasted something bitter.

‘What is the matter?’ asked Saeeda Bai with concern.

‘Something’s missing,’ said Maan, as if in appraisal of his drink.

‘What?’ asked Saeeda Bai. ‘That Bibbo — she must have forgotten to mix honey in your glass.’

Maan shook his head and frowned. ‘I know exactly what’s missing,’ he said finally.