Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Excellent,’ said Maan. ‘No, don’t get it for me,’ he added, having second thoughts about making the old man exert himself. ‘Just leave a couple of tablets near my plate when I come downstairs for breakfast. Oh, by the way,’ he went on, as he visualized the two small tablets at the side of his plate, ‘why is Firoz called Chhoté Sahib, when he and Imtiaz were born at the same time?’

The old man looked out of the window at the spreading magnolia tree which had been planted a few days after the twins had been born. He coughed for a second, and said, ‘Chhoté Sahib, that is Firoz Sahib, was born seven minutes after Burré Sahib.’

‘Ah,’ said Maan.

‘That is why he looks more delicate, less robust, than Burré Sahib.’

Maan was silent, pondering this physiological theory.

‘He has his mother’s fine features,’ said the old man, then stopped, as if he had transgressed some limit of explanation.

Maan recalled that the Begum Sahiba — the Nawab of Baitar’s wife and the mother of his daughter and twin sons — had maintained strict purdah throughout her life. He wondered how a male servant could have known what she looked like, but could sense the old man’s embarrassment and did not ask. Possibly a photograph, much more likely discussion among the servants, he thought.

‘Or so they say,’ added the old man. Then he paused, and said, ‘She was a very good woman, rest her soul. She was good to us all. She had a strong will.’

Maan was intrigued by the old man’s hesitant but eager incursions into the history of the family to which he had given his life. But he was — despite his headache — quite hungry now, and decided that this was not the time to talk. So he said, ‘Tell Chhoté Sahib I will be down in, well, in seven minutes.’

If the old man was puzzled by Maan’s unusual sense of timing, he did not show it. He nodded and was about to go.

‘What do they call you?’ asked Maan.

‘Ghulam Rusool, Huzoor,’ said the old servant.

Maan nodded and he left.

‘Did you sleep well?’ asked Firoz, smiling at Maan.

‘Very. But you rose early.’

‘Not earlier than usual. I like to get a great deal of work done before breakfast. If it hadn’t been a client, it would have been my briefs. It seems to me that you don’t work at all.’

Maan looked at the two little pills lying on his quarter-plate, but said nothing, so Firoz went on.

‘Now, I don’t know anything about cloth—’ began Firoz.

Maan groaned. ‘Is this a serious conversation?’ he asked.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Firoz, laughing. ‘I’ve been up at least two hours.’

‘Well, I have a hangover,’ said Maan. ‘Have a heart.’

‘I do,’ said Firoz, reddening a bit. ‘I can assure you.’ He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘But I’m due at the Riding Club. One day I’m going to teach you polo, you know, Maan, all your protests notwithstanding.’ He got up and walked towards the corridor.

‘Oh, good,’ said Maan, more cheerfully. ‘That’s more in my line.’

An omelette came. It was lukewarm, having had to traverse the vast distance between the kitchens and the breakfast room in Baitar House. Maan looked at it for a while, then gingerly bit a slice of unbuttered toast. His hunger had disappeared again. He swallowed the aspirins.

Firoz, meanwhile, had just got to the front door when he noticed his father’s private secretary, Murtaza Ali, arguing with a young man at the entrance. The young man wanted to meet the Nawab Sahib. Murtaza Ali, who was not much older, was trying, in his sympathetic, troubled way, to prevent him from doing so. The young man was not dressed very well — his kurta was of homespun white cotton — but his Urdu was cultured in both accent and expression. He was saying:

‘But he told me to come at this time, and here I am.’

The intensity of expression on his lean features made Firoz pause.

‘What seems to be the matter?’ asked Firoz.

Murtaza Ali turned and said: ‘Chhoté Sahib, it appears that this man wants to meet your father in connection with a job in the library. He says he has an appointment.’

‘Do you know anything about this?’ Firoz asked Murtaza Ali.

‘I’m afraid not, Chhoté Sahib.’

The young man said: ‘I have come from some distance and with some difficulty. The Nawab Sahib told me expressly that I should be here at ten o’clock to meet him.’

Firoz, in a not unkindly tone, said: ‘Are you sure he meant today?’

‘Yes, quite sure.’

‘If my father had said he was to be disturbed, he would have left word,’ said Firoz. ‘The problem is that once my father is in the library, well, he’s in a different world. You will, I am afraid, have to wait till he comes out. Or could you perhaps come back later?’

A strong emotion began to work at the corners of the young man’s mouth. Clearly he needed the income from the job, but equally clearly he had a sense of pride. ‘I am not prepared to run around like this,’ he said clearly but quietly.

Firoz was surprised. This definiteness, it appeared to him, bordered on incivility. He had not said, for example: ‘The Nawabzada will appreciate that it is difficult for me. .’ or any such ameliorative phrase. Simply: ‘I am not prepared. . ’

‘Well, that is up to you,’ said Firoz, easily. ‘Now, forgive me, I have to be somewhere very soon.’ He frowned slightly as he got into the car.

The previous evening, when Maan had stopped by, Saeeda Bai had been entertaining an old but gross client of hers: the Raja of Marh, a small princely state in Madhya Bharat. The Raja was in Brahmpur for a few days, partly to supervise the management of some of his Brahmpur lands, and partly to help in the construction of a new temple to Shiva on the land he owned near the Alamgiri Mosque in Old Brahmpur. The Raja was familiar with Brahmpur from his student days twenty years ago; he had frequented Mohsina Bai’s establishment when she was still living with her daughter Saeeda in the infamous alley of Tarbuz ka Bazaar.

Throughout Saeeda Bai’s childhood she and her mother had shared the upper floor of a house with three other courtesans, the oldest of whom, by virtue of the fact that she owned the place, had acted for years as their madam. Saeeda Bai’s mother did not like this arrangement, and as her daughter’s fame and attractiveness grew she was able to assert their independence. When Saeeda Bai was seventeen or so, she came to the attention of the Maharaja of a large state in Rajasthan, and later the Nawab of Sitagarh; and from then on there had been no looking back.

In time, Saeeda Bai had been able to afford her present house in Pasand Bagh, and had gone to live there with her mother and young sister. The three women, separated by gaps of about twenty and fifteen years respectively, were all attractive, each in her own way. If the mother had the strength and brightness of brass, Saeeda Bai had the tarnishable brilliance of silver, and young, soft-hearted Tasneem, named after a spring in Paradise, protected by both mother and sister from the profession of their ancestors, had the lively elusiveness of mercury.

Mohsina Bai had died two years ago. This had been a terrible blow for Saeeda Bai, who sometimes still visited the graveyard and lay weeping, stretched out on her mother’s grave. Saeeda Bai and Tasneem now lived alone in the house in Pasand Bagh with two women servants: a maid and a cook. At night the calm watchman guarded the gate. Tonight Saeeda Bai was not expecting to entertain visitors; she was sitting with her tabla player and sarangi player, and amusing herself with gossip and music.

Saeeda Bai’s accompanists were a study in contrast. Both were about twenty-five, and both were devoted and skilled musicians. Both were fond of each other, and deeply attached — by economics and affection — to Saeeda Bai. But beyond that the resemblance ended. Ishaq Khan, who bowed his sarangi with such ease and harmoniousness, almost self-effacement, was a slightly sardonic bachelor. Motu Chand, so nicknamed because of his plumpness, was a contented man, already a father of four. He looked a bit like a bulldog with his large eyes and snuffling mouth, and was benignly torpid except when frenziedly drumming his tabla.