Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

He controlled himself with an effort, then went on:

‘Gangs did terrorize the juniors, even in my time, but this—’ He shook his head. ‘Do other boys have it just as bad?’

‘No—’ said Tapan, then corrected himself. ‘He picked on another boy earlier, but the boy gave in after a week’s treatment, and went to his study.’

Dipankar nodded.

‘How long has this been going on?’

‘More than a year, but it’s been worse since he was made a prefect. These last two terms—’

‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

Tapan was silent. Then he burst out passionately:

‘Dada, promise me, please promise me you won’t tell anyone else.’

‘I promise,’ said Dipankar. His fists were clenched. ‘No, wait; I’ll have to tell Amit Da.’

‘No!’

Tapan revered Amit, and could not bear that he should hear about his indignities and horrors.

‘You’ve got to leave it to me, Tapan,’ said Dipankar. ‘We have to be able to convince Ma and Baba to take you out of school without letting them know the details. I can’t do that by myself. Amit Da and I together may be able to. I’ll tell him, but no one else.’ He looked at Tapan with pity, affection, and dismay. ‘Is that OK? Just Amit Da? No one else. I promise.’

Tapan nodded and got up, then started crying, and sat down again.

‘Do you want to wash your face?’

Tapan nodded, and went off to use the bathroom.

‘I’m writing,’ said Amit crossly. ‘Go away.’ He looked up from his roll-top desk at Dipankar, and looked down again.

‘Tell your Muse to go away instead, Dada, and to come back after we’ve finished.’

Amit frowned. Dipankar was rarely so abrupt. Something must be the matter. But he could feel his inspiration slipping away, and he wasn’t pleased.

‘Oh, what is it, Dipankar? As if Kuku isn’t interruption enough. She came in to tell me something Hans had done that was singularly sweet. I can’t even remember what it was now. But she had to tell someone, and you were in your hut. Well, what is it?’

‘First, the good news,’ said Dipankar tactically. ‘I’ve decided to join a bank. So your Muse can keep visiting you.’

Amit jumped up from his desk and grabbed hold of his hands.

‘You’re not serious!’

‘Yes. When I meditated today it all became clear to me. Crystal clear. It’s irrevocable.’

Amit was so relieved that he didn’t even ask Dipankar his reasons. In any case, he was sure they would be couched in the form of incomprehensible and capitalized abstractions.

‘And how long will it remain irrevocable?’

Dipankar looked hurt.

‘Well,’ said Amit. ‘I’m sorry. And it is very good of you to tell me.’ He frowned and capped his pen. ‘You’re not doing this for me, are you? A sacrifice on the altar of literature?’ Amit looked rather sheepishly grateful.

‘No,’ said Dipankar. ‘Not at all.’ But this was not entirely true; the effect of his decision on Amit’s life had very much entered his thinking. ‘But what I want to talk to you about is Tapan. Do you mind?’

‘No, now that you’ve porlocked me already. He doesn’t look very happy these days.’

‘Oh, so you’ve noticed?’

Amit, in the throes of his novel, was insensitive to the feelings of his family in proportion to his sensitivity to the feelings of his characters.

‘Yes, I have noticed. And Ma says he wants to leave school.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘No.’

‘Well, that’s what I want to discuss with you. Do you mind if I shut the door? Kuku—’

‘Kuku can gurgle herself through any door; they’re no obstacle to Kuku. But do, if you wish.’

Dipankar closed the door and sat down on a chair near the window.

He told Amit what Tapan had told him. Amit listened, nodding his head from time to time, and was sickened. At first he too could hardly speak.

‘How long has Tapan had to go through all this?’ he asked eventually.

‘At least a year.’

‘It makes my stomach turn — are you sure he’s not — you know — imagining it — some of it? It seems so—’

‘He’s not imagining anything, Dada.’

‘Why didn’t he go to the school authorities?’

‘It’s not a day school, Dada, the boys would have made life worse hell for him — if you can imagine that.’

‘This is terrible. This is really terrible. Where is he now? Is he all right?’

‘In my room. Or he may have gone for a walk with Cuddles.’

‘Is he all right?’ repeated Amit.

‘Yes,’ said Dipankar. ‘But he won’t be if he has to go back to Jheel in a month.’

‘Strange,’ said Amit. ‘I had no inkling of all this. None at all. Poor Tapan. He’s never mentioned anything.’

‘Well, Dada—’ said Dipankar. ‘Is that really his fault? He’d probably think we’d make a couplet out of it. No one ever talks to anyone in our family, we just exchange brilliances.’

Amit nodded.

‘Does he want to go to another boarding school?’

‘I don’t think so. Jheel is as good or as bad as any of them; they all breed conformists or bullies.’

‘Well,’ said Amit, ‘Jheel bred you.’

‘I’m talking about a general tendency, Dada, not about invariable effects. But it’s up to us to do something. I mean the two of us. Ma will have hysterics if she hears about all this. And Tapan won’t be able to face Baba if he thinks he’s heard. As for Kuku, she sometimes has good ideas, but it would be idiocy to trust her to be discreet. And Meenakshi’s out, obviously: the Mehras would know in a minute, and what Arun’s mother knows today the world knows tomorrow. It was difficult enough to get Tapan to speak to me. And I promised him I’d tell only you.’

‘And he didn’t mind?’

Dipankar hesitated for a fraction of a second. ‘No,’ he said.

Amit uncapped his pen again, and drew a small circle on the poem he had been writing. ‘Won’t it be difficult for him to get admission somewhere else at this stage?’ he asked, investing the circle with eyes and two large ears.

‘Not if you talk to someone at St Xavier’s,’ replied Dipankar. ‘It’s your old school, and they’re always telling you how proud they are of you.’

‘True,’ said Amit thoughtfully. ‘And I did give a talk and a reading there earlier this year, which I very rarely do. So I suppose I could — but what reason could I give? Not his general health; you said he could swim across that lake and back. His headaches? Well, if they’re brought on by travel, perhaps. Anyway, whatever I think of, getting him provisionally into another school would certainly counter one possible objection by Ma. A sort of fait accompli.’

‘Well,’ said Dipankar quietly, ‘as Baba says, no fait is ever accompli until it’s accompli.’

Amit thought of Tapan’s misery and his own poem went out of his mind.

‘I’ll go over after lunch,’ he said. ‘Has the car been kuku’d?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And how will we convince Ma?’ continued Amit, looking worried, almost grim.

‘That’s the problem,’ said Dipankar. His decision to join a bank had made him quite decisive all around for an hour or so, but the effect was wearing off. ‘What can he do here in Calcutta that he can’t do at a boarding school like Jheel? I suppose he couldn’t develop a sudden interest in astronomy, could he, and be unable to live without a roof telescope. The thirst for knowledge, and so on. Then he’d have to live at home and attend a day school.’

Amit smiled. ‘I can’t see it going down too well with Ma: one poet, one seer, and one astronomer. Sorry, banker-cum-seer.’

‘Headaches?’