Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Oh, yes,’ said Amit. ‘But I’m not going to tell you I do.’

‘Oh.’

‘Because,’ continued Amit, ‘that would be the surest way of making you feel imposed upon — and then you’ll change your mind. But — if this helps — you are certainly blinking less these days.’

‘That’s true,’ said Mr Justice Chatterji with a smile. ‘I’m afraid, Hans, you must think we’re a very peculiar family.’

‘Not so,’ said Hans gallantly. ‘Not very peculiar.’ He and Kakoli exchanged affectionate glances.

‘We hope to hear you sing after dinner,’ continued Mr Justice Chatterji.

‘Ah. Yes. Something from Schubert?’

‘Who else is there?’ said Kakoli.

‘Well—’ began Hans.

‘For me there can only be Schubert,’ said Kakoli giddily. ‘Schubert is the only man in my life.’

At the far end of the table, Savita was talking to Varun, who had been looking downcast. As they talked, he cheered up perceptibly.

Meanwhile, Pran and Arun were engaged in a discussion of politics. Arun was lecturing Pran about the future of the country and how India needed a dictatorship. ‘None of these stupid politicians,’ he continued, unmindful of Pran’s feelings. ‘We really don’t deserve the Westminster model of government. Nor do the British for that matter. We’re still an advancing society — as our dhoti-wallahs are fond of telling us.’

‘Yes, people are always making advances in our society,’ said Meenakshi, rolling her eyes upwards.

Kuku giggled.

Arun glared and said in a low voice: ‘Meenakshi, it’s impossible to hold a sensible discussion when you’re tight.’

Meenakshi was so unused to being ticked off by an Outsider in her parents’ home that she did shut up.

After dinner, when everyone had adjourned to the drawing room for coffee, Mrs Chatterji took Amit to one side and said to him: ‘Meenakshi and Kuku are right. She’s a nice girl, though she doesn’t say very much. She could grow on you, I suppose.’

‘Mago, you make her sound like a fungus,’ said Amit. ‘I can see that Kuku and Meenakshi have won you over to their way of thinking. Anyway, I refuse not to talk to her just because you want me to. I’m not Dipankar.’

‘Whoever said you were, darling?’ said Mrs Chatterji. ‘I do wish you had been nicer at dinner, though.’

‘Well, anyone I like should be given the chance to see me at my best,’ said Amit unrepentantly.

‘I don’t think that’s a very useful way of looking at things, dear.’

‘True,’ admitted Amit. ‘But looking at things in terms of a useful way of looking at things may not be a useful thing either. Why don’t you talk to Mrs Mehra for a while? She was rather subdued at dinner. She didn’t mention her diabetes once. And I’ll talk to her daughter and apologize for my boorishness.’

‘Like a good boy.’

‘Like a good boy.’

Amit walked over to Lata, who was chatting to Meenakshi.

‘Sometimes he’s terribly rude — and for no reason at all,’ Meenakshi was saying.

‘Talking about me?’ said Amit.

‘No,’ said Lata, ‘about my brother, not hers.’

‘Ah,’ said Amit.

‘But the same certainly holds for you,’ added Meenakshi. ‘You’ve either been writing something strange or reading something strange. I can tell.’

‘Well, you’re right, I have. I was going to invite Lata to have a look at some books I promised to lend her but didn’t post. Is this a good time, Lata? Or should we look at them some other time?’

‘Oh, no, this is a good time,’ said Lata. ‘But when will they begin singing?’

‘I shouldn’t think for another fifteen minutes. . I’m sorry I was so rude at dinner.’

‘Were you?’

‘Wasn’t I? Didn’t you think so? Perhaps I wasn’t. I’m not sure now.’

They were walking past the room where Cuddles had been confined, and he let out a growl.

‘That dog should have his hypotenuse squared,’ said Amit.

‘Did he really bite Hans?’

‘Oh, yes, quite hard. Harder than he bit Arun. Anyway, everything looks more livid on pale skin. But Hans took it like a man. It’s a sort of rite of passage for our in-laws.’

‘Oh. Am I within the bitable degrees?’

‘I’m not sure. Do you want Cuddles to bite you?’

Upstairs, Lata looked at Amit’s room in a new light. This was the room where ‘The Fever Bird’ had been written, she thought; and where he must have worked out his dedication to her. Papers lay scattered around in far worse disorder than the last time she had visited it. And piles of clothes and books lay on his bed.

‘I shivered in the midnight heat,’ thought Lata. Aloud she said: ‘What sort of view do you get of that amaltas from here?’

Amit opened the window. ‘Not a very good view. Dipankar’s room is the best for that; it’s just above his hut. But enough to see its shadow—’

‘—Shake slightly on the moonlit grass.’

‘Yes.’ Amit didn’t normally like his poetry quoted back at him, but with Lata he didn’t mind. ‘Well, come to the window, sweet is the night-air.’

They stood there together for a while. It was very still, and the shadow of the amaltas did not shake at all. Dark leaves and long, dark, podded beans hung from its branches, but no yellow clusters of flowers.

‘Did it take you long to write that poem?’

‘No. I wrote it out in a single draft when that damn bird kept me awake. Once, I counted sixteen desperate triplets building upwards to fever pitch. Can you imagine: sixteen. It drove me crazy. And then I polished it over the next few days. I didn’t really want to look at it, and kept making excuses. I always do. I hate writing, you know.’

‘You — what—?’ Lata turned towards him. Amit really puzzled her at times. ‘Well, then, why do you write?’ she asked.

Amit’s face grew troubled. ‘It’s better than spending my life doing the law like my father and grandfather before me. And the main reason is that I often like my work when it’s done — it’s just the doing that is so tedious. With a short poem there’s the inspiration of course. But with this novel I have to whip myself to my desk — To work, to work, Macbeth doth shirk.’

Lata remembered that Amit had compared the novel to a banyan tree. Now the image seemed somewhat sinister. ‘Perhaps you’ve chosen too dark a topic,’ she said.

‘Yes. And perhaps too recent.’ The Bengal Famine had taken place less than a decade ago, and was a very present memory to anyone who had lived through those times. ‘But anyway, I can’t go back now,’ continued Amit. ‘Returning is as tedious as go o’er — I’m two-thirds of the way through. Two-thirds, two-thirds; the fever-birds. Now, those books I promised to show you—’ Amit stopped short suddenly. ‘You have a nice smile.’

Lata laughed. ‘It’s a pity I can’t see it.’

‘Oh no,’ said Amit. ‘It would be wasted on you. You wouldn’t know how to appreciate it — certainly not as much as me.’

‘So you’re a connoisseur of smiles,’ said Lata.

‘Far from it,’ said Amit, suddenly plunged into a darker mood. ‘You know, Kuku’s right; I’m too selfish. I haven’t asked you a single question about yourself, though I do want to know what’s happened since you wrote to thank me for the book. How was your play? And your studies? And singing? And you said you had written a poem “under my influence”. Well, where is it?’

‘I’ve brought it along,’ said Lata, opening her purse. ‘But please don’t read it now. It is very despairing, and would only embarrass me. It’s only because you’re a professional—’

‘All right,’ nodded Amit. He was completely tongue-tied all of a sudden. He had hoped to make some sort of declaration or indication of his affection to Lata, and he found that he did not know what to say.