Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Novak said: ‘You think that India is Europe, Mr Khanna? That there is equality between managers and staff? That everyone is at the same level?’

‘Mr Novak, I should remind you that I am not a manager. Nor am I a communist, if that is what you are implying. Mr Havel, you know your driver. I am sure you think he is a trustworthy man. Ask him what happened.’

Pavel Havel was looking a little shamefaced, as if he had implied that Haresh was not trustworthy. And what he next said rather proved it.

‘Well, there have been rumours of your being the editor of the union newspaper.’

Haresh shook his head in amazement.

‘You say you are not?’ This was Novak.

‘I am not. I don’t even think I’m a union member — unless I have become one automatically.’

‘You have been inciting the union people to work behind our back.’

‘I have not. What do you mean?’

‘You visited their offices and held a meeting with them secretly. I did not know of it.’

‘It was an open meeting. There was nothing that was done secretly. I am an honest man, Mr Novak, and I do not like these aspersions.’

‘How dare you speak like this?’ exploded Kurilla. ‘How dare you do these things? We are the providers of employment to Indians, and if you do not like this job and the way we run things, you can leave the factory.’

At this, Haresh saw red and said in a trembling voice:

‘Mr Kurilla, you provide employment not only to Indians but also to yourselves. As for your second point, I may leave the factory, but I assure you that you will leave India before I do.’

Kurilla almost burst. That a chit of a junior should stand up to the mighty Czech Prahamen was something both incomprehensible and unprecedented. Pavel Havel calmed him down and said to Haresh: ‘I think this inquiry is over. We have covered all the points. I will talk to you later.’

A day later he called Haresh to his office and told him to continue as before. He added that he was pleased with his job, especially with respect to production. Perhaps, thought Haresh, he’s had a talk with his driver.

Amazingly enough, the Czechs, especially Kurilla, became fairly friendly towards Haresh after this incident. It had, in a way, cleared the air. Now that they believed he was not a communist or an agitator, they were neither panicky nor resentful. They were basically fair-minded men who believed in results, and his tripling of production, once it appeared in the official monthly figures, had the same sort of effect on them as the pair of Goodyear Welted shoes that Haresh had made — and which, as it happened, he had been facing throughout his inquisition in the General Manager’s office.

As Malati was walking out of the university library, en route to a meeting of the Socialist Party, one of her friends — a girl who studied singing at the Haridas College — got talking with her.

In the course of exchanging gossip, the friend mentioned that Kabir had been seen just a few days earlier at the Red Fox restaurant, in animated and intimate conversation with a girl. The girl who had seen them was entirely reliable, and had said—

But Malati cut her off. ‘I’m not interested!’ she exclaimed with surprising vehemence. ‘I don’t have the time to listen. I have to rush to a meeting.’ And she turned away, her eyes flashing.

She felt as if she had been personally insulted. Her friend’s information was always correct, so there was no point in doubting it. What infuriated Malati most of all was that Kabir must have met this girl at the Red Fox around the time that he was making his protestations of undying love in the Blue Danube. It was enough to put her into a Black Fury.

It confirmed everything she had ever thought about men.

O perfidy.

On the evening before their meeting, while Lata had been at Ballygunge, Haresh was making last-minute preparations at the Prahapore Officers’ Club to entertain his guests the next day. The whole place was festooned with coloured crêpe for the Christmas season.

‘So, Khushwant,’ said Haresh in Hindi, ‘there will be no problem if we are as much as half an hour late? They are coming from Calcutta and something might delay them.’

‘No problem at all, Mr Khanna. I have been running the club for five years, and have grown used to adjusting to other people’s schedules.’ Khushwant had risen from being a bearer to becoming a cook-cum-bearer to becoming the virtual manager of the club.

‘The vegetarian dishes will present no difficulty? I know that that is not usual at the club.’

‘Please rest assured.’

‘And the Christmas pudding with brandy sauce.’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘Or do you think it should be apple strudel?’

‘No, the Christmas pudding is more special.’ Khushwant knew how to prepare a variety of Czech desserts as well as dishes.

‘No expense is to be spared.’

‘Mr Khanna, at eighteen rupees a head instead of seven, there is no need to mention such matters.’

‘It’s a pity the swimming pool has no water at this time of year.’

Khushwant did not smile, but he thought that it was unlike Mr Khanna to be so concerned about things of this kind. He wondered what this special party was that he was being asked to cater for — at a lunch that would consume two weeks’ worth of Mr Khanna’s salary in two hours.

Haresh walked home thinking about his next morning’s meeting rather than the Goodyear Welted line. It was a two-minute walk to the small flat that he had been provided in the colony. When he got to his room, he sat at his desk for a while. He faced a small, framed photograph; it was the well-travelled picture of Lata that Mrs Rupa Mehra had given him in Kanpur.

He looked at it and smiled, then thought of the other photograph which used to travel with him. It had been left in its silver frame, but put away, lovingly and regretfully, in a drawer. And Haresh, after copying out in his small, slanting hand a few paragraphs and phrases from Simran’s letters to him, had sent all her letters back to her. It would not be fair, he felt, to keep them.

The next day just at noon, two cars (the Chatterjis’ white Humber which had been kuku’d by Meenakshi for the day, and Arun’s little blue Austin) entered the white gates of the Prahapore Officers’ Colony and stopped at House 6, Row 3. From the two cars emerged Mrs Rupa Mehra, together with two sons and a son-in-law, and two daughters and a daughter-in-law. The entire Mehra mafia was met and welcomed by Haresh, who took them upstairs to his little three-room flat.

Haresh had made sure that there would be enough beer, Scotch (White Horse, not Black Dog), and gin to keep everyone happy, as well as lots of nimbu pani and other soft drinks. His servant was a boy of about seventeen, who had been briefed that this was a very important occasion; he could not help grinning at the guests as he served them their drinks.

Pran and Varun had a beer, Arun a Scotch, and Meenakshi a Tom Collins. Mrs Rupa Mehra and her two daughters asked for nimbu pani. Haresh spent a lot of time fussing over Mrs Rupa Mehra. He was, most atypically and unlike his first meeting with Lata, quite nervous. Perhaps his meeting with Arun and Meenakshi at the Khandelwals’ had given him the sense that they were critical of him. By now he and Lata had exchanged enough letters to make him feel that she was the woman for him. Her most affectionate letter had followed his announcement that he had lost his job; and he had been very moved by this.

Haresh made a few inquiries about Brahmpur and Bhaskar, and told Pran that he was looking very well. How were Veena and Kedarnath and Bhaskar? How was Sunil Patwardhan? He made a little polite conversation with Savita and Varun, whom he had never met before, and tried not to talk to Lata, who he sensed was equally nervous, perhaps even a little withdrawn.