Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Why are you laughing? Stop it — stop it—’ cried Maan. ‘Tell me he came to see your sister—’

‘No—’ Saeeda Bai gasped out.

‘He came to see you about your sister—’

‘My sister! My sister!’ Saeeda Bai laughed in Maan’s face as if he had made some insane joke. ‘It is not my sister he is in love with — it is not my sister he is in love with—’ She tried to push Maan violently away. They fell on to the floor and Saeeda Bai screamed as Maan’s hands went round her throat. The water in the bowl spilled over. The fruit bowl overturned. Maan noticed none of this. His mind was red with rage. The woman he loved had betrayed him with his friend, and now she was taking delight in mocking his love and his misery.

His hands tightened around her throat. ‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘Tell me where he is. He’s still here. Where is he hiding?’

‘Dagh Sahib—’ gasped Saeeda Bai.

‘Where is he?’

‘Help—’

‘Where is he?’

Saeeda Bai reached with her right hand for the fruit knife, but Maan let go of her throat and wrenched it out of her hand.

They were still on the floor. He stared at the knife.

Saeeda Bai started shrieking for help. From below there was the sound of a door opening, frightened voices, people rushing upstairs. Maan got up. Firoz was the first to reach the door. Bibbo was behind him.

‘Maan—’ said Firoz, taking in the scene in an instant. Saeeda Bai was resting her head on a pillow and holding her throat with both her hands. She was gasping, and her chest was heaving. Horrible retching sounds were coming from her throat.

Maan looked at Firoz’s guilty and agitated face and knew instantly that the worst was true. Again he was seized with blind rage.

‘Look here, Maan,’ said Firoz, moving gradually towards him. ‘What is the matter? Let’s talk this over — easy does it—’

Suddenly he lunged forward and tried to disarm Maan. But Maan was too quick for him. Firoz clutched at his stomach. Blood began to stain his waistcoat, and he stumbled on to the floor. He cried out in pain. Blood fell on the white sheet spread on the floor. Maan looked at it like a stupefied ox, then at the knife still in his hands.

For a minute no one said a word. There was no sound apart from Saeeda Bai’s attempts to breathe, and Firoz’s stifled cries of pain, and Maan’s long and bitter sobs.

‘Put it down on the table,’ said Bibbo quietly.

Maan put the knife down, and knelt by Firoz.

‘Leave at once,’ said Bibbo.

‘But a doctor—’

‘Leave at once. We will manage everything. Leave Brahmpur. You have not been to this house this evening. Go.’

‘Firoz—’

Firoz nodded.

‘Why?’ said Maan in a broken voice.

‘Go — quick—’ said Firoz.

‘What have I done to you? What have I done?’

‘Quick—’

Maan took one final look around the room and rushed downstairs and out. The watchman was pacing up and down outside the outer gate. He had heard nothing to agitate him. He saw Maan’s face and said: ‘What is the matter, Sahib?’

Maan did not reply.

‘Is something the matter? I heard voices — do they want me?’

‘What?’ said Maan.

‘Do they want me, Sahib? Inside, I mean.’

‘Want? No, no — goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Sahib,’ said the watchman. He stamped his feet a few times as Maan hurried away into the mist.

Tasneem appeared at the door of Saeeda Bai’s room.

‘What is the matter, Apa? Oh my God—’ she cried, her eyes taking in the horrible scene: blood, crushed fruit, spilled water, her sister leaning, gasping against the couch, Firoz lying wounded on the floor, the knife on the table.

Firoz saw her and felt that he was about to pass out. Then the true horror of all that had happened that evening swam into his mind.

‘I am going,’ he said, to no one in particular.

Saeeda Bai was incapable of speaking. Bibbo said: ‘The Nawabzada cannot leave like this. He is badly injured. He needs a doctor.’

Firoz got up with an effort. The pain made him gasp. He looked around the room and shuddered. He saw his walking stick.

‘Bibbo, give me the stick.’

‘The Nawabzada must not—’

‘The stick.’

She handed it to him.

‘Take care of your mistress. Your mistresses,’ he added bitterly.

‘Let me help you down the stairs,’ said Tasneem.

Firoz stared into her face with a glazed look. ‘No,’ he said gently.

‘You need help,’ she said, her lips trembling.

‘No!’ he cried with sudden vehemence.

Bibbo saw that Firoz was determined to have his way. ‘Begum Sahiba — that shawl?’ she asked. Saeeda Bai nodded, and Bibbo put a shawl around Firoz’s shoulders. She walked downstairs with him to the door. It was still misty outside. Firoz leaned against his stick, hunched forward like an old man. He kept saying to himself: ‘I cannot stay here. I cannot stay here.’

Bibbo said to the watchman: ‘Go immediately to Dr Bilgrami’s. Tell him that the Begum Sahiba and another person have been taken ill.’ The watchman stared at Firoz.

‘Go. Go quickly, you dolt—’ said Bibbo with authority.

The watchman stomped off.

Firoz made to move towards the gate. The night was thick with mist.

‘The Nawabzada is in no state to go — please, please wait here — look at the night and at yourself. I have called the doctor. He will be here any minute,’ cried Bibbo, holding him back.

‘You cannot go—’ This time it was Tasneem who had run downstairs to prevent him from leaving. She was standing — for the first time in her life — at the open door, not daring, however, to go further. Had there been no fog she would have been visible from the road.

He was unable to control his tears of pain and shock as he walked along.

Why Maan had stabbed him — what had happened between Maan and Saeeda Bai — he could not even think. But nothing was worse than what had happened before. Saeeda Bai had intercepted one of his letters, and had summoned him. Curtly she had forbidden him to write to Tasneem, to have anything to do with her. When he had protested, she had told him the truth.

‘Tasneem is not my sister,’ she had said as factually as possible. ‘She is yours.’

Firoz had stared at her in horror. ‘Yes,’ Saeeda Bai had continued. ‘She is my daughter, God forgive me.’

Firoz had shaken his head.

‘And God forgive your father,’ she had continued. ‘Now go in peace. I must say my prayers.’

Firoz, speechless with disgust and torn between belief and disbelief, had left her room. Downstairs he told Bibbo he had to see Tasneem.

‘No—’ said Bibbo. ‘No — how can the Nawabzada presume—’

‘You have known all along,’ he said to her, clutching her arm.

‘Known what?’ protested Bibbo, shaking him off.

‘If you haven’t known it, it can’t be true,’ said Firoz. ‘It is a cruel lie. It cannot be true.’

‘True? True?’ said Bibbo. ‘The Nawabzada has taken leave of his senses.’

‘I must see Tasneem. I must see her,’ Firoz had cried in desperation.

Hearing her name, Tasneem had come out of her room and looked at him. He had gone up to her and stared at her face till tears of embarrassment and misery ran down her cheeks.

‘What is the matter? Why is the Nawabzada looking at me in this manner?’ she asked Bibbo, turning her face away.

‘Go back to your room or your sister will be furious with you,’ said Bibbo. Tasneem had turned back.

‘I must talk with you,’ said Firoz, following Bibbo into another room.

‘Then keep your voice low,’ said Bibbo curtly. But his questions had been so wild and strange — and so full of guilt and shame — that she had looked at him in real perplexity. ‘I can see no resemblance to anyone — to Zainab, to my father—’ he had said. She had still been trying to make sense of his words when they had heard the sounds upstairs — of someone falling, and Saeeda Bai crying for help.