Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Panicking and absconding’ was in fact an accurate description of what Maan was doing. He was not at home. It was three o’clock in the morning when the household at Prem Nivas was woken up. Mahesh Kapoor had just come back to town, and was exhausted and irritable. At first he almost threw the police out of his house. But then his indignation turned to disbelief and finally to an appalled concern. He went to call Maan, but did not find him in his room. Mrs Mahesh Kapoor — equally horrified by what had happened to Firoz and fearful for her son — wandered through the house, not knowing what she would do if she found him. Her husband, however, was clear in his mind. He would cooperate with the police. He was surprised that a more senior officer had not come to his house to look for Maan, but the lateness of the hour and the suddenness of events must account for this.

He allowed the policeman to search Maan’s room. The bed had not been slept in. There was no sign of anything remotely resembling a weapon.

‘Have you found anything to interest you?’ asked Mr Mahesh Kapoor. He kept thinking back to the searches and arrests that he and Prem Nivas had undergone in the time of the British.

The Sub-Inspector looked around as quickly as possible, apologized profusely, and left. ‘If Mr Maan Kapoor does return, would Minister Sahib ask him to come to the Pasand Bagh Police Station? It would be better than the police coming here again,’ he said. Mahesh Kapoor nodded. He was stunned, but did not appear to be anything but calm and sarcastic.

When they had left, he tried to console his wife with the thought that there had been some mistake. But Mrs Mahesh Kapoor was convinced that something disastrous had indeed happened — and that Maan, somehow, in his impetuousness, had caused it. She wanted to go at once to the Civil Hospital to see how Firoz was, but Mahesh Kapoor said that it would be best to wait till morning. Anyway, in her state of health, it was perhaps best if she did not see Firoz.

‘If he comes home, we can’t give him up,’ she said.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Mahesh Kapoor impatiently. Then he shook his head. ‘You must go to bed now.’

‘I won’t be able to sleep.’

‘Well, then, pray,’ said Mahesh Kapoor impatiently. ‘But keep yourself covered up. Your chest sounds bad. I will call a doctor in the morning.’

‘Call a lawyer for him, not a doctor for me,’ said Mrs Mahesh Kapoor, who was in tears. ‘Can’t we get him bail?’

‘He hasn’t been arrested yet,’ said Mahesh Kapoor. Then a thought occurred to him. Though it was the middle of the night, he phoned up the middle Bespectacled Bannerji, and asked him about anticipatory bail. The lawyer was irked to be woken up at this amazing hour, but when he recognized Mahesh Kapoor’s voice and heard an account of what the police said had happened, he did his best to explain matters.

‘The problem, Kapoor Sahib, is that neither attempted murder nor grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon is a bailable offence. Is it, well, feasible, I mean, possible, that the charge might be considered to be ordinary grievous hurt? Or attempted culpable homicide? Those are bailable charges.’

‘I see,’ said Mahesh Kapoor.

‘Or simple hurt?’

‘No, I don’t think that is possible.’

‘You said a Sub-Inspector came to the house. Not even an Inspector. I am astonished.’

‘Well, that’s who it was.’

‘Perhaps you should have a word with the Deputy Superintendent of Police or the SP — to clarify things.’

‘Thank you for your explanations and, well, suggestion,’ said Mahesh Kapoor disapprovingly. ‘I am sorry to have woken you up at this hour.’

There was a pause at the other end. ‘Not at all, not at all. Please feel free to call me up at any time.’

When he returned to his room Mahesh Kapoor found his wife praying, and he wished he could have prayed as well. He had always been very fond of his reckless son, but had only realized in these last few weeks how dearly he loved him.

Where are you? he thought, irritated and upset. Don’t for God’s sake do anything even more stupid than you’ve already done. At this thought his irritation disappeared, and was replaced with a profound anxiety both for his son and for the son of his friend.

Maan had disappeared into the mist and reappeared at Brahmpur Railway Station. He knew he had to get out of Brahmpur. He was drunk, and he was not certain why he had to escape. But Firoz had told him to, and Bibbo had told him to. He pictured the scene in his mind. It was terrible. He could not believe what he had done. There had been a knife in his hand. And then his friend had been lying on the ground, wounded and bleeding. Wounded? But Firoz — Firoz — that he and Saeeda Bai — Maan relived the wretchedness of his feelings. What tormented him more than anything was the deception. ‘It is not my sister he is in love with’—he thought of the near-hysterical words and realized how much Saeeda Bai must have been obsessed with Firoz. And again he chided himself for having been duped by his own love for her, and his love for his friend. Oh, what a fool I am, he thought. Oh, what a fool. He looked at his own clothes. There was no blood anywhere — not even on his bundi. He looked at his hands.

He bought a ticket to Banaras. He was almost weeping at the counter, and the clerk looked at him strangely.

On the train he offered the remnants of his bottle of whisky to a young man who happened to be awake in the compartment. The man shook his head. Maan looked at the sign near the alarm handle— To Stop Train Pull Chain— and began to tremble violently. By the time he got to Banaras, he had gone off to sleep. The young man woke him up and made sure he got off.

‘I’ll never forget your kindness — never—’ said Maan, as the train steamed off.

Dawn was breaking. He walked along the ghats, singing a bhajan which his mother had taught him when he was ten years old. Then he went to the house where his fiancée lived, and started battering on the door. Those good people got alarmed. When they saw Maan there, they became very angry: they told him to go away and not to make an exhibition of himself. He next went to some people to whom he had lent money. They were not keen to see him at all. ‘I’ve killed my friend,’ Maan told them. ‘Nonsense,’ they replied.

‘You’ll see — it’ll be in all the papers,’ Maan said, distraught. ‘Please hide me for a few days.’

They thought it a wonderful joke. ‘What are you doing in Banaras?’ they said. ‘Are you here on business?’

‘No,’ said Maan.

Suddenly he could bear it no longer. He went to the local police station to give himself up.

‘I was the man — I—’ he said, hardly able to speak coherently.

The policemen humoured him for a while, then grew annoyed, and finally wondered whether there might not be some truth to what he was saying. They tried to telephone Brahmpur but could not get through. Then they sent an urgent telegram. ‘Please wait,’ they told Maan. ‘We’ll arrest you if we can.’

‘Yes — yes—’ said Maan. He was feeling very hungry. All he had had that day was a few cups of tea.

Finally the police got a message back that stated that the younger son of the Nawab Sahib of Baitar had been found seriously wounded on Cornwallis Road in Brahmpur, and that the principal suspect was Maan Kapoor. They looked at Maan as if he was mad, and arrested him. Then, in a few hours, they handcuffed him, and put him on the train back to Brahmpur under the escort of two constables.

‘Why must you handcuff me? What have I done?’ said Maan.

The station house officer was so tired of Maan, so annoyed with the needless work he had caused him, and so exasperated by his latest and most ludicrous protest that he wanted to beat him up. ‘These are the regulations,’ he said.