Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

She would not be there, as she had always been, to help. The birds had robbed the standing grain, and here he was wringing his empty hands. What would she have said to him? Nothing direct, but possibly a few words of circuitous comfort, something that might, a few days or a few weeks later, have taken the edge off his despair. Would she have told him to withdraw from the election? What would she have asked him to do about his son? Which of his several duties — or conceptions of duty — would she have expected him to follow or have anticipated that he would follow, and which would she have wished him to? Even if in the weeks ahead it became clear to him, he did not have those weeks, but only days, and, indeed, very few of those.

When Maan was admitted to jail after the cremation, he was required to wash himself and his clothing, and he was provided with a cup and a plate. He was examined by the medical officer and weighed. A note was made of the condition of his hair and beard. As an unconvicted prisoner — with no previous convictions either — he was supposed to be kept separate from those undertrial prisoners who had previous convictions. But the district jail was crowded, and he was accommodated in a ward which contained a couple of undertrial prisoners who did know about jail life from experience — and who set out to educate the others about it. Maan they treated as a great curiosity. If he was really a Minister’s son — and the one newspaper they were permitted confirmed that indeed he was — what was he doing there? Why had he not managed to get bail on one pretext or another? If the charge being investigated was non-bailable, why had the police not been told to lessen the charge?

If Maan had been in anything resembling his normal state of mind, he would have made friends with a few of his present colleagues. Now he hardly sensed their existence. He could think of no one except those whom he could not see: his mother, and Firoz, and Saeeda Bai. His life, though not easy, was luxury compared to what it had been in the lock-up. He was allowed to receive food and clothes from Prem Nivas; he was allowed to shave his face and to exercise. The jail was comparatively clean. Since he was a ‘superior class’ prisoner, his cell was equipped with a small table, a bed, and a lamp. They sent him oranges, which he ate in a daze. They sent a quilt of kingfisher blue from Prem Nivas to protect him against the cold. It protected him and it comforted him, while at the same time it reminded him of home — and all that he had destroyed or lost.

Again, as a superior class prisoner, he was shielded from the worst degradations of jail life — the crowded cells and barracks where assorted horrors were perpetrated by the prisoners on one another. The Superintendent of the jail was also aware of whose son he was, and kept an eye on him. He was liberal in permitting him visits.

Pran visited him, and Veena, and his father too before he returned, heartsick, to campaign in his constituency. No one knew what to talk about to Maan. When his father asked him what had happened, Maan started trembling and could say nothing. When Pran said, ‘But why, Maan, why?’ he stared at him in a hunted manner and turned away.

There were not many safe subjects. Sometimes they talked about cricket. England had just defeated India in the fourth Test match of the series, the first match that had not ended in a draw. But though Pran could spin out cricket talk even in his sleep, Maan began to yawn after a few minutes.

Sometimes they talked about Bhaskar or Pran’s baby, but even these conversations took painful turns.

Maan would talk most easily about jail routine. He said that he wanted to work a bit, though it was not compulsory: perhaps in the jail vegetable garden. He asked about the garden in Prem Nivas, but when Veena began to describe it he started weeping.

He yawned a great deal during conversations without knowing why, sometimes when he wasn’t even tired.

The lawyer who was sent to visit him by his father often returned frustrated. Maan, when asked anything, said that he had talked about it all with the police and would not go over it again. But this was not true. When the Sub-Inspector and a few other policemen came to the jail to ask him questions, to get him to elaborate on his confession, he insisted that he had nothing more to say to them either. They asked him about the knife. He said he couldn’t remember if he had left it at Saeeda Bai’s or taken it along with him; he thought the latter. Meanwhile, the case against him grew through a combination of statements and circumstantial evidence.

No one who visited him mentioned Firoz’s turn for the worse, but he learned about it from the ward newspaper, the local Hindi paper, Adarsh. He also learned, from gossip among the prisoners, about the rumours floating around the Nawab Sahib and Saeeda Bai. He had fits of almost suicidal misery, from the worst of which he was guarded by the ritual of jail life.

Routine took over his days. The Jail Manual , to which the Brahmpur District Jail approximately adhered, read as follows:

To perform morning ablutions, etc:

After unlocking up to 7 a.m.

To be on parade in the enclosure:

7 a.m. to 9 a.m.

To be locked up in cell or barracks:

9 a.m. to 10 a.m.

To bathe and take the midday meal:

10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

To be locked up in cell or barracks:

11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

To take exercise, have evening meal, and be searched and locked up:

3 p.m. to locking up.

He was a model prisoner, and never complained about anything. Sometimes he sat at the table in his cell and looked at a piece of paper on which he planned to write a letter to Firoz. But he could never begin it. He took to doodling instead. Having hardly slept in the lock-up, he slept for long hours in his jail cell.

Once he was lined up for an identification parade, but he was not told whether it was to be for himself or for some other prisoner. When he saw that his lawyer was present, he realized it was for himself. But he did not recognize the self-important-looking clerk who walked down the line and paused a little longer when he came to him. And he did not care whether he had been identified or not.

‘If he dies, you could well be hanged,’ said one experienced prisoner with a sense of humour. ‘If that happens we’ll all be locked up for the morning, so I’m counting on you to spare us the inconvenience.’

Maan nodded.

Since he was not responding satisfactorily, the prisoner went on: ‘After every execution do you know what they do with the ropes?’

Maan shook his head.

‘They dress them with beeswax and ghee to keep them smooth.’

‘In what proportions?’ asked another prisoner.

‘Oh, half and half,’ said the knowledgeable one. ‘And they add a bit of carbolic acid to the mixture to keep off the insects. It would be a pity if white ants or silverfish chewed them away. What do you think?’ he asked Maan.

Everyone turned to look at Maan.

Maan, however, had stopped listening. Neither had the man’s sense of humour amused him nor had his cruelty upset him.

‘And in order to preserve them from rats,’ continued the expert, ‘they put the five ropes — they have five ropes in this jail, don’t ask me why — they put all five ropes in a clay pot, stop up the top, and suspend it from the roof of the storeroom. Think about that. Five Manila ropes, one inch in diameter, each fattened on a diet of ghee and blood slithering about like snakes in a pot, waiting for their next victim—’

He laughed delightedly and looked at Maan.

Maan may have paid no attention to any distant hazard to his neck, but it was impossible for Saeeda Bai not to be conscious of what had happened to hers. For days afterwards she could hardly speak except in a croak. Her worlds had fallen apart around her: both her own world of nuance and attraction, and her daughter’s world of innocence and protection.