Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

For Tasneem was now branded by the rumours. She herself continued to be less than fully aware of them; this was not through lack of intelligence but rather because the outside world had once again been cut off from her. Even Bibbo, whose taste for both intrigue and gossip had caused enough damage already, pitied Tasneem, and did not say anything that could hurt her. But after what had happened in front of Tasneem’s eyes to the Nawabzada, the only man whom she had ever felt any deep emotion for, she felt it was safest to withdraw into herself, into her novels and household work. He was in severe danger still; she could tell from the answers that Bibbo gave her that his life was in danger. She could do nothing for him; he was a distant and retreating star. She assumed he had been injured trying to disarm the drunken Maan, but she did not ask what had impelled Maan to become so drunken and murderous. Of the other men who had shown some interest in her, she heard nothing, nor did she wish to hear anything. Ishaq, increasingly influenced by Majeed Khan, retreated from the scandal and neither wrote nor visited. Rasheed wrote another crazy letter to her; but Saeeda Bai tore it up before it reached Tasneem.

More fiercely than ever before, Saeeda Bai tried to protect — and harry — Tasneem. Tender and furious by turns, she once again relived the long torment of having to be a sister to her daughter, of suffering her own strong-willed mother to determine both the course of her own life and the course of the life that Saeeda had been forced, in shame and agony, to relinquish to her.

Saeeda Bai could not now sing, and it seemed to her that she would never again be able to, even if her throat allowed it. The parakeet, however, unmindful of her trauma, burst into a blaze of speech. He took on a sort of grotesque croak in imitation of the mistress of the house. This was one of Saeeda Bai’s consolations. The other was Bilgrami Sahib, who not only helped her medically but stood by her through this ordeal of press and police, of fear and distress and pain.

She realized now that she loved Maan.

When his two lines of misspelt Urdu came to her, she wept bitterly, oblivious to the feelings of Bilgrami Sahib, who was at her side. She imagined the guilt and trauma of his imprisonment, and was terrified to think of where it might end. When she heard of the death of his mother, she again wept. She was not the kind of woman who thrives on ill treatment or values those who misprize her, and she could not understand why Maan’s attack should have caused her to feel what she did. But perhaps it had merely forced her to realize what she had felt before, but had not known. His note to her said nothing except how sorry he was and how much he loved her still.

When the next instalment of the stipend came from Baitar House, Saeeda Bai, who needed the money, returned it unopened. Bilgrami Sahib, when she told him what she had done, said that he would not have advised it, but that it was well done. For anything she needed now, she should depend on him. She accepted his help. He once again asked her to be his wife and to give up her singing and her profession. Although she did not know if she would ever regain her voice, she refused him once again.

As Bilgrami Sahib had feared, their attempt to bring influence into play had attracted the attention of the Raja of Marh, who quite blatantly began to pay journalists to dig up what dirt they could about the scandal — and particularly to attempt to prevent any subversion of justice by Maan’s friends and family. He had also attempted to fund a couple of the Independent candidates who were standing against Mahesh Kapoor in the elections, but this had proved to be a less fruitful investment.

One night the Raja of Marh came with a gang of three guards and virtually forced his way into Saeeda Bai’s house. He was delighted by recent events. Mahesh Kapoor, the plunderer of his rightful lands and the derider of his great temple, had been humbled; Maan — whom he saw both as his competitor and as the brother of the man who had expelled his son — was locked safely away; the Nawab Sahib — whose religion and high cultural airs he equally loathed — was stricken with shame and with fear and grief for his son; and Saeeda Bai had been disgraced further before the world and would doubtless abase herself to his, the Raja of Marh’s, commands.

‘Sing!’ he commanded her. ‘Sing! I hear your voice has gained a richer tone since your neck was wrung.’

It was fortunate for both him and Saeeda Bai that the watchman had alerted the police. They came in, and he was forced to leave. He did not know, either then or afterwards, how close he had come to becoming that well-washed fruit knife’s second victim.

Firoz lay between life and death for several days. Eventually the Nawab Sahib grew so exhausted that he was ordered home by his elder son.

It was the fear of Firoz’s death that finally forced Mahesh Kapoor, that upright and law-abiding man, to speak to the Superintendent of Police. He knew what he was doing: he did it with his eyes open, and he was ashamed, but he did it. He had lost his wife, he could not bear to lose his son. If Firoz died, and the investigating officer and committal magistrate saw fit, Maan might be tried under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code — and this thought was so horrific — and to his mind, unjust — that he could not bear it. The SP for his part was a man who knew how many ways bread could be buttered. He said that it was a difficult problem now that matters had been aired so openly in the press, but that he would do what he could. He repeated several times that he had always had the greatest respect for Mahesh Kapoor. Mahesh Kapoor repeated, though the words tore at his sense of his own integrity, that his feelings towards the SP were very similar.

He visited Maan once more in jail. Once again, father and son did not have much to say to each other. He then left for Salimpur for a few days. He did not tell anyone what he had done, and he reproached himself both for having done it and for not having done it earlier.

Maan had begun working in the jail garden, and this did help him somewhat. Even now, he found the visits of his brother and sister painful. Once he asked Pran to send some money anonymously to Rasheed and gave him his address. Once he asked for a few harsingar flowers from the garden of Prem Nivas and Veena had told him that the season was over. For the most part Maan did not know what to say to them. He continued to feel that the shock of his crime had killed their mother, and that they felt the same. But time passed, and exhaustion eased his mind.

Firoz too became better. The advances in medicine of the previous ten years had saved his life, but only just. Had antibiotics not been available in Brahmpur, or had doctors not been sufficiently skilled in their administration, he would surely not have gazed at that lizard again. But despite the wound and the infections, whether he wished to or not, he lived.

A change came over Maan too with the slow recovery of his friend. It was as if he had come out of the valley of the shadow of his own death. If his own danger had caused Saeeda Bai to realize how much she loved him, the danger Firoz had been in had given him a similar insight. He cheered up as soon as Pran told him that Firoz was finally and definitely on the mend. His appetite recovered. He asked for certain kinds of food to be brought from Prem Nivas. He joked about rum chocolates, which a friend had once brought from Calcutta, as a means of smuggling alcohol into jail. He asked for certain visitors: not his immediate family, but people who would bring him a sense of something different: Lata (if she wouldn’t mind paying him a visit) and one of his old girlfriends, who was now married. Both came, on consecutive days: one with Pran (after she had overcome Mrs Rupa Mehra’s objections), one with her husband (after she had overcome his).