Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘But I have something for her with me here,’ said Maan. He had a large book in his left hand. He reached into his pocket with his right and extracted his wallet. ‘Would you see she gets it?’

‘Yes, Huzoor,’ said the watchman, accepting a five-rupee note.

‘Well, then—’ said Maan and, with a disappointed look at the rose-coloured house beyond the small green gate, walked slowly away.

The watchman carried the book a couple of minutes later to the front door and gave it to Bibbo.

‘What — for me?’ said Bibbo flirtatiously.

The watchman looked at her with such a lack of expression it was almost an expression in itself.

‘No. And tell Begum Sahiba it was from that young man who came the other day.’

‘The one who got you into such trouble with Begum Sahiba?’

‘I was not in trouble.’

And the watchman walked back to the gate.

Bibbo giggled and closed the door. She looked at the book for a few minutes. It was very handsome and — apart from print — contained pictures of languid men and women in various romantic settings. One particular picture took her fancy. A woman in a black robe was kneeling by a grave. Her eyes were closed. There were stars in the sky behind a high wall in the background. In the foreground was a short, gnarled, leafless tree, its roots entwined among large stones. Bibbo stood wondering for a few moments. Then, without thinking about the Raja of Marh, she closed the book to take it up to Saeeda Bai.

Like a spark on a slow fuse, the book now moved from the gate to the front door, across the hall, up the stairs and along the gallery to the open doorway of the room where Saeeda Bai was entertaining the Raja. When she saw him, Bibbo stopped abruptly and tried to retreat along the gallery. But Saeeda Bai had spotted her. She broke off the ghazal she was singing.

‘Bibbo, what’s the matter? Come in.’

‘Nothing, Saeeda Begum. I’ll come back later.’

‘What’s the matter with the girl? First she interrupts, then it’s “Nothing, Saeeda Begum, I’ll come back later!” What’s that in your hands?’

‘Nothing, Begum Sahiba.’

‘Let’s have a look at that nothing,’ said Saeeda Bai.

Bibbo entered with a frightened salaam, and handed the book to her. On the brown cover in gold letters it said in Urdu: The Poetical Works of Ghalib. An Album of Pictures by Chughtai.

It was clearly no ordinary collected poems of Ghalib. Saeeda Bai could not resist opening it. She turned the pages. The book contained a few words of introduction and an essay by the artist Chughtai, the entire collected Urdu poems of the great Ghalib, a group of plates of the most beautiful paintings in the Persian style (each illustrating a line or two of Ghalib’s poetry), and some text in English. This English text was probably a foreword when seen from the other side, thought Saeeda Bai, who was still amused by the fact that books in English opened at the wrong end.

So delighted was she by the gift that she placed it on the harmonium and began to leaf through the illustrations. ‘Who sent it?’ she asked, when she noticed that there was no inscription. In her pleasure she had forgotten the presence of the Raja, who was simmering with anger and jealousy.

Bibbo, with a quick glance around the room for inspiration, said, ‘It came with the watchman.’

She had sensed the Raja’s dangerous rage, and did not wish her mistress to display the involuntary joy she might if her admirer’s name were mentioned directly. Besides, the Raja would not be tenderly disposed towards the sender of the book; and Bibbo, though mischievous, did not wish Maan ill. Far from it, in fact.

Meanwhile, Saeeda Bai, her head down, was looking at a picture of an old woman, a young woman and a boy praying before a window towards a new moon at sunset. ‘Yes, yes—’ she said ‘—but who sent it?’ She looked up and frowned.

Bibbo, now under duress, tried to name Maan as elliptically as possible. Hoping that the Raja would not notice, she pointed to a spot on the white-sheeted floor where he had spilt some of his whisky. Aloud she said, ‘I don’t know. No name was left. May I go?’

‘Yes, yes — what a fool—’ said her mistress, impatient with Bibbo’s enigmatic behaviour.

But the Raja of Marh had had enough of this insolent interruption. With an ugly snort he moved forward to snatch the book from Saeeda Bai’s hands. If she had not moved it swiftly away at the last moment he would have ripped it from her grasp.

Now, breathing heavily, he said: ‘Who is he? How much is his life worth? What is his name? Is this exhibition to be part of my entertainment?’

‘No — no—’ said Saeeda Bai, ‘please forgive the silly girl. It is impossible to teach etiquette and discrimination to these unsophisticated things.’ Then, to mollify him, she added: ‘But look at this picture — how lovely it is — their hands raised in prayer — the sunset, the white dome and minaret of the mosque—’

It was the wrong word to use. With a guttural grunt of rage, the Raja of Marh ripped out the page she was showing him. Saeeda Bai stared at him, petrified.

‘Play!’ he roared at Motu and Ishaq. And to Saeeda Bai he said, moving his face forward in threat: ‘Sing! Finish the ghazal — No! begin it again. Remember who has reserved you for the evening.’

Saeeda Bai replaced the ragged page in the book, closed it, and set it by the harmonium. Then, closing her eyes, she began again to sing the words of love. Her voice was trembling and there was no life to the lines. Indeed, she was not even thinking of them. Beneath her tears she was in a white rage. If she had had the freedom to, she would have lashed out against the Raja — flung her whisky at his bulging red eyes, slashed his face, thrown him out on to the street. But she knew that, for all her worldly wisdom, she was utterly powerless. To avoid these thoughts her mind strayed to Bibbo’s gestures.

Whisky? Liquor? Floor? Sheet? she wondered to herself.

Then suddenly she realized what Bibbo had tried to say to her. It was the word for stain—‘dagh’.

With a song now in her heart, not only on her lips, Saeeda Bai opened her eyes and smiled, looking at the whisky stain. As of a black dog pissing! she thought. I must give that quick-thinking girl a gift.

She thought of Maan, one man — the only man, in fact — whom she both liked and felt she could have almost complete control over. Perhaps she had not treated him well enough — perhaps she had been too cavalier with his infatuation.

The ghazal she was singing bloomed into life. Ishaq Khan was startled and could not understand it. Even Motu Chand was puzzled.

It certainly also had charms to soothe the savage breast. The Raja of Marh’s head sank gently on to his chest, and in a while he began snoring.

The next evening, when Maan asked the watchman about Saeeda Bai’s health, he was told that she had left instructions that he was to be sent up. This was wonderful, considering that he had neither left word nor sent a note to say that he would be coming.

As he walked up the stairs at the end of the hall he paused to admire himself in the mirror, and greeted himself with a sotto voce ‘Adaab arz, Dagh Sahib’, raising his cupped hand to his forehead in happy salutation. He was dressed as smartly as ever in a starched and immaculate kurta-pyjama; he wore the same white cap that had drawn a comment from Saeeda Bai.

When he got to the upstairs gallery that fringed the hall below, he stopped. There was no sound of music or talk. Saeeda Bai would probably be alone. He was filled with a pleased expectation; his heart began beating hard.

She must have heard his footsteps: she had put down the slim novel she had been reading — at least it appeared to be a novel from the illustration on the cover — and had stood up to greet him.