Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Maan would have liked a gallon of whisky to fortify himself. ‘No, thank you,’ he replied.

Firoz’s face lit up when he saw his friend. ‘So you’ve come!’ he said. ‘I feel I’m in jail here. I’ve been asking for you for a week, but the Superintendent won’t let messages out. I hope you’ve brought me some whisky.’

Maan started weeping. Firoz looked so pale — really, as if he had just returned from death.

‘Have a look at my scar,’ Firoz said, trying to lighten the situation. He pushed the bedsheet down and pulled up his kurta.

‘Impressive,’ said Maan, still in tears. ‘Centipede.’

He went to Firoz’s bedside, and touched his friend’s face.

They talked for a few minutes, each attempting to avoid what might cause the other pain except in such a way as would more probably defuse it.

‘You’re looking well,’ said Maan.

‘How poorly you lie,’ said Firoz. ‘I wouldn’t take you on as a client. . These days I find I lack concentration. My mind wanders,’ he added with a smile. ‘It’s quite interesting.’

They were silent for a minute. Maan put his forehead to Firoz’s and sighed painfully. He did not say how sorry he was for all he had done.

He sat down near Firoz.

‘Does it hurt?’ he asked.

‘Yes, at times.’

‘Is everyone at home all right?’

‘Yes,’ said Firoz. ‘How are — how is your father?’

‘As well as can be expected,’ said Maan.

Firoz did not say how sorry he was about Maan’s mother, but shook his head in regret, and Maan understood.

After a while he got up.

‘Come again,’ said Firoz.

‘When? Tomorrow?’

‘No — in two or three days.’

‘You’ll have to send me another note,’ said Maan. ‘Or I’ll be thrown out.’

‘Here, give me the old note. I’ll revalidate it,’ said Firoz with a smile.

As Maan walked home, it struck him that they had avoided talking directly about Saeeda Bai or Tasneem or his experience of prison or the forthcoming case against him, and he was glad.

That evening, Dr Bilgrami came over to Prem Nivas to have a word with Maan. He told him that Saeeda Bai wished to see him. Dr Bilgrami looked exhausted, and Maan agreed to go with him. The meeting was a painful one.

Saeeda Bai’s voice was still not itself, though she had recovered her looks. She reproached Maan for not having visited her since his release from jail. Had he changed so much? she asked with a smile. Had she changed? Had he not received her notes? What had kept him away? She was ill, she was desperate to see him. Her voice broke. She was going mad without him. She impatiently waved Dr Bilgrami away, and turned to Maan with longing and pity. How was he? He looked so thin. What had they done to him?

‘Dagh Sahib — what has happened to you? What will happen to you?’

‘I don’t know.’

He looked around the room. ‘The blood?’ he asked.

‘What blood?’ she asked. It had been a month ago.

The room smelt of attar of roses and of Saeeda Bai herself. Sadly and sensuously she leaned back on her cushions against the wall. But Maan thought he saw a scar on her face, and the face itself turned into a portrait of the varicose Victoria.

So shattering had been his mother’s death, Firoz’s danger, his own disgrace, and his terrible sense of guilt that he had begun to suffer a violent revulsion of feeling against himself and Saeeda Bai. Perhaps he saw her too as a victim. But his greater understanding of events gave him no greater control over his feelings. He had been too deeply scoured by what had occurred, and his present vision of her horrified him. He stared at her face.

I am becoming like Rasheed, he thought. I’m seeing things that don’t exist.

He stood up, his face pale. ‘I am going,’ he said.

‘You aren’t well,’ she said.

‘No — no, I’m not,’ he said.

Hurt and frustrated by his behaviour, she had been about to rebuke him for his attitude towards her, for what he had done to her household, to her reputation, to Tasneem. But one look at his bewildered face told her it would be no use. He was in another world — beyond the reach of her affections or attractions. She hid her face in her hands.

‘Are you all right?’ said Maan uncertainly, as if feeling his way to something in the past. ‘I am to blame for all that has happened.’

‘You don’t love me — don’t tell me you do — I can see it—’ she wept.

‘Love—’ said Maan. ‘Love?’ Suddenly he sounded furious.

‘And even the shawl that my mother gave me—’ said Saeeda Bai.

She was making no sense to him at all.

‘Don’t let them do anything to you—’ she said, refusing to look up, unwilling for once that he should see her tears. Maan looked away.

On the 29th of February, Maan was brought up before the same magistrate as before. The police had reconsidered their position based on the evidence. Maan had not intended to kill Firoz, but the police now believed that he had intended to cause ‘such bodily injury as was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death’. This was enough to bring him under the hazard of the section dealing with attempted murder. The magistrate was satisfied with the result of the investigation and framed the charges.

I, Suresh Mathur, Magistrate of the First Class at Brahmpur, hereby charge you, Maan Kapoor, as follows:

That you, on or about the 4th day of January, 1952, at Brahmpur, did an act, to wit, that you did stab with a knife one Nawabzada Firoz Ali Khan of Baitar with such knowledge and under such circumstances, that if by that act you had caused the death of Nawabzada Firoz Ali Khan of Baitar, you would have been guilty of murder and that you caused hurt to the said Nawabzada Firoz Ali Khan of Baitar by the said act, and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code, and within the cognizance of the Court of Session.

And I hereby direct that you be tried by the said Court on the said charge.

The magistrate also charged Maan with grievous hurt with a deadly weapon. Both these offences carried a possible sentence of imprisonment for life. Neither was bailable, and the magistrate therefore withdrew bail. Maan was recommitted to jail to await trial.

Also on the 29th of February, Pran’s selection as reader in the Department of English at Brahmpur University was confirmed by the Academic Council. But he, and his family, and his father, were sunk in such gloom that this news did not lighten it at all.

Pran, his thoughts dwelling much on death these days, wondered once again about the remark made by Ramjap Baba to his mother at the Pul Mela. If his readership was indeed due to a death, whose death had the Baba meant? Certainly, his mother had died; but just as certainly this could not have influenced the selection committee. Or had Professor Mishra been serious when he had claimed that he had watched out for Pran’s interests out of sympathy for his family?

I too am becoming superstitious, thought Pran. It will be my father next. But his father, luckily for his state of mind, had something to occupy him over the next few days other than trying to organize Maan’s defence.

At the beginning of March, Mahesh Kapoor, though defeated in the elections, was asked once again to perform his duties as an MLA. The Legislative Assembly of Purva Pradesh had been elected, but the indirect elections for the Upper House, the Legislative Council, had not yet taken place. The legislature was therefore not complete. Under the Constitution, six months could not be allowed to elapse between sessions of the legislative body, and the old legislature was therefore forced into brief session. Besides, it was budget time; and though propriety demanded that the budget be passed by the new legislature, the financial wheels had to be kept turning somehow. This would be done through a ‘vote on account’ for the months of April to July, 1952, the first third of the coming financial year. This vote on account had to be passed by the old, soon-to-be-defunct legislature of which Mahesh Kapoor was a part.