Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘But why would he wish to lodge an election petition? And against whom?’ said the Nawab Sahib.

‘Against Waris,’ said the munshi, and handed him a couple of the fatal pink fliers.

The Nawab Sahib read through one and his face grew pale with anger. The poster had made such shameless and impious use of death that he wondered that God’s anger had not fallen on Waris, or on him, or on Firoz, the innocent agency of this outrage. As if he had not sunk deeply enough in the world’s opinion, what must Mahesh Kapoor think of him now?

Firoz — whatever he might think of his father — was, by the grace of God, out of danger at last. And Mahesh Kapoor’s son was lying in jail in danger of losing his liberty for many years. How strangely the tables had turned, thought the Nawab Sahib, and what small satisfaction Maan’s jeopardy and Mahesh Kapoor’s grief — both of which in bitterness he had once prayed for — now gave him after all.

That he had not attended Mrs Mahesh Kapoor’s chautha made him feel ashamed. Firoz had had an infection at the time and had been in serious danger — but now the Nawab Sahib asked himself whether his son had been in such immediate hazard that he could not have spared half an hour and braved the glances of the world to at least show his face at the service? Poor woman, she had surely died fearing that neither her son nor his might live until the summer, and knowing that Maan at least could not even come to her deathbed. How painful such knowledge must have been; and how little her goodness and generosity had deserved it.

Sometimes he sat in his library and went to sleep from tiredness. Ghulam Rusool would wake him up for lunch or dinner whenever it was necessary to do so. It was becoming warm as well. The coppersmith had begun to sound its short continual call from a fig tree outside. Here in the library, lost in religion or philosophy or the speculations of astronomy, even worlds might seem small, not to speak of personal estates and ambitions, griefs and guilt. Or, lost in his projected edition of Mast’s poems, he might have forgotten the uproar of the world around. But the Nawab Sahib discovered that he could read nothing with any concentration. He found himself staring at a page, wondering where he had been for the last hour.

One morning he read in the Brahmpur Chronicle about Abida Khan’s derisive ad hominem remarks in the House, and how Mahesh Kapoor had not stood up to say a word by way of defence or explanation. He was seized with pain on his friend’s behalf. He rang up his sister-in-law.

‘Abida, what was the necessity for saying these things I’ve been reading about?’

Abida laughed. Her brother-in-law was weak and over-scrupulous, and would never make much of a fighter. ‘Why, it was my last chance to attack that man face to face,’ she said. ‘If it wasn’t for him, do you think your inheritance and that of your sons would be in such danger? And why talk of inheritance, how about your son’s life?’

‘Abida, there is a limit to things.’

‘Well, when I reach it, I will stop. And if I don’t, I will fall over the edge. That is my concern.’

‘Abida, have pity—’

‘Pity? What pity did that man’s son have on Firoz? Or on that helpless woman—’ Abida suddenly stopped. Perhaps she felt that she had reached the limit. There was a long pause. Finally she broke it by saying: ‘All right, I will accept your advice on this. But I hope that that butcher rots in jail.’ She thought of the Nawab Sahib’s wife, the only light of her years in the zenana, and she added: ‘For many years to come.’

The Nawab Sahib knew that Maan had come to visit Firoz twice at Baitar House before he had again been committed to jail. Murtaza Ali had told him so, and had also told him that Firoz had asked him to come. Now the Nawab Sahib asked himself the question: if Firoz had chosen to forgive his friend, what was the law that it should insist on destroying his life?

That night he was dining alone with Firoz. This was usually very painful: they tried to talk to each other without really speaking of anything. But tonight he turned to his son and said: ‘Firoz, what is the evidence against that boy?’

‘Evidence, Abba?’

‘I mean, from the point of view of the court.’

‘He has confessed to the police.’

‘Has he confessed before a magistrate?’

Firoz was a little surprised that this legalistic thought should have come to his father rather than to him. ‘You’re right, Abba,’ he said. ‘But there’s all the other evidence — his flight, his identification, all our statements — mine, and those of the others who were there.’ He looked at his father carefully, thinking how hard it must be for him to approach even indirectly the subject of his injury or the other matter behind it. He said after a while: ‘When I made my statement, I was very ill; my mind could have been confused, of course. Perhaps it’s still confused — I should have thought of all this, not you.’

Neither said anything for a minute. Then Firoz went on: ‘If I fell on the knife — stumbled, say — and it was in his hand, he might, since he was drunk, have thought that he had done it — and so might — so might—’

‘The others.’

‘Yes — the others. That would explain their statements — and his disappearance,’ continued Firoz, as if the entire scene was passing once again before his eyes, very clearly, very slowly. But a few seconds of the scene that had been clear before had now begun to blur.

‘Enough has happened in Prem Nivas already,’ said his father. ‘And the same set of facts is open to many interpretations.’

This last remark conjured up different thoughts for each of them.

‘Yes, Abba,’ said Firoz quietly and gratefully, and with something of a renewal in his heart of his old respect.

Maan’s trial came up in a fortnight before the District and Sessions Judge. Both the Nawab Sahib and Mahesh Kapoor were present in the small courtroom. Firoz was one of the first witnesses. The prosecution lawyer, leading him with quiet confidence through the phrases of the statement he had given to the police, was startled when Firoz said:

‘And then I stumbled and fell on to the knife.’

‘I am sorry,’ said the lawyer. ‘What was that you said?’

‘I said, I stumbled, and fell on to the knife that he was holding in his hand.’

The government advocate was utterly taken aback. Try as he might, he could not shake Firoz’s evidence. He complained to the court that the witness had turned hostile to the state and requested permission to cross-examine him. He put it to Firoz that his evidence was inconsistent with his statement to the police. Firoz replied that he had been ill at the time of his statement, and that his memory had been blurred. It was only after his recovery that it had sharpened and clarified. The prosecutor reminded Firoz that he himself was a lawyer and that he was on oath. Firoz, who was still looking pale, replied with a smile that he was well aware of it, but that even lawyers did not have perfect memories. He had relived the scene many times and he was certain now that he had stumbled against something — he thought it might have been a bolster — and had fallen on to the knife that Maan had just wrested from Saeeda Bai. ‘He just stood there. I think he thought he had done it,’ added Firoz helpfully, though he was fully aware of the limitations of evidence based on hearsay or the interpretation of the mental state of others.

Maan sat in the dock, staring at his friend, hardly comprehending at first what was happening. A look of disturbed amazement spread slowly across his face.

Saeeda Bai was examined next. She stood in the witness box, her face unseen behind the burqa she was wearing, and spoke in a low voice. She was happy to accept the contention of the defence lawyer that what she had seen was consistent with this interpretation of events. So was Bibbo. The other evidence — Firoz’s blood on the shawl, Maan’s identification by the railway clerk, the memory of the watchman, and so on — threw no light on the question of what had happened during those two or three vital, almost fatal, seconds. And if Maan had not even stabbed Firoz, if Firoz had simply fallen on the knife held in his hand, the very question of his intention to inflict ‘such bodily injury as was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death’ was irrelevant.