Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘We met at the bookshop,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Lata. Then, quickly, she added: ‘Please, just let me be. I don’t feel like talking to anyone.’

‘It’s the exam, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You’ll have forgotten all about it in five years.’

Lata became indignant. She did not care for his glib philosophy. Who on earth did he think he was? Why didn’t he just buzz off — like that wretched fly?

‘I say that,’ he continued, ‘because a student of my father’s once tried to kill himself after he had done badly in his final exams. It’s a good thing he didn’t succeed, because when the results came out he found he’d got a first.’

‘How can you think you’ve done badly in mathematics when you’ve done well?’ asked Lata, interested despite herself. ‘Your answers are either right or wrong. I can understand it in history or English, but. .’

‘Well, that’s an encouraging thought,’ said the young man, pleased that she had remembered something about him. ‘Both of us have probably done less badly than we think.’

‘So you’ve done badly too?’ asked Lata.

‘Yes,’ he said, simply.

Lata found it hard to believe him, as he didn’t appear distressed in the least.

There was silence for a few moments. Some of the young man’s friends passed by the bench but very tactfully forbore from greeting him. He knew, however, that this would not prevent them from taxing him later about the beginnings of a grand passion.

‘But look, don’t worry. .’ he went on. ‘One paper in six is bound to be difficult. Do you want a dry handkerchief?’

‘No, thank you.’ She glared at him, then looked away.

‘When I was standing there, feeling low,’ he said, pointing to the top of the steps, ‘I noticed you here looking even worse, and that cheered me up. May I sit down?’

‘Please don’t,’ said Lata. Then, realizing how rude her words had sounded, she said, ‘No, do. But I have to be off. I hope you’ve done better than you think.’

‘I hope you’ll feel better than you do,’ said the young man, sitting down. ‘Has it helped to talk to me?’

‘No,’ said Lata. ‘Not at all.’

‘Oh,’ said the young man, a bit disconcerted. ‘Anyway, remember,’ he went on, ‘there are more important things in the world than exams.’ He stretched backwards on the bench, and looked up at the reddish-orange flowers.

‘Like what?’ asked Lata.

‘Like friendship,’ he said, a little severely.

‘Really?’ said Lata, smiling a little now despite herself.

‘Really,’ he said. ‘Talking to you has certainly cheered me up.’ But he continued to look stern.

Lata stood up and started to walk away from the bench.

‘You don’t have any objection to my walking along with you for a bit?’ he said, getting up himself.

‘I can’t very well stop you,’ said Lata. ‘India is a free country now.’

‘All right. I’ll sit on this bench and think of you,’ he said melodramatically, sitting down again. ‘And of that attractive and mysterious ink stain near your nose. It’s been some days since Holi.’

Lata made a sound of impatience and walked away. The young man’s eyes were following her, and she was aware of it. She rubbed her stained middle finger with her thumb to control her awkwardness. She was annoyed with him and with herself, and unsettled by her unexpected enjoyment of his unexpected company. But these thoughts did have the effect of replacing her anxiety — indeed, panic — about how badly she’d done in the paper on Drama with the wish to look at a mirror at once.

Later that afternoon, Lata and Malati and a couple of their friends — all girls, of course — were taking a walk together to the jacaranda grove where they liked to sit and study. The jacaranda grove by tradition was open only to girls. Malati was carrying an incongruously fat medical textbook.

It was a hot day. The two wandered hand in hand among the jacaranda trees. A few soft mauve flowers drifted down to earth. When they were out of earshot of the others, Malati said, with quiet amusement:

‘What is on your mind?’

When Lata looked at her quizzically, Malati continued, undeterred: ‘No, no, it’s no use looking at me like that, I know that something is bothering you. In fact I know what it is that’s bothering you. I have my sources of information.’

Lata responded: ‘I know what you’re going to say, and it’s not true.’

Malati looked at her friend and said: ‘All that Christian training at St Sophia’s has had a bad influence on you, Lata. It’s made you into a terrible liar. No, I don’t mean that exactly. What I mean is that when you do lie, you do it terribly.’

‘All right, then, what were you going to say?’ said Lata.

‘I’ve forgotten now,’ said Malati.

‘Please,’ said Lata, ‘I didn’t get up from my books for this. Don’t be mean, don’t be elliptical, and don’t tease me. It’s bad enough as it is.’

‘Why?’ said Malati. ‘Are you in love already? It’s high time, spring is over.’

‘Of course not,’ said Lata indignantly. ‘Are you mad?’

‘No,’ said Malati.

‘Then why do you have to ask such astonishing questions?’

‘I heard about the way he walked familiarly up to you while you were sitting on the bench after the exam,’ said Malati, ‘so I assumed that you must have been meeting off and on since the Imperial Book Depot.’ From her informant’s description Malati had assumed that it had been the same fellow. And she was pleased she was right.

Lata looked at her friend with more exasperation than affection. News travels much too fast, she thought, and Malati listens in on every line.

‘We have not been meeting either off or on,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where you get your information from, Malati. I wish you would talk about music or the news or something sensible. Even your socialism. This is only the second time we’ve met, and I don’t even know his name. Here, give me your textbook, and let’s sit down. If I read a paragraph or two of something I don’t understand, I’ll be all right.’

‘You don’t even know his name?’ said Malati, now looking at Lata as if she was the one who was mad. ‘Poor fellow! Does he know yours?’

‘I think I told him at the bookshop. Yes, I did. And then he asked me if I was going to ask him his — and I said no.’

‘And you wish you hadn’t,’ said Malati, watching her face closely.

Lata was silent. She sat down and leaned against a jacaranda.

‘And I suppose he would like to have told you,’ said Malati, sitting down as well.

‘I suppose he would,’ said Lata laughing.

‘Poor boiled potatoes,’ said Malati.

‘Boiled — what?’

‘You know—“Don’t put chillies on boiled potatoes.”’ Malati imitated Lata.

Lata blushed.

‘You do like him, don’t you?’ said Malati. ‘If you lie, I’d know it.’

Lata did not respond immediately. She had been able to face her mother with reasonable calmness at lunch, despite the strange, trance-like event of the Drama paper. Then she said:

‘He could see that I was upset after the paper. I don’t think it was easy for him to come up and talk to me when I had, well, in a way rebuffed him at the bookshop.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Malati casually. ‘Boys are such louts. He could very well have done it for the challenge. They’re always daring each other to do idiotic things — for instance, storming the Women’s Hostel at Holi. They think they are such heroes.’

‘He is not a lout,’ said Lata, bridling. ‘And as for heroism, I think it does take at least a little courage to do something when you know that your head can be bitten off as a result. You said something to the same effect in the Blue Danube.’