Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Oh, good,’ said Hassan, who got nervous when his feet were not on the ground.

‘What’s in that room, Nana-jaan?’ asked three-year-old Abbas as they walked down a corridor past a room with a huge brass lock.

‘Mongooses, of course,’ said his elder brother knowledgeably.

‘No, I mean inside the room,’ Abbas insisted.

‘I think we store some carpets in there,’ said the Nawab Sahib. Turning to Ghulam Rusool, he asked: ‘What do we store in there?’

‘Sahib, they say it has been two years since that room was locked. It is all on a list with Murtaza Ali. I will ask him and inform you.’

‘Oh no, that’s not necessary,’ said the Nawab Sahib stroking his beard and trying to recall — for, to his surprise, it had slipped his mind — who used to use that particular room. ‘As long as it’s on a list,’ he said.

‘Tell us a ghost story, Nana-jaan,’ said Hassan, tugging at his grandfather’s right hand.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Abbas, who readily agreed with most of his elder brother’s suggestions, even when he did not understand what was being suggested. ‘Tell us a ghost story.’

‘No, no,’ said the Nawab Sahib. ‘All the ghost stories I know are very frightening and if I tell you one you’ll be so frightened you won’t be able to eat your lunch.’

‘We won’t be frightened,’ said Hassan.

‘Not frightened,’ said Abbas.

They reached the small room where lunch was awaiting them. The Nawab Sahib smiled to see his daughter, and washed his and his grandsons’ hands in a small washbasin with cool water from a nearby jug, and sat them down, each in front of a small thali into which food had already been served.

‘Do you know what your two sons are demanding of me?’ asked the Nawab Sahib.

Zainab turned to her children and scolded them.

‘I told you not to disturb your Nana-jaan in the library, but the moment my back is turned you do what you like. Now what have you been asking for?’

‘Nothing,’ said Hassan, rather sullenly.

‘Nothing,’ repeated Abbas, sweetly.

Zainab looked at her father with affection and thought of the days when she used to cling on to his hands and make her own importunate demands, often using his indulgence to get around her mother’s firmness. He was sitting on the rug in front of his silver thali with the same erect bearing that she remembered from her earliest childhood, but the thinness of the flesh on his cheekbones and the small square moth-holes on his immaculately starched kurta filled her with a sudden tenderness. It had been ten years since her mother had died — her own children only knew of her through photographs and stories — and those ten years of widowerhood had aged her father as twenty years would have done in the ordinary course of time.

‘What are they asking for, Abba-jaan?’ said Zainab with a smile.

‘They want a ghost story,’ said the Nawab Sahib. ‘Just like you used to.’

‘But I never asked for a ghost story at lunch,’ said Zainab.

To her children she said, ‘No ghost stories. Abbas, stop playing with your food. If you’re very good maybe you’ll get a story at night before you go to sleep.’

‘No, now! Now—’ said Hassan.

‘Hassan,’ said his mother warningly.

‘Now! Now!’ Hassan began crying and shouting.

The Nawab Sahib was quite distressed at his grandchildren’s insubordination towards their mother, and told them not to speak in this way. Good children, he made it clear, didn’t.

‘I hope they listen to their father at least,’ he said in mild rebuke.

To his horror he saw a tear roll down his daughter’s cheek. He put his arm around her shoulder, and said, ‘Is everything all right? Is everything all right there?’

It was the instinctive thing to say, but he realized as soon as he had said it that he should perhaps have waited until his grandchildren had finished their lunch and he was left alone with his daughter. He had heard indirectly that all was not well with his daughter’s marriage.

‘Yes, Abba-jaan. It’s just that I think I’m a little tired.’

He kept his arm around her till her tears had ceased. The children looked bewildered. However, some of their favourite food had been prepared and they soon forgot about their mother’s tears. Indeed, she too became involved in feeding them, especially the younger one, who was having trouble tearing the naan. Even the Nawab Sahib, looking at the picture the three of them made together, felt a little rush of painful happiness. Zainab was small, like her mother had been, and many of the gestures of affection or reproof that she made reminded him of those that his wife used to make when trying to get Firoz and Imtiaz to eat their food.

As if in response to his thoughts, Firoz now entered the room. Zainab and the children were delighted to see him.

‘Firoz Mamu, Firoz Mamu!’ said the children. ‘Why didn’t you have lunch with us?’

Firoz looked impatient and troubled. He placed his hand on Hassan’s head.

‘Abba-jaan, your munshi has arrived from Baitar. He wants to talk to you,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ said the Nawab Sahib, not happy about this demand on his time when he would rather have been talking to his daughter.

‘He wants you to come to the estate today. There is some crisis or other brewing.’

‘What manner of crisis?’ asked the Nawab Sahib. He did not relish the thought of a three-hour drive in a jeep in the April sun.

‘You’d better speak to him,’ said Firoz. ‘You know how I feel about your munshi. If you think that I should come with you to Baitar, or go instead of you, that’s all right. I don’t have anything on this afternoon. Oh yes, I do have a meeting with a client, but his case isn’t due to come up for a while, so I can postpone it.’

The Nawab Sahib got up with a sigh and washed his hands.

When he got to the anteroom where the munshi was waiting, he asked him brusquely what the matter was. Apparently, there were two problems, both brewing simultaneously. The main one was the perennial difficulty of realizing land-rent from the peasants. The Nawab Sahib did not like the strong-arm methods that the munshi was inclined to employ: the use of local toughs to deal with defaulters. As a result, collections had diminished, and the munshi now felt that the Nawab Sahib’s personal presence at Baitar Fort for a day or two and a private talk with a couple of local politicians would help matters considerably. Normally, the sly munshi would have been unwilling to involve his master in the stewardship of his own estate, but this was an exception. He had even brought along a small local landlord to confirm that matters were troubled and required the Nawab Sahib’s presence in the area immediately, not only on his own behalf but also because it would help the other landlords.

After a brief discussion (the other problem involved trouble at the local madrasa or school), the Nawab Sahib said: ‘I have some things to do this afternoon. But I’ll talk matters over with my son. Please wait here.’

Firoz said that on the whole he felt his father should go, if only to make sure that the munshi was not robbing him blind. He would come along as well and look at the accounts. They might well have to spend a night or two in Baitar, and he did not want his father to be by himself. As for Zainab, whom the Nawab Sahib was reluctant to leave ‘alone in the house’ as he put it, she was matter-of-fact about his departure, though sorry to see him go.

‘But Abba-jaan, you’ll be back tomorrow or the day after and I’m here for another week. Anyway, isn’t Imtiaz due to return tomorrow? And please don’t worry about me, I’ve lived in this house most of my life.’ She smiled. ‘Just because I’m now a married woman doesn’t mean that I am less capable of taking care of myself. I’ll spend my time gossiping in the zenana, and I’ll even take over your duty of telling the children a ghost story.’