Amit Chaudhuri - A New World

Most of the residents of these flats — these ones before him — weren’t Bengali. They’d tried to make a cheerful go of it, the way settlers bring with them the sense of space that belongs to another culture, two potted plants like insignia outside one of the doors, with lavish leaves; hard to know how they, the plants, made do with so little light. Another door had collapsible gates before it, which meant that, ordinary-looking though the flat might be from the outside, its occupant was far more well-to-do than the Admiral, and possibly had undeclared cash inside; or probably it was ancestral jewellery. The smell of Rajasthani cooking, intimate to strangers, hovered in the corridor here. Another door, at this end of the corridor, had been left inadvertently open, as if suggesting that passers-by were welcome — and in all possibility guests kept coming in all day, and children too kept the door open as they rushed out into the corridor; but the next flat, with a dining table, like the skeleton of some maritime vessel, at the centre, and a tricycle Jayojit could see abandoned by the door, which too had been left open, was barred by an iron gate.

The lift hadn’t arrived yet. And there was that humidity that made life difficult just before the monsoons. As Jayojit stood there indecisively, the edges of his spectacles already beginning to steam over, not certain if he should go back, he glimpsed, at the other end of the corridor, a movement he thought he recognized. It was someone he’d come to know from previous visits, the man who looked at his father occasionally, Dr. Sen. He’d just arrived on the landing of the fourth storey. He lived in this building, on the eighth floor. Last time had been a time not only of emotional upheaval but of minor illnesses — Jayojit had had a stomach infection, and the Admiral had had high blood pressure. Jayojit’s mother had the hardest time of all, because she’d been in perfect health. At that time, Dr. Sen had come to the flat a few times, refusing to take, to Jayojit’s disbelief, more than fifty rupees per visit — these days, when it was rumoured that doctors in Calcutta charged two hundred rupees for making calls at home!

He had once lived in London in “digs” when studying for his M.R.C.P. exams: but this whole matter of being a doctor he’d come to take in a disinterested spirit. He was never surprised by an illness, and even when writing out a prescription would be quick to go on to talk about other things — the present Marxist government was one of the “other things” that kept cropping up — at whose expense he made some tentative but effective jokes. Jayojit saw him as something of a Bengali gentleman, the bhadralok and healer personified. He had said:

“I didn’t know there were any Bengalis left in the building!”

“You know Bengalis,” the doctor had said in his shy, lambent diction, “they only come out during the Pujas. Then you’ll see them — heh, heh — bowing before Ma Durga! Others, of course, l-like y-you, live abroad, and keep the flats locked up, or give out the flats to Marwaris. Most of the Marwaris are tenants.” He had shaken his head and made a softly uttered judgement. “It’s spoiling the building.” What he meant exactly he hadn’t clarified.

They had continued to refer to each other in the formal way, as “aapni” rather than “tumi,” for the first month they’d known each other, until Jayojit interjected, “I may be a father and I may have been a husband, but really, I’m much younger than you.” After the second meeting, he’d told the doctor about his divorce, the court case, how he’d refused to recognize the verdict and brought the matter to India; and Dr. Sen had listened with proper astonishment and sympathy, as if he could not believe that these things, which he’d only remotely heard about, could actually happen to real people; people with minor complaints like colds, who had fathers who were ageing and stubborn. Part of his surprise was that Jayojit should be the incarnation of this breakdown; such a fine “boy,” educated abroad, obviously doing well in America, earning a sizeable amount in dollars, a person who should be eminently desirable, a “catch,” not a divorcé. Despite the gap in their age of sixteen years, they’d had long conversations and had come to exchange confidences about their respective problems. He’d even known the second girl’s family— Arundhati, with whom his parents wanted to set up something. “I–I’ll put in a good word,” he’d said, smiling but quite serious. “No, no that family’s a good one, known them for years.” Then, when things hadn’t worked out in the end, “Please, don’t misunderstand. . but I heard ,” emphasizing that word, as if he’d picked up the information in the air, “I may be wrong, they said the man wants not a wife as much as a governess to look after his child. .” Then silence, a silence that explained more things than actions could. “But are things all right now?” Dr. Sen had asked, ruminating, that summer.

“Things can never be all right , I guess,” Jayojit had said, “but my son will be with me for at least part of the year.” Had Jayojit imagined it, or had the doctor, since then, spoken to him with a special gentleness? But no one’s life is perfect; the doctor himself was involved in a litigation with his brother, a property dispute: it had been going on for years. Saddened, he now wanted to end the dispute and let his brother have the property, which was somewhere on the outskirts of Calcutta. “Keep it, I want to say to him,” he’d told Jayojit, almost wearily, reminiscently. “I don’t want it.” Yet the doctor had achieved a sort of composure by taking regular walks and keeping to a strict diet; “Exercise is important,” he’d said in some context during a visit.

“Dr. Sen!”

The figure, about to descend the flight of stairs, looked vaguely in Jayojit’s direction.

Jayojit found himself walking fast towards him, down the corridor he’d been looking at absently so far. He moved quickly but heavily — because of the heat, and the excess weight he’d gained in the last few months.

“Dr. Sen!” he repeated, coming closer.

The doctor didn’t respond at first, but as Jayojit came nearer, recognition came.

“What a surprise!” he said, smiling. Then, “Jayojit! A-ARE you well? When did you come back?”

The same soft, almost liquid way of speaking.

“It’s been about three weeks — a month,” said Jayojit, thinking back briefly. “But tell me, Dr. Sen, how are you?”

“Strange. .” said the doctor, musing seriously. “I haven’t seen you. .” Then a smile returned to his face as unexpectedly. “Well, things go on. Nothing to report from here,” he laughed gently, using the English word “report” in his sentence. A black crow, oddly majestic, alighted at the window of the lower landing.

The doctor was wearing a greyish-green t-shirt and trousers — there had evidently been no change in his appearance in these past nine months. He was balding, but looked much younger than his fifty-six years; for he had a light, quick stride — unlike, for instance, Jayojit’s father, who ambled heavily. It must be his regular exercises, his long walks in the compound and down the lane (he always walked alone, never with his wife) that kept him trim. In many ways, in fact, he led a bachelor’s life (it was difficult to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Sen). The spectacles he wore did not succeed in giving him a focused look, but dispersed the direction of his gaze. He was about four inches shorter than Jayojit — who wondered, for an instant, how the doctor’s court case was going.

“Heh — I got tired of waiting for the lift,” said the doctor with a chuckle, as if he felt the need to explain, now that he’d been seen doing it, the purpose of embarking on this unusual adventure of going down eight flights of stairs. “But one can’t do this all the time.” A man of great energy, apparently, something belied by the slowness of his speech. Then: