Jerry Pinto - Em and the Big Hoom

I will be meeting with several of the suppliers. The problem, of course, is that we would like to deal with the Europeans but the government of India would like us to deal with the East Europeans. It’s a matter of bloc politics. Now, I was going to suggest to the French that they should set up a company, a small independent company with a branch in Prague. We could then deal with Prague and they could invoice us in francs through the holding company. You will point out that the currency is the rub, right? But it seems that the Communist bloc is quite pragmatic about these things; they would like to be paid in dollars so I suppose francs won’t upset the government too much.

There is the likelihood also that they might turn this down as too much work. But I think if we promise them an estimated 600 machines in the next three years, that’s almost a three per cent increase in their sales. That is why I want to deal with Corbeaux and not Franco. Franco would not get excited at the thought of 600 machines; they’d probably shrug and ask me to do business in the way business should be done.

I miss you very much but I need hardly say that. You would like Paris, I think. There’s a casual beauty about it, rather like yours.

All my love,

Augustine

His letters offered little. And Susan and I rarely asked him any questions about their meeting or their romance. By the time we were prying teenagers, The Big Hoom had become one of those solid-as-a-rock men of the world who rarely give the impression that they have a past or a private life.

Their courtship lasted nearly twelve years. Family legend says that they might have gone on for another twelve, perhaps forever. Imelda had moved on from ASL, found a job at the American Consulate that paid much better. Augustine met her outside her office every evening and they walked to their favourite bookshops, and occasionally went to the movies. They were happy enough doing this. But Em had a godmother and aunt, combined in one person, who wielded enormous moral power in the family, and when Em’s thirtieth birthday was coming up, her Tia Madrinha Louisa decided to take a hand in the matter of Augustine and Imelda and the bookshops.

One afternoon, two senior women, dressed in silk and magnificent Sunday hats, presented themselves at the offices of Ampersand Smith Limited. They asked to speak to A. G. Mendes and were ushered into his cabin.

‘You must forgive us for intruding upon you like this,’ said one of them in perfect Portuguese. ‘But we are only motivated by the love of the young ones of our family.’

Augustine goggled a bit.

‘I am sure you are,’ he replied in Portuguese for he had studied the language in school. ‘But you will forgive my incomprehension when you realize that I do not know who you are.’

‘We are not in the habit of introducing ourselves,’ said the older lady. ‘I suggest you ask Mr Andrade who works here with you to introduce us.’

Under normal circumstances, Augustine would have simply thrown back his head and roared for Andy. But something told him this might startle the old ladies into dropping their large purses, shiny patent leather objects with wicked golden clasps. He called a peon and asked if Mr Andrade might not be free to drop by.

Andrade came in and sized up the situation in a moment. He put on a formal air and proceeded to make introductions as if the two women had been strolling in the prasa and had come upon Augustine quite by chance. He gestured to Augustine that he should rise to his feet and with the same, almost imperceptible, gesture indicated that it was not necessary for the ladies to rise.

‘Dona Bertha, Dona Louisa, may I present my good friend, Augustine Mendes? This young man has a bright future at the sales department here, ladies. And these ladies, Agostinho, are my mother’s close friends. She has known them for many years. Perhaps you have some acquaintance with the daughter of one who is also the niece of the other and who worked with us for some years.’

That was when things fell into place for Augustine. Andrade asked to be excused and left.

And so the young engineer was left in his cabin with the battleaxes.

He didn’t do too badly. He offered them tea and biscuits. They were very impressed that the biscuits were British. Word had got around. Perhaps Andy had told the staff that it was an important meeting for AGM, a decisive one, and the staff had rallied.

‘The Big Hoom told me later that they were very formal and polite,’ Em said.

The exchange, from what I have gathered, went something like this:

‘Our circumstances are not what they once were,’ says the elder woman. ‘Bertha was driven from her home in Burma by Herr Hitler. Very little was left.’

‘Our chemist shops,’ Bertha adds. ‘And the this-thing.’

‘Teak plantation,’ says Louisa. ‘She means the teak plantation.’

‘That’s what I this-thing,’ says Bertha. Louisa ignores her.

‘I see,’ says Augustine, although he doesn’t. He hasn’t yet learnt his future mother-in-law’s conversational style.

‘But much wants thissing-thissing,’ Bertha says.

‘Much wants more,’ says Louisa. ‘And enough is a feast.’

It becomes clear to Augustine that he is confronted by a double act. (They had always been close, but over time, Bertha and Louisa had got to the point where they could finish each other’s sentences.)

Louisa: Where are you from?

Augustine: Moira.

Louisa: That is a good village.

Bertha: Thissing.

Augustine: Pardon me?

Louisa: Christian.

Augustine: Yes, I suppose it is.

Louisa: Are you related to F.X. Mendes of Astora?

Augustine: No, I don’t think so.

Bertha: He was our thissing.

Louisa: Father.

Augustine: The editor F.X. Mendes?

Bertha: Yes.

Augustine: I have heard of him.

Augustine is not being facetious. He really has. F.X. Mendes had conducted, through the civilized medium of his newspaper, a case against the toilet of a wealthy brahmin. The facts: the brahmin’s home faced a plot, long unused, upon which he had had his eye. One day, he discovered that it had been bought by a man of unquestionably lower caste. He also discovered that the low-caste man was intent on building on his land and was going to build a house, by virtue of funds supplied to him by his brothers who were settled in East Africa and doing ‘quite well for themselves’, a term by which opprobrium and praise — in equal measure — may be heaped upon those who try to get beyond their station. And to build a house right in front of that of the only rich man in the village — and a brahmin — was an act of hubris that demanded a suitable response. At that time, no one thought much of having an outhouse, a pig toilet at which an eager porcine nose might suddenly meet one’s rear end as one squatted. The rich man had a bright idea. He would build an indoor toilet. He would build it so that it came very close to the living room of his new neighbour. He would then fart in the upstart’s face each morning.

It was this terrible plan that F.X. Mendes worked to foil. It is entirely likely that he ran other campaigns. It is entirely likely that he opposed Portuguese rule or supported it fervently. No one knows. No one remembers. They only remember that F.X. Mendes fought the toilet case and won it. Depending on who is telling it, there is either admiration at the old man’s stubborn insistence on the rights of the poor or incredulity that newspaper columns should concern themselves with such petty matters.

Bertha and Louisa must have both peered into his face to see on which side of the divide Augustine fell. To have a famous father can be a terrible burden.

Augustine: My brothers often said he wrote beautiful Portuguese.