Although I get tired working in the shop all day, once I reach home I forget all about it. I change into an old cotton sari and tuck it around my waist and I sing as I cook. Sometimes he is at home but not often, and usually only if he is sick with a cold. What a fuss he makes then; I have to take his temperature many times and prepare hot drinks and crush pills in honey and altogether feel very sorry for him. That’s the best time, especially since he forgets quite soon about being sick and wants to amuse himself and me. How we laugh then, what a fine time we have! He doesn’t seem to miss his friends and coffeehouses and all those places one bit but is as happy to be at home with me as I am to be with him. Next evening, of course, he is off again, but I don’t mind, for I know it’s necessary—not only because he is a very sociable person but because it is for business contacts too.
I’m used to waiting up for him quite late, so I was not worried that night at all. When my cooking was finished, I sat at the table waiting for him. I love these hours; it is silent and peaceful and the clock ticks and I have many pleasant thoughts. I know that soon I will hear his step on the stairs, and the door will open and he will be there. I smile to myself, sitting there at the table with my head supported on my hand, full of drowsy thoughts. Sometimes I nod off and those thoughts turn into dreams on the same subject. But I always start up at the sound of his steps—only his steps, because that night Daddy was already in the room, calling my name, before I woke up. Then I jumped to my feet. I knew something terrible had happened.
When Daddy said that Rajee had been arrested, I sank down again onto my chair. I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t speak. Daddy thought it was with shock, but of course it was out of relief. I had imagined far worse. It took me some time to realize that this too was very bad. I knew Daddy thought it was the worst thing there could be. He was so badly affected that I had to make him lie down while I prepared tea for him. I also served him the meal I had cooked for Rajee and myself. Daddy ate both our portions. Now that he is old, he seems to need a great deal of food and is always ready to eat at any hour, whatever his state of mind may be.
But when he had finished this time, he became very upset again. He pushed away the dish and said, “Yes, yes, yes, I knew how it would be.”
Of course, this was no time to start defending Rajee. In any case, I have long stopped doing so. I know it isn’t so much Rajee that Daddy doesn’t like but the fact that I’m married to him and have not become any of the grand things Daddy wanted.
“A case of cheating and impersonation,” Daddy said now. “A criminal case.”
I cried, “But where is he?”
“In jail! In prison! Jail!”
Daddy moaned, and so did I. I thought of Rajee sitting in a cell. I could see him sitting there and the expression on his face. I put my head down on the table and sobbed. I could not stop.
After a while Daddy began to pat my back. He didn’t know what else to do; unlike Rajee, he has never been good at comforting people. I wiped my eyes and said as steadily as I could, “What about bail?”
That made Daddy excited again; he cried, “Five thousand rupees! Where should we take it from?”
No, we didn’t have five thousand rupees. Daddy only had his pension, and Rajee and I only had my salary from the shop. Again I saw Rajee sitting there, but I quickly shut my eyes against this unbearable vision.
I made Daddy comfortable on our bed and told him I would be back soon. He wanted to know where I was going. He asked how I could go alone in the streets at this time of night, but he was too tired to protest much. I think he was already asleep when I left. I had to walk all the way through the empty streets. I wasn’t frightened, although there had lately been some bad cases in the newspapers of women being attacked. I had other things to think about, and chief among them at the moment was how I could wake up Sudha without waking the rest of her household. But this turned out to be no problem at all, because it was she who came to the door as soon as I knocked. I think she hadn’t gone to sleep yet, although it was two o’clock in the morning. No one else stirred in the house.
When I told her, she had a dreadful shock. I think she had the same vision of him that I had. I put out my hand to touch her, but she pushed me away. The expression of pain on her face turned to one of anger. She said, “Why do you come here? What should I do?” Of course she knew what it was I wanted. She said, “I haven’t got it.” Then she shouted, “Do you know how long I haven’t seen him! How many days!”
I looked around nervously, and she laughed. She said, “Don’t worry. He wouldn’t wake up if the house fell down.” She was right; I could hear her husband snoring, with those fat sounds fat people make in their sleep. “Listen,” she said. “It’s the same every night. He eats his meal and then—” She imitated the snoring sounds. “And I can’t sleep. I walk round the house, thinking. Does Rajee talk about me to you? What does he say?”
I didn’t know what to answer. I had already suspected that Rajee did not like to be with her as much as before, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Also, this was not the time to talk about it. I had to have the money from her. I had to. There was no other way.
When I said nothing, her face became hard. She and I have known each other for a long time—we were at college together—but I have always been a bit afraid of her. She is a very passionate person. “Go!” she said to me now, and her voice was hard. “How dare you come here? Aren’t you ashamed?”
“Where else can I go?”
We were silent. Her husband snored.
I said, “I had cooked fish curry for him tonight, he loves it so much. Do you think they gave him anything to eat there? You know how particular he is about his food.”
She shrugged, like someone to whom this is of no concern. But I knew these were not her true feelings, so I continued. “Will he be able to sleep? I don’t know if they give beds. Perhaps there are other people with him in the cell—bad characters. I’ve heard there are many people who share each cell, there is such overcrowding nowadays. And there are no facilities for them, only one bucket, and they take away their belts and shoelaces, because they are afraid that—”
“Be quiet!”
She went out of the room, stumbling over a footstool in her hurry. I could hear her in the bedroom, rattling keys and banging drawers. She took absolutely no care about making a noise, but the sounds from her husband went on undisturbed. I waited for her. I didn’t like being here. The room was furnished with costly things, but they were not in good taste. I have always disliked coming here. The atmosphere is not good, probably because she and her husband don’t like each other.
At last she came back. She didn’t have cash, but she gave me some jewelry. She had wrapped it in a cloth, which she thrust into my hands. Then she said, “Go, go, go,” but that was not necessary, for I was already on my way out.
Rajee came home the next evening. I wished we could have been alone, but Daddy and Sudha were also there. Rajee smiled at them, but they both averted their eyes from him and then his smile faded. He didn’t know what to say. Neither did I.
Rajee is so good-humored and sociable that he hates it when the atmosphere is like that, and he feels he has to do something to cheer everyone up again. He rubbed his hands and said, “Nice to be home,” in a cheerful, smiling voice.
Sudha shot him a burning look. Her eyes are already large enough, but they look even larger because of the kohl with which she outlines them.
“North, South, East, West, home is best,” Rajee said.
“Fool! Idiot!” Sudha screamed.
There was a silence, in which we seemed to be listening to the echo of this scream. Then Rajee said, “Please let me explain.”
“What is there to explain?” Daddy said. “Cheating, impersonation—”
“A mistake,” Rajee said.
They were silent in a rather grim way, as if waiting to hear what he had to say. He cleared his throat a few times and spread his hands and began a long story. It was very involved and got more and more so as he went on. It was all about some man he had met in the coffeehouse who had seemed an honest, decent person but had turned out not to be so. It was he who had drawn Rajee into this deal, which also had turned out not to be as honest and decent as Rajee had thought. I didn’t listen very carefully; I was watching the two others to see what impression he was making on them. Rajee too was watching them, and every now and again he stopped to scan their faces, and then he ran his tongue over his lips and went on talking faster. He didn’t once look at me, though; he knew it didn’t make any difference to me what he said, because I was on his side anyway.
Rajee is a very good talker, and I could see that Sudha and Daddy were wavering. But of course they weren’t happy yet, and they continued to sit there with very glum faces. So then Rajee, sincerely anxious to cheer them up, said to me, “How about some tea? And a few biscuits, if you have any?” He smiled and winked at me, and I also smiled and went away to make the tea.
When I came back, Daddy was arguing with Rajee. Daddy was saying, “But is this the way to do business? In a coffeehouse, with strangers, is this the way to make a living?” Rajee was proving to him that it was. He told him all big deals were made this way. He gave him a lot of examples of fortunes that had been made just by two or three people meeting by chance—how apartment houses had been bought and sold, and a new sugar mill set up with all imported machinery by special government license. It was all a matter of luck and skill and being there at the right time. I knew all these stories, for Rajee had told them to me many times. He loves telling them and thinking about them; they are his inspiration in life. It is because of them, I think, that he gets up in such good humor every day and hums to himself while shaving and dresses up smartly and goes out with a shining, smiling face.
But Daddy remained glum. It is not in his nature to believe such stories. He is retired now, but all through his working life he never got up in good humor or ever went to his office with high expectations. All he ever expected was his salary, and afterward his pension, and that is all he ever got.
“Do you know about Verma Electricals, how they started—have you any idea?” Rajee said, flushed with excitement. But Daddy said, “It would be better to get some regular job.”
Rajee smiled politely. He could have pointed out—only he didn’t, because he is always very careful of people’s feelings—that the entire salary that Daddy had earned throughout his thirty-five years of government service was less than Rajee can expect to make out of one of his deals.
Now Daddy started to get excited. His lips trembled and his hands fumbled about in the air. He said, “If you—Then she—she—she—” He pointed at me with a shaking finger. We all knew what he meant. If Rajee got a job, then I wouldn’t have to go to work in the shop.
I said, “I like it.”
Daddy got more excited. He stammered and his hands waved frantically in the air as if they were searching for the words that wouldn’t come to him. Rajee tried to soothe him. He kept saying, “Please, Daddy.” He was afraid for his heart.
And, indeed, Daddy’s hands suddenly left off fumbling in the air and clutched his side instead. He must have got one of his tremors. He started whimpering like a child. Rajee jumped up and kept saying, “Oh my goodness.” He took Daddy’s arm to lead him to our sofa and make him lie down there. Rajee said several times, “Now keep quite calm,” but in fact it was he who was the most excited.
I got Daddy’s pills and Sudha got water and Rajee ran for pillows. Daddy lay on the sofa, with his eyes shut. He looked quite exhausted, as if he didn’t want to say or think anything more. Rajee kept fussing over him, but after a time there was nothing more to be done. Daddy was all right and fast asleep. Rajee said to me, “Sit with him.” I took a cane stool and sat by the sofa holding Daddy’s hand.
But I wasn’t thinking of him, I was watching the other two. There was going to be a big scene between them, I knew. Rajee also knew it, and he was very uncomfortable. Sudha lounged in a chair in the middle of the room, with her legs stretched out before her under her sari. She was wearing a brilliant emerald silk sari and gold-and-diamond earrings. She seemed too large and too splendid for our little room. Everything in the room appeared very shabby—the old black oilcloth sofa with the white cotton stuffing bulging out where the material has split; the rickety little table with the cane unwinding like apple peel from the legs; last year’s free calendar hanging from a nail on the wall, which hasn’t been whitewashed for a long time. I only notice these things when she is here. She makes everything look shabby—me included. Only Rajee matches up to her. Even now, after a night in jail, he looked plump and prosperous, and he shone the way she did.
He was waiting for her to say something, but she only looked at him from under her big lids, half lowered over her big eyes. It seemed she was waiting for him to speak first. He started telling her about Daddy’s heart—about the attack last year and how careful we have had to be since then and how we always keep his pills handy. Suddenly she interrupted him. She did this in a strange way—by clutching the top part of her sari and pulling it down from her breasts. She commanded, “Look!”
What was he to look at? At her big breasts that swelled from out of her low-cut blouse? Modestly—because of Daddy and me being in the room—he lowered his eyes, but she repeated, “Look, look,” in an impatient voice. She struck her hand against her bared throat.
“Your necklace,” he murmured uncomfortably.
She threw a savage look in my direction, so that I felt I had to defend myself. I said to Rajee, “Where else could I get it from? Five thousand!”
He shook his head, as if rebuking me. This infuriated her, and she began to shout at me. She cried, “Yes, you should have left him there in jail where he belongs!”
“Sh-h-h, sh-h-h,” said Rajee, afraid she might wake up Daddy.
She lowered her voice but went on with the same fury. “It’s the place where you belong. Because you are not only a cheat but a thief also. Can you deny it? Try. Say, ‘No, I’m not a thief.’ No? Then what about that time in my house?” She turned to me. “I never told you, but now I will show you what sort of a person you are married to.”
I didn’t look at her but stared straight in front of me.
“I’ll make him tell you himself. Tell her!” she ordered him, but the next moment she was shouting, “The servant caught him! He called me, ‘Quick, quick, come quick, Memsahib,’ and when I went into the room, yes, there he was with his hand right inside my purse. Oh, how he looked then! I will never, never, never forget as long as I live his face at that moment!” She flung her hands before her face like someone who didn’t want to see.
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“Ask him!”
“I don’t believe you.”
Our clock ticked. It is a round battered old metal clock, and it ticks with a loud metal sound. Usually, when I am alone here sitting quietly at the table waiting for him, I like that sound; it is soothing and homely to me. But now, in the silence that had fallen between us, it was like a sick heart beating.
When Sudha spoke again, it was in quite a different voice. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I don’t care at all.” Then she said, “Whatever you need, you think I wouldn’t give? Would I ever say no to you? If you want, take these too. Here—” She put up her hands to her earrings. “No, take them. Take,” she said as he held out his hand to restrain her, though she did not go any farther in unhooking them. “That’s all nothing. I don’t care one jot. I only care that you haven’t come. For so long you haven’t come to me. Every Tuesday afternoon, every Thursday, I got ready for you and I waited and waited—Why are you looking at her!” she cried, for Rajee had glanced nervously in my direction. “Who is she to grudge me those few hours with you, when she has taken everything else!”
She got up from where she had been sprawled in the chair. I didn’t know what she was going to do. She looked capable of anything; the room seemed too small for all she seemed capable of doing. I think Rajee felt the same, and that is why he took her away.
We have one more room besides this one, but we have to cross an open passage to get to it. This is a nuisance during the rains, when sometimes we have to use an umbrella to go from our bedroom to our sitting room. We run across the passage under the umbrella, holding each other close. Now he was taking Sudha through our passage. I heard him shut the door and draw the big metal bolt from inside.
I was left alone with Daddy, who was sleeping with his mouth dropped open. He looked an old, old man. The clock ticked, loud as a hammer. I tried not to think of Rajee and Sudha in our bedroom, just as I always tried not to think of them in her house on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons (the days her husband goes to visit his factory at Saharanpur). Sometimes it is not good to think too much. Why dwell on things that can’t be helped? Or on those that are over and done with? That is why I also don’t look back on the past very much. There was a time when I didn’t know Rajee but Sudha did. Of course she often spoke to me about him—I was her best friends—but I didn’t meet him till I had to start taking letters between them. That was the time her family was arranging her marriage, and she and Rajee were planning to elope together. Well, it all turned out differently, so what is the use of thinking back now to what was then?
Daddy woke up. He looked around the room and asked where the other two were. I said Sudha had gone home and Rajee was sleeping in the bedroom because he was very tired after last night. Daddy groaned at the mention of last night. He said, “Do you know what it could mean? Seven years rigorous imprisonment.”
“No, no, Daddy,” I said. I wasn’t a bit frightened; I didn’t believe it for a moment.
“You may look in the penal code. Cheating and impersonation, Section four twenty.”
“It was all a mistake, Daddy. While you were sleeping, he explained everything to me.”
I didn’t want to hear anything more, and there was only one way I knew to keep him quiet. Although I couldn’t find anything except one rather soft banana, he was glad to have even that. I watched him peeling it and chewing slowly, mulling it around in his mouth to make the most of every bite. Whenever I watch him eat nowadays, I feel he is not going to live much longer. I feel the same when I see him looking at the leaves moving on a tree. He enjoys these things like a person for whom they are not going to be there much longer.
He said, “How will you stay alone for seven years?”
I said, “No, Daddy.”
I was saying no, it wouldn’t happen, Rajee wouldn’t be away for seven years, and also I was saying no, Daddy, I won’t be alone, you won’t die.
But he went on. “Yes, alone. You will be alone. I won’t be here.”
He turned away his face from me. I strained my ears toward the bedroom. But of course it was too far away, with the passage in between, to hear anything.
Daddy said, “These government regulations are very unfair. If there is a widow, the pension is paid to her, but otherwise it stops. Often I think if I had saved, but how was it possible? With high rent and college fees and other expenses?”
Daddy used to spend a lot of money on me. He sent me to the best school and college, where girls from much richer families went. He also tried to buy me the same sort of clothes that those girls had, so that I should not feel inferior to them.
I said, “I’m all right. I have my job.”
“Your job!”
Daddy has always hated it that I work as cashier in a shop. Of course, from his point of view, and after all that expense and education, it isn’t very much, but it is enough for Rajee and me to live on.
“They wanted a graduate. I couldn’t have got it if I weren’t a graduate.” I said this to make him feel better and show him his efforts had not been wasted. “And sometimes there are some quite difficult calculations, so it’s good I did all that maths at college.”
“For this?” Daddy said, making the grubbing movement of counting coins with which he always refers to my job.
“Never mind,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”
Whenever we speak about this subject, we end up in the same way. Daddy used to have very high hopes for me. There were only the two of us, because my mother had died when I was born and Daddy didn’t care for the rest of the family and had broken off relations with them. He cared only for me. He was proud because I did well at school and always stood first in arithmetic and English composition. At that time he used to read a lot. It’s funny: nowadays he doesn’t read at all; you would think in his retirement he would be reading all the time, but he doesn’t—not even the newspaper. But at that time he was particularly fond of reading H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw, and was keen for me to become like the women in their books. He said there was no need for me to get married; he said why should I be like the common run of girls. No, I must be free and independent and the equal of men in everything. He wanted me to smoke cigarettes, and even began to smoke himself so as to encourage me. (I didn’t like the taste, so we both stopped.)
Now he said, “If he has to go, it would be better to give up this place and stay somewhere as paying guest.”
“He doesn’t have to go!”
“Or perhaps you can stay with a friend. What about her? What is her name?”
“Sudha? You want me to go and stay with her?”
I laughed and laughed; only at some point I stopped. I don’t know if he noticed the difference. He may not have, because I was sitting on the floor with my knees drawn up and my face buried in them. All he would be able to see was my shoulders shaking, and that could be laughing or crying.
But I think he wasn’t taking much notice of me. I think he was more interested in his own thoughts. He has a lot of thoughts always; I can tell because I can see him sunk into them and mumbling to himself and sometimes mumbling out loud. Perhaps that’s the reason he doesn’t read anymore. I looked at him; he was shaking his head and smiling to himself. Well, at least he was thinking something pleasant that made him happy.
And I could think only of Sudha and Rajee in there in our bedroom! You would have said—anyone would have said—that I had the right to go and bang on the door and shout, “What are you doing! Come out of there!” I should have done it.
Daddy said, “The time I liked best was the exams. I watched you go in with the others and I knew you would do better than any of them. I was sure of it.”
He chuckled to himself in the triumphant way he used to when the results came out and I had done well. He had always accompanied me right up to the door of the examination hall, and as I went in he shouted after me, “Remember! First Class first!” flexing the muscles of his arm as if to give me strength. It used to be rather embarrassing—everyone stared—and I hurried in, pretending not to be the person addressed. But I was glad to see him when I came out again and he was standing there waiting, always with some special thing he knew I liked, such as a bag of chili chips.
He had stopped chuckling. Now his face was sad. He turned up his hand and held it out empty. “In the end, what is there?” he said. “Nothing. Ashes.”
Well, I couldn’t sit there listening to such depressing talk! I jumped up. I went straight through the passage, and now I did bang on the door. The bolt was drawn back and Rajee opened the door. He said, “One minute. She is going now.”
I said, “I told Daddy she has gone home.”
Rajee understood the problem at once. We have only one entrance door, and to get to that Sudha would have to pass through the sitting room and walk past Daddy. He would be surprised to see her back again.
Rajee told me to wait till he called. He went into the sitting room. I heard him talk to Daddy in a loud, cheerful voice. I went into the bedroom. Sudha was buttoning up her blouse. She didn’t take much notice of me but only glanced at me over her shoulder and went on straightening her sari and fixing her hair. She did not look happy or satisfied; on the contrary, her eyes and cheeks were swollen with tears, and I think she was still crying, without making any sound.
At last Rajee called. Sudha and I walked through the passage and into the sitting room. I made her walk on the far side of Daddy, along the wall, and Rajee had also got between us and Daddy to shield us from view. He was stirring something in a cup. “Just wait till you taste this, Daddy,” he was saying. “It is called Rajee’s Special. Once tasted, never forgotten.” Daddy’s attention was all on this cup, and he had even stretched out his hands for it. Sudha walked along the wall with her sari pulled over her head, not looking right or left. I think she was still crying. I took her as far as the stairs and I said, “Be careful,” because there was no light on the stairs. She managed to grope her way down, though I didn’t wait to see. I was in a hurry to get back into the room.
I said, “Daddy had better go home now, before it gets too late.”
“How can he go?” Rajee said. “He is not well; he must stay here with us.”
Suddenly I became terribly angry with Rajee. Perhaps I had been angry all the time—only now it came out. I began to shout at him. I shouted about the disgrace of getting arrested, but it wasn’t only that; in fact, that was the least of it. Once I get angry, I find it very difficult to stop. New thoughts keep coming up, making me more angry, and I feel shaken through and through. I said many things I didn’t mean.
Daddy joined in from time to time, saying what a disgrace it was to the family. The worse things I said the better pleased he was. When I showed signs of running down, he encouraged me to start up again. He listened attentively with his head to one side, so as not to miss anything, and whenever he thought I had scored a good point he thrust his forefinger up into the air and shouted, “Right! Correct!” He had become quite bright and perky again.
But Rajee sat there hunched together and with his head bowed, letting me say whatever I wanted, even when I called him a cheat and a liar and a thief. He sat there quiet and looking guilty. Then I wished that he would speak and rouse himself and perhaps get angry in return. I stopped every time I had said something very bad, so that he might defend himself. But it was always Daddy who spoke. “Right,” he said. “Correct,” till at last I cried, “Oh, please be quiet, Daddy!”
“No,” Rajee said. “He is right. I deserve everything you say, all the names you are calling me, for having worried you so much.”
“Worried me about what?”
Rajee looked up in surprise. He made a vague gesture, as if too ashamed to mention what had happened.
“About what?”
Rajee lowered his eyes again.
“Oh, you think that’s all,” I said. “That you have been in jail. You think that’s the worst thing you have done. Ha.”
He looked quite blank. The idiot! Did he think that was nothing—to have been in our bedroom alone with Sudha? Was it so small a thing? Then I longed to do more than only shout at him. I longed really to strike and beat him. If only Daddy would go away!
Daddy said, “I’m very tired. I will stay here tonight.”
“Yes, yes, quite right.” Rajee jumped up. He got sheets and pillows and made up Daddy’s bed on the sofa. Afterward he turned down the sheet like a professional nurse and helped Daddy undress and arranged him comfortably. He spent rather a long time on all this, and appeared quite engrossed in it. I realized he was putting off being alone with me.
But I could wait. Soon Daddy would be asleep and then we would be alone. He would not be able to get away from me. I crossed the passage into our bedroom. I looked around carefully. It was as usual. There seemed to be no trace of Sudha left. It is strange: she has a very strong smell—partly because she is heavy and perspires heavily and partly because of the strong perfumes she wears—but though I sniffed and sniffed the air, I found that nothing of her remained.
I stepped up close to the mirror to look at myself. I often do it—not so much because I’m interested in myself but because of a desire to check up on how I look to Rajee. I haven’t changed much from the time he first knew me. I think small, skinny girls like me don’t change as fast as big ones like Sudha. If it weren’t for my long hair, I still could be taken either for a boy or a girl. When I was a child, people had difficulty in telling which I was because Daddy always had my hair cut short. He had a theory that it was a woman’s long hair that was to blame for her lack of freedom. But later, when I grew bigger, I envied the other girls their thick, long hair, in which they wore ornaments and flowers, and I would no longer allow mine to be cut. It never grew very thick, though. Sometimes I try to wear a flower, but my hair is too thin to hold it and the flower droops and looks odd, so that sooner or later I snatch it out and throw it away.
Rajee called to ask if I wanted tea. I called back no. I realized he only wanted to put off the moment for us to be alone together. I felt angry and grim. But when he did come I stopped feeling like that. He stood in the door, trying to scan my face to see my mood. He tried to smile at me. He looked terribly tired, with rings under his eyes.
“Lie down,” I said. “Go to sleep now.” My voice shook, I had such deep feeling for him at that moment.
He was very much relieved that I had stopped being angry. He flung himself on the bed like a person truly exhausted. I squatted on the bed beside him and rubbed my fingers to and fro in his soft hair. He had his eyes shut and looked at peace.
After a time, I whispered, “Was it very bad?”
Without opening his eyes, he answered, “Only at first. Don’t stop. I like it.” I went on rubbing my fingers in his hair. “At first of course it was a shock, though everyone was quite polite. They allowed me to take a taxi, and two policemen accompanied me.”
“They didn’t—?” I asked. I had been thinking about this all the time, and it made me shudder more than anything. So often in the streets I had seen people led away to jail, and their wrists were handcuffed and they were fastened to a policeman with a long chain.
“Oh no,” he said. He knew what I meant at once. “They could see they were dealing with a gentleman. The policemen were very respectful to me, and they accepted cigarettes from me and smoked them in the taxi, though they were on duty. And when we got there everyone was quite nice. They were quite apologetic that this had to be done.” He opened his eyes and said, “I wish you hadn’t taken the money from Sudha.”
“Then from where?” I cried.
“Yes, I know. But I wish—”
“Should I have left you there?”
“No no, of course not.” He spoke quickly, as if afraid that I would get angry again. And to prevent this from happening he pulled me down beside him and pressed me close and held me.
He seemed eager to tell me about the jail. He always likes to tell me everything, and I sit up for him at night and try to keep awake, however late he comes, because I know he is coming home with a lot to tell. Every day something exciting happens to him, and he loves to repeat it to me in every detail. Well, it seemed that even in jail he had had a good time, and it wasn’t at all like what I had thought.
“You see,” he explained, “before trial we are kept quite separate and we are allowed all sorts of facilities. It’s really more like a hotel. Of course, there are guards, but they don’t bother you at all. On the contrary, if they see you are a better-class person they like to help you. I met some very interesting people there—really some quite topnotch people; you’d be surprised.”
I was surprised. I had no idea it could be like that. But that is one of the wonderful things about Rajee—wherever he goes, whatever he does, something good and exciting happens to him.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I made a very good contact. Something interesting could come of it. Wait, I’ll tell you.”
I knew he wanted his cigarettes—he always likes to smoke when he has something nice to tell—so I got out of bed and brought them for him. He lit up, and we lay again side by side on the bed.
“There was this person in the patent-medicine line, who had been in for several days. It took time to arrange for his bail, because it was for a very big amount. There is a big case against him. Everyone—all the guards and everyone—was very respectful to him, and he was good to them too. He knew how to handle them. His food and other things came from outside, and he also had cases of beer and always saw to it that the guards had their share. Naturally, they did everything they could to oblige him. And they were very careful with me too, because they could see he had taken a great liking to me.”
That was nothing new. Wherever he goes, people take a great liking to Rajee and do all sorts of things for him and want to keep him in their company.
“He insisted I should eat with him, though as a matter of fact I wasn’t very hungry, I was still rather upset. But the food was so delicious—such wonderful kebabs, I wish you could have tasted them. And plenty of beer with it, and plenty of good company, because there were some other people too, all in for various things but all of them better-class. We were quite a select group. Afterward we had a game of cards, that was good fun. Why are you laughing?”
It was all so different from what I had thought! I was laughing at myself, for my fears and terrible visions. I asked, “Did you win anything?”
“No, as a matter of fact I lost, but as I didn’t have the money to pay they said it didn’t matter, I could pay some other time.”
“How much?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.
“Oh, not very much.”
But he seemed anxious to change the subject, which confirmed my suspicions. My mood was no longer so good now. I began to brood. Here I had been, and Daddy and Sudha, and there he had been all the time quite enjoying himself and even losing money at cards.
I said, “If it was so nice, perhaps I should have left you there.”
He gave me a reproachful look and was silent for a while. But then he said, “I wish it had been possible to get the money from someone else.”
“Why?” I said, and then I felt worse. “Why?” I repeated. “She is such a wonderful friend to you. So wonderful,” I cried, “that you bring her here and lock yourself into our bedroom with her to do God knows what!”
He turned to me and comforted me. He explained everything. I began to see that he had had no alternative—that he had to bring her in here because of the way she felt and because of the money she had given. He didn’t say so outright, but I realized it was partly my fault also, for taking the money from her.
I felt much better. He went on talking about Sudha, and I liked it, the way he spoke about her. He said, “She is not a generous person; that is why it is not good to take from her. At heart, she grudges giving—it eats her up.”
“She was always like that,” I said, giving him a swift sideways look. But he agreed with me; he nodded. I saw that his feelings for her had completely changed.
“Every little bit she gives,” he said, “she wants four times as much in return.”
“It’s her nature.”
I remembered what she had said about his taking money from her purse. I felt indignant. To shame him like that, before her servant! Obviously, he would never have taken the money if he had not been in great need. She should have been glad to help him out. I never hide my money from him now. I used to sometimes—I used to put away absolutely necessary amounts, like for the rent—but he always seemed to find out my hiding places, so I don’t do it anymore. Now if we run short I borrow it from the cash register in the shop; no one ever notices, and I always put it back when I get my salary. Only once I couldn’t put it back—there were some unexpected expenses—but they never found out, so it’s all right.
“What’s that?” he said. We were both silent, listening. He said, “I think Daddy is calling.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
Rajee wanted to go and see, but I assured him it was all right. Daddy might have called out in his sleep—he often did that. I asked Rajee to tell me more about his adventures last night, so he settled back and lit another cigarette.
“You know, this person I was telling you about—in the patent-medicine line? He wants me to contact him as soon as he comes out. He says he will put some good things in my way. He was very keen to meet me again and wanted to have my telephone number . . . You know, it is very difficult without a telephone; it is the biggest handicap in my career. It is not even necessary to have an office, but a telephone—you can’t do big business without one. Do you know that some of the most important deals are concluded over the telephone only? I could tell you some wonderful stories.”
“I know,” I said. He had already told me some wonderful stories on this subject, and I knew how much he longed for and needed a telephone, but where could I get it from?
“Never mind,” he said. He didn’t want me to feel bad. “When we move into a better place, we shall install all these things. Telephone, refrigerator—I think he is calling.”
Rajee went to see. I also got off the bed and looked under it for my slippers. As I did so, I remembered a terrible dream I used to have as a child. I used to dream Daddy was dead. Then I screamed and screamed, and when I woke up Daddy was holding me and I had my arms around his neck. Afterward I was always afraid to go on sleeping by myself and got into his bed. But I would never tell him my dream. I was frightened to speak it out.
When I came into the sitting room, I found Daddy sitting up on the sofa, and Rajee was holding him up under the arms—sort of propping him up. It was that time of the night when everything looks dim and depressing. We have only one light bulb, and it looked very feeble and even ghostly and did not shed much light. Dawn wasn’t far off—it was no longer quite night and it was not yet day—and the light coming in through the window was rather dreary. Perhaps it was because of this that Daddy’s face looked so strange; he lay limp and lolling in Rajee’s arms.
And he was very cross. He said he had been shouting for hours and no one came. In the end, he had had to get up himself and get his pills and the water to swallow them with. If it hadn’t been for that—if he hadn’t somehow got the strength together—then who knew what state we might have found him in later when we woke up from our deep sleep? Rajee kept apologizing, trying to soothe him, but that only seemed to make him more cross. He went on and on.
“Yes,” he said, “and if something happens to me now, then what about her?” He pointed at me in an accusing way.
“Nothing will happen, Daddy,” Rajee said, soothing him. “You are all right.”
Daddy snorted with contempt. “Feel this,” he said, guiding Rajee’s hand to his heart.
“You are all right,” Rajee repeated.
Daddy made another contemptuous sound and pushed Rajee’s hand away. “You would have made a fine doctor. And who is going to look after her when you go? What will she do all alone for seven years?”
“He is not going, Daddy,” I said, spacing my words very distinctly. I didn’t like it, that he should still be thinking about that.
“Not going where?” Rajee asked.
That made Daddy so angry that he became quite energetic. He stopped lolling in Rajee’s arms and began to abuse him, calling him the same sort of names I had called him earlier. And Rajee listened to him as he had listened to me, respectfully, with his head lowered.
I tried to bear it quietly for a while but couldn’t. Then I interrupted Daddy. I said, “It is not like that at all.”
“No?” he said. “To go to jail is not like that? Perhaps it’s a nice thing. Perhaps we should say, ‘Well done, Son. Bravo.’”
“He wasn’t in jail,” I said. “It was more like a hotel. And he met some very fine people there. You don’t understand anything about these things, Daddy, so it’s better not to talk.”
Daddy was quiet. I didn’t look at him, I was too annoyed with him. He had no right to meddle in things he didn’t know about; he was old now, and should just eat and sleep.
“Lie down,” I told him. “Go to sleep.”
“All right,” Daddy said in a meek voice.
But in fact he couldn’t lie down, because Rajee had dropped off to sleep on the sofa. He was sitting up, but his head had dropped to his chest and his eyes were shut. Naturally, after two sleepless nights, I couldn’t disturb him, so I told Daddy he had better go and sleep in our bedroom. Daddy said all right again, in the same meek voice. He carried his pillow under his arm and went away.
I lifted Rajee’s legs onto the sofa and arranged his head. He didn’t wake up. I looked at him sleeping. I thought that even if he had to go away for a while he would be coming back to me. And even if it were for a longer time there are always remissions for good conduct and other concessions, and meanwhile visits are allowed and I could take him things and also receive letters from him. So even if it is for longer, I shall wait and not do anything to myself. I would never do anything to myself now, never. I wouldn’t think of it.
I did try it once. I got the idea from two people. One of them was Rajee. It was the time when Sudha’s marriage was being arranged, and he came daily to our house and cried and said he could not bear it and would kill himself. I think he felt better with being able to talk to me, but after I told him my feelings for him he didn’t come so often anymore, and after a time he stopped coming altogether. Then I began to remember all he had said about what was the use of living. It so happened that just at this time there was a girl in the neighborhood who committed suicide—not for love but because of cruel treatment from her in-laws. She did it in the usual way, by pouring kerosene over her clothes and setting herself on fire. It is a crude method and perhaps not suitable for a college girl like me, but it was the only way I could think of and also the easiest and cheapest, so I decided on it.
Only that day, when everything was ready, Daddy came home early and found me. Although he never wanted me to get married, he saw then that there was no other way and he sent for Rajee. When Daddy saw that Rajee was reluctant to get married to me, he did a strange thing—the sort of thing he has never, never in his whole life done to anyone. He got down on the floor and touched Rajee’s feet and begged him to marry me. Rajee, who is always very respectful to elders, was shocked, and he bent down to raise him and cried, “Daddy, what are you doing!” As soon as I heard him say Daddy, I knew it would be all right. I mean, he wouldn’t call him Daddy, would he, unless he was going to be his son-in-law?