by Vikram Seth
Instead of going down to the river as she had planned, Lata now sat down on the exposed root where the monkey had just been eating his musammi, and tried to address herself to the book in her hands. It did not succeed in diverting her thoughts. She got up, climbed the path up the slope again, then walked to the library.
She looked through the last season’s issues of the university magazine, reading through with intense interest what she had never so much as glanced at before: the cricket reports and the names beneath the team photographs. The writer of the reports, who signed himself ‘S.K.’, had a style of lively formality. He wrote, for example, not about Akhilesh and Kabir but about Mr Mittal and Mr Durrani and their excellent seventh-wicket stand.
It appeared that Kabir was a good bowler and a fair batsman. Though he was usually placed low in the batting order, he had saved a number of matches by remaining unflappable in the face of considerable odds. And he must have been an incredibly swift runner, because he had sometimes run three runs, and on one occasion, had actually run four. In the words of S.K.:
This reporter has never seen anything like it. It is true that the outfield was not merely sluggish but torpid with the morning’s rain. It is undeniable that the mid-wicket boundary at our opponents’ field is more than ordinarily distant. It is irrefutable that there was confusion in the ranks of their fielders, and that one of them actually slipped and fell in pursuit of the ball. But what will be remembered are not these detracting circumstances. What will be remembered by Brahmpurians in time to come is the quicksilver crossing of two human bullets ricocheting from crease to crease and back again with a velocity appropriate more to the track than the pitch, and unusual even there. Mr Durrani and Mr Mittal ran four runs where no four was, on a ball that did not even cross the boundary; and that they were home and dry with more than a yard to spare attests to the fact that theirs was no flamboyant or unseasoned risk.
Lata read and relived matches that had been layered over by the pressure of recency even for the participants themselves, and the more she read the more she felt herself in love with Kabir—both as she knew him and as he was revealed to her by the judicious eye of S.K.
Mr Durrani, she thought, this should have been a different world.
If, as Kabir said, he lived in the town, it was more than likely that it was at Brahmpur University that his father taught. Lata, with a flair for research that she did not know she possessed, now looked up the fat volume of the Brahmpur University Calendar, and found what she was seeking under ‘Faculty of Arts: Department of Mathematics’. Dr Durrani was not the head of his department, but the three magic letters after his name that indicated that he was a Fellow of the Royal Society outgloried twenty ‘Professors’.
And Mrs Durrani? Lata said the two words aloud, appraising them. What of her? And of Kabir’s brother and the sister he had had ‘until last year’? Over the last few days her mind had time and again recurred to these elusive beings and those few elusive comments. But even if she had thought about them in the course of the happy conversation outside Mr Nowrojee’s—and she hadn’t—she could not have brought herself to ask him about them at the time. Now, of course, it was too late. If she did not want to lose her own family, she would have to shade herself from the bright beam of sudden sunlight that had strayed into her life.
Outside the library she tried to take stock of things. She realized that she could not now attend next Friday’s meeting of the Brahmpur Literary Society.
‘Lata: Whither?’ she said to herself, laughed for a second or two, and found herself in tears.
Don’t! she thought. You might attract another Galahad. This made her laugh once again. But it was a laughter that swept nothing away and unsettled her still further.
3.12
Kabir confronted her next Saturday morning not far from her house. She had gone out for a walk. He was on his bicycle, leaning against a tree. He looked rather like a horseman. His face was grim. When she saw him her heart went into her mouth.
It was not possible to avoid him. He had clearly been waiting for her. She put on a brave front.
‘Hello, Kabir.’
‘Hello. I thought you’d never come out of your house.’
‘How did you find out where I live?’
‘I instituted inquiries,’ he said unsmilingly.
‘Whom did you ask?’ said Lata, feeling a little guilty for the inquiries she herself had ‘instituted’.
‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Kabir with a shake of his head.
Lata looked at him in distress. ‘Are your exams over?’ she asked, her tone betraying a touch of tenderness.
‘Yes. Yesterday.’ He didn’t elaborate.
Lata stared at his bicycle unhappily. She wanted to say to him: ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me about yourself as soon as we exchanged words in the bookshop, so that I could have made sure I didn’t feel anything for you?’ But how often had they in fact met, and were they in any sense of the word intimate enough for such a direct, almost despairing, question? Did he feel what she felt for him? He liked her, she knew. But how much more could be added to that?
He pre-empted any possible question of hers by saying:
‘Why didn’t you come yesterday?’
‘I couldn’t,’ she said helplessly.
‘Don’t twist the end of your dupatta, you’ll crumple it.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ Lata looked at her hands in surprise.
‘I waited for you. I went early. I sat through the whole lecture. I even chomped through Mrs Nowrojee’s rock-hard little cakes. I had built up a good appetite by then.’
‘Oh—I didn’t know there was a Mrs Nowrojee,’ said Lata, seizing upon the remark. ‘I wondered about the inspiration for his poem, what was it called—“Haunted Passion”? Can you imagine her reaction to that? What does she look like?’
‘Lata—’ said Kabir with some pain, ‘you’re going to ask me next if Professor Mishra’s lecture was any good. It was, but I didn’t care. Mrs Nowrojee is fat and fair, but I couldn’t care less. Why didn’t you come?’
‘I couldn’t,’ said Lata quietly. It would be better all around, she reflected, if she could summon up some anger to deal with his questions. All she could summon up was dismay.
‘Then come and have some coffee with me now at the university coffee house.’
‘I can’t,’ she said. He shook his head wonderingly. ‘I really can’t,’ she repeated. ‘Please let me go.’
‘I’m not stopping you,’ he said.
Lata looked at him and sighed: ‘We can’t stand here.’
Kabir refused to be affected by all these can’ts and couldn’ts.
‘Well, let’s stand somewhere else, then. Let’s go for a walk in Curzon Park.’
‘Oh no,’ said Lata. Half the world walked in Curzon Park.
‘Where then?’
They walked to the banyan trees on the slope leading down to the sands by the river. Kabir chained his bike to a tree at the top of the path. The monkeys were nowhere to be seen. Through the scarcely moving leaves of the gnarled trees they looked out at the Ganga. The wide brown river glinted in the sunlight. Neither said anything. Lata sat down on the upraised root, and Kabir followed.
‘How beautiful it is here,’ she said.
Kabir nodded. There was a bitterness about his mouth. If he had spoken, it would have been reflected in his voice.
Though Malati had warned her sternly off him, Lata just wanted to be with him for some time. She felt that if he were now to get up and go, she would try to dissuade him. Even if they were not talking, even in his present mood, she wanted to sit here with him.
Kabir was looking out over the river. With sudden eagerness, as if he had forgotten his grimness of a moment ago, he said: ‘Let’s go boating.’
Lata thought of Windermere, the lake near the High Court where they sometimes had department parties. Friends hired boats there and went out boating together. On Saturdays it was full of married co
uples and their children.
‘Everyone goes to Windermere,’ Lata said. ‘Someone will recognize us.’
‘I didn’t mean Windermere. I meant up the Ganges. It always amazes me that people go sailing or boating on that foolish lake when they have the greatest river in the world at their doorstep. We’ll go up the Ganges to the Barsaat Mahal. It’s a wonderful sight by night. We’ll get a boatman to keep the boat still in midstream, and you’ll see it reflected by moonlight.’ He turned to her.
Lata could not bear to look at him.
Kabir could not understand why she was so aloof and depressed. Nor could he understand why he had so suddenly fallen out of favour.
‘Why are you so distant? Is it something to do with me?’ he asked. ‘Have I said something?’
Lata shook her head.
‘Have I done something then?’
For some reason the thought of him running that impossible four runs came to her mind. She shook her head again.
‘You’ll forget about all this in five years,’ she said.
‘What sort of answer is that?’ said Kabir, alarmed.
‘It’s what you said to me once.’
‘Did I?’ Kabir was surprised.
‘Yes, on the bench, when you were rescuing me. I really can’t come with you, Kabir, I really can’t,’ said Lata with sudden vehemence. ‘You should know better than to ask me to come boating with you at midnight.’ Ah, here was that blessed anger.
Kabir was about to respond in kind, but stopped himself. He paused, then said with surprising quietness:
‘I won’t tell you that I live from our one meeting to the next. You probably know that. It doesn’t have to be by moonlight. Dawn is fine. If you’re concerned about other people, don’t worry. No one will see us; no one we’re likely to know goes out in a boat at dawn. Bring a friend along. Bring ten friends along if you like. I just wanted to show you the Barsaat Mahal reflected in the water. If your mood has nothing to do with me, you must come.’
‘Dawn—’ said Lata, thinking aloud. ‘There’s no harm in dawn.’
‘Harm?’ Kabir looked at her incredulously. ‘Don’t you trust me?’
Lata said nothing. Kabir went on:
‘Don’t you care for me at all?’
She was silent.
‘Listen,’ said Kabir, ‘if anyone asks you, it was just an educational trip. By daylight. With a friend, or as many friends as you wish to bring. I’ll tell you the history of the Barsaat Mahal. The Nawab Sahib of Baitar has given me access to his library, and I’ve found out quite a few surprising facts about the place. You’ll be the students. I’ll be the guide: “a young history student, I can’t remember his name now—he came with us and pointed out the spots of historical interest—provided quite a passable commentary—really quite a nice chap.”’
Lata smiled ruefully.
Feeling that he had almost broken through some unseen defence, Kabir said:
‘I’ll see you and your friends here at this very spot on Monday morning at six sharp. Wear a sweater; there’ll be a river breeze.’ He burst into Makhijanian doggerel:
‘Oh Miss Lata, meet me here
Far from banks of Windermere.
On the Ganga we will skim—
Many hers and single him.’
Lata laughed.
‘Say you’ll come with me,’ said Kabir.
‘All right,’ said Lata, shaking her head, not—as it appeared to Kabir—in partial denial of her own decision but in partial regret at her own weakness.
3.13
Lata did not want ten friends to accompany her, and even if she had she would not have been able to round up half that number. One was enough. Malati unfortunately had left Brahmpur. Lata decided to go over to Hema’s place to persuade her to come. Hema was very excited at the prospect, and readily agreed. It sounded romantic and conspiratorial. ‘I’ll keep it a secret,’ she said, but made the mistake of confiding it on pain of lifelong enmity to one of her innumerable cousins, who confided it to another cousin on similarly strict terms. Within a day it had come to Taiji’s ears. Taiji, normally lenient, saw grave dangers in this enterprise. She did not know—nor for that matter did Hema—that Kabir was Muslim. But going out with any boy in a boat at six in the morning: even she baulked here. She told Hema she would not be allowed to go out. Hema sulked but succumbed, and phoned Lata on Sunday evening. Lata went to bed in great anxiety, but, having made up her mind, did not sleep badly.
She could not let Kabir down again. She pictured him standing in the banyan grove, cold and anxious, without even the granitic sustenance of Mrs Nowrojee’s little cakes, waiting for her as the minutes passed and she did not come. At a quarter to six the next morning she got out of bed, dressed quickly, pulled on a baggy grey sweater that had once belonged to her father, told her mother she was going for a long walk in the university grounds, and went to meet Kabir at the appointed place.
He was waiting for her. It was light, and the whole grove was filled with the sound of waking birds.
‘You’re looking very unusual in that sweater,’ he said approvingly.
‘You look just the same as ever,’ she said, also approvingly. ‘Have you been waiting long?’
He shook his head.
She told him about the confusion with Hema.
‘I hope you’re not going to call it off because you don’t have a chaperone,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Lata. She felt as bold as Malati. She had not had much time to think about things this morning, and did not want to either. Despite her evening’s anxiety, her oval face looked fresh and attractive, and her lively eyes were no longer sleepy.
They got down to the river and walked along the sand for a while until they came to some stone steps. A few washermen were standing in the water, beating clothes against the steps. On a small path going up the slope at this point stood a few bored little donkeys overburdened with bundles of clothes. A washerman’s dog barked at them in uncertain, staccato yaps.
‘Are you sure we’ll get a boat?’ said Lata.
‘Oh, yes, there’s always someone. I’ve done this often enough.’
A small, sharp pulse of pain went through Lata, though Kabir had meant merely that he enjoyed going out on the Ganga at dawn.
‘Ah, there’s one,’ he said. A boatman was scouting up and down with his boat in midstream. It was April, so the river was low and the current sluggish. Kabir cupped his hands and shouted:
‘Aré, mallah!’
The boatman, however, made no attempt to row towards them.
‘What’s the matter?’ he yelled in Hindi that had a strong Brahmpuri accent; he gave the verb ‘hai’ an unusual emphasis.
‘Can you take us to a point where we can see the Barsaat Mahal and its reflection?’ said Kabir.
‘Sure!’
‘How much?’
‘Two rupees.’ He was now approaching the shore in his old flat-bottomed boat.
Kabir got annoyed. ‘Aren’t you ashamed to ask so much?’ he said angrily.
‘It’s what everyone charges, Sahib.’
‘I’m not some outsider that you can cheat me,’ said Kabir.
‘Oh,’ said Lata, ‘please don’t quarrel over nothing—’
She stopped short; presumably Kabir would insist on paying, and he, like her, probably did not have much money.
Kabir went on angrily, shouting to be heard over the sound of the clothes hitting the steps of the ghat:
‘We come empty-handed into this world and go out empty-handed. Do you have to lie so early in the morning? Will you take this money with you when you go?’
The boatman, presumably intrigued at being so philosophically addressed, said:
‘Sahib, come down. Whatever you think is appropriate I will accept.’ He guided Kabir towards a spot a couple of hundred yards away where the boat could come close to the shore. By the time Lata and Kabir had reached the spot, he had gone up the river.
‘He’s gone away,’ said La
ta. ‘Perhaps we’ll find another one.’
Kabir shook his head. He said:
‘We’ve spoken. He’ll return.’
The boatman, after rowing upstream and to the far shore, got something from the bank, and rowed back.
‘Do you swim?’ he asked them.
‘I do,’ said Kabir, and turned towards Lata.
‘No,’ said Lata, ‘I don’t.’
Kabir looked surprised.
‘I never learned,’ explained Lata. ‘Darjeeling and Mussourie.’
‘I trust your rowing,’ said Kabir to the boatman, a brown, bristle-faced man dressed in a shirt and lungi with a woollen bundi to cover his chest. ‘If there’s an accident, you handle yourself, I’ll handle her.’
‘Right,’ said the boatman.
‘Now, how much?’
‘Well, whatever you—’
‘No,’ said Kabir, ‘let’s fix a price. I’ve never dealt with boatmen any other way.’
‘All right,’ said the boatman, ‘what do you think is right?’
‘One rupee four annas.’
‘Fine.’
Kabir stepped on board, then stretched his hand out for Lata. With an assured grip he pulled her on to the boat. She looked flushed and happy. For an unnecessary second he did not release her hand. Then, sensing she was about to pull away, he let her go.
There was still a slight mist on the river. Kabir and Lata sat facing the boatman as he pulled on the oars. They were more than two hundred yards from the dhobi-ghat, but the sound of the beating of clothes, though faint, was still audible. The details of the bank disappeared in the mist.
‘Ah,’ said Kabir. ‘It’s wonderful to be here on the river surrounded by mist—and it’s rare at this time of year. It reminds me of the holiday we once spent in Simla. All the problems of the world slipped away. It was as if we were a different family altogether.’