by Anita Desai
Actually, they could not, and did not, but the young man they spoke to, who had been summoned out of his office to deal with them, was so apologetic about the refusal that they gave him a copy of the latest edition of Books gratis. He looked overcome, pushing back a lock of his fair hair from his forehead and gazing at the magazine as if it were a work of art. 'Oh,' he said, several times, 'how perfectly splendid. Perfectly splendid, really.' Tara straightened her shoulders and gave Moyna a significant look before rising to her feet and making her departure. Moyna followed her reluctantly: the lobby of the British Council library had the best air-conditioning they had run into all day. After that—and the discreet lighting, the carpeting, the soft rustle of newspapers, the attractive look of detective novels and romantic fiction on the shelves—' they returned to their office in Bengali Market with a sense of resignation. They did not really expect any results.
But there was Tara at the top of the stairs to the rooftop, pounding on the door and shouting, 'Moyna! Moyna, open up, Moyna!'
Moyna had just been preparing for a bath. It was not entirely uncommon for Tara and Ritwick to drop in on her unannounced if they had managed to persuade Ritwick's mother to mind their little son for a bit, and since she had still not managed to get a telephone installed, there was no way they could warn her. 'Wait a minute,' she called, and slipped back into her clothes before going barefoot across the roof to open the door to them.
Tara was standing there, laughing and in great spirits, not with Ritwick at all but, to Moyna's unconcealed astonishment, with the fair young man from the British Council, who stood a few steps lower down, looking more embarrassed even than before, and clutching in his hands a bottle filled with some dark liquid. Moyna stared.
'Oh, open the door, Moyna, and let us in. I know you don't have a phone so how could I warn you? Adrian rang me up about an advertisement and I asked him to come over, but you know how the Dragon Lady is in such a temper with me these days, so I brought him here instead.'
'Oh,' said Moyna doubtfully, thinking of her own Dragon Lady downstairs.
'Wont you let us in?'
Moyna stood aside and then led them towards her barsati. She really could not have company in there—Tara ought to know that. Feeling both vexed and embarrassed, she stood in front of the door now, frowning, and finally said, 'I'll bring out some chairs,' and left them waiting again. To her annoyance, Adrian followed her in to help pull out some chairs, first placing the bottle on the table and saying, 'I brought you some—um—wine. I thought—um—we could have a drink together. Um.'
'And I told him you would at least have peanuts—' Tara shouted from outside.
What could she mean—peanuts? What peanuts? Moyna frowned. After the chairs, there was the bother with glasses. What made Tara think she might have wine glasses? All she could find were two tumblers and a mug—and certainly there were no peanuts. In fact, she had just finished the last bit of bread with her dinner, there was not so much as a piece of toast to offer. But once they were seated on the rooftop, with the wine poured out, and had had a sip of that, Moyna looked up to see that the sky still had a pink flush to it, that it was not entirely dark, that the first stars were beginning to emerge from the day's dust and grime and glare, that the pipal tree was beginning to rustle like a shower of rain in the first breath of air that evening, and suddenly she felt her spirits break free and lift. Here she was, entertaining friends on 'her terrace' on a starry evening, just as she had imagined an adult working woman in the metropolis might do, just as she had imagined she would do—and now it was happening. She looked at Adrian, his six narrow feet of height somehow folded onto a small upright chair, and said with incredulity, 'This is nice!' He thought she meant the wine and hurried to refill her glass, blinking happily behind his spectacles.
It was not only she who thought it was nice. Tara seemed liberated by coming away from her mother-in-law's house where she had to live because of Ritwick's stalled promotion at the university. Adrian seemed enchanted by everything his eye encountered on the rooftop—the parrots streaking in to settle in the branches of the pipal tree for the night, the neighbourliness of the other roof dwellers, several of whom had lined up along their ledges to watch (discreetly or not so discreetly) Moyna's first social gathering. Mao the cat jumped upon Adrian's knee and sat there as if on a tall perch with his eyes narrowed to slits, and by the time the bottle of wine was emptied, they had begun to talk much more loudly and laugh more than they were aware. Tara had an endless fund of mother-in-law stories, as Moyna already knew, but Adrian was gratifyingly astounded by them. When Tara told them of the first time Ritwick had brought her to meet his mother and how the first thing she said to Tara was, 'Are, why are you wearing this pale colour? It does not suit you at all, it makes your complexion muddy,' or of how she would insist Tara wear her wedding jewellery to work 'otherwise people will think you are a widow', Adrian became wide-eyed and gulped, 'She said that? You mean she has licence to say what she likes to you?' Tara, greatly encouraged, began to exaggerate—as Moyna could tell—and her stories grew wilder and funnier, reducing even Adrian to laughter. The neighbours spied on them, scandalised, hidden now by night's darkness, but they were unaware how their voices carried downstairs as well, and what a degree of grim disapproval was mounting there. When they descended the stairs, Moyna accompanying them with the key to unlock the front gate for them, they found Mr and Mrs Bhalla pacing up and down the small driveway, grey-faced with censure. They had let Candy out from under their bed and now she flew at them, yipping with small snaps of her teeth, till she was curtly called back by Mr Bhalla.
Their looks made Moyna wonder if it was really so late, had they been kept awake? She put on an apologetic look but Tara, on the contrary, threw back her head and said loudly, 'OK, Moyna, good night—see you tomorrow!' and swept out of the gate. Adrian followed her hastily, carefully keeping out of range of Candy's snapping jaws.
Moyna was certain she would have to face the Bhallas' wrath as she turned around, but they drew back and stared at her in silence as she walked up the stairs and vanished.
Although they did not bring it up directly, after that whenever Moyna encountered them, on her way to work or back, they never failed to refer obliquely to that evening. 'You are having more guests tonight?' they would ask when they saw her returning with the shopping she had done along the way. 'No? You seem to be having many friends,' they went on, prodding her to say more. She shook her head, hurrying. 'No? Then why not come and watch TV tonight? Ramayana is showing at seven p.m. Very fine film, Ramayana. You should join us,' they commanded, as if testing her true colours. She shook her head, making her excuses. 'Oh, then you are going out? With your friends?' they deliberately misunderstood, taunting her. The children, Sweetie and Pinky, giggled behind their fingers.
'Tara, please don't bring Adrian again,' Moyna begged. 'I don't know what my landlord thinks about me. He seems to think I'm some hostess or entertainer, the way he and his wife go on.'
'Oh, tell them to go to hell,' Tara snapped. 'As if renting their bloody barsati means you can't have any social life.'
'Social life with girls would be all right, but not with men, and not with foreign men.'
'Really, Moyna,' Tara stared at her and shrugged, 'when are you going to grow up?' Her mother-in-law had clearly had a lot to say about Tara's going out without Ritwick the other evening; Tara showed all the signs of having had a fine row.
'I am grown up! I live in a barsati! I don't want to be thrown out of it, that's all.'
Mohan looked up from the omelette he was eating. He had no cooking facilities where he roomed, and the first thing he did on entering the office in the morning was to send Raj Kumar to fetch him a bun omelette which he seemed to greatly enjoy. Wiping up the last streak of grease with the remains of the bun, he said, 'Barsati living is no good for girls. Why not women's hostel?'
She need not have worried about Adrian visiting her again: the look the landlord had given him, plus
Candy's warning nips, proved quite enough of a disincentive. The next male to create a problem for Moyna was Mao, now a strapping young torn ready to test his charms in the wider world. No longer willing to stay where she put him, he liked to strut about the barsati roof, or leap up onto the ledge and slowly perform his toilet there where he could be seen, occasionally lifting his head to snarl at a sparrow that mocked and taunted him from a safe distance in the pipal tree, or blink when he became aware of someone watching, possibly admiring him. Moyna feared she would not be able to keep him concealed for long. Already the Bhalla children, Sweetie and Pinky, suspecting his existence, would come up the stairs and peep under the door to catch a glimpse of him, cry, 'Tiger! Tiger!' if they did, and come running pell-mell down the stairs again. They had clearly said something to their mother who would watch Moyna return from the market clutching a wet paper bag reeking of fish and call out, 'Oh, I see you are fond of eating fish!' and had also noted that Moyna took in an unlikely quantity of milk. 'So much milk you are drinking,' she had commented early one morning, seeing Moyna return with her filled pail. 'Very good habit—drinking milk,' she added, contriving to make Moyna understand that this was an indirect comment on the evil of drinking wine. 'Or you are making curd? Kheer pudding, then? No? You don't know how to make kheer pudding?'
The next signal Mao gave was an audible one: a strange, unexpected, long drawn-out wail in the night that woke Moyna and made her shoot out of bed, ready to leap to the door. Mao himself was nowhere to be seen; he generally slipped in and out of the window which had a missing pane that Mr Bhalla had never thought to replace and now proved a convenience. Looking through it, Moyna saw, as in a dream, a feline bacchanalia in full swing on the rooftop. How had all these female felines found their way to the barsati—and to Mao? Moyna rushed out in her nightgown to make sure the door was locked. It was. Was there a drainpipe they might have climbed? There couldn't be or Mao would have discovered it long ago. As she stood wondering, the cats crept into a corner discreedy screened by a box or two, and as she watched, the pipal tree gave a shiver. The pipal tree—of course! She stared at its massive trunk, pale in the moonlight, and the sinuous branches and twigs silvery and ashiver, and spied another insomniac—her neighbour, a few feet away, his moony face cupped in his hands as he leaned upon the ledge and gazed yearningly at her. He was close enough to speak to her but, instead, he first sighed and then began to hum. It sounded like the tune of a disgusting song to Moyna's ears, a lewd, suggestive song, an outrageous affront of a song:
'O, a girl is like a flame,
O, a girl can start a fire—'
Moyna darted back into her room and slammed the door. Its echoes rang out and for a while there was a shocked silence. But, a little later, the cats crept out to caterwaul again and all Moyna could do was wrap a pillow round her head and moan.
Although she did her best to avoid the Bhallas next morning—and usually when she left for work they were in the dining room, from which tantalising whiffs of fried dough, curried eggs and creamy tea floated out—today Mrs Bhalla was lying in wait, having her scalp massaged at that very hour. She looked up from under the tent of greying hair spread out on her shoulders and fixed her eye on the rapidly fleeing Moyna. 'Come here!' she cried. 'I'm late!' shouted Moyna from the gate. 'What is that animal on your roof?' shrieked Mrs Bhalla, throwing off the ministering fingers of the old crone she had engaged for the service. 'Animal?' called Moyna from the other side of the gate, 'What animal?' and jumped across the ditch to the dusty road where Gurmail Singh waited for her, his autorickshaw put-putting reassuringly.
Catastrophe struck from an unexpected quarter. Returning from work the same day, Moyna climbed slowly up the stairs with a bag of fish she had stopped to buy, unlocked the door to the rooftop and went in, sighing with relief at having gained the open barsati, at seeing the pipal tree dark against the mauve and pink evening sky, wondering if there was enough water in the bucket for a wash. She let herself into her room and set about putting away her sling bag, her market bag, slipping out of her slippers, shedding the day like a worn garment, sweaty and dusty. Mao was not around but he rarely was now that he had discovered the route of the pipal tree: there was nothing she could do but hope Candy would not be waiting at the foot of it. She decided to switch on some music instead, reached out—and saw the blank space beside her bed where she kept her radio and tape recorder. It was not there.
Her first foolish reaction was to blame Mao. Could he have taken it? Then she whirled around, thinking she might have placed it elsewhere last night, or this morning, and forgotten. It was not on the kitchen table, and there was no other surface where it could be. Looking around for some corner where it might have hidden itself, she began to notice other objects were missing: her alarm clock, the little box containing the tapes, even the tin-framed mirror she had hung on the wall. What else? Flinging open the cupboard that would not lock, she began to cry as she groped on the shelves, trying to count her saris. Wiping her face with her hand, she banged it shut and ran down the stairs to the Bhallas.
They were all seated crosslegged on the bed, chins cupped in their hands, deeply absorbed in the latest episode of their favourite American soap opera (the mythological epics were aired only on Sundays, to guarantee maximum viewership). Sweetie and Pinky refused to turn their attention away from I Love Lucy but the elder Bhallas sensed Moyna's hysteria, turned off the TV, listened to her tearful outburst, then burst themselves, with fulsome indignation. What was she insinuating? Was she accusing them?. Did she think they would go up to her barsati and haul away her miserable goods—they, with all these goods of their own around them...
Now Moyna had to deny their accusation, assure them she had never harboured such an idea, only wanted to know if they had any idea who it could be. Who} they thundered, how would they know who} What with Moyna's unsavoury circle of friends coming and going at all hours of the day and night, how could they tell which one had found his way to her barsati? Had they seen anyone? she begged. Seen anyone? Seen who} they roared. At this point, she wailed, 'Please call the police!' which incensed them further. They nearly exploded—even Candy, Sweetie and Pinky shrank back. Police? On their property? What was Moyna suggesting? Was she out of her mind? If the police visited their house, their immaculate, impeccable house of decency, purity and family values, what would their neighbours think, or say? Never had such a thing happened in their home, their locality, their community—till she had come along and brought into their midst this evil, this sin...
Moyna retreated. She shut the door upon the Bhallas, who were standing at the foot of the stairs and shaking their fists and shouting loud enough for all the neighbours to hear. Then she sat down on a chair under the tree, feeling as if all her strength were gone; she could not even stand. Mao reappeared, wrapping himself around and around her legs, finally leaping onto her lap and kneading it with his paws, loudly purring. She held him, sure he was telling her something, saying comforting, consoling things, and sat there till it was dark, listening to him and the pipal tree that shivered and rustled, the birds subsiding into its branches, eventually falling silent. More than any other sensation, it was homesickness she felt: she was trying to suppress the most childish urge to run and hide her head in her mother's lap, feel her mother stroking her hair. She was also suppressing the urge to write a long letter home, describing everything as it really was. She told herself it would be unforgivable to cause her parents concern. As it was, they had never felt comfortable about her living alone in the big city; every letter from them voiced their anxiety, begging her to keep her doors securely locked, never go out after dark and take good care of her health. She also knew she was trying to hold onto her pride, as she sat there, stroking and stroking Mao.
Still, Moyna knew she had to do something, and planned to tell Tara immediately. But next morning Tara had arranged to hold a 'conference', as she liked to call such a gathering, with their usual cast of reviewers. Most of them were Ritwick's frien
ds and colleagues from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, with a sprinkling of 'outsiders' from Delhi University and the lesser colleges. This was not a regular meeting but somehow, by some kind of natural osmosis that no one quite understood, the hard core of their critics who reviewed reguarly for Books happened to have a free morning and came to meet Tara and Moyna at the Coffee House in Connaught Place where they took up a long table in one corner. This was the occasion, greatly enjoyed by all, when the young lecturers and readers pleaded for the books they were desperate to have, the latest academic treatises published by the university presses at Oxford and Cambridge, Harvard and Yale, at impossible prices, and Tara and Moyna magnanimously dispensed them with the understanding that the reviewers could expect little reward other than the prized books themselves. In return, the eager young men in their handspun shirts, shaggy beards and dusty sandals plied them with small earthen mugs of coffee and all the delicacies the Coffee House had to offer—dosa, idli, vada, whatever they liked—and which harried waiters flapping dishcloths and tin trays around brought to them in regular relays. There were also some professional critics, usually older men, some really quite old, worn and grey from years of piecing together a living by writing, who looked over the books with a more practised and cynical eye and quickly reached for whatever would take the least time to read and fetch the most at the second-hand bookshops on the pavement outside.
But the customary bonhomie of the occasion which recalled their carefree student days—O careless youth!—was unexpectedly disrupted that morning by Moyna's state of agitation which she could not conceal, leading to an open confession under questioning from Tara. Theft, landlords, police—all were appalled and looked at Moyna in horror.