The Householder

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  It seemed to him that he was failing in everything—as a husband and as a teacher. His father had been so successful in both capacities. But Prem felt he had no vocation for either. He did not know what he did have a vocation for. The only thing he had done successfully so far was to have been a student who lived in his father’s house and went for walks with his friends. He still felt that that alone was his true condition, even though he had been married now and employed in Khanna Private College for some months. It was as if all the time he were waiting to go home to be looked after and cared for by his family.

  Yet he wanted very much to be a successful man. His father, both as a Principal and a father, had always impressed upon him the importance of being a successful man. ‘You must strive, strive and strive again!’ his father had said, looking very impressive as he said it, with his jaw set and his hand striking down emphatically upon the table. Prem had taken this as referring mainly to his examinations, and he had been glad to be able to pass them. But now he realized that that had after all not been the end of striving, and that something more was required of him.

  In the staffroom he listened to the other lecturers discussing Sunday’s tea-party, as they had been doing ever since the Principal had announced it. Mr. Chaddha, glancing up from his book for a moment, interposed, ‘I am looking forward to a pleasant afternoon. Mrs. Chaddha has also consented to be present.’ He cleared his throat, crossed his legs and again concentrated his attention with raised eyebrows on his book. Though he was so small and thin and birdlike, there was something very authoritative about him, and he radiated a confidence which Prem could not help wishing he possessed. He realized that he should be looking up to Mr. Chaddha and trying to emulate him; and he wondered why it was that he should feel more drawn towards Sohan Lal, who was manifestly unsuccessful and unconfident. He knew his father would have urged him towards Mr. Chaddha; and while not exactly turning him away from Sohan Lal, would nevertheless have brought it to his notice that there was really not much of a good example to be got from poor Sohan Lal, who found it hard to keep discipline among his students and was repressed and melancholy through the effort of supporting a large family on a small income.

  In his disappointment with himself, it again occurred to Prem that he really ought to make a second attempt on Mr. Khanna for the rise in salary. The first attempt had to be regarded in the light merely of groundwork, on which he must now start building an edifice of persuasion. But these things, he told himself, had above all to be done with subtlety and tact; and what occasion better for subtlety and tact than a tea-party? Anything could happen at a tea-party: meeting him thus, for the first time on social terms, Mr. Khanna might take a great liking to him; or perhaps Indu, if she behaved nicely, might make a good impression and dispose Mr. Khanna to regard them as a deserving young couple who should be given all help and encouragement in their struggle with life. So he decided to postpone his second attempt on the Principal till after Sunday’s tea-party had given him opportunity to improve his position.

  But his first attempt on his landlord was still open. He disliked the prospect of asking Mr. Seigal for a reduction in rent, and half realized that dislike had been quietly prompting him to indefinite postponements. But it was such postponements, he now told himself, which were responsible for his position of unsuccess. ‘Strive and strive and strive again!’ he exhorted himself, with a show of bravery; and turned promptly to the wrong person for advice and encouragement.

  ‘Mr. Sohan Lal,’ he said, ‘do you think it is possible to ask a landlord to take less rent?’

  The bell rang, indicating the end of their little break. Mr. Chaddha shut his book smartly and got up at once to go to his class-room. Prem felt constrained to follow him. He was always afraid of arriving in the class-room later than Mr. Chaddha, for he knew his students would be noisy and perhaps disturb Mr. Chaddha. Sohan Lal too got up to go to his class-room; but, like Prem, he did so if not reluctantly then at least with a certain melancholy resignation.

  ‘A landlord must understand that a man’s burdens increase as he becomes older,’ Prem said, out in the narrow little corridor.

  ‘They increase,’ agreed Sohan Lal with a gentle sigh. They were standing outside his class-room. His students were having a pretence game of volley ball. They were tossing a rubber from one to another, shouting ‘Pass this side!’ and taking up attitudes of mock defence. Sohan Lal glanced in apprehensively.

  ‘A landlord must have feeling. When a person is in difficulties, he cannot only say to him go away.’

  ‘It would be wrong,’ Sohan Lal agreed.

  ‘On the contrary, he must help that person and be like a father to him. We must all have love and help one another.’

  ‘Here, this side!’ came lusty voices out of Sohan Lal’s class-room, and there was a noise of pushing and laughing, of hard young bodies in energetic action. From farther down the corridor came Mr. Chaddha’s voice raised in lecture tone. Reluctantly—for he found his present discussion very interesting—Prem started towards his classroom. He could hear Sohan Lal ineffectively calling to his students: ‘Please be in your seats!’

  On the way home he reverted to thoughts about how people ought to help one another and love one another. ‘What am I by myself?’ he thought. ‘I can do nothing, I am weak and helpless and need the support of a father.’ He wanted to go to Mr. Seigal and say to him, ‘You are my father’, and stand before him, humble and submissive, like a child. Then Mr. Seigal would see that it was his duty to reduce the rent.

  When he reached the house, he at once knocked on the Seigals’ door before he could weaken in his resolution. Through the fly-screen he could see the Seigals’ son Romesh sitting on the sofa, reading a film magazine. Romesh called ‘Come in’ and seemed pleased to see Prem. He showed his magazine and said,’ I am very fond of the cinema. I go three times a week, and sometimes four.’

  Romesh Seigal was very much like Prem’s students—healthy, cheerful, wearing good clothes and an expensive wristwatch. So Prem found himself addressing him in the same way as he addressed his students; he said ‘And your studies?’ in a somewhat stern voice.

  ‘I am not too fond of studies,’ Romesh said frankly.

  ‘You must study hard,’ Prem said, ‘and pass in your examinations. Then perhaps you will be able to secure a good position with the Government and your parents will be pleased.’

  ‘I find studies very boring,’ Romesh said, ‘I like only pictures very much.’

  ‘What will you learn from going to pictures? This is only amusement for an idle hour. While you are a student, you must learn and strive to pass in your examinations and not think of amusement at all.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Mr. Seigal, emerging from the next room. Prem got up and greeted him with hands deferentially joined. Though it was past six o’clock in the evening, Mr. Seigal seemed to have only just got up from his afternoon sleep. His hair and his shirt were rumpled and wet with perspiration, and he was yawning so widely that tears came into his eyes.

  ‘This is what I am always telling him,’ said Mr. Seigal when he had finished yawning.

  ‘We were having a little chat,’ said Prem, feeling rather sheepish.

  ‘Please take trouble with him,’ said Mr. Seigal. ‘You are a teacher, a lecturer in a college, he can learn only what is good from you.’

  Though at any other time Prem might have felt flattered by these observations, now he found them rather awkward. He wanted Mr. Seigal to look on him as another son, as helpless and dependent as his own son Romesh, and here he was being set up as a mentor to that son. He shuffled his feet and smiled deprecatingly. He wanted to look young and foolish, yet somehow, after what Mr. Seigal had said, he could not help feeling elderly and responsible; and so when he spoke he spoke in that role, as one weighed down by years and responsibilities.’ It is our duty,’ he said,’ to guide young men and set them on the right path in Life.’

  Mr. Seigal grunted as he picked up a newspaper, y
awned some more and rubbed his hand over his hair. Romesh had gone back to reading his film magazine, humming a melancholy love song as he did so.

  ‘In our ancient writings it is written,’ Prem continued, ‘that there are four stages to a man’s life. When he is young, he is a student, learning from his father and his teachers——’

  ‘Has the tea been brought?’ Mr. Seigal inquired of Romesh.

  ‘After that comes the life of the householder,’ Prem said. ‘In this stage a man must raise a family and see to their needs …’ He thought of Indu and the coming baby and felt instantly depressed. At this point he would like to have joined his hands in supplication and asked for a reduction in rent. But he felt shy, especially before Romesh whom he was to serve as a good example, so he continued: ‘The third stage is when a man retires from his duties as a householder and spends his time in contemplation.’

  ‘They have made vegetables samusas with our tea,’ Romesh told his father.

  ‘Thus it may be clearly seen,’ Prem concluded miserably, skipping the fourth stage, of which he was not quite sure, ‘that each stage of life has its own duties and obligations.’ Oppressed by a sense of failure, he took his leave rather quickly. Upstairs Indu was sitting knitting pink bootees. He said to her at once, ‘There are some things in which a wife can be very helpful to her husband.’ Indu moved her lips silently, counting her stitches; she seemed in deep concentration. ‘A wife must share her husband’s burden!’ Prem suddenly shouted.

  Indu quickly wound up her knitting and put it away in a paper bag. Even though he was angry, Prem noticed how deft and neat she was in her ways.

  ‘It is you who should speak to the Seigals,’ he said.

  Silently she handed him a letter. He saw that it was from his mother, but did not open it for a while. ‘For you it would be easy. All you would have to do——’

  ‘My mother writes my uncle will come and fetch me home next time he is in Delhi on business.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My mother writes——’

  ‘I told you you cannot go. My mother is coming to visit us. This letter probably …’ He opened it and when he had read it, looked rather smug. ‘Yes, she is coming next week.’

  Indu abruptly left the room. Prem read his mother’s letter again. He was very happy that she was coming; and of course it was out of the question that Indu should go away. He followed her into the kitchen to tell her so, but found only the servant-boy there. The boy was washing dishes and making a lot of clatter as he did so; he looked up at Prem as if challenging him to dare say something. As a matter of fact, Prem would have liked to say something, to assert his authority in the home, but meeting the boy’s bold gaze, he contented himself with only making an important face and then retreated. He found Indu in the bedroom lying on the bed, turned over on her side and with her eyes shut. He was sure she was not asleep, but did not know how to disprove it. He sat down on the other end of the bed, hoping she would get tired of pretending. There were quite a number of things he wanted to talk to her about—about her not being able to go home and the rent and Mr. Khanna’s tea-party.

  Furtively he looked at her back which was turned towards him. Her hip rose in a fine curve and the sari was clinging to her in such a way that the shape of one buttock and tapering thigh were clearly outlined. Prem swallowed, and looked away. He looked at the opposite wall and noted how badly it had been whitewashed. It was hot in the room and intermingled with the heat was the smell of her perspiration and her hair-oil. He thought it would be better to go away, but his limbs felt heavy and reluctant, and it was only with some effort that he got himself out of the room. He felt his heart beating loudly and this continued even after he had left the house and was walking in the streets. He walked for a long time and all the time his thoughts were unworthy and filled him with shame, but he could not stop thinking them.

  Wednesday evening was a great occasion for him. He left the college in a hurry, went home and dressed himself very smartly in a clean shirt and his best trousers; he also put a lot of hair-oil on his hair so that it became one smooth shining mass. He took good care that Indu should see him when he was ready and walked up and down several times in front of her where she was sitting on a mat in the sitting-room with her knitting. But though he cleared his throat, wound his watch and smoothed his hair, she apparently did not notice; nor did she ask him where he was going, which was disappointing for he would like to have told her how he was going by invitation to take tea with a German boy.

  The address Hans had given him was an impressive one in the best part of New Delhi. The road was wide and shaded by rows of well-grown trees. The houses were very beautiful, all white with pillared fronts and large green lawns and flowers growing in painted pots. Hans’ house was not so beautiful. It was equally large and the veranda had pillars, but it was cracked and crumbling in brown patches and the garden in front was dry and tangled. Prem walked up the driveway and into the veranda. One of the french windows was open, so he went in and found himself in a room with an old carpet, three faded red plush armchairs and a lot of dusty books. Someone was sitting in one of the armchairs reading a book which was held so high that the face was quite covered by it. Emerging from the top of the armchair was a tousle of blonde-grey hair and from its bottom a pair of stout white legs. The book was lowered and a lady’s face emerged square and red. The lady smiled, pushing her stout cheeks upwards, and said in a voice which was deep like a man’s and yet, in its intonation, seductive to the point of exaggeration: ‘Hallo.… Looking for me?’

  Prem clenched his fists by his side and he said, much louder and shriller than he had intended, ‘Hans Loewe!’ and it sounded not so much a request as a cry for help.

  ‘Oh, you’re Hans’ friend, are you?’ said the lady in the same gruff honeyed voice.

  ‘He asked me for tea.’

  ‘Asked you for tea, did he?’

  ‘At six o’ clock.’

  ‘Did he now? Well, we’ll have to do something about it then, won’t we? What’s your name?’ When he had told her, she said, ‘Sit down, Prem dear. Talk to me.’

  ‘Perhaps he has forgotten.… I will come another day.’

  ‘Oh, he’s home all right, dear. Doing his exercises, I expect. I know the armchairs don’t look very clean and you’ve put on such a nice pair of trousers, haven’t you, but you’ll really have to sit down if you don’t want to hurt my feelings.’ Prem sat down instantly.

  ‘Yogic exercises, you know. He’s getting quite good at them. What do you do?’

  ‘I am a lecturer at——’

  ‘No, dear. Which Yoga do you do? Hatha Yoga or Bhakti Yoga or what?’

  ‘I don’t think I——’

  ‘Well you should. We all should. How do you think you’ll meet the Eternal and the Infinite if you don’t? I’m Hans’s landlady. Everybody calls me Kitty.’ The room smelt of dust deep-ingrained; the skylight windows set under the ceiling were smeared and opaque, and lurking high in corners were shreds of cobwebs. A very old and shaky fan creaked noisily from the ceiling.

  ‘If he is busy, I will come again,’ Prem said, not however daring to rise.

  ‘I’ve got a room free just now, if you’re interested.’

  ‘What a marvellous idea!’ cried Hans who entered just then. ‘Come and live with us, Prem!’

  ‘And be our love,’ said the landlady. She chuckled: ‘That’s a quotation, you know, Come and live with me and be my love, and we will all the something something.’

  ‘English poetry is so rich,’ Hans said politely. ‘It is the room next to mine, Prem. We will talk all day and share our thoughts and in the nights we will talk more and drink black coffee to keep us awake. What friends we will be with each other!’

  Prem sat on the edge of a frayed armchair. He held himself stiff and his hands were pushed between his knees. He wanted to be polite and sociable but felt very shy.

  Kitty heaved herself to her feet. When she stood up, she was big and square
and dressed in a belted black cotton dress with white dots on it which left a lot of heavy white arm and leg exposed. She said, ‘Let’s see if that Mohammed Ali will come across with any tea for us—seeing as we have a guest.’

  ‘Since we met I have had a marvellous adventure,’ Hans said. He was sitting, not on one of the armchairs though there were three of them in the room, but on the floor with his legs crossed under him. He was wearing shorts and a pale blue Aertex shirt with tiny cap sleeves. His legs and feet were large and naked and white like chicken-flesh. ‘Something has woken in me. You are surprised?’ Prem nodded though he hardly knew what Hans was saying. He could hear Kitty shouting, ‘Hey, Mohammed Ali!’ and her voice echoing as through a large and empty house. ‘Yes, I also was surprised,’ Hans said. ‘I thought to myself. Already? But it is true. I feel so humble,’ he said, folding his hands and laying his head wistfully to one side. ‘I ask myself, can I be worthy?’

  Kitty came back and said, ‘The trouble with Mohammed Ali is he despises me so.’

  ‘Can I be worthy?’ Hans repeated.

  ‘Everybody’s worthy,’ Kitty said. ‘But I don’t think you’ve really come to anything yet.’

  ‘Yes, yes, it was real!’ Hans cried. ‘I felt it, God-consciousness, I felt Him moving here, here, at the base of my spine!’ He hit that place hard with his fist and cried: ‘What joy it was for me! I wanted to cry like a little child cries when it sees its mother. Mother, I wanted to shout, Mammi!’

  ‘It’s hard to tell with these things, especially with an excitable person like you.’

  ‘It is true that I am high-strung,’ Hans said with an air of modesty.

  ‘What about you?’ Kitty said, turning abruptly to Prem who smiled and pushed his hands farther between his knees.

  ‘I think he is very advanced,’ Hans said. ‘He looks so spiritual.’

  ‘They all look spiritual,’ Kitty said gloomily. ‘Even this fellow,’ she added, as the bearer came in carrying a tea-tray. He wore what once must have been a fine uniform but which now had turned grey, had only the faintest traces of red braiding and tufts of cotton where gold buttons had been. He was unshaven and visibly dirty, and his face bore an expression of profound melancholy. ‘All right, Mohammed Ali, that’ll be all, thank you,’ Kitty told him when he had softly placed the tray before her. ‘You see,’ she said, ‘once I thought he despised me because of this deep spiritual quality which I thought he had and I hadn’t.’