The Householder

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  ‘And who knows if she will give my letter,’ Prem said in a despairing voice. The whole venture seemed to have failed. Not only had he been an object of anger and contempt to a group of ladies, but he had also delivered his petition into unsafe hands. He returned home in a highly unsatisfied state of mind.

  3

  THE servant-boy stood out on the landing with a wide grin on his face: ‘She is home,’ he said. Prem walked past him and went straight into the bedroom. On the little table with gilded lion-feet stood a bottle of hair-oil, a comb, a little round tin of mascara and a glass phial of scent. Indu had her back to the door; she was hanging up her picture of Mother and Baby, stepping back several times to see if it was straight. Prem rubbed his hand against the side of his leg. His face was stern and strained, and he did not know what to say. Indu turned round and saw him, and she lowered her eyes and also did not know what to say. They stood like that for a while. At last Prem said, ‘You have hung up your picture.’ Indu nodded. ‘It looks nice,’ Prem said. His voice was hoarse; he was still rubbing his hand up and down against his trouser-leg.

  ‘Son!’

  ‘Your mother is calling,’ Indu said in almost a whisper.

  ‘Did you have a good journey?’

  ‘It was very hot in the train.’

  ‘I see,’ Prem said, and they stood and did not say anything more.

  ‘Son!’

  ‘There were many people in your compartment?’

  ‘She is calling you.’

  ‘It is safer to travel in a compartment with many people, but sometimes there is great inconvenience.’

  ‘It was very hot.’

  ‘It has been very hot the whole week,’ Prem. said. ‘I think next week it will be even hotter.’ She really looked pregnant now, he noticed. Her figure protruded from the waist and she held herself balanced slightly backward. She seemed to him so beautiful that he was shy and fearful to look at her.

  ‘Why don’t you come when I call you?’ said his mother. She stood between them, looking cross.

  ‘I did not hear you,’ Prem said.

  ‘Come and have your tea, son. I have made for you.’

  Indu stayed behind in the bedroom. Prem’s mother stirred his tea for him: ‘I have put a lot of sugar, son. I know how sweet you like it.’

  ‘When did she come?’

  His mother shrugged one shoulder ill-humouredly. ‘I did not notice the time.’

  The servant-boy, a self-satisfied expression on his face, could be seen passing into the bedroom, carrying tea on a tray.

  ‘Why could she not write a letter to say “I am coming”,’ Prem’s mother grumbled.

  Prem finished his tea and said, ‘I have some writing work to do.’

  ‘Sit here, son,’ his mother said. With her own hands she carried the little cane table under the light for him. ‘You will not be disturbed here.’

  While he was writing she walked round the room on tiptoe. Once she rushed out into the kitchen to admonish the servant-boy who was cheerfully singing: ‘My son is doing writing work and you bellow here like a jackal!’ When he had finished writing, Prem folded his piece of paper and stuck it into a stamped envelope. He told his mother, ‘I must go and post this. It is very important.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It is an application for rise in salary.’

  ‘Go, son,’ she said; and sighed, ‘How hard my son works.’

  Prem walked very quickly to the post-box. The letter he carried was addressed to his sister in Bangalore. It said that Delhi was very hot and their mother’s health was suffering; that it would be best for her to be invited to stay in Bangalore; and that they were well and hoped the sister’s family was too. He dropped it in the post-box and turned back home. He felt a sense of achievement, and of relief as well.

  His mother kept him talking for a long time that evening, so it was late before he could join Indu in the bedroom. She was lying on her side with her back to him, pretending to be asleep. He knew she was only pretending; but it made it difficult to start a conversation with her. He lay down beside her, with his arms clasped behind his head, clearing his throat several times and moving rather ostentatiously to show how very much awake he was. But she gave no sign. At last he said out loud in a cracked voice, ‘What did you do all the time when you were away?’

  She reacted immediately. She rolled on to her back and said, staring at the ceiling, ‘Please don’t speak to me.’

  ‘Why?’ he said anxiously. ‘What is the matter?’

  She continued to stare at the ceiling.

  ‘Please tell me what is the matter.’ He tried to edge nearer to her but she stuck out her elbow to ward him off, so that he had sadly to sink back again. ‘You are angry?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said furiously.

  ‘You are angry,’ he said in a tone of discovery.

  She kept silent, and he was too bewildered by the fact that she was angry to be able to say anything. After some time, when she had waited long enough for him to question her further, she came out with it herself: ‘All evening you sat with your mother.’

  ‘She was talking to me—how could I leave her?’

  ‘Only today I have come back——’

  ‘And I had some writing work to do also.’

  ‘On the day I come back you must sit down to your writing work?’

  He kept silent. How could he explain to her? His silence prompted her to further accusation. ‘You went out—I heard you.’

  ‘I had to post a letter—it was very important.’

  ‘Yes, now you have important letters to post! But when I am away, not one line could you write to me, though I waited and waited——‘ She was sobbing and he comforted her. At first she did not let him, but he would not be pushed off and she did not try very hard. Soon they were both very happy, and felt they belonged together.

  Now that she was back, he felt more strongly than ever that the least he could do for her was to earn enough money. She was his wife, and soon she would have his baby, and he had to provide for them both. The thought made him feel proud, though at the same time it brought back all his worries.

  He felt he had never yet got really down to the Seigals. He had started off with good intentions several times, but something had always put him off, so that he had never even got as far as hinting at a reduction in rent. Yet it should be so easy—one had merely to divert the stream of neighbourly chat into the required channel. The trouble perhaps was that he did not feel old or mature or settled enough to converse with the Seigals as a neighbourly equal. What was needed was someone older than he, someone whose position commanded more respect, to lay his case before the Seigals. And he at once knew whom he had in mind: his mother. An elderly lady, the widow of a Principal of a college, the mother of a grown-up son and four married daughters—who would not listen to her with attention and respect?

  But when he suggested it to her, she said, ‘You and your wife go, son’, with a weary sigh.

  ‘I want to go with you,’ he said. There was some hurry about it too, for she might not be staying much longer.

  ‘Who will listen to a useless old woman like me? Your wife will be able to talk with them much better.’

  ‘Who will listen to her?’ Prem said as scornfully as he could, though this did not come easily to him.

  His mother kept silent for a while. Then she said, with patience and resignation, ‘As you please, son’, and began to smooth her hair.

  At the Seigals all the lights were blazing and the fans turning and Romesh played film music on the radio. Mr. Seigal and three other stout businessmen sat and played cards round a little table. Mrs. Seigal crocheted and chatted with other ladies on the veranda. The card players had glasses of whisky beside them; one of them was telling a story: ‘So then what happened, this Sardar went to Kakeda Hotel and did the same thing there.’ Prem nervously steered his mother out on to the veranda. Her lips were pursed, and she emphatically refused all offers of refreshmen
t.

  Mr. Seigal held up his whisky glass towards Prem. ‘Come and join us!’ he shouted.

  ‘My son does not drink spirits,’ Prem’s mother said at once. The voice in which she spoke this made Prem wish they had not come after all.

  The story-teller continued in the expansive leisured tone of one telling a good story: “‘Sardarji”, the proprietor of Kakeda Hotel told him, “this is not nice”.’

  Prem turned hastily to Romesh: ‘How are your studies?’ But the radio was on too loud for Romesh to hear him.

  ‘How can a boy study and pass in his examinations,’ Prem’s mother replied instead, ‘when there is no peace and quiet in his home?’

  ‘Bring more ice!’ Mr. Seigal bellowed to the servant in the kitchen.

  Mrs. Seigal sighed and looked at Romesh: ‘His examinations are a great worry to us.’ Romesh had a smile of pleasure on his face and he swayed his head in time to the radio music.

  ‘I thank God,’ Prem’s mother said sternly, ‘with my son I never had any worry.’

  “‘What would happen, Sardarji, if you went to Gaylords and did there what you have done here?’”

  ‘He was always a good boy and studied hard,’ Prem’s mother said. She stroked Prem’s head. He sat quite still, with his hands pushed tight between his knees and his eyes lowered. He thought his mother was working up to the point well: it was good for the Seigals to know how hard-working, well-behaved and altogether deserving he was.

  ‘My Romesh also is a good boy,’ said Mrs. Seigal, ‘but he does not care for his studies.’

  ‘Sardarji replied “It has happened to me already and you know what they said? They said, if this is what you want to do, then don’t come to Gaylords, go to Kakeda Hotel!” Ha-ha-ha!’ roared the story-teller; he slapped one thigh and looked round expectantly at the others. They also laughed, loudly though rather absent-mindedly, for they were busy scanning their cards.

  Prem’s mother said, ‘Of course, my son always had a very peaceful home in which to sit down to his studies.’

  ‘My Romesh likes so much to listen to music on the radio.’

  Prem’s mother judiciously shook her head. ‘In sitting listening to music on the radio, how will he pass in his examinations?’

  ‘It is a great worry,’ said Mrs. Seigal with a sigh. Prem began to be impatient. They had been here before and they should have progressed a little further to his purpose by this time.

  ‘My son sat down to his studies every day, and sometimes he would sit till late in the night. Of course, his home was very different.’ She looked distastefully at the card players, then at the ladies round her enjoying tea and sweetmeats. ‘His father was Principal of Ankhpur Government College.’

  The card players had now begun an argument which was threatening to become heated. The servant, holding some roughly-hewn ice in a dishcloth, stood and listened to them. ‘But you had a spade to put on my queen!’ Mr. Seigal roared.

  ‘His father used to tell him: “Study, learn and pass in your examinations.” That is the sort of home this boy comes from.’

  ‘But at the next turn you played it! A knave of spades it was, I saw!’

  Mrs. Seigal sighed: ‘Why do they play if they only end up in quarrelling?’ The servant was peering into each one’s cards; the ice was quietly melting through the dishcloth, dripping on to the floor.

  ‘Yes, things were very different for me when my husband was alive,’ Prem’s mother said. She was already wiping her sari into the corner of her eye. Prem knew that now the subject he had come to discuss would never be reached. ‘I was the Principal’s wife,’ she said. ‘Everyone treated me with respect.’ Now she was wiping in the corner of her other eye, and Prem realized that it would be some time before he could get her to come home.

  Sohan Lal shyly handed Prem an invitation card. ‘It is for my younger brother’s wedding,’ he said. Prem looked at the card which was light green and printed on cheap paper. It was very evidently an invitation to a poor man’s wedding.

  Sohan Lal watched Prem expectantly, with a shy self-deprecating little smile. Prem laughed nervously; he felt touched and at the same time embarrassed. ‘I will certainly come,’ he said and looked down again at the shabby little green card. ‘It is not too far for you?’ Sohan Lal said. They looked away from one another, shy and awkward with each other like a newly married couple. ‘I will certainly come,’ Prem repeated. He would take Indu. It would be a day’s outing for them; they had never had an outing together. He began to look forward to it already. ‘My wife and I will both come,’ he said, feeling proud. She would wear her platform-sole shoes and jasmine in her hair. He would sit on the bed and watch her dress in front of the mirror. By that time his mother would be gone.

  Every day now he expected her to receive a letter from Bangalore. He would come home from the college, eager to see whether she was already packing. But she never was. She sat on the bed and kept him beside her talking for a long time. She never mentioned anything about going away. Indu meanwhile sat alone in the bedroom. Prem wondered what she was thinking in there, but by the time his mother was sleepy and allowed him to go, Indu was usually asleep or pretending to be so; or even if she wasn’t, she was quiet and sulky and would hardly talk to him. He became impatient for his sister’s letter to arrive.

  And in the college he still looked with nervous hopefulness for some result to his petition. But Mr. Khanna never gave a sign, though Prem took every opportunity to appear in his way. He was almost forced to the conclusion that Mrs. Khanna had failed to hand his letter over.’ Perhaps she forgot,’ he told Sohan Lal gloomily; and a bit later, ‘Or she did not give it because she was angry with me for interrupting her conversation.’ She had, he remembered, looked very angry. Now he did not know what to do, whether to hand over another petition, or try some other method. He was glad he was meeting Raj on Monday. He would be able to consult with Raj: he had begun to regard him as an expert on all matters relating to adult life.

  Prem was as usual the first to arrive at their meeting place. He stood in the vestibule of the cinema, among the groups of sleek relaxed young men in bush-shirts and thought of all the things about which he wanted to consult Raj. He was surprised rather than startled when suddenly someone blocked his vision by placing two hands on his eyes from behind. ‘Three guesses,’ said a voice which he identified at once as Hans’s. The hands were very large and damp and smelt of perspiration.

  ‘You are a good guesser,’ said Hans. He hooked his arm into Prem’s in a friendly manner. ‘You are going to the cinema?’

  ‘I am meeting a friend,’ Prem murmured.

  ‘Marvellous!’ cried Hans and tucked his arm in tighter. ‘I will also meet your friend.’

  This was something Prem would very much have liked to avoid. He did not think, for one thing, that Hans would make a favourable impression on Raj; and then too, Hans’s presence would prevent him from laying his problems before Raj.

  ‘I like to meet the friends of my friends. Friends reveal a person’s character and I am a student of the character.’ As usual, Hans’s voice was loud and uninhibited, and Prem noticed that all the young men standing around were listening with interest. ‘Then I want also to discuss with you what we were talking last time we met. I have been asking myself why it is we cannot control our bad thoughts.’ The young men were cocking their ears and nudging one another with their elbows; some of them already wore wide grins. ‘Our spirits wish to be pure,’ Hans cried, ‘but what is it in here that will not let them?’ and he drummed his fist on the top of his head in a despairing manner.

  ‘Here is my friend,’ Prem said weakly.

  Hans clicked the heels of his big black boots together, then joined his hands meekly under his chin. ‘Hans Loewe,’ he introduced himself to Raj, who stared at him.

  ‘Loewe means lion,’ Prem said anxiously.

  ‘I am Prem’s good friend,’ Hans said. ‘I want also to be the friend of his friend.’ He grasped Raj by his shoulders a
nd looked down seriously and intently into his face. Raj stared back at him in silent amazement.’ He has a good face,’ Hans pronounced at last, turning to Prem, ‘but I think he has been neglecting the spiritual side.’

  He insisted on taking them to the coffee-house where he had gone with Prem the first time they had met. Prem and Raj followed meekly behind him; they did not look at one another but behaved as if they were only together because they had both been towed along by Hans.

  ‘This is good,’ Hans said, settling himself squarely on the settee, his arms planted on the table. ‘Today we will have such conversation that our minds will fly open and the understanding will come in with a big rush!’ He strained across the table, eager for the conversation to begin.

  Prem put his hand on Raj’s shoulder and said, ‘My friend works in the Ministry of Food. He is a Government officer.’ Raj did not say anything. He sat stiffly upright, his arms held close to his body, and stared in front of him.

  Hans beamed at him: ‘So you are a cog in the vast machinery of the Government?’

  ‘No, I am a sub-officer, Grade Two.’

  ‘By cog I mean one little screw in a big big wheel. It is a joke.’ Raj continued to stare ahead of him but now he wore a look of tight-lipped disapproval. Quite obviously he did not regard his job as fit subject for a joke.

  ‘He has an important post,’ Prem said, mostly to appease Raj, but partly also so as to be able to lead up to talk of his own inadequate job. Perhaps, after all, he would be able to consult Raj about his application for a rise in salary.

  Hans said: ‘How can a man’s work have importance? This is my meaning: work is nothing, only the spirit within is important.’ His eyes searched Prem’s face, then Raj’s. Prem felt constrained to nod and look intelligent. ‘If the spirit is pure, all action is pure. How simple it is,’ Hans cried, ‘how beautiful!’ He clasped his hands and looked rapt.

  ‘Your wife has come back from her parents’ house?’ Raj asked.

  Prem turned half towards him and nodded. He would like to have turned to him fully, but he also had to show interest in what Hans was saying.