In Custody

by Anita Desai

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Also by Anita Desai

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Copyright

  About the Author

  * * *

  Anita Desai was born and educated in India. Her published works include adult novels, children’s books and short stories. Clear Light of Day (1980) and In Custody (1984) were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and The Village by the Sea won the Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction in 1982. Anita Desai is a Fellow of the Royal society of Literature in London, of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York and of Girton College at the University of Cambridge. She teaches in the Writing Program at M.I.T. and divides her time between India, Boston, Massachusetts and Cambridge, England. In Custody was recently filmed by Merchant Ivory Productions. Her latest novel, Fasting, Feasting was shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize.

  ALSO BY ANITA DESAI

  Cry, the Peacock

  Voices in the City

  Bye-Bye, Blackbird

  Where Shall We Go This Summer?

  Games at Twilight

  Fire on the Mountain

  Clear Light of Day

  Village by the Sea

  Baumbartner’s Bombay

  Journey to Ithaca

  Fasting, Feasting

  Diamond Dust

  To Alicia Yerburgh

  With affection and gratitude

  Anita Desai

  IN CUSTODY

  ‘… they should take, who have the power And they should keep who can.’

  Rob Roy’s Grave

  William Wordsworth

  Chapter 1

  HIS FIRST FEELING on turning around at the tap on his shoulder while he was buying cigarettes at the college canteen and seeing his old friend Murad was one of joy so that he gasped ‘Murad? You?’ and the cigarettes fell from his hand in amazement, but this rapidly turned to anxiety when Murad gave a laugh, showing the betel-stained teeth beneath the small bristling moustache he still wore on his upper lip. ‘But I have a class just now, Murad,’ he stammered as Murad squeezed his shoulders tightly as if he did not intend to let go.

  ‘Stop worrying about your class,’ Murad said, drawing him close to him and laughing into his ear. ‘I’ve come all the way from Delhi to see you – can’t you give me half an hour of your time?’

  ‘But it’s Monday – not on Monday, Murad.’

  ‘Oh, so friendship is only for Sunday, is it? Is that friendship?’ Murad boomed.

  They walked away from the canteen, across the dusty field that separated the corrugated iron shack of the canteen from the brick building of the college where Deven taught. Deven was aware that many of his students had observed this encounter with his old friend and were staring openly, some even smirking at the sight. He tried to wriggle out of Murad’s grasp unobtrusively so as not to offend him.

  ‘Just one more class, Murad,’ he pleaded, ‘then I’m free to go home.’

  ‘Home? Who wants to go home?’ shouted Murad. ‘We’re going out to lunch. We’re going to lunch in the best restaurant in your great city. If I come all the way from Delhi to see you, then you can at least give me a good lunch,’ he added in a petulant voice.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Deven assured him, feeling guilty at his lapse in hospitality. ‘Here, have a cigarette, I bought two.’ He fumbled in his shirt pocket for them and handed one to his friend.

  ‘Still a two-cigarette man, are you?’ Murad laughed, holding one between his fingers and waiting for Deven to strike a match. As there was a March wind tearing across the open field and whirling dust and dry leaves around violently, this was a lengthy, fumbled business. When it was done at last and they strolled on, Murad said insolently, ‘A frill-fledged lecturer in a college, an important citizen of Mirpore, and still can’t afford a whole packet of cigarettes? You seem to be where you were in your college days. What’s the matter?’

  ‘No, no,’ Deven hastened to explain. ‘My wife has told me not to buy a packet at a time. She says if I have to go out to buy just one at a time, I will smoke less.’ He tried to laugh, as at a pleasant joke. ‘Women are always trying to make you smoke less, drink less. You know.’

  ‘Oh, so you do still drink, do you? I’m glad to hear that,’ Murad gave a yelp and another clap on Deven’s shoulder. ‘Will I get a drink with my lunch?’

  Deven was shocked. He looked furtively to the left and the right. They were walking up the stairs to the main hall. Anyone could have heard, even someone on the staff, or the Principal himself. His eyebrows crept together in a furry scowl. ‘Please, Murad, leave me now,’ he muttered anxiously, hunching his shoulders and clutching his books to his chest. ‘I must go to my class.’

  ‘Even a visit from an old friend you have not seen for years will not make you give up your damned class?’ Murad shouted, pretending to be outraged. ‘Perhaps I should not have come. Why did I bother to catch a bus and travel all the way in this heat to see an old friend who doesn’t even care?’

  Deven felt uneasy, certain that Murad had reasons for this that he had not yet divulged. Determined not to go another step with Murad at his side, he stood at the top of the stairs and begged, ‘Please, Murad, wait in the canteen for me. Have a cup of tea there. I’ll join you after my class.’ Then he swung away with such desperation that he dashed right into a group of girl students also coming up the stairs and caused much offence, affront, tittering and giggling which Murad stood and watched with a grin.

  Recoiling from them, Deven made his way down the passage to his classroom and arrived at the desk beside the blackboard as if at a refuge, panting with exertion and relief. Here he could turn his back to the class and pretend to write something on the blackboard while he composed himself and tried to construct an authoritative teacher-self out of his jolted nerves and distracted ways. Why should a visit from Murad upset him so much? There was no obvious reason of course – they had known each other since they were at school together: Murad had been the spoilt rich boy with money in his pocket for cinema shows and cigarettes and Deven the poor widow’s son who could be bribed and bought to do anything for him, and although this had been the basis of their friendship, it had grown and altered and stood the test of time. But Deven did not like him appearing without warning during college hours and disturbing him just when he needed to concentrate; it was very upsetting. Now, instead of going home to lunch, he would have to displease his wife by keeping her waiting, and not turning up, and instead spend far too much money on a restaurant meal for Murad. He pressed his hand to his shirt pocket where he kept his money ever since a pickpocket on the bus had stolen his wallet. There was not much to feel in the pocket except for one crumbling cigarette: it was the end of the month after all and he had had to give Sarla more household money just that morning. How would he manage? He could not bear to think of Murad flashing those brightly coloured teeth in another derisive grin and saying, ‘Oh, still a two-cigarette man?’

  Why should Murad not pay for the lunch after all? Not only was he the son of a wealthy Kashmiri carpet dealer in Delhi – although he claimed to have been disowned by him he still lived in his house – but he was also the editor of the magazine he had persuaded his father to buy for him, and of which he liked to say he had made a great success. It was true that he had never paid Deven for the book reviews he had printed in an issue six months ago or for the poem he had accepted and was to publish in the
next one. Perhaps he had forgotten. Perhaps he had come to Mirpore to pay him.

  Suddenly and savagely Deven wiped out whatever he had written on the blackboard along with this foolishly sanguine idea, and turned to face the class that had been gathering behind his back with much scraping of chairs and shouting across desks. It was not wise to allow himself such indulgence in fantasies of sudden wealth, unexpected cheques, acceptance in the literary circles of the metropolis, so enticingly close. Childish, he snapped at himself with a small jarring sound of his teeth that some of the students closer to him seemed to hear for they looked up at him inquiringly. He was too old now, he went on scolding himself obsessively, and had had too bitter an experience of life to set any value upon such puerile fantasies.

  ‘Withered as the last leaf upon the tree,

  Shaken by the chill blast of winter,’

  he murmured to himself for he was much given to reciting poetry aloud, a habit he had been told his schoolteacher father had also had and which he therefore felt entitled to inherit.

  The students in the first row or two were staring openly at him now. He became aware of their curious waiting faces at last and squared his shoulders to meet their looks. The expression he saw – of boredom, amusement, insolence and defiance – made him look away quickly and focus his eyes upon the door at the far end of the room, the door that opened on to the passage, freedom and release. He had for years been practising this trick of ignoring his class and speaking to himself, or someone outside, invisible. That was what made him a boring teacher who could not command the attention, let alone win the regard, of his unruly class.

  ‘Last time I asked you to read as much as you could find of Sumitra Nandan Pant’s poetry,’ he began, pitching his voice too high in order to make it carry to that invisible student outside the door, the ideal one. Now it cracked. ‘I hope you have done it,’ he squeaked, and the class dissolved in laughter.

  ‘Don’t laugh,’ he said, putting down the tumbler of cold buttermilk. ‘This is not the capital, after all, it is only a village.’

  ‘So this is village fare we are getting, is it?’ grimaced Murad. ‘I must take care not to visit your village again.’

  ‘Oh, it is not so bad,’ Deven protested. ‘Try this radish,’ he coaxed. ‘We have good fresh vegetables here at least.’

  ‘Raw radish – the food of cows, and pigs,’ groaned Murad, but took it all the same and appeared to eat it with relish, making loud crunching sounds.

  Fortunately the small restaurant in the bazaar was packed with lunch-hour crowds and what with all the talk, the roars of laughter, the loud sounds of eating and the clatter of tin dishes and ladles and spoons, Deven was not afraid of his friend’s derogatory remarks about the cuisine being overheard. It was true that this was not a very good place to eat; being next to the bus depot it catered chiefly to bus drivers and passengers in a hurry which made the service hurried and slapdash. It must seem very mean in comparison with the restaurants of Delhi but he could not possibly afford a meal in Kwality or Gaylord, the two best restaurants, both air-conditioned and exorbitant, on the main road where the bigger shops and offices were, and perhaps it was not a bad idea to show Murad that he was not at all well off and could afford only this simple meal of potato curry and fried puris in a grimy bazaar eating-house. He gazed into the mirror that hung behind Murad’s head and watched the customers move in and out of the roses and vines engraved along its edges while Murad finished the plate of raw radishes.

  To his surprise, Murad seemed to be aware of the message he was trying to convey to him silently. Helping himself to the potato curry and bread, he grumbled, ‘It is too bad how badly our lecturers are paid. How can the intellectuals of this country do any worthwhile work if no one shows them any respect or compensates them for all the suffering they have to undergo for the sake of art?’

  Deven nodded and nodded with great vehemence, quite overcome by his friend’s unexpected sensitivity to his situation and by his compassion. It was rarely that one heard such sentiments from any but similarly hard-up colleagues. Helping himself to the last spoonful of curry in the bowl – the helpings were very small, he noted regretfully – he sighed and said, ‘Yes my friend, now you have seen how hard it is to survive in this position. If I knew a way to change my situation, I would do it but – what is there to do?’ Then an idea struck him as sharply as a slap on the head. The boldness of it quite embarrassed him but it was the end of the month after all, and the bill for this meal would clear out his pocket and leave him with nothing for tea or cigarettes for the rest of the week. The desperation of his circumstances made him say something he never would have otherwise. All through his childhood and youth he had known only one way to deal with life and that was to lie low and remain invisible. Now he leaned forward on his elbows and said emotionally, ‘If only we got payment for the articles and reviews that we write for magazines and journals, that would be of some help.’

  But now Murad was no longer being sensitive or compassionate. He was feeling inside his mouth with a finger for something that had made his face darken and frown with anger. Extracting it, he placed it on the edge of his plate and glared. Had he heard Deven at all? Raising his head, he glowered at Deven as if it was he who had placed the stone in the bread for him to bite. ‘Nearly lost a gold cap,’ he said furiously. ‘Everybody thinks it an easy thing to bring out a magazine,’ he went on. ‘Nobody knows of the cost involved. Every month there is a crisis – the printing press refusing to print unless past bills are cleared, the distributor refusing to pay for last month’s supplies of copies, the telephone bill, the postage … Such expenses. What can you know about it?’ he challenged Deven aggressively. ‘Worries, worries, worries. And where are the readers? Where are the subscriptions? Who reads Urdu any more?’

  ‘Murad, your magazine must be kept alive for the sake of those who do still read it,’ Deven said fervently.

  ‘That is what I am doing,’ Murad glared at him. ‘Now I am planning a special issue on Urdu poetry. Someone has to keep alive the glorious tradition of Urdu literature. If we do not do it, at whatever cost, how will it survive in this era of – that vegetarian monster, Hindi?’ He pronounced the last word with such disgust that it made Deven shrink back and shrivel in his chair, for Hindi was what he taught at the college and for which he was therefore responsible to some degree. ‘That language of peasants,’ Murad sneered, picking his teeth with a match-stick. ‘The language that is raised on radishes and potatoes,’ he laughed rudely, pushing aside the empty plates on the table. ‘Yet, like these vegetables, it flourishes, while Urdu – language of the court in days of royalty – now languishes in the back lanes and gutters of the city. No palace for it to live in the style to which it is accustomed, no emperors and nawabs to act as its patrons. Only poor I, in my dingy office, trying to bring out a magazine where it may be kept alive. That is what I am doing, see?’ He threw another proud and angry look at Deven and spat out a small piece of chewed matchstick in his direction.

  ‘I know, I know, Murad,’ Deven sighed. ‘How happy I would be to join you on the staff, work for you, for the journal. But I can’t give up my job here. I had to take it when it was offered. I was married, Sarla was expecting, you know …’

  ‘How could I know,’ Murad said. ‘Am I supposed to be responsible for that?’ He laughed crudely.

  Deven pretended not to hear. He went on trying to win Murad’s sympathy. ‘I could not have supported even myself by writing in Urdu, let alone Sarla and a child. I can write Urdu now only as my hobby.’

  ‘Only your hobby,’ mocked Murad. ‘Can you serve a language by taking it up “only as your hobby”? Doesn’t it deserve more? Doesn’t it deserve a lifetime’s dedication – like mine?’ he demanded.

  Deven lifted both hands in the air with a helpless gesture of accepting all Murad had to say, accepting and admitting defeat.

  Then Murad unexpectedly barked at him, ‘So, what about sending me something for my special numb
er on Urdu poetry, hunh?’

  Deven’s hands fluttered on to his knees as he melted at the suggestion and felt a glow creep through him at the thought of writing something in the language which had been his first language when he was a child in the half-forgotten, unsubstantial city of childhood, and which was still his first love. The glow was also caused by pride, of course, at being asked to contribute a piece by the editor of what he took to be a leading Urdu journal. That was what Murad had assured him it was and he was happy to believe it. ‘Will you print my poems if I send them to you – the remaining ones in the sequence?’

  ‘No. Who wants to read your poems?’ Murad said at once, abruptly. ‘I have enough poems for the issue already. As soon as I sent out the circular announcing it, contributions started pouring in. Poems, poems, poems. Everybody writes them, I tell you,’ he complained, plucking at his hair in mock distress. ‘I had to stop them. I had to pick and choose. Only the best, I said. Firaq, Faiz, Rafi, Nur …’

  ‘Nur? He has sent you some poems?’

  Murad looked evasive and shrugged. ‘Poor man, he is very old and ill. I have said I will only publish new work, not excerpts from old collections, and he has written nothing new. He is finished.’

  ‘But no special issue on Urdu poetry would be complete if it did not have some verse by Nur,’ exclaimed Deven, scandalized. ‘Old, new, it doesn’t matter – you must have Nur.’

  ‘Of course I must have Nur,’ responded Murad, looking suddenly smug. ‘Nur will be the star of the issue. The light that blazes in the centre and sends its rays to all corners of the world where his verse is known – in Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Russia, Sweden – do you know, we have sent his name to the Nobel Prize Committee for its award for literature once again?’