In Custody

by Anita Desai

  That night the small room in which all three of them slept seemed suffocating. Summer was here and it was time they moved their cots out into the courtyard but Sarla resisted the move each year – she had nightmares about robbers climbing over the wall and attacking them in their sleep. When Deven gave a short laugh, saying, ‘What can robbers find in our house to steal?’ she hissed, ‘To them college teachers are big men, important men; how can they know that we starve?’ He was both startled and offended by the ferocity of that verb and thought of asking her if she had ever gone hungry but did not care to engage in an argument with her, knowing she could beat him. He recalled the time he had refused to buy the child toffees when they were out shopping and she had said, through pinched lips, ‘For your own son you have no money; only for going to Delhi to enjoy yourself there is money.’

  But he was not going to Delhi again: that was all over now.

  He slipped off the bed, he thought quietly, but Sarla instantly gave an irritable twitch, groaning, ‘Can’t you let us sleep?’ He sat on the edge of the bed, scratching his neck and shoulders where the mosquitoes had bitten him, then muttered, ‘Going to get a drink of water’ and shuffled out of the room. The door opening on to the courtyard creaked as he released the bolt, making him fear he would wake up the child as well and anger Sarla, but there was silence from both of them and once he was out, he felt relieved after all. In place of some emotional release from all that choked him, this simple physical one from the small, stifling room into the open night air would have to do.

  He paced up and down the uneven brick paving, avoiding the line where Sarla’s washing still hung, the corner by the pump where water had collected in a muddy puddle and the corner where the boy kept his toys: tin cans, sticks, buckets and balls. A neem tree grew outside the wall, its branches spreading over half the courtyard. Sarla often threatened to cut the branches, especially in the winter when she said it kept out the sun, but he would not let her, reminding her that it gave them shade in the summer. Now he had to admit it shut out the air as well, acting like a dusty canopy over the small, walled courtyard. Yet it made him feel cooler and fresher simply to be out in the open, to be able to see a few dim stars embedded in the purple felt of the summer sky. What was it Nur had said about those distant planets? Ah, ‘Beacons in the ocean of sky, O my ship let them set your course …’ No, he would not, would not –

  Turning his mind decisively away from these dangerous shoals, he paced up and down in his bare feet, his pyjamas and the vest full of holes, scratching at mosquito bites, smoking an occasional cigarette, refusing to entertain poetry and thinking in strict prose that he must look like a caged animal in a zoo to any creature that might be looking down at earth from another planet. And that was all he was – a trapped animal. In his youth, he had had the illusion of having free will, not knowing he was in a trap. Marriage, a family and a job had placed him in this cage; now there was no way out of it. The unexpected friendship with Nur had given him the illusion that the door of the trap had opened and he could escape after all into a wider world that lay outside but a closer familiarity with the poet had shown him that what he thought of as ‘the wider world’ was an illusion too – it was only a kind of zoo in which he could not hope to find freedom, he would only blunder into another cage inhabited by some other trapped animal. Being an illustrious poet had drawn people to the zoo to come and stare at him but Nur had not escaped from his cage for all that – he was as trapped as Deven was even if his cage was more prominent and attracted more attention. Still, it was just a cage in a row of cages. Cage, cage. Trap, trap.

  Then where was freedom to be found? Where was there fresh air to breathe?

  He looked up at the dusty pelt of the sky for some chink that promised, or assured, escape but even the stars were smothered in murk. No message came whispering on a nocturnal breeze; every leaf on the neem tree hung still, lifeless. Out in the lane a bullock cart creaked by, the wooden wheels lacking oil and shrieking dismally. Across the canal a stray dog barked in a long monotonous howl of protest. Then there was silence. A long while later it was broken by the sharp, shrill whistle of the Janata Express from Assam clattering down the railway line. He bit down on a cigarette, cursing it: why was there always a train whistle in the dark, calling over vast spaces to all who longed to travel and move on? It promised nothing, it merely reminded prisoners of their bars, mocked them in their cells.

  It was time to stop pacing: he was exhausted, perhaps sleep would come to him now. He returned to the room where the air was as flat, used and unfit for consumption as before, and stretched out on the bed. Covering his eyes with an arm, he began to fall through successive grey layers of consciousness towards the last one where grey would sink into a blur of black. But consciousness still had its fine, twisted hooks in his flesh and gave another and another tug, bringing him back unwillingly to the surface. Shuffling through the chalky dust of the lane where night was parting to make way for them came a band of dawn singers – women in white, widows, ascetics and pilgrims – hurrying by with candles and lanterns in their hands, singing in the quavering voices of the righteous:

  ‘O will you come along with us

  Or stay back in the pa-ast?

  O will you come along …’

  Sarla woke to the sound of a strangled groan, like a dog’s sob. Raising herself on her elbow so that her hair streamed down on either side of her yellow face and her eyes stood out from between the strands, she hissed, ‘Shh! It is only Mrs Bhalla and her friends, going to the temple to pray.’

  Although everything around him announced defeat and a tired return to everyday routine, Deven found himself walking, quite against his judgment and only out of a masochistic desire, he told himself, to repeat the dirge for what he had lost, towards Siddiqui’s house at the other end of the bazaar.

  Siddiqui lived in one of the last of the large old villas of Mirpore, being distantly related to the nawab from Delhi who had built them for those of his family who had fled with him from the scene of the mutiny. Of course the sprawling bazaar had stretched and grown and crowded it from all sides but inside the four high walls of the compound, now breached in many places, the house still stood, decrepit but spacious, set in a large neglected garden of leafless trees and dying shrubs and dust where there had once been lawns and flowerbeds. Siddiqui was sitting out on the terrace in a cane chair, very much in the attitude of a grand landowner, a man of leisure and plenty.

  Deven’s feet came together in hesitation at seeing Siddiqui seated in such unexpected grandeur. It was unexpected because in order to enter the compound he had had to slip through a gap between the gate and the gatepost: the rusty wrought iron was sagging and held together by a bundle of wires, equally rusty. The banana-seller and the peanut-seller who had built their booths against the two gateposts had encouraged him to use the gap since no one ever opened the gate; it would fall down if anyone were rash enough to try.

  ‘All their motor cars, their carriages, were sold long ago – what is there to open the gate for?’ they explained when he looked doubtful, not willing to enter like a thief and unable to believe that this was how Siddiqui entered or left his own house.

  Eventually he had edged his way through and now stood in the wide, gravelled driveway, looking up at the dilapidated villa and the recognizable yet unfamiliar figure of the little professor of Urdu seated on the terrace. Siddiqui was equally astonished to see him squeeze through the opening and appear in the middle of the driveway like one of the stray dogs or the chickens that occasionally escaped from the bazaar into his premises. He stood up, dressed in the light white muslin he wore after his evening bath, holding an empty pipe in his hand, and called, ‘Come up, come up here, Deven-bhai. What an honour, what a pleasure, what an occasion.’

  Deven, encouraged by this welcome, gave himself a little shake and came trailing up with a limp, exactly like one of those stray dogs uncertain of whether to expect a blow or a bone, wondering how he had dared intrude o
n the privacy of a man of such property without warning or permission. But then, he had had no idea Siddiqui lived in such splendour (the darkness added to the dimensions of the villa rather than subtracted from it). He had known that Siddiqui was a bachelor, lived alone in his ancestral home of which he was the sole guardian and which was why he had not applied for a better job in a bigger university, a bigger city: this much at least was college gup-shup.

  Embarrassed, he stood at the foot of the stairs, murmuring, ‘I didn’t know, I didn’t think –’

  ‘What didn’t you know, Deven-bhai?’ Siddiqui asked, drawing him up the steps by one hand and placing him in the cane chair, then clapping his hands loudly for attention and calling ‘Chotu! Chotu!’

  ‘That you lived like this, here, alone,’ Deven murmured.

  ‘What! Did you think I had a family, wife, children, relatives? Or did you think I lived like a nawab in a nawab’s palace? Take a look, my friend, take a look – have you ever seen such a ruin?’ he laughed and waved at a grimy boy who emerged from one corner of the derelict house. ‘Another chair, Chotu,’ he called, ‘if we have one. And a glass and a bottle – a drink for our visitor. We have that, na? Be quick, too.’

  Deven took in the house without any lights, the griminess of the retreating boy, and gave a small sigh of relief. Having been momentarily overcome by the scale of Siddiqui’s ancestral home, he was relieved to see that it was in such an advanced state of decay as to be very nearly reduced to the state in which everyone else lived in Mirpore. He felt vaguely pleased as he looked about him and saw that the cane chair Chotu dragged out was tattered and broken, that the house was blackened by neglect as much as by the night, and had clearly not been painted for decades, that there were neither lights nor curtains to colour the gloom. The only door that stood open and had a glimmer of light, flickering and non-electric, was the servant boy’s kitchen, unspeakably filthy and charred besides, while others were locked and looked as though they could never be opened. Then, not to seem too inquisitive, he turned his face to what had once been the garden but could no longer be called that – the flowerbeds and paths, although still marked by triangular pieces of brick, were merely areas of dust. Only a few trees remained – mango, pomegranate, tamarind – looming around the compound wall like shaggy guardians even if they were drooping from drought and pollution.

  Siddiqui’s manner as a host was as impeccable as if all were still in order, still functioning in another, more opulent age. After pressing a glass of rum into Deven’s hand, he gave orders to the servant boy and sent him out to the bazaar for kebabs and pilao. (Deven shifted his knees uneasily – the scene recalled too vividly Nur’s manner of conjuring up a dinner at a soirée.) What was this style of living? It was an unfamiliar one to Deven, so drearily domesticated and thrifty.

  Siddiqui appeared to notice his unease. ‘After the kitchen roof fell in, we’ve almost given up cooking at home,’ he explained comfortingly, in a kind of pigeon’s coo. ‘Most of the pots and pans were buried under the rubble and Chotu said what was the use of digging them up, they were all broken. So you see, it is quite convenient to have the bazaar right at your garden gate: I send Chotu to fetch my tea, snacks and, for guests – kebabs and pilao.’

  ‘It must be expensive,’ Deven could not help saying, with alarm.

  ‘But, my friend, who am I to spend my miserable earnings on except myself?’ asked Siddiqui. ‘You see before you a man without connections. No, that is not true – there is Chotu. I must, I will provide for Chotu, he is a boy of great talent, you know. When he returns, I must ask him to sing for us. You must hear him sing. I am having him trained. His voice is excellent – it only needs training. I am certain I can find him employment in All India Radio. Don’t look so surprised – even a dirty little boy who fetches my rice and meat can have talents given him by God, you know –’ his voice rose, becoming aggressive.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Deven hastened to agree, although dubiously.

  ‘You don’t believe me, but you will hear him, I will make him sing. Deven-bhai, how happy I am you have come. It had seemed the usual dull, lifeless evening like all others in Mirpore, but now – we shall have a concert. I will ask Chotu to sing and call some friends – another advantage of living in the heart of the bazaar, no need to go far for company – and we will dine here in the light of the moon – is there a moon? ha ha – and perhaps play a game of cards after we have eaten –’ He seemed released from his usual university self – neat, trim and circumspect – now transformed into a hedonist, a sybarite, a connoisseur of music and food and even a gambler, an unfamiliar persona unguessed at by the unimaginative – or uninformed – Deven.

  They sat there on the terrace, like a pair of nawabs stranded in the backwaters of time, thought Deven, as he reached for another kebab on the greasy plate brought by Chotu, or held out his glass to be refilled, while Siddiqui talked of history, politics, poetry and philosophy in his ornate Urdu that contrived to build not exactly a wall but a trellis between this to him historic house and the bazaar beyond, so that the tinkling of cycle bells, the hooting of motor-car horns, the blaring of film music from a loudspeaker and the din of hawkers bawling their wares seemed no more than the howling of jackals in the surrounding wastes. It was a strange experience to have here, in the Mirpore whose every dusty furrow and dull contour Deven had imagined he knew, and he wondered how he had remained unacquainted so long with Siddiqui’s talent for remaking fact into more acceptable, more attractive fiction: it had never displayed itself in college where he was only what he was, nothing else.

  ‘It was an ancestor of mine who was thrown into disgrace at the time of the mutiny – caught by the British, he was punished and made to crawl on his knees the whole length of Chandni Chowk, and all his property seized and destroyed. He fled to Mirpore with his family and the clothes on his back – and so passed on the curse of living here to all succeeding generations,’ he was saying with his lips pressed against the edge of his glass. He added wistfully, ‘I have often wished someone would do me the favour of seizing and destroying my property here so I would be free to make the return journey to Delhi where at least within the walled city the Urdu spoken is chaste, unlike the yokel dialect one hears here …’

  Deven gave a start, spilling some grains of rice down his lap. The reference to chaste Urdu at last reminded him of the subject he had come to discuss – Nur – and that they had somehow avoided mentioning at all – deliberately? It had been such a relief to forget, temporarily, that threatening topic. Deven had been quite willing to be distracted by spicy bazaar food, strong drink, and even the list of Chotu’s virtues and merits, now and then catching the professor’s eye and hastily looking away again. But he had begun to sense that Siddiqui, although still talking to him, was really ignoring him, and seemed to regard his presence as quite negligible. There was a certain insolence, was there not, in the way he spoke only of himself all the time? ‘Siddiqui Sahib,’ he began hesitatingly, ‘now you have reminded me – of Urdu, of poetry –’

  ‘Ha!’ exclaimed Siddiqui, slapping his knee. ‘Forgotten! How could I forget when Chotu is standing here at my side? Chotu, leave these plates and go and fetch some of the boys. We are going to play a game of poker, and after that you are going to sing for us – for my friend, a connoisseur of music and verse like us –’ Was he mocking?

  ‘I have to clear the table,’ muttered Chotu, starting to pick up the greasy dishes and clatter them together in a heap.

  ‘No, no – leave all this, don’t worry about it tonight – you go to the bazaar, go and fetch Anwar and Mehtab – tell them we are going to have a card game tonight –’

  ‘I told them already,’ mumbled Chotu, shuffling off. ‘They will come.’

  Siddiqui looked hurt at the lack of enthusiasm and was quiet for a little while, like a bird feeling a cold blast, but Chotu had been speaking the truth after all and there were some shadows straggling through the gap beside the gate and shambling up th
e driveway, their shoulders stooped and their toes turned inwards as if trying not to be seen. Chotu, transformed, raced out of the kitchen and sped down the stairs to greet them. They stood laughing and clapping each other on the shoulders, clasping each other in their arms and Siddiqui, watching fondly, murmured, ‘Only a boy, so talented, so hard-working. I keep forgetting he is only a boy after all.’

  Deven threw him an apprehensive look. He did not really want the evening to develop along these dangerous lines – it was too like the mehfil at Nur’s house, the signs were undeniable. Was there not every possibility of it turning into a rout? Was the discreet and cautious Siddiqui not inviting disaster by allowing Chotu to turn from servant boy to singing star, and letting the riff-raff from the bazaar enter these imposing, albeit impaired, gates?

  Nor had he any wish to join a game of poker and risk losing the little money he had with him. A mat was unrolled on the terrace flags. The boys seated themselves and began to deal out a pack of cards while Chotu bustled about fetching everyone the drinks Siddiqui called for grandly. Having served them in thick, smeared glasses which he carried out in bunches at the ends of his fingers, he sat down cross-legged on the mat too. Siddiqui could barely contain his excitement and anticipation. He played poker as if he were on a drinking spree – uninhibitedly, recklessly. Watching him lose hand after hand in horror, Deven circumspectly withdrew, insisting that Chotu take his place. He sat holding his knees and wondering how much Siddiqui would lose before he came to his senses: he did not seem in the least put out by his losses. On the contrary, they made him laugh and stretch out to fondle Chotu’s knee, saying, ‘Just wait – I will make you pay back. Take all the money you like off me, I know how to get you to make it up to me.’ The boys from the bazaar sniggered and winked at each other and at Chotu who only hung his head morosely and threw down his cards to go and fetch more rum and refill everyone’s glasses or go and blow his nose over the edge of the terrace into the bushes, then return, wiping his fingers on his pyjama leg, to continue the game.