House of the Sun

by Meira Chand

  ‘When I heard he was blind,’ Lakshmi continued in a whisper, ‘I wanted to cry. But after seeing him I do not feel so bad. He had a nice smile; he looks kind. That is the most important thing; a kind husband,’ Lakshmi decided. ‘I think I liked him.’

  Sham nodded, but did not add that he thought Hari Samtani’s smile was weak, and might at times be a way of escaping responsibility. Yet, in spite of reservations, he was anxious for Lakshmi to secure Hari as a husband. They might not find such a match for her again. It depended upon him, Sham thought in despair.

  As if she read his thoughts, Lakshmi whispered, ‘Mrs Bhagwandas told Ama we must offer. How can we do that, it is not possible?’

  ‘These things are not for you to worry about. Leave it to me,’ he assured her. But even as he spoke the hopelessness of it all welled up again within him.

  Soon Rekha called Lakshmi to the kitchen. When she had gone, he took Akbar Ali’s card from his pocket. Several times he had almost thrown it away.

  *

  ‘So,’ smiled Akbar Ali, looking Sham up and down. ‘Very quickly Smart Boy is coming for a job. What about your work in Foreign?’ Akbar sat behind a huge desk and chewed the end of a pencil. The room was large and bare about him. It was painted a bright oily green; the beams and the floor were warped and uneven.

  A servant appeared with two glasses of tea on a metal tray. ‘Drink,’ Akbar urged Sham and sipped noisily at his own refreshment. On the desk, the tea in the glass before Sham tipped dangerously to one side. The desk sloped over a sinking floor, the ceiling tilted symmetrically above. Outside, the building was propped up by wooden supports and appeared dangerously near its demise. It had surprised Sham to find the great Akbar Ali in this decrepit old building near Crawford Market. Climbing the dark, winding staircase he had almost turned and fled.

  ‘I cannot go back to Japan. My father has suddenly become very ill. I’m the only son, my duty is here,’ Sham explained. ‘He will need an operation,’ he lied as an afterthought. His curriculum vitae lay unread on the other side of the desk. ‘I will do anything,’ he said suddenly in a low voice. ‘Anything.’

  Akbar Ali nodded, handing the curriculum vitae back to Sham. ‘This is nothing to me. I am a good judge of character. You are a smart boy.’ He leaned forward, folding massive arms upon the desk, and looked at Sham. Beneath the rough, unshaven exterior his expression was benign. Sham did not feel as dismissive of him as he had in the Taj. ‘You know my reputation? You know of my money and how I have made it? I am not called Akbar the Great for nothing,’ he said. Sham nodded.

  ‘Of this kind of money I have now enough,’ Akbar continued, sitting back and lighting a cigarette with a gold lighter. He offered one to Sham, who shook his head. ‘I am getting older. I am looking now for a different life. Now I want to make le-git-i-mate money.’ Akbar spoke the word slowly and with difficulty, and then sighed. ‘Always I must worry about hiding this and hiding that, and customs men, and looking so clean they cannot catch me. Of this life now I am tired. It is a life for young men.’ Akbar put down his glass of tea. Behind him in a far corner a thin, dark man worked at a smaller desk.

  ‘That is Malik. Many years, since the beginning, he has been with me,’ Akbar explained. Malik looked up; he was dressed like Akbar in loose white garments, but his narrow eyes were sad and sly. ‘Everything he takes care of for me. He is my secretary,’ Akbar explained. ‘But for new business I need a smart boy who is educated. New business is le-git-i-mate. I am not a smart boy. I left school to work at nine years old.’ He gave a great laugh as he said this, Sham smiled politely. Akbar’s face became serious again. ‘You will give me your smart-boy education,’ he said.

  ‘What is the new business?’ Sham inquired, summoning up courage.

  ‘I have recently bought a factory in Marve, a spinning mill. I will be a suiting manufacturer. You will run the mill for me with the present manager and handle all business. Just like Malik is running the old business,’ Akbar said. Sham stared at him incredulously.

  ‘But I have no experience,’ he answered, his mouth had suddenly gone dry.

  Akbar answered with a laugh. ‘Smart boys learn quickly and with responsibility even quicker. Akbar is not wrong in these things. I will guide you,’ he reassured.

  He pulled thoughtfully at his moustache before he spoke again, to suggest a salary. Sham nodded, trembling suddenly. The figure Akbar named was far more than he had hoped for. He wondered if he would wake to find he had been dreaming; none of this seemed possible.

  ‘Many people will say I am a foolish man, to give so much,’ Akbar continued. ‘But in the worth of a man, I do not bargain.’ He gave Sham a shrewd look.

  Sham cleared his throat, then hesitated. Akbar raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘My father … he is ill …’ Sham explained in a low voice. ‘Is it possible … some money in advance …’

  ‘If Father is sick that is indeed trouble,’ Akbar agreed. ‘Without trouble, you see, no smart boy is applying to work for someone like me.’ He laughed and hawked into a brass spittoon.

  ‘Listen.’ He leaned forward again. ‘Now I will show you how big is the heart of Akbar. Many think Akbar is only an old fool and do not understand the bigness of his heart. They run away and start their own business. They think they are cleverer than Akbar. They begin dealing in drugs; they think Akbar is very big fool not to enter this market. They are bringing in guns, and gold bars. They make big money, but not for long; soon they are caught. But I am still doing my business: French chiffon saris, television, video, toasters, whisky, these kind of things. I am an old-fashioned smuggler. I am a man of honour, even if business is illegal. That is my reputation, even with the police. They respect Akbar; when they look for drugs or guns, they never think of Akbar. So you see, I am not so foolish.’ Sham wished for an end to these confessions. He was beginning to feel he might grow to like Akbar. These were uncomfortable feelings, he only wished to make some money.

  ‘I will give you something in advance for your father’s illness. You will repay me from your salary. I will take no interest. See the extent of Akbar’s heart.’ He smiled and slapped the desk top, naming a sum that took Sham’s breath away. With something extra from moneylenders, he might soon have enough for a small dowry. Enough to please the Samtanis.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sham, his voice uneven with emotion. Akbar waved an arm dismissively.

  ‘You thank me by showing your worth. We start work tomorrow. All right? I take you to see this factory. Ten o’clock,’ he ordered.

  Sham stumbled down the crooked, splintering stairs in a daze. Outside, he looked up at the façade of the filthy, disintegrating building, dangerously askew upon precarious supports, and shook his head in disbelief. He thought of the suave worldliness of his last employer, of Mr Murjani’s dapper form and then of the notorious, illiterate Akbar who appeared so much the better man. The world seemed to have turned upside down.

  When he reached Sadhbela he went up to the terrace. Within a few minutes Rani was beside him. There was a breeze off the sea, the sky bloomed with the setting sun. On the roof of the next building children were flying kites. At the far end of the terrace three servants flexed their muscles beneath dumbbells, grunting loudly with the effort. He knew the servants had seen them; he had tried to discourage Rani from appearing so regularly beside him on the terrace.

  ‘But you don’t understand,’ she leaned forward to say in a low voice, ‘There is just nobody I can talk to like this. Nobody I want to talk to.’ She looked at him intensely. ‘I know you understand.’ It was he who dropped his eyes first.

  ‘Understand what?’ he asked.

  ‘You know, how I feel about things,’ she replied. It was not clear to him in what way she suffered, but he did not press the matter. He did not like the effect he found she had upon him now; the heightening of his blood pressure, the urge to touch her hair. As many times as he told her not to come, he knew he waited for her.

  Since the day she had met him i
n the Taj, she had sought him out. Often, returning to Sadhbela, he looked up to see her face, high above in a corner of a window and, as he stepped out of the lift, she would appear. When he came up to the terrace in the evening, needing the space of the sky and the view, he would find her there beside him. Often they stood in silence, staring together at the sea.

  ‘You don’t know how it is at home. I’m bound hand and foot. I can’t do anything. I have no freedom,’ she dramatized.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he argued benignly. ‘You seem to have more freedom than you need.’ He remembered her the first day at the Taj, mistress of her surroundings and an imported car, blasé inhabitant of that other Bombay he would only ever observe.

  She pouted, then laughed. ‘Soon you’ll sound like Mummy. Do you know, the driver didn’t turn up on time this morning. I was going to be late for a lecture, so I said I’d walk down the road and catch a bus to college. Mummy nearly went mad. She said, “How can you walk on the road? What will people say when they see you? They’ll think we don’t have enough cars and drivers to go around. Girls of good family don’t walk on the road. And a bus? Do you want to travel with servants, and thugs?” Oh, you should have heard her.’ Rani giggled, mimicking her mother’s voice.

  ‘Well, that’s the way she thinks,’ Sham shrugged, anger stirring in him as he listened, lost for a reply. People like Mrs Murjani did not truly walk. When she shopped, going from establishment to establishment along a block or two of road, a car would trail her. On her morning stroll, a car would trail her. If one of the Murjanis’ several chauffeured vehicles was not available at the required time, Mrs Murjani would cancel an appointment rather than be seen to take a taxi. Traversing Bombay in her imported car, she did not see the dusty, packed buses spewing fumes, or the endless queues of weary people waiting in the sun.

  ‘Pinky walks wherever she wants. She often travels by bus too – her parents don’t mind. I don’t understand Mummy. I didn’t tell her, but just for kicks, I made Pinky ride with me all the way back here from Colaba by bus the other day.’ Rani pulled a triumphant face. Sham felt irritated.

  ‘You’re playing at life,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she retorted. ‘Don’t your sisters walk where they want, go by bus, work? They’re much freer than me. You don’t know how much I envy them.’

  ‘You have nothing to envy them for,’ he said in a low voice, trying to control his anger.

  ‘I know you say I’m lucky, but I live in an artificial world,’ she replied.

  He saw that, strange as it seemed, she spoke sincerely, the circumspection of her life was suffocating her. He was forced, when he was with her, to deal with a conflict of emotions. There was the strong, unspoken feeling she filled him with, the desire to reach out and touch her, as he knew she too wished. And there was equally a hot impatience with her. She moved her head defiantly, the long plait swinging about. Above them the kites hovered in the sky like silent, watchful birds, long colourful tails rippling in the breeze. He supposed, as much as he wished to step beyond his own restrictions, she too wished for a broadening of horizon. The apprenticeship he had served so painfully upon the pink sofas of the Taj, she might follow to some extent in an opposite way, upon dirty buses and the third-class compartments of trains.

  ‘You should be grateful you don’t have to really know how hard life can be,’ he told her.

  ‘Tell me,’ she demanded, then said more softly, ‘You know so much. You’re different from everyone else.’

  ‘You shouldn’t talk like that,’ he said. ‘And I’ve told you before, it’s not right for you to come up here. The servants have already seen you. They’ll talk.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she replied. ‘When I’m with you I feel different, I feel part of the real world.’

  ‘If you knew it, you wouldn’t like my real world,’ he laughed harshly. ‘No money for food, no money for dowries. No money for anything.’ She drew back guiltily, silent before these unsavoury facts.

  ‘You should get things straight in your mind,’ he continued. ‘I can’t even arrange for my sister to marry well. You don’t know how bad I feel.’

  ‘And they’ll marry me so well I’ll be no better off than your sister in the end, in a different way,’ she answered. ‘The boys I know don’t want intelligent wives; they want decoration pieces, that’s what Pinky says. I don’t want to be a decoration in somebody’s home. You would encourage your wife to do something with her life, wouldn’t you? I can imagine the kind of husband Mummy will find for me. Why don’t I marry you?’ she said in a rush. ‘It would help you too, and all your family.’

  ‘Don’t be crazy.’ He stubbed out his cigarette in alarm. ‘It’s time we went in.’ He pushed her gently by the elbow before him. But the vision of how it might really feel to be part of her world rose up strongly before him. And also, as it always did upon the terrace, with the sea before him and the town spreading away below, that other vision of the city, dark and fetid and inescapable as a bottomless vat, was before him again. On its rim Rani stood secure, in no danger of a fall. How easy it might be for him to find a way to join her there, to manipulate her infatuation for him. He made an effort to put the thought aside. Turning his head he saw that Gopal had come up to the terrace unseen and squatted with the weight-lifters, his eyes upon them both.

  7

  For a moment Mrs Murjani took her eyes off the dark fingers of the three men, crouching over low tables at her feet. She stared out of the window, so high above the sea that the only view was the emptiness of the sky. The rarefied vista calmed and expanded thought; even the sharp cries of wheeling birds added to the tranquillity. Mrs Murjani always sat back from her windows to catch this eternal view. She never thrust her head out as did other residents of Sadhbela, yelling down to hawkers in the street, gossiping to neighbours at windows, always aimlessly absorbed in life on the ground. To look down was to see the filth of the hutments up the road, crawling with half-naked children, and beyond it the immovable dhobi ghat, from which the continuous, rhythmic slap of washing bound the day like a metronome. No such depressing sights were allowed on Mrs Murjani’s horizon. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. Sometimes she thought the beggars had it easy. They had only to find one meal in two days and they died only once in the usual way. People like herself might die many deaths of unremitting shame if they let up for a moment.

  Mrs Murjani looked back to the diamond setters at her feet, and reassessed the work before each man. She never handed out more than a few stones at a time, however quickly they were set. Without such vigilance it was easy to lose a gem to them. And if one was foolish enough to allow this work to be done in a shop, all the stones would be changed for ones of lesser quality. Once a year, Mrs Murjani faced the trauma of the diamond setters. They trooped into the house and squatted down in a corner, carrying their tables and tools. Each year Mrs Murjani had a part of her jewellery reset by them. Under her eyes, or those of her trusted ayah, her gems were retrieved from obsolete settings, collected by her and locked in her safe. The empty shells of platinum or gold were then melted down, restyled into new designs and the stones reset. In this way she appeared to possess somewhat more than she owned. Each year new jewellery was acquired, but no amount was enough to satisfy the judgement of society. The same sari worn more than twice before the same crowd, the same jewellery aired too often, activated gossip immediately. It was not so much for herself, thought Mrs Murjani, observing the diamond workers, that she put herself through this inconvenience, but for her husband. His substance was reflected through her. If she relaxed in the presentation of herself, people would say his business was failing. Such rumours, once started, could grow to vicious proportions.

  Mrs Murjani considered the incongruity of the three men, whose skill was the learning of generations, amongst the gleam of her gems and her home. She had placed them as always in a small extension off the lounge. The extension had once been a balcony, but the sun now streamed in through
huge windows and the area was carpeted and part of the lounge. Sometimes, sitting on the balconies of friends in the evenings, on rattan furniture amidst many plants, Mrs Murjani considered the pleasantness of outdoor life. But, returning to the immense fitted carpets of her home, stretching out like a sea of green about her, she was reassured. It was only the moths, arriving in droves, who refused to respect such sophistication and tucked into the pile in a barbarous manner, so that often new squares must be added, the colour of which never seemed quite to match the old. Stone floors, unless Italian marble, raised doubts about taste in Mrs Murjani’s social circle, and the bare scrape upon them of chairs sounded meagre and reminded Mrs Murjani of cheap restaurants. Stone floors were appropriate to the Bombay climate, and plant-filled balconies were refreshing, but they seemed to Mrs Murjani synonymous with a time far behind her. Instead she had moths, dust on chandeliers and diamonds to reset once a year.

  She called to the ayah to bring some aspirin; she had a headache because of Rani. For a moment in her mind, the frustration of moths and the ungratefulness of the young merged into a resentful throb. For the second time in the day she must tackle Rani. Earlier there had been a terrible scene when Rani discovered through the ayah that several of the items, including a splendid necklace of rubies and diamonds, were not part of her mother’s usual resetting, but new items intended for her dowry.

  ‘I do not want to get married yet,’ Rani had shouted. ‘Are you arranging for me? I want to go abroad and study. You don’t understand. You’re so old-fashioned.’

  ‘If a daughter can be allowed to shout at her mother, what is old-fashioned?’ Mrs Murjani inquired. ‘In my days we had respect for our parents. A dowry is not collected overnight. Most girls would be happy such things were being made for them. They would help their mother choose designs; both would enjoy together. Because of your attitude I can say nothing. I must do these things in secret.’