‘Didn’t you even write a letter home?’ asked Lata.
‘No, Miss Mehra, I did not. I was very stubborn.’
Mrs Rupa Mehra frowned at his retreat into the surname.
‘What happened in the end?’ Lata asked.
‘One of my foster-brothers from Neel Darvaza, the one whom I loved most of all, came to Mussourie for a holiday. He saw me in the shop. I pretended I was a customer, but the manager asked me quite sharply why I was gossiping when there was work to do. When my foster-brother realized the truth of the matter, he refused to go back home unless I came with him. You see, his mother had nursed me when my own mother died.’
This last sentence was not exactly an explanation of anything, but made sense to everyone.
‘But now I am neither starving nor freezing,’ continued Haresh proudly. ‘In fact, could I invite you all to my place for lunch, perhaps?’ He turned to Mrs Rupa Mehra: ‘Kalpana mentioned in her telegram that you are vegetarian.’
Mr Kakkar asked to be excused, but Mrs Rupa Mehra accepted with alacrity on behalf of Lata and herself.
9.10
On the way to Elm Villa, the driver was unusually quiet. The rickety car too behaved well.
‘How do you enjoy your job?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘I enjoy it,’ said Haresh. ‘You know the department I was telling you about in Delhi? Well, the machinery has all been moved in, and I should begin next week with the new order that I’ve managed to procure. I’ll take you around this afternoon. It’s very well organized now that I’ve taken things in hand.’
‘So you plan to live in Kanpur?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘I don’t know,’ said Haresh. ‘I can’t advance to the top in CLFC, and I don’t want to spend my life in a company where I can’t get to the top. I’ve been trying Bata and James Hawley and Praha and Flex and Cooper Allen and even a job or two in government enterprises. Let’s see what happens. I need a godfather to help me get a foot in the door. After that I can stand on my own abilities.’
‘My son too thinks the same,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘My elder son, Arun. He is with Bentsen Pryce — and well, Bentsen Pryce is Bentsen Pryce! Sooner or later he is bound to become a director. Maybe even the first Indian director.’ She savoured the vision for a few moments. ‘His late father would have been so proud of him,’ she added. ‘He, of course, would have been on the Railway Board by now. Possibly even the Chairman. We would always travel in saloons when he was alive.’
Lata was looking slightly disgusted.
‘Here we are. Elm Villa!’ said Haresh, rather as if he were announcing the Viceregal Lodge. They got down and went to the drawing room. Mrs Mason was out shopping, and they were alone except for a liveried bearer.
The drawing room was large and light, the liveried bearer extremely deferential. He bowed low and spoke softly. Haresh offered them nimbu pani, and the bearer brought the glasses on a plate, with doilies on the top: finely netted in white, with little glass beads hanging down from the edges. Two coloured prints of Yorkshire (which was where Mrs Mason traced her ancestry to) hung on the wall. The orange cosmos arranged in the vase added an additional touch of brightness to the flower-patterned sofa; it was one of the few flowers of the season that were not white. Haresh had told the cook the previous evening that he might be having guests for lunch, so there had been no need to make any last-minute arrangements.
Mrs Rupa Mehra was impressed by the establishment at Elm Villa. She deferred drinking the nimbu pani for a few minutes after taking her homoeopathic powder. But when she did, she found it satisfactory.
Though the purpose of their meeting was continuously on all three minds, the conversation was easier than before. Haresh talked about England and his teachers, about his plans for improving his position, above all about his work. The order he had procured was much on his mind, and he assumed that Mrs Rupa Mehra and Lata too must be anxiously awaiting the outcome of that project. He talked about his life abroad — without, however, mentioning any of the English girls whom he had had affairs with. On the other hand he could not refrain from mentioning Simran once or twice, and could not entirely conceal his emotion when he did so. Lata did not mind; she was almost indifferent to the proceedings. From time to time her eye would fall on his co-respondent shoes, and she invented a Kakoli-couplet to amuse herself.
Lunch was presided over by Miss Mason, a desperately ugly and lifeless woman of forty-five. Her mother was still out; and the two other lodgers were lunching out as well. In contrast to the drawing room, the dining room was dingy and flowerless (except for a dark still life, which, though it contained roses, did not please Mrs Rupa Mehra). It was full of heavy furniture — two sideboards, an almirah and a huge, heavy table — and at the far end of the room, opposite the still life, hung an oil painting of an English country scene containing cows. Mrs Rupa Mehra immediately thought of their edibility, and was upset. But the meal itself was innocuous, and served on flower-patterned plates with wavy edges.
First there was tomato soup. Then fried fish for everyone except Mrs Rupa Mehra, who had vegetable cutlets. Then there was chicken curry and rice with fried brinjal and mango chutney. (Mrs Rupa Mehra had a vegetable curry.) And finally there was caramel custard. The imperial deference of the liveried servant and the lifelessness of Miss Mason succeeded in freezing most of the conversation.
After lunch Haresh offered to show Mrs Rupa Mehra and Lata his rooms. Mrs Rupa Mehra agreed eagerly. One could learn much from a room. They went upstairs. There was a bedroom, an anteroom, a verandah and a bathroom. Everything was neat, tidy, smart — to Lata it appeared to be in extreme, almost disturbing, order. Even the volumes of Hardy on the small bookshelf were arranged alphabetically. The shoes standing on a shoe rack in a corner of the room were polished to a glacial shine. Lata looked out from the verandah at the garden of Elm Villa, which included a bed of orange cosmos.
Mrs Rupa Mehra, on the other hand — while Haresh was in the bathroom — looked around the room and drew in her breath sharply. A photograph of a smiling, long-haired young woman stood in a silver frame on Haresh’s writing table. There were no other photographs in the room, none even of Haresh’s family. The girl was fair — Mrs Rupa Mehra could make that out even from the black-and-white picture — and her features were classically beautiful.
She felt that Haresh, before inviting them to Elm Villa, could at least have put the photograph away.
Such a thought, however, would not even have occurred to Haresh. And had Mrs Rupa Mehra by any chance thought fit to talk slightingly about this omission, that would have been the end of matters as far as Haresh went. He would have forgotten about the Mehras’ visit in a week.
When Haresh returned after washing his hands, Mrs Rupa Mehra said to him, frowning slightly:
‘Let me ask you a question, Haresh. Is there someone else in your life still?’
‘Mrs Mehra,’ said Haresh, ‘I told Kalpana and I am sure she has told you that Simran was and still is very dear to me. But I know that that door is closed to me. I cannot tear her away from her family, and for her family the fact that I am not a Sikh is all that matters. I am now looking for someone with whom I can live a happy married life. You need have no fears on that score. I am very glad that Lata and I have had the chance to get to know each other a little.’
Lata had come back in from the verandah during this exchange. She had overheard his forthright remarks and, without thinking, said to him: ‘Haresh, what part will your family play in all this? You have talked very little about them. If — if — you intend to marry someone, will they have any say in the matter?’ Her lips were trembling slightly. The thought of talking about such matters in such direct terms embarrassed her painfully. But something about the manner in which Haresh had said, ‘I know that that door is closed to me,’ had moved her, and so she had spoken.