9.16
Lata lay awake for a while. It was the height of summer, so there was only a sheet by way of covering. The fan was on, but there was no need yet for a mosquito net. The chimes on the quarter-hour were soft, but when the clock struck eleven, then midnight, it resounded along the corridor. Lata read a little by the weak light at her bedside, but the events of the last two days swam between her and the pages. Finally she put out the light and closed her eyes, and dreamed, half-awake, of Kabir.
Slow footsteps padded down the carpeted corridor. When they stopped outside her door, she sat up, startled. They were not her mother’s footsteps. The door opened, and she saw the silhouette of a man against the dim light in the corridor. It was Mr Sahgal.
Lata turned on the light. Mr Sahgal stood blinking mildly, shaking his head, protecting his eyes with his hand even from the weak light of the bedside lamp. He was dressed in a brown dressing gown tied with a brown rope with tassels. He looked very tired.
Lata looked at him in dismay and astonishment. ‘Are you all right, Mausaji?’ she asked. ‘Are you ill?’
‘No, not ill. But I have been working late. That is why — and I saw your light was on. But then you put it off. You are an intelligent girl — a great reader.’
He looked around the room, stroking his short-trimmed beard. He was quite a large man. In a thoughtful voice he said: ‘There is no chair here. I must speak to Maya about it.’ He sat himself down at the edge of the bed. ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked Lata. ‘Everything is all right, isn’t it? The pillows and everything? I remember when you were a little girl you used to like grapes. You were very young. And it is the season for them now. Pushkar also likes grapes. Poor boy.’
Lata tried to pull the sheet closer to cover herself better, but Mr Sahgal was sitting on one corner of it.
‘You are very good to Pushkar, Mausaji,’ she said, wondering what she could do or what conversation she could make. She could hear and feel her heart beating.
‘You see,’ said Mr Sahgal in a calm voice, his hands clutching the tassels of the band of his dressing gown, ‘living here there is no hope for him. In England they have special schools, special. . ’ He paused, looking at Lata’s face and neck. ‘That boy, Haresh — he was in England? Maybe he also has photos of his landladies?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lata, thinking of Mr Sahgal’s suggestive photographs and trying to check her rising fear. ‘Mausaji, I am very sleepy, I have to go tomorrow—’
‘But you are leaving in the evening. We must have our talk now. You see there is no one to talk to in Lucknow. Now in Calcutta — or even Delhi — but I cannot leave Lucknow. My practice, you see.’
‘Yes,’ said Lata.
‘It would also not be good for Kiran. She already sees bad boys, reads bad books. I have to stop these habits. My wife is a saint, she does not see these things.’ He was explaining things gently to Lata, and Lata was nodding mechanically.
‘My wife is a saint,’ he repeated. ‘Every morning she does puja for an hour. She will do anything for me. Whatever food I want, she cooks with her own hands. She is like Sita — a perfect wife. If I want her to dance naked for me she will dance. She wants nothing for herself. She only wants Kiran to get married. But I feel that Kiran should complete her education — till then what is wrong with living at home? Once, a boy came to the house — actually to the house. I told him to get out — to get out!’ Mr Sahgal no longer looked tired but livid, though his voice was still low. Then he calmed down, and continued in a tone of explanation: ‘But who will marry Kiran when sometimes, you know, Pushkar makes such frightening noises. Sometimes I sense his rage. You don’t mind my confiding like this in you? Kiran is a good friend of yours, I know. You must also tell me about yourself, your plans. . ’ He sniffed in an appraising way. ‘That is the eau de cologne your mother uses. Kiran never uses eau de cologne. Natural things are best.’
Lata stared at him. Her mouth had become completely dry.
‘But I buy saris for her whenever I go to Delhi,’ continued Mr Sahgal. ‘During the War, society ladies used to wear saris with broad borders; even brocades and tissues. Before she became a widow I once saw your mother wearing her wedding tissue sari. But now all that has gone. Embroidery is considered so vulgar.’
As an afterthought he added:
‘Shall I buy you a sari?’
‘No — no—’ said Lata.
‘Georgette drapes better than chiffon, don’t you think?’
Lata gave no answer.
‘Recently Ajanta pallus have become the craze. The motifs are so — so — imaginative — I saw one with a paisley design, another with a lotus—’ Mr Sahgal smiled. ‘And now with these short cholis the women show their bare waists at the back as well. Do you think you are a bad girl?’
‘A bad girl?’ repeated Lata.
‘At dinner you said you were a bad girl,’ explained her uncle in a kindly, measured way. ‘I don’t think you are. I think you are a lipstick girl. Are you a lipstick girl?’
With sick horror Lata remembered that he had asked her the same question when they were sitting together in his car five years ago. She had completely buried the memory. She had been fourteen or so at the time, and he had asked her calmly, almost considerately: ‘Are you a lipstick girl?’
‘A lipstick girl?’ Lata had asked, puzzled. At that time she had believed that women who wore lipstick, like those who smoked, were bold and modern and probably beyond the pale. ‘I don’t think so,’ she had said.
‘Do you know what a lipstick girl is?’ Mr Sahgal had asked with a slow smirk on his face.
‘Someone who uses lipstick?’ Lata had said.
‘On her lips?’ asked her uncle slowly.
‘Yes, on her lips.’
‘No, not on her lips, not on her lips — that is what is known as a lipstick girl.’ Mr Sahgal shook his head gently from side to side and smiled, as if enjoying a joke, while looking straight into her bewildered eyes.
Kiran had returned to the car — she had gone to buy something — and they had driven on. But Lata had felt almost ill. Later, she had blamed herself for misunderstanding what her uncle had said. She had never mentioned the incident to her mother or to anyone, and had forgotten it. Now it came back to her and she stared at him.
‘I know you are a lipstick girl. Do you want some lipstick?’ said Mr Sahgal, moving forward along the bed.
‘No—’ cried Lata. ‘I don’t — Mausaji — please stop this—’
‘It is so hot — I must take off this dressing gown.’
‘No!’ Lata wanted to shout, but found she couldn’t. ‘Don’t, please, Mausaji. I–I’ll shout — my mother is a light sleeper — go away — go away — Ma — Ma—’
The clock chimed one.
Mr Sahgal’s mouth opened. He said nothing for a moment. Then he sighed.
He looked very tired again. ‘I thought you were an intelligent girl,’ he said in a disappointed voice. ‘What are you thinking of? If you had a father to bring you up properly, you would not behave in this way.’ He got up. ‘I must get a chair for this room, every deluxe hotel should have a chair in every room.’ He was about to touch Lata’s hair, but perhaps he could sense that she was tense with terror. Instead, in a forgiving voice, he said: ‘I know that deep down you are a good girl. Sleep well, God bless you.’
‘No!’ Lata almost shouted.
When he left, his footsteps padding gently back towards his room, Lata began to tremble. ‘Sleep well, God bless you,’ is what she remembered her father used to say to her, his ‘little monkey’. She switched off the light, then immediately switched it on again. She went to the door, and found that there was no way to lock it. Finally she dragged her suitcase and placed it against the door. There was water in a jug by the bedside lamp, and she drank a glass. Her throat was parched, and her hands trembling. She buried her face in her mother’s handkerchief.