‘That — that that boy, K’—Mrs Rupa Mehra could not bring herself to take his name—‘is acting in the play with Lata. I am ashamed of you, Malati,’ she continued, her nose beginning to redden, ‘I am ashamed of you. I trusted you. And you have been so devious.’ Her voice rose, and Savita put a finger to her lips.
‘Ma, please—’
‘Yes, yes, it is all very well, when you become a mother you too will find out—’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘You will make sacrifices, and then they will break your heart.’
Malati could not help smiling. Mrs Rupa Mehra rounded on her, the prime architect of this plot.
‘You may think you are very clever, but I always know what is going on,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. She did not mention that only a chance conversation had enabled her to discover that Kabir was acting in Twelfth Night. ‘Yes, you can smile and smile and smile, but it is I who will do the crying.’
‘Ma, we had no idea that Kabir would be acting,’ said Malati. ‘I was trying to keep Lata out of his way.’
‘Yes, yes, I know, I know, I know it all,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra in miserable disbelief. She reached into her bag for her embroidered handkerchief.
Pran stirred; Savita went over to stand by his side.
‘Ma, let’s talk about this later,’ said Lata. ‘It certainly isn’t Malati’s fault. And I can’t back out now.’
Mrs Rupa Mehra quoted a line from one of her favourite didactic poets to show that nothing was impossible, then said: ‘And you have had a letter from Haresh as well. Aren’t you ashamed to be even seeing this other boy?’
‘How do you know I have had a letter from Haresh?’ whispered Lata indignantly.
‘I am your mother, that’s how I know,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘Well, Ma,’ whispered Lata hotly, ‘you may trust me or not, but let me tell you that I did not know that Kabir would be in the play, and I am not meeting him afterwards, and there is no plot at all.’
None of this convinced Mrs Rupa Mehra, who — glancing at Savita for a second — had begun to think of the brood of misfits that this unimaginable match could create.
‘He is half-mad, do you even know that?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra.
To her bafflement and shock, this only produced a smile from Lata.
‘You are laughing at me?’ she said, appalled.
‘No, Ma, at him. He’s achieving madness quite nicely,’ said Lata. Kabir had taken to the part of Malvolio alarmingly well; his initial awkwardness had vanished.
‘How can you laugh at this? How can you laugh at this?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, rising from her chair. ‘Two tight slaps will do you some good. Laughing at your own mother.’
‘Ma, softly, please,’ said Savita.
‘I think I’d better go,’ said Malati.
‘No, you stay there,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘You should hear this too, then you will advise Lata better. I met this boy’s father at the Subzipore Club. He told me that his wife was fully mad. And the peculiar way he said it made me think that he was also partly mad.’ Mrs Rupa Mehra could not entirely conceal from her voice the triumph of vindication.
‘Poor Kabir!’ said Lata, appalled.
Kabir’s long-forgotten remark about his mother began to make a horrible kind of sense.
But before Mrs Rupa Mehra could reproach Lata further, Pran had woken up. Looking around him, he said: ‘What’s going on? Hello Ma, hello Lata. Ah, Malati, you’ve come too — I asked Savita what had happened to you. What’s the matter? Something dramatic, I hope. Come on, tell me. I heard someone say someone was mad.’
‘Oh, we were discussing the play,’ said Lata. ‘Malvolio, you know.’ It cost her an effort to speak.
‘Oh, yes. How’s your part going?’
‘Fine.’
‘And yours, Malati?’
‘Fine.’
‘Good, good, good. Whether I’m allowed to or not, I’ll come and see it. It must be just a month or so away. Wonderful play, Twelfth Night—just the thing for Annual Day. How’s Barua running the rehearsals?’
‘Very well,’ said Malati, taking over; she could see that Lata was in no mood to speak. ‘He’s got real flair. One wouldn’t think so, he’s so mild-mannered. But from the very first line—’
‘Pran is very tired,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, interrupting this unpleasant description. She wanted to hear nothing positive about the play. In fact she wanted to hear nothing at all from that brazen girl, Malati. ‘Pran, you have your dinner now.’
‘Yes, excellent idea,’ said Pran, rather eagerly for a patient. ‘What have you brought for me? This lack of exercise makes me enormously hungry. I seem to live from meal to meal. What’s for soup? Oh, vegetable soup,’ he said, disappointed. ‘Can’t I have tomato soup once in a while?’
Once in a while? thought Savita. Pran had had his favourite tomato soup the previous day and the day before, and she had thought that this would make a change.
‘Mad! Remember that!’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra sotto voce to Lata. ‘You remember that when you go gallivanting around having a gala time. Muslim and mad.’
13.4
When Maan came in, he found Pran eating his supper quite happily.
‘What’s the matter with you now?’ he asked.
‘Nothing much. Just lungs, heart and liver,’ said Pran.
‘Yes, Imtiaz said something about your heart. But you don’t look like a man with heart failure. Anyway, it doesn’t happen to people your age.’
‘Well,’ said Pran. ‘I don’t have heart failure yet. At least I don’t think I do. What I have is a severe strain.’
‘Ventricular,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘Oh. Ah, hello, Ma.’ Maan said his hellos all around, and eyed Pran’s food with intent. ‘Jamuns? Delicious!’ he exclaimed, and popped two into his mouth. He spat the seeds into the palm of his hand, placed them on the side of the plate, and took another two. ‘You should try them,’ he advised Pran.
‘So what have you been up to, Maan?’ said Savita. ‘How’s your Urdu?’
‘Oh, good, very good. Well, at any rate, I’ve certainly made progress. I can write a note in Urdu now — and what’s more, someone can read it at the other end. And that reminds me, I need to write a note today.’ His good-natured face grew perplexed momentarily, then recovered its smile. ‘And how are you? Two women in a cast of a dozen men. They must be slobbering all over you. How do you shake them off?’
Mrs Rupa Mehra looked daggers at him.
‘We don’t,’ said Lata. ‘We maintain a frigid distance.’
‘Very frigid,’ agreed Malati. ‘We have our reputations to guard.’
‘If we aren’t careful,’ said Lata severely, ‘no one will marry us. Or even elope with us.’
Mrs Rupa Mehra had had enough. ‘You can make fun,’ she exclaimed in exasperation. ‘You can make fun — but it’s not a laughing matter.’
‘You’re quite right, Ma,’ said Maan. ‘Not a laughing matter at all. Why did you allow them — I mean Lata — to act in the first place?’
Mrs Rupa Mehra kept a black silence, and Maan at last realized that this was a sensitive subject.
‘Anyway,’ he said to Pran, ‘I bring for you the affectionate regards of the Nawab Sahib, the love of Firoz, and the concern of Zainab — by way of Firoz. Yes, and that’s not all. Imtiaz wants to know if you are having your little white pills. He plans to see you tomorrow morning and count them. And someone else said something else, but I can’t remember what it was. Are you really all right, Pran? It’s quite upsetting to see you lying in the hospital like this. When’s the baby expected? Maybe, if Savita clings to you all the time, the baby’ll be born in the same hospital. Perhaps in the same room. How about that? Delicious jamuns.’ And Maan popped another two into his mouth.