‘Mm, Ma,’ said Varun, his mouth full, and his mind on other things. When more beer was offered to him, he accepted with alacrity.
‘How lovely the flower arrangements are,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. Sweetpeas could never take the place of roses in her heart, but they were a lovely flower. She sniffed the air and took in the delicate colours: pale pink, white, mauve, violet, crimson, maroon, dark pink.
Lata was thinking that the sweetpeas made rather an odd arrangement.
Arun displayed his expertise on the subject of bread. He talked about caraway bread and rye bread and pumpernickel. ‘But if you ask me,’ he said (though no one had), ‘there’s nothing like the Indian naan for sheer delicacy.’
Haresh wondered what other kind of naan there was.
After the soup (cream of asparagus) came the first course, which was fried fish. Khushwant made quite a few Czech specialities, but only the simplest and most staple of English dishes. Mrs Rupa Mehra found that she was facing a cheese-covered vegetable bake for the second time in two days.
‘Delicious,’ she said, smiling at Haresh.
‘I didn’t know what to ask Khushwant to make for you, Ma; but he thought that this would be a good idea. And he has a treat for the second course, so he says.’
Tears threatened to come to Mrs Rupa Mehra’s eyes at the thought of Haresh’s kindness and consideration. Over the last few days she felt she had been starved of it. Sunny Park was like a zoo and Arun’s explosions had been more frequent as a result. They were all staying together in the same small house, some of them sleeping on mattresses laid out at night in the drawing room. Though the Chatterjis had offered to put the Kapoors up in Ballygunge, Savita had felt that Uma and Aparna should be given the chance to get acquainted with each other. Also, she had quite unwisely wished to recreate the atmosphere of the old days in Darjeeling — or the railway saloons — when the four brothers and sisters had shared the same roof and pleasantly cramped quarters with their father and mother.
Politics was discussed. Results had started coming in from those states that had had early elections. According to Pran, the Congress would make a clean sweep of the elections. Arun did not contest the issue as he had the previous evening. By the end of the fish course politics was exhausted.
The second course was occupied mainly by Haresh impressing the assembled company with various facts of Praha history and production. He mentioned that Pavel Havel had praised him for ‘working very hardly’. Although no communist, there was something in Haresh that resembled a cheerfully Stakhanovite Hero of Labour. He told them with pride that he was only the second Indian in the colony, and mentioned the weekly figure of 3,000 pairs to which he had increased production. ‘I tripled it,’ he added, very happy to share his sense of his own achievement. ‘The welt-stitching operation was the real bottleneck.’
A line from Haresh’s tour of the tannery had stuck in Lata’s mind. ‘All the other processes — glazing, boarding, ironing and so on — are optional, of course.’ She remembered it again now, and saw in front of her the soaking pits, where thin men with orange rubber gloves were pulling swollen hides out of a dark liquid with grappling hooks. She looked down at the delicious skin of her roast chicken. I can’t possibly marry him, she thought.
Mrs Rupa Mehra, on the other hand, had moved several miles forward in the opposite direction, aided by a delicious mushroom vol-au-vent. She had decided not only that Haresh would make an ideal husband for Lata but that Prahapore, with its playground and sweetpeas and protective walls, was the ideal place to bring up her grandsons.
‘Lata has been saying how much she has been looking forward to seeing you in your smart new place,’ Mrs Rupa Mehra fibbed. ‘And now that we have seen it you must come for dinner on New Year’s Day to our place in Sunny Park,’ she added spontaneously. Arun’s eyes opened wide, but he said nothing. ‘And you must tell me if there is anything you particularly like to eat. I am so glad it is not Ekadashi today, otherwise I would not be allowed to have the pastry. You must come in the afternoon, that will give you a chance to speak to Lata. Do you like cricket?’
‘Yes,’ said Haresh, attempting to follow the ball of the conversation. ‘But I’m not a good player.’ He passed a puzzled hand across his forehead.
‘Oh, I’m not talking about playing,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘Arun will take you in the morning to see the Test match. He has got several tickets. Pran also is so fond of cricket,’ she continued. ‘And then you can come over to the house in the afternoon.’ She glanced at Lata, who, for some unknown reason, was looking quite upset.
What can be the matter with the girl? thought Mrs Rupa Mehra, irritated. Moody, that’s what she is. She doesn’t deserve her good fortune.
Perhaps she did not. At the moment her fortune, Lata couldn’t help musing, was somewhat mixed. In immediate terms it consisted of meat curry and rice; Czech sentences floating across from another table followed by a heavy laugh; a Christmas pudding with brandy sauce that Arun took two helpings of and that Mrs Rupa Mehra took three helpings of, her diabetes notwithstanding (‘But it’s a special day’); coffee; Varun silent and swaying; Meenakshi flirting with Arun and bewildering Haresh with a discussion of the pedigree of Mrs Khandelwal’s dogs; suddenly mentioning that her maiden name was Chatterji, to Haresh’s consternation — from which he recovered by plunging into talk of Praha; too much, far too much talk of Praha and Messrs Havel, Bratinka, Kurilla, Novak; the sense of a pair of co-respondent shoes lurking invisibly under a thick white tablecloth; the sudden view of a pleasant smile — Haresh’s eyes disappearing almost entirely. Amit had said something about a smile — her smile — just the other day — yesterday, was it? Lata’s mind wandered off to the Hooghly beyond the wall, the Botanical Gardens on its banks — a banyan tree — boats on the Ganga — another wall near another Praha factory — a field fringed with bamboos and the quiet sound of bat against ball. . She suddenly found herself feeling very sleepy.
‘Are you all right?’ It was Haresh, smiling affectionately.
‘Yes, thanks, Haresh,’ said Lata unhappily.
‘We haven’t had the chance to talk.’
‘It doesn’t matter. We’re meeting on New Year’s Day.’ Lata made an attempt at a smile. She was glad that her latest letters to Haresh had been quite non-committal. She was grateful, in fact, that he had hardly spoken to her at all. What could they talk about? Poetry? Music? Plays? Common friends or acquaintances or members of the family? She was relieved that Prahapore was fifteen miles away from Calcutta.
‘That’s a lovely salmon-pink sari you’re wearing,’ Haresh ventured.
Lata began to laugh. Her sari was a pale green. She laughed with pleasure and for the sheer relief of it.
Everyone else was amazed. What on earth had got into Haresh — and what on earth had got into Lata?
‘Salmon-pink!’ said Lata, happily. ‘I suppose just “pink” isn’t specific enough.’
‘Oh,’ said Haresh, suddenly looking uncomfortable. ‘It isn’t green, is it?’
Varun gave a scornful snort, and Lata kicked him under the table.
‘Are you colour-blind?’ she asked Haresh with a smile.
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Haresh. ‘But I can see nine out of ten colours accurately.’
‘I’ll wear pink the next time we meet,’ said Lata. ‘Then you can praise it without any uncertainty at all.’
Haresh saw the two cars off after lunch. He knew that he would be the topic of conversation for the next fifteen miles. He hoped that each car contained at least one of his supporters. He sensed once again that neither Arun nor Meenakshi wanted to have anything to do with him, but could not see what more he could have done to try to reconcile them to him.