‘Evidence, Abba?’
‘I mean, from the point of view of the court.’
‘He has confessed to the police.’
‘Has he confessed before a magistrate?’
Firoz was a little surprised that this legalistic thought should have come to his father rather than to him. ‘You’re right, Abba,’ he said. ‘But there’s all the other evidence — his flight, his identification, all our statements — mine, and those of the others who were there.’ He looked at his father carefully, thinking how hard it must be for him to approach even indirectly the subject of his injury or the other matter behind it. He said after a while: ‘When I made my statement, I was very ill; my mind could have been confused, of course. Perhaps it’s still confused — I should have thought of all this, not you.’
Neither said anything for a minute. Then Firoz went on: ‘If I fell on the knife — stumbled, say — and it was in his hand, he might, since he was drunk, have thought that he had done it — and so might — so might—’
‘The others.’
‘Yes — the others. That would explain their statements — and his disappearance,’ continued Firoz, as if the entire scene was passing once again before his eyes, very clearly, very slowly. But a few seconds of the scene that had been clear before had now begun to blur.
‘Enough has happened in Prem Nivas already,’ said his father. ‘And the same set of facts is open to many interpretations.’
This last remark conjured up different thoughts for each of them.
‘Yes, Abba,’ said Firoz quietly and gratefully, and with something of a renewal in his heart of his old respect.
18.29
Maan’s trial came up in a fortnight before the District and Sessions Judge. Both the Nawab Sahib and Mahesh Kapoor were present in the small courtroom. Firoz was one of the first witnesses. The prosecution lawyer, leading him with quiet confidence through the phrases of the statement he had given to the police, was startled when Firoz said:
‘And then I stumbled and fell on to the knife.’
‘I am sorry,’ said the lawyer. ‘What was that you said?’
‘I said, I stumbled, and fell on to the knife that he was holding in his hand.’
The government advocate was utterly taken aback. Try as he might, he could not shake Firoz’s evidence. He complained to the court that the witness had turned hostile to the state and requested permission to cross-examine him. He put it to Firoz that his evidence was inconsistent with his statement to the police. Firoz replied that he had been ill at the time of his statement, and that his memory had been blurred. It was only after his recovery that it had sharpened and clarified. The prosecutor reminded Firoz that he himself was a lawyer and that he was on oath. Firoz, who was still looking pale, replied with a smile that he was well aware of it, but that even lawyers did not have perfect memories. He had relived the scene many times and he was certain now that he had stumbled against something — he thought it might have been a bolster — and had fallen on to the knife that Maan had just wrested from Saeeda Bai. ‘He just stood there. I think he thought he had done it,’ added Firoz helpfully, though he was fully aware of the limitations of evidence based on hearsay or the interpretation of the mental state of others.
Maan sat in the dock, staring at his friend, hardly comprehending at first what was happening. A look of disturbed amazement spread slowly across his face.
Saeeda Bai was examined next. She stood in the witness box, her face unseen behind the burqa she was wearing, and spoke in a low voice. She was happy to accept the contention of the defence lawyer that what she had seen was consistent with this interpretation of events. So was Bibbo. The other evidence — Firoz’s blood on the shawl, Maan’s identification by the railway clerk, the memory of the watchman, and so on — threw no light on the question of what had happened during those two or three vital, almost fatal, seconds. And if Maan had not even stabbed Firoz, if Firoz had simply fallen on the knife held in his hand, the very question of his intention to inflict ‘such bodily injury as was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death’ was irrelevant.
The judge saw no reason why a man who had been so badly injured would go out of his way to protect someone who had deliberately inflicted such an injury on him. There was no evidence of collusion among the witnesses, no attempt by the defence to suborn anyone. He was led to the inescapable conclusion that Maan was not guilty.
He acquitted Maan of both charges and ordered him released immediately.
Mahesh Kapoor embraced his son. He too was dumbfounded. He turned towards the courtroom, which was now in uproar, and saw the Nawab Sahib talking to Firoz. Their eyes met for an instant. Mahesh Kapoor’s were full of perplexity and gratitude.
The Nawab Sahib shook his head slightly, as if to disown responsibility, and turned again to talk to his son.
18.30
Pran had not been correct in imagining that his father would become superstitious. Mahesh Kapoor did, however, take an unsteady step towards countenancing superstition. In late March, a few days before Ramnavami, he acquiesced in Veena’s and old Mrs Tandon’s request to hold a reading of the Ramcharitmanas at Prem Nivas for the family and a few friends.
Why he agreed was unclear even to himself. His wife had asked for the reading the previous year and he associated the request with her. She had even asked for a section of the Ramcharitmanas — the section involving Hanuman in Lanka — to be read to her on her deathbed. Perhaps Mahesh Kapoor felt sorry that he had refused her in the past — or perhaps he was simply too exhausted to refuse anyone anything any longer. Or perhaps — though it is unlikely that he would ever have accepted such a reason — perhaps he wished to give thanks to something beneficent and mysterious outside himself that had kept his son safe when he had seemed logically to be doomed and had restored his hope of friendship with the Nawab Sahib when it had appeared to be beyond repair.
Old Mrs Tandon was the only one of the group of three samdhins who attended. Mrs Rupa Mehra was in Calcutta, frantically making wedding purchases. And Mrs Mahesh Kapoor’s small brass bell no longer rang in the tiny alcove where she used to perform her puja.
One morning, while the recitation was going on, a white owl walked into the room where the listeners were sitting. It stayed for a few minutes, then slowly walked out again. Everyone was alarmed by the presence of this inauspicious bird in the daytime, and took it as a bad sign. But Veena disagreed. She said that the white owl, being the vehicle of Lakshmi, was a symbol of good luck in Bengal. It might well be an emissary sent from the other world to bring them good fortune and to take back good news.
18.31
When Maan was in jail, his mind had often turned to Rasheed’s tormented madness and delusion. They were both outcastes, even if his own delusion had been temporary. The difference between them, Maan had felt, was that he, despite his physical incarceration, had at least preserved the love of his family.
He had asked Pran to send Rasheed some money, not out of a sense of expiation, but because he thought it might be practically useful. He remembered how gaunt and wasted he had looked that day in Curzon Park, and wondered if what his uncle managed to send him together with what Rasheed himself was earning sufficed for rent and food. Maan feared that sooner or later the tuitions too were bound to stop.
When he was out on bail, he did not visit, but sent some more money, again anonymously, by mail. He felt that for him, a man with a violent crime hanging over his head, to visit Rasheed in person might lead to unforeseeable constructions and consequences. In any case, it would not help Rasheed’s balance of mind.