Putting the cat back into the cage, Govindan Nair laughed and as if he were spitting out his cigarette stump, he said: ‘You.’
‘I what?’
‘Yes, you what? This is the question,’ he said, coming to John’s table with perfect equanimity.
‘I don’t understand,’ said John, standing up.
‘I am not your boss, sit down,’ he said, putting his hand on his colleague’s shoulder. ‘You have money in the Imperial Bank.’
‘Yes, so I have. My father left me an estate.’
‘My father, sir, also existed. Otherwise I would not be here. And he also had a patch of land. I also sold some bit of it lately. It bought a house. But I have no money in the bank.’
‘So what? I just don’t understand.’
‘Abraham understands,’ he said, turning aside. Abraham had left his work and come to help anyone in need.
‘Nair?’ shouted Bhoothalinga Iyer. He was a good man but he wanted obedience from his subordinates.
‘Yes Sir,’ said Govindan Nair, going towards the boss’s office. The cat was saying ‘meow-meow’. John went over to Govindan Nair’s table and placed the cage on the floor, between the table and the almirah, well hidden away, so to say.
‘Nair, who brought this cat here?’
‘That is the question I wanted to ask you, sir. I wondered why cats run into such holy places.’ Govindan Nair knew the sensibilities of his boss.
‘Why do you think this office is holy?’
‘Sir, it is holy because we feed the starving. That which feeds the starving is holy. That which feeds the thirsty is sacred. That is why we worship the cow. This shop, this office is a very Kamadhenu.13 We give what others want.’
‘I can’t spend my morning arguing mythology with you.’
‘Is there anything you want done, sir?’
‘Yes. Look into that Ummathur file. The seventeen sacks of rice lost from the goods wagon. The police were here yesterday evening. Please inquire.’
‘I’ll look into the papers immediately, sir, and let you know.’
Such matters were always entrusted to Govindan Nair. He had studied law up to the first year. He was too lazy to appear for the second year, so he became a clerk. Jobs are going at the Secretariat, war jobs, said a friend. He went in and came out with an order of appointment as it were. So I was saying, Govindan Nair knew a bit of law. Also as a student he was a grand speaker, and he was invited by schools for debates. That gave him a wide knowledge of Travancore. And when he married, his father-in-law was a subcollector. This took the father-in-law almost everywhere. This took Tangamma everywhere. So Govindan Nair learned a great deal about Travancore. And then he was a clever man. Hence these files went to him.
The Ummathur-seventeen-sacks case became famous. Even Madras got worried about it. Where had the sacks gone?
The office settled down to peaceful work now. The day was getting hot. The boss started calling for files. Downstairs, the scale made the usual ding-dong noise. Some people spoke in high voices and others at tangents. It was a Saturday morning, so there were not many people. Many of them had gone to the Kalayodhan fair. The rains would stop. The harvest would ripen. And the world yet be fair.
The cat lay upon its belly, its eyes wide and absolutely at rest. It did not say ‘meow’ even once after that.
Mother cat sits in a cage between the office table and the almirah. In the office there are thirteen clerks. And the boss Bhoothalinga Iyer sneezes from his room. His office is partitioned off and has a swinging door. Every time anyone goes in to answer the boss’s calls the cat seems to rise up. There’s a painful irritating grating — the hinges have not been oiled. When the boss calls and the hinges creak, the cat sits up on her haunches, then lies down again. When Govindan Nair lifts her cage (for it’s a she; after all, one discovered it) mother cat lifts up her head and says ‘meow-meow.’ Then, bending down, Govindan Nair gives his pen nib to her and she chews it. ‘Ah, she chews the origin of numbers,’ says Govindan Nair, to whom every mystery seems to open itself. If Lavoisier, as textbooks say, divided oxygen and hydrogen after years of experimentation, our Govindan Nair born in France would only have had to stand and say: ‘Water, show thyself to me!’ And hydrogen would have stood to one side somewhat big and bellied, and oxygen would have curled herself shy at his knees and suddenly gone shooting like a mermaid into the big sky. And he would not have lost his head in the Revolution. The British, too, chopped off their kings’ heads. A king chops off your head, or you chop his, but the police state is different from the state Truth policed. The fact is that when the mother cat carries you across the wall and to anywhere, there is nothing but space. Space is white and large and free. Why don’t you go there? Sir, you will say, kneading your snuff, but there is a wall. To which Govindan Nair makes answer: Like Usha, why don’t you put stones one over the other, and standing under the bilva tree, you can speak to Shridhar. You now say: That is why Shridhar died. Usha spoke over the wall and the cat carried him away. Funny, sir, that a child is carried away by a cat. Anyway, tell me where is Shridhar gone? He has gone to a house three storeys high. ‘Is that what you say, mother cat?’ asks Govindan Nair. The mother cat says ‘meow’. Govindan Nair cannot keep her in the cage any longer. He opens the cage and the cat leaps on to his lap. It is a trained cat. It knows what is right from what is wrong.
Children below were playing hide-and-seek among the rice bags. The ration shop was also their play-ground. While the mothers waited, the children played among the bags. Govindan Nair wanted to go down and play with the children, but there was this Ummathur file and the seventeen sacks lost. Who had stolen the sacks? Was it a gang of poor men or was it merchants’ marauders? Stroking the cat, his pen in his mouth, Govindan Nair was contemplating. When he thinks in this manner it means he wants to do something mechanical. He always carried a penknife with him, for sharpening pencils and such other things (including rose twigs). He usually took this out, pulled out the blade and started rubbing it up and down the edge of the table. Just where he worked on his files, he had written, or rather carved, many names — his own, the name of his boss, and Usha’s (I was surprised once when I went to visit him to find Usha’s name there, but it was there). Sharpening the knife, he started humming to himself.