Civil Lines

by Radhika Swarup

  ‘I didn’t know she had a degree in English.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Shanti carelessly. ‘She’s always reading the papers you girls throw out. I tell her it’s bad for her eyes, but she won’t stop.’ Shanti looked at me. ‘I’ll speak to her again.’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said. I walked to Saloni, who was washing the dishes with a savage energy. ‘Saloni,’ I told her. She stopped her work, but didn’t look in my direction. ‘Did you enjoy the magazine?’

  ‘Didi!’ she exclaimed. She dashed the water off her hands, drying them on her clothes. ‘The piece on the restaurant was too much!’ She pronounced the word restaurant curiously, restoo-ront, but her enthusiasm was clear. ‘The pictures were too much,’ she continued, ‘the piece on the non-resident Indians—too much,’ and then, sneaking a glance at me, she added, ‘But there is one mistake I noted.’

  Shanti, who had been observing our interaction wordlessly, came forward to scold Saloni. ‘Baby doesn’t make mistakes,’ she said, but I told her I wasn’t offended.

  I walked back to the office to bring up the page Saloni had looked at, and asked, ‘You saw a mistake here?’

  ‘Yes, Didi.’ Saloni dried her hands on her clothes once again before she took the proffered page. ‘Right here,’ she said, pointing at a line. ‘Right where it says “The locations is perfect for the office crowd.”’ She nodded in emphasis. ‘Here,’ she repeated, ‘can you see?’

  I bent to where her finger lay, reading the words she had read out, and nodded.

  ‘Didi,’ she was saying, ‘It should read “The location is perfect for the office crowd.”’

  ‘Yes.’

  Shanti glared at her daughter-in-law, and a miserable Saloni said, ‘I’m sorry, Didi.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ I told her. There was a desk in the kitchen where Shanti worked out her recipes and shopping lists, and I sat Saloni down on it. I went back to the office, returning with the remaining pages of the coming issue, and said to her, ‘I want you to go through these pages line by line.’ Shanti looked concerned but Saloni paid me close attention. ‘Find all the errors you can, and circle them.’ She was looking at me wide-eyed, as if I had asked her to sabotage my own production, and I explained, ‘What you are doing is one of the most important tasks in any publication. You are playing the copy-editor’s role.’

  ‘Coffee-editor,’ Shanti said wonderingly.

  Saloni didn’t move, and I thrust the papers into her hands. ‘Sit,’ I told her, ‘and come show me what you’ve found once you’re done.’

  The girl looked miserable. ‘Didi…’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if the work is too hard. But if you find that this is something you do want to do, we would welcome another pair of eyes.’

  Saloni kept shaking her head, but later that day, after the others had left the office, I saw her hover outside. ‘Saloni?’

  ‘Didi,’ she said, ‘I hope you don’t mind.’ She winced as she placed the pages in front of me. There were red circles on every page, with corrections next to the offending sections. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, her head hung low, and I got up to hug her.

  ‘Saloni, don’t you understand?’ I yelled. ‘If you hadn’t spotted these problems, we would have printed the errors.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I sat back down to read her edits. Each one was valid, and her corrections showed she had read and understood the tone and content of each piece. ‘Readers wouldn’t look at the magazine again if it had gone to print like that.’

  Shanti appeared in the room. ‘I told the girl not to trouble you.’

  She made to take Saloni by the arm, but I was shaking my head. ‘Trouble me, Shanti? Saloni has saved my life.’

  ‘No, no…’

  ‘Yes,’ I insisted. ‘She has. If she has time to spare,’ and here I looked at Shanti, who continued being sombre. I was aware that Shanti and Pradeep had been looking for a homely girl who would cook and clean for them; a Shanti, as it were, for their own unit. They had returned, instead, with a revelation, a woman with brains and with ideas. Saloni looked from me to her mother-in-law, not interrupting, and I repeated, ‘If she has time, I would really value her input.’

  Shanti frowned. She turned to Saloni. ‘Do you like this…’ She waved her hand in the air, as if scratching at an invisible itch. ‘This coffee-editing?’

  Saloni nodded miserably but didn’t speak.

  ‘You are sure?’

  Once more she nodded.

  ‘Then,’ said Shanti, ‘of course you must help baby.’

  Saloni was the first member of The Satirist’s staff to draw a salary. Maya worried the fact that she was independently earning money would cause tensions in the marriage, but nothing was mentioned, neither by Saloni nor by Shanti. One morning a week, after her chores were finished in the servant’s quarter, she would rush into the office and run her red lines through the articles we had compiled. She was efficient and ruthless, and always apologetic with it, which caused much hilarity in the office.

  One morning, as Saloni quietly slipped into the office, Sonia asked her, ‘Is Shanti happy for you to work here?’ The question was a nod to family politics. Shanti had been in charge of the household all our lives, but there was a clear hierarchy. She had started off as a maid, and though she was a treasured member of the family, her work was menial. And here her new daughter-in-law was, sitting with the others in Papa’s old study. I had wondered if that fact rankled Shanti, but she had appeared happy enough for Saloni to work with the magazine.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, looking at me.

  ‘She is,’ I assented. ‘I asked her if it was ok for Saloni to work with us, and her main concern was with whether Saloni was keen on the work.’

  Ajay came forward. We were huddled over the layouts, and he bent down between me and Saloni. ‘What about Pradeep?’ he asked.

  ‘Pradeep?’ laughed Sonia. ‘He’s such a quiet little thing; I’d be surprised if he’s even noticed that Saloni’s working here.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s noticed,’ said Ajay. ‘Is he ok with you working here?’

  I turned towards the girl. Since she had starting working, Saloni had grown in vigour. It was clear her work consumed her, and it was clear she was a valued member of the team. She skipped into the office, eager to find flaws in our grammar and structure, and though she was distant and respectful with us, I had once noticed Pradeep call to her when she was working. ‘Bring me a cup of tea,’ he had said to her, and she had refused. She had told him she was working, and though Pradeep hadn’t made a fuss, I had seen his face darken. Nothing further was said, not at the time, but I wondered if the matter had been raised privately. ‘I can talk to him if you wish,’ I said to Saloni. ‘I can talk to Shanti too. Surely they must see that you working for the magazine doesn’t represent a threat to them.’

  Ajay was shaking his head. ‘But it does, can’t you see? They are stuck outside the family rooms.’

  ‘Shanti is family,’ replied Maya stoutly.

  ‘Sure,’ said Ajay. ‘But do you invite them upstairs for dinner? Do they invite you for the wedding? There is a clear distance in your relationship, and here Saloni is, a new bride, being invited to enter and sit—as an equal—in the inner sanctum of the family. So I’m sorry if what I’m saying doesn’t accord with your version of equality, but Saloni’s mere presence in this room does threaten the order as those two have known it.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Saloni was saying. ‘Pradeep is not like that,’ and though we all smiled at her, I began to wonder if there was any truth in Ajay’s words.

  XVII

  Maya had a superstition she inherited directly from Ma. Anytime things were going well; when they made it back home just before a rain shower, when they grabbed the last pineapple pastry in the bakery, or when their favourite movie was on television; their hands snaked out to touch the first piece of wood they saw. It could be a table, or a door, or an ashtray, or even the legs of a bed, they didn’t care as long as they tou
ched wood. It was a stroke of luck by any other name. Coup de foudre, the French called it, but for Ma and Maya, it was always a miracle worth thanking providence for.

  I had forgotten about their little totemic ritual, but now, as things started to go well with The Satirist, I noticed Maya touch wood every so often. Saloni would find a typo in the magazine, and Maya’s hand would sneak out to caress her tabletop. A new sponsor was acquired, and once more, Maya would perform her subtle manoeuvre. It could be anything big or little; Pradeep back early from his rounds, Tasha-di in a positive mood, or Shanti preparing her favourite meal for dinner, and Maya’s hand would be straight out and knocking on wood.

  ‘Maya!’ I would exclaim anytime I caught her, and though she would smile, she didn’t change in her habits, and neither, it would appear, did I, as I would tut every time her hand reached out for the nearest wooden table or armrest.

  ‘What’s the harm in it, anyway?’ she would chide me. ‘Am I hurting you in thanking the heavens for our luck? Am I disturbing you? Is it inconvenient to you when another sponsor signs up, or when your Twitter account swells with yet another happy reader?’

  ‘No, Maya, no,’ I would reply, but I would continue to chortle. ‘No, no, you keep on touching wood to bring us luck.’ I laughed then, but soon, when our luck changed, I found myself wishing I hadn’t been so smug.

  Things were going well. Mr Seth continued to run out of his copies, and we considered having our print run increased for our next issue. On one of our morning walks, Maya suggested we think about the next step in our business. ‘We’ll remain free for the moment,’ she said. She spoke assertively, making decisions, setting the tone of each issue, and I had to make an effort to recall the sister who had restricted herself to the shadows. ‘Of course we’re too young to be attractive to an investor, but there’s no harm in planning, is there?’

  I nodded. We turned a corner and walked towards the market, beyond which stood Raja Singh’s palatial home. I thought of the offer he had made, of friendship, of counsel, and though I suspected his words had merely been pleasantries, I wondered if he did represent an avenue of help. ‘I’ve got all the numbers,’ I told Maya. ‘I’ll put together a forecast spreadsheet for you to look at.’

  She smiled. ‘Go for it. What’s the worst that could happen?’ We wandered in the direction of Raja Singh’s house, pausing outside it for a few minutes. ‘This is what you want,’ she said to me.

  ‘This house?’

  ‘No!’ She shook her head vigorously, then said, ‘That genius. That finger on the pulse, that talent for the next big thing, for what the country wants. That’s what you want.’ I looked at her, taken aback by the intensity of her words. She’d always been so quiet, so derivative, and for the first time I wondered if she felt liberated by Ma’s passing. She was studying the house now, and as we stood by the gates, a security man came towards us to ask us our business. We looked at each other, surprised, and as Maya shouted at me, ‘Run,’ we rushed away, giggling in our juvenile thrill, and raced back towards home.

  It was the height of winter, and we were all waking later in the mornings. It grew light later, and cold with it, and we all resisted getting out of bed until as late as possible. Maya had begun to set alarms in my room, often far out of reach, and as the noise built up, I found myself hopping through the room, blanket wrapped around me, my body prickling with the sudden slap of cold against my skin. Alarms defused, I would return to bed, snuggling under the covers. I sometimes wished myself back in London with its central heating, but the truth was, winter felt sharper in Delhi. It was a relief to get into bed at night, and a distinct act of will to rise in the mornings. It still thrilled me to go outside in the evenings and find my breath turn to frost.

  It had performed the same feat in London too, and more. There had been snow; there had been sleet, there had been darkness at three in the afternoon, but somehow, the cold was so much more the norm there that it didn’t feel like so much of an aberration. Here, our diets changed, and though I had eaten enough winter soups and stews and drunk enough mulled wine, there was a joy in lifting our shawls from their mothballed cocoons in early autumn, I now noticed. The morning’s first cup of tea felt sweeter. We doused our mustard leaves in butter, accompanying them with bread Shanti made with milled corn. We ate peanut brittle, and caramelised sesame seed snacks. Winter felt like an event in India, its presence feted as much as it was feared.

  We suffered too. There were heaters on in all the main rooms; in the office and living areas, and as we walked from the warmth there into the cooler passages, or outdoors, we exposed ourselves to cold. Tasha-di came down with the first fever, and didn’t come into the office for a week. Maya was next, and then Sonia’s kids, and when Saloni didn’t come in one morning, I thought she had fallen prey to the flu too.

  When Shanti came in with tea, I asked her if her daughter-in-law was unwell. ‘Saloni?’ answered Shanti. ‘No. no, she isn’t.’ She looked around the room. ‘It’s Wednesday, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She should be here.’ Shanti picked up her empty tray and nodded at me. ‘I’ll just go and check what the matter is.’

  She didn’t come back for an age.

  The office was lightly staffed. Tasha-di still wasn’t back from her flu, Sonia was at home nursing her children, and Ajay was away on a shoot with Puneeta. It was just Maya and me in the room that day, and though we both worked, trying not to think what could be taking Shanti so long, both of our minds were on the matter. I kept looking at the clock Pradeep had fixed and put up on the wall; Maya’s hand reached out to her tabletop in talismanic appeal, and still no Shanti appeared. I stood up, walking to the clock and then back to my desk, where I checked the clock on my laptop. I walked to the door and peered out. There was no sound, and I called out to Maya that I would go and see where Shanti was.

  The two women were in the courtyard behind the house. They spoke animatedly, and as I neared them, I heard Saloni cry out, ‘But he wants me to sit and roll out rotis all day.’

  Shanti replied, her voice acquiring a reasoning tone I recognised from a dozen childhood disappointments. ‘He’ll see sense,’ she told her daughter-in-law, ‘but just for now, you could…’

  Saloni noticed my presence. ‘Didi,’ she called out loudly, and Shanti immediately clammed up.

  She turned to me with a smile. ‘Baby,’ she said. ‘We were just coming to find you.’

  ‘Didi,’ Saloni said again. Her voice was thicker than normal, a sign I initially associated with a sore throat, and then, as I took in her swollen eyes, I knew she had been crying. I looked at Shanti, who busied herself with her bangles. ‘Didi,’ Saloni was repeating, ‘I don’t think I will be able to work with the magazine anymore.’

  I had been expecting news of a domestic row. I had even been prepared to believe Shanti or Pradeep had been unkind, but this announcement took me by surprise. I stood looking at her without speaking, and Saloni lowered her gaze, ‘I’m sorry, Didi.’

  ‘But surely you’re not unhappy, Saloni?’

  ‘No, no,’ came the reply, but no further detail was volunteered.

  I thought quickly. It appeared Pradeep was averse to Saloni working, but she was not likely to complain about her new husband in front of his mother. I thought of what Ajay had said about Saloni working with the family while her husband and mother-in-law were restricted to menial roles. Perhaps she herself was uncomfortable working in the office. Saloni’s input was always valued, and though Maya and Sonia often mimed exasperation at the typos she found, it was obvious to us all that their complaints were made in jest. ‘You know we all value your work, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Didi,’ came the miserable response.

  ‘And that Maya and Sonia only joke when they say they wish you hadn’t found so many errors.’

  ‘It’s not them, Didi.’

  This was something. There was someone who had upset Saloni. ‘Who, then?’ I asked. It wasn’t Tasha-di; it was
n’t me, surely. ‘It’s not Ajay, is it?’

  The two women exchanged a brief look, and I knew Ajay had somehow caused offence. ‘No, no,’ Saloni was insisting. ‘There’s no problem with anyone else at all!’

  ‘What, then?’ I asked, but Saloni kept shaking her head.

  ‘Please, Didi,’ she said, her face averted. ‘I just can’t come to work.’

  Saloni continued to come into the house. She continued to help out her mother-in-law; fetching us tea, bringing us snacks, but she didn’t reprise her old role at the magazine. I didn’t ask her directly for her reason for leaving the job, but a few days later, as Shanti came in with my morning tea, I asked her if Saloni was happier away from the magazine.

  ‘To tell you the truth, she is,’ Shanti replied. She set the tea down on my bedside table, and came to stand next to me. ‘I think the work was too much for the poor thing.’

  She spotted some clothes that had fallen out of my bed, and tutted her admonishment. ‘Really, baby,’ she said, but my mind remained on Saloni. ‘She was so quick with her work, Shanti,’ I said to her. ‘It can’t possibly have been too much for her.’

  Shanti shrugged and bent to retrieve the clothes.

  ‘It can’t,’ I insisted.

  ‘I don’t know, baby.’

  ‘It can’t have been too much work,’ and she continued with the chores. ‘If it was too much, why didn’t she come talk to me?’

  Shanti nodded, her attitude sympathetic, but as I continued to frown, she leaned forward. She tidied my hair behind my ears, she smoothed my forehead, and as I looked up at her, she said softly, ‘Pradeep doesn’t like Saloni working at the office.’

  I laughed out loud. For Pradeep, who had called me Didi as long as I had known him, and who had never uttered a negative in my presence, to refuse to allow his wife to work in my magazine beggared belief. ‘Pradeep!’ I laughed, but Shanti continued to look sombre.

  ‘I’ve tried to talk to him,’ she said. ‘I’ve told him that times have changed, and that Saloni should be allowed to work. I’ve told him over and over again that it is your company, and that there is no danger to her or to their relationship while you are in charge. And I’ve told him repeatedly that we only have a roof above our heads on account of your generosity…’