Khushwant Singh Best Indian Short Stories Volume 1

by Khushwant Singh

  The party on the rooftop matched the night and the city in brilliance. All the women seemed to be dressed, as though by prior agreement, in combinations of black and gold or midnight blue and silver, and the men in faultless white. Yet there was no more an appearance of uniformity than in the glittering chorus of an extravagant historical play. Each glittered independently, like a distinct personality within the chorus. The talk went on as smoothly as in a well-rehearsed play, without a break of awkwardness or forgetfulness and, as on stage, each word and gesture was charged with a special drama that Sita watched, a subdued audience in herself, and admired without reservation. She felt like someone at the theatre for the first time, like someone experiencing that mantle of magic that is extended by the players on stage to fall just within touching distance of the enraptured audience. She no more expected anyone to bend down and speak to her than she would expect it of an actor on stage.

  Out of the orchestration of talk, one word repeated itself, one note so exquisite that she found herself repeating it, after them, although in silence.

  ‘Laeeq.’

  To begin with, it was the tender beauty of the name, Laeeq, that enamoured her. ‘Laeeq, Laeeq,’ she said – and the word, the name, held within its glittering droplet all the dark, lustrous glamour of the city by night. She stopped gaping and began to listen more intently, allowing the unfamiliar setting and the costumes to withdraw from the centre of the stage and allowing the magic name, Laeeq, to become the focal point and seeing it acquire, by the stories they told of her, the anecdotes, a body, a dress, an aura. It was as if, in the very centre of this rooftop ring, a golden shaft had been erected and on its peak this radiant droplet had been placed – this name, Laeeq. She radiated this alluring glow and their talk was all one hymn to her, Laeeq.

  ‘But,’ Sita burst out at last, ‘where is she?’

  The bowl of cream at her side tilted towards her, the orange lips very nearly spilling out of it. ‘Laeeq? Oh, in Paris, the last I heard. She has a lovely flat there, really a work of art. Everything in it is a collector’s piece, so lovely. She lives there with two or three friends of hers and they enjoy themselves so tremendously. In Paris, you know.’

  ‘Ah, what do they do?’ she begged.

  ‘Do? Well, they are all highly educated – so highly educated, you know,’ and then the bowl of cream turned away, steadied itself and the orange lips returned and sank into their proper place.

  ‘The last I heard of her,’ someone else said, someone in that ring, ‘was when she was said to be giving lectures on India. Lectures on India! I thought that so funny – considering she hasn’t been here for more than ten years.’

  ‘She never came back after that tour of the Continent – she gave performances, you know, of Bharata Natyam.’

  ‘Temple dances they were called in those days.’

  ‘Laeeq was one of the first – almost the first to dance them abroad, wasn’t she?’

  ‘That portrait of hers – who was it that painted her? Oh, a very famous artist, you know – he painted her as a temple dancer. It is like a Moghul miniature, enlarged.’

  ‘Laeeq always looked as though she had stepped out of one of those Moghul paintings – one of those gardens, you know, with fountains and roses,’ said another votary, gazing into a glass that seethed with ice cubes. ‘The clothes she wore, the jewellery – bracelets and nose rings and toe rings and anklets. I wonder if she still does – in Paris?’

  ‘When I saw her last, she did, certainly. Not only she but also her friends and even her cook. He was a peculiar cook – Thai or Ceylonese, I think, and he wore shirts made of Benares silk, Laeeq ordered them for him – she chose them, you know what a good sense of colour she has.’

  ‘But the cook?’ Sita murmured, bewildered. ‘Didn’t he cook?’ But no one heard her murmur and she did not repeat it more loudly, unwilling to interrupt the spinning of this golden web of Laeeq-fantasy. Surely it was fantasy?

  ‘She told me she was planning to come to India – with her cook. She thought of buying a rose garden in Lucknow and making rose-petal jam,’ she said.

  ‘Rose-petal jam!’ several voices exclaimed, with laughter.

  ‘Rose attar would have suited her better,’ protested another.

  ‘Ah, but that was the thing about Laeeq – her humour. Always she did something to surprise you, to make you laugh. I remember, years ago when she still lived here, at a sitar recital Laeeq opened that great silver paan box she always carried with her, and passed it to me. I reached out for a paan and found it filled to the brim with those black, hand-rolled cigars. She insisted I take one. She passed it all down the row – she made us all smoke them, and then didn’t herself. Just smiled and wiggled those enormous silver toe rings of hers.’

  ‘Oh, Laeeq,’ laughing voices cried as though begging her to return, to amuse and dazzle them. Did they exaggerate her magic? Surely. Exaggeration was in the very air – was this not an opera, on stage, beneath lights that urged them on to exaggerate and posture and declaim?

  ‘But did you know her when she was a girl, in Hyderabad. We lived in Hyderabad too, in those days. I remember her wedding – people still talk of that wedding. Three men committed suicide while she was being married – an artist, a poet, a student. When the wedding party left for the bridegroom’s house, three funerals were being taken out – Laeeq saw them pass before her. But you know how she can be – magnificent.’

  Sighing, someone said, ‘I saw her not so long ago – in Paris, when I was there for that fertilizer deal, you know, that did not come off. But it wasn’t what I expected – Paris. So disappointing. I took Laeeq to a café and we watched these famous Parisians walk past and Laeeq kept saying, “What arid faces they have, these Parisians – so arid.” She was right. She was so depressed. She spoke of coming home.’

  ‘Will she? Will she? Will she?’ several cried then.

  ‘Laeeq return? No, how can she? That husband of hers – my God, that husband. Have any of you seen him lately?’

  ‘And her son – he’s not much better.’

  ‘No, no, it’s just debts and litigation all around – and scandals. The whole family has gone to pot.’

  ‘True. But even in Paris,’ someone admitted, ‘she has to struggle.’

  ‘Laeeq struggle? But she never had to.’

  ‘Oh, of course, she has that beautiful flat of hers and all those accomplished friends – so highly educated, you know. But she never did make a career of her dancing. She could have – of course, she could if she wanted – but it’s too late now, and she spoke, when I saw her last, of giving lectures, of a job, of doing without that splendid cook of hers.’

  ‘Yes, even Laeeq...’

  ‘Even Laeeq.’

  The voices dropped and fell apart, crumbling. The symphony had not come to an organized and inspired end, to Sita’s grave disappointment. It was as though the conductor had suddenly abandoned them so that no one knew what to do next. They ceased, fell silent, crumbled into separate heaps. Some rose and began to take leave of their host and hostess who looked very tired and strained, others stood swilling the dregs of their drinks about in smeared glasses: the ice cubes had all melted, there was nothing left to tinkle and, quite indubitably, the party was at an end.

  Vivek led Sita forward to say thank you and good-bye. ‘You must come again,’ the hostess said, expressionlessly, and they left. They had to wait by the lift which was busy carrying other guests down before it returned for them. Sita noticed what purple rings tiredness made beneath Vivek’s eyes and how sullen he looked and she grew tense with worry and waiting. The lift opened to receive them and bore them down, grudgingly, complainingly, to empty them into the lobby where the watchman and his friends, stripped down to their vests, sat playing cards under a naked bulb.

  On the pavement her heel buried itself into something soft and moist. Without pausing to see what it was, she hurried after Vivek to the car. He had trouble starting it. Again and again the starter w
hined and gasped, whined and gasped. The sound of it filled her with tears of tenseness and self-pity. All her first impressions of Bombay returned and sprouted – once more it was a city of lies, filth, noise, double-dealing, in which all fantasy, all grace came to a hideous end as soon as it descended from the rooftop to the lighted street. Sitting in the car, waiting for it to start, she watched the other guests straggling out of the lobby, across the pavement to their cars. Their glamorous costumes that had been all gold and black and silver on the terrace now seemed nothing but rumpled georgette, limp chiffon and tarnished brocade in shades of dirt-brown and maroon. All those smiling, creamy faces turned to pulp and sour curds. They got into their cars and drove off, leaving behind them a street full of refuse, litter and the cries of children woken from their sleep.

  At last the car started and began to crawl up the steep slope of Mount Pleasant Road. Vivek was perspiring, grumbling. He took one hand off the wheel to loosen his tie. ‘Got to get up early tomorrow,’ he moaned. ‘Got to be at the factory by eight.’

  ‘Did you know the woman they were talking about – Laeeq?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘Saw her once or twice, years ago when I was a student,’ he growled. ‘Looked like a vast tart to me.’

  She sighed and turned away to the window, not seeing. There came to her the unspectacular and dismal knowledge that life – her own life, married, over here in Bombay, and perhaps others’ lives as well – was to be a series of illusions and hopes that would quietly stumble into or taper down to the dullness of repeated disappointments. One was not to live, she saw, always on a rooftop; one would descend, always to the street. Shaking her head, she yawned.

  F I F T E E N

  It Was Dark

  SHASHI DESHPANDE

  ‘Are you awake?’

  I came out of an ugly dream, in which I was wandering all over an unfinished skeletal building, looking for someone...

  ‘Yes.’

  At first there was only a relief that I was in bed, not on a scaffolding, hopelessly searching for something.

  ‘Will you come and have your tea?’

  ‘In a minute.’

  As I spoke, I felt the foulness of my mouth, both the smell and the taste; it brought me out of a hazy world of blurred details into now and here and today. Waking, the whole burden of my grief came on me in an instant. I was not in my own bed, I was in the child’s room, sleeping on a mattress on the floor. The feeble early morning light could not pierce the drawn curtains, and I could only just see her, sleeping in a foetal position, on her side, knees drawn up. I had an instant’s longing to get away, anywhere, even back into that ugly dream. But it had already retreated from me.

  ‘The tea’s getting cold,’ his impatient voice reminded me when I was brushing my teeth. He hadn’t come in here, into her room, since we brought her home yesterday.

  ‘Is she sleeping?’ he asked me, when I joined him. He had made the tea but waited for me to pour it out. He had taken over some of the household chores from me since the day it all began. Strange, how even sorrow imposes its own routine. We were now used to this – his participation in my tasks, the silence in the house, the feeling of isolation.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she sleep well?’

  ‘No.’

  He stared at me, as if expecting me to say something more.

  ‘What does she do?’ he asked impatiently, finally.

  ‘She lies in bed and stares at the ceiling.’

  ‘The ceiling? Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He gave me a strange look, as if I was evading him, as if there was something I could say and didn’t. But there was no more to say. She just lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. I had found myself staring at the spot her eyes were fixed on, as if I could find it there, the thing she wasn’t talking about.

  Now his tea over, he pushed his cup away and slumping slightly into his chair, began tapping on the table, a rhythmic tattoo.

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That.’ There was something about those fingers...

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said absently. Then, turning his gaze on me, he spoke abruptly, as if this was what he had been thinking of all this while. ‘What if something happens?’

  ‘Something?’ I stared at him blankly.

  ‘I mean,’ he went on, anger touching his face as he realized he would have to put it into words, ‘I mean... suppose...’ He stopped and stared at me, looking for something, help maybe, or comprehension. Then he went on, more firmly, ‘After all, she was with him three days....’

  ‘No!’ It came out as a cry for help. Involuntarily his hand reached out to me. I drew back my own and looked at him in anger. ‘No, it can’t, it isn’t possible, how can you?...’

  ‘It was the doctor who spoke of it,’ he said defensively. ‘She said it’s a possibility we should...’. His voice trailed away.

  Once in a hospital I had heard a woman uttering hideous sounds as she struggled against some fearful pain. I had tried to imagine that pain and had failed. Now I knew.

  He waited until I raised my head from the table before asking me, ‘When is her next time?’

  ‘Why?’

  This question – it was much worse than his entering her room. Couldn’t he see that?

  ‘We’ve got to know. If it’s necessary, the doctor says...’

  Again he hesitated, casting about for the right word, ‘They’ll have to do...do an...MTP,’ he ended lamely, obviously using the doctor’s own words.

  Medical Termination of Pregnancy – he couldn’t have found words more innocuous sounding; but relating them to my fourteen-year-old daughter, I found them obscene. I felt sick.

  ‘Do you know her date?’

  ‘No, I can’t remember.’

  ‘Try to remember,’ he said, pinning me down.

  Those three days when we had waited for her to come home were like an abyss, cutting us off completely from the past.

  ‘You’ve got to remember.’

  ‘Later.’

  ‘No, now. I must know.’

  I sat sullen, silent, calculating.

  ‘Next week,’ I said finally.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes, she was.... ’ I stretched my arm along the table, staring down the length of it at my fingers. ‘She was very regular’. Two years now. I had worried how the child would manage. A whole day in school – games – those white clothes? This – pregnancy – was the one contingency that had never occurred to me.

  ‘A week of waiting,’ he said.

  We sat in silence after that, waiting for some sound from the girl who lay sleeping in her bed. A knock at the door splintered the silence. I clutched at the table and stared at him, my heart thudding in unreasonable panic.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The servant?’

  ‘No, it’s too early for her.’

  The knock was repeated. He went out. I heard the door being opened, the murmur of voices. Whoever it was, I wouldn’t, I couldn’t...

  ‘Some neighbours,’ he came in and said. ‘Women.’

  ‘I don’t want to see them.’

  ‘Just for a few minutes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Get it over with. You can’t hide yourself forever. After all, everybody knows now....’

  A few lines in the newspaper. I had read the thing so many times myself. But this time it was my daughter. I sat still, silent.

  ‘Go out and meet them,’ he said with suppressed savagery.

  ‘No,’ I said again.

  He stared at me for a moment, then walked out. I was filled with triumph. The voices outside were hushed and low. It was like one of those condolence visits we had after my father’s death. Low-voiced conversation, then my mother’s loud, hysterical sobs. I had hated those visits, the visitors. They were the enemy, not my father’s death.

  I picked up the cups and took them into the kitchen I was running water into them when he came back.r />
  ‘They were...’ he began and stiffened. I heard them too, the footsteps, the closing of the bathroom door. He looked at me expectantly, apprehensively, but he did not move. He hadn’t spoken to her after his one attempt at the police station yesterday.

  I ran into her room and was sitting there, trying to seem calm, when she came in. ‘Oh!’ I said, simulating surprise. ‘Are you awake?’

  She looked at me impassively.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  What did I mean by that? She did not reply.

  ‘Will you have some tea?’ She nodded.

  I brought the tea. She drank it eagerly, almost greedily. This greed was a strange, new thing I had noticed in her since yesterday. She had been a small, fastidious eater. Now, she ate and drank ravenously, but only when she was given something to eat or drink. She had not asked for anything herself.

  ‘Have you brushed your teeth?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will you brush them now?’

  She went out and I looked eagerly at the back of her pyjamas. Too childish, I thought mechanically, noting the gaily coloured figures sprinkled all over. But my eyes were looking for something else. Not finding it, I went to the bed, and drawing back the blanket, looked quickly, furtively, at the sheet. Nothing.

  I had just finished making the bed when she came back. She moved to it. ‘Don’t...’ I said, holding out a restraining hand. But she was already lying down, on her back, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.

  She had been found lying on a bed in a dingy house. The police had gone there in response to an anonymous call and had found her. I had gone to the police station carrying with me a picture of a tearful, frightened girl, dressed in her school clothes. A white blouse, blue pinafore, white socks, black shoes. Two plaits tied with black ribbons. Instead, there had been a stranger, dressed in a cheap blue nylon sari, a frilled petticoat showing under it, her hair smelling of a heavily perfumed oil. I had felt outraged, as though I had been cheated. She had been silent, she had not cried, shown no awareness of our presence. There had only been a constant swivelling of her eyes, like a person searching for something. When she came home, the search seemed to have ended. Her eyes were now, most of the time, fixed on that one spot on the ceiling.