Authors: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
The Minister says it is good to be with young people and listen to their ideas. He says it keeps the mind flexible and conditions it to deal with the problems of tomorrow as well as those of today. Biju too would like to talk to Mina's friends. I see him go into the room in which they are all sitting. Before he goes in, he pats his tie, and smoothes his hair to look extra smart. But as a matter of fact he looks rather too smart. He is wearing an English suit and has a handkerchief scented with eau de cologne arranged artistically in his top pocket. He seems taller than everyone else in the room. He begins to make conversation. He says “Any of you seen the new film at the Odeon?” in his clipped, very English accent that always impresses the people at the Minister's parties. But these young people are not impressed. They even look puzzled as if they have not understood what he said, and he repeats his question. They are polite young
people and they answer him politely. But no one is at ease. Biju also is embarrassed; he clears his throat and flicks his handkerchief out of his pocket and holds it against his nose for a moment as if to sniff the eau de cologne. But he doesn't want to go away, he wants to go on talking. He begins to tell them some long story. Perhaps it is about the film, perhaps it is about a similar film he has once seen, perhaps it is some incident from his past life. It goes on for a long time. Sometimes Biju laughs in the middle and he is disappointed when no one laughs with him. He flicks out his handkerchief again and sniffs it. His story doesn't come to an end; it has no end; he simply trails off and says “Yes.” The young people patiently wait to see if he wants to say anything more. He looks as if he does want to say more, but before he can do so, Mina says “Oh Uncle, I think I hear Mummy calling you.” Biju seems as relieved as everyone else to have an excuse to go away.
Once Mina and her friends rolled up the carpet in the drawing room and danced to records. The doors of the drawing room were wide open and the light and music came out into the garden where Biju and I were. We sat on a stone bench by the fountain and looked at them. They were stamping and shaking from side to side in what I suppose were the latest dances. We stayed and watched them for a long time. Biju was very interested, he craned forward and sometimes he said “Did you see that?” and sometimes he gave a short laugh as if he didn't believe what he saw. I was only interested in looking at Mina. She was stamping and shaking like all the rest, and she had taken off her shoes and flung her veil over her shoulders so that it danced behind her. She laughed and turned and sometimes flung up her arms into the air.
Biju said “Care to dance?” and when I shook my head, he jumped up from the bench and began to dance by himself. He tried to do it the way they were doing inside. He couldn't get it right, but he kept on trying. He wanted me to try too, but I wouldn't. “Come on,” he said, partly to me, partly to himself, as he tried to get his feet and his hips to make the right movements. He was getting out of breath but he wouldn't give up. I was worried that he might strain his heart, but I didn't say anything because he never likes to be reminded of his heart. Suddenly he said “There, now see!” and indeed when I looked he was doing it absolutely right, just like they were doing inside. Only he looked more graceful than they did because probably he was a better dancer. He was enjoying himself; he
laughed and spun round on his heel several times and how he shook and glidedâaround the rim of the fountain, on the grass, up and down the path; he had really got into the rhythm of it now and wouldn't stop though I could see he was getting more and more out of breath. Sometimes he danced in the light that came out of the drawing room, sometimes he moved over into the dark and was illumined only by faint moonlight. But suddenly there was a third light, a great harsh beam that came from the Minister's car bringing him home from a late-night meeting. I hoped Biju would stop now but, on the contrary, he went on dancing right there in the driveway and only jumped out of the way before the advancing car at the last possible moment, and then he continued on the grass, at the same time saluting the Minister as he passed in the backseat of the car. The Minister pretended not to see but seemed preoccupied with thoughts of the highest importance.
Sometimes Biju doesn't come for several days to the house. I don't miss him at allâon the contrary, I'm quite glad. I do all sorts of little things that I wouldn't do if he were there. For instance, I stick photographs of Mina into an album, or I tidy some drawers in the Minister's cupboard. I wait for them both to come home. Mina is there first. She talks to me about what she has been doing all day and about her friends. I do her hair in various attractive styles. She looks so nice, but when I have finished, she takes it all down again and plaits it back into a plain pigtail. I ask her whether she wouldn't like to get married but she laughs and says what for. I'm partly relieved but partly also worried because she is nearly twenty-two now. At one time she wanted to be a doctor but kept getting headaches on account of the hard studying she had to do, so she left it. I was glad. I never liked the idea of her becoming a doctor and having to work so hard and seeing so much suffering. The Minister was keen on it because he said the country needed a lot of doctors, but now he says what it needs even more is economists. So Mina often talks to me about becoming an economist.
On those days when Biju is not there, I seem to see more of the Minister. If he is late, I wait up for him to come. He is full of whatever he has been doingâwhether attending a meeting or a dinner or some other functionâand convinced that it was an event of great importance to the nation. Perhaps it was, I don't know. He tells me about it, and then it is like it was in the old days: I don't listen carefully but I'm glad to have him there. He still speaks with the same
enthusiasm and moves with the same energy while he is speaking, often bumping into things in his impatience. He continues to talk when we go up to bed and while he is undressing, but then he gets into bed and is suddenly fast asleep, almost in the middle of a sentence. I leave the light on for a while to look at him; I like to see him sleeping so peacefully, it makes me feel safe and comfortable.
When I get up next morning, I'm half hoping that Biju will not come that day either; but if there is no sign of him by afternoon, I get restless. I wonder what has happened. I telephone to his house, but his old servant is not much used to the telephone and it is difficult to understand or make him understand anything. In the end I have to go to Biju's house and see for myself. Usually there is nothing wrong with him and it is only one of his strange moods when he doesn't feel like getting out of bed or doing anything. After I have been with him for some time, he feels better and gets up and comes home with me. I'm glad to get him out of his house. It is not a cheerful place and he takes no care of it and his servant is too old to be able to keep it nicely. It is a rented house, which he has taken only so that he can live in Delhi and be near us. It has cement floors, and broken-down servant quarters at the back, and no one ever looks after the garden so that when entering the gate one has to be careful not to get scratched by the thorny bushes that have grown all over the path.
Once I found him ill. He had a pain in his back and had not got up but kept lying there, not even allowing his bed to be made. It looked very crumpled and untidy and so did he, and this was strange and sad because when he is up he is always so very careful of himself. Now he was unshaven and his pajama jacket was open, showing tangled gray hair growing on his chest. He looked at me with frightened eyes. I called the doctor, and then Biju was taken away to a nursing home, and he had to stay there for several weeks because they discovered he had a weak heart.
When he came out of the nursing home, the Minister wanted him to give up his house and come and live with us. But he wouldn't. It is strange about Biju: he has always gone where we have gone, but he has always taken a place on his own. He says that if he didn't live away from us, then where would he go every day and what would he do? I don't like to think of him alone at night in that house with only the old servant and with his violent dreams and his weak heart. The Minister too doesn't like it. Ever since he has heard
about Biju's heart, he has been worried. And not only about Biju. He thinks of himself too, for he and Biju are about the same age, and he is afraid that anything that was wrong with Biju could be wrong with him too. In the days after Biju was taken to the nursing home, the Minister began not to feel well. He even woke up at nights and wanted me to put my hand on his heart. It felt perfectly all right to me, but he said no, it was beating too fast, and he was annoyed with me for not agreeing. He was convinced now that he too had a weak heart, so we called in the doctor and a cardiogram was taken and it was discovered that his heart was as healthy and sound as that of a fifteen-year-old boy. Then he was satisfied, and didn't have any more palpitations, and indeed forgot all about his heart.
I had an old aunt who was very religious. She was always saying her prayers and went to the temple to make her offerings. I was not religious at all. I never thought there is anything other than what there is every day. I didn't speak of these matters, and I don't speak of them today. I never like anyone to mention them to me. But my old aunt was always mentioning them, she could speak of nothing else. She said that even if I did not feel prayerful, I should at least go through the form of prayer, and if I only repeated the prescribed prayers every day, then slowly something would waken in my heart. But I wouldn't listen to her, and behind her back I laughed at her with Biju. He also did not believe in these things. Neither did the Minister, but whereas Biju and I only laughed and did not care about it much, the Minister made a great issue out of it and said a lot about religion retarding the progress of the people. He even told my aunt that for herself she could do what she liked, but he did not care for her to bring these superstitions into his house. She was shocked by all he said, and after that she never liked to stay with us, and when she did she avoided him as much as she could. She didn't avoid Biju and me, but continued to try to make us religious. One thing she said I have always remembered and sometimes I think about it. She said that yes, now it was easy for us not to care about religion, but later when our youth had gone, and our looks, and everything that gave us so much pleasure now had lost its savor, then what would we do, where would we turn?
Sometimes I too, like Biju, don't feel like getting up. Then I stay in bed with the curtains drawn all day. Mina comes in and is very concerned about me. She moves about the room and pulls at the curtains and rearranges things on my bedside table and settles my
pillows and does everything she can to make me comfortable. She fully intends to stay with me all day, but after a while she gets restless. There are so many things for her to do and places to go to. She begins to telephone her friends and tells them that she can't meet them today because she is looking after her mother. I pretend to be very drowsy and ask why doesn't she go out while I'm asleep, it would be much better. At first she absolutely refuses, but after a while she says if I'm quite sure, and I urge her to go till at last she agrees. She gives me many hurried instructions as to rest and diet, and in saying good-bye she gathers me in her arms and embraces me so hard that I almost cry out. She leaves in a great hurry as if there were a lot of lost time to be made up. Then Biju comes in to sit with me. He reads the newspaper to himself, and when there is anything specially interesting he reads it aloud to me. He stays the whole day. Sometimes he dozes off in his chair, sometimes he lays cards out for patience. He is not at all bored or restless, but seems quite happy to stay not only for one day but for many more. I don't mind having him there; it is not very different from being by myself alone.
But when the Minister comes in, it is a great disturbance. “Why is it so dark in here?” he says and roughly pulls apart the curtains, dispelling the soothing honey-colored light in which Biju and I have been all day like two fish in an aquarium. We both have to shut our eyes against the light coming in from the windows. My head begins to hurt; I suffer. “But what's the matter with you?” the Minister asks. He wants to call the doctor. He says when people are ill, naturally one calls a doctor. Biju asks “What will
he
do?” and this annoys the Minister. He gives Biju a lecture on modern science, and Biju defends himself by saying that not everything can be cured by science. As usual when they talk together for any length of time, the Minister gets more and more irritated with Biju. I can understand why. All the Minister's arguments are very sensible but Biju's aren't one bit sensibleâin fact, after a while he stops answering altogether and instead begins to tear up the newspaper he has been reading and makes paper darts out of it. I watch him launching these darts. He looks very innocent while he is doing this, like a boy; he smiles to himself and his tie flutters over his shoulder. When people have a weak heart they can die quite suddenly, one has to expect it. I think of my old aunt asking where will you turn to? I look at the Minister. He too has begun to take an interest in Biju's paper darts. He picks one up and throws it into the air with a great swing of his body like a
discus thrower; but it falls down on the carpet very lamely. He tries again and then again, always attempting this great sportsman's swing though not very successfully because he is so fat and heavy. It gives me pleasure to watch him; it also gives me pleasure to think of his strong heart like a fifteen-year-old boy's. There is a Persian poem. It says human life is like the petals that fall from the rose and he soft and withering by the side of the vase. Whenever I think of this poem, I think of Biju and myself. But it is not possible to think of the Minister and Mina as rose petals. No, they are something much stronger. I'm glad! They are what I have to turn to, and it is enough for me. I need nothing more. My aunt was wrong.