The Glass Palace (42 page)

Manju looked again at the director's invitation. The studio was in Tollygunge, at the end of the number 4 tram line, which she took to college every day. All she'd have to do was head in the other direction. It wouldn't take long to get there. She decided to go—just to see what it was like.

But now a host of practical problems came suddenly to the surface. What was she to wear, for instance? Her ‘good' Benarasi silk, the sari she wore to weddings, was locked in her mother's
almirah.
If she were to ask for it her mother would wring the truth out of her in a matter of minutes and that would be the end of the screen test. Besides, what would people say if she stepped out of the house bedecked in a crimson and gold Benarasi at eleven in the morning? Even if she succeeded in slipping past her mother, the whole neighbourhood would be in an uproar before she got to the end of the street.

She decided that the director wouldn't have gone looking for a college girl if he wanted a fancily dressed-up actress. She settled upon the best of her white cottons, the one with small green checks. But as soon as this was resolved, a dozen new dilemmas seemed to follow. What about make-up? Powder? Lipstick? Perfume?

The morning came and predictably everything went wrong. The sari she'd decided on wasn't back from the dhobi's; she had to choose another one, much older, with a sewn-over tear in the
anchal.
Her hair wouldn't stay in place, and no matter how hard she tucked in her sari, the hem kept creeping down and tripping her. On her way out, she stepped into the puja room to say a prayer—not because she so badly wanted to be chosen, but just so that she would be able to get through the next few hours without making a fool of herself.

Sure enough, her mother spotted her coming out of the puja room. ‘Manju, is that you? What were you doing in the puja room? Are you in some kind of trouble?' She peered suspiciously into Manju's face: ‘And why've you got powder all over you? Is that any way to dress when you're going to college?'

Manju slipped away under the pretence of going to the bathroom to wipe her face. She walked quickly down the road to the tram stop. Keeping her face down, she looped her sari over her head, hoping that the neighbours wouldn't notice that she was waiting for the wrong tram. Just when she thought she'd managed to get by without drawing attention to herself,
old Nidhu-babu came running out of the Lake Road Pharmacy.

‘Is that really you, Manju-
didimoni
?' He hitched up his dhoti and bent double so that he could look up into her sari-shrouded face. ‘But why are you waiting on the wrong side of the street? This way you'll end up in Tollygunge.'

Quelling her panic, she managed to invent a story about going to visit an aunt.

‘Oh?' said the pharmacist, scratching his head. ‘But then, you must come and wait in the shop. You shouldn't be standing out in the sun.'

‘I'm all right, really,' she pleaded. ‘Don't worry about me. I'll be all right. You should go back to your shop.'

‘As you say.' He wandered off, scratching his head, but minutes later, he was back again, with an assistant who was carrying a chair. ‘If you must wait here,' the old pharmacist said, ‘at least you should sit down.' His assistant placed the chair at the tram stop and wiped it clean with a flourish.

It seemed easier to give in than to resist. Manju allowed herself to be enthroned on the chair, right beside the dusty tram stop. But within minutes, her worst fears were realised: a crowd gathered round to stare at her.

‘The Roys' daughter,' she heard the pharmacist explaining to the crowd. ‘Lives down the road—in that house over there. Going to visit her aunt in Tollygunge. Skipping college.'

Then, to her relief, the tram finally arrived. The pharmacist and his assistant held the others back so that Manju could be the first to step in. ‘I'll send a note to your mother,' the old man shouted after her, ‘to let her know that you got off safely to Tollygunge.'

‘No,' pleaded Manju, wringing her hands and leaning out of the window. ‘There's really no need . . .'

‘What's that?' The pharmacist raised a hand to his ear. ‘Yes, I said I'll send someone to your mother with a note. No, it's no trouble, none at all . . .'

Already shaken by this inauspicious start, Manju was even more put out when she arrived at the studio. She had expected something glamorous—like the Grand Hotel or the Metro
Cinema, or the restaurants on Park Street, with their bright lights and red awnings. But instead she found herself walking into a building that looked like a warehouse or a factory, a big shed, with a roof of tin. Carpenters and
mistries
were hard at work inside, hoisting canvas backdrops and erecting bamboo scaffolding.

A chowkidar led her to a make-up room, a small, windowless cabin, with wooden walls made from sawn-up tea chests. Two women were lounging inside, sprawled in tilted chairs, chewing paan, their gauzy saris shining in the brightly lit mirrors behind them. Their eyes narrowed as they looked Manju over, their jaws moving in perfect unison.

‘Why's this one dressed like a nurse?' one of them muttered to the other.

‘Maybe she thinks she's going into hospital.'

There were cackles of laughter and then a sari was thrust into Manju's hands, a length of deep purple chiffon with a bright pink border.

‘Go on. Get changed.'

‘Why this?' Manju ventured in protest.

‘Suits your colour,' snapped one of the women, cryptically. ‘Put it on.'

Manju glanced around the room, looking for a place to change. There was none.

‘What are you waiting for?' the women scolded. ‘Be quick. The director's got an important guest coming today. Can't be kept waiting.'

In all her adult life Manju had never undressed in front of anyone, not even her mother. When it dawned on her that she would have to strip under the appraising scrutiny of these two paan-chewing women, her legs went numb. The courage that had brought her thus far began to seep away.

‘Go on,' the women hurried her. ‘The director's bringing a businessman who's going to put up money for the film. He can't be kept waiting. Everything's got to be tip-top today.' One of them snatched the sari out of Manju's hands and set about changing her clothes. Somewhere nearby a car drew up.
This was followed by a patter of welcoming voices. ‘The guest's arrived,' someone shouted through the door. ‘Quick, quick, the director will want her any minute now.'

The two women ran to the door to peek at the newly arrived personage.

‘Doesn't he look important, with that beard and all?'

‘And look at his suit—all dressed up like that . . .'

The women came back giggling and thrust Manju into a chair. ‘Just one look and you can tell how rich he is . . .'

‘Oh, if he'd only marry me . . .'

‘You? Why not me?'

Manju stared into the mirror in an uncomprehending daze. The faces of the two women seemed monstrously large, their smirking lips grotesque in their size and shape. A sharp fingernail scraped her scalp, and she cried out in protest: ‘What are you doing?'

‘Just checking for lice.'

‘For lice?' Manju cried in outrage. ‘I don't have lice.'

‘The last one did. And not just on her head.' This was followed by peals of laughter.

‘How do you know?' Manju challenged them.

‘The sari was crawling after she'd worn it.'

‘The sari!' With a shriek Manju leapt out of the chair, clawing at the sari they'd given her, trying to tear it off.

The two women were helpless with laughter. ‘Just a joke.' They were almost choking on their giggles. ‘It was a different sari. Not this one.'

Manju began to sob. ‘I want to go home,' she said. ‘Please let me go. Don't send me out in front of them.'

‘Everyone who comes here says that,' the women reassured her. ‘Then they stay for ever.'

They took hold of her arms and led her out on to the brilliantly lit studio floor. Manju was now completely distraught, her nerves frayed and on edge. To keep herself from crying, she kept her gaze fixed on the floor, with her sari slung over her head. Presently a pair of polished black shoes edged into her circle of vision. She heard herself being
introduced to the director. She put her hands together and whispered a
nomoshkar
without looking up. Then she saw a second pair of shoes approaching her, across the floor.

‘And this here is my good friend,' the director's voice intoned. ‘Mr Neeladhri Raha of Rangoon . . .'

She looked up. If she hadn't heard the name she would not have known who it was. She'd met both Neel and Dinu many years ago. They were visiting with their mother, staying downstairs, in her aunt Uma's flat. But he looked completely different now, with his trimmed black beard and his suit.

‘Neel?'

He was staring at her, his mouth agape, his tongue locked above an unuttered exclamation. It was not that he had recognised her: the reason he was unable to speak was because she was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman he'd ever spoken to.

‘Neel, is that you?' said Manju. ‘Don't you remember me? I'm Manju—Uma Dey's niece.'

He nodded, in slow disbelief, as though he'd forgotten the sound of his own name.

She flew at him and threw her arms round his chest. ‘Oh, Neel,' she said, wiping her eyes on his jacket. ‘Take me home.'

The dressing room was a different place when Manju went back to reclaim her own clothes. The two make-up women were now almost worshipful in their attentiveness.

‘So you know him then?'

‘But why didn't you tell us?'

Manju wasted no time on explanations. She changed quickly and went hurrying to the door. Neel was outside, waiting beside the passenger-side door of a new 1938 Delage D8 Drophead. He opened the door for her and she stepped in. The car smelt of chrome and new leather. ‘What a beautiful car,' she said. ‘Is it yours?'

‘No.' He laughed. ‘The dealer offered to let me borrow it for a few days. I couldn't resist.'

Their eyes met for a moment and they both looked quickly away.

‘Where would you like to go?' he said. He turned the ignition key and the Delage responded with a purr.

‘Let's see . . .' Now that she was seated in the car, she no longer felt quite so pressed to get home.

He started to say something: ‘Well . . .'

She could tell that they were both thinking along similar lines. ‘Perhaps . . .' A sentence that had begun promisingly in her head died unfinished on her tongue.

‘I see.'

‘Yes.'

Somehow this terse exchange succeeded in conveying everything they wanted to communicate. Neel started the car and they drove out of the studio. They both knew that they were going nowhere in particular, just enjoying the sensory pleasure of sitting in a moving car.

‘I was so surprised to see you in that studio,' Neel said with a laugh. ‘Do you really want to be an actress?'

Manju felt herself changing colour. ‘No,' she said. ‘I just wanted to see what it was like. Things are so dull at home . . .'

Having said this much, she couldn't stop. She found herself telling him things she hadn't told anyone else: how much she missed Arjun; how his letters from the Military Academy had filled her with despair about her own future; about what a curse it was for a woman to live vicariously through a male twin. She even told him about the matches her mother had tried to arrange for her; about the mothers of the prospective grooms and how they had tugged her hair and inspected her teeth.

He didn't say much but she understood that his silence was caused principally by a habitual lack of words. His face was hard to read behind the heavy black beard but she had a feeling that he was listening sympathetically, taking everything in.

‘And what about you?' she said at last. ‘Are you really a big film producer?'

‘No!' The word burst out of his mouth with the force of an expletive. ‘No. It wasn't my idea at all. It was Apé—my father—who suggested it . . .'

What he really wanted, he said, was to work in the timber trade. He'd asked to be allowed to join the family business— only to be turned down by his father. Rajkumar had suggested that he think of other lines of work: the timber business wasn't for everyone, he'd said, especially a city-bred boy like Neel. When Neel persisted, he'd given him a sum of money and told him that he should come back after he'd doubled his capital. But how? Neel had asked. Rajkumar's response was: Go and put it in films—anything. Neel had taken him at his word. He'd looked around for a film to invest in and hadn't been able to find one in Rangoon. He had decided to travel to India instead.

‘How long have you been here then?' Manju said. ‘And why didn't you come to see us? You could have stayed with Uma-pishi, downstairs.'

Neel scratched awkwardly at his beard. ‘Yes,' he said, ‘but you know, the trouble is . . .'