Chef (23 page)

Then something else happened. Sahib did not go for his morning walk that day because of light rain. When the rain stopped Sahib stepped out and sat on the bench in the garden. He ordered tea. Through the open kitchen window I observed everything.

The ayah took the tea tray and the daily paper to the garden. I had added ginger in the tea. Normally I would add a clove and crushed cardamom, but that morning I added ginger as well.

Sahib motioned with his hand, as if to say, leave the tray on the bench.

She planted the tray and placed a roll of paper between the tray and Sahib’s crossed legs. He unfolded the
Times
.

‘Please ask Agha to see me.’

She walked to the edge and beckoned the man raking the leaves in the garden. Not far from the yellow pile his transistor radio was playing rag malar. He stopped and literally ran to the bench.

‘Salaam, Sahib.’

‘Agha, how is the garden?’

‘The begonias have bloomed, Sahib, and the faulty fountain nozzle has been repaired, but it is no longer like the old one.’

‘Something more important?’

The gardener’s canvas shoes dropped a cake of mud as he shifted on green, neatly trimmed grass. He kept his eyes downcast.

‘Your son is dead, Agha,’ General Sahib raised his voice. Sahib rarely raised his voice.

The gardener remained still.

‘Do you hear me?’

The gardener still didn’t move.

‘You didn’t even tell?’

Agha held his face between his hands.

‘Show him the paper.’ Sahib turned to the ayah. ‘He can’t read, but he knows the photo.’

Agha studied the front page.

‘Look at your son. Is he in heaven now? Overnight he made you the father of a martyr. Thirty-seven people inside the bus terminal, Agha – all Kashmiris.’

‘My son DEAD, Sahib.’

‘The bus was to leave for Pakistani Kashmir. Fifty-six miles after fifty-six years. Fifty-six wasted years, Agha. And your son plants a bomb. Shabash.’

‘Passenger not hurt, Sahib.’

‘Passenger not hurt, Sahib,’ he mimicked. ‘Two majors, just out of the academy, killed. Finish. Khatam.’

‘Sahib –’

‘From this bench I used to watch your son. Only a few months ago he watered the trees in this garden. But one thing I will not say, I will not say he was misguided. He well knew the consequences.’

The gate opened. The guard posted outside the Raj Bhavan opened it. The nurse from the army hospital entered, and propped her bicycle by the fence. By the time General Sahib looked over his shoulder she had disappeared into the house.

‘You were going to lose your pension as well, Agha. But I have urged the colonel to reconsider.’

‘No, Sahib?’ He stood up.

‘Agha, the army fears for my life. We must let you go.’

‘But, Sahib, I am not my son.’

The General stood up. He turned and started beckoning the uniforms. The ADC rushed to the bench.

‘Talk to Agha.’

Agha would not leave. Two of the guards forced him to pack his things and threw him out. His feet crushed red and yellow leaves on the narrow path he followed.

The General walked to the gate and looked at the bend in the road for a long time until Agha disappeared.

Later he entered the mansion and climbed the stairs over the kitchen and walked slowly through the dimly lit corridor. In the bedroom he sat in a chair not far from the huge painting on the wall. The dead woman looked down at him from the painting.

I served breakfast in the bedroom.

Porridge. Upma. Papaya.

Orange-pomegranate juice.

Toast with unsalted cheese.

His daughter was lying on the bed. Rubiya was on a special diet. The kitchen had to prepare two separate dishes. One for sir and one for the girl. The nurse examined the girl. Sir moved his chair close to Rubiya and checked her pulse.

‘What is my daughter’s wish?’ he asked.

‘Papa,’ she said. ‘I want to grow up fast.’

‘And,’ he asked, ‘what will
she
become as a grown-up?’

‘Emperor,’ she said.

‘Emperor or Empress?’

‘Emperor,’ she said.

‘His Highness!’ He saluted her.

‘Papa, I will
kidnap
people!’

‘Who will
His Highness
kidnap?’

‘You,’ she said.

Sahib fell silent for a moment. Then he laughed. Being the Governor was a busy job filled with travel, and certainly the girl felt deprived of his presence. Rubiya was such a lonely child – she used to eat porridge and curds and khitchri, and now she is getting married. I am happy for her.

I am on the train because I am happy for Rubiya.

24

Civ-i-ans. Whatistheword? I am
sur-rounded by civilians in this compartment. What presighly is wrong with me? P-r-e-c-i-s-e-l-y? The tumor is in the speech area of your brain, Kip, the doctor explained. Sala asshole.

I can no longer pronounce certain words correctly. But, I can spell them:

R-a-d-i-o.

Yes.

Transformer?

No.

Tranjister?

No.

Spell it.

T-r-a-n-s-i-s-t-e-r.

Days later I found Agha had forgotten his transistor radio in the Raj Bhavan. He had packed his things hurriedly the day he was fired. I found the radio on in the scullery room. Agha was the only Kashmiri on the staff, and no one knew where he lived.

There were food stains on the silver skin of his Philips radio. Agha, you clown, I said, changing the batteries. The new batteries didn’t improve the reception. But, in the slot at the bottom I found a little note scribbled in Kashmiri. Agha could not read and write. So he must have dictated the lines.

His note led me to the Guest House at the tail end of the Raj Bhavan complex. It used to be the British Resident’s summer house, but now served as a lodge for high-ranking guests. The building faced the lake, and it had a proper roof terrace. Agha’s note said that the reception will improve on the roof, but it will get better downstairs. Unable to follow the logic, I started climbing down. The reception, as I had expected, became worse and worse. Begum Akhtar was singing ghazals. On the radio her voice sounded like a rejected Indian Idol.

Downstairs was clean. Not a particle of dust. Big portraits of six or seven old Governors looked down from walls as white as snow. I turned off the crackling radio and entered the first room. It was called the Husain Room. The room was devoted entirely to M. F. Husain’s paintings of horses. The canvases were huge, twelve feet by eight feet. One almost touched the naked bulb on the wall. I felt dwarfed by the navy-blue and apple-red horses. Reared up on hind legs they looked absolutely alive and stunning. In college the teacher had told us that Husain was the best modern painter in our country, his work was also on display in the National Gallery. No one knows why he is possessed by horses . . . He is completely self-taught and his personal life is as eccentric as his art. Husain always walks barefoot, she told us. Did you know? Not only inside the house, but also outside. Even in the hot and bustling streets of Bombay he walks barefoot, and that is exactly how he arrives at the lobbies of five-star hotels and foreign embassies and airports and even English-style clubs. He has all the money in the world to buy hundreds of shoe factories, but he shuns shoes as if foreign objects. Why are you like this? a journalist asked once. When I wear shoes I feel I am eating supper with wrong people, answered the painter.

Standing in front of the horses I removed my shoes and socks. My feet were able to breathe again. I felt connected not only to the painting, but also to the painter. When does a painter know that the painting of a horse is done? I asked myself. In kitchen we are able to tell precisely when a dish is done, but when is the horse
done
? There was something incomplete about the
horses
on the canvas, but it seemed to me that the fragments were
completing
themselves in my head. Cooking is different from painting, I thought. The key ingredients are never absent. Father knew horses . . . when I turned eight he made me feed a horse in the barracks . . . the animal’s lips had grabbed the apple swiftly from my hand.

The next room was called the Sher-Gil Hall. Briefly I stood before a dazzling composition,
Two Nudes
. The women looked mysterious despite being naked. However, it did occur to me that the round breasts of the first nude really belonged to the second, and the pointed breasts of the second nude really belonged to the first. The longer I stood there the less I thought about the lips or thighs or breasts, and the more I experienced the warmth and the cold those two women carried inside. They appeared so alone. The reason the painter Husain walks barefoot, I thought, is because he must feel lonely. His art springs out of immense loneliness, I thought.

Diagonally across from the
Two Nudes
were the stunning black and white portraits of musicians, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, the flute player, Zakir Hussein, the tabla player, and Vilayat Khan, the sitar player, and many others. The next room was dark and smelly. No windows. There was a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling on a single wire, and in that dim fragile light I noticed the form of a woman as if sitting on a toilet bowl.

Sorry, I said and stepped out in panic. In the corridor I felt a hand on my shoulder.

‘Cook! What are you doing here?’

The guard was armed with a light machine gun.

‘Nothing, Major,’ I said.

‘Nothing?’

‘Major,’ I explained, ‘I was looking for you only. Would you taste the dish I have prepared? Took me fifteen hours of hard work. I offer my new dishes to all the staff members and guards. This is how I learn how good they are!’

‘But, why are you carrying your shoes?’

‘This place is like a shrine, Major. That is why.’

He looked utterly confused and stared at Agha’s radio.

‘Here,’ I said, handing him the radio. ‘Listen to the latest cricket score. Let me bring you the dish.’

‘Bring it to the roof terrace,’ he yelled.

I rushed back to the kitchen, and brought him a bowl of wild mushroom risotto, and a tall glass of cherry-blueberry l-a-s-s-i. The guard moistens his lips and lowers his nose. He smells the risotto. Italian, I say. Foreign food, Major. You are a good man, he says. But you must never enter the art rooms. Only officers. Honest mistake, I say. Why are you trembling? he asks. Is it any good? I ask him. You are the
ustad
of cooking, he says. Serious, Major? I ask. Tell me. What do you think about the
Two Nudes
? He stares at the bowl. Come on, I say. You must have seen the painting. He tunes Agha’s radio to the sports channel. India is playing West Indies in Barbados. The reception is crystal clear. Then I pour him rum.

‘What do you think about the horses, Major?’ I ask.

Horses, he says. The painter knows nothing about horses. How could one forget to show the most important thing, the horsehair . . . You are a good man, he says, but I don’t want you to feed anyone else in this building. Is there a guest? I ask. There is the woman, he says, spooning the risotto. She’s in the room next to the paintings, Major. She is a dangerous suicide bomber, he says. What is she doing here? Why is she not in a regular prison? I ask. He nods. I do not know. Perhaps she is here because this is the least likely place to find her, this is the cleverest way to dupe the enemy. She is still being interrogated. Officers come now and then to interrogate her.

Next day I visit the Guest House again. With new dishes. Duck vindaloo and cardamomed mango. The guard and I have lunch upstairs on the terrace. Major, I would like to interrogate her, I say. He laughs. His breath stinks of rum. And what are you going to ask her? Hazaar things, I say. Like what kind of food the enemy eats, what kind of dishes the enemy’s General eats. How does he eat? How many times a day? Is he prone to diarrhea? Constipation? Does he fart? I will ask her very important questions. Plus I have Governor Sahib’s orders to interrogate her.

‘You have what?’ he asks.

‘Gen Sahib’s permission and order to ask her the questions.’

‘Major, in that case, I will open the room for you.’

But, that was not the real reason he unlocked the door.

‘Here,’ I said. ‘Try some gulab jamun.’

25

The room had the worn look of colonial times. The carpet was dark and moldy and the bathroom door open. Close to the ceiling there were huge military bootprints stamped on the wall.

She was talking to herself. In Kashmiri.

When she felt my presence her body stirred a little. She did not raise her bent head. Her hair had grown back and it was wild and she did not have on the headscarf. I sat in the chair across from the bed. Her gaze remained fixed on the floor. There was a table in front of my chair. I opened my bag and pulled out two glasses and plates and spoons, and Coke and fish and biryani and placed everything on the table. Now and then sounds of guards marching outside penetrated the room, and sounds of dogs barking. The muezzin’s call from a distant mosque penetrated as well.