Chef (7 page)

‘The best way to eat a mango is to suck it,’ says the colonel.

‘Yes, yes,’ says Gen Sahib.

‘Every time I eat a mango I think of Major Iqbal Singh’s Partition story,’ she says. ‘And that Muslim woman who saved his life . . .’

Memsahib stops talking in mid-sentence.

The two men avoid the subject.

(Father never told me anything about someone saving his life in 1947.)

I look at Chef. Those real Pakistani women can’t even save a dog, he says. Memsahib watches too many films, he whispers.

The three of them are sitting on the sofas again.

‘More dessert for Pakistan?’ asks the General.

‘No,’ she says.

‘Pakistan must have more?’

‘No, no,’ she says.

General Sahib starts the records.

Time passes.

It passes very quickly, then slows down. Music makes time pass slowly.

How could the woman save my father’s life? I ask myself.

Sahib raises his voice. ‘Kishen,’ he beckons.

Chef dashes in with fennel seeds and tea on tray.

‘Food was all right, Sahib?’ he inquires.

‘Excellent trout and biryani.’

‘Was it Hyderabadi?’

‘
A-One
Rogan Josh!’

‘Good brinjals!’

‘Local produce?’

‘Many things came from our own vegetable garden, Memsahib.’

‘I have only one complaint,’ she says.

‘Yes, Memsahib?’

She is stirring her tea.

‘Did the knife touch meat? I smelled non-veg in paneer.’

The General stares at Chef.

‘Sorry, Memsahib. If you would allow me, I will check with the trainee cook.’

‘The Sikh chap?’ asks the General.

‘Sir.’

‘Sir, my wife has a sharp nose,’ says the colonel apologetically. He wipes dust off his green regimental blazer.

The General is not looking very happy.

Chef dashes back to the kitchen. He pulls me up by holding my ears and stares at me angrily and drops me on the floor with a thud. I murmur an apology. He shoves me towards the tandoor, parts the curtain, and returns.

‘Separate knives were used, Memsahib,’ he assures her. ‘The trainee says he added mushroom water. The
non-wage
taste was coming from mushrooms.’

I breathe a sigh of relief.

‘Who is this Sikh in the kitchen?’ asks the colonel’s wife.

‘Major Iqbal’s son,’ says Gen Sahib, hesitating.

‘Our Iqbal’s boy in the kitchen?’

‘Don’t worry. He is on the fast track.’

‘I see,’ she says.

I watch the ayah enter the room with Rubiya. The child is in a pink frock, looks sickly. The ayah forces Rubiya to say
good evening, uncle, good evening, aunty
. She acts shy. Sahib scolds her not to be shy. Only a minute ago you were going to commit suicide, and now, my sweet
pisti
, what happened to your tongue? Suddenly the girl says: Colonel, uncle can help me! Uncle can help me! How? Asks Sahib. Uncle is a fat man, says Rubiya. Bad manners, says Sahib. Uncle has thick fingers, he can choke me to suicide. Don’t talk like that, says Sahib.

‘He is fat, uncle is fat.’

‘Sing the National Anthem, Rubiya,’ says ayah. The girl pauses, then does exactly what she has been told. She sings
jana gana mana
in a baby voice and runs and hides under the table.

Memsahib wants to say something to her husband but changes her mind and turns her gaze towards the curtain. She starts walking towards us.
Pakistan is going to invade the kitchen
, whispers Chef. He shoves me towards the clay oven and parts the curtains and smiles a fake smile. Memsahib would like to have a word with the trainee.

I lift my hands and fold them to say namasté. My brain fogs up. I bow. She says something in Hindi, I respond in good English. My attention moves from her feet to her ringed finger. She is standing very close to me now, a very tough moment, and Chef doesn’t utter a word, he observes with tiger eyes. Memsahib in her convent accent inquires about my hometown and education and thousand other things, including, if I was really Iqbal Singh’s son, and I feel like talking to her more and more, and I want to ask her about my father’s Partition story, but meanwhile I am liking her feminine presence in the kitchen, and the old vaccine mark on her upper arm. She is wearing a sleeveless blouse, but abruptly she turns, her sari spins like a top, and her high heels start clicking and it hits me hard the sound of her heels clicking as she returns to the drawing room. Before she leaves she says: come see me sometime. Chef scolds me: why did you talk to the memsahib in Inglish? Rubiya is still in the drawing room with the ayah. Memsahib sits next to the motherless girl. She strokes the girl’s ruddy cheek. The girl is the spitting image of the dead woman in the painting. The men are not paying attention to the girl or the memsahib. Sahib is talking, the colonel is listening. Now Sahib is listening, the colonel is talking. Conversation turns to Kashmir. Conversation always turned to Kashmir. The air in the room grows absolutely still.

Colonel: ‘Sir, the way these people live.’

Colonel’s wife: ‘Darling . . . what do you mean?’

Colonel: ‘If I may say so, sir. Each bloody Kashmiri has a bloody second wife.’

Colonel’s wife: ‘This means there must be twice as many women in Kashmir?’

General: ‘Your wife does have a point.’

Colonel: ‘No, sir. The brides come to Kashmir from bloody Bangladesh. And they bring along bloody men from bloody Islam, who are in touch with militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and they have occupied the bloody mosques, sir. They want bloody azadi, sir.’

Colonel’s wife: ‘The girl! Rubiya is listening.’

Her husband stands up abruptly and walks to the window.

Colonel: ‘Outside it is very dark, sir.
Array baytah! You sing soooo well. You are a big girl now
– If I may say so, sir, the way the bloody bastards think –’

Colonel’s wife: ‘Shhh! The girl.’

Colonel: ‘Sir, I love my India, sir . . .
Array baytah! What will you become when you grow really big? Tell me?
’

Rubiya: ‘Suicide.’

Colonel: ‘Jokes apart,
baytah
. What will you really do?’

Rubiya: ‘Go to Amay-ree-ka.’

Colonel’s wife: ‘Why so?’

Rubiya: ‘Papa says so.’

Colonel: ‘America is an astonishing country, sir. The doctor’s daughter studies there at NYU. She loves it.’

Colonel’s wife: ‘Let’s leave. We all love a good night’s sleep. Don’t we, darling?’

She giggles.

Colonel: ‘Let me tell General sir one last thing, darling. I have found the perfect solution to deal with Pakistan, sir! Now that we’ve the N-weapon, it is very simple . . . I shared my idea with Mr. Ghosh, sir, but he didn’t seem to get it . . . Few nights ago, sir, I woke on my bed thinking the idea. Why don’t we – and I am just thinking, sir – why not drill a hole in the glacier, bury the bomb inside, the way we do it in the desert sands, sir, and blow it up? The glacier would melt and millions and billions of liters of water will flow to their side and flood our enemy out of existence, sir?’

General: ‘But, colonel. The enemy too has an N-weapon.’

Colonel: ‘We’ll do it first, sir.’

Colonel’s wife: ‘Darling, you and your ideas.’

‘Please allow us, sir, to take our leave.’

‘It was a delight.’

‘Delighted, sir.’

‘Good night.’

‘Good night, sir.’

‘Good night, uncle. Good night, aunty.’

‘Good night,
baytah
!’

‘Good night.’

The colonel and his wife departed. It took them a long time to say bye-bye, but eventually they departed. The General waved them off from the verandah. They lived close by, and they used torch lights walking on the narrow pebbled path. I was standing outside the kitchen taking a little break to try and settle myself, and overheard their conversation. The colonel’s ideas about the glacier had made me very worried.

‘Come on, darling, I know there is something
else
bugging you.’

‘Now you have spoiled my chances of getting promoted.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘Why did you say the thing about the knives?’

‘Darling – don’t you get the point?’

‘You have destroyed me.’

‘Darling, come on.’

‘Don’t say dar-ling war-ling. Did not you see the General was silent after you said that nonsense?’

‘He likes you.’

‘Now I will never become a Brigadier.’

‘But, darling, why did you run to the window so abruptly?’

‘The view.’

‘Don’t lie. Do you think I do not know? You disappeared because . . . Do you think I do not know why you ran to the window and laughed so loudly and banged your fist against the table?’

‘There is nothing wrong with concealment.’

‘A fart, darling? One must simply say
excuse me
the way one says before sneezing, and do it.’

‘Like the General? I must say he is more honest.’

‘Down to his farting. Darling.’

Their voices receded and the torch lights became little dots and were gone. Sounds of crickets took over. Bats and wolves reclaimed their territory. I saw the night humming with stars. I had never heard a married couple talking privately. They talked like civilians. Of farts and farting.

The kitchen was still filled with her nice smell. I found it difficult to express my feelings to Chef, so I made tea quickly and thanked him – as he was waiting for it – for saving my ass. To make up for my
error
, I shared the conversation with him, the exact exchange that took place between India and Pakistan. I mimicked the memsahib in English. But he grew unusually silent.

‘Something wrong, Chef?’

‘No Inglish.’

He started slurping tea noisily.

‘What is wrong with English?’

‘No Inglish!’ he yelled at me.

Normally he lost his temper in the kitchen when the assistants licked their fingers or picked noses while marinating. I will ban you from the kitchen, he would yell. He banned Biswas, who was dumb like a cabbage, and Thapa, who scratched his groin while preparing dough. Ramji left because he was caught reading porn. (Later we found that he would also frequent the red-light district of the city to sleep with Muslim women.) Barring a few exceptions Chef was very lenient with me. But that day he simply lost it. He started cursing me. All because of Inglish. English came, and became a wall between us.

I had made a minor error, nothing in comparison to the error he had made.
I refused to serve tea to the Muslim officer
. He would repeat the story often when in an exceptionally good mood. In pure Hindi he would brag:
I refused tea to that man
. Several times when I was his apprentice I intended to ask why he had
really
done so. Was it just because of the
smell
? Would he still do so? What about the gardener, Agha? Did he dislike Agha, too, because he was a Muslim? But I could never gather the courage to pose the question.

I must be a weak character, I say to myself on this train.

9

In Srinagar whenever Colonel Chowdhry was away on border duty, during his long absences I would go out of my way to walk past his residence. There was an old plane tree in the garden with a rope swing attached to a high branch. Sometimes the convex swing would move on its own in the wind, and sometimes Memsahib would make it move with enormous force, her feet touching the ground now and then. To this day I can’t forget her perfect feet, stained a little by the soil of Kashmir.

But there was something that troubled me whenever I looked at her or thought about her in my room. The sound of a guitar would echo in my head. I would try to conjure up the guitarist and his chopped fingers making love to the memsahib. A chill would go through my spine. Before her I had not experienced such a combination of fear and desire, and because I am a weak man the fear started swelling and the desire started shrinking. What saved me from that fear was a sudden bout of indigestion. The diarrhea took me to the hospital and there I encountered the nurse again, and all my desire towards Memsahib transferred towards the nurse, now that I think about it, just like a few months earlier all my desire for the nurse had transferred towards the memsahib. The nurse’s feet resembled the memsahib’s, her hands, her entire body was almost like Memsahib’s. Only difference: the nurse was a little dark, the color of cassia.

But.

I am jumping ahead of myself.

I did gather courage once, I did walk into Colonel Chowdhry’s house once. I was under the impression he was away, but the man was home. Both he and his wife received me on the lawn. She asked me to sit down in the chair, but I looked at the colonel and his face didn’t approve that I accept her offer. Lower ranks are not supposed to sit with commissioned officers, even if one happens to be the brother of the officer in question. I kept standing, hands clasped behind my back. It is good you came, said the wife. She was also standing. The reason I came, I said, looking her in the eye, is because I would like to hear Father’s Partition story. Father never told me the details.