Diamond Dust (23 page)

When Moyna queued up at the Mother Dairy with her milk can next morning, she found herself standing next to a young woman she had often noticed there but never spoken to: she seemed to be a foreigner, with light brown hair pulled back and tied in a long pigtail down her back, wearing the cheapest of cotton saris and rubber slippers. Now the young woman spoke to her, unexpectedly. 'I have heard,' she said haltingly, 'you have had—theft?' Moyna nodded, and hardly dared reply, knowing everyone in the line was listening. Many did turn around at the word 'theft'. 'I too,' said the young woman sympathetically. 'I see you on roof. I, too,' she said, and after they had had their milk cans filled, they walked back together along the dusty verge of the road, and Simona told Moyna how she had employed a boy who had regularly burgled her barsati of anything she bought for it. 'But didn't you dismiss him?' Moyna asked, thinking that even she would have had the wits to do that. 'Of course,' Simona replied, 'after first time! But he had key for my barsati, came back and thieved again, and again. Now I have nothing left, nothing,' she added, with a joyful smile. 'And the police—?' 'Oh, they caught him—again, and again. But always they had to let him go because he said he was twelve years old! Too young for gaol.' Simona shrugged. 'Still he is twelve. He does not grow any older. So he can be thief for longer.'

This gave Moyna so much food for thought that she walked along in silence, and almost forgot to ask Simona her name or address. When she did, it turned out that Simona was one of her neighbours, only too discreet to hang over her ledge and spy on Moyna like the others. Now she promised to wave and call when she saw Moyna out on her rooftop. 'You have most beautiful tree,' she said on parting, and Moyna glowed till it struck her it could be the reason why she stayed on with the Bhallas, and if that would not be considered foolishness by anyone but Simona.

The next day Tara and Ritwick came to visit. They stalked around the rooftop, peering through every possible loophole through which the burglar might re-enter. The trouble was that he probably had a key to the door and could let himself in whenever Moyna left: it was unlikely he risked climbing the great tree in the backyard.

'This place is just not secure, Moyna. You've got to ask your landlord to make it secure. Fence in the entire outer wall—'

'Ask Mr Bhalla?' Moyna croaked.

Lately whenever Moyna passed through the Bhalla home she felt she needed protective clothing. Mr Bhalla's jowls seemed set in a permanent scowl like a thunder cloud (the fact that he rarely shaved and his jaws were always blue added to the illusion) while Mrs Bhalla would plant herself in a central location, her eyes following Moyna down to the gate or up the stairs as if she suspected Moyna herself of the theft. Her mutterings implied as much—'These girls, these days, think they can go to work, live alone—huh! Can't even take care of their own belongings!' Did she actually say these words, or was Moyna imagining them? She felt them creep over her back, across her neck, like spiders settling there.

As for their servant boy, after her conversation with Simona, Moyna was certain she sensed an extra insouciance to his manner. He had always watched her with open, unconcealed curiosity, but now she felt he gave his hips an insulting swing, twitched his filthy kitchen duster over his shoulder with a flick, and pursed his lips to whistle a bar from some Bombay film tune although that was surely not fitting in a servant boy, even if employed in a household like the Bhallas'. When she passed the open kitchen door one day and he cocked an eyebrow at her and sang:

'With blouse cut low, with hair cut short,
This memsahib so fine—'

she decided to complain to the Bhallas, but discovered she had chosen a bad moment: that very morning, while she was at work, Mao had slithered down the tree trunk to the Bhallas' compound and been pounced upon by Candy, with Sweetie and Pinky in hot pursuit. Mao had somehow escaped from all three, but Moyna's secret of owning what the Bhallas insultingly called a 'billa', a torn, had been uncovered. Rising to her feet, Mrs Bhalla launched into a tirade about lying tenants who neglected to inform their landlords of their pets that would never have been permitted into their own pristine homes. Moyna, already incensed by the servant boy's behaviour and now by his employers', stood her ground stoutly and replied, 'Then do you want me to leave?' half hoping the reply would free her of them. But Mrs Bhalla retreated promptly—she knew to a whisker's breadth how far she could go as a landlady—claiming she could hear the telephone ringing. That evening she sent Pinky and Sweetie upstairs to ask if Moyna would like to come down and watch a rerun of the old film classic Awaara with them. Moyna told them she had a cold.

It was not untrue. The change of season had affected Moyna as it had practically every other citizen of Delhi. Still listless from the heat during the day, at night she found herself shivering under her cotton quilt in the barsati: the windowpane had never been replaced and allowed a chill blast of wintry air in.

She was sniffling over her desk at the office one morning with her head in her hands, trying to correct proofs, only half-listening to Tara complain of her mother-in-law's unreasonable and ungenerous reaction to Tara and Ritwick's staying out at the cinema late last night, when a visitor appeared at the door, demanding to see the editor. Tara's tirade was cut short, she hastily tossed her nail file into a drawer, pulled a page of proofs from Moyna's desk, and lifted an editorial expression to a man whose face appeared to be made entirely out of bristling hair and gleaming teeth, although he did wear thick, black-framed glasses and a silk scarf as well, tucked into the v-neck of a purple sweater.

"What can I do for you?' Tara had barely asked when she began to regret it.

The visitor was the author of a collection of short stories in Hindi that had been reviewed by Karan in the last issue. He had a copy of it rolled up in his hand. He spread it out before them, asking if they, as editors, had paid attention to what they were printing in a journal that at one time had had a distinguished reputation but now was nothing but a rag in the filthy hands of reviewers like the one who signed himself KK. Did they know who he was talking about?

Moyna got up and came across to glance at the review together with Tara, out of a sense of loyalty to her and an awareness of threat, as the author of the short stories jabbed his finger at one line, then another—'so devoid of imagination that Sri Awasthi has had to borrow from sources such as
The Sound of Music
and—' 'in language that would get a sixth standard student in trouble with his teacher—' 'situations so absurd that he can hardly expect his readers to take them any more seriously than the nightly soap opera on TV—' 'characters cut out of cardboard and pasted onto the page with Sri Awasthi's stunning lack of subtlety—'

Tara recovered her poise before Moyna could. Snatching the journal out of the visitor's hands, she held it out of his reach. 'We choose our reviewers for their standing in the academic world. Every one of them is an authority on—'

'Authority? What authority? This dog—he claims he is an authority on Hindi literature?' ranted the man, snatching the journal back from Tara. 'It is a scandal—such a standard of reviewing is a scandal. It must not go unnoticed—or unpunished. Where is this man? I would like to see him. I should like to know—'

'If you have any complaint, you can make it in writing,' Tara told him. She was, Moyna could see, as good a fighter as she had always claimed.

'Make it in writing? If I make it, will you publish it? If I put in writing what I think of your journal, your name will be—' 'Mr Awasthi,' Tara said, using his name as if she remembered it with difficulty, and managing to mispronounce it, 'there is no need to be so insulting.'

'If that is so, then why have I been insulted? I am a member of Sahitya Akademi. I am author of forty volumes of short stories, one of autobiography, seven books of travel, and also of essays. I am award-winning. I am invited by universities in foreign countries. My name is known in all Hindi-speaking areas—'

Mohan suddenly strode in; he had been standing in the doorway with Raj Kumar but now entered the room to stand beside Tara and Moyna. He was enjoying this; it was the first drama to take place in the office. Plucking the journal out of Mr Awasthi's hands, he tossed it on the desk with a contemptuous gesture. 'The editor is not responsible for the reviewer's views,' he announced, which it had not occurred to the two women to say.

This was not very original but Mr Awasthi's face turned a dangerously purple colour, not unlike the sweater he wore. But now Mohan had him by the elbow and was guiding him out of the door. Tara and Moyna fell back into their chairs, pushing their hair away from their flushed faces. Tara, lighting a cigarette with shaking hands, said, 'Did you
hear
Mohan? Did you
see
how he got him out?'

That visit proved to be a prelude to an entire winter in which the battle raged. Mr Awasthi's rebuttal was printed in the next issue, followed by Karan's still more scurrilous response—he worked in an attack on the Hindi-speaking 'cow belt' which proved a starting point for a whole new series of entertaining insults—and their days at the office were enlivened by visits from either one or other, each intent on getting the 'editor's ear' (in the case of Karan, it was mostly the Assistant Editor's ear he tried to get). Even Bose Sahib wrote from Calcutta and implored Tara to close the correspondence on the matter (he thought mention of the 'cow belt' particularly deplorable and unparliamentary). He added some disquieting remarks that Tara relayed to Moyna gloomily. 'He says the journal is still in the red, and he may not be able to go on publishing it if it fails to make money. Never thought Bose Sahib would consider
Books
as if it were a commercial enterprise. Ritwick says it is clear capitalism has killed Marxism in Calcutta if even Bose Sahib talks like an industrialist.'

'Oh Tara,' Moyna said in dismay. It was not just that Bose Sahib was something of an icon in their circle but it also shook her confidence in her ability to be a career woman in Delhi. What would happen if she lost her job? What if she did not find another employer? Would she lose her barsati? And return to her parents' home? Back where she started from? She began to sniffle.

Her cold, which had been growing worse for weeks, burgeoned into full-scale flu. After going downstairs to send Gurmail Singh away in his autorickshaw, she went back to bed, pulling the quilt over her ears. Mao, sympathetic or, perhaps, delighted at this development, crept in beside her. She drifted in and out of sleep, and her sleep was always crowded with thoughts of office life. Behind closed lids, she continued to see the journal's columns before her, requiring her to proofread:

Sir—Sri Ritwick Misra has reviewed Sri Nirad Chaudhuri's biography of Max Muller without proving his credentials for doing so. Has Sri Misra any knowledge of Max Müller's native tongue? Has Sri Chaudhuri? If not, can we believe all the necessary documents have been studied without which no scholar can trust, etc., Yrs truly, B. Chattopadhyay, Asansol, W. Bengal.

Sir—May I compliment you on your discovery of a true genius, i.e Srimati Devika Bijlinai, whose poem,
Lover, lover
, is a work of poetic excellence. I hope you will continue to publish the work of this lovable poetess. Kindly convey my humble respects to her. Also publish photograph of same in next issue. Yrs truly, A. Reddy, Begumpet, Hyderabad, A.P.

It was in this state that Raj Kumar found her when he came in with a message from Tara saying, 'Why won't you get yourself a phone, Moyna, and tell us when you're not coming to work? Just when the new issue is ready to go to press -' and ending 'Shall I bring over a doctor this evening?'

Moyna was not sure what to do with Raj Kumar but was grateful for his obvious concern and felt she could not send him straight back to the office. 'Can I make you a cup of tea, Raj Kumar?' she asked hoarsely. 'I'll have some, too.'

Raj Kumar perched on the edge of her straight-backed chair. He planted his hands on his knees, and studied every object in the room with the same deep interest while Moyna boiled water in a pan and got out the earthen mugs to make tea.

'No TV?' he asked finally.

She shook her head and put a few biscuits on a plate to offer him. He ate one with great solemnity, as if considering its qualities, then asked, 'Who is doing the cooking?' She admitted she did her own, wondering who he imagined would perform such chores for her. 'Ah, that is why you are never bringing lunch from home,' he said, with pity. She agreed it was. He of course had a wife to fill a tiffin container's three or four compartments to bursting with freshly cooked, still warm food. He asked for more details of her domestic existence. As Moyna told him of her regimen of rising to store water at five, then queueing for milk at six, and the shopping she did at the market on her way home with the essential stop at the fish shop for Mao's diet, Raj Kumar's eyes widened. He was too polite to say anything but when he had finished his tea and biscuits and rose to go, he said in a voice of true concern, 'Please lock door safely. Not safe to live alone like this.' She assured him she would.

At the door he turned to say, 'Also, you should purchase TV set,' with great earnestness. 'TV set is good company,' he explained, 'like friend.'

Going back to bed after shutting and locking the door behind him, she did feel friendless—but not convinced that she wanted a TV in place of one. And no sooner had she closed her eyes than the lines of print began to unroll again:

Sir—It is a great disappointment that you continue to harbour a reviewer such as KK who has a clear bias against one of the great languages of our motherland. Because he is reviewing for an English-language journal in the capital, does he think he has the right tó spurn the literature composed in the vernacular? This attitude is as despicable as the sight of seeing mother's milk rejected for sake of foreign liquor. Yrs truly, C. Bhanot, Pataliputra Colony, Bihar.

Sir—The monthly arrival of
Booh
is greatly looked forward to by my immediate family. I regret that you choose to include in it such filth as Srimati Devika Bijliani's poem,
Lover, lover.
This is not what we expect to find in decent family magazine. Kindly refrain from publishing offensive matter of sexual nature and return to former family status. Yrs truly, D. Ramanathan, Trivandrum, Kerala.