The Way Things Were (57 page)

His sole comfort during this period was Aurora. Aurora of Auroville, Aurora Vohra. The Aurovilleans – and there was a small contingent at his school – were natural friends for Skanda. For one, they were often, like him and Rudrani, of mixed backgrounds. Two, there was, due to the experimental community in which they had been raised, a great reverence in them for Indian things. They had the most extraordinary names – Satyen and Samya Tait; Surya Burkhardt; Ribhu Gautier, Akincana Vohra. Skanda had, in fact, first met Aurora when she came to thank him for protecting her little brother from the Delhi and Bombay kids, who teased him relentlessly for his name and accent, calling him ‘Kinky’. The Delhi and Bombay kids thought his name was a German name. But a | kiñ | cana
ḥ
, which meant he who possesses nothing, was among the names by which Parvati referred to Shiva in the Birth. And it was an odd but revealing comment on the times they lived in that a half-German boy with that name would be teased to death in an Indian school for having it. Aurora and her brother had gone to Germany to be with their mother for Christmas, but she had written and called throughout the period when Skanda was in Bombay. And he was full of her.

Full of her beauty: she was almost as tall as he was, with clear blue eyes and dirty brownish blonde hair. She had that same mixture his father did: of strong Indian features – the largeness of the eyes, the prominence of the bones, the small mouth – combined with European colouring. He was full of the way she spoke: she had this faint German accent, but spoke accentless and fluent Tamil. Full of her smell, too: she wore a perfume called Pleasures which that winter, he felt, had entered his soul. Full, most of all, of her intelligence: she would send him books and poems, journals she had filled in with photographs and letters to him, and on the first handmade page of which there might be, in blue ink, a little epigraph from a poem by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, ‘Yet still I love thee without art / Ancient person of my heart.’

She was the kind of girl who, when you’re older, and you meet others, you spend inordinate amounts of time casting your mind back to, in the vain hope of discovering if she was really as perfect as she had seemed or if it was your youth and inexperience that made her that way.

One morning – and this was just the kind of thing that amused her – she called from Bremen to say that her father, whom Skanda had never met, was passing through Bombay, and would he, Skanda, like to have dinner with him. Skanda agreed immediately, for in those early days of love, there is nothing worse than being unequal to a provocation. But no sooner had he put the phone down than he was faced with a difficult question. He wanted Aurora’s father to meet his mother, but he did not want him to meet Maniraja. And there was no way in the petty tyranny they lived under for just the two of them, mother and son, to take Pompy Vohra out for dinner. When he mentioned it in passing to his mother, she said what he was afraid she would say, ‘But call him here. Of course!’ He tried to back out, but in his hesitation he let slip what his father had said: that Pompy Vohra had been a professor of I.P.’s at Stephens. No sooner had he done this than he knew that Pompy Vohra’s coming to dinner now meant much more to his mother than it did to him. ‘I absolutely insist,’ she said. ‘I think I even remember him. Give me his number, I’ll call him myself.’

He did, and two minutes later she was on the phone to him, laughing and joking, completely at ease. When she put the phone down, she seemed almost surprised to see her son goggle-eyed with anticipation.

‘What?’ she said.

‘What, what?’

‘What nothing. He sounds terrific. He’ll be here at eight.’

Mani’s objections began even before he came home from work. Over several conversations he had with Uma, while still at the office, he seemed to take her through cycle after haranguing cycle, till she said, ‘I’ll cancel it, I’ll cancel it. I’ll call him this minute and cancel it.’ But, just as she said this – even sometimes after she put the phone down – Mani withdrew his objection, and insisted the dinner go ahead. It was hard to know the origin of his trouble. Some wish to control, certainly, to have everything flow from him, seemed to be part of it. But there was something else. An anxiety, which, when glimpsed, almost made you feel sorry for the way Mani suffered over such little things. He was exquisitely sensitive. A highly particular configuration of class, caste, region, language – a lock of a thousand different keys – and everything chaffed against him. Everything made him feel raw and exposed. The world to him was a place full of slights and snubs and put-downs, and his only defence was to rage against each one.

The cook came in to take the dinner order, while Uma was on the phone with Mani.

‘Kali dal, shammi kebabs, karara bhindi . . .’ she said unthinkingly. But she had barely begun when there was a fusillade of hot words down the phone.

Skanda could not make out the nature of the objection, but he heard his mother say, some half a dozen times, ‘No, Mani. I don’t think Punjabi food is superior to South Indian. But he – our dinner guest – is Punjabi, and lives in South India; I thought it would be nice for him to have a Punjabi meal. That’s all!’

Over this question of food a shadow fell over the dinner, and it was not till 4 or 4.30 that Uma had permission for it to go ahead. Then Mani wanted to eat at 7.30; otherwise it would interfere with his sleep and exercise, he said.

‘Mani, we can’t eat at 7.30! He’s only coming at 8 p.m. . . . No, I can’t ask him for 6. This is India; not America; you can’t ask anyone for 6 . . . Mani, please, for God’s sake: stop this. You’re not even going to be home by 6 p.m.!’

Exhausting as these exchanges were to the outsider, Mani – and later Uma – hardly noticed them. They became part of the natural temperature of their relationship. Sometimes it even seemed – especially to Rudrani – that Mani, easily provoked and susceptible in the French sense of the word, more than Uma, was their victim: that their mother seemed almost to enjoy stitching him up. When he returned home from work that day, just as the view of the sea had become a dirty strait of choppy orange, Mani seemed not to be at all aware of the hysteria he had caused in the little flat. He seemed to look forward to the evening ahead, seemed relaxed, in a good mood; and, later, when Skanda – whom Mani had now, especially after a fight with Uma, begun taking into his confidence – would think back to that night, he almost felt pity for how wretched Mani’s behaviour must have left him feeling.

Uma was in a flamboyant and unreadable mood, either on account of her son, who had witnessed just how difficult it was for her to have someone to dinner, or on account of her guest, in front of whom she wanted to be her old self for an evening. It was as if, with the acuity of children in a playground, she had gauged how easy it was to set Maniraja off, and, instead of pacifying him, as she often did, she had decided that evening to make an exhibition of his over-sensitivity. She strode into the drawing room of the flat, just before eight, dressed in a maroon and gold sari. Then she made herself a whisky soda, a drink which she had mysteriously given up since meeting Mani, and came and sat down under a large and garish work of modern Indian art. A grand tableau of obese green women crouched on their haunches, keeping vigil over the body of a dead man.

At a few minutes past eight, when sky, sea and buildings were all one colour, a smoky blue dotted with a Braille of white and yellow light, the doorbell rang through the flat.

Pompy Vohra was a tall man, with a full head of white hair, and a dark youthful face. His skin, from perhaps a particularly violent outbreak of pox as a child, was scarred and pitted, and he had long gapped teeth, which along with his youthfulness gave his face an impish and mischievous quality. He was dressed in jeans, loafers and a light brown corduroy jacket. And he was instantly familiar to Skanda. It was not just that he reminded him of his uncle – less a physical resemblance than one of manners and style – it was that he exuded a certain calm, a repose, that, after his time with Mani, it had begun to seem inconceivable a grown man could possess. He was somewhere between a schoolboy and a hippy and he lightened the air in that flat in ways he could hardly have been aware of. Well, initially, at least.

His entry into the room coincided with Maniraja’s, who came in wearing dark jeans, square-toed shoes, a slim expensive belt and a black shirt, across which – or rather, crouched in the left corner of which – there was an embroidered and brightly coloured Chinese dragon. Uma flashed him a glance, then looked at Pompy, who had brought her a present.

‘A book!’ she cried, and clapped her hands. ‘You’re clearly not from Bombay, my dear Pompy. We haven’t seen one of these here in years. Or not, at least, in
our
crowd. Whose house were we at, darling, the other day,’ she said, turning briefly to Maniraja, ‘where there was an entire library of fake books? And the man said proudly, “I don’t read books, but I like the way they look.” You almost had to admire him: the sheer bald-facedness of it! What have you brought?’ she said, taking the book from Pompy, who was already chuckling quietly while taking in the room.

He said, ‘Given all that is going on in Ayodhya at the moment, a very controversial book, I’m afraid. But I’m a big fan.’

Uma, without bothering to introduce the men, took the book and fell into the sofa like a little girl who’d been given a doll. The men awkwardly took the initiative upon themselves. ‘Skanda!’ Pompy said, with great warmth. ‘The rescuer of my son. How nice it is to finally meet you. My children adore you!’ Then, by way of getting conversation going, he began to tell Mani the story of Akincana being bullied at school. He was only part of the way in when he was interrupted by Uma saying loudly, ‘I don’t believe it! I just don’t believe it! My God,’ she said, looking up at him. And suddenly – it was incredible! – she had tears in her eyes . . .

‘This really takes me back,’ she said, then stopped. ‘I shouldn’t go on . . .’

She flashed a quick glance up at her son.

‘Ma, what is wrong with you?’ he whispered hurriedly. ‘Why are you crying? What’s the matter? Are you drunk?’

‘I’m not drunk, you stupid boy,’ she said, rubbing away her tears. ‘It’s just – ah! – this book. I know him; I know the writer, you know. Vijaipal. He was with us all those years ago when I first fell in love with your father. It was the year of the Emergency. 1975 . . .’

At the mention of the year, a fresh batch of tears appeared in her eyes. She clutched Pompy’s hand, and said, ‘Thank you. Really, thank you. It means so much to me that you have brought this book tonight – of all books! . . .’

Pompy laughed. He seemed not in the slightest bit perturbed that his hostess, within minutes of his arrival, had burst into tears. The man who was perturbed to the point of being ill was Maniraja. He had forbidden Uma from having pictures of Toby in the house; and, in the past, even the mention of his name had caused terrible arguments. So much so that Uma had implored Skanda never to mention his father in front of Maniraja.

And now? Well, she seemed only to be warming up.

‘What will you drink, Pompy?’ she said, rising suddenly, and making eye contact with an ashen-faced Maniraja, added, ‘I, for my part, am having a whisky soda.’

‘Whisky soda for me too, please.’

‘Have some Dom,’ Maniraja said, trying to regain control over the room. He had opened the champagne especially.

‘He doesn’t want “Dom”, Mani. Not everyone likes champagne. It was me,’ she said slyly, as if in a Shakespearean aside, ‘who gave him his first glass. Can you imagine? So rich, and never had any champagne – poor man! – till little old me came along. Whisky?’

‘Whisky, please,’ Pompy said again.

Uma walked over to the bar, apparently content to let the men stew in the discomfort she caused.

When she returned, Pompy and Maniraja were trying to establish some little rapport of their own. Uma, sensing she had made herself essential to their dynamic – and knowing, moreover, the social difficulty subcontinental men face in these situations – fell back and talked to her son instead. Seeing he had a drink, she said, ‘I don’t know if you should be having one. How old are you, darling?’

‘Ma, you know perfectly well how old I am.’

‘I forget. Was it ’76 or ’77? You came in such quick succession, you two.

Then again she withdrew into a kind of a reverie. ‘Do you think Rudrani would have enjoyed being here tonight?’

‘I doubt it.’

Uma laughed.

‘Why? Am I being very naughty? And your father? He might have enjoyed it.’

‘No.’

‘And you?’

‘I’m OK. But please stop winding him up.’

‘He’s very nice,’ she said, changing the subject, ‘your girlfriend’s father. I liked him the moment he walked in the door.’

‘Me too.’

‘So familiar, no? I miss that familiarity. They just don’t get it here, in this town, do they? Or, at least, the people
he
knows,’ she said, glancing at Mani. ‘They’re so one-dimensional. No fun in any of them, no real humour.’

The murmuring conversation the men were having acquired a serious tone. There had been crowds gathering in Ayodhya over the past few days and – though no one had seen the news yet – there were rumours that afternoon that the Mosque had been attacked. Uma heard Pompy say, ‘Oh, no. I wouldn’t say that . . .’

‘Wouldn’t say what?’ she inserted casually.

Pompy, relieved at the intervention, said, ‘I wouldn’t say Vijaipal endorses the Ayodhya movement . . .’

‘Of course he doesn’t. Mani’s never read Vijaipal; Mani reads pamphlets . . .’

‘I’ve never read Vijaipal?!’ Mani said, in a voice that was openly threatening. ‘And you? Who have you read? I can say: you’ve never read Vijaipal. Never read anything, stupid . . .’ Then he stopped himself.

‘You could say that,’ Uma said. ‘But you’d be wrong, of course.’

She was not yet ready to draw him out; and, eyeing him, she said calmly, ‘Name me one book of his other than the one I’m holding in my hands?’

‘I don’t have to name anything for you . . . This is not a class, and you’re not the teacher!’