The Fifth Man (5 page)

‘No one? Who’re you trying to fool? Who’s going to write all this poetry except someone from the Tagore family?’

Esha ran to Aritra.

‘Ari-da, Ari-da, those horrible fellows are phoning every day. Even though Boudi keeps disconnecting. It’s creating a lot of trouble at home. They can even disguise their voices. The diary has not just poems, it has heaps of quotations, they’re going to be obscene about them, lots of addresses and phone numbers, they’ll annoy everyone.’

Ari listened gravely, doodling.

‘Do something, Aritra-da, say something.’

‘What can I say? Scatterbrained girls deserve such things. I’ve told you many times that your diary is not the appropriate place to practise your rhymes.’ Apparently all her poetry came to her from the sky. Esha turned away, she was leaving now, a memorable image. Had she come straight out of the Vaishnav Padavali? Her face half obscured by her ever so slightly reddish hair. Eyelids visible. Long lashes. The tip of her nose was shining. Flaring nostrils.

Ari said, ‘Listen, Esha, listen. When they telephone again tell them to meet you at the east gate of Victoria Memorial, the gate near Cathedral Road.’

‘What rubbish is all this? I’m going. It’s best to depend on oneself when in trouble.’

‘Not rubbish at all. You must say—I need my diary sooooo much. Pleeeease return it. Be coy with specific words, just as I’m showing you. They will inevitably want to meet you to return it.’

‘They’re doing that already. I told them to come home. Said I’d give them a treat. Still they haven’t come.’

‘They won’t. Ask them to come to the spot I told you about, they’ll turn up. Without any objection. Then, at the appointed hour, accept the diary with lots of smiles. Invite them to meet you again.’

‘Lovely. And then?’

‘And then trust me. Be prepared when you go.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean don’t keep your hair loose or something. Wrap the end of your sari round your waist. You must be ready to run.’

Esha went as instructed. A green sari with a red border. The end of her sari wrapped around her waist. Parrot green trees and grass, parrot green sari on Esha. Aritra and his gang were observing from a distance. Three louts were saying something to Esha, waving their arms and displaying mouthfuls of teeth. They were a bit flustered by Esha’s presence. She was probably not the kind of feminine personality who made their talents flower. One of them gave her the diary. And Aritra and his companions approached them slowly from the back.

‘When will you come again? You must give separate dates to each of us.’

Now Aritra’s group pounced with hockey sticks. Esha disappeared in a flash. So many world wars had been fought over women, but how many of them had been written about outside the epics? At eight-thirty that night Esha appeared in Aritra’s tiny coop at their joint family residence. Ari seemed to be asleep. Sticking plaster on his chin and forehead, his mother was saying, ‘Why does he have to play hockey? Coming home with bruises.’ Ari laughed in his head, his eyes shut. The hockey stick was so potent that trying to thrash the enemy had led to a couple of same-side goals. Esha was leaving, thinking he was asleep. But his acting prowess was preventing him from finding out just which Padavali her gratitude belonged to. Esha, you’re a more distant isle, near the stars of the night. How can that same you come so close to me now? This was what Aritra Chowdhury could not grasp. Could she manifest herself in the physical world? No, she could not, Aritra decided in a burst of clarity. Which was why this incredible impossibility was about to become possible. She had driven a bulldozer over his life for eighteen years. Esha was no longer the Esha of the Padavali. Just as Neelam was no longer a Raphael painting either. Why had this obvious truth escaped him? Along with the outer Esha, the inner Esha had changed too. Even the Neelam who had been so exuberant and blossoming and stricken and distressed and detached and engrossed in every bone and tissue of her body eighteen years ago was now a cold block of stone. An unmoving glacier. And even Esha could not possibly have remained the long-lashed, intimate, deep, emotional, steadying blue lightning she had once been. He had no idea how she had spent these eighteen years. He had had no way of knowing. He had always been unwanted in Esha’s home. It would have made no sense to enquire there. Still he had kept writing, like setting a series of lamps afloat on the Ganga at Har ki Pauri during evening prayers. The lamps drift away on the currents—kasmai devaya? To which god? Did the intended recipient ever receive it? Was the ethereal half-familiar deity seen dimly through the fumes of incense real? Would he descend from his divine proscenium to a place in full view of human eyes? Was it even possible? Or would there be an accident before that. It could happen to Ari, it could happen to Esha. Deep inside himself, he shivered violently. What if something happened to Esha! Did Ari want her to die? Lest his dream be shattered. No, never. Aritra had the courage to look the truth in the eye. Esha was not the same Esha anymore. A different Esha was on her way. A different Neelam, a different Esha, a different Aritra. The geometry had changed. The old history on the pages would be rubbed out with an eraser to make room for a new one. That was best. This was best. Patil was blowing the horn gently. Adjusting the knot of his tie, Aritra slipped his feet into his shoes. Neelam brought a small packet of holy flowers and touched his forehead with them before putting them in the pockets of his trousers. The door had opened. The old routine after a long time: work, conversations with several people while a Dunhill hangs from his lips, telephone calls, lunch at the gymkhana, inspecting the layouts of advertisements, conferring with Vinay Desai over the visuals. What meaningless tasks and waste of time a man could be absorbed in. The very entrails of civilization had been entangled in the impenetrable evilness of demand for worthless commodities.

After the seminar on the first day had ended, Mahanam stood in the small balcony adjoining his room in Chandrashekhar’s house. The glare of the late afternoon was palpable. There would be light for a long while yet. Shekhar hadn’t been to the seminar today. He had other work. His students were conducting a survey of adolescent children from low-income groups. He was probably at a school in old Pune. He hadn’t said whether he would ask his students to prepare the report on returning to the university, or whether he could come home directly. Mahanam had made himself a pot of coffee. He had been feeling tired, but the coffee had revived him. He would go out for a walk after Shekhar was back. He couldn’t leave the house empty, though Shekhar had given him a duplicate key. The house had been alone all day. It probably wouldn’t be right to abandon it again. Only what lay behind these blocks of flats was visible from this balcony. Slices of the road through the gaps. Beyond the road lay fields, but they had vanished behind a dense growth of greenery. Mahanam went back into his room after a while. He was feeling restless. The visit to Priyalkarnagar was not taking place. He had shown up like a ghost at midnight the first day.

This chair could be tilted back as he pleased. Mahanam reclined it a long way and sat down, his hands clasped behind his head. His house in Duff Lane was the Marble Palace by another name. A trace of mildew had appeared on the black and white floor with the floral pattern. The antique mahogany chairs were intricately carved, without offering the slightest possibility of reclining. Marble-topped tables lay in front of them. Mahanam was saying, ‘You know what, Ari, I have tried too many things in one life. I pursued literature while studying medicine, then I got involved in symbolic logic and applied mathematics even before I’d finished my literature course, and now I’m obsessed with homeopathy. Nothing else but the
Materia Medica
running through my head. A one-track mind. I cannot possibly teach you Baudelaire now. And frankly speaking, I’m afraid of Esha.’

‘What! Whatever for?’ Esha almost jumped out of her chair. Mahanam laughed. ‘Girls who study poetry often ask such difficult questions that dilettante teachers like me cannot offer answers.’

Aritra’s eyes were still questioning. An intelligent young man, he had not believed the explanation. Mahanam had inadvertently blurted out something that lay deep in his mind. Doubt gathered in Aritra’s eyes. Couldn’t boys who studied poetry ask difficult questions too?

Yagneshwar had brought in luchi, alur-dom and deep-fried hilsa. All of them white. The first two were milky white. The fish had acquired a golden hue because it had been fried.

‘I’m something of a gourmet too,’ Mahanam was saying, dividing a luchi into four with a fork and a knife. ‘Quite primitive in that sense.’

‘Are you going to use a knife and fork for the fish too?’ asked Esha in wonder.

‘Not knife and fork, but just the fork.’ Spearing a piece of fish with his fork, Mahanam transferred it into his mouth. ‘Why aren’t you eating?’

Aritra took a sip of tea. Esha said, ‘Both tea and hilsa are off-limits for me, Mahanam-da.’

‘Still on milk?’

‘Not just on milk, on luchi and alur-dom too. But I’m not used to such a heavy breakfast at this hour of the morning. Makes me uncomfortable,’ Esha replied.

‘Yagneshwar!’—Mahanam called for him— ‘Yagneshwar!’ He appeared in a dhoti and shirt, a duster slung over his shoulder, a bristly moustache, and grey hair.

‘Never cast pearls before swine. Take away your Begumbahar luchi and Mughlai alur-dom at once. These two think gastronomy and academics are mutual enemies. Let them, but I am not allowing your cooking skills to be humiliated.’

Yagneshwar picked up the tray of food while Esha said, ‘Begumbahar luchi? Mughlai alur-dom? What are all these, Mahanam-da?’

‘You’d have known if you’d tried them,’ answered Mahanam, carefully folding the second luchi with his knife and fork. ‘If you can have rumali roti, why not Begumbahar luchi? Invented by Yagneshwar Mal, esquire. Practically transparent. If you’d only tasted the alur-dom you’d have known it isn’t your everyday stuff.’

What had Aria and Esha discussed on their way back that day? A smile appeared on Mahanam’s lips. Aritra must have said, ‘Actually he doesn’t know anything. Claims to know French like his mother tongue. Humph!’

‘Strange man, you know.’

‘More peculiar than strange. Begumbahar luchi! My foot!’

‘No but I should have tasted it. I made a mistake.’

‘You made nothing of the sort. He’s actually a miser. Complete skinflint. Thinks he’s very clever. Just flashed the tray before our eyes. Always does that. Yagneshwar cooks just once during the day and passes it off for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This one Yagneshwar is my cook-cumservant-cum-cleaner-cum-errands-boy . . .’

This conversation was not entirely imaginary. These were the stories that circulated about Mahanam, who had just returned from Oxford. He quite enjoyed them. Apparently he had grown a beard to hide a burn on his chin. From acid. Which he had acquired when trying to kill himself. Had a colleague not snatched the bottle of hydrochloric acid out of his hands he would have been the late Mahanam by now. And the suicide was apparently for the blue-eyed Irene McCutcheon. Mahanam would hear these stories, but never protest. This was how legends were created. His beard, Joggeshwar, Marble Palace and the strange things he said had given birth to long-standing fables on the university campus—he found it all quite amusing.

There was always a kernel of truth in every legend. Her name was Iris, not Irene, she had gifted him a triangular pebble of granite when he was leaving. She said she had picked it up in Salisbury, near Stonehenge. A polished, swollen, triangular stone. Others gave him different sorts of gifts, but Iris gave him a pebble. When he asked her about it, smiling, she said, ‘Do you seriously mean you don’t recognize it?’

‘Seriously.’

‘It is my heart that I am giving unto you.’

‘And it is made of stone.’

‘Oh no. It is as long-lasting and heavy.’

About to burst into trademark laughter, Mahanam became quiet.

‘Look, Iris, I look upon you as my sister and friend.’

‘Do you people in India kiss your sisters the way you did on Christmas Eve?’

‘I beg your pardon. One never knows what one can do under the influence of strong liquor. One doesn’t even remember.’

‘You needn’t beg my pardon, Nam. We are used to being jilted ever since the goddamned war. Men have thousands to choose from.’

Iris gave him a gift of an entire heated heart, as heavy as granite. If there had to be an acid burn on the chin, it should have been on Iris’s, not Mahanam’s. His students had heard the opposite of what had happened. The truth was that they could not imagine spurning a white woman. And Mahanam hated the familiar tale of going to ‘Blighty’ and returning as a white man with a white woman in tow as wife. But coming as she did from the land of Annie Besant, Margaret Noble, and Maud Gonne, how could Iris have said so easily, we are used to being jilted? This was some sort of feminine complex. There was no basis to such ideas. Mahanam had always considered women equal in every respect. He knew nothing about having a sister, the sister whom he had invoked to fob Iris off. In his youth there must have been an excess of emotion in the hidden recesses of his mind over family relationships. But he did not know the taste of parents or siblings. Although his knowledge of governesses or friends was more than a hundred per cent.

Mahanam had a broad forehead. If not quite like Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar’s, nor hairless, it was expansive. The sharpness of his nose was evident. His chin was small in comparison. Every time he shaved his mirror would scold: divide the canvas into two. If you overload the upper half with so much colour, the balance will be destroyed. That was when Mahanam began to grow a beard. A nice, black, wavy beard, which he had to trim every day to match with his face when he was at Trinity College. When he returned, bearded, his friends couldn’t recognize him. Not just his appearance, they claimed his entire personality had changed because of the beard covering his face.

Sambaran would say, ‘What is this Oxo-Iranian personality you’ve created for yourself. I feel like I have to look at you through a telescope. Get rid of the beard.’

Mahanam would reply, ‘Why don’t you understand that even without the beard I’d be the same person. It’s the personality that’s changed, though not entirely—that’s a misconception on your part. It just seems that way at first, but everything will fall into place later.’ And Sandeep said, ‘Say what you will, I am a hundred per cent sure there’s a mystery behind it. Why else should you object so strongly to shave a mere beard? If it had at least been a moustache—a moustache maketh the man.’

‘It’s the same with the beard. If you are recognizable by your bushy moustache, you might as well spot me by my beard.’

The mystery surrounding Mahanam had probably begun with his beard. Sandeep’s use of the word mystery had led to speculation in different circles. Mahanam had never said, ‘I don’t care for the way my chin looks, so I grew a beard to conceal it.’ His laughter was eloquent. Mahanam was wont to play with an excess of words, which made it difficult to extract personal statements. Moreover, he laughed often, not always with joy or enjoyment. It was a mystery, therefore.

There was indeed a mystery about his origins. With no sign of his parents anywhere, he could easily have been called a bastard. At eighteen his Kasturi Mashi had said, ‘Don’t even ask. There’s no end to what people do and how far they can go. You were born without mishap, and the very next night your mother ran away. Her address turned out to be false. After some time in the hospital I brought you home. I didn’t adopt you or give you my name—how could you be Mahanam if you already had a name? For this reason alone I didn’t teach you to address me as Ma. One day there would be that dramatic moment when you’d learn I’m not your mother. Followed by a whole lot of melodrama and the torment of sentimentality and indigestion. Your parents are dead, Mahanam, and that is the truth. You’d better not become Karna or someone like that. Don’t spend the rest of your life like the hero of a novel in search of his mother. You were born on your own strength, not anyone else’s. The world sent you free of preliminary bonds. Such good fortune doesn’t come easily. Don’t ever let yourself be tied down easily. But whoever it was who gave birth to you, they had good genes, you know.’ Kasturi Mashi would laugh.

Mahanam was a precocious adolescent then. Perhaps it was because of this background, but he felt no relationship with anyone else—nor did he feel the urge to forge one. Whatever he got, he grasped with both hands. And distributed generously whatever he had. Still people called him a miser. Iris certainly had. All his friends used to complain. Beneath a torrent of words, eating and drinking, and joining discussions and arguments, he was a tortoise in its shell. Only those who tried to get very close realized that his heart was wrapped in an iron curtain. All arrows were stopped there—offensive arrows as well as arrows of love.

Mahanam often felt as though he were visiting this planet on a holiday. Or on work. Just like he had been to Oxford. Just like he had travelled across different European cities. Only the house in Duff Lane gave him the sense of an anchor. Was it because of his extensive travels? Or because he had no one to call his own? Or because of his nature? Chandrashekhar had laughed it off though. But this emptiness, which he experienced after his Mashi’s death, worried the forty-plus Mahanam at times. Even family men who carried the weight of many people, of many problems, were not happy. He had observed the laughable lengths to which people would go to escape from their parents or siblings or wife and children. Was Mahanam really rootless in this world? Should he have had some ties too—if only to experience a distaste for them? Was it not a matter of fortune, then, to secure a double-promotion in the university of life?