The In-Between World of Vikram Lall (25 page)

That was a fine one coming from him, he who had wooed Mother on the streets of Peshawar and taken his proposal to her father himself. Deepa didn’t catch on, but my father caught the look in my eye, and somewhat sheepishly he picked up his papers from the floor and sat back in his chair, leaving the battle in Mother’s hands once more. Mother never gave up so easily. She gave a deep sigh and glared at Deepa.

Look Mama, I don’t dislike Dilip, I like him, but he’s a friend, I can’t think of him as a husband! And I don’t want to get married now!

It’s a good opportunity, Mother said. Think about it. Girls who wait too long ruin their lives. Look at Aruna Auntie, still unmarried, and already old…

That last add-on an exaggeration, of course.

Deepa nodded obediently, went to give each of my parents a conciliatory kiss. She was too happy now, had suddenly bloomed the past month. Is there something in parents that sets the guard up against too-happy children?

I’ll talk to Dilip, she told me later, I’ll explain to him and so on. And you know what, mark my words, he probably already has a girlfriend in London! Some gori blonde called Susan or something. So there.

A triumphant smile on her face.

She and Njoroge had declared their love and committed themselves to each other the previous morning. When she revealed that declaration to me—for as I have said she confessed a lot of her secrets to me—I recall a shiver at the back of my neck, a quiver of excitement, of fear for them both. The die had been cast. She did not seem to understand the seriousness of her offence, not to me but to the values of our times and people. We did not marry blacks or whites, or low-castes or Muslims; there were other restrictions, too subtle for us of the younger generation to follow; Hindu Punjabis
were the strong preference always. Times were changing, certainly, but Deepa in her typical impulsive way had leaped ahead of them.

In the morning, Mother, Deepa, and I drove downtown, where we first sat down for coffee, as was becoming the fashionable custom in the city for the nonwhite middle classes. My sister and I enjoyed taking our mother out this way, to draw her out of her frequent low moods, and she enjoyed the outing. She drove us, which also gave her a sense of independence. After sitting with them awhile, having consumed a jam tart, I said I would join Njoroge at the Ismailia one last time before he left. Mother and Deepa had already wished him goodbye the previous day in Papa’s office; they told me to take their warm wishes for him. Mother should have been suspicious; the picture of dutiful Deepa, sitting beside her Mama eating iced cake, declining to see Njoroge one last time on the day of his departure, was as real as any of Scheherazade’s bewitching tales. But Mother had a remarkable knack for deluding herself. She had still not tuned in to the fact that Papa’s call for that first whisky of the evening was now beyond his control; he was turning alcoholic. It had taken her months to realize that there had been a mutual attraction between Aruna Auntie and Papa, when Aruna visited us in Nakuru. Now she had reassured herself that her anxiety about Deepa and Njoroge had been fanciful. And so with a wave at them I left; and gluttonously—because I did not need another snack—I had a tea and potato pakodas with Njoroge, after which I escorted him to Sanamu, a gallery-café not much frequented by Asians, and then went to join Deepa and Mother at the city market, half a block away. With a nod from me, Deepa took off on a pretext (the British Council library) to meet Njoroge in private at the Sanamu, promising to meet us at the parked car in an hour.

At the café Deepa poured out her heart to Njoroge.

Njo, she entreated him, having joined him at a discreet
table in a niche away from human traffic, I want you to be honest with me.

Yes, he said, a strained smile wavering upon his face. About what?

Behind him were a few lithographs of masks created by a local artist. The place, serving locally grown fresh coffee for the benefit of tourists, was well known for good but pricey arts and crafts, and was ridiculed for the price labels still on its serving tables and chairs.

I want you to tell me if you have someone special—a girlfriend or fiancée—I will understand that—

Deepa, he said, reaching out to hold her hand across the wobbly cane table and moving forward on the lightweight chair of the same material: Deepa, I have loved you since we were little—you know that. I have thought of you constantly over the last twelve years—only you—even when I was positive you had forgotten me—

He stopped abruptly, looked questioningly at her.

Well, I love you too, Njo, I will come out and say it, though girls are not supposed to be so forward. Now where do we go from here.

She pulled her hand away and placed it with the other on her lap, watched him with a shy smile.

His heart was pounding. He was nervous, even though he was the African, of the new ruling class. Could this be true, this exotic, gentle girl, this tender heart who hid him under the bed once, away from the eyes of the police, without even a blink; this girl precious to her family and her jealous people…I only hope this is not a dream, he said to himself.

Your father and mother, he began. They will surely object.

This is a new Africa, Njo, they’d better not. We are the next generation. They will, of course—but I don’t think for long. I’m stubborn as a mule, Njo, I hope you are strong too. And what about your people?

There are not that many to speak of. Distant cousins.
Friends, yes, they might be disappointed at first—they won’t know how to behave toward an Indian girl…

They didn’t see insurmountable problems. They walked around the nooks in the café, examining the displays, exclaiming and mocking at the exorbitant tourist prices, and in one such corner, observed by no one save the large Makonde old man hewed roughly from Tanzanian wood and exuding the pungent odours of recent polish, they embraced tightly. He brushed her lips with his, squeezed her hand. They promised to write daily. She told him, I’ll write first and tell you how to write to me. They parted.

Two days later, Dilip arrived. He was by any standards a catch for any Asian girl. Soft-spoken, well-mannered and-dressed, polished as though arrived from a finishing school. It was my turn now to be the chaperone for him and Deepa, but she turned out to be an ever-elusive eel, slipping out from any circumstance that would put the two of them alone together. And in company she would tease him no end about the girlfriend she had imagined for him. What would your Susan say to this, eating bhajias in such a slum? Would your Susan approve of us eating with our hands like this? She did seem to overdo it, though Dilip didn’t mind. The second day his parents had taken us out for lunch thali at the Supreme, and later that day Mother got wind of Deepa’s silliness.

The following day the Sharmas were invited for dinner at our home. This was planned by the parents to be the big day, when a large hint would be placed before the boy and girl which they could not avoid.

Meena-ji says Dilip is a rather mature boy, Mother told Deepa that morning. He’s grown up quickly, especially after living alone in England—

Yes, he is a bit stuffy though, isn’t he, poor Dilip, bechara, Deepa replied, buttering her toast.

Well, stuffy is good! Stuffy is character! You’d better not do
anything silly now, Deepa. You’ve been far too free and childish in your behaviour, ever since Njoroge arrived. One would think you were trying to impress him. Don’t mention him in front of the Sharmas now—

What do you have against Njo anyway? All you Asians think is that these African men are after your innocent, virtuous daughters—

Well, I’m glad at least you’re not planning to marry him—

I didn’t say that—

A mighty ruckus broke out. The shockwave of realization finally swept over Mother, the truth about Njoroge and Deepa, which explained Deepa’s strange, giddy behaviour of the last two months, and the previous day’s offending silliness at the Supreme.

Don’t joke about such things! Mother screamed, almost in tears. It is not a joke, you bad girl—

Mother! I didn’t say I was marrying him—but if I was, it would be my wish, wouldn’t it? And what’s wrong with it, we don’t live in colonial times anymore, or in your India-desh, this is a new Africa—

Don’t say that! Mother wailed. She looked devastated, a tragedienne of the Hindi cinema.

Father came running out from the living room. He had evidently overheard the proceedings but had bided his time.

Get this in your head, Deepa, he is an African, Papa said. He is not us. Not even in your wildest dream can you marry an African.

What do you mean? What’s wrong with an African?
I
am an African. What hypocrisy! And all the nice faces you showed around your Njoroge-William while he was here—

Mother took a deep breath and replied, There’s nothing wrong with being an African or Asian or European. But they can’t mix. It doesn’t work. Njoroge is like a son to me, you made him a brother, back in Nakuru—

That’s when you tricked me! Yes you did!

As if I knew you’d be infatuated with him one day.

The voice, unable to hide that slightest trace of triumph, gave her away. I knew then what Deepa also at that instant divined; we looked at each other, and then Deepa screamed at Mother: It was
you
who hid his letters! Admit it, he wrote the letters from school, and
you
with your suspicious, scheming, cunning mind
destroyed
them!

Well, I was right, wasn’t I, said Mother.

She began to cry.

(Mother, you went too far. Why this streak of intolerance, this fear of the unknown, when we were living in such exciting times with only a bright future to think of, if we played our cards right? Is it simply envy of the older for the younger who are so free and ready to break the shackles? Did you ever see Deepa happier than she was those two months?)

The dinner was quieter than anticipated, my parents having told the Sharmas to hold off on the matchmaking, the time was not ripe yet; the girl was headstrong about going to university first, but she would come around soon enough. Of course, if Dilip found someone else he liked, he had all the blessings from our family.

But Dilip liked Deepa; he was shown a couple of other girls but declined them. I say, I am not the one for puja and bhajan, all that religious stuff, he explained to us, trying to please Deepa and arouse her jealousy at the same time. He liked her spunk, her freedom. A few times he tried casually to hold her by the arm or hand, but she gently rebuffed him. When he asked her to go out with him one evening, she accepted. But any hopes our families had of making anything out of the date amounted to nothing. She had told Dilip that she had no intention of marrying now.

One morning when the three of us were sitting at the Ismailia, old Mr. Mithoo at the counter handed me an envelope addressed to me. By some happy foresight, I did not open it at the restaurant but waited until after Dilip had seen us off outside Papa’s office. When I tore open that envelope,
there was another one, smaller and unmarked, inside. Opening that, I fished out a letter for Deepa. Njo had taken the precaution not to address her by name, beginning only with
Darling
—and finishing after three delirious pages composed late on a Kampala night.

SIXTEEN.

I returned to the calm haven of my dormitory room in Dar es Salaam. Good old Dar, it was a city that grew upon you, as I am sure it does even now, in a manner Nairobi never could or can. Nairobi has been always an alien city, uneasy home to its inhabitants. It was founded as a way station, after all, a place of convenience, for commerce, and it has retained much of that heartless character. A city I love and yet sometimes feel sorry for.

I had decided a year earlier to go to university in Dar es Salaam on a whim, to get away from home and be alone, but also to escape from the tensions and bustle of Nairobi, its constant striving and ambition, and experience a place very different and organic in nature. Dar es Salaam was African and Asian, disordered and chaotic, hot and dusty, yet in its essence wonderfully relaxed and self-assured. It had a pace all its own,
and in Nairobi we had sometimes called it “the Land of Not-yet.” It was still common to see people barefoot or in flip-flop chappals in the main streets, men in green or red checkered loincloths and white singlets, women in black buibui or colourful khanga, and nobody hurrying to get anywhere soon. Teashops were where people gathered, with radios blaring African or Indian music over the din of raucous conversation. I remember one afternoon, while out on a walk, coming upon a large crowd of Africans and a few Asians gathered tightly under a tree and wondering what could be the matter. Finally there came a murmur, then applause, and a long, distant shout of
goal!
became audible, and I realized that the men had gathered to listen to a football match on the only radio around. I would never have come upon such a scene in Nairobi.

In Dar, the Asians seemed to me so much more of the place compared with their cousins in Nairobi. They seemed less well off, but perhaps they were not poorer, simply had a less sophisticated lifestyle. They did not have the Europeans to look up to constantly. There were very few Punjabis, though, most Asians speaking Cutchi and Gujarati, which I couldn’t help but learn, to my future benefit.