Omprakash stretched out his arms and relieved her of the package. “I heard you arrive.”
“There are lots more,” she said, indicating the bundles of fabric piled outside the door. He looked them over, trying to spot the company name or address.
When everything had been brought inside, Ishvar gave her the envelope. “Someone came banging on the door, saying the padlock did not fool him. He left this for you.”
“Must be the rent-collector.” She put the letter aside without opening it. “Did he see you?”
“No, we stayed hidden.”
“Good.” She went to put away her purse and exchange her shoes for slippers.
“Did you lock us in when you left?” asked Ishvar.
“Didn’t you know? Yes, I had to.”
“Why?” pounced Omprakash. “You think we are thieves or something? We are going to take your possessions and run away?”
“Don’t be silly. What big possessions do I have to worry about? The landlord is the reason. He could barge in while I am gone and throw you out on the street. But if there is a lock, he won’t dare. To break a padlock is to break the law.”
“Very true,” said Ishvar. He was eager to see the design for the new dresses. While his nephew glowered, the tablecloth was whipped off the dining table to make way for the paper patterns.
“How much per dress this time?” interrupted Omprakash, fingering the new poplin.
She ignored him while Ishvar moved the sections around. Like a child with a jigsaw puzzle, he was soon absorbed in its complexities. Omprakash tried again, “Very difficult pattern. Look at all the godets to be inserted for flaring the skirt. We will have to charge more this time, for sure.”
“Stop doing your kutt-kutt,” she scolded. “Let your elders work. Respect your uncle at least if you cannot respect me.”
Ishvar matched the sections against the sample dress, talking to himself. “The sleeve, yes. And the back, with a seam in the middle — yes, it’s easy.” His nephew frowned at him for that admission.
“Yes, extremely easy,” said Dina. “Simpler than the ones you just finished. And the good news is, they are still paying five rupees each.”
“Not possible for five rupees,” said Omprakash. “You said you would bring expensive dresses. This is not worth our time.”
“I have to bring what the company gives. Or they will cancel us from their list.”
“We will do it,” said Ishvar. “To kick at wages is sinful.”
“You do it, then — I cannot do it for five rupees,” said Omprakash, but Ishvar nodded reassuringly at Dina.
She went to the kitchen to make the tea she had promised. The dissension in their midst was good; the uncle would curb the nephew’s rebellion. She squinted at the cups and saucers, at their rose borders. Pink or red? Pink ones for the tailors, she decided, to be set aside with the segregated water glass. Red for myself.
While waiting for the kettle, she checked the chicken wire over the broken windowpanes and found a breach. Those nuisance cats again, she fumed. Sneaking in, prowling for food, or to get out of the rain. And who knew what germs they brought with them from the gutters.
She reinforced the piece, twisting the corners around a nail. The kettle blurted its readiness with a healthy spout of steam. She held back for a vigorous boil, enjoying the thickening haze and the water’s steady babble: the illusions of chatter, friendship, bustling life.
Reluctantly she turned down the flame, and the white cloud dissipated in desultory wisps. She filled three cups and carried in the two with pink roses.
“Ah,” sighed Ishvar, taking the tea gratefully. Omprakash continued to sew without looking up, still sulking. She put it down beside him.
“I don’t want any,” he muttered. Dina returned wordlessly to the kitchen for her own cup.
“Delicious,” said Ishvar when she was back. He slurped noisily, making sounds to tempt his nephew. “Much better than Vishram Vegetarian Hotel.”
“They must be letting it boil-all day,” said Dina. “That spoils it. Nothing like fresh tea when you are tired.”
“Very true.” He took another sip and sighed invitingly again. Omprakash reached for his cup. The other two pretended not to notice. He gulped down the tea thirstily without displacing his angry pout.
Two hours of sewing were left in the day, and he filled them with crooked seams and grumbling. Ishvar was grateful to the clock when it indicated six. Keeping the peace between his nephew and Dinabai was becoming difficult.
Morning was striding towards noon as Ibrahim, the rent-collector, plodding slowly down the pavement, prepared to visit Dina Dalai and demand a reply to the letter he had delivered yesterday. Dignified in his maroon fez and black sherwani, he smiled at tenants he met along the way, saying “Salaam” and “How are you?” He was blessed with an automatic smile; it formed whenever he opened his mouth to speak. This felicitous buccal trick was a liability, though, if the occasion of his message warranted something more in the line of a solemn visage — a touch of frowning, perhaps, for overdue rents.
Ibrahim was an elderly man but looked old beyond his years. In his left hand, still sore from pounding the door yesterday, he carried a plastic folder secured by two large rubber bands. It contained rent receipts, bills, orders for repairs, records of disputes and court cases pertaining to the six buildings he looked after. Some of those disputes dated back to when he was a young man of nineteen, just starting in service with the father of the present landlord. Other cases were more ancient, inherited from Ibrahim’s predecessor.
So thoroughly was everything documented, Ibrahim sometimes felt he was lugging the very buildings around with him. The folder handed down almost half a century ago by the retiring rent-collector had not been of plastic, but rudely fashioned out of two wooden boards bound by a strip of morocco. It had carried with it the previous owner’s smell. A fraying cotton tape, sewn to the leather, went around to secure the contents. The dark, cracked boards had warped badly; when opened, they creaked and released a sweaty tobacco odour.
Young and ambitious as Ibrahim then was, he was ashamed of being seen with this relic. Though it contained nothing but respectable rent receipts, he knew that people would judge it by its cover, which resembled the filthy binders carried by disreputable marketplace jyotshis and fortune-tellers to shelter their quack charts and fake diagrams. That he might be mistaken for one of those odious mountebanks mortified him. He began to harbour grave doubts about this job which forced him to carry around a questionable folder — he felt shortchanged, as though a bazaar vendor had fiddled the weights and tipped the scales unfairly.
Then, on one lucky day, the morocco spine broke. He displayed the wreck at the landlord’s office. The clerk examined it, confirmed its demise from natural causes, and filled out the appropriate requisition form. Ibrahim was given a length of string to make do while the paperwork was processed.
After a fortnight’s delay, the new folder arrived. It was built of buckramed cardboard, very smart and modern-looking, in colour a dignified umber. Ibrahim was delighted. He began to feel optimistic about his prospects in this job.
With the new folder under his arm, he could hold his head high and strut as importantly as a solicitor while making his rounds. It was far more sophisticated than the old one, with generous pouches and compartments. Briefs, complaints, correspondences could now be organized methodically. Which was just as well, because around this time Ibrahim’s duties increased, both at work and domestically.
Ibrahim, the son of ageing parents, became a husband, then a father. And the role of rent-collector began to sprout branches too. He was appointed the landlord’s spy, blackmailer, deliverer of threats, and all-round harasser of tenants. His job now included the uncovering of hidden dirt in his six buildings, secrets like extramarital affairs, and he was taught by his employer how to convert adultery into rent increases — the guilty parties would never protest or dare to mention the Rent Act. When the situation demanded, Ibrahim could also play the pleader and cajoler, if the landlord went too far and there was legalistic retaliation. The rent-collector’s tears would convince the tenant to back down, to have mercy on the poor beleaguered landlord, a martyr to modern-day housing, who had never meant any harm in the first place.
To sort out the multiple roles in Ibrahim’s repertoire, the folder’s pouches and compartments were indispensable. At this stage in his career, however, he began to feel the increasing hindrance of his sweet
