“Does there have to be a reason? People collect all kinds of things. Stamps, coins, postcards. I have cloth, instead of a photo album or scrapbook.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding doubtfully.
She let him watch for a while, then said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going crazy. These pieces are to make a quilt. A nice counterpane for my bed.”
“Oh, now I see.” He began looking through the heap, making suggestions, picking out fragments which he thought would go well together. Some, like the swatches of chiffon and tusser, felt gorgeous between his fingers. “Too many different colours and designs,” he said.
“Are you trying to be a critic or what?”
“No, I mean it’s going to be very difficult to match them properly.”
“Difficult, yes, but that’s where taste and skill come in. What to select, what to leave out — and which goes next to which.”
She snipped off some jagged edges and temporarily tacked the six selections together, to obtain a better perspective. “What do you think?” she asked.
“So far so good.”
A nice friendly boy, she felt. Her fears about a spoilt brat could not have been more unfounded. And it was good to have someone to talk to. Someone besides the tailors, who were always mistrustful of her — not that she trusted them either.
Next afternoon she intercepted Maneck on the verandah when he returned from college and whispered that the tailors had turned up. “But don’t say a word about how upset I was yesterday.”
“Okay.” The queen’s gambit, he thought, tossing his books on the bed. He went into the front room as the tailors emerged for their tea break.
“Ah, there he is, there he is!” said Ishvar. “After a whole month we meet again, hahn?”
He put out his hand and asked Maneck how he was, while Om stood by grinning. Maneck said he was fine, and Ishvar said they were both first class, thanks mainly to the regular work provided by Dinabai, who was such a good employer. He smiled at her to include her in the conversation.
Throughout the afternoon, she watched the three disapprovingly — behaving as if they were long-lost friends. And to think they had met just once before, on the train, trying to find her flat.
In the evening, when the tailors were getting ready to put away the skirts, she gave them some parting advice: “Better tell the Prime Minister your jobs are in danger if she takes you again to a meeting. There are two more tailors begging me for work.”
“No no,” said Ishvar. “We definitely want to work for you. We are very happy working for you.”
Dina sat alone in the back room after the tailors left. The space still seemed to vibrate with the Singers. Soon the evening gloom would materialize, infect the fibre-filled air, drape itself over her bed, depress her from now till morning.
But as dusk fell and the streetlamps came on, her spirit remained buoyant. Like magic, she thought, the difference made by another human presence in the flat. She returned to the front room to have her little planned talk with Maneck.
Queen to king’s knight, he thought.
“You realize why I have to be strict with them,” she said. “If they know I’m desperate, they’ll sit on my head.”
“Yes, I understand. By the way, Aunty, do you play chess?”
“No. And I should tell you right now — I don’t like your chatting so much with them. They are my employees, you are Aban Kohlah’s son. A distance has to be kept. All this familiarity is not good.”
Things were worse the following afternoon. She could not believe her ears — the impudence of that Omprakash, boldly asking Maneck, “You want to come with us for tea?” And worst of all, on Maneck’s face glimmered the inclination to say yes. Time to step in, she decided.
“He has his tea here. With me.” There was ice in Dina’s voice.
“Yes, but maybe… maybe just for today I can go out, Aunty?”
She said if he wanted to waste his parents’ payment for boarding and lodging, it was fine with her.
At the Vishram Vegetarian Hotel the air was alive with hearty cooking smells. Maneck felt he had only to stick out his tongue to sample the menu. His stomach rumbled hungrily.
They sat at the solitary table and ordered three teas. The spills from countless spicy meals had imparted a pungent varnish to the wood. Ishvar took the packet of beedis from his pocket and offered it to Maneck.
“No, thanks. I don’t smoke.”
The tailors lit up. “She won’t let us smoke at our machines,” said Om. “And now the room is so crowded with her bed also in there. Place is like a dingy godown.”
“So what?” said Ishvar. “It’s not as if you have to run around in it catching goats or something.”
The cook in one corner of the restaurant was working within a circle of pots and pans. They could see their tea simmering in an open kettle. Three roaring stoves sent clouds of greasy smoke to the ceiling. Flames licked the black bottom of a huge karai full of boiling oil, bubbling dangerously and ready for frying. A drop of sweat from the cook’s shining brow fell into the oil; it spat viciously.
“You like your room?” asked Ishvar.
“Oh yes. Much better than the hostel.”
“We also found a place,” said Om. “At first I hated it, but now it’s all right. There are some nice people living near us.”
“You must come visit one day,” said Ishvar.
“Sure. Is it far?”
“Not very. Takes about forty-five minutes by train.” The teas arrived with a splash, the cups sitting in little brown-puddled saucers. Ishvar slurped from the saucer. Om poured his puddle back into the cup and sipped. Maneck followed his example.
“And how is college?”
Maneck made a wry face. “Hopeless. But I’ll have to finish it somehow, to please my parents. Then home I go, on the first train.”
“Soon as we collect some money, we’re also going back,” said Ishvar, coughing and hawking. “To find a wife for Om. Hahn, my nephew?”
“I don’t want marriage,” he scowled. “How many times to tell you.”
“Look at that sour-lime face. Come on, finish your tea, time’s up.” Ishvar got up to leave. The boys swallowed the last draughts and tumbled out of the little tea shop after him. They hurried back to Dina’s flat, past the beggar on his rolling platform.
“Remember him?” said Om to Maneck. “We saw him on the first day. He’s become our friend now. We pass him every day, and he waves to us.”
“O babu!” sang the beggar. “Aray babu! O big paisawalla babu!” He smiled at the trio, rattling his begging tin. Maneck tinkled into it the small change from the Vishram.
“What’s that smell?” Dina leaned forward angrily to sniff Maneck’s shirt. “Were you smoking with those two?”
“No,” he whispered, embarrassed that they would hear in the back room.
“Be honest. I stand in your parents’ place.”
“No, Aunty! They were smoking, and I was sitting next to them, that’s all.”
“If I ever catch you, I will write straight to your mummy, I’m warning you. Now tell me, did they say anything else about yesterday? The real reason they were absent?”
“No.”
“What did you talk about?”
He resented the cross-examination. “Nothing much. This and that.”
She did not pursue it, snubbed by his taciturnity. “There’s another thing you better be warned about. Omprakash has lice.”
