Hats and Doctors: Stories Read online

  But from that point on, the same mental stress from which he had saved Director Qadir’s life now began to eat him up.

  It was night and he was lying in bed with his wife. He was thinking about how he had imagined that it was he who had trapped Director Qadir with his savvy, but now he realized that it was Mrs Qadir who had trapped him with her own savvy. The moment this thought occurred to him, he chuckled at his own foolishness. Just then a tap came on the door from the inside room. Mrs Rashid jumped up and went and sat on her own bed and he called out, ‘Come in!’

  Mrs Qadir entered the room on tiptoe with her finger to her lips. ‘For God’s sake, please laugh softly,’ she whispered. ‘I have finally managed to soothe Him to sleep by massaging His head with oil!’ And she retreated, closing the door gently behind her.

  After this, Mrs Rashid did not have the courage to get into bed with her husband again.

  The next day, Mrs Qadir, with great informality, had a charpoy removed from Rashid Bhai’s room and placed in the balcony, and she had Director Qadir’s table put in its place. This was because the bedroom was not appropriate for work, and then they also had a small daughter, who was now thick as thieves with Rashid Bhai’s son, and no work could take place in all the noise. ‘At night we’ll put the charpoy back here again,’ she explained to Rashid Bhai. ‘Right now, you people sit at this table and work.’ With that, she went into her room and busied herself with straightening up.

  Rashid Bhai sat down at the table and discussed the dialogues with Director Qadir for a few minutes. That was all the encouragement he got. For the rest of the day, all sorts of people kept coming to meet Director Qadir. Rashid Bhai got up and went out to the balcony, where he talked with his friends, and Mrs Rashid sat in the kitchen all day. There is no need to mention that the people who came all day to meet Mr Qadir used the other charpoy as a sofa and, by evening, the freshly washed bedclothes that Mrs Rashid had spread over it were filled with scores of wrinkles.

  There were two bathrooms in the flat, one for bathing and so on, and the other for the dishwasher to come and scrub the pots and pans, and so forth. Mrs Qadir, without any hesitation whatsoever, took over this second bathroom on the third day and told the dishwasher to scrub the pots and pans in the kitchen.

  On the fourth day, after a good deal of thought, Rashid Bhai devised a plan whereby the second bed would be brought out to the balcony as well and set up there, and the things in the balcony would be put in the middle room, which would be turned into a shared drawing room. Mrs Qadir praised him to the skies for this suggestion. The result was that that room also slipped from his hands, and Mrs Rashid again remained locked up in the kitchen most of the day as before, because, when Qadir Sahib was speaking with the people who had come to see him, it was impossible for Rashid Bhai to sit there himself, or seat the people who had come to meet him, let alone speak to them. So Rashid Bhai was, as before, forced to sit and work in the balcony and meet his visitors, and Mrs Rashid spent the day in the kitchen.

  On the fifth day, the dressing table also arrived in the balcony. In this way, the balcony became their sleeping, sitting and dressing room, and his earlier comment to Director Qadir, ‘It would make us so happy to live with you even if we occupied only the balcony,’ had been made a complete and happy reality by Mrs Qadir with no qualms whatsoever.

  On the sixth day, without any sort of hesitation, the Qadirs removed Rashid Bhai’s things from the storeroom and set up their own kitchen there. ‘You know Him,’ Mrs Qadir said to Mrs Rashid. ‘He has lung trouble. What does it matter if He’s negative today, He could be positive tomorrow. I even keep Naazli’s and my pots separate from His. You have a delicate little child. That’s why I’ll be cooking in a separate kitchen.’

  Thus, she was extremely helpful to Mrs Rashid in arranging the things which had been removed from the storeroom and placed in the hall, making a temporary storeroom for them and unhesitatingly giving priceless advice on the subject.

  There is no need to mention that as soon as the kitchen was finished, Mrs Qadir took over Rashid Bhai’s cook and dishwasher, forcing Mrs Rashid to cook with her own hands until a new servant came.

  On the seventh day, when Rashid Bhai arrived at the Dadar Bar at Shahbaaz’s invitation, Shahbaaz saw on his face not even a hundredth part of the elation that had been there seven days earlier. He had let his beard grow and his clothing was unclean. His face which, despite its fleshiness, was usually full, taut and shiny, now looked saggy.

  All Shahbaaz knew was that Rashid Bhai was writing the dialogue for Director Qadir’s new picture, so he had brought a whole bottle of scotch and was waiting for him to come so that he could ask if he had done anything to get him a role or not; but when he saw Rashid Bhai’s mood, he kept quiet. He called to the waiter and ordered a mutton chop and kababs, and then he poured the pegs out into the glasses. He popped the corks from the soda bottles, poured the soda into the glasses and held out a glass to Rashid Bhai.

  In the midst of this, Rashid Bhai sat with his elbows on the table, resting his chin in his palms. With his eyes he chased the doe fleeing across the picture on the facing wall: it was difficult to tell whether it was leaping or stretching, because there would be the same amount of space between the front and the back legs for a leap or a stretch. The artist had perhaps glimpsed the stretch of his lover in the stretch of the doe. Who knew? One couldn’t even figure out what the average man was thinking, and here he was contemplating what was going on in an artist’s mind. As far as Rashid Bhai was concerned, his mind was in a state completely opposite to that of stretching. It had contracted so much that perhaps he was not thinking at all. His eyes were glued to the doe as though willing her to leap. Or if she would not leap, he might at least bore two large holes into her.

  For a few moments Shahbaaz waited for Rashid Bhai, of his own accord, to take a look at the bubbles rising in the glass, but when the foam rose and then began to subside again, and Rashid Bhai’s desultory gaze had not yet moved from the doe, he asked, ‘What’s wrong? Pick up your glass, why don’t you? Look, the fairy who jumped into the glass is eager to touch your lips!’ And he laughed hollowly.

  ‘Just leave me alone! I’m not in the mood today. Why don’t you drink it! I only came so that you wouldn’t have to sit here waiting for me.’ And he placed his glass next to Shahbaaz’s glass.

  ‘But what’s wrong? Didn’t things get nailed down with Director Qadir?’

  For the first time Rashid Bhai smiled a little. ‘Forget getting nailed down, this thing has become a millstone around my neck! I keep wondering how I’m going to get out of this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  In reply Rashid Bhai told him the whole story of his misfortune.

  The waiter set the mutton chop and the kababs on the table.

  The liquor was sitting in the glass, the nice warm mutton chop was staring invitingly up from the plate; to Shahbaaz, all sorrow seemed tawdry before such pleasures. ‘Forget about it!’ he said. ‘Why are you wasting your time thinking about such little things! Your big wish has come true. Lift your glass, let’s throw back a few pegs to that!’

  But there was great pain in the line of a smile which had formed on Rashid Bhai’s face.

  ‘This seems like a little thing to you? Now I know that I’ve fallen into hell when I was sitting in heaven. If Director Qadir or Miss Shameem doesn’t find a house in two months, I’ll be ruined.’

  ‘Oh come on, just lift your glass; if it’s causing you so much inconvenience, come to my place,’ he said, picking up his own glass.

  Rashid lifted his glass and responded dejectedly, ‘But you just have a single flat. Where would you go?’

  Shahbaaz clinked his glass against Rashid Bhai’s and finished it off in one gulp; he said, ‘What does it matter to an easygoing guy like me? I’ll roll out my bed on the stairs!’

  The next day, at around eleven or twelve, when Shahbaaz opened his hung-over eyes, he saw that his room was packed full of lugg
age and that the only empty space was where he himself was sleeping. He blinked a couple of times to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Just then, Rashid Bhai appeared in the doorway. ‘Well, I see that you sleep as much as you drink!’ He remarked, ‘Get up, wash your hands and face, and have something to eat. Then help us set up our stuff. My wife is making something to eat in the kitchen. Your servant is really great. If it weren’t for him, we could never have gotten so much luggage up to the third floor.’

  And he began to laugh and laugh.

  That night, when the clerk who lived on the fourth floor came home a little later than usual, he noticed as he was climbing the stairs that it wasn’t just the servant from the third floor who was sleeping on the stairs, but also his master, who was lying on his bedding, staring fixedly at the ceiling.

  Some Suds and a Smile

  Hariya was sitting happily on the square embankment under the water pipe, wearing a khaki loincloth—perhaps just the remnant of a pair of shorts—his skinny legs stretched out contentedly, his head bowed down a little, and Lallan was vigorously scrubbing his body with soap.

  Professor Malhotra usually went this way when he was going to his friend Professor Sen’s house. Even though he could just as easily go by the street that ran along the train tracks, or even by South Road, he really liked that piece of road that went between the two-storeyed Railway Living Quarters. To the left, there were the Living Quarters, where a community water pipe had been installed for the servants who lived at the corner, and to the right were ten rooms set aside for the lower-caste servants, who sat and did nearly all their housework at the small door in front of the Quarters: the women dried their hair, put on their clothes, did their make-up; lay their naked children upside down or right side up on mats and rubbed oil into their bodies; strained and sifted the grains; cooked the food; fought and quarrelled. Professor Malhotra didn’t know why he enjoyed this exhibition of private life in the open market. But then, Lallan, their new, young sweeper, lived in the last room in the row. Although, by now, Lallan had worked for them for a long time, she was still new, compared to Sharbatiya.

  Sometimes when Malhotra passed by on his day off, at around twelve or one o’clock, Lallan would be bathing at the water pipe. Sometimes she would be walking towards her room, hiding her blossoming body in a wet sari. Malhotra would half-glance in her direction. At times, her husband Hariya would be sitting in front of their room, smoking a bidi. His Chinese moustache drooped down his shrivelled-up face on either side of his mouth, just like in photographs. When he saw Malhotra, a helpless-looking smile always spread across his lips. Wrinkles appeared in his sunken cheeks, changing from parentheses to brackets, and he would greet him, hiding his bidi in his fist. There was something about that smile that awoke in Professor Malhotra a sense of weak hostility. Sometimes Malhotra remained silent in response to Hariya’s greeting; at others, he nodded his head a little, and at others he laughed, and said, ‘Tell me, Hariya, my brother, how are you?’ But he never stopped to hear his response; he always kept walking.

  From a distance, Professor Malhotra’s gaze slipped from Hariya’s soapy body to Lallan: her complexion was now even darker, dishevelled locks of hair hung about her face, shadows had crept below her eyes, and yet she must be only twenty-five now, give or take a year … And then, the last four years passed before Malhotra in the blinking of an eye, and he remembered that first afternoon, when Lallan had come into his room, following behind Sharbatiya.

  It was early afternoon, probably around three or three-thirty. Malhotra was sitting in his study looking at a thesis when his wife came and said, ‘Sharbatiya has brought a new sweeper.’ Then she turned and called to her, ‘Come in, Sharbatiya!’

  Sharbatiya was their old sweeper. A few days earlier, she had unexpectedly given notice, saying she was returning to her village, and to kindly let her leave. Malhotra thought perhaps she wanted a raise, but when she didn’t change her stance even after he tempted her with a raise of a rupee or so, Malhotra came to believe that she really was going to the village. He told her that if she gave her place to some other trustworthy sweeper, they would let her go.

  Sharbatiya lifted the curtain and came in, and behind her, right behind her, came a thin, graceful young lady with a wheat-coloured complexion; her face was round and her big round eyes were rubbed with kohl; she wore a freshly cleaned printed sari and a silk blouse, and she glittered in her silver necklace and earrings. Sharbatiya was extremely tall and fair. She too was beautiful and young. But there was a strange slackness to her. This young lady, because of the build of her body, the wideness of her round eyes, her taste in clothing and her unusual poise, looked much more beautiful than Sharbatiya, despite her darker colouring. If she had not come in with Sharbatiya, Malhotra would have taken her to be the wife of a merchant from some good home, or a paan seller’s wife.

  ‘She is going to do the work of a sweeper?’ he exclaimed to himself, but aloud he asked, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Lallan!’

  ‘But you’re so dressed up, will you be able to do all this work?’

  Lallan was embarrassed. Sharbatiya was the one who replied.

  ‘Sir, she got married just a month ago, but she’s a smart worker. Don’t worry.’

  ‘But you know, Sharbatiya, at our house everything is in the open, we need a trustworthy sweeper.’

  ‘Don’t worry, sir, you won’t have any complaints.’

  ‘All right, you explain everything to her, what work she’ll have to do and how many rupees she’ll get a month.’

  And the two of them went away. Malhotra signalled to his wife to stay behind.

  ‘Such a dressed-up girl. I doubt she’ll do good work,’ he said. ‘It would be so much better if that useless Sharbatiya would stay on.’

  ‘But she can’t stay,’ his wife said. ‘Anyway, she has assured me Lallan is a fast worker and she’s trustworthy. She’s her sister-in-law by some distant relationship.’

  His wife went away. Malhotra got involved with reading the thesis again, but Lallan’s large, round, kohl-lined eyes, the generous curve of her waist and her sparkling earrings continued to shimmer before his eyes. There’s no way such a woman can do the job of a sweeper! he thought to himself.

  But his suspicions proved totally baseless. Not only could Lallan do the work Sharbatiya had done, but she also started cleaning the rooms inside the house. She swept and mopped Malhotra’s study, arranged the things on his table and put his books back in their places on the shelves. She polished shoes for Malhotra, his wife and his children and washed their clothes every day. The more work she undertook, the more her wages increased. After cleaning the toilets she always washed her hands and arms with soap up to the elbows before touching any clothing. Before returning in the early afternoon she always bathed and changed into a clean sari. It wasn’t just she who was always clean, she kept the house neat and tidy as well. Mrs Malhotra was so happy with Lallan’s work that, when she found out Lallan went home to bathe and cook after she had done her morning work, she gave her two new saris. That way, when she went back to her own home, she would always return in the afternoon wearing a freshly cleaned sari. One day, Mrs Malhotra even went so far as to tell her husband that if Lallan ever wanted to stop being a sweeper, she would put her in charge of a higher level of work in their house.

  It had only been four or five months since Lallan had started when Professor Malhotra became severely ill. It was the month of February, but the sunlight was quite strong. One day, he had to teach a class at two o’clock in the afternoon. At around twelve o’clock he felt so warm that he took off his long-sleeved sweater. When he left for the university he wore only a coat over his shirt. He thought he would teach one period and then come home while the sun was still out, but instead he got caught in a university meeting. During the meeting, clouds gathered in the sky from out of nowhere and it began to drizzle. First the cold, then the rain, then a strong breeze. He got extremely wet. Although he took off his suit a
s soon as he got home and put on a fresh shirt and pants, a long-sleeved sweater and even an overcoat, he continued to feel a piercing pain on the right side of his chest. All night long he coughed. When he tried to get up in the morning he simply could not. His head hurt, his throat was swollen and his whole body was aching. When he took his temperature he found he had a fever of 101. They called for the doctor, who said it was influenza.

  But this influenza took on such a complex form that Malhotra ended up staying in bed for two months. He grew extremely weak. Exactly when Lallan started pressing his feet he could not remember.

  In the afternoons, when he felt tired but was not able to fall asleep, and when his feet and calves felt oddly restless, and his body ached all over, he would get extremely fidgety and ask his wife if she would just press his body a little. His wife was the beloved only daughter of her executive engineer father; her body was fair and plump, soft and delicate, and her hands were fine. She would try to press his legs, but her hands always started to hurt and Malhotra ended up feeling no relief whatsoever, which made him angry.

  One evening, when Lallan came for the second time in the day to do the cleaning, Mrs Malhotra asked her, ‘Lallan, would you mind washing your hands and coming over here to press Professor Malhotra’s legs?’ And so Lallan started to press his legs.

  But that had all happened in the early days of his sickness. In the end Malhotra just asked Lallan directly.

  Lallan was slender, but there was iron in her hands. First she would press his calves, then his ankles, then his heels, then the soles of his feet, then his toes and toenails. After that, she would crack his toes and press his feet and then his legs. Sometimes she would press his knees and even his waist. The knots of pain scattered with the touch of her hands, as if they had been smashed to pieces. While she worked, she talked about this and that in such a sweet voice, that he often fell asleep just listening to her words.