THE MAGICAL PALACE (32 page)

‘Shh … nothing. I am fine.’ He looked very sheepish.

I wanted him to come back and lie on top of me again and keep rubbing and thrusting against me. But I did not know how to say it to him, even though I was very disappointed. Somehow, I was sure I had been denied some unknown and incredible experience.

The faraway squeak of the gate as the chowkidar opened it shattered the silence. We heard the Dr Bose’s Ambassador slowly lurch up the driveway, crunching gravel and stones.

‘Oh, shit!’ Shubho jumped up.

I jumped up as well and straightened my clothes, hiding my arousal. I did not need to be told what to do. Shubho smoothed out his bed and his hair. He turned me around and straightened my hair too. In that moment, I knew that I loved him for caring for me that way. He quickly gave me a kiss on my forehead and whispered, ‘Not a word to anyone. Remember, this is our secret. Go to Ranjan’s room and sit down with your books.’

I could hear Dr Bose’s voice in the foyer as she spoke to the maid. ‘I’ll go and see where Rahul is. He must be waiting for us.’

I quickly slipped into the corridor, running towards Ranjan’s room. Dr Bose’s footsteps sounded very close as her voice grew louder: ‘Rahul …’

She had caught me before I reached the room. I froze. ‘Yes, Mashi?’ I said, terrified that she would suspect what I had been up to.

‘What are you doing? And why is your hair so messed up?’

I turned around slowly, smoothing my hair. ‘Nothing. I … I … just went to the bathroom …’ My heart was pounding and my voice sounded strained and high. Heat rose in my face.

‘And your clothes are rumpled. Oh, you must have taken a nap in Ranjan’s room!’ She laughed as if it was something very funny. ‘Well, I always say nothing like a nap after lunch. I think I will go take one too.’

I laughed nervously and, grateful for the reprieve, slipped into Ranjan’s room. I rumpled the bed cover and pounded the pillow. I could feel a damp stickiness in my underwear, but I did not have time to dwell on it because I could hear Ranjan running up the steps. I picked up the history book in a rush, holding it upside down. As he entered the room, I panicked and put it away.

‘What are you doing?’ Ranjan asked suspiciously.

‘Oh, nothing. Just reading history chapters for the test. I took a nap after you left.’ I straightened my shirt ends so that they covered the front of my pants.

‘Mother has promised me a new bike if I come first in class, so watch out, Rahul!’

Ranjan was in a good mood for the rest of the afternoon. It crawled by slowly as my body and mind were agitated after my experience with Shubho. I wanted more than anything else to go up to his room, which I knew was impossible. Instead, Ranjan and I spent the hours learning by heart historical dates of medieval dynasties of North India.

At about five o’clock the bell rang downstairs, signalling tea time. The cook had baked fresh scones and we had them with clotted cream and strawberry jam. A beautiful porcelain teapot had tea steeping in it. Shubho did not join
us for tea. As we were finishing, I heard him coming down the stairs.

‘I am going to see Anamika,’ he yelled as he ran out of the house. I felt a bitter flood of jealousy course through me.

Ranjan and I went out to the garden to play after that. I kept hoping that Shubho would return before I left, but he did not. Very soon, my father arrived to pick me up.

‘Did you study well?’ he asked. ‘I am sure Ranjan wants to beat you this time in the tests.’ His voice grew stern. ‘Make sure you come first again in the next round.’

I desperately wished that my parents and Ranjan’s would stop pushing us like this.

That night my body felt different as I touched myself, thinking about Shubho. I could not wait to see him again, to feel his touch. We would meet secretly again, sooner or later—of this much I was certain.

November 1973. Hyderabad.

The air had grown cooler. The birds were sluggish and did not sing as much. Some of them had flown off to warmer regions. Others, like the crows and sparrows, stayed around but puffed up into balls of feathers to keep warm. Migratory birds arrived from colder lands, preferring our climes to their winter. They nested in rushes by the lake. The sun rose late in the morning now and my bed was no longer warm when I woke up. I hated the gloominess of the mornings.

Other things were changing too. My khaki pants, which had been comfortable and well-fitting the year before, now barely made it to my ankles. But thrift demanded that I make do with the same clothes this year too. I hated the dullness of my clothing as well, since the only coloured sweaters
we were allowed to wear to school were navy-blue. The sweaters were serviceable rather than comfortable, prickly around the neck and tight on my arms.

School had become even more demanding. Everyone was busy studying for the last round of tests that would be held a few weeks before the finals for the first half of the school year. I practised my algebra, geometry and arithmetic daily and also had to study history, geography, civics, science, English, Hindi and Sanskrit. I wanted to see Shubho very badly, but there was no way for that to happen now that the early evenings had put an end to football practice. Ranjan was still my friend, but he was spending more and more time with Suresh Khosla and the other boys who made jokes about looking up Miss D’Souza’s skirt.

Then I got a call from Ranjan that made me very, very happy.

‘Hi, Rahul. We are going to have a birthday party for Shubho Dada. Mum asked me to invite you and Rani.’

My throat tightened with nervous excitement. ‘When is it?’

‘Coming Saturday. Make sure you come. And bring Rani too.’

‘Dr Bose has invited me to her house for Shubho Dada’s birthday party,’ I announced to my parents. ‘And she has invited Rani too.’

‘When is it?’ asked my father

‘Coming Saturday,’ I said, praying silently that my visit would not be vetoed.

‘All right, I will drive you both over,’ Baba said. ‘What do you want to buy your Shubho Dada for his birthday?’

‘Oh …’ I was nonplussed. What would I buy for Shubho? ‘A football jersey,’ I said in a sudden burst of inspiration.

‘We can go to the sports shop on Abid Road then, before I drop you off at the party.’

I also wanted to give Shubho another gift. One that I would myself make. Packing all my art materials in a bag, I tucked it under my arm and strolled out of the palace. I did not want Rani to see the card I was going to make.

I sauntered towards the dhobi ghaat at the far end of the palace and sat in the warm afternoon sunshine to make a birthday card for Shubho. I loved this place with its rough-hewn granite tanks and the steep steps that led into them. The brass faucets were covered with a thin patina of green. In summer, lilies bloomed in the smallest tank, which was always kept full of water. I sometimes liked to imagine the family of dhobis all around me. Huge pots of water boiled in my imaginings, with tough washerwomen on their haunches beating the dirt out of the clothes. After the clothes dried on the line, the dhobis pressed them with irons that hissed and puffed, like mechanical dragons, as water drops evaporated on the blistering hot metal, leaving behind crisp, starched cottons.

But, alas, the ghaats lay empty and deserted in the winter sunshine and I was the only one there. My family’s clothes were washed in the large tiled bathroom close to the laundry room in the palace. Shaking my head free of thoughts, I took out the pink cardboard and scissors from my bag and got to work.

I had dried autumn leaves and summer flowers from the deciduous trees in the garden the year before. I decorated the pink card with flowers and dry leaves and liberally sprinkled it with gum and glitter. Then I carefully trimmed away the extra paper and errant leaves and turned it around
to make sure it looked perfect for Shubho, fervently hoping that he would like it.

Inside, I wrote:

I put the art materials back in the bag and placed the card carefully in an oversized envelope.

When I went back to the palace, Rani was suspicious as she saw me carrying the bag. She asked about it, but I lied to her about an art project. I could not let anyone see the card.

I dressed with care the evening of Shubho’s birthday and wore my new drainpipe pants with a bright red sweater that my mother had knitted for me the year before. It was a bit short at the wrist now and I pulled at it in irritation.

‘Hurry up, slowpoke!’ Rani said. She was dressed up and looking impeccable as always. Her hair was brushed to one side and a hair clip with a large orange flower matched her orange sharara. But it was not her hair that I stared at. Her lips were orange—a bright orange. I had never seen Rani look like this before. She looked just like the actress Mumtaz.

‘Oh, Rani!’ I exclaimed. ‘You look beautiful.’ She preened in the mirror and followed me to the dining room.

‘Arre. What are you wearing on your lips? Is that lipstick?’ Baba demanded when he saw her.

Rani did not respond, taken aback.

‘Why are you wearing lipstick?’ my father persisted, sounding unusually angry as he flung aside the newspaper he had been reading. ‘Ogo, shunchho? Our Rani is wearing your lipstick.’

Ma came to see what the ruckus was about. ‘Oh, Rani, that is such a nice colour you are …’

‘Have you all gone crazy?’ Baba slammed the table with his fist.

‘Well, I am going to a party and it matches my sharara, so …’ Rani’s voice trailed off.

‘Well, take it off. It looks terrible! You are still a young girl. Stop trying to act like an adult. Go!’

Rani left the room with a rebellious flounce of her sharara.

‘See? All this bad influence ever since Mallika fell in love with that blighter,’ Baba said to Ma. ‘I will not tolerate any of this nonsense in my house. Binesh told me that Anjali spoilt her daughter and see what she ended up doing. Chhee … chhee …’

‘Let them have fun. They are only children,’ Ma snapped as she left the room as well.

I sidled towards the veranda, wondering if I would be scolded for something as well. Rani reappeared in a while, her lips wiped clean.

Our trip to Abid Road was conducted in stony silence.

‘I will stay in the car. You go. I don’t want to pick out a jersey for Shubho Dada. In fact, I don’t want to go to this stupid party any more,’ Rani said to me when the car had stopped.

‘You children are getting unmanageable,’ Baba muttered angrily under his breath as he and I walked to the sports shop.

I picked out a jersey for Shubho carefully. It was green and yellow, the colours of Brazil. I was thinking of the poster of Pele on the wall of Shubho’s room and hoping that he would really like his gift.

When we got to Ranjan’s house, there were already many cars parked in the driveway.

‘Have a good time,’ Baba said.

Rani got out without a word and I said a hasty goodbye as I tumbled out of the car. I could not wait to give Shubho the card and the gift that I had chosen so carefully for him.

Seeing us arrive, Ranjan ran over to us. ‘Why are you so late?’ he demanded. ‘There is no one of my age here and all of Shubho Dada’s friends are too busy with each other to talk to me.’ He looked at Rani admiringly and whistled softly. ‘My, Rani, you look smashing!’ He looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on her chest.

Rani preened. ‘Why, thank you, Ranjan,’ she replied, looking coy. I stared at her simpering smile. Her mood had lifted at Ranjan’s admiration and, linking her arm in his, she walked with him towards the house. I did not care. I had Shubho to think about.

The trees in the garden were starkly outlined against the dark winter sky and I felt a chill in spite of my warm sweater. I remembered how thick the leaves had been on the trees the last time I was in Shubho’s room … My heartbeat quickened.

Shubho was in the centre of the drawing room, dancing with Anamika. ‘Hey, Rahul,’ he said when he saw me, but he did not leave Anamika’s side.

Rani and I went over to give him his gift. ‘Happy Birthday, Shubho Dada,’ we said in unison and then started laughing.

I did not give him the card. I wanted to give it to him when we were alone.

‘Thank you, Rahul and Rani,’ Shubho said with a stiff bow and turned back to Anamika.

‘Thank you for inviting us,’ I said to him and to Dr Bose, who had come up to greet us. Shubho did not seem to hear me and I was disappointed. But I was sure he would be warm and friendly once he saw the beautiful card I had made for him.

Dr Bose was in a good mood. The table was laden with all kinds of pastries, samosas, pakoras and other snacks. A big cake covered with white frosting sat in the middle of the table.

Through the evening, Beatles songs kept playing and Shubho kept dancing with Anamika and his friends. Rani and Ranjan were busy moving to the music and having a good time. I was with them, but I was watching Shubho, waiting impatiently for a moment when I could be alone with him.

Finally, my moment arrived. I saw Shubho whisper something in Anamika’s ear and make her laugh. He squeezed her hand and left the room. I followed him. He ran up the stairs, and so did I. He heard my footsteps behind him, just as he was at his door. He stopped humming the Beatles song playing and said, ‘Hey, Rahul, what are you doing up here?’ He opened the door and entered his room.

I slipped in behind him.

‘Shubho Dada …’ I began, but he cut me short with a wave of his hand.

‘Rahul, I hope you have not told anyone about what happened here the other day.’

‘No, I haven’t,’ I said, happy that he wanted this secret to be just between us.

I went up to him and, standing on my toes, gave him a kiss on his cheek, breathing the familiar scent of his skin.

‘Careful,’ he warned, stepping away. I did not understand why he was being so aloof. I wanted him to hold me, brush his lips against mine and stroke my hair.

‘I made you a card,’ I said, giving it to him.

He opened it, frowning as a few leaves and some glitter fell on the floor. He read the card and his face contorted with anger. ‘Are you crazy?’ he demanded. ‘What if someone sees this card? Do you know what will happen to us if someone finds out? They have a word for it, you know. Homo!’ He spat out the word.