In Custody by Anita Desai

Author:Anita Desai
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448105571
Publisher: Random House

Chapter 7

THE TIME AND the place: these elementary matters were left to Deven to arrange as being within his capabilities. Time and place, these two concerns of all who are born and all who die: these were considered the two fit subjects for the weak and the incompetent. Deven was to restrict himself to these two matters, time and place. No one appeared to realize that to him these subjects belonged to infinity and were far more awesome than the minutiae of technical arrangements.

Nor did anyone know how much courage it took to slip through that narrow wooden door in the alley again with the intention of hurrying up the stairs to the top of the house and finding Nur there alone. Deven had carefully chosen an hour when he could be expected to have no visitors.

He was therefore taken aback to find the courtyard full of people, and others hurrying up and down the stairs and the verandas that circled the courtyard, all busy and intent, but quiet except for a child crying in the background, petulantly wailing and being quieted by someone shaking a rattle or a tambourine to amuse and distract it and not succeeding but only adding to the atmosphere of discord.

No one stopped him or paid him any attention as he crept up the stairs with his head lowered respectfully – most of the people around were women although there were also some of the young men he had seen on his first visit, more informally dressed in pyjamas and kurtas and lounging around idly as if they were waiting for the hour when they could go up the stairs to Nur. They gave the impression this time of being not visitors but members of the family, of belonging, if only to the fringes. He arrived at Nur’s door, as usual hung with a thin bamboo screen to keep out the summer light. He coughed to announce his presence and was relieved to hear a deep groan from inside which he took to be permission to enter. As usual it took a few seconds for his eyes, so recently seared by the sun outside, to adjust to the heavy gloom in the green-tiled and curtained room. In those seconds he could hear that heavy, laboured breathing that he knew to be the poet’s: it was strange how the lowered shades kept out not only the light but also the din of traffic and even the household sounds. This casting of a spell of silence around him was further proof, Deven thought, of Nur’s magic powers. A moment later he discovered the poet’s disconsolate figure hunched upon the edge of the divan.

‘Nur Sahib,’ stammered Deven, once again overcome by his own presumption in appearing before so great a man, and by the poet’s graciousness in allowing him to do so. How was it possible not to become a chela, a disciple, when in the presence of such an undeniable guru?

‘Is it you, Deven?’ the old man murmured tearfully.

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