The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M. G. Vassanji

Author:M. G. Vassanji [Vassanji, M. G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781400076567
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1999-12-31T05:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN.

You fool, Vikram, she told me when I picked her up at the airport, it was from her that I wanted to escape, and you had to go and invite both of us together!

I looked at her, surprised, amused, a little sad.

So how did you manage to leave her behind? You told her not to come?

I censored your letter—didn’t read out the part where you invited her to come too. I hope you don’t mind.

But I also invited her on the phone.

She became quiet. Mother had actually told me by way of excuse that it was better that my sister and I had a chance to be alone to talk things over. She listed a litany of Deepa’s sins, the most grievous of which was her treachery and sheer recklessness in meeting with Njoroge, when Meena Auntie of all people had seen her.

In a restaurant, in public! Her whole future!—she wants to throw it away like that! With a click of the fingers. And then she looks pleased with herself and pert as a new bride—tauba! I’m not going to live through this, mark my words, Vikram!

But I guessed that Mother had declined to come also because she didn’t want to leave Papa by himself, with the Englishwoman Mrs. Burton lurking close by.

Later, as I got Deepa’s things out of the taxi and paid the driver, she informed me matter-of-factly: You know, Njo is also coming to Dar this week.

You didn’t tell me. And he didn’t either.

He assumed I would, and I didn’t get a chance, Vic. It doesn’t matter, does it?…And Mahesh Uncle left today, I guess you know that.

I nodded. That I knew.

Our uncle had been named to a delegation, led by the minister Okello Okello, which was leaving that day on an official visit to the Soviet Union. It was a momentous occasion for him, a prize for someone who had always kept communist sympathies, for which he had been taunted and called names. Uncle had come to see Mother in great excitement a few days before his departure and announced his decision to stop over in Delhi on the return leg of his journey. He was hoping he could convince his boss Okello—who had studied engineering in India—to do the same, though the latter, being a government minister, desired an official invitation.

I wish I could come too, meet you in Delhi and see Bauji, Mother said. Wouldn’t it just be wonderful, Bhaiya, the three of us together again!

But of course she couldn’t go, with the home front being what it was, and especially not when both Papa and Deepa had insisted too keenly that it was a good idea. She had not been back in ten years, though, and Uncle not since he arrived in Africa. He had spoken to her about his visit to me, the evening we had spent together in Dar, and that pleased her immensely. Family is all you have, she would remind me and Deepa whenever we quarrelled as children.

I will only go to India after you are married, she had said to Deepa this morning.

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