Don't Let Him Know (20 page)

When she turned off the light in the bathroom Amit turned off the lamp as well.

In bed she put her arm around him and said ‘Well, what attracted you to me in the first place?’

Amit turned his face away because he could not meet her eyes.

But he needn’t have worried. In the dark he could not see their colour at all.

IX

Requiem for a Star

Romola was checking to see if the tea had steeped long enough when she heard the news. Breakfast was set on the table – toast, butter, the mixed fruit jam glowing a dark ruby-red in the early morning sunlight slanting in through the window. Avinash was reading the paper silently, a half-eaten slice of buttered toast in front of him.

Without looking up from the newspaper, he said, ‘Subir Kumar is dead.’

‘What?’ Romola almost dropped the teapot. ‘What do you mean he’s dead?’

‘It says right here.’ Avinash gestured at the newspaper. ‘Subir Kumar, superstar of Bengali cinema, dies of heart attack at fifty-two.’

‘Let me see,’ said Romola snatching the newspaper from him. Avinash, startled, said, ‘Oh ho, it’s not going to run away. I was reading that.’ But Romola had left the table, newspaper in her hand, and gone into the bedroom to look for her reading glasses.

Avinash looked at her with mild annoyance. He was a man of habit. Every morning after he brushed his teeth, he liked to sit down at the breakfast table with the newspaper. He would read it gravely, occasionally sharing a headline with Romola, who silently made tea and buttered his toast for him. Avinash liked to read the newspaper first while it was still uncreased and neatly folded. Now he was afraid Romola would start reading the inside pages and soon the pages would all be out of sequence. He inspected his toast and said, a little more sharply than he intended, ‘What happened to that tea?’

‘It’s right there.’ Romola gestured absently towards the table. ‘But check the sugar. I can’t remember if I already added it or not.’ She put the front page down and, just as Avinash had feared, started rummaging for the inside page where the story was continued.

‘Fifty-two.’ She shook her head. ‘He could not be fifty-two. He must have been at least fifty-six.’

‘If not older,’ scoffed Avinash. ‘He’s a film star. Of course he lied about his age. They all do. Anyway, I don’t get all this fuss about an actor. The reason this country cannot get ahead is because we are just obsessed with stupid, meaningless, escapist films. You know that cinema hall across the street from my office? I see scores of people queuing up to get into the noon show. Young people who should be at work or college or something. Anyway, can I have my paper back?’

Romola said sharply, ‘What do you know about Subir Kumar? You haven’t seen even one of his films.’ But she handed him the newspaper.

‘Romola, those bits I have seen on television have been more than enough.’ Avinash had the patient tone he usually reserved for explaining investment strategies to her. ‘I don’t need to see one of Subir Kumar’s films to know that it is just the same old emotional melodramatic nonsense.’

Romola looked at him but said nothing. All the while she eye kept glancing at the front page of the newspaper and the image of Subir Kumar. How handsome he looked, smiling out at her. It was an old picture, at least ten to fifteen years old. She could not believe he was dead and that she was sitting quietly drinking tea with her husband.

‘Be calm,’ she told herself. ‘It will only be a few more minutes. He will finish his tea and then go for his bath.’

Avinash held up the newspaper in front of his face and took a sip from his teacup. ‘Tch,’ he exclaimed irritably, ‘no sugar.’

‘I told you,’ said Romola. ‘I couldn’t remember if I’d put in any.’

‘Well, you didn’t,’ he said irritably. ‘Honestly, I don’t know what gets into you sometimes.’

Romola opened her mouth to say something but decided against it. She quietly measured out one teaspoonful of sugar, put it in his tea and stirred it. She tore off a piece of toast with her fingers and then tore it in half again. A fly descended on the butter dish. She waved it away and stared out of the window. Over the cawing of crows in the neem tree outside, she could hear the neighbour’s radio. They were playing a song from one of Subir Kumar’s films. She tried to remember the name of the film but her mind was blank.

As soon as Avinash had stepped into the shower, she opened her cupboard and pulled out the old frayed diary tucked behind her carefully folded silk saris. It was coming apart at the seams, held together by a decaying rubber band, its pages yellowing, its red cover faded and discoloured, blotted with ink stains. In it she had listed in her careful, rounded handwriting, every single film Subir Kumar had been in, along with the name of the heroine and the year. She was, her friend Leela once joked, his ‘Number One Fan.’

‘I just like lists,’ Romola had laughed, feeling embarrassed. She did like to make shopping lists, lists of books she had read, how much she spent every day on groceries and stationery supplies, ingredients for recipes she saw on cooking shows. Lists made her feel tethered, the long meticulously constructed columns of letters and numbers were a grid through which she was in control of her life. But Subir Kumar was different. He was her secret list. She couldn’t remember when she first started it but knew that she had always hidden it away, tucked between the folds of the peacock blue Tanjore silk sari she never wore.

There it all was, from his first role as the hero’s college-going younger brother to his flop from six months ago where he was unconvincingly paired with the new Miss India who was all of twenty-three. Oh, how out of breath he seemed, his paunch tucked into his white linen pants as he awkwardly romanced her by the sea. Like a beached whale, Leela had said uncharitably. Not a whale, Romola had replied loyally. Not yet. Not yet, snorted Leela, but getting there, thanks to all that drinking he does.

She remembered the first time she had gone to see him. It was decades ago but she could still conjure up the old Bharati cinema, the ramshackle seats with the stuffing coming out, the excited flocks of college girls. Every time there was a close-up of his face, Leela let out a sigh and clutched her hand tightly. Leela lived in Connecticut now, with her banker husband. Romola wondered if she knew about Subir Kumar yet. It probably wouldn’t be in the newspapers there. She put the diary away and started laying out Avinash’s shirt, his tie and socks.

As he put on his tie, Romola said, ‘Will you be back at the usual time?’

He always was but she always asked him anyway. It was their little goodbye ritual before he went to work and she settled down to her day – going to the fish market, haggling with the vegetable seller, setting the menu, supervising the maid.

But today she had other plans.

As soon as Avinash left Romola took out the diary again. She sat on her bed and closed her eyes as if she was meditating. But in her head she could hear the swelling chorus of ‘flashback music’. She felt the buzz of the city’s cheerful chatter outside slowly fall away. The bedroom, with her colourful Rajasthani bedspread embedded with little mirrors, her cluttered dressing table, all dissolved, taking with them her grey hair and her plain, everyday sari with the turmeric stain that just wouldn’t come off. And there she was, seventeen and radiant at that party at Leela’s. As she stood there talking to her, she heard someone say, ‘What a lovely vision – fancy seeing two princesses in one evening.’

She turned around and saw a handsome man in a dark suit, not too tall, his hair perfectly combed. She remembered exactly what she was wearing – a light pink tissue patola sari which made her complexion glow. Pink and silver – she had saved a piece of that sari for years – long after the rest of it had fallen to shreds.

Leela smiled broadly and said, ‘Oh, you’re such a flatterer. Do you know my friend Romola?’

‘No.’ The man graciously bowed his head. His hair was thick and glossy. ‘I have not had the pleasure. Bel flowers, aren’t they? Heavenly. Your name should be Bela.’

Romola had worn flowers in her hair – a single strand of fragrant bel, pearl-white flowers, their petals clustered together like sisters with their arms strung around each other.

‘Oh—’ Romola had replied with a flustered smile. It was a cheesy line but no one, certainly no young man, had ever spoken to her like that before. ‘Nice to meet you, Mr . . .’

‘Lahiri, Subir Lahiri,’ he replied. ‘The pleasure is entirely mine.’

Later she had found out that Subir Lahiri worked in an advertising agency. But he was trying to break into the film industry. There were some rumours that he was linked to one of the ageing heroines of the day – Seema Devi reputedly had an eye for handsome, much younger men.

‘Can you imagine?’ said Leela. ‘That scrumptious fellow paired with that old witch.’

Subir Lahiri didn’t end up in any film with Seema Devi. Romola never asked him about it, though she would keep running into him at one party or another. He always asked how her studies were going. She found that he was interested in music, especially classical music. One day he asked her if she wanted to go to a sitar concert with him.

‘I don’t know,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I’d have to ask my mother.’

‘Please do,’ he replied. ‘I’d love for you to come with me.’

‘Subir Lahiri – he works in advertising,’ she told her mother. She deliberately kept mum about the acting. ‘I think you know of his father. Atanu Lahiri – he is the editor of the
Daily Gazette
.’

‘I don’t know about this,’ muttered her mother. ‘I don’t trust these men who work in advertising. I hear they are ladies’ men and they drink and smoke.’

‘But Leela is also going to go, and her brother too,’ Romola persisted.

To her surprise, it was her uncle, her mother’s brother, who came to her rescue. ‘I am sure Romola can take care of herself,’ he said. ‘We need to trust her. Mind you, you have to come back right after the concert. No going out to any restaurants afterwards.’

Subir Lahiri came to pick her up in a shiny green car. In their little alley, which rarely saw anything fancier than a rotund stolid Ambassador, his bottle-green Plymouth swept in like a mythical winged creature, glinting in the late afternoon sun. The neighbourhood kids playing cricket at the end of the street stopped their game and came running to inspect the car. Romola tried not to be impressed as she answered the door.

‘Come in and meet my mother,’ she said. ‘I’m almost ready.’

‘You look lovely,’ he whispered. She smiled, glancing at the woman standing on the balcony of the house opposite staring at the car, her mouth agape. At the time, the car was the object of everyone’s attention – no one knew Subir Lahiri.

When he became a famous actor, the neighbour couldn’t remember that he had once come by their little street to pick up the girl next door. ‘Oh, was that Subir Kumar?’ she said. ‘I can’t remember his face. But I do remember that car.’

Later Subir admitted that the car was not his. He had borrowed it from a friend. That evening, he kept his word and brought Romola home after the concert. He did, however, insist on buying her and Leela some ice cream afterwards. Leela agreed, reasoning, that since they didn’t actually have to go to a restaurant, it was well within the bounds of what was permissible.

Soon Subir took to dropping in. He started calling Romola’s mother ‘Mashima’ and flattered her by saying no one brewed a cup of tea as perfectly as she did. Sometimes he would give Romola a ride to her dance class. But he didn’t bring the green car any more. He’d take a taxi. Once they pretended to go to the library and he took her to a film set instead. He didn’t have a role in the film but he had a friend who was playing the hero’s best friend. Romola couldn’t stop talking about it afterwards. She wondered if she would recognize the scene when the film was actually released. She told Leela that it was the most exciting day in her life.

‘Careful,’ said Leela with a laugh. ‘Don’t go falling for Subir. He’s fun and all but he’s an actor, you know. You never know whether they are serious or just putting it on.’

Once they went out for tea in a hotel overlooking the Esplanade. Romola was very nervous that they would run into someone they knew. But in the end she gave in and ordered chicken sandwiches. Subir was talking about his dreams. She didn’t quite know whether to believe him or not. She had never known anyone who was an actor. An uncle on her father’s side had once been a sound engineer in films – that was the closest Romola had come to the movies.

‘I think I am going to be able to get a part in this new adaptation of Sarat-babu’s story,’ said Subir. ‘They say I should change my name. What do you think?’

‘That’s silly,’ said Romola. ‘Subir is a nice name. Very serious.’

He laughed. ‘But to be a hero, you need something a little more flashy. Serious is for character actors.’

‘Well isn’t your role going to be the hero’s brother anyway?’ asked Romola pouring out the tea carefully into the beautiful china cups with gold rims.

‘But I won’t be a hero’s brother for ever,’ said Subir. ‘That’s just how it starts.’

She smiled at him. It felt unreal to her. This man sitting opposite her eating a chicken sandwich in a bustling restaurant would be in a film soon.

Subir grinned. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘That one day I’ll go to the Bharati cinema. It will be the middle of the day, the matinee show. Outside it will be hot and sunny and the trams will be running making such a racket. And inside it will be quiet and there you will be on a huge screen. My goodness, it gives me the shivers.’