Scenes from Early Life. Philip Hensher

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СКАЧАТЬ and practised musicians knew how to conceal. Instead, there was a considerate listening presence. Amit’s playing was, as it were, full of himself: not in a bumptious or assertive way, just as an egg holds meat. It was simply full of a strong flavour, which was Amit’s personality. His playing was free and lucid, complicated, but easy and interesting to follow. There was now a little hesitation, like the lyric breath at the brink of a sneeze, as Amit hung fire before plunging into a decisive monsoon-patter; then there was a rapturous run between tones, without hesitation. All the time Amit’s playing was full of pensive thought and possibility. Altaf felt that those pauses and falterings, like a bird cocking its head and waiting between flourishes of flight, came from Amit’s listening to Altaf’s harmonium. A musician as good as Amit would have been as good with most competent partners. But Altaf could not help taking their broadcast that afternoon as a compliment. And performing to the ear of so good and attentive a partner, Altaf could hear his own musical lines grow more flexible, inward and fantastic. He could not imagine, after ten minutes, how he had ever endured such a thudding banger as Mohammed, his usual partner, which, apparently, he had done week after week until now. After the recording, Amit was flushed and cheerful, although not much more talkative. They found themselves walking in the same direction.

      3.

      Altaf had five younger brothers still living at home. He had to share a bedroom with the thirteen-year-old and the seven-year-old. He could not remember ever having had a room of his own, although when he was born, for the three years when he was not just the eldest but the only one, he must have lived in such a way. Now, the bedroom had to serve for everything – not just for his brothers’ homework, which they did kneeling on the floor before an old gateleg table intended to support a teacup or two, but his harmonium practice, too. He kept his instrument on a high shelf where his brothers could not get at it. His brothers regarded his harmonium as a toy, and not as the tool of his trade. He practised when they were at school, and put it away out of reach before their return. Every Saturday, he polished the rosewood case with beeswax. He believed it improved the tone.

      There was no point in remonstrances with his mother and father. There was no more space in the house to be had. He supposed that he would find a place of his own when he married. But he was poor and did not have the means to marry, and wives expected children, so there would not be any time in which he could live and play in peace. Altaf accepted all of this.

      Amit had come to Dacca from Chittagong to play the tabla. He had no other skills. He did not want to do anything else. He did not come from a rich family. (That was how he put it, walking along with Altaf, another recording session over.) But he was making some headway for himself and would progress in life, he believed. He taught, during the week, in a boys’ school, an hour’s bus ride away from where he lived in a quiet way with an old Dacca aunt of his father’s, a widow. There was not enough work to allow him to teach the boys music only; he had to teach them the rudiments of Bengali poetry, too. That was no hardship. The boys were good, intelligent and lively. He sometimes found it hard to keep discipline. Once, an older master who was conducting a class next door had stepped in to ask what the meaning of the unholy bedlam could possibly be.

      (Amit, without making any obvious effort, was a good mimic. Altaf laughed at the vividness of the impression, though he did not know the man.)

      That had not been pleasant, Amit went on. And naturally, afterwards, the boys had been still harder to keep under control. But it was a good school, and Amit had been lucky to be taken on as a junior master, teaching the boys music and poetry. He taught them to sing Bengali songs, often famous songs by Atulprasad, Tagore and Nazrul, and talked to them about other poets and writers of Bengal. They read the work of these writers together. When the boys were interested and quietened down to listen, they were good students. Amit considered himself very lucky to be able to teach in such a good school, yes he did, and he did not think the daily journey too much. There were neighbours of his aunt who travelled two or three hours every day to go to their place of work. And the other masters were reasonable people.

      They stopped at a pavement sandesh-seller; the sweets were all of the same stuff, but shaped in different ways. Some people had their favourite shapes. Altaf did not, but now, talking to Amit, he found himself hovering, unable to decide which shape of sandesh they would settle on and share.

      Amit reached the end of his account of his circumstances, and ate a sweet. He had one of those faces which, in movement or in conversation – even when he was working up to saying something – looked open, innocent and trusting. When he sank deep into thought, it looked quite different; it could take on a furrowed, even rather angry appearance. Altaf had known him for almost a year before he realized that the positive way in which he spoke about his circumstances did not reflect an optimistic personality. Instead, Amit spoke well of his bestial pupils and insulting colleagues because he did not trust anyone. He believed that a bad word might get back, and he spoke guardedly, even to Altaf. When he stopped speaking, his face grew dark; he looked on the verge of shouting in rage. And then he ate his sweet with open, boyish enjoyment, and looked quite trusting again.

      Altaf was from a Muslim family; Amit was a Hindu. His aunt had a small corner in her flat devoted to some of her gods. Altaf believed that this trait of Amit’s – his inability to trust people, or think that anything was for the best in the end – came ultimately from his family’s religion. He did not say so.

      It was hard for Amit to be honest when things had gone wrong in his life. His problems with his flat had been going on for weeks, for instance, before he mentioned them to Altaf. He mentioned them in such a closed and quiet way that Altaf would hardly have realized at first that they were problems at all, if he had not known Amit quite well by then. They were walking along in Old Dacca on their way to meet a possible new singer.

      ‘I may be moving into a new place,’ Amit remarked out of the blue.

      ‘Why? I thought you and your aunt were quite settled together.’

      ‘I thought so too,’ Amit said. ‘But it appears I have been living in a fool’s paradise, all things considered.’

      ‘In what way?’

      ‘My aunt has told me that she has had enough of living in Dacca,’ Amit said. ‘I can’t blame her. It is no place for a widow to grow old. Only last month, a rude child called something out to her in the street. It upset her for days. And then there are the Pakistani soldiers. They searched her shopping sack once.’

      Altaf believed that sort of thing happened to nearly everyone, and had heard, before, of these two incidents. Amit had mentioned them twice: his aunt, Altaf believed, talked of very little else. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘she has you to look out for her, doesn’t she? You wouldn’t move out unless you had to.’

      ‘She talks about when I get married, when I leave her alone – then how will she cope?’ Amit said. ‘I have told her many times that I am not in a position to get married, and if I ever do, I will make sure that a younger brother of mine would come from Chittagong to take my place. She is a wonderful woman. I wish you could meet her.’

      Altaf had his own views on this matter. ‘But what has changed?’

      ‘Her son wrote to her from Cox’s Bazar, and suggested that she come and live with him in her declining years,’ Amit said. ‘He has told her about the healthful sea air and his beautiful house, and the peace and quiet. He is a very generous man, I know.’

      ‘He is worried that she is going to die and leave her money to you,’ Altaf said. ‘That is why he is making this invitation. I have heard about this man before.’

      ‘Well, she ought to bequeath him her widow’s mite,’ Amit said. ‘That would be the right thing to do. I really don’t blame him, and I can see why she wants to go and live with СКАЧАТЬ