Where there used to be a small shop in a lane, there was now a huge factory, a showroom on the main road. Makhanlal was now the provenance of a hundred people’s bread and butter. Both his younger brothers quit college to join him at work, and this time Hiranmayee raised no objections. As for Raghab, he was now retired, retired on full pay! His landowner’s spirit soared and thrived on the vast current of his son’s accomplishments; every morning he would buy enormous quantities of food for the day’s meals, then gossip with his wife, enjoy a leisurely lunch sitting on the doorstep of the kitchen, spend the afternoon sleeping and, sometimes, discuss the accounts in detail with Makhanlal at night. Since his son had taken on the responsibility of earning, he had returned to the responsibility of spending. Of both spending and not spending, actually — in other words, how much to spend, how to spend it, how much to save. Raghab was involved in resolving these complex issues, and Hiranmayee’s approval of his participation in their financial planning was so assured that Makhanlal didn’t have to do anything at all in this respect. He didn’t have the time, nor the inclination; brimming over with the impulse of the work itself, he was actually relieved to leave everything to them. Food and clothes were plentiful now — the food even more than the clothes — but even when food prices were going through the roof how much could you eat, and the burden of having a lot of money caused no less worry than the anxiety of not having enough. Appearances remained unchanged, however, still stamped with the untidiness of poverty: no one would have realized that the family’s earnings had not just doubled or quadrupled, but grown tenfold.
You think it was self-discipline? Not exactly, though perhaps they had not indulged in small luxuries, preserving their riches for large-scale displays of affluence. For securities held their faith! Raghab kept buying up land, not to mention Hiranmayee’s gold and jewelry purchases. Soon, it was time to arrange the daughters’ marriages. Very soon for the elder one, if traditional norms were to be applied, though as for the younger girl, Hiranmayee’s second vow was to get her through college as well. She would be the mother of not just a son with a B.A. degree, but also a daughter with a B.A. degree. “Let them see, let them realize we’re no less when it comes to academics.”
Them, of course, referred to the next-door neighbors, and mostly to the vain wife of the professor. Learned your lesson? If only you had agreed to the marriage, your daughter would have lived like a queen, my son’s a millionaire now.
Hiranmayee had been going so far as to send news of their good fortune through the shared domestic help; she didn’t once forget to inform them of her family’s wealth. Certainly not on the day Raghab purchased a half-finished house in Ballygunge. Her messages reached their recipients, but the professor’s family never broke its silence. Its obliviousness to its neighbors equalled Hiranmayee’s inability to forget about hers. Strange was her competitiveness, extraordinary her desire for vengeance.
It was now said that the professor’s household could no longer afford meals. Perhaps this is what happens when the gods smile on you; even Hiranmayee’s desire to lay waste to her neighbors’ self-sufficiency was almost fulfilled. Very pleased to hear this, she recounted the story to her son in great detail.
It was certainly a story to be recounted. The professor had apparently not received his salary for six months; his obscure college had never paid salaries properly. They’d pay eighty and extract a receipt for two fifty. So never mind the airs and graces now, the professor’s family was actually bankrupt. He’d survived on private tuitions and writing guidebooks. Now that there was a shortage of paper, nobody was publishing guidebooks anymore, and with everyone getting jobs left, right, and center, who needed a private tutor? Apparently things had come to such a pass that. .
Having listened silently till this point, Makhanlal asked, “How did you come to know all this?”
“Well, Harimati does the dishes at their home too. Yesterday she was saying she can’t continue there — after all, these poor people all do this work for a living, if they don’t get paid. . Never mind servants, apparently they don’t even get provisions every day — and the girl is supposed to take her exams this year, the fees have to be paid. .”
Here the dutiful son Makhanlal may have said something to the effect of, why discuss other people’s affairs; maybe he made an even softer protest. Hiranmayee changed her tune immediately, “You’re right, of course, what business is it of mine — just that I was thinking of the girl, she couldn’t get married and now she can’t take her exams, so what I’m saying is, enough of educational lessons, if you agree I can organize a different kind of lesson!”
Thickheaded Makhanlal was unable to read between the lines of this subtle proposition, so she elaborated.
“Should I sound out the professor’s wife? I’m sure they’ll be gratified if we so much as throw a bone their way!”
Her face suffused with a victorious smile, she looked at her son; but Makhanlal’s normally grave face looked almost stern, and he left without saying a word, only muttering “Ridiculous!” under his breath as he left. It wasn’t entirely clear for whom the comment was intended.
He was late getting home that night. As he passed the professor’s house he suddenly remembered what his mother had said. Pausing, he raised his head to look at the house. Dark — except for a light in a first floor room where a fan whirred, its huge, dark shadow moving around the wall at regular intervals. This was all that could be seen — nothing else. His mother was probably wrong on all counts, they seemed just fine. At least, this was what Makhanlal tried to believe. But how much could you make out looking into a first floor window from the street?
A small thorn embedded itself in Makhanlal’s breast. It would prick him every now and then. Were the neighbors really in such a bad way? No, no, all this was his mother’s imagination! She loved to think they were in trouble, she was troubled by needless envy — so she exaggerated and dreamed things up. But what if she were right? She could be, couldn’t she? But what business was it of his, what could he do, what was there for him to do — nothing, nothing. There was nothing for him to do, even if, right next door, they were — assuming his mother was right — short of food and clothing; he would not be able to do anything despite his largesse, which exceeded all needs or expectations. Makhanlal’s thoughts pained him in a strange way and made him angry with himself — am I like my mother, am I not able to forget about them either?
Meanwhile the turmoil of the war continued, day after day, month after month. It seemed the war wouldn’t end during this lifetime. But where was the hurry: how many times did people get the opportunity to make money, especially Bengalis! And meanwhile, Raghab plunged himself heart and soul into the Ballygunge house: raw material was bought at controlled prices, and the contractor assured him that the work would be completed in four months. The ungainly appearance of their home, the lack of striking furniture — Hiranmayee wanted revenge three times over for all of this too. Brand new beds, tables, chairs, and wardrobes, made to measure according to the dimensions of each of the rooms, were being built at their own factory. Makhanlal bought teak at sky-high prices, and poached craftsmen from Park Street pledging double wages. Yes, Makhanlal joined his parents’ enthusiasm, their “conspiracy” against what they had been — not exactly out of choice, what option did he have? The good thing was that his workload increased. Come hither, O work! You’re the savior of the hapless soul who has nothing else in his life, who has gathered no riches of the mind.