Free The Assassin's Song by M.G. Vassanji Page A

the time upon me.
    Ma was sitting on the front step of the house, watching Mansoor playing on the swing outside. She was a plump woman in the way mothers were, and to me beautiful, with creamy skin and long soft hair that was often oiled and smelled of coconut and jasmine, and much given to smiles and giggles and warm fleshy embraces. I went and sat down close beside her. Mansoor was scolding a stray dog that wandered in and out through the gate.
    “I don't want to be the Saheb, Ma,” I said to her softly. “I just want to be ordinary.”
    “Ordinary? You are not ordinary. You are the successor, the gaadivaras. How can you refuse? Can you imagine your brother succeeding your father?”
    She giggled briefly. The question did not need an answer, and we both watched my brother imprecating the dog. “Ay—bhaag!”
    “You are gifted,” she murmured. “You are meant to be gaadi-varas. Everything you touch turns to gold … your father is right.”
    “What do you mean? What has he told you, Ma?”
    She said, “When a boy is to become Saheb there are signs he shows.”
    “What signs? I have not shown any signs! What has he seen?”
    “How should I know?”
    She blushed and looked away.
    Then impulsively, suddenly, she pulled me towards her breast and squeezed me, and I struggled to wipe away a tear.
    I released myself from that embrace and asked her mischievously, “How was the filim? You went, didn't you?”
    When she smiled her guilty assent, I said, “You saw …?”
    Again the smile.
    “
Mughal-e-Azam!
You saw it?”
    She broke into a peal of laughter.
    It was the biggest box office hit ever, advertised screamingly on full pages of the papers. “42nd record-breaking week! Dilip Kumar! Madhubala! A love match made in the heavens, no kingly power can tear asunder!”
    “I will tell you the story later,” she promised.
    But like the rest of the country I already knew it.
    How did you marry Bapu, I would ask her. She had replied once, “He won me with his magic!”
    “What magic?”
    “No magic!”
    Then a peal of laughter at my surprised, annoyed face.
    The usual story was that she was introduced to my Dada and Dadi and shown a photo of my father. This young man would be her husband, she was told. Bapu was recalled from his studies without explanation, and thewedding was sprung on him as soon as he arrived. She had been afraid of him, she said. He was tall and handsome, but he was the future Saheb. And Sahebs could see through the seven earths and seven heavens into eternity; the thirty-three crore gods bowed before them.
    She lived with her fantasies. Sometimes I would see her smiling or chuckling by herself; once I came across her wiping copious tears from her eyes, seated on her bed, and to my anxious inquiry, she simply answered, “I was remembering that filim—bichara Guru Dutt had to die—why did they have to kill him?”
    Sitting together at the table in the open courtyard at night, or standing behind her in the cooking area while she prepared something, I would read to her accounts of the films and their stars from the publications dropped off by Raja Singh. She waited breathlessly for every new movie release, kept track of its success or failure, could tell you how many weeks it had played at the Shan in Goshala or the Rex in Bombay. It would not become the Saheb's wife to be seen at the cinema, but she did manage to steal away occasionally on a Wednesday or a Sunday afternoon to a ladies' zenana show in town. Ma had a Muslim friend called Zainab with whom she went, who was from Jamnagar like her and with whom she spoke in Cutchi. Ma took a small package with her every time, which seemed to be the snack they would eat together at the cinema.
    One Sunday late afternoon as I returned from playing cricket with my friends, I saw two women in black burqa hurry towards our house and disappear through the front door. As usual I dawdled awhile in the shrine area before going into the house through the side