Chapter 4: Professor Qureshi's Translation

Professor Anwar Qureshi lived in a house that smelled like: old books and cardamom.

The two smells were: inseparable, because the Professor's house contained approximately four thousand books — stacked on shelves, piled on tables, arranged in columns on the floor like literary stalagmites — and his wife, Zarina Aunty, made cardamom chai every two hours with the: regularity of a clockwork mechanism that had been set in 1962 and had never: stopped.

We arrived — Meri, Amma, and I — on Thursday morning, which was: kitty party day, which meant that Zarina Aunty was in: hosting mode. Hosting mode involved: samosas, mathris, and the specific atmosphere of competitive hospitality that Doiwala's senior women deployed when guests arrived. The drawing room was: immaculate. The antimacassars on the chairs were: starched. The Professor was in his: study, which was a separate room at the back of the house, separated from the drawing room by a curtain and approximately three decades of: accumulated scholarship.

"Surbhi ji," the Professor said, rising from his desk — a massive teak desk that had been, according to family legend, purchased from the estate sale of a departing British officer in 1947 and that the Professor treated with the: reverence of a priest tending an altar. He was thin, white-bearded, wearing a sherwani that he wore every day because the Professor believed that clothing should be: consistent, and that a man who changed his outfit daily was a man who could not be: trusted.

"Professor sahab," I said. "Thank you for seeing us."

"Zarina tells me you have: letters."

"In Urdu. 1940s. Handwritten."

The Professor's eyes — behind glasses that were: thick, round, the spectacles of a man who had spent sixty years reading manuscripts in fading light — the Professor's eyes: brightened. The brightness of a scholar encountering: material. Material being the Professor's word for anything that contained: language worth: examining.

I placed the letters on his desk. Seven letters. Tied with the blue-grey ribbon. The Professor untied the ribbon with the care of a surgeon untying: sutures — slowly, deliberately, the fingers knowing that what they were handling was: fragile, and that fragility demanded: respect.

He unfolded the first letter. Read. His eyes moved across the Urdu script — the nastaliq calligraphy, the right-to-left flow of a language that the Professor had spent his life: inside, the way a fish was inside: water. He read. His expression: shifted.

"Who wrote these?" he asked.

"We don't know. They were in a trunk that belonged to a woman named Farida Khatoon."

"Farida Khatoon." The name. In the Professor's mouth, the name sounded: different. Not the mystery-name that I had been carrying since Tuesday. The Professor said the name as if it were: a line of poetry. Which, given the Professor's worldview, was: the highest form of recognition.

"These are love letters," he said.

The room: stilled. Amma, on the chair by the door, went: rigid. Meri, perched on a stack of books (the Professor's chairs being: occupied by more books), leaned: forward.

"Love letters," I repeated.

"Written to Farida. By a man. A man who — " The Professor adjusted his glasses. Read further. " — who calls himself only: 'Tumhara, R.' Your R."

R. Not Grandfather's initial — Grandfather was: Vikram Rawat. V.R. The letters were from: someone else. Someone whose initial was: R.

"The language is: beautiful," the Professor continued. "Formal Urdu, but with: tenderness. Listen." He read aloud, translating as he went:

"'The theatre was dark after you left the stage, though the lamps were still burning. You carry the light with you, Farida, and the room grieves its departure. I sit in my usual seat and the absence is: physical. A chair without its purpose. A stage without its dancer. Come back to Dehradun. The hills remember you. R remembers you. Always, your R.'"

The words hung in the study. Between the four thousand books and the cardamom-scented air and the three women who were: listening to a man dead for decades speak to a woman who had: vanished.

"He's writing from: elsewhere," the Professor said. "The first three letters are from Dehradun — he mentions the Odeon, the clock tower, the walk along the canal. But the last four—" He shuffled through them. "The last four are from: Bombay. He followed her. Or he was: already there. The addresses are different. He mentions: 'the studios,' 'the film city,' 'the flat on Lamington Road.'"

"Bombay," Meri said. "Farida went to Bombay."

"And so did: R," I said.

"The last letter—" The Professor held it. The seventh letter. The paper was: different from the others — heavier, the ink darker, the handwriting: changed. Not the flowing calligraphy of the first six. This was: hurried. Compressed. The handwriting of a person writing under: duress.

"'Farida, you must leave. The people who were asking questions — they came again. I cannot protect you here. Go to the address I gave you. The woman there will: help. Destroy this letter after reading. Destroy: everything. Forgive me. R.'"

Silence. In the study. In the house. In the: world of this story, which had shifted from romance to: danger, from love letters to: a warning.

"She didn't destroy it," I said.

"No," the Professor said. "She: kept it. In the trunk. With the costumes and the: ghungroos and the photograph. She kept: everything."

"Why would someone tell her to: destroy everything?"

The Professor removed his glasses. Cleaned them with the edge of his sherwani. The gesture of a man: thinking. A man who had spent sixty years with texts and understood that words were: never just words — they were: evidence, and evidence pointed to: events, and events were: history, and history was: the thing that people tried to: erase but that always, always: remained.

"Because," he said, "someone wanted Farida Khatoon to: not exist. And someone else — R — was trying to: save her."