Out of India (30 page)

“He wasn't in jail,” I said. “It was more like a hotel. And he met some very fine people there. You don't understand anything about these things, Daddy, so it's better not to talk.”

Daddy was quiet. I didn't look at him, I was too annoyed with him. He had no right to meddle in things he didn't know about; he was old now, and should just eat and sleep.

“Lie down,” I told him. “Go to sleep.”

“All right,” Daddy said in a meek voice.

But in fact he couldn't lie down, because Rajee had dropped off to sleep on the sofa. He was sitting up, but his head had dropped to his chest and his eyes were shut. Naturally, after two sleepless nights, I couldn't disturb him, so I told Daddy he had better go and sleep in our bedroom. Daddy said all right again, in the same meek voice. He carried his pillow under his arm and went away.

I lifted Rajee's legs onto the sofa and arranged his head. He
didn't wake up. I looked at him sleeping. I thought that even if he had to go away for a while he would be coming back to me. And even if it were for a longer time there are always remissions for good conduct and other concessions, and meanwhile visits are allowed and I could take him things and also receive letters from him. So even if it is for longer, I shall wait and not do anything to myself. I would never do anything to myself now, never. I wouldn't think of it.

I did try it once. I got the idea from two people. One of them was Rajee. It was the time when Sudha's marriage was being arranged, and he came daily to our house and cried and said he could not bear it and would kill himself. I think he felt better with being able to talk to me, but after I told him my feelings for him he didn't come so often anymore, and after a time he stopped coming altogether. Then I began to remember all he had said about what was the use of living. It so happened that just at this time there was a girl in the neighborhood who committed suicide—not for love but because of cruel treatment from her in-laws. She did it in the usual way, by pouring kerosene over her clothes and setting herself on fire. It is a crude method and perhaps not suitable for a college girl like me, but it was the only way I could think of and also the easiest and cheapest, so I decided on it.

Only that day, when everything was ready, Daddy came home early and found me. Although he never wanted me to get married, he saw then that there was no other way and he sent for Rajee. When Daddy saw that Rajee was reluctant to get married to me, he did a strange thing—the sort of thing he has never, never in his whole life done to anyone. He got down on the floor and touched Rajee's feet and begged him to marry me. Rajee, who is always very respectful to elders, was shocked, and he bent down to raise him and cried, “Daddy, what are you doing!” As soon as I heard him say Daddy, I knew it would be all right. I mean, he wouldn't call him Daddy, would he, unless he was going to be his son-in-law?

IN THE MOUNTAINS

W
hen one lives alone for most of the time and meets almost nobody, then care for one's outward appearance tends to drop away. That was what happened to Pritam. As the years went by and she continued living by herself, her appearance became rougher and shabbier, and though she was still in her thirties, she completely forgot to care for herself or think about herself as a physical person.

Her mother was just the opposite. She was plump and pampered, loved pastries and silk saris, and always smelled of lavender. Pritam smelled of—what was it? Her mother, enfolded in Pritam's embrace after a separation of many months, found herself sniffing in an attempt to identify the odor emanating from her. Perhaps it was from Pritam's clothes, which she probably did not change as frequently as was desirable. Tears came to the mother's eyes. They were partly for what her daughter had become and partly for the happiness of being with her again.

Pritam thumped her on the back. Her mother always cried at their meetings and at their partings. Pritam usually could not help being touched by these tears, even though she was aware of the mixed causes that evoked them. Now, to hide her own feelings, she became gruffer and more manly, and even gave the old lady a push toward a chair. “Go on, sit down,” she said. “I suppose you are dying for your cup of tea.” She had it all ready, and the mother took it gratefully, for she loved and needed tea, and the journey up from the plains had greatly tired her.

But she could not drink with enjoyment. Pritam's tea was always too strong for her—a black country brew such as peasants drink, and the milk was also that of peasants, too newly rich and warm
from the buffalo. And they were in this rough and barely furnished room in the rough stone house perched on the mountainside. And there was Pritam herself. The mother had to concentrate all her energies on struggling against more tears.

“I suppose you don't like the tea,” Pritam said challengingly. She watched severely while the mother proved herself by drinking it up to the last drop, and Pritam refilled the cup. She asked, “How is everybody? Same as usual? Eating, making money?”

“No, no,” said the mother, not so much denying the fact that this was what the family was doing as protesting against Pritam's saying so.

“Aren't they going up to Simla this year?”

“On Thursday,” the mother said, and shifted uncomfortably.

“And stopping here?”

“Yes. For lunch.”

The mother kept her eyes lowered. She said nothing more, though there was more to say. It would have to wait till a better hour. Let Pritam first get over the prospect of entertaining members of her family for a few hours on Thursday. It was nothing new or unexpected, for some of them stopped by every year on their way farther up the mountains. However much they may have desired to do so, they couldn't just drive past; it wouldn't be decent. But the prospect of meeting held no pleasure for anyone. Quite often there was a quarrel, and then Pritam cursed them as they drove away, and they sighed at the necessity of keeping up family relationships, instead of having their lunch comfortably in the hotel a few miles farther on.

Pritam said, “I suppose you will be going with them,” and went on at once, “Naturally, why should you stay? What is there for you here?”

“I want to stay.”

“No, you love to be in Simla. It's so nice and jolly, and meeting everyone walking on the Mall, and tea in Davico's. Nothing like that here. You even hate my tea.”

“I want to stay with you.”

“But I don't want you!” Pritam was laughing, not angry. “You will be in my way, and then how will I carry on all my big love affairs?”

“What, what?”

Pritam clapped her hands in delight. “Oh no. I'm telling you nothing, because then you will want to stay and you will scare everyone
away.” She gave her mother a sly look and added, “You will scare poor Doctor Sahib away.”

“Oh, Doctor Sahib,” said the old lady, relieved to find it had all been a joke. But she continued with disapproval, “Does he still come here?”

“Well, what do you think?” Pritam stopped laughing now and became offended. “If he doesn't come, then who will come? Except some goats and monkeys, perhaps. I know he is not good enough for you. You don't like him to come here. You would prefer me to know only goats and monkeys. And the family, of course.”

“When did I say I don't like him?” the mother said.

“People don't have to say. And other people are quite capable of feeling without anyone saying. Here.” Pritam snatched up her mother's cup and filled it, with rather a vengeful air, for the third time.

Actually, it wasn't true that the mother disliked Doctor Sahib. He came to visit the next morning, and as soon as she saw him she had her usual sentiment about him—not dislike but disapproval. He certainly did not look like a person fit to be on terms of social intercourse with any member of her family. He was a tiny man, shabby and even dirty. He wore a kind of suit, but it was in a terrible condition and so were his shoes. One eye of his spectacles, for some reason, was blacked out with a piece of cardboard.

“Ah!” he exclaimed when he saw her. “Mother has come!” And he was so genuinely happy that her disapproval could not stand up to him—at least, not entirely.

“Mother brings us tidings and good cheer from the great world outside,” Doctor Sahib went on. “What are we but two mountain hermits? Or I could even say two mountain bears.”

He sat at a respectful distance away from the mother, who was ensconced in a basket chair. She had come to sit in the garden. There was a magnificent view from here of the plains below and the mountains above; however, she had not come out to enjoy the scenery but to get the benefit of the morning sun. Although it was the height of summer, she always felt freezing cold inside the house, which seemed like a stone tomb.

“Has Madam told you about our winter?” Doctor Sahib said. “Oh, what these two bears have gone through! Ask her.”

“His roof fell in,” Pritam said.

“One night I was sleeping in my bed. Suddenly—what shall I tell you—crash, bang! Boom and bang! To me it seemed that all the
mountains were falling and, let alone the mountains, heaven itself was coming down into my poor house. I said, ‘Doctor Sahib, your hour has come.'”

“I told him, I told him all summer, ‘The first snowfall and your roof will fall in.' And when it happened all he could do was stand there and wring his hands. What an idiot!”

“If it hadn't been for Madam, God knows what would have become of me. But she took me in and all winter she allowed me to have my corner by her own fireside.”

The mother looked at them with startled eyes.

“Oh yes, all winter,” Pritam said, mocking her. “And all alone, just the two of us. Why did you have to tell her?” she reproached Doctor Sahib. “Now she is shocked. Just look at her face. She is thinking we are two guilty lovers.”

The mother flushed, and so did Doctor Sahib. An expression of bashfulness came into his face, mixed with regret, with melancholy. He was silent for some time, his head lowered. Then he said to the mother, “Look, can you see it?” He pointed at his house, which nestled farther down the mountainside, some way below Pritam's. It was a tiny house, not much more than a hut. “All hale and hearty again. Madam had the roof fixed, and now I am snug and safe once more in my own little kingdom.”

Pritam said, “One day the whole place is going to come down, no just the roof, and then what will you do?”

He spread his arms in acceptance and resignation. He had no choice as to place of residence. His family had brought him here and installed him in the house; they gave him a tiny allowance but only on condition that he wouldn't return to Delhi. As was evident from his fluent English, Doctor Sahib was an educated man, though it was not quite clear whether he really had qualified as a doctor. If he had, he may have done something disreputable and been struck off the register. Some such air hung about him. He was a great embarrassment to his family. Unable to make a living, he had gone around scrounging from family friends, and at one point had sat on the pavement in New Delhi's most fashionable shopping district and attempted to sell cigarettes and matches.

Later, when he had gone, Pritam said, “Don't you think I've got a dashing lover?”

“I know it's not true,” the mother said, defending herself. “But other people, what will they think—alone with him in the house all winter? You know how people are.”

“What people?”

It was true. There weren't any. To the mother, this was a cause for regret. She looked at the mountains stretching away into the distance—a scene of desolation. But Pritam's eyes were half shut with satisfaction as she gazed across the empty spaces and saw birds cleaving through the mist, afloat in the pure mountain sky.

“I was waiting for you all winter,” the mother said. “I had your room ready, and every day we went in there to dust and change the flowers.” She broke out, “Why didn't you come? Why stay in this place when you can be at home and lead a proper life like everybody else?”

Pritam laughed. “Oh but I'm not like everybody else! That's the last thing!”

The mother was silent. She could not deny that Pritam was different. When she was a girl, they had worried about her and yet they had also been proud of her. She had been a big, handsome girl with independent views. People admired her and thought it a fine thing that a girl could be so emancipated in India and lead a free life, just as in other places.

Now the mother decided to break the news. She said, “He is coming with them on Thursday.”

“Who is coming with them?”

“Sarla's husband.” She did not look at Pritam after saying this.

After a moment's silence Pritam cried, “So let him come! They can all come—everyone welcome. My goodness, what's so special about him that you should make such a face? What's so special about any of them? They may come, they may eat, they may go away again, and good-bye. Why should I care for anyone? I don't care. And also you! You also may go—right now, this minute, if you like—and I will stand here and wave to you and laugh!”

In an attempt to stop her, the mother asked, “What will you cook for them on Thursday?”

That did bring her up short. For a moment she gazed at her mother wildly, as if she were mad herself or thought her mother mad. Then she said, “My God, do you ever think of anything except food?”

“I eat too much,” the old lady gladly admitted. “Dr. Puri says I must reduce.”

Pritam didn't sleep well that night. She felt hot, and tossed about heavily, and finally got up and turned on the light and wandered
around the house in her nightclothes. Then she unlatched the door and let herself out. The night air was crisp, and it refreshed her at once. She loved being out in all this immense silence. Moonlight lay on top of the mountains, so that even those that were green looked as if they were covered in snow.

There was only one light—a very human little speck, in all that darkness. It came from Doctor Sahib's house, some way below hers. She wondered if he had fallen asleep with the light on. It happened sometimes that he dozed off where he was sitting and when he woke up again it was morning. But other times he really did stay awake all night, too excited by his reading and thinking to be able to sleep. Pritam decided to go down and investigate. The path was very steep, but she picked her way down, as sure and steady as a mountain goat. She peered in at his window. He was awake, sitting at his table with his head supported on his hand, and reading by the light of a kerosene lamp. His house had once had electricity, but after the disaster last winter it could not be got to work again. Pritam was quite glad about that, for the wiring had always been uncertain, and he had been in constant danger of being electrocuted.

She rapped on the glass to rouse him, then went around to let herself in by the door. At the sound of her knock, he had jumped to his feet; he was startled, and no less so when he discovered who his visitor was. He stared at her through his one glass lens, and his lower lip trembled in agitation.