Three Continents (16 page)

When he did, it was in the same way as before—suddenly turning around with his eyes wide open and alert as though he hadn't been sleeping at all. He said “Are you crazy, sitting here in the sun,” and he got up and ran across the beach till he was in the shade thrown by the black rock. Michael and I followed, bringing the towel on which he had been lying. By the time we caught up with him, he was already in the water and called to us to join him. The title was coming in and the waves were high and he was letting himself rise and fall with them. Actually, one was not supposed to swim here but within the area where the lifeguard hoisted a white or red flag to say whether it was safe to swim or not. Crishi didn't know that, or care about it, and we felt embarrassed to tell him; he looked so free and easy bobbing there and would surely have laughed at us for thinking of danger. We followed but didn't catch up with him, for whenever we got near enough, he turned and swam out farther. Michael and I were good swimmers but not spectacular like Crishi, and we didn't feel at ease in the ocean the way we did at the waterfall. The farther out I swam in the ocean—and Crishi was making us swim much farther than we wanted to—the more helpless I felt, not so much against the waves as everything beneath them, all the mysterious unknown dark goings-on there like some vast cosmic unconscious threatening to overwhelm the light of day or reason. But for Crishi the ocean seemed to be his favorite element, and he wasn't being overwhelmed by the title surging up from God knows where but playing along with it, absolutely at his ease as he swam now on his back, now on his stomach, now tossed high up, now
out of sight, but always laughing and calling to us. There came a point where Michael and I could no longer follow him but had to give up; unable to surrender ourselves like Crishi, we were struggling and that left us exhausted and a bit afraid. We had to turn back and wait for him on the shore. He stayed in there, went out even farther, evidently enjoying himself. When at last he swam back—not because he was tired but because we were waiting—he didn't mock or reproach us for not following him but affectionately put an arm around each of us and walked back with us to the black rock, where we lay and dried off, with grains of sand sticking to the salt water on our bodies.

Crishi explained to us that the reason he so loved being here was that he spent years living on the beach in Bombay. What years were those? we wondered, but he wasn't very specific. We gathered that it was when he was a boy and there were other boys also living on the beach and it wasn't too hard to survive. There were coconuts people didn't want to finish eating and leftover grain and flour cakes the hawkers had thrown away, though you had to be careful with that—once a whole family of beggers had died from eating spoiled flour cakes; and the monkey keepers could spare some nuts and bananas, and there were tricks to perform if you were a reasonably good acrobat. Most of the year it was warm enough to sleep out at night on the sand, only during the monsoon you had to find somewhere else. Crishi was very good at diving for coins, he said, and he mostly did that when he moved north to Fatehpur Sikri, where tourists threw them into a tank.

Well, all this seemed a far cry from the almost royal Crishi we knew, with his air of being the crown prince in the Rawul's entourage. Yet somehow it fit, as if this free life by the sea were the ideal boyhood for a future prince, and that it was there that his slim brown supple subtle body was formed; only the scars on it remained unexplained. Michael and I were thrilled by what he told us. It was so remote from our own childhood, in Lindsay's house and Grandfather's embassies, with intervals in Manton's hotel suites. And yet, although we had come by such different routes, sitting there by the black rock we felt very close together; at least Michael
and I felt very close to him. Michael, who doesn't say much usually, began quite a long speech about how he felt alienated by an environment of sea and sand, that this was too volatile for him and bright, and what he really liked was a rocky mountain landscape with practically no vegetation but only snow, ice, and caves inside the rock. Crishi laughed at that, and turned to me and asked me what I liked. I had never thought it out but I tried to; and what I came up with was that I liked sitting under a tree after it had been raining, and even with the sun shining, there was a breeze sweeping over the lake with the smells of wet growing things, and when it grew a bit stronger, some remaining drops fell down on me from the leaves of the tree; I said I would be looking at water—not restless water like the sea but a still, sweet body of it like the lake at Propinquity. I guess I talked a lot of nonsense. Anyhow, Crishi didn't hear most of it—he was asleep before long, lying on the sand in the shadow of the black rock with Michael and me looking at each other across him, smiling at each other and feeling happy.

Feeling happy: That was how it was with us during those days on the Island after Grandfather's funeral. It might seem strange that we should be that way when Grandfather had just died, but to us it was perfectly natural—that he was buried here where he so loved to be and at the same time plans were being made for the house he had cherished. We felt vaguely that we were acquitting ourselves well as Grandfather's heirs. Not that we gave much thought to our heritage—for one thing, because at that time we were not concerned with heritage, either as a concept or as property, and also because we were so entirely taken up with Crishi. We spent every minute we could with him—all day, that is—and he was very nice to both of us. I knew he could be impatient and imperious, but he never was at that time; probably because he was so relaxed, sleeping on the sand and swimming in the sea. We stayed outside till it got dark, going in only for the meals the followers prepared for us, and by night time we were so drugged with sun and sea air and, as I said, happiness, that we fell asleep immediately.

One night—a week after Sonya and Manton's departure—I woke up suddenly, as if someone had called me. As a
matter of fact, someone had: Crishi had come into the room and stood by my bed. I thought oh my God, what shall I do; my heart beat very fast—I didn't want to sleep with him, not now, not yet. Also I think I had just been dreaming of him; anyhow, he had been somewhere in my dream and I felt it difficult to reconcile that dream figure, which had risen from inside myself, with the real Crishi. But it seemed all he wanted was for me to come out on the beach with him. I was relieved and got up very quickly and slipped on a robe, for I was naked, which was the way I always slept. We went through the sleeping house, past Michael's room. I had expected that we were going to wake up Michael too, but this was not Crishi's intention. When we got on the beach, he said “Why don't you take that thing off,” meaning my robe. It seemed a good idea, and I did so and left it lying there. It was very pleasant to walk that way on the empty beach, where everything shimmered with a pale hidden light from the moonless sky, or was it from the ocean? In this ghostly seascape we too were like ghosts—I was white and naked, and Crishi wore only a pair of pajama trousers, the Indian kind, wide and white, billowing out from the waist. I might have had difficulty knowing what to talk to him about, but he was fluently making the sort of conversation a boy is supposed to make with a girl he is walking out with. In fact, he was quite banal, telling me what sort of cars he liked to drive.

We walked toward the end of the Island, in the direction of the Linton house, and when we drew level with it, Crishi said “Let's go in.” I didn't want to, I liked it out here on the beach, but he said “I've never been in,” so we went. It was eerie—as I said, the front of the house was gone, and you couldn't forget that sooner or later the rest would go too, for there was the pounding sound of the sea that was coming to get it. We looked in at the window of the long room at the back, which was still intact. It had been a ballroom, where they had given parties and dances; though the furniture had long been removed, some textured panels remained on the walls, and the ceiling was painted with ogres, angels, and unicorns. The Lintons had been a young couple about the same time as Manton and Lindsay, and while at the beginning their marriage had been happy or, anyway, high-spirited,
later it turned terrible and the Island rang with wild rumors about them. Finally, Mrs. Linton was found dead in the empty swimming pool, and Mr. Linton was charged with murdering her, and though acquitted, he killed himself within a year. I told Crishi some of this; I didn't know too much. Grandfather never talked about it, and while the local people and Sonya did, I wasn't that interested in listening.

There was a terrace outside the ballroom and some steps leading down to a sort of bower, which enclosed the swimming pool. The high bushes around it were straggly and overgrown, making the space inside appear like a forest clearing. The empty pool had a cracked mosaic of mermaids, and the same motif was repeated in a mural behind the bar built within a niche of the changing rooms, and also on the little circular dance floor facing it; a rusted music stand still remained, as did some bar stools to perch on. Crishi got up on one of them and called for a Manhattan with a cherry and laughed at his own joke. He seemed to like being here—he said he thought they must have had a pretty good time before everything went rotten. I wanted to leave, to get back on the beach, maybe even go home and go to sleep or wake up Michael.

“What are you scared of?” he asked me, and then “Who are you scared of?” and then “Is it someone dead or someone living? Give us a clue,” and again laughed as at a good joke he had made. I shook my head—no, I wasn't scared, I only wanted not to be in this place. He began to be very nice to me. We had been sitting side by side without touching—he didn't even hold my hand as he sometimes did. But now he let his cool brown fingers rest first on my shoulder and then slid them down my arm and toward my breast, where he paused, hesitated, smiled. “Let's have a look at you,” he said and held me at arm's length and commented on my figure in such a natural way that I couldn't help smiling with him. He said he guessed it could be called a good figure, if you liked this particular type, more boy than girl. “Look,” he said, inviting me to study him as he had studied me, “not all that different, is it.” He undid the cord at his waist and let his pajamas fall, so that I could study his narrow hips and long thighs. Well, it was true, we were built along the same lines—the
same as Michael too, except that Crishi's penis was very different from Michael's or any others I had seen. It was much longer and also darker, the darkest part of him; though slender, it looked very powerful, like a potent weapon; he had very little pubic hair and was uncircumcised. As my gaze so irresistibly lingered, he put both his hands over it and said I was making him shy; but next moment, not a bit shy, he touched my genitals, quite delicately and inquiringly. We moved together and we kissed, and this too was delicate, though no longer inquiring but affirmative, as it had every right to be, for by this time each tiny nerve in my body was quivering for him. It was long, long, long ago—in another life—but is very easy for me to remember.

He took my hand and led me down the steps of the empty swimming pool. Although the rest of the bower was dark and overgrown, the pool itself was open to the moonless sky, which gazed down into it like another pool—not an empty one but filled with dim shifting clouds. We lay down on the mermaids, and I had hardly time to think “Not here,” when he was on top of me, very quick and ruthless. That potent weapon of his lived up to its appearance, and I cried out several times, as I had never done before; and he came much too quick for me, leaving me in tears of disappointment. He was amused and said “Better luck next time”; and to make up for it, he kissed me tenderly all the way down from my neck to my thighs.

When we came out of that bower, I had lost the distaste for the place I had had when we entered. I thought that whatever bad thing had once happened there had been exorcised. We went back to the beach, walking as before by the edge of the water; we were holding hands, and he was swinging mine in his. When we got to the changing rooms and pavilion, Crishi stopped and lay down on the platform there and asked me to lie down too. His body was very warm; we lay side by side, one of his hands was laid on mine, the other toyed with his penis; we both watched him doing this and how it grew bigger, and when it was very big, he took my hand to hold it. It was
hot
. “Like it?” he asked and didn't wait for an answer. He entered me again and was as before, very swift and strong, but this time I came with him and it was
the most filling, fulfilling sensation I had ever had. Afterward I was so tired and spent and blissful, I wanted to stay lying there forever, but Crishi remembered he had left his pajamas by the Lintons' swimming pool and asked me to get them. “Not now,” I said, unable even to open my eyes, and when he insisted, I said “You go.” “Please,” he begged in a little-boy voice, “Crishi's so sleepy.” He brought his face as close to mine as possible and kissed my nose and eyelids with pursed lips; and “Please,” he cajoled in the sweetest way possible, and who could resist him? I got up and ran as fast as I could back to the Linton house and to the deserted swimming pool. There was a rustling or was it a soughing sound in the over-grown foliage—I didn't even wonder what it was but snatched up his pajamas, and clutching them against my chest, I ran back with them. Naked, swift, and unimpeded, I felt exultant and like a woman savage running to her mate. Only when I reached him, he was no longer alone but Michael was with him. I stopped being a woman savage and became Harriet, naked and embarrassed before Michael. He had found my robe where I had dropped it on the beach, and he handed it to me and I was glad to wear it. Michael and I didn't know what to say nor did I know what he felt or thought, which was the first time that had happened between us. Only Crishi was unembarrassed—he got up from the platform, he yawned, he said “Don't you two ever get tired?” He led the way back to the house and Michael went with him, and I walked behind both of them, trailing Crishi's pajamas, which he hadn't reclaimed from me. Some of that night's happiness was abating, but by no means all of it.