Three Continents (22 page)

In front of the Rawul stood a golden vessel, and when he had reached the climax of his speech, he lifted it and said “Let this ancient cup unite your lineage.” He explained how, as far back as anyone could remember, it had been in his family—or rather, in his genealogy, for there had been many permutations and crossbreedings since their first descent from the moon. This vessel had crossed deserts and dried-up riverbeds, had been secretly buried, lost for a generation or two, murdered for by sword and poison—it had a lot of history and legend behind it. I could hear Sonya exhale behind me, and Dorothy giving a low, drawn-out “
Gee
.” The Rawul joined
our hands around this goblet encrusted with gems and hieroglyphics, and we raised it to our lips and looked at each other across it: and I did feel reverent, because of this being a marriage and because of loving Crishi so much and drinking with him from a cup steeped in such horror and beauty. The wine it contained tasted as though it had come to us across measureless distances and times and had been kept in places where wine should not be kept—in fact, it was spoiled. Crishi, after the tiniest sip, made a face of disgust; I did manage to take quite a big mouthful till he whispered to me “Ugh—sick—spit it out.” The wine was in my mouth—I was afraid of laughing and spurting it out, but if I swallowed it, I might choke on it. It was a dilemma, and I had to solve it on my own, for all he was doing was silently laughing at me. I gave one big swallow and got it down and Crishi said to me under his breath, “Oh, well played, Harriet” in a very English accent, at which point the Rawul pronounced us man and wife in the same accent, only with him it was genuine.

At the far end of the room, in the space between two windows where a cabinet full of porcelain usually stood, was the same group of musical followers who had played at the July Fourth flag-hoisting ceremony. On that occasion, Crishi had given them the signal when to strike up—that is, at the exact moment when the two flags, the Stars and Stripes and the Rawul's, began their ascent. Now again it was he who gave them the signal, and the moment was when he and I were supposed to be sealing the ceremony by our kiss; but even as our lips met, his eyes swiveled around and his hand rose to make the musicians strike up. They did so, on the same note of jubilation as on the previous occasion. Crishi sprang away from me—maybe to see that everything was functioning as he wanted—and it was the last I saw of him for several hours. Probably it is that way at a wedding—I mean, your own wedding—that you are parted from those you want to be with by a crowd of well-wishers surrounding you and saying things you're too overwrought to hear. I didn't see Michael either but guessed he had gone to read somewhere upstairs. The first person to come up to me was the Rani—not to wish me well; she didn't say anything, only rearranged the wedding dress she had fitted on me. I had
no time to think of her because I was soon claimed by Sonya and her friends. They led me up to the Princess in her wheelchair and appeared to regard it as a solemn moment, though neither the Princess nor I knew what it meant. “Lay your head in Highness's lap,” Sonya whispered to me. I didn't want to, but realizing it was important, got down on my knees before the wheelchair; there I hesitated, and Sonya had to press my head into the royal lap. There appeared to be nothing human within the cotton smock, no lap or legs on which to lay my bridal head, just this little heap of skeletal remains. Someone took the Princess's hand to guide it—she didn't like the situation any more than I did and had to be rebuked by her nurse not to be a silly; her hand was pressed on my head to bless me, and we stayed like that, with me holding my breath and the Princess making whimpering sounds, till they released us.

There was a lot of noise from the followers playing their instruments, and on the landing the string quartet had struck up a medley of old Broadway show tunes. I was surrounded by Sonya's friends, all of them terribly excited, for they loved a wedding; they loved parties in general, and these were not as plentiful for them as they had been—some of the grand dresses had a musty smell to them under the layers of heady old-fashioned perfumes. There was a babble of languages around me, Russian, French, and German, but mostly it was various exotic accents of English, all outshouted by Dorothy in pure American. They held glasses and plates of delirious food, and some of them were so wrought-up, their hands shook so much that they spilled champagne and crumbs down my paneled dress; they brushed me down and Sonya helped them, everyone laughing and crying, and before long I was too. They didn't give me time to look around for Crishi, but I knew that when they had gone, there would be he and I together and married; and it was this thought that was the cause of my laughter and tears, whatever might be theirs.

There had been no talk about where we would spend our first married night together—we could stay here in Sonya's house, or go to some hotel, or drive back to Propinquity. I looked forward to it, whatever it was. The last guests had gone, including the family—Manton and Barbara returned
to their hotel, and Lindsay and Jean drove to Propinquity, as did the Rawul and followers. The caterer's men were carrying out their paraphernalia, with Sonya tripping after them, tucking tips into their pockets. I went to the front bedroom next to hers, where I had changed into my wedding dress. Crishi was in the room; he had already taken off his bridegroom's brocade coat and was back in his usual clothes, buttoning up his shirt. The Rani was there too; I was surprised, for I thought she had gone back to Propinquity with the others. But there she was, folding up his bridegroom's coat very carefully, as though it were some prop she was putting away for the next time.

“Oh there you are,” Crishi greeted me in the distraught way he had when there were other things on his mind. “You must be dead with all that going on.”

“I'm okay.”

“Well you're lucky, you can get to sleep straight off. . . . Stop messing with that, Rani, put it away and we'll pick it up in the morning when we get back.”

“Get back from where?” I asked.

“It's always like that. Always the same. It's what you have to expect from that bunch of psychos. Now Harriet I have to go. You know that.”

“No. No I don't. I don't know that.”

I stood at the foot of the bed, straight and stiff so as to keep myself together. They were on either side of the big double bed that Sonya had got ready for us in case we decided to stay. It had a bedspread with a scattering of bowknots on it, and above it—a new fantasy of hers—matching drapery suspended from a Victorian crown of gilt. The Rani was concentrating on the suitcase into which she was packing his coat; she kept her eyes lowered with a modest air, not wishing to interfere between husband and wife. Crishi was so amazed at my tone that he stopped buttoning his shirt and stared at me for a moment before bursting out: “And who do you think is going to go up there and get it all straightened out—if not me?” As usual when he was or pretended to be worked up, his London accent became more pronounced. “You don't think I've had a hard day, you don't think I'm about ready to drop, you don't think all I want is to crash
here on this nice soft bed the way you can. But no such luck for me,” he ended up bitterly. The Rani felt very sorry for him and looked up from his suitcase and suggested in a gentle voice, “Perhaps I could try to manage by myself.”

“Yes you could try,” he said with the same bitterness. “But I don't think you're going to get very far. That's the way it is in this outfit—if I don't look after every single dumb stupid thing myself, someone else is sure to get it all balled up. I'm sick of it, I can tell you. But what to do—I'm in it up to here, and fed up with it up to here too. And then to have people pulling at you—no don't go, stay with me, hold my hand—I don't understand you, Harriet. I really don't.”

“Oh no no,” the Rani intervened between us. “She didn't mean it like that. She knows you have to go.”

“Do you know?” Crishi said, looking at me like he dared me to say no. I didn't say no, but I didn't say yes either. I kept my eyes fixed on the beautiful bedspread Sonya had newly bought for us; probably she had put it on the bed herself, with many lovely loving thoughts as she smoothed and patted it all around.

The Rani became very busy. She shut Crishi's suitcase and put it by the door, she looked in the mirror and touched up her hair—“Goodness! What a mess”—she came up to me and kissed me, for the first time that day: “Just go to bed and have a lovely sleep.” Her face was no longer unhappy but blooming as usual, as she preceded Crishi out the door. He was following her but turned and came up to me again: “I'll be back; you're not going to get rid of me that easy.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and whispered into that ear: “Too bad it's tonight, but it's not exactly like it's the first night, is it. Is it?” he repeated and blew into my ear, tickling it so that I had to smile. Then he was gone, leaving me with that smile on my lips and his breath on my ear, as if these were enough for me on that wedding night.

I sat on the bed and tried to have sensible thoughts. He was right—it wasn't our first night; we had had many before and would have many, many more after. And it was true too that the organization depended largely on him, that nothing went right without him. I also tried to have sensible thoughts about the Rani, who was so closely bound up with him in the
work. The Rawul was the apex of the movement, but Crishi and the Rani were the base on which it rested. They were collaborators; they worked together. The Rani was married to the Rawul, Crishi to me, but within the organization, in the work itself, the two of them were closest to each other. This was how it was and might always be. I took off the wedding dress she had given me—or had she only lent it?—and wore one of my new nightgowns. Barbara had selected the one I was to wear tonight, and I put it on though I didn't really feel right in it, with all that lace and frilly stuff.

I couldn't stay alone any longer. I left the room and went into the front bedroom, where Sonya was. I opened the door and found her kneeling by the bed. She had her back to me and could have been a little girl saying her prayers. She too was wearing a nightgown—an even more elaborate one than mine, full of old lace; she had bought it from a friend of hers who ran a very exclusive lingerie business. She didn't hear me come in—my feet were bare, her carpet deep—and wasn't aware of me till I stood beside her. When she raised her face, it was not a little girl's but an old old woman's. Yet the expression on it was a child's, glowing with pure feeling—and the feeling was all for me; she had been praying for me. She pulled me down beside her. I buried my face in the counterpane of the big double bed—a heavy dark austere bed, which Grandfather had first shared with Grandmother and where as a child I had seen them lying side by side like two carved effigies; and afterward I had seen him with Sonya in it, only she had been snuggled up close to him and he held her in his arms like a doll. Now she knelt beside me, praying—fervently, the way she did everything. When she had finished, she got up, and she thanked me for coming in to her—tonight, of all nights: “Only now you must go back to him,” she said and kissed me, as was her way, full on the lips.

I left her but couldn't return to the room she had got ready for us. I went up the stairs to the next floor. This was where Michael and I had our rooms when we stayed in the house. Michael! I hadn't seen him all day. He must have been sitting behind me during the ceremony, but when it was over and I turned around, he was gone. I hadn't thought of him since,
but that wasn't unusual; I didn't have to think of Michael, he was just there. And when I opened the door of his room, he
was
there—lying on the bed with a book, as always. I was so relieved, so relieved, I had to hold on to the door handle for a moment. He looked up and said “What's that?” He meant my unusual nightgown. I took it off and put on his old robe hanging behind the door. I lay on the opposite end of his bed, looking at him in the lamplight. He moved his feet so I could lie properly. He didn't ask me anything—where Crishi was, or anything. He just lay there reading his usual kind of book. My eyes, fixed on his face, began slowly to close; the Rani was right—I was exhausted and needed to sleep. I woke up once and found Michael asleep too, with the light still on and the book on his chest. I meant to turn it off but was too tired and went back to sleep, my feet touching his shoulder, and his mine.

M
Y married life really started in London, and it wasn't what I had expected. Crishi didn't live with me but with the Rawul and Rani in the apartment—or
flat
, as they said in England—below the one where Michael and I were. The building was one of those gloomy old five-story English houses with high ceilings and tall narrow windows that had been one-family houses with many children in them and servants in the basement and the attic; now they had been converted into flats and let out to rich foreigners. The houses overlooked a garden in the center to which everyone living in the square had a key, but all the time we were there it was never warm enough to sit out; anyway, it was usually raining. I spent a lot of time looking out the window at the trees in the rain. I was usually waiting—waiting for Crishi, that is. He would call sometime during the day to tell me when to meet him and where, and this always varied. It was not at all the way it had been at Propinquity, where everything had been so structured, with the followers running the house and the Rawul's visiting hours and his evening lectures that everyone attended. Here there was no regular program, and most of the time I didn't even know where everyone was. Sometimes I found that, when I thought they were in the flat downstairs, they had gone out somewhere. It might be ten o'clock at night before Crishi called and said to come to some restaurant where they were having dinner. We would stay sitting around there till long after midnight,
which was all right for me because, having nothing to do except wait, I had slept through a good part of the day. When we all went home, Crishi sometimes came upstairs with me but by no means always, and I never knew if he would yawn at his landing and say “Goodnight, sweetheart,” and go into their flat with the Rawul and Rani, or if he would make the extra flight up to mine and Michael's.