Three Continents (54 page)

We left the town behind and were back in some more desert landscape, and after a while it turned out we were at the airport. It was only a bit of desert land with a very small old-fashioned airplane standing on it. “Hurry up, hurry up, they're just leaving!” cried Crishi, leaping out of the car and getting us out of it and making us run across the stony soil. Actually, we were the only people running; the other passengers—several stout traders in stiffly starched
dhotis
—were boarding in a very leisurely way, and the pilot was leaning against the plane drinking a Coke. Sonya hardly had time to kiss me good-bye and no time at all to say anything, let alone ask any questions, for Crishi had her up and settled in the plane, and he relieved the pilot of his Coke bottle and told him to get in the cockpit.

We ran off the field, waving good-bye, and were back in the car before the plane had properly ascended. We even raced it for a while. This time we skirted the town and drove around to the other side of the rock rising above it. We went up as far as a plateau cut into the bare gray stone, then had to get out and walk up some steps to the next plateau. Our destination was the Rawul's palace.

I had often thought of this palace, of which I had heard a great deal, but it turned out entirely different from my conception. It was not very old—late Victorian perhaps, built around the same time as Propinquity—and was a mixture of Indian temple and English “bungalow,” with arched verandas running all the way around it and a dome on top. It was huge—truly a palace—and lay in a wasted garden. But if the garden appeared wasted—dried and dead—that was nothing compared to the palace itself. From a distance, that is, when we first came in through the gates, it looked imposing and intact, but as we drew nearer, I could see that it was entirely derelict. And when we entered—I've never seen anything like it. The encircling verandas had high rounded ceilings from which lamps must have once hung down. These had been removed, and most of the ceiling had come off with them, so that rain had poured through and rotted the floors. We passed into halls and courtyards, one leading off from another until we seemed to be wandering through a succession of mirrors: and everywhere it was the same, complete and utter ruin, emptiness, and desolation. There wasn't a stick of furniture to be seen, nothing except this empty waste—as empty as the landscape we had traversed in the train. The marble floors were stained and worn from previous monsoons, for the roof, though nobly arched, was leaking. Many of the windows were empty of glass and all of them had had their latches removed; whatever doors there had been were gone, presumably for their wood and hardware. The same with every fitting a palace could have, in all its halls, and rooms, and bathrooms: everywhere only gaps and wounds, where some salable object had been. We heard bats, sometimes saw one, always smelled them, for their droppings were everywhere; and besides theirs, those of other animals too, probably including humans. However, these smells were
not overpowering because there were so many places where roof and windows gaped and let in wind and air. I marveled at the speed with which this must have happened, for it couldn't have been too long ago that the place was fully furnished, fully inhabited by family and retainers. It was here the Rawul had grown up; from here he had left for Harrow and returned for his vacations; and it couldn't have been more than ten years ago that Renée had first arrived to survey the place and see what business deals she could make with the Rawul for his pictures and possessions.

At last, as we penetrated farther into these empty regions, we heard sounds of human voices, and some radio music; and in one of the halls toward the back of the palace we found the Bhais. They were busy preparing for some sort of celebration and had propped up a ladder to hang decorations. Some of them were in costume—very old, dusty, tinsely ones, the sort that for generations are packed away in trunks and unpacked for special occasions. Several Bhais were dressed up as women, and these minced about and coquetted with their veils and chased each other with shrill cries. The radio was playing the sort of film music they listened to, but one of them was practicing on the harmonium. Beer bottles were strewn about, and there was the usual raucous atmosphere that surrounded the Bhais; but here it was overlaid by something older and more—I wouldn't say refined, but more cultured, in the sense that at some point here they fitted into an old culture. I thought it was an ancient folk drama they were acting out for a ritual connected with a local festival; but when I asked Crishi he said no, it was in honor of my birthday. “Don't say you've forgotten it's your birthday tomorrow!” I said I hadn't forgotten, but that I didn't feel like celebrating it without Michael: because that was one thing we always did together—celebrate our birthday—wherever he was, he had come back for that. “Except this year,” Crishi said. Yes, this year Michael had left me. But, in fact, I didn't feel too bad about it. Crishi was here now, and I realized that was the reason Michael had gone—to leave me entirely free to be with Crishi. Only someone as noble as Michael could have stepped back that way, surrendering the part of me that had been his. It was as if he had given me the total freedom he had always claimed for himself.

The Bhais dressed up in costume began to clash around with swords. The costumes may have been tinsel, but the swords were real. I asked Crishi if they were practicing martial exercises, but he said no, they were enacting an ancient battle that had been fought in this kingdom. Over a woman, Crishi said—one local chieftain having snatched her away from another to whom she had been betrothed; but their marriage party had been waylaid by the enraged rival and a terrible combat had taken place in the desert. “That's the bride—that beauty over there,” said Crishi, pointing to a Bhai with an empty sleeve. He obligingly came over and dangled it in my face, laughing and thereby releasing a garlic-and-beer smell that didn't go well with his costume. I was told what had happened was that, when her newly wedded lord was killed in the fight, she took a sword and struck off her arm. “Why?” I asked. “Just to show off,” Crishi said. “They were a nasty violent lot. Then she got up on the funeral pyre and called for someone to cut off the other arm, seeing as how she couldn't do it herself. Both arms were full of bangles and bracelets—all her wedding jewelry—and someone had the good sense to take them off and save them, and a couple of years ago Rani put them up for sale at Sotheby's.” He wouldn't let me watch any more—he said I could see it at midnight, when the birthday celebrations were scheduled to start.

We went up an open winding staircase, which led straight to the roof terrace, most of which was taken up by an enormous cracked dome of flaking plaster. We stood in its shadow and looked over the crenellations at what I presumed to be the Rawul's entire state, dribbling away farther and farther until it disappeared into the horizon. Was it from up here that the Rawul had looked at and absorbed the sky until it entered his eyes and made his mind soar? Or was it from the top of another of these rocks, which rose in an irregular range from the flat soil? They were entirely bare, except for one at some distance into the desert. Crishi told me that the fragments of walls and battlements I could see on it were what remained of the old fort—it had been from there that the Rawul's ancestors had stormed down to die heroes' deaths, leaving behind them the burning pyres in which their women had immolated themselves. This fort must have been
incredibly old, but when I asked Crishi how old, he answered irritably, “Who knows and who cares.”

There were two string cots set up in the space between the dome and the crenellated parapet; also a rickety little table with a chimney lamp on it. Crishi asked me to sit with him on one of these string cots; we both tucked our legs under us the way Indians do. Although the sounds from the Bhais and their radio and harmonium floated up to us from the open staircase, they came as from a long way off. Otherwise it seemed to me that we were more private up here than we had ever been anywhere—really and truly at last the two of us were alone, above the Rawul's land and under his sky. I liked being here very much, but Crishi said we were leaving the day after tomorrow, at the end of my birthday celebrations. If that was what he wanted, it was all right by me; and all I asked was—idly and not caring much, “Where are we going?”

“Where do you think we're going!” said Crishi with the mock exasperation he put on whenever he thought I was being particularly stupid. “Don't you think you have some responsibilities now that you're twenty-one—don't you think there'll be papers to sign and stuff like that—-not to speak of the pleasure of telling old fool Pritchett what he can do with himself. Well, you needn't worry about any of that—I'll be looking after things from now on.” He spoke with a sort of grim resolution, really ready to shoulder all these responsibilities. I pressed his hand; I felt it was lucky that I was married to such a practical person, for left to ourselves Michael and I would probably have messed up everything.

I said “I'll sign whatever I have to, but I guess we can't really do much till Michael gets back. Isn't it dumb of him to walk off right at this time; typical of course, but dumb all the same.” I smiled a bit, thinking of Michael, without a thought in his head for anything practical, disappearing into the desert on some abstract quest of his own.

Crishi's hand that I had pressed still lay in mine; he took my other hand as well and said “Now, Harriet.” So I knew he had something difficult to tell me; but remembering how exasperated he had been in the morning when I had said “Michael” in fear, I kept the expression on my face as placid as I could; placid and attentive.

Crishi told me Michael was dead. When he had said it, he tightened his grip on my hands, so I wouldn't fall over or anything. But I remained sitting cross-legged on the cot with my back very straight as in a meditation pose. I kept my eyes fixed on the drained expanse of sky beyond the cement dome. The only sound was from the Bhais shouting and making music way below, and Crishi's voice close to me, telling me that Michael had killed himself. Here for the first time I gave a start, and this made Crishi speak a little bit defensively: “I don't know why you believed all that about him getting hurt in a fight—he was perfectly okay, I tell you, and why he had to go and do what he did is an absolute mystery to me. Or it would be if I didn't know Michael and how—well, I have to say it—how crazy he could be.” He was silent after that. I waited. When he went on talking, it was very gently, in a gently sympathetic way, trying to make it as easy for me as possible. He told me that Michael had taken pills. I said “What pills?” Even then I knew it couldn't be because Michael never had any pills, not as much as an aspirin; he wouldn't touch them on principle. Crishi said he didn't know the exact details, but it would all be explained to me by the coroner and the doctor who had made the report. “Yes it's all done, everything's been taken care of, sweetheart,” he said. “That's one advantage of a dump like this—you know everyone and can get things done without the usual hassle. I did want to spare you all that, sweetheart, because it can be very nasty. That's why I made you come by train—so it would be over by the time you got here. The plane was flying—I told you a lie there, and I'm sorry.” He kissed my cheek most sweetly.

I said “But why? Why?” really wanting to know why this should have happened to Michael. I wasn't hysterical, not in the least, but Crishi knew how much I needed his help in this most terrible moment of my whole life. He said “Let's sit quiet for a bit,” and we did that. He was holding my hands, and from time to time he kissed me, as before, very chastely on the cheek. We must have sat for a long time because the colorless sky began to change—first it faded even more, then it began to flush with a changeable light, now dazzling gold, now orange melting into pink.

At last I said “Didn't he leave a letter or anything? Nothing at all? Not one word for me?”

“Yes he did. Of course he did, sweetheart. If you'll let me go a minute, I'll get it. Just one second,” he pleaded, for I was reluctant to let go his hands. I felt they were the one anchor I still had, and had to cling to.

He went around to the other side of the dome and came back with a file of papers he must have kept hidden there. He opened it and took out Michael's letter—or rather, a photocopy of it; the original he said was with the coroner. Photocopies always look sort of official and impersonal, and what it said was too: It was only two lines—“No one is to blame. I don't want to live anymore. I apoint my sister Harriet sole heir of our joint inheritence.” It was signed Michael Wishwell and was undated.

The sky was in full flood of sunset—and a desert sunset at that, compensating for the dun day—and the Bhais down below had got louder with their chanting and music. Crishi said it was at just this hour, and with just this sort of flamboyant sunset, that they had cremated Michael. “We had to,” he apologized. “I wish we could have waited for you, but you know how it is with the heat in India; it has to be done the same day.” He tried his best to make it up to me by describing the ceremony to me—and it did sound beautiful, with this glorious sky and the flames leaping up in it, and they had got a priest to chant some very ancient Sanskrit verses; Crishi himself had performed a brother's office, which was only right since he
was
his brother.

I didn't want to hear any more. Of course one day I would want to know everything, every detail of what had happened, over and over again, but now at this time I wanted only to be silent; to rest. Yes, rest and recuperate, as you have to when you have received a blow that has shattered and stunned you till you can't even get up on your legs and move, let alone think or anything. Crishi completely understood my need and was prepared for us to sit there for as long as I wanted. He continued to hold my hands and sometimes to kiss me with his cool, sweet lips. The color had gone from the sky and it was that sort of dim, translucent light there is at dawn as well as dusk, for it seems that light dying is the same as light being born. There was a slight segment of moon and this too was dim and pale.