Out of India (13 page)

Then it was time for him to go home, and on his way out, they had to pass through the sitting room where Christine sat playing ludo with Manny. Those two must have heard every word of what had passed in the other room. Christine delicately kept her eyes fixed on the ludo board, and Manny hummed a tune to himself. Har Gopal's face took on a tight expression, and his thin body seemed to shrink as he walked through the room; he looked as he did waiting at the bus stop. Only Betsy was entirely free from embarrassment as she ushered her lover out of the flat.

That night Christine knocked timidly on Betsy's door. Betsy was lying stark naked on her rumpled bed, reading the Katha-Upanishad. She was wearing her reading glasses and thoughtfully twisting a lock of hair around her finger. She didn't seem to be a bit shy to be found naked. Her breasts were very much heavier than one would have expected from seeing her dressed. “Yes, come in,” she said and shut her book with her finger inside to hold the page. “I'm sorry, we made an awful lot of noise today, didn't we?” she said cheerfully.

Christine sat on the edge of a chair. She was wearing a flowered wrap and looked crisp and fresh and a contrast to Betsy's room, which was rather untidy.

“I know it's none of my business,” said Christine, talking very quickly so as to get it over with, “but I do think you ought to be a bit more careful.”

Betsy laughed and said, “I wish I were the sort of person who
could
be careful.”

“Everyone's talking you know, Betsy, in the office and everywhere. I mean, good heavens, not that anyone cares about your having an Indian boyfriend—don't we all?—but he's so . . .
different
from the other Indians we all know.”

“You mean he's poor.”

“It's not that,” Christine said miserably. “But he's—I don't know, odd. And there's something unhealthy about it all—of course
it's absolutely terrible of me to be saying all this and do tell me to shut up if you want to.”

There was a moment's pause. Then Betsy said, “It
is
unhealthy.” She tried to sound detached and dispassionate, but could not keep it up for long. “I suppose all passion is unhealthy. Sometimes I tell you I feel
insane
—and what's more—what's terrible: I revel in it! I glory in it!” She rolled over onto her side to face Christine, and her big breasts fell to that side and her eyes shone behind her flesh-colored glasses.

Christine was not the only person who tried to warn Betsy. One day her office chief invited her to lunch at his house, and in the kindest manner possible, full of embarrassment and apologies, told her that unless she behaved in what he called a more conventional way he would have to have her sent home. Betsy understood that he had to tell her this and that he was right, but she had no intention of changing. Instead she began to make plans what to do if she were really posted back home. Of course, she would resign immediately; she would stay and get a job locally. She was vague as to what kind of job and did not stop much to wonder whether anyone would employ her; but she knew that, whatever she did, her salary would only be a fraction of what it was now and she would have to change her whole way of life. She didn't mind that; in fact, she rather looked forward to it. She would have to move out of the flat and go somewhere much cheaper. She thought of herself in some small room in a crowded locality; to get to her, one would have to cross a courtyard and climb up a very dark, very narrow winding staircase. She would be the only European living in the house. Every day Har Gopal would come to visit her. Actually Betsy couldn't cook, but now she had visions of herself squatting over a little bucket of coal and preparing a meal for him and serving him just like an Indian wife. She might take to wearing a sari. Perhaps she would have a baby, a boy, who would grow up dark and delicate like Har Gopal.

She neglected her work in the office and was distant with her colleagues. She realized vaguely that something was going on around her and that perhaps steps were being taken against her, but she did not bother to find out what they were. Christine told her that she would be moving out of their joint flat soon; she made up some polite lies that the flat was getting too expensive for her and that she had found another smaller one elsewhere, but Betsy cut her short and said it didn't matter, that she herself would be moving out too,
very soon. She already saw herself in her small room in the house with the winding staircase.

She even began to make inquiries about the rents to be paid for such places, and about how much money would be needed for the simple, Indian-style life she intended to adopt. All her thoughts were concentrated on this problem. Once, finding herself alone with Manny who was waiting for Christine to get ready, she even asked him, very seriously, “Supposing you only eat dal and rice twice a day—how much would that come to a week?”

“Only dal and rice!” exclaimed Manny humorously. “And what about a peg of whiskey?”

“I'm being serious, Manny,” Betsy said impatiently, but it was impossible to make him be serious with her. Ever since she had started her affair with Har Gopal, Manny's attitude to her had become strange and ambivalent: on the one hand, he was rather more brusque, and even rude with her than he had been before; on the other, he indulged in sudden spurts of familiarity that extended to, whenever they found themselves alone in a room, pinching her in intimate places.

He did this now, and at the same time he joked with her: “My two-three pegs a day I must have, otherwise I'm like my car without petrol. Hm? Han?” He encouraged her to laugh with him and drew her close, and his beard nuzzled against her cheek. She struggled to get free, but that made him hold her all the more tightly. She stared into his face, and she saw his light-colored eyes and his red, moist, healthy mouth smiling inside his black beard. She let out a cry. He released her immediately and even gave her a push to get her farther away from him. Christine, zipping her dress, came in and said, “Whatever's the matter?”

“It is Betsy,” said Manny. “She thought she saw a snake.” He laughed uproariously.

Betsy did not speak to Har Gopal about her future plans. She was afraid. She knew that the idea of anyone giving up a job, an assured livelihood, was not one he would ever be able to understand. He himself was very timid about his own job and took good care never to give cause for complaint to his superiors. Not only was he very polite, even deferential, to them in their presence, but he also spoke of them in tones of the highest respect when they were not there and had no chance of ever knowing what he was saying about them. Once, when Betsy spoke with lighthearted disdain of one or two of the top people in her own organization, he rebuked her for
doing so, and when she laughed at the rebuke, he frowned and became annoyed with her and said that she had no respect in her nature. The very least, he said, that one owed one's superiors was respect; and quite apart from that, one should be careful what one said about them because who knew what might not get back to them. But how
could
anything get back to them, asked Betsy, amused, when there was no one there but he and she, and surely he wasn't going to go and tell on her, was he? He refused to smile at the idea but only said that in these matters one could never be careful enough. His eyes even roved solemnly for a moment around the room—her bedroom—as if he feared someone might be lurking somewhere listening.

One Sunday afternoon he was reclining on her bed in his rather lordly way, wearing his vest and dhoti, his feet crossed comfortably at the ankle; he had his arms folded behind his head and was staring into space with melancholy eyes. He looked noble and sensitive and gave the impression of being sunk in deep philosophic thought. This impression, however, was false, for when he finally broke his silence it was to say nothing more significant than, “Just see, I have had this blister for two days. It is very painful.” He plaintively held up his finger to her.

She burst out laughing and, overcome with tenderness for him, threw herself on his reclining figure. “Oh, you're so sweet, so
sweet!”
she cried, and crushed him as tight as she could as if she hoped thereby to relieve her overwhelming feelings. He cried out and struggled to get free—unsuccessfully, till she released him of her own accord. He smoothed down his hair with one hand and his dhoti with the other and said indignantly, “How rough you are.”

She laughed again and settled herself happily on the floor, leaning her head against the edge of the bed on which he lay. She felt exquisitely comfortable and domestic and knew that this was the way she wanted her life to go on forever. And then she blurted it out, about giving up her job and staying in India so as to be always near him.

Har Gopal was appalled. He quite genuinely thought she was mad. He argued with her, pointed out that even if she managed to get some kind of job in India, which was in itself unlikely, she would never be able to live on the salary she would be paid. But Betsy said no, she wanted to live on it; she was tired of living the way she did here, as a foreigner, as a privileged person.

“I want to live in India like an Indian,” she said, “like everyone
else, like you. Exactly like you,” and she seized his fine, frail hand and kissed it.

He drew it away from her. “You don't know anything,” he said. “If you had to live in a place where there is never enough water and the neighbors quarrel and you clean and clean but still the cockroaches come—”

“I don't care,” Betsy said.

“Yes, it is so easy to talk,” he said bitterly. He got up from the bed and began to get dressed, though it was not yet his usual time for departure.

“I want to give up everything for you,” Betsy said. “To lay my whole life at your feet and say: here, take it.” She shut her eyes, carried away by the passion with which she spoke.

He uttered a short sound of impatience and turned his back on her. He began to comb his hair in the mirror. She came up behind him and put her arms round his waist and laid her cheek caressingly against his back. He continued to comb his hair very carefully; he was always careful of his appearance before going out into the street.

“I'm not sacrificing anything,” she said. “Don't think that. Good heavens, what do you think I care for my job, or this flat, or money, or anything?”

He could hold himself no longer: “No, you don't care! You are like that. You have everything in life and you throw it all away. Aren't you ashamed? There are others who would give God knows what to have something, to live nicely, but for them—no, there's nothing, not even in their dreams . . .” His voice failed him, and he could not go on. It was as if all the frustrations of his life had risen up and formed a hard ball in his chest and left him unable to speak. He waved his hand in her direction, dismissing her, not wanting her, and turned to the door.

“Don't go,” she pleaded and held on to his arm. He attempted to free himself but she held on tightly. Suddenly he became vicious. He thumped his fist on the hand holding on to his arm and cursed her in Hindi:
“Hath mat lagao, besharm kahin ki!”
He left the room, with her running after him.

Christine and Manny were having drinks in the sitting room. Manny put down his glass and got up and strode over to Har Gopal. He seized him by the front of his shirt and shook him to and fro, and Har Gopal allowed this to be done without offering resistance. His face was frozen with fright while his body was being shaken, and the oiled, stiff hair on his head flopped up and down.

“Let him go, Manny,” Christine said in a low, embarrassed voice.

Manny gave one last shake and then flung him toward the door. Har Gopal fell down but he picked himself up again and patiently dusted off his knees and hands. Without looking back at anyone, he walked down the stairs, slowly and with dignity. Betsy followed him.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he told her in a tone of cold command, “Get my things.”

“What things?”

“My things. My dhoti and my slippers, and don't forget my bottle of hair oil.”

He stood very straight and thin and proud. But suddenly he sat down on the bottom stair. He hid his face in his arms and his shoulders shook with sobbing. She sat down next to him; she held him and murmured to him, words of the sweetest comfort.

After a while he raised his face, which was smeared with tears. He cut across her murmuring and said, “You must leave this place. I don't want you to stay with these people one day more.”

Betsy said that they would look for a place for her together; somewhere very cheap, very Indian. She glanced at him to note his reaction, but he gave no sign of having heard her and remained staring gloomily in front of him. She allowed herself to believe that his silence meant assent. At this her heart leaped in joy and her mind shone with visions of the new life that was about to begin for her.

THE MAN WITH THE DOG

I
think of myself sometimes as I was in the early days, and I see myself moving around my husband's house the way I used to do: freshly bathed, flowers in my hair, I go from room to room and look in corners to see that everything is clean. I walk proudly. I know myself to be loved and respected as one who faithfully fulfills all her duties in life—toward God, parents, husband, children, servants, and the poor. When I pass the prayer room, I join my hands and bow my head and sweet reverence flows in me from top to toe. I know my prayers to be pleasing and acceptable.

Perhaps it is because they remember me as I was in those days that my children get so angry with me every time they see me now. They are all grown up now and scattered in many parts of India. When they need me, or when my longing for them becomes too strong, I go and visit one or other of them. What happiness! They crowd round me, I kiss them and hug them and cry, I laugh with joy at everything my little grandchildren say and do, we talk all night there is so much to tell. As the days pass, however, we touch on other topics that are not so pleasant, or even if we don't touch on them, they are there and we think of them, and our happiness becomes clouded. I feel guilty and, worse, I begin to feel restless, and the more restless I am the more guilty I feel. I want to go home, though I dare not admit it to them. At the same time I want to stay, I don't ever ever want to leave them—my darling beloved children and grandchildren for whom what happiness it would be to lay down my life! But I have to go, the restlessness is burning me up, and I begin to tell them lies. I say that some urgent matter has come up and I have to consult my lawyer. Of course, they know it is lies, and they argue
with me and quarrel and say things that children should not have to say to their mother; so that when at last I have my way and my bags are packed, our grief is more than only that of parting. All the way home, tears stream down my cheeks and my feelings are in turmoil, as the train carries me farther and farther away from them, although it is carrying me toward that which I have been hungering and burning for all the time I was with them.

Yes, I, an old woman, a grandmother many times over—I hunger and burn! And for whom? For an old man. And having said that, I feel like throwing my hands before my face and laughing out loud, although of course it may happen, as it often does to me nowadays, that my laughter will change into sobs and then back again as I think of him, of that old man whom I love so much. And how he would hate it, to be called an old man! Again I laugh when I think of his face if he could hear me call him that. The furthest he has got is to think of himself as middle-aged. Only the other day I heard him say to one of his lady friends, “Yes, now that we're all middle-aged, we have to take things a bit more slowly”; and he stroked his hand over his hair, which he combs very carefully so that the bald patches don't show, and looked sad because he was middle-aged.

I think of the first time I ever saw him. I remember everything exactly. I had been to Spitzer's to buy some little Swiss cakes, and Ram Lal, who was already my chauffeur in those days, had started the car and was just taking it out of its parking space when he drove straight into the rear bumper of a car that was backing into the adjacent space. This car was not very grand, but the Sahib who got out of it was. He wore a beautifully tailored suit with creases in the trousers and a silk tie and a hat on his head; under his arm he carried a very hairy little dog, which was barking furiously. The Sahib too was barking furiously, his face had gone red all over and he shouted abuses at Ram Lal in English. He didn't see me for a while, but when he did he suddenly stopped shouting, almost in the middle of a word. He looked at me as I sat in the back of the Packard in my turquoise sari and a cape made out of an embroidered Kashmiri shawl; even the dog stopped barking. I knew that look well. It was one that men had given me from the time I was fifteen right till—-yes, even till I was over forty. It was a look that always filled me with annoyance but also (now that I am so old I can admit it) pride and pleasure. Then, a few seconds later, still looking at me in the same way but by this time with a little smile as well, he raised his hat to
me; his hair was blond and thin. I inclined my head, settled my cape around my shoulders, and told Ram Lal to drive on.

In those days I was very pleasure-loving. Children were all quite big, three of them were already in college and the two younger ones at their boarding schools. When they were small and my dear husband was still with us, we lived mostly in the hills or on our estate near X (which now belongs to my eldest son, Shammi); these were quiet, dull places where my dear husband could do all his reading, invite his friends, and listen to music. Our town house was let out in those years, and when we came to see his lawyer or consult some special doctor, we had to stay in a hotel. But after I was left alone and the children were bigger, I kept the town house for myself, because I liked living in town best. I spent a lot of time shopping and bought many costly saris that I did not need; at least twice a week I visited a cinema and I even learned to play cards! I was invited to many tea parties, dinners, and other functions.

It was at one of these that I met him again. We recognized each other at once, and he looked at me in the same way as before, and soon we were making conversation. Now that we are what we are to each other and have been so for all these years, it is difficult for me to look back and see him as I did at the beginning—as a stranger with a stranger's face and a stranger's name. What interested me in him the most at the beginning was, I think, that he was a foreigner; at the time I hadn't met many foreigners, and I was fascinated by so many things about him that seemed strange and wonderful to me. I liked the elegant way he dressed, and the lively way in which he spoke, and his thin fair hair, and the way his face would go red. I was also fascinated by the way he talked to me and to the other ladies: so different from our Indian men who are always a little shy with us and clumsy, and even if they like to talk with us, they don't want anyone to see that they like it. But he didn't care who saw—he would sit on a little stool by the side of the lady with whom he was talking, and he would look up at her and smile and make conversation in a very lively manner, and sometimes, in talking, he would lay his hand on her arm. He was also extra polite with us, he drew back the chair for us when we wanted to sit down or get up, and he would open the door for us, and he lit the cigarettes of those ladies who smoked, and all sorts of other little services that our Indian men would be ashamed of and think beneath their dignity. But the way he did it all, it was full of dignity. And one other thing, when he
greeted a lady and wanted her to know that he thought highly of her, he would kiss her hand, and this too was beautiful, although the first time he did it to me I had a shock like electricity going down my spine and I wanted to snatch away my hand from him and wipe it clean on my sari. But afterward I got used to it and I liked it.

His name is Boekelman, he is a Dutchman, and when I first met him he had already been in India for many years. He had come out to do business here, in ivory, and was caught by the war and couldn't get back; and when the war was over, he no longer wanted to go back. He did not earn a big fortune, but it was enough for him. He lived in a hotel suite that he had furnished with his own carpets and pictures, he ate well, he drank well, he had his circle of friends, and a little hairy dog called Susi. At home in Holland all he had left were two aunts and a wife, from whom he was divorced and whom he did not even like to think about (her name was Annemarie, but he always spoke of her as “Once bitten, twice shy”). So India was home for him, although he had not learned any Hindi except
achchha,
which means all right and
pani,
which means water, and he did not know any Indians. All his friends were foreigners; his lady friends also.

Many things have changed now from what they were when I first knew him. He no longer opens the door for me to go in or out, nor does he kiss my hand; he still does it for other ladies, but no longer for me. That's all right, I don't want it, it is not needed. We live in the same house now, for he has given up his hotel room and has moved into a suite of rooms in my house. He pays rent for this, which I don't want but can't refuse, because he insists; and anyway, perhaps it doesn't matter, because it isn't very much money (he has calculated the rent not on the basis of what would have to be paid today but on what it was worth when the house was first built, almost forty years ago). In return, he wishes to have those rooms kept quite separate and that everyone should knock before they go in; he also sometimes gives parties in there for his European friends, to which he may or may not invite me. If he invites me, he will do it like this: “One or two people are dropping in this evening, I wonder if you would care to join us?” Of course I have known long before this about the party, because he has told the cook to get something ready, and the cook has come to me to ask what should be made, and I have given full instructions; if something very special is needed, I make it myself. After he has invited me and I have accepted,
the next thing he asks me, “What will you wear?” and he looks at me very critically. He always says women must be elegant, and that was why he first liked me, because in those days I was very careful about my appearance, I bought many new saris and had blouses made to match them, and I went to a beauty parlor and had facial massage and other things. But now all that has vanished, I no longer care about what I look like.

It is strange how often in one lifetime one changes and changes again, even an ordinary person like myself. When I look back, I see myself first as the young girl in my father's house, impatient, waiting for things to happen; then as the calm wife and mother, fulfilling all my many duties; and then again, when children are bigger and my dear husband, many years older than myself, has moved far away from me and I am more his daughter than his wife—then again I am different. In those years we mostly lived in the hills, and I would go for long walks by myself, for hours and hours, sometimes with great happiness to be there among those great green mountains in sun and mist. But sometimes also I was full of misery and longed for something as great and beautiful as those mountains to fill my own life, which seemed, in those years, very empty. But when my dear husband left us forever, I came down from the mountains and then began that fashionable town-life of which I have already spoken. But that too has finished. Now I get up in the mornings, I drink my tea, I walk around the garden with a peaceful heart; I pick a handful of blossoms; and these I lay at the feet of Vishnu in my prayer room. Without taking my bath or changing out of the old cotton sari in which I have spent the night, I sit for many hours on the veranda, doing nothing, only looking out at the flowers and the birds. My thoughts come and go.

At about twelve o'clock Boekelman is ready and comes out of his room. He always likes to sleep late, and after that it always takes him at least one or two hours to get ready. His face is pink and shaved, his clothes are freshly pressed, he smells of shaving lotion and eau de cologne and all the other things he applies out of the rows of bottles on his bathroom shelf. In one hand he has his rolled English umbrella, with the other he holds Susi on a red-leather lead. He is ready to go out. He looks at me, and I can see he is annoyed at the way I am sitting there, rumpled and unbathed. If he is not in a hurry to go, he may stop and talk with me for a while, usually to complain about something; he is never in a very good mood at this
time of day. Sometimes he will say the washerman did not press his shirts well, another time that his coffee this morning was stone cold; or he could not sleep all night because of noise coming from the servant quarters; or that a telephone message was not delivered to him promptly enough, or that it looked as if someone had tampered with his mail. I answer him shortly, or sometimes not at all, only go on looking out into the garden; and this always makes him angry, his face becomes very red and his voice begins to shake a little though he tries to control it: “Surely it is not too much to ask,” he says, “to have such messages delivered to me clearly and at the right time?” As he speaks, he stabs tiny holes into the ground with his umbrella to emphasize what he is saying. I watch him doing this, and then I say, “Don't ruin my garden.” He stares at me in surprise for a moment, after which he deliberately makes another hole with his umbrella and goes on talking: “It so happened it was an extremely urgent message—” I don't let him get far. I'm out of my chair and I shout at him, “You are ruining my garden,” and then I go on shouting about other things, and I advance toward him and he begins to retreat backward. “This is ridiculous,” he says, and some other things as well, but he can't be heard because I am shouting so loud and the dog too has begun to bark. He walks faster now in order to get out of the gate more quickly, pulling the dog along with him; I follow them, I'm very excited by this time and no longer know what I'm saying. The gardener, who is cutting the hedge, pretends not to hear or see anything but concentrates on his work. At last he is out in the street with the dog, and they walk down it very fast, with the dog turning around to bark and he pulling it along, while I stand at the gate and pursue them with my angry shouts till they have disappeared from sight.