We were both
grinning and stood holding hands. I almost loved her then. There
were things I wanted to do to her, but knew not how. It didn’t
occur to me to ask her whether she had something in mind as
well.
She reached into a
pocket and pulled out two chocolate toffees in dark, unfamiliar
wrappers. “For you,” she said. They were big and almost perfect
spheres. And they were still cold to the touch. She had taken them
out of the refrigerator just before starting. I opened one and it
was a dollop of luscious, dark chocolate that melted in the mouth
and flowed like a viscous coat of paint over my tongue and down the
throat. Her father had brought a packet of them from a business
trip to Kenya.
I remembered about
the ball then, and hurriedly sent her off to the basketball court
to keep the guard from getting suspicious about us. “See you in
half an hour,” I said shutting the door softly behind her.
***
I used to shut
and latch the door while working out to keep the irregulars away,
but that evening I didn’t raise the latch. The gym had not been
cleaned all through summer and there was a thick coat of dust on
all the covers. My heart wasn’t in the workout so I swung a pair of
light dumbbells halfheartedly for a while. Then, I pulled the cover
off the treadmill, raising a puff of dust that set me sneezing. I
plugged it in and started walking on it listlessly.
Time hung heavy
and I kept checking my watch. I pictured her playing all alone.
That frock filling up with air and rising. The ball getting between
her legs. I had just seen those legs down to the ankles because she
wasn’t wearing socks. She was one of the few girls in class who
already waxed their legs and her skin was of the glistening type
that I associate—for no reason—with a fish diet. I was getting so
hard I had to stop the treadmill and sit down. And then the
doorknob turned and she slipped in after opening the door just a
crack.
She shut the door
behind her but then stood unsure looking at me, shoulders once
again hunched, thumbs again pressed between middle and forefingers.
I leaned back against the treadmill’s handrail, stretched out one
leg and bent the other like cool guys do in the ads. I held her
gaze and she smiled back. I motioned her to latch the door and come
to me. She did both with a cat’s stealth. I held her hand and drew
her down to the treadmill belt. She tucked her legs sideways and
smoothed her frock, and when I whispered to her to sit like me she
blushed.
I didn’t push her
to do anything she wouldn’t like. I wanted many more evenings like
that. We held hands but sat in silence because, truth is we didn’t
have anything to say to each other. We had exhausted our store of
small talk in class and now our bodies wanted to do the talking.
Mine did definitely. I drew her gently and she yielded. She tossed
her hair over her right shoulder and rested against my chest. My
right arm was around her but I didn’t let it go where it wanted to.
She leaned her head further back to look at me, and I caught the
scent of garlic on her hot breath. It didn’t repel me. I softly
brushed my lips on hers but the kiss was wasted on both of us.
“Happy?” I said. She replied by snuggling into my neck.
I ran my hand over
her right calf and she stiffened. When it reached her knee she
shook it off and waited for me to try again. But I was puzzled.
Don’t do it if she doesn’t want you to, I told myself.
She glanced at her
watch and said, “Time to go”.
“Already?” I said
checking mine.
We got up holding
hands and when we reached near the door, I turned her around and
kissed once again. She had both her hands on my chest and as she
started to press me away, I bent down and lifted her up in my arms.
She was short and my arms hooked behind her knees. She giggled with
her hands on my shoulders, and then, mock-seriously ordered me to
put her down.
I lowered her
slowly, pressing her close to me so that her frock bunched up from
the front as well as the back. My palms rubbed against the smooth,
firm skin of her thighs, then over her frilly underthings and
stopped at her slim waist. She didn’t resist at all. I tickled her
sides with my nails and felt the goosebumps rise. “See you in the
morning,” I said, releasing my hold on her crumpled frock and
stepping back to see her smooth it. She was very red then but not
angry.
I heard a step
approaching in the corridor and flew to the treadmill. She stood
rooted to the floor in alarm. “Drop the latch,” I hissed to her,
and she did as told. The step was a moment away from the door when
I signalled her to go. She stepped out quickly and almost upset the
guard who was reaching forward to look in. He stepped back in
embarrassment but I waved to him while pounding away on the mill.
“Sorry, another five minutes, please? I will give you the keys at
the gate if it’s all right?”
“Sure, take your
time,” he said, “I was just taking a round of the building”.
After a minute, I
stopped and pulled out the other chocolate. It had turned squishy
in my pocket but I opened the wrapper carefully, stretched it tight
and licked off the rich goo. I could still feel her hot garlic
breath and the chocolate was that kiss I had tried but failed to
impress. Must ask her to bring more of these toffees tomorrow, I
thought as I went out jangling the gym keys in my pocket.
***~~~***
Dr Raleigh’s
red Austin 7 gleamed in the driveway of his bungalow inside the new
city of Delhi that the British were still shaping into a capital.
It was a glorious morning, blue above and green below, seen from
the front window of his cozy house. It was a day to be out and
about, but the doctor was laid up with a cold, the result of
bidding winter adieu too soon and pacing about in the garden
without a hat at night. Just what he advised all his clients not to
do.
Sunlight streamed
in through the shut window of his bedroom and leaves on the vine
overhanging it swayed gently, inviting the doctor into the cool
February breeze. The portly doctor coughed and sighed. He rang the
bell for a servant and raised himself a little higher in bed to get
a better view out of the window.
Their driver,
Keshav, had slipped and broken an arm a week ago, and his son,
Raju, had been filling in this while. Dr Raleigh was used to and
comfortable with Keshav’s unhurried driving. While not an old
man—he was hardly 35—Keshav had the air of one. He was thoughtful,
even philosophical, and though a fatalist he didn’t believe in
tempting fate. He was deferential towards the doctor, and
respectful and considerate towards his charge, the little red car
that was always going around on house calls. Keshav was a sane,
sensible man, which was a lot more than what Dr Raleigh had come to
expect of his helps in Delhi.
Unseen by Raju,
the doctor was observing him. The boy—he was still a schoolboy,
hardly 18—was showing signs of manhood. He was tall like his father
but not so dark. He wasn’t stout like Keshav but sinewy, a natural
athlete. Wisps of hair above lip and below the short sideburns
announced the coming of youth but he still had a delicate face,
perhaps his mother’s, who always appeared veiled before the doctor.
And for so young a person he was remarkably devoted to work. His
eyes sought out stains and imperfections in the paint and his hands
smoothed and rubbed them rhythmically to a steadily higher
polish.
Raju was a
diffident driver because he hadn’t his father’s experience behind
the wheel. Keshav taught him to drive in the same car, with the
doctor’s permission, of course, and was now keen that the boy find
work. “Sahib, he can read and write, and that much is enough. He is
an improvement upon me, and besides, two working hands are better
than one,” Keshav would say.
The boy could be a
good driver, but with his diligence he could be a good constable as
well. And with education he could attain to things Keshav hadn’t
dreamed of. But that wasn’t likely to happen. Soon, Keshav’s wife
would demand help at home, and then the boy would have to marry.
Already, Dr Raleigh had heard Keshav talk about it to the servants
in the house. And well before he completed 40 years of age, Keshav
would be a grandfather. Only then would their family’s happiness be
complete. That was the way of the locals, and Dr Raleigh was not
going to try changing it. He was a good master, tolerant and even
indulgent, but he did not believe in influencing people to change
their lives.
Eileen came in,
glowing after a hot bath. Her hair was wrapped turban-style in a
towel and a smile filled out her round cheeks. “What, daddy dear,
can’t rest for a while, can you?” At 18, she was the mistress of
the house. After losing her mother two years ago, she had quickly
filled the shoes of responsibility, but hadn’t lost her boisterous,
mischievous streak.
“Why, Eli, where
are the servants? Hasn’t Rani come to work today?” the doctor asked
studying his only child proudly. She was in the college hockey team
and although short like him, she had strong legs that ended in
shapely feet, her mother’s. Eileen was curling and uncurling her
toes, and her stiffened shoulders told she was fighting
shivers.
“Tell me what you
want, your majesty, and it will be done,” Eli joked, but Dr Raleigh
hurried her off to dress warmly first. “And then send in some more
tea. Tell whoever is in the kitchen to make ginger tea,
please.”
“Then I will have
it too with you,” said Eileen, and added, “won’t you have it in the
garden, daddy? It’s not so cold now and I will have the chairs
arranged in the sun. You will feel better if you step out of this
room.” Dr Raleigh was feeling lazy, but he knew that a little
exercise and the sun would restore him quickly. And he knew it
would please Eileen if he did her bidding. So he nodded, and she
walked away briskly. Dr Raleigh heard her issuing directions to
Rani in the kitchen and then the front door creaked open and she
came and stood in the verandah, at the head of the driveway where
the sun had painted a yellow patch on the bungalow’s white
exterior.
***
Raju was bent
over the bonnet, meticulously picking out black fillings of dust
from tiny grooves in the grille. There was nothing conscious about
his style. He didn’t know that doctor sahib was watching him from
bed. He wasn’t making a show of sincerity. So engrossed was he in
work that he didn’t turn around to see when the door creaked open
and Eileen came out.
She had unwrapped
her raven hair and it hung in a jumble of shiny curls framing the
left side of her face, the one that her father could see. Steam
rose in languorous wisps from her sun-warmed hair. Eileen’s eyes
moved around the garden, surveying her roses and the finely trimmed
lawns with satisfaction before alighting on the tall figure bent
not 20 yards away from her. She saw his tight, shapely bottom and
quickly looked around again. Nobody there. Her gaze returned to the
trim figure, she thrust her hands inside her gown’s front pockets
and rocked nonchalantly on her heels. She kept jogging her eyes
this way and that guiltily but her gaze was fixed. There were
bigger, beefier men in her circle, real men, white men, mounds of
muscle, but none had the sleekness of form and grace of figure that
was now before her. She knew, of course, that it was Raju, the
driver’s son, but she had never sized him up before. There were
always other thoughts and things pressing on her mind and time.
The door creaked
once again and Eileen jumped, but it wasn’t daddy, only Surinder
Singh, their gardener, pushing at it with a trestle table folded
under one arm and a cane chair each in either hand. “Set them
beside the wall, mali, where it’s less windy,” she said. The mali
bowed and Eileen hurried back inside. Her voice had broken Raju’s
spell and as he snapped to attention in the direction of the door
he saw her retreating. The thick black hair reached down to her
waist, and below the hem of the gown he saw slim white calves
narrowing into shapely white ankles. He cast his eyes down
immediately although the mali wasn’t looking at him. When Raju
looked up again, the door was shut but forgetting the car and his
business he kept looking at it foolishly, hoping to see the figure
again.
He knew it was
Eileen. When Dr Raleigh came to Delhi 10 years ago, Raju had been
one of Miss Eli’s playmates. But only for a couple of years. He had
seen her after many years this week, and she had become ‘sahib’,
too. She was home today looking after her father, but usually she
left early in a friend’s sports car. Peter sahib was the best
cricketer in Delhi, everybody said, and Raju admired him ever since
he saw him thrash bowlers mercilessly at a match.
Dr Raleigh and
Eileen came out together before tea was served and Raju started at
the sound of their footsteps. Father and daughter were talking
animatedly. Raju, who was polishing the doors from inside, cast a
sidelong glance at Eileen and found her looking at him. He dropped
the cake of wax in consternation and remained bent and hidden
behind the dash till his heart stopped racing. Eileen blushed too
but she mastered her voice.
“Such a beautiful
day, daddy,” said Eileen, helping her father into a chair, “let’s
drive somewhere, unless you have rounds to make”. Dr Raleigh
nodded. He was already feeling better in the sun. In fact, he felt
silly for lying so long in bed and moping about his condition. It
was nothing but a touch of cold. Perhaps, he was grown weary of his
routine and had primed himself to fall sick. A break would be
good.
The tea roused his
spirits further. Rani hadn’t made it treacly sweet, the way the
servants liked theirs. It was more a medicine distilled from ginger
to cure the sahib’s throat and breathing and drive away his
headache. Dr Raleigh closed his eyes, sank lower in his chair and
napped for 10 minutes. He was facing the sun and through closed
eyelids he felt a warm, orange glow spread over his eyes and
forehead. Eileen watched him, and then furtively at the car, but
whatever Raju was doing now he was doing it with head down. Once or
twice she fancied she saw him glance their way but couldn’t be
sure. She had changed into a grey knee-length skirt and black
Mary-Janes, and stretched her legs out in the direction of the car.
She hoped Peter wouldn’t call that day.