Authors: N. S. Köenings
In a momentary stillness, Sarie tried to say her piece. “Gilbert!” She wanted him to help her. Wide-eyed, putting on the gentle
voice that meant she thought Hazel was a fool, Sarie laid her hand on Gilbert’s knee and said, “Mrs. Hazel, Gilbert, thinks
that I must stick needles in the babies!” She shook her head in wonder. “Help me, now. What can I say to that?” Gilbert shivered,
ached, recalled the garden parties, and felt torn sharply in two between Hazel Towson and his wife.
Needles in the babies! What will she say next?
But, unable to name it, he also recalled painfully that he’d once been in love.
Sarie needs assistance from me
, Gilbert thought.
She’s depending on her man
.
Mrs. Towson coughed. “Not quite that, I’m sure,” she said. “Your Sarie, Mr. Turner… I must say. We’re not indiscriminate,
you know. And Sarie knows this, too. She’s teasing. As we all know she does.
Vaccines. Syringes
. We’d simply like her help. Her presence, now and then.
With all of her experience.
” Hazel Towson looked at Sarie as a disappointed parent does a child who refuses to perform in the presence of fine guests.
“Perhaps, we thought, Sarie could give us all a talk. Improve herself, you know. Help
us
. She does
know
about nursing, doesn’t she?” Here Mrs. Towson was deploying a secondary strategy that she knew as You Must Win Over the Man.
She thought she would recall for Gilbert the very thing that had always pained him most: “We’ve always heard it told.” It
was a little challenge: defend your wife by pushing her to join, or I will bring up her faux pas again, and I shall be relentless.
Bending to remove his shoes (though Sarie, wishing he would not, jammed her elbow in his side), Gilbert tried to stall. His
skin itched. “Through the hospitals, I suppose?” he said. Sarie, disappointed, rose to offer Mrs. Towson a refill of her tea.
Both to tea and Gilbert’s question, Hazel said, “Oh, no, no, no, my dears.” She pushed the cup away with a forceful outstretched
finger. “Not
through the hospitals, I’m sure. Thank you very much.” Sitting up again, feet free, his head passing not far from Mrs. Towson’s
knees and arms, Gilbert thought she smelled a little like manure. Like a fresh field in rural England. Rich and dark and loamy.
Hazel waited until he’d sat up and Sarie had stood still. “Hospitals.” She leaned towards him and smiled. “What do
they
know about children?”
When Sarie rolled her eyes at Gilbert, it was not because she had deep faith in hospitals or governments or because she cared
that her big guest had refused another drink. She didn’t mind if Hazel Towson overlooked others’ expertise or made decisions
on her own, without consulting anyone but the British Council’s ladies. She didn’t know if vaccinations were really valuable
at all and, what’s more, didn’t care to argue. What irritated Sarie was something rather complicated that neither Sarie’s
guest nor husband really understood.
Firstly, as a mission girl, a woman with a past, she felt herself more interesting than all the Council women, and resented
their intrusions. Their ease and confidence, their skill at being
ladies
, at once silenced her completely and brought out her very worst behavior. Among them she felt huge, ungainly, stupid, and,
uncomfortably, much better than them all.
Moreover, she didn’t wish to be involved with women who would see almost right away that she herself was in possession of
much less than they were. Where she had rubber thongs, they had Bata pumps and European brogues—beaten up and worn, indeed,
but costly, bearing up yet to the march and tick of time. While they cleverly acquired chocolate bars, Danish butter biscuits,
and boxed vanilla sugar, Sarie stuck to Nanjis and to gummy turbinado. They smelled of perfumes purchased in a shop, while
Sarie smelled occasionally like talcum, and more often like herself. She also knew her teeth were not what they had been.
No, no, she couldn’t face
them—feeling herself better than them all and being poorer than each one was an awful combination. The only use she had for
the British Council was for the children’s books, which Agatha demanded. From them she wanted nothing else. Sarie understood
what Hazel Towson didn’t: it was money brought on good behavior, not the other way around.
But Gilbert’s shaken inner man had rallied by this time and wished to show himself. If Hazel Towson could choose this very
day to visit them, he would choose this day to battle her. He would take up arms. What her husband said pleased Sarie, though
she was as surprised by it as Mrs. Towson was. “I’m sure that’s very valuable,” he said. “Very valuable, indeed, dear Mrs.
Hazel. But…” Here Gilbert looked at Sarie and placed his hand flat on her knee. “Sarie is too busy at the moment, I believe,
to be of any help. She has, excuse us, won’t you, some serious things now that require her attention.”
For once, Hazel Towson did not know what to say. She had expected that, as had occurred in other households, the husband would
give in and push his wife to do what she was told, what propriety required. She took no pleasure in surprises. But, she thought,
was she not Hazel Towson? She tugged her big white shirtfront down, checked her buttoned cuffs, and leaned forward in her
seat. She was not finished yet. “Busy? What could be more serious, Mr. Turner, if I may, than curing native children?” Something
in her tone suggested that native children were at risk of terrible diseases from which only she herself, with Sarie at her
side, could save them. Her words echoed in his mind, and he had a sudden, lurching vision of dark skins laid out beside a
woodshed; he even smelled sharp salt. Hazel Towson frightened him.
Perhaps
, it struck him suddenly,
she’s too much like a man
.
Sarie, for her part, did not find Hazel Towson particularly masculine.
But she did not enjoy her attitude. She was used to Gilbert, too, tendering opinions about what she ought to do, and to disregarding
them when she found them too restrictive. But Hazel Towson, Sarie thought, didn’t have the right.
As if she can tell me what to do. As if she knows what happens here
. She even thought, forgetting for a moment Mr. Jeevanjee’s real shape and turning him into a weapon,
She has no idea that I am thinking of a man who is not at all my husband
. Then, wishing she had not combined Mrs. Hazel Towson and the (sweet!) form she had just clutched, she tried to see with
her mind’s eye the very delicate plum color that outlined Majid Ghulam’s upper lip. She managed, and she shivered.
Gilbert wondered how explicit he could be in front of Mrs. Hazel. Speaking of a plan too soon might sour things. He didn’t,
after all, have a real idea. He only knew that he was going to try to have one. But he also thought that mentioning an imminent
success might loosen Hazel’s grip.
If I mention it again
, he thought,
it will almost be true
. Also:
I’d like to see her face
. “We can’t quite tell you at the moment, Mrs. Towson, but Sarie and I—” With a look at Sarie that Hazel Towson would recall
later with distaste (something like
devotion
), Gilbert said the words that would, instead of freeing them from Hazel, have the opposite effect. But there was a momentary
victory. “Sarie and I,” Gilbert said, “are preparing for a change.” He lingered so on Sarie’s face (thinking,
A business! Yes, we’re going to make a start!
) that, although she was absolutely wrong, Mrs. Towson thought she understood.
The horror of it balled up in her throat. Her eyes boggled in her head.
Could it be?
she thought.
My God. Isn’t Sarie quite past that?
She became violently embarrassed. “I see,” she said at last. And Sarie, who had not yet understood, looked from guest to
husband. Hazel Towson’s big eyes remained wide. A hardy sniff shuttled through her nose. She crossed and uncrossed her squat
legs beneath
her khaki skirt. She wound her ankles round and round like propellers on a plane; she cleared her sinewy throat.
She had had a shock. But, equal, as she liked to say, to the most terrible of crises, she took Sarie’s hand in hers and dutifully,
even kindly, gave it a quick squeeze. “How wonderful,” she said. Sarie wished to pull her hand away but sensed that she should
not. When Hazel dropped her eyes to Sarie’s chest and lap, and asked, in a near whisper, “But, dear, is it wise? So late?
You’re not exactly
young,
” Sarie slowly saw. She blinked. She restrained a little laugh by squeezing back at Hazel’s hand, harder than was right—which
made Hazel feel that Sarie was in more dire need of her support than she had hitherto imagined. “Oh, my dear,” she said, and
shot Gilbert a nasty glance as if to say:
Men. Look at what you’ve done
. She then turned back to Sarie. “Another child? Right now? Oh, Sarie, are you sure? It isn’t a mistake?” In Hazel’s view,
sex among the indigenes was one thing—in fact, having plenty of opinions, she could discuss it at some length—but in her set,
the set that she imagined and kept attempting to bring into firm being, couplings between Europeans over forty, and moreover
between poor ones like the Turners, were another thing entirely. Better left in silence. Hazel had been given a surprise that
was beyond the pale of what she could anticipate; she was disappointed in herself, and this made her, for a moment, weak.
Although he’d won in the short term, and although this was a first, Gilbert for a moment was displeased.
Not a child
, he wished to say,
no, not at all. A business
. He had wanted to be heard just as he’d intended. But Sarie took another tack. She looked down at her knees and clung to
Hazel’s hand. “I know,” she said. “I know.” And to keep him from correcting her, she kicked Gilbert in the shin. She didn’t
want their plans—even if they had none—open yet to scrutiny. Let Hazel Towson be embarrassed, let her feel distaste at
the very thought of mating among people of their age.
What would she think of Majid!
Sarie closed her eyes and leaned back into the couch. If she could make love with a man she barely knew and conceal it from
her husband, could she not also let Mrs. Hazel Towson think exactly as she pleased? A pregnant woman, Sarie thought, couldn’t
volunteer
.
Gilbert wanted Hazel out. And there was still a little happiness in him that had not been plucked out, a tiny sense that he
could
do things. He stood up and made it clear that it was time for her to go. “Well. That’s right,” he said. “Sarie needs her
rest. Exactly.” He felt stronger. “I’m sure you understand.” Hazel, caught off balance, let herself be led. Gilbert walked
her to the door.
“I won’t get up,” said Sarie. “This heat!” She had never before had the upper hand with Hazel, was feeling rather shrill.
She gestured at her hips and looked sweetly at her guest as if to say,
You know that pregnancy is trying
. “Oh. Oh, yes,” said Hazel. “Don’t get up, my dear. Of course.” On the landing, Hazel shook her head.
A pregnancy! At Sarie’s advanced age!
But she couldn’t leave entirely outdone. If she did not have pride, what did she? She gathered up her spirits. Pregnancy
or no, a decent woman ought still attend
some
functions, at least until she
showed
. She poked her head back inside the Turners’ flat, holding to the doorknob with both hands, oddly like a girl. “Next Friday,
Sarie. There’s a luncheon, don’t you know. You might think of coming down, if you’re not feeling awful. You could do that,
at least.” Sarie moaned a little from her seat. “Perhaps!” she said, and waved.
Gilbert closed the door and Sarie laughed. A little strangely, Gilbert thought, but, still—here was his own Sarie laughing
at
something
they
had done together. “Oh, wonderful,” she said. “Wonderful!” And Gilbert, shy, covered his mouth with both hands, then said,
muffled, “Yes, I suppose so. Wonderful, indeed.” As though she really were carrying a child, Sarie struggled to get up. Recalling
what he’d said—
a change
—she wiped her mouth and went to stand beside him. She looked him in the eye.
“‘A change,’ you said? Something very serious? Gilbert?” Sarie frowned into his face and tugged hard at his shirt. “Were you
playing? Did you mean it? You are having an idea?” Could he have thought of something just one day after the letter? So soon
after the fact?
“Not quite yet, no, dear,” he said. He plucked her hand away and laid it on the sofa. “But we’re about to, aren’t we? Something’s
going to happen. We’ll find something to say.” Sarie, unsure of her husband, followed him into the kitchen. Would he hide
anything from her? She was partially put out. She had also had the thought that she might beat him to it, might have to, after
all, because
she
, not he, was strong. She reassured herself:
Of course not. When he’s thought something, I will know
. She knew
him
, after all.
Gilbert pulled a spoon from a low drawer and held it in the air a moment as though it were a wand. “Let’s have some ice cream
first, now, shall we?” She couldn’t turn that down. Watching Sarie eat, pale hair over her face, Gilbert felt a twitching
at his heart. A desire to be competent in a way he felt the men at the Victorian Palm all were. He’d come through again. He’d
please her. He’d decide on an idea and present it to her, fully formed, impeccable, and grand.
Later she followed him into the bedroom. Perhaps because she had recently been held by a nice man and wished to share her
joy somehow, and because they’d triumphed, for the moment, over beastly Hazel Towson, she agreed to rub her husband’s feet.
Poor
Gilbert
, Sarie thought.
How difficult his life is. Uncle James’s letter really was not kind
. Gilbert sighed into the pillow and let Sarie pull his toes. He felt the world recede. He slipped in and out of consciousness.
Everything would be all right. He’d come up with something, and Sarie would be happy. Sarie dug her fingernails into the soft
part of his soles. He giggled and he sighed. He almost fell asleep. Outside a hot green flash released a downpour and filled
the room with air.