His dictation still continued every day; evidently this was going to be a massive work, for though she had already written out hundreds of foolscap pages, the end was not yet in sight. Beyond this daily dictation, he had nothing special to say to her; she still went on her evening walk, but he did not again come to meet her. In any case, this walk of hers was now never taken alone but always in the company of Helga, whose arm firmly linked hers. Helga saw to it that they did everything together these days: ate, slept, sat with Swamiji, even meditated. She did not trust her alone for a moment, so even if Swamiji had wanted to say anything private to Daphne, Helga would always be there to listen to it.
Daphne wasn’t sure whether it was deep night or very early in the morning when one of the bearded young men came to call her. Helga, innocently asleep, was breathing in and out. Daphne followed the messenger across the courtyard. Everything was sleeping in a sort of grey half-light, and the sky too was grey with some dulled, faint stars in it. Across the river a small, wakeful band of devotees was chanting and praying, they were quite a long way off and yet the sound was very clear in the surrounding silence. There was no light in Swamiji’s room, nor was he in it; her guide led her through the room and out of an opposite door which led to the adjoining veranda, overlooking the river. Here Swamiji sat on a mat, eating a meal by the light of a kerosene lamp. ‘Ah, Daphne,’ he said, beckoning her to sit opposite him on the mat. ‘There you are at last.’
The bearded youth had withdrawn. Now there were only the two of them. It was so strange. The kerosene lamp stood just next to Swamiji and threw its light over him and over his tray of food. He ate with pleasure and with great speed, his hand darting in and out of the various little bowls of rice, vegetables, lentils, and curds. He also ate very neatly, so that only the very tips of the fingers of his right hand were stained by the food and nothing dropped into his beard. It struck Daphne that this was the first time that she had seen him eat a full meal: during the course of his busy day, he seemed content to nibble at nuts and at his favourite sweetmeats, and now and again drink a tumbler of milk brought to him by one of his young men.
‘Can I talk to you?’ he asked her. ‘You won’t turn into a laurel tree?’
He pushed aside his tray and dabbled his hand in a finger-bowl and then wiped it on a towel. ‘I think it would be nice,’ he said, ‘if you come with me to America.’
She said, ‘I’d like to come.’
‘Good.’
He folded the towel neatly and then pressed it flat with his hand. For a time neither of them said anything. The chanting came from across the river; the kerosene lamp cast huge shadows.
‘We shall have to finish our book,’ he said. ‘In America we shall have plenty of leisure and comfort for this purpose . . . Mrs Gay Fisher has made all the arrangements.’
He bent down to adjust the flame of the lamp and now the light fell directly on his face. At that moment Daphne saw very clearly that he was not a good-looking man, nor was there anything noble in his features: on the contrary, they were short, blunt and common, and his expression, as he smiled to himself in anticipation of America, had something disagreeable in it. But the next moment he had straightened up again, and now his face opposite her was full of shadows and so wise, calm and beautiful that she had to look away for a moment, for sheer rapture.
‘We shall be staying in her home,’ he said. ‘It is a very large mansion with swimming pool and all amenities – wait, I will show you.’ Out of the folds of his gown he drew an envelope, which he had evidently kept ready for her and out of which he extracted some colour photographs.
‘This is her mansion. It is in Greek style. See how gracious these tall pillars, so majestic. It was built in 1940 by the late Mr Fisher.’ He raised the lamp and brought it near the photograph to enable her to see better. ‘And this,’ he said, handing her another photograph, ‘is Mrs Gay Fisher herself.’
He looked up and saw that light had dawned, so he lowered the wick of the lamp and extinguished the flame. Thus it was by the frail light of earliest dawn that Daphne had her first sight of Mrs Gay Fisher.
‘She writes with great impatience,’ he said. ‘She wants us to come at once, straight away, woof like that, on a magic carpet if possible.’ He smiled, tolerant, amused: ‘She is of a warm, impulsive nature.’
The picture showed a woman in her fifties in a pastel two-piece and thick ankles above dainty shoes. She wore a three-rope pearl necklace and was smiling prettily, her head a little to one side, her hands demurely clasped before her. Her hair was red.
‘The climate in California is said to be very beneficial,’ Swamiji said. ‘And wonderful fruits are available. Not to speak of ice cream,’ he twinkled, referring to his well-known weakness. ‘Please try and look a little bit happy, Daphne, or I shall think that you don’t want to come with me at all.’
‘I want to,’ she said. ‘I do.’
He collected his photographs from her and put them carefully back into the envelope. There was still chanting on the other side of the river. The river looked a misty silver now and so did the sky and the air and the mountains as slowly, minute by minute, day emerged from out of its veils. The first bird woke up and gave a chirp of pleasure and surprise that everything was still there.
‘Go along now,’ he said. ‘Go and meditate.’ He put out his hand and placed it for a moment on her head. She felt small, weak and entirely dependent on him. ‘Go, go,’ he said, pretending impatience, but when she went, he called: ‘Wait!’ She stopped and turned back. ‘Wake up that sleepy Helga,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to her.’ Then he added: ‘She’s coming with us too.’ ‘To America?’ she said, and in such a way that he looked at her and asked, ‘What’s wrong?’ She shook her head. ‘Then be quick,’ he said.
A few days later he sent her a present of a sari. It was of plain mill cloth, white with a thin red border. She put it away but when, later, he saw her in her usual skirt and blouse, he asked her where it was. She understood then that from now on that was what he wanted her to wear, as a distinguishing mark, a uniform almost, the way his bearded young attendants always wore orange robes. She put it on just before her evening walk; it took her a long time to get it on, and when she had, she felt awkward and uncomfortable. She knew she did not look right, her bosom was too flat, her hips too narrow, nor had she learned how to walk in it, and she kept stumbling. But she knew she would have to get used to it, so she persevered; it seemed a very little obstacle to overcome.
Instead of going on her usual route, she turned today in the opposite direction and walked towards the town. First she had to pass all the other ashrams, then she had to go through the little wood where the sadhus did penance and the beggars stretched pitiful arms towards her and showed her their sores. In these surroundings, it did not seem to matter greatly, not even to herself, what she wore and how she wore it; and when she had crossed the wood, and had got to the temples and bazaars, it still did not matter, for although there were crowds of people, none of them had any time to care for Daphne. The temple bells rang and people bought garlands and incense and sweetmeats to give to their favourite gods. Daphne crossed the holy bridge and, as she did so, folded her hands in homage to the holy river. Once or twice she tripped over her sari, but she didn’t mind, she just hitched it up a bit higher. When she came to the end of the bridge, she turned and walked back over it, again folding her hands and even saying, ‘Jai Ganga-ji’, only silently to herself and not out loud like everyone else. Then she saw Helga coming towards her, also dressed in a white sari with a red border; Helga waved to her over the heads of people and when they came together, she turned and walked back with Daphne, her arm affectionately round her shoulder. Helga was wearing her sari all wrong, it was too short for her and her feet coming out at the end were enormous. She looked ridiculous, but no one cared; Daphne didn’t either. She was glad to be with Helga, and she thought probably she would be glad to be with Mrs Gay Fisher as well. She was completely h
appy to be going to California, and anywhere else he might want her to accompany him.
Miss Sahib
The entrance to the house in which Miss Tuhy lived was up a flight of stairs between a vegetable shop and a cigarette and cold-drink one. The stairs were always dirty, and so was the space around the doorway, with rotted bits of vegetable and empty cigarette packets trampled into the mud. Long practice had taught Miss Tuhy to step around this refuse, smilingly and without rancour, and as she did so she always nodded friendly greetings to the vegetable seller and the cold-drink man, both of whom usually failed to notice her. Everyone in the neighbourhood had got used to her, for she had lived there, in that same house, for many years.
It was not the sort of place in which one would have expected to find an Englishwoman like Miss Tuhy, but the fact was, she was too poor to live anywhere else. She had nothing but her savings, and these, in spite of her very frugal way of life, could not last for ever; and of course there was always the vexed question of how long she would live. Once, in an uncharacteristically realistic moment, she had calculated that she could afford to go on for another five years, which would bring her up to sixty-five. That seemed fair enough to her, and she did not think she had the right to ask for more. However, most of the time these questions did not arise for she tended to be too engrossed in the present to allow fears of the future to disturb her peace of mind.
She was, by profession and by passionate inclination, a teacher, but she had not taught for many years. She had first come to India thirty years ago to take up a teaching post at a school for girls from the first families, and she had taught there and at various other places for as long as she had been allowed. She did it with enthusiasm, for she loved the country and her students. When Independence came and all the other English teachers went home, it never for a moment occurred to her to join them, and she went on teaching as if nothing had changed. And indeed, as far as she was concerned, nothing did change for a number of years, and it was only at the end of that time that it was discovered she was not sufficiently well qualified to go on teaching in an Indian high school. She bowed her head to this decision, for she knew she wasn’t; not compared with all those clever Indian girls who held MA degrees in politics, philosophy, psychology and economics. As a matter of fact, even though they turned out to be her usurpers, she was proud of these girls; for wasn’t it she and those like her who had educated them and made them what they now were – sharp, emancipated, centuries ahead of their mothers and grandmothers? So it was not difficult for her to cede to them with a good grace, to enjoy her farewell party, cry a bit at the speeches and receive with pride and a glow in her heart the silver model of the Taj Mahal which was presented to her as a token of appreciation. After that, she sailed for England – not because she in the least wanted to, but because it was what everyone seemed to expect of her.
She did not stay long. True, no one here said she was not well qualified enough to teach and she had no difficulty in getting a job; but she was not happy. It was not the same. She liked young people always, and so she liked the young people she was teaching here; but she could not love them the way she had loved her Indian pupils. She missed their playfulness, their affection, their sweetness – by comparison the English children struck her as being cool and distant. And not only the children but everyone she met, or only saw in streets and shops: they seemed a colder people somehow, politer perhaps and more considerate than the Indians among whom she had spent so many years, but without (so she put it to herself) real love. Even physically the English looked cold to her, with their damp white skins and pale blue eyes, and she longed again to be surrounded by those glowing coloured skins; and those eyes! the dark, large, liquid Indian eyes! and hair that sprang with such abundance from their heads. And besides the people, it was everything else as well. Everything was too dim, too cold. There was no sun, the grass was not green, the flowers not bright enough, and the rain that continually drizzled from a wash-rag sky was a poor substitute for the silver rivers that had come rushing in torrents out of immense, dark blue monsoon clouds.
So she and her savings returned, improvidently, to India. Everyone still remembered her and was glad to see her again but, once the first warm greetings were over, they were all too busy to have much time to spare for her. She didn’t mind, she was just happy to be back; and in any case she had to live rather a long way from her friends because, now that she had no job, she had to be where rents were cheaper. She found the room in the house between the vegetable seller and the cold-drink shop and lived there contentedly all the week round, only venturing forth on Sundays to visit her former colleagues and pupils. As time went on, these Sunday visits became fewer and further between, for everyone always seemed to be rather busy; anyway, there was less to say now, and also she found it was not always easy to spare the bus fare to and fro. But it didn’t matter, she was even happier staying at home because all her life was there now, and the interest and affection she had formerly bestowed on her colleagues and pupils, she now had as strongly for the other people living in the house, and even for the vegetable seller and the cold-drink man though her contact with them never went further than smiles and nods.
The house was old, dirty and inward-looking. In the centre was a courtyard which could be overlooked like a stage from the galleries running all the way round the upper storeys. The house belonged to an old woman who lived on the ground floor with her enormous family of children and grandchildren; the upper floors had been subdivided and let out to various tenants. The stairs and galleries were always crowded, not only with the tenants themselves but with their servants. Everyone in the house except Miss Tuhy kept a servant, a hill boy, who cleaned and washed and cooked and was frequently beaten and frequently dismissed. There seemed to be an unending supply of these boys; they could be had very cheaply, and slept curled up on the stairs or on a threshold, and ate what was left in the pot.
Miss Tuhy was a shy person who loved other people but found it difficult to make contact with them. On the second floor lived an Anglo-Indian nurse with her grown-up son, and she often sought Miss Tuhy out, to talk in English with her, to ask questions about England, to discuss her problems and those of her son (a rather insipid young man who worked in an airlines office). She felt that she and Miss Tuhy should present a united front against the other neighbours, who were all Hindus and whom she regarded with contempt. But Miss Tuhy did not feel that way. She liked and was interested in everyone, and it seemed a privilege to her to be near them and to be aware of what seemed to her their fascinating, their passionate lives.
Down in the courtyard the old landlady ruled her family with a rod of iron. She kept a tight hold of everything and doled out little sums of pocket money to her forty-year-old sons. She could often be heard abusing them and their wives, and sometimes she beat them. There was only one person to whom she showed any indulgence – who, in fact, could get away with anything – and that was Sharmila, one of her granddaughters. When Miss Tuhy first came to live in the house, Sharmila was a high-spirited, slapdash girl of twelve, with big black eyes and a rapidly developing figure. Although she had reached the age at which her sisters and cousins were already beginning to observe that reticence which, as grown women, would keep them away from the eyes of strangers, Sharmila still behaved with all the freedom of the smaller children, running round the courtyard and up and down the stairs and in and out of the homes of her grandmother’s tenants. She was the first in the house to establish contact with Miss Tuhy, simply by bursting into the room where the English lady lived and looking round and touching things and lifting them up to examine them – ‘What’s that?’ – all Miss Tuhy’s treasures: her mother-of-pearl pen-holder, the photograph of her little niece as a bridesmaid, the silver Taj Mahal. Decorating the mantelpiece was a bowl of realistically shaped fruits made of plaster-of-paris, and before leaving Sharmila lifted a brightly coloured banana out of the bowl and held it up and said, ‘Can I have it?’ After that she came
every day, and every day, just before leaving, helped herself to one more fruit until they were all finished and then she took the bowl.
Sharmila was lazy at school all the year round, but she always panicked before her class promotion exams and came running for help to Miss Tuhy. These were Miss Tuhy’s happiest times, for not only was she once again engaged in the happy pursuit of teaching, but she also had Sharmila sitting there with her all day long, bent ardently over her books and biting the tip of her tongue in her eagerness to learn. Miss Tuhy would have dearly loved to teach her the whole year round, and to teach her everything she knew, and with that end in view she had drawn up an ambitious programme for Sharmila to follow; but although sometimes the girl consented to submit to this programme, it was evident that once the terror of exams was past her interest sharply declined, so that sometimes, when Miss Tuhy looked up from a passionate reading of the romantic poets, she found her pupil fiddling with the strands of hair which always managed to escape from her sober pigtail and her mouth wide open in a yawn she saw no reason to disguise. And indeed Miss Tuhy had finally to admit that Sharmila was right; for what use would all this learning ever be to her when her one purpose in life, her sole duty, was to be married and give satisfaction to the husband who would be chosen for her and to the inlaws in whose house she would be sent to live?
She was just sixteen when she was married. Her grandmother, who usually hated spending money, excelled herself that time and it was a grand and memorable occasion. A big wedding marquee was set up in the courtyard and crammed tight with wedding guests shimmering in their best clothes; all the tenants were invited too, including Miss Tuhy in her good dress (white dots on a chocolate-brown background) and coral necklace. Like everyone else, she was excitedly awaiting the arrival of the bridegroom and his party. She wondered what sort of a boy they had chosen for her Sharmila. She wanted a tall, bold boy for her, a soldier and a hero; and she had heightened, almost mythological visions of the young couple – decked out in jewels and gorgeous clothes – gaily disporting themselves in a garden full of brightly coloured flowers. But when at last the band accompanying the bridegroom’s party was heard, and everyone shouted, ‘They have come!’ and rushed to the entrance to get the first glimpse, then the figure that descended from the horse amid the jubilation of the trumpets was not, in spite of his garlands and his golden coat, a romantic one. Not only was Sharmila’s bridegroom stocky and ill at ease, but he was also no longer very young. Miss Tuhy, who had fought her way to the front with the best of them, turned away in bitter disappointment. There were tears in her eyes. She knew it would not turn out well.
At the End of the Century Page 8