Three Continents

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  “A big grown-up girl letting herself go like that, what am I to do with you?” Lindsay said, making herself grumble and frown. But next moment Jean grabbed her and playfully pulled her down, while Lindsay was protesting, not too vigorously, “You must be out of your mind.” She made a big show of straightening her dress and hair, which Jean had mussed. “Carrying on that way, and in front of Harriet.”

  “Oh Harriet’s seen us before,” Jean said. It was true, I had, and I never minded it. There was something bearlike and playful about Jean—she loved to romp and chase Lindsay and roll around on the grass with her. Lindsay shrieked louder than necessary and demanded to be let go, but I think she enjoyed it—and who wouldn’t, to have someone so fond and demonstrative. It was certainly a change from her fights with Manton and other, later men friends, who had made Lindsay tense and miserable. But ever since she had been with Jean, she had been much more relaxed and seemed to enjoy the simple, girlish things they did together.

  “Why don’t we go on a trip?” Jean was hopefully asking her. “We haven’t been for so long, and before we know it, the summer’ll be gone.” That was another of the fun things they did together—threw some stuff in the car and took off across the country. When they were tired of driving, they checked into a motel; Jean had her camping gear, and what she loved most was to get up in the mountains somewhere and pitch their tent and live rough for a few days. It wasn’t quite Lindsay’s style, but when they came back, sunburned and full of mosquito bites, they had a lot of stories to tell, mostly of misadventures they had enjoyed together, and were very close and affectionate.

  But now Lindsay looked cross and said “You know perfectly well we can’t leave, with everything going on.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “For heaven’s sake,” Lindsay said, looking more cross.

  “What’s going on, Harriet?” Jean said.

  I thought this was as good an opportunity as any, so I came out with “I guess I’m going to get married,” adding maybe overcasually: “to Crishi.”

  “Harriet Wishwell!”

  They both exclaimed at the same moment—Lindsay spun around toward me in what looked like glad surprise, but the way Jean shouted my name was as if she couldn’t and wouldn’t believe her ears.

  Nothing more was said because I was urgently called for to run an errand for Anna Sultan. Although she had recovered enough to get up occasionally, she still spent much of the time resting in her room. Her bell rang often down in the kitchen—the room-service bells had been restored, for there were people to answer them, which hadn’t happened since Lindsay’s grandparents’ time. Some mornings Anna had to have champagne with her orange juice—by no means every morning, but it did mean that it had to be kept on ice for her, just in case. Then there were the times when she was expecting important calls and everyone was warned to keep the lines open; and she liked to sleep late, so most mornings we were all walking around on tiptoe. She was so delicately balanced that the machinery by which she functioned was easily thrown out of gear. Altogether she was delicate. I had thought that a woman journalist like her would be tough, but she was physically fragile, with small, dainty hands and feet. She was pretty, though not young; maybe in her middle thirties. She behaved like someone who had always been admired a lot, both sexually and for her intellect. The Rawul certainly admired her—for her intellect, that is—and treated her the way she treated herself, as a great virtuoso performer. I don’t know what her origins were—she had a very English accent, but there was her name; she had dark hair and eyes and magnolia skin. She had made her reputation with a very daring profile of a Middle Eastern leader who was later executed; it was daring because she had recorded his private along with his public activities, and had not drawn back from chronicling her own affair with him.

  The Rani didn’t like her. I watched her looking Anna up and down, the way I’ve seen good-looking women do to each other, and with a face that showed she didn’t care for what she saw. But she was scrupulously polite to her and personally made sure that she had all the many things she needed. She also submitted to a long interview with her, as did the Rawul and everyone else Anna summoned. These interviews became the central activity of the house, and everything else was subordinated to them. Anna herself fixed the time, but since it took her ages to get herself together, she usually kept her subject waiting, including the Rawul, who sat there very patiently. But when she did appear and turned on her tape recorder, her tired manner dropped from her completely. She was like a sharp, pecking bird as she chiseled away with her tiny, carefully pointed questions; and when she perched over her little typewriter, she and it seemed to be humming away in perfect coordination as she peck-peck-pecked swiftly on its keys.

  She hadn’t yet called me to be interviewed, and I didn’t expect her to—what could I tell her about the movement of which I was only the most peripheral member? She never seemed to see me, though I appeared in her field of vision often enough, for the Rawul thought it a gracious gesture for me rather than one of the followers to serve her. I was forever carrying in her little drinks and snacks, and she would say “Could I have some more ice in this, thanks,” without taking her attention off whatever she was doing. But she did call for Michael to be interviewed. Michael had no hostile feelings toward her—he had no feelings for her at all; he never did for strangers—and was certainly willing to talk to her about the movement. But after a short while he could be seen storming out of her room, with that pale, intense look he had when he was furious. Crishi saw him and was amused; he said “She couldn’t have made a pass at him? She wouldn’t be that dumb?” I followed Michael to find out what had happened. He said he had been perfectly prepared to talk to her about the movement and its principles, philosophy, and organization, but all she wanted to know about was himself; and when he had clammed up, she became offensive, trying to pry him open by making him angry, so he had got up and left her, stalked away as we had seen him do.

  Later that day she asked for me to be interviewed, but I wouldn’t and Michael also said I shouldn’t. In the meantime, though, she had talked to Crishi and he said I should. She got on very well with Crishi, I ought to have said before. She was always calling for him and he was very good-natured about it and always went, even though sometimes she forgot what she had called him for. She didn’t make any secret of it that he was her favorite person in the house, and once when I came in with her tray, she waved me away and said “Not now, I’m talking to Crishi.” He made a face at me behind her back, which made me feel better but not really very good. Another time he and I were with the Rani when a message came to say Anna wanted him. The Rani turned down her mouth corners and said “I’m sure she does,” but Crishi laughed: “Someone has to chat her up,” and the Rani said “And of course it has to be you.” Crishi made the same face at her he had made at me and went off in the cheerful, brisk way he went to any job. Anna had of course had long sessions with Crishi talking into her tape recorder, and I wondered whether he had told her about his relationship with me. I mean, he was going to marry me—he would surely have at least mentioned that in such a long interview! But if he did, she gave no sign of knowing anything about it. In fact, no one in the house did, except the people I had told and Crishi and the Rani, and they never mentioned it. Even the Rawul, it seemed, hadn’t been told. I realized that it was to be a secret engagement, though I didn’t see why. I was ready to talk about it; I wanted to.

  But I didn’t at all want to talk to Anna, and went and hid where I couldn’t be found. There used to be many places to hide, but now every corner of the house from the attic to the cellar had something going on in it, and the followers were also digging, clearing, and planting all over the grounds. But there was one place I still knew to go to: You followed alongside the brook that ultimately fell into the waterfall, but just before it did, there was a tiny path so overgrown it was invisible, and this ended in a sort of cavelike dell where Michael and I had once buried a dead raccoon. It
was damp in here, for the sun couldn’t reach inside and the dead leaves of many falls had been rained into the earth where they moldered and crumbled. The only other person who knew about this place was Michael, so when I heard the crunch of footsteps, I was sure it was he and was glad he had come. But it was Crishi, and the way my heart turned over was very different from the glow of being glad. He stood looking down at me, and then sat next to me very close and put his arm around me. I stayed hunched up, with my face hidden. Suddenly it began to rain—we could hear it falling on the leaves above us, but it took longer to get to us because we were so sheltered; and when it did, it was filtered through all that green and was damper and colder than only rain. The two of us seemed to be sitting inside a grave, where no sun and also no noise and no pain could ever get to us. When Crishi said “How long do we have to stay here?” I said “Forever,” and I put my head against his chest, breathing him in together with the earth and rain. “Great,” he said; “really cozy,” but he stroked my hair and made no move to go away.

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  “Michael told me.”

  I had a twinge of disappointment. I had imagined that it was his own sure instinct—his lover’s instinct—that had brought him to me. And I had not expected that Michael would tell anyone, anyone at all, even Crishi, of any secret place we had between us; any more than I had expected him to tell our use of the word neti.

  “He wanted me to find you,” Crishi said. “He wants you to talk to Anna. . . . No listen, you’ve got to. There’s no two ways about it.”

  I began to explain to him why I couldn’t talk to her. It was the way we were, Michael and I: solitary, and needing to guard ourselves, something within ourselves, which we felt it irreverent to share with anyone; that the way I sat here in this place, shielded even from the sun and no one knowing where I was except Michael, was what I liked best. And the fact that he, Crishi, was here with me and so close to me, the two of us buried and being rained on—this showed how deeply he had entered into me as I had never thought anyone could. It wasn’t easy for me to get all this out, and the effort made me concentrate on myself without looking at him; and when I did, I saw he was frowning impatiently. He didn’t try to hide it either, and before I had finished talking, he said “Don’t be stupid. We need the publicity and anyone who can get it for us, Anna or whoever. I don’t know what all the fuss is about. You and Michael both—sometimes I think you are what she says you are.” Before I could get to ask what this was, he said “And do we have to go on sitting here in the rain much longer?” We went back in single file, along the brook with the rain falling into it and on us too. He was walking in front of me, and he never looked around to see if I was following, not expecting me to fall back; and I didn’t—part of me may have preferred to stay buried inside that dell, but even more I wanted to go with him.

  Although I submitted to being interviewed by Anna, I didn’t tell her that I was going to marry Crishi. I felt I didn’t want to, and also I couldn’t, since no one else thought it worth mentioning. When the article appeared, the Rawul was pleased, and although this wasn’t till later, when we were in England, I might as well talk about it here, just to show how someone from outside saw us at that time. She described Propinquity very well—she described everything very well; she wasn’t a writer for nothing—but from her account it sounded as if it had been an organizational headquarters forever; no one would have guessed that only a short time ago Lindsay and Jean had lived here on their own, mostly in the kitchen. She called it a very ugly house, which I guess it was, seen objectively. And seen objectively, probably Michael and I were as she described us—that is, these nineteen-year-old twins who hadn’t managed to finish their education or ever had to work or make contact with other people. She described us as self-centered, self-conscious, uptight, and definitely weird, typical last-of-the-line scions of a once-prominent and moneymaking American family. Even physically it seemed we were typical, pale and slight, and with a faraway self-absorbed look in our strange eyes. But she didn’t waste much space on us, who were only these peripheral figures around the true center of the house and movement—that is, the Rawul, Rani, and Crishi. Although she gave an outline of the movement itself, she presented it mainly as an emanation from these three vital, life-giving personalities, who had erupted in and transformed our eroded lives.

  Of the three, she seemed to have had the most difficulty interpreting the Rawul. She wrote an account of his royal ancestry and kingdom, his English education, and his English accent and manners. She described him as physically soft; it was true, he was getting very plump, with Else Schwamm’s devoted cooking. She said he gave an impression of compassion—a man who wouldn’t hurt a fly; of gentleness, who wouldn’t say boo to a goose; and courtesy, who would never precede a guest out the door, that sort of thing, all true. But she went on to speculate whether these qualities—compassion, gentleness, and courtesy—were those of a potential leader. After some discussion, she decided that there was no reason why they should not be, provided they were held together by one essential quality: She called it first “single-mindedness,” and then slipped in the word “fanaticism.” If that was there, she wrote, the other qualities were absorbed and used by it; she even speculated that the softer qualities were the ones that most easily turned into ruthlessness. She gave some examples, but I didn’t feel that she made her point, or that any of this applied to our Rawul, whom I so often watched at breakfast, pouring syrup overgenerously on his pancakes.

  I don’t know if Anna was aware of the Rani’s hostility, or if she returned it, but it certainly made no difference in how she wrote about her. She admired her: for her beauty, her strength of character, her calm exterior, her organizational skill. She compared her with a whole host of outwardly feminine and inwardly virile Oriental women from Cleopatra to the present. However, she pointed out that the Rani was only partly Oriental, and she gave more information about her than anyone had ever told me. The Rani’s mother, part-French and part-German, had married an Afghan and gone to live with him on his family’s estate outside Kabul. There was quite a little colony there of foreign women married to rich Afghans, and they entertained each other at coffee and card parties and drove around in chauffeured cars. But after a while—this was when Rani (or Renée, to give her real name) was about three—the monotony and strangeness of a semi-purdah life palled on her mother and she returned to Europe, with Rani. Although she took as much jewelry as possible, their circumstances were not as luxurious as they were used to. Rani made up her mind at an early age to improve them. She was fifteen—so Anna speculated: The one fact the Rani had not been outspoken about was her age—when she married her first husband, a German businessman in his forties. Three or four years later, after a nonamicable divorce, she married an Englishman by whom she had had the little boy she had hinted at to me. Everything I had only guessed at Anna seemed to know for sure, as though the Rani had been entirely candid with her.

  The same was true of Crishi. He had never told me what he told her, and it was only after her article came out—that is, after he and I were married—that I learned all this about him. Not that it would have made any difference. Anyway, it was from the article I discovered that his mother was Assamese; that he too had been married—at eighteen in his case—and had not one but two children. Some of the things he had told me—like living on the beach—he hadn’t told her; and vice versa, so that it was only after reading the article that I learned the details of his two prison sentences, one in Tehran for a drug offense and the other in New Delhi for fraud. He told her the second was a frame-up by some characters he had got involved with in his youthful ignorance. These two sentences accounted for four years of his life and the rest were spent in traveling in some very distant places and making his living in various businesses, usually connected with precious gems and art objects. For the past eight years he had been with the Rawul, who had legally adopted him, devoting himself entirely to the movement. He to
ld her he was thirty-four years old—which amazed me, in fact I couldn’t believe it, and it wasn’t what his passport said either. But then his passport gave his name as Christian Ambasta, and his birthplace as Brussels, which wasn’t what he had told either her or me; but it did say, correctly, that he had several scars along his shoulder blades, and one from an abdominal operation.

  But I’m jumping ahead and I must mention other things first, principally how we got married. I hadn’t thought about our wedding too much, hoping that when Crishi was ready to talk about it, he would. The subject was precipitated at the time of Anna’s departure, which, like everything connected with her, went off with the maximum fuss. Although she had stayed with us barely a month, she had come with several suitcases, each one containing something very important that needed special care by the followers carrying them. She agitated and gave contradictory instructions, and when at last everything was stowed away and she was sitting in the car, she found she had forgotten her vitamin pills and someone had to run back for them. “It’s too awful,” she said, holding her pale forehead with a frail hand. “All this rushing around, it’s killing me.” And truly one felt it was too much for her and wondered how she survived her continual flying around the world. “Anyway, I’ll see you in London,” she said to Crishi, who stood with his hand on her open car window; she laid hers on top of it. “Absolutely,” he said. “In two weeks.” I had such a shock that, before we had even gone back in the house, I said to him “I didn’t know you were going to London.”