Travelers

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  “And money?” Gopi asked, with a shrewd, inquiring gesture of rubbing two fingers together.

  “Well . . . there was this little legacy my aunt left me—”

  “How much?”

  Raymond was taken aback for a moment and then said, rather cautiously, “Not all that much. . . . But enough for me to take some time off and experiment.”

  “With what?”

  “Myself.”

  Raymond smiled in embarrassment. He heard himself sounding pompous. But in any case Gopi’s eyes had again begun to wander around the room. Raymond watched him and after a while he said, “There’s something on your lip.” He took out his handkerchief and said, “No, here,” and wiped it skillfully away.

  After a pause Gopi said, “You don’t look like other English people. No, you don’t,” he insisted. “Your face is not red.”

  Raymond was as a matter of fact unnaturally pale. His hair had a reddish tint in it and he blushed very easily.

  Now Gopi was tired of sitting on the floor and making conversation. He bounded up again and began to walk around the room, picking things up here and there. He also went into the bedroom. He didn’t much like the bedcover, he said. It was not very bright. He said he liked very very bright things. “Are there any more rooms? Only these two?” He added, “There is only one bed.” He asked, “You’re not married?”

  When Raymond laughed, he said, not without reproach, “In India you would have been married long ago. . . . Will you have friends to stay with you?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Do you like friends to stay with you?”

  “Some friends, yes,” Raymond said. He added, “Very much.”

  But Gopi had already moved over to the wardrobe and opened it and was critically studying Raymond’s clothes. Although they were not very bright, Gopi liked some of them. He fingered the material, with approval and desire.

  Lee Among Hindus and Christians

  Lee had no fixed itinerary. She got on a train and got off when she felt like it. Usually she met people on the train who urged her to come and stay with them, or gave her the address of relatives who would put her up. She had begun to take such hospitality for granted. She was also beginning to find her way around the small towns where she so often landed up. They were always the same. There was a bazaar down the center and, branching off it, a network of lanes which got narrower and narrower the deeper one penetrated into them. But Lee no longer got lost among them, and she had no hesitation in making her way through the most intricate alleys or disappearing inside the darkest doorways.

  But once something went wrong. She found the address but the place was in commotion. Women were screaming inside and outside the house while a crowd stood and watched. Lee couldn’t get through and had to crane her neck to see what was going on. Some men were arguing and giving each other contrary instructions, and after a time several bent down to heave something up and place it on the shoulders of several others. Then the women redoubled their cries. Lee saw that what they were carrying was a body on a plank. It was wound in a red cloth and secured to the plank with ropes; the face was uncovered and was that of a young woman. All the men fell behind the pallbearers and they walked away in procession. Lee joined them. They walked for quite a way, chanting as they went. In between chanting they carried on fairly normal conversation with each other. Lee was asked who she was and where she had come from and what she was doing in the town. She explained how she had been given this address to stay at. One of the men said that now that would no longer be possible because of the death in the family and so she had better come home with him. Lee said all right. They got to the river and there the body was placed on the pyre and a priest said prayers and the fire was lit and the body began to burn. Lee’s new host said that it would take a long time to burn, and that they had better leave now and go home for their evening meal.

  This new house was, like the other, in a lane off the bazaar. It was reached through a dank brick passage that opened out into a spacious courtyard. Here Lee sat crosslegged on a string cot to be served with food. She was hungry and ate a lot. Meanwhile people kept coming into the courtyard, and there was an air of excitement, of turmoil even. They were discussing and arguing with passion. Lee couldn’t follow what they were saying, and when she asked, they wouldn’t tell her. But the excited talk continued, and she began to realize that it was something to do with the death. She asked, “What did she die of?”

  At first no one would answer. She understood it was something mysterious and frightening and looked from face to face.

  At last they said, “They say she was poisoned.”

  Lee recalled the young woman’s dead face; also the pallbearers and the chanting and the women wailing. Then she recalled the flames that had been lit and had crackled and begun to rise above the body; by this time the body would have been mostly consumed. “And the inquest?” Lee asked. “The police?”

  She was agitated but her hosts remained calm. They shrugged. “What can be done? It’s too late.” They shook their heads in sorrow. It was such a pity. She was young, she had only been married seven months. But her dowry had not been very big; her father had not been as generous to the son-in-law as he might have been.

  Lee asked, “Is that why they poisoned her?”

  They said, “Such things happen”; they added, “Who knows what goes on?”

  When she left that small town, Lee went to Delhi to stay in a Christian mission run by an English missionary lady called Miss Charlotte. Lee was very glad to be there. She stayed in a room with whitewashed walls which were bare except for a small icon of Christ on the cross. Another girl shared the room with her; she was called Margaret and was also traveling around India on her own. Meals were included in the price of the room and they had them in the dining room together with Miss Charlotte. There was a very old Christian bearer to serve them and the moment one meal was finished he laid the table for the next. He set out three crockery plates on the oilcloth, turning them upside down so that they wouldn’t catch the dust. When it was time for a meal, he rang a gong and Miss Charlotte came bustling in and stood behind her chair and briskly said grace. The old bearer shouted “Amen” the loudest, and when Miss Charlotte and the two girls had sat down and turned their plates the right way up, he went round the table serving them.

  Miss Charlotte had been in India for thirty years. Her mission house, a large rambling bungalow, was in a poor state of repair but she managed to keep it going and to fill it with worthwhile activity. One of the rooms was used as a school for the children of sweepers, in another girls of poor family were taught to knit and sew; a corner of the back veranda was used as a part-time dispensary. This last activity was not quite legal, for Miss Charlotte was not a qualified dispenser and could not afford to hire one. Once or twice government inspectors had come and looked grave. Altogether Miss Charlotte did not have an easy time: questions were often asked in Parliament about proselytizing missionaries, and Christian missions of varying denominations were being closed all over the country.

  The food Miss Charlotte and the two girls ate was boiled, meager, and English, except on Sundays when there was rice and curry. The dining room carried the congealed smell of a long succession of such meals. It was a cheerless place but, thanks to Miss Charlotte’s serene high spirits, their mealtimes were not cheerless. Although she was completely wrapped up in her work in India, she had not lost interest in what went on at home. By no means. Her first love was literature; her favorite novelists were George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, both of whom she read over and over again. She also had a passion for the theater, although she had never really quite taken to the cinema. But she was eager to learn about the latest developments in all the arts and asked her two guests many questions. Nothing they told her could ever shock her: she received everything quite coolly, indeed with friendly interest, and leaned across the table to hear better. These mealtime chats were so enjoyable for her that she lingered longer than she should have
done over her coffee and only managed to tear herself away when, as often happened, a message came to her to say that one of the women in the servants’ quarters had begun her labor, or there was a leper outside the kitchen waiting to be given a meal.

  Gopi Moves In with Raymond

  Gopi didn’t care where he slept—on the sofa, on the floor, on two chairs pushed together. And he fell asleep very quickly; when there was nothing more to interest him, he dropped off at once. He looked childlike and innocent with his eyes shut and his long lashes delicately spread on his cheeks. Raymond sometimes tried to arrange him more comfortably, tucking in a pillow here or there, but really it was not necessary, for Gopi was absolutely comfortable already.

  He was practically living in Raymond’s flat. It had come about quite naturally: he didn’t feel like going home, so he stayed on, from one meal to the next, from one day to the next. He liked being there. He liked being with Raymond and, just as much, he liked the flat, the bachelor’s establishment. It was quite different from anything he knew at home. He had never missed privacy and comfort because he had never known them; now that he was making their acquaintance, he found they suited him. He moved around the place like its natural lord and master. He wore Raymond’s dressing gown and silk scarves and whatever else fitted him. He took it for granted that everything that was there, everything that was Raymond’s, was his.

  This included Raymond’s servant, Shyam. He had completely got over his shyness of Shyam and had no hesitation in ordering him around like his own servant. He found it easy to ignore Shyam’s subsequent surliness, for he hardly noticed it; and it was only when Shyam refused outright to do some service for him that he reacted to him at all and then always by storming and shouting. It was up to Raymond to make what peace he could between them. When, in as delicate a manner as possible, Raymond suggested that Shyam had feelings that had to be respected, Gopi was at first astonished and then disapproving. He told Raymond that he was spoiling the servant. He was convinced he was right and set about proving it to Raymond with so much heat that Raymond realized it was useless to argue with him. In any case, he had already learned that Gopi was not amenable to argument. So he did his best to soothe Shyam and make it up to him as far as possible. Shyam kept threatening to leave and Raymond kept managing to persuade him not to, but he knew that the day might come when he would have to let Shyam go. He would be sorry when that happened, but there seemed to be no alternative.

  Lee Meets Asha

  Lee had brought several introductions from home, but she scorned to use them except when she felt in need of a really good meal. That was how she came to ring up Rao Sahib and to be invited by him to an evening party. There were many other guests and Rao Sahib did not have much time for her. He greeted her with the folded hands and obsequious smile of the gratified host but his eyes were roving above her head and, with the smile still warm on his lips, he darted away from her to greet some other newly arrived guests for whom his welcome was even more gratified and his eyes did not rove but were cast down in utter humility.

  Rao Sahib was well-born. He came from a family who had assumed a royal title several centuries ago when a soldier ancestor had seized land and set up a principality of his own. The title was still theirs, so was some of the land, but nowadays of course, if one wanted to rule, one had to be democratically elected. Rao Sahib had already had himself elected to Parliament, and he had now set his sights higher—to become by and by a minister of state, a deputy minister, a minister. All that did not come by itself. One had to put oneself out, and Rao Sahib was ready to do so. One of his assets was the ability to entertain in style. Besides the palace in his native state, he also had a handsome house in New Delhi with large reception rooms, marble floors, pillared verandas, and a garden worked by three full-time gardeners. Another asset was his wife, Sunita, who also came from a royal family (though one even more minor than Rao Sahib’s), knew how to control a houseful of servants, and was as modern in her ideas as her husband.

  The evening party to which Lee had been invited was a very large one. All the glass doors had been flung open and the guests thronged in the drawing room, on the veranda, out into the garden which had been lit with fairy lights in the trees. It was not difficult to detect the guest of honor. He was a cabinet minister and looked quite different from the other people there. He was squat, bald, and ugly, and wore a muslin dhoti which showed off his short muscular legs to their worst advantage. Rao Sahib, hovering by his side, tried hard to look less tall and elegant. But this was not possible for him. However, his guest was not in the least put out by the imposing figure towering above him. He took his host’s attentions entirely for granted and did not appear to be listening very carefully to his conversation. He was more interested in the trays being carried past by the servants and frequently stopped one and pointed at the carefully arranged canapés.

  When Lee passed, in her bright yellow peasant skirt and gypsy earrings, he pointed at her in the same way. He looked her up and down keenly. When he spoke, it was with severity. “I have seen Western boys and girls behaving in an indecent manner in public places. It is not only kissing and hugging, other things also.” His eyes weighed heavily on her; he seemed to know much and see far. “In the old days the blouse was worn with long sleeve, everything was covered up to here. Only the widows went without blouse and the upper part of their bodies exposed. Who cares about such old women? But in a young girl maidenly modesty is the first consideration. I speak to you as an elder brother to his sister.”

  No one else took any notice of Lee. It was easy for them to see that she was not an interesting personality so they did not waste their efforts in engaging her in conversation. She didn’t mind. She was looking forward to the buffet supper that was to be served, and when it came she was not disappointed. Everything was laid out resplendently on the vast dining-room table: an endless succession of dishes piled with pilaos, curries, kebabs, salads, baked chickens, stuffed eggs, pickles, and curds. At one end of the table there were pyramids of Worcester plates and cut-work napkins and heavily decorated silver cutlery; Sunita, who had a real flair for table decoration, had arranged the flowers and crystal dishes with her own hands. Everything shone and glittered under the chandeliers. Lee began at once to move around the table, piling her plate with everything it would hold. The other ladies behaved with more circumspection and decorum, drawing back a little for each other, recommending one dish above another, exchanging the news of the day as they hovered with delicate forks over the serving dishes. Lee elbowed her way through without constraint. She had been living with Miss Charlotte for some time, and all those cheerful but meager mission meals had left her feeling very hungry.

  She took her heaped plate and sat with it on the steps of the veranda. Here she could look into the reception rooms sparkling with ladies in silks and jewels. At the same time she could look out into the garden which was quite deserted now and lit only by the colored lights glimmering through the leaves of the trees; it was silent here, except for a fountain. Lee enjoyed being on her own. The food on her plate was excellent. It was the most refined example of Indian cooking she had yet tasted, full of delicate flavors and essences.

  Now she became witness of a curious scene. A car appeared at the entrance gate but could not enter because of the throng of cars in the driveway. Some furious hooting followed. The watchman went running out, was greeted by an angry female voice, came running back again. Lee got up to see. It was a taxi with two women in it. One of them was leaning out of the window and shouting and snapping her fingers after the departing watchman. She ordered the driver to keep blowing his horn. She was becoming more and more angry. The watchman came running out again, followed by Rao Sahib and one or two servants. Rao Sahib was agitated. As soon as she caught sight of him, the woman in the taxi shouted, “Get them out! Out of the way!” She gesticulated her hand as if to sweep away all the cars blocking the drive.

  Rao Sahib begged her to be reasonable. He asked how was it
possible to remove all his guests’ cars? She would have to get out and walk up to the door.

  “With all this luggage?” There was indeed a great deal of it loaded inside and on top of the taxi. “And with Bulbul in that state—as usual she was sick on the plane. She is disgusting.” Nevertheless she got out of the taxi. She seized Rao Sahib’s face and kissed him several times.

  He asked, “But why didn’t you phone? Send a wire?”

  “To come to my own brother’s house? Anyway, there wasn’t time. I decided quite suddenly. I couldn’t stand it one second more. Bombay is hell. You will have to come out of there, Bulbul, and walk, nobody is going to drive you any further.”

  Bulbul crept slowly out of the other taxi door. She was groaning and looked very miserable, bowed and bundled up from head to foot in a huge silk sari discarded by her mistress. Asha bustled about and made the servants bustle about to unload her luggage. Lee was still watching. It was some time before Asha saw her and then she stepped up close to her and peered into her face.

  “Please go in,” Rao Sahib told Lee nervously. “Kindly help yourself to the sweet dish.”

  Asha was now peering at Lee’s earrings. She gave them a swing. “Where did you get them? I like them. They’re my style.”

  Leaving the servants to struggle with her luggage, she turned and walked through the gate to the house. Rao Sahib followed her. Lee also followed, and Bulbul crept in the rear. Asha was making straight for the reception rooms but Rao Sahib said, “You will want to take rest.”

  She laughed. “All right, all right, I know I look terrible. It’s Bulbul’s fault. She was sick all over me—she has absolutely no self-control. You can go now, darling,” she told Rao Sahib. “You must get back to your guests.”

  She overrode his protests by kissing him again and then turning him round and giving him a push. She went up the stairs leading to the first-floor verandas. A bedroom was unlocked for her and she went in and gave orders as to the disposal of her luggage. Bulbul fell straight to the floor and lay there completely still.