Travelers

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  She’s a very definite kind of girl. Even her coming here was a definite decision. She didn’t just drift into it the way I did (because I’d heard about it and because other people had done it and because there wasn’t anything else). Margaret came because she had to. It was an active step of revolt against her life at home and her family and what they and everyone else expected of her. None of this was good enough or true enough for Margaret. What really finally set her off was her sister’s wedding. It was the usual kind of affair and we all know what they are. But for Margaret it was worse than just unpleasant, it was a catalytic experience which showed her the futility—no, not futility, what’s the word she used?—anyway, this nothingness in which everyone lived and to which she too was expected to commit herself. But there she drew the line; that she could not have.

  It might be all right for her sister Penny, but she and Penny had always been quite different. Penny liked clothes and dances and shopping and all the things their mother wanted them to like; she went out a lot and had different boy friends, and now she’d decided to marry this boy friend who was exactly like all the others only more so. Everyone was terrifically pleased and there was going to be such a wedding. Preparations for it went on for weeks and weeks. Penny and their mother were radiant, and of course no one noticed about Margaret, the way she was feeling. But she was glad about that, it gave her privacy and protection in which to work out her destiny. Finally there was this definite climax, which was when they went to buy her bridesmaid’s dress. Naturally she was to be a bridesmaid, everyone expected it, she herself expected it really—she hadn’t seriously questioned it but went along with the idea in the same negative way as with everything else. She was in the shop trying on this bridesmaid’s dress, which was pale green with lace and rosebuds, and she could see it didn’t suit her at all (no, those sort of clothes wouldn’t suit her because she’s got rather a stocky sort of figure and pale plump cheeks). But everyone was pretending she looked nice, and she could see her mother and Penny smiling approval behind her in the mirror, and the saleslady as well—all three of them standing there with this lying smile. At that moment Margaret knew she could not go on, that it was all a lie which she had to reject with her whole being. Terrific arguments followed, naturally, for days and days, but Margaret held out and she didn’t stay for the wedding either, she was already in Bombay when it took place and so engrossed that she even forgot to send a telegram.

  I admire Margaret. I like having discussions with her and I’m very glad I met her. What she says is always interesting, and her purpose and everything she is. And I like staying here in our room in the mission, and our meals with Miss Charlotte, and Miss Charlotte herself. But all the same—I don’t know—I do get bored sometimes. Especially at night. Everyone in the mission goes to sleep terribly early. They all get up very early too. But I can’t fall asleep. There isn’t a sound anywhere except for the fan creaking as it goes slowly round and round (it’s a very ancient fan). The old servant lies out on the veranda on a string cot and sometimes he cries out in his sleep. I feel restless, I don’t know what to do. I lean out of the window. The garden is wild and overgrown and full of exotic bushes with very strong scents. There’s something sinful about these scents and also about the too bright moonlight that comes in through the window and falls on the whitewashed wall and the icon of Christ hanging there. It’s so disturbing out there in the garden, so different from what it is in here. I keep thinking there must be tigers behind those bushes ready to spring, and surely there must be snakes in all that uncut grass.

  At such moments I often think of Asha. Then I wish I were with her rather than here, and I even think should I get dressed and make my way across town to visit her. She’d be pleased to see me and not all that surprised either. She always stays up late. She doesn’t usually have her dinner till nearly midnight.

  Asha Opens Her Heart

  Asha said, “I’m glad you’ve come, darling.”

  She was unhappy, she had been unhappy the whole day long. She had come to Delhi because she was tired of Bombay, but now Delhi was not working out any better. She had come with such an open heart but no one cared for her. All they cared about here was the changing structure of society and the future of the country within the framework of a socialistic pattern of development. Rao Sahib of course couldn’t talk or think of anything except his Parliament and parliamentary affairs, and Sunita was just as bad with all the women’s meetings she had become involved with in order to further her husband’s career.

  There had been a meeting in the house that morning. Fifty absolutely horrible women had come. Rows of chairs were set out in the dining room and there had been speeches. God knows what it was all about: one moment they spoke about family planning and then it was adult literacy and then free medical aid for village women. Such long speeches they were too. Asha had done her best to sit through them patiently, but it had not been easy. And she had felt very much out of place. Most of the women there were housewives in cotton saris. Asha was in one of her silk trouser suits and she wore a matching pink turban because Bulbul had washed her hair that morning and it was still in curlers. She pretended she didn’t notice the way everyone was staring at her and she sat with her legs stretched out and blowing smoke rings at the ceiling from her cigarette. At one point she got very thirsty and snapped her fingers at one of the bearers to bring her a drink. That created quite a stir. Asha noticed that Sunita, who was the chairman of the meeting and sat out in front, was beginning to get that tight, tense look Asha knew well. Asha liked Sunita, she knew she had her good points, but there were also things about her that Asha couldn’t stand. She thought about these things as she sat there having her drink. When her glass was empty, she called the servant to refill it. All the women watched Asha out of the corner of their eyes. Sunita’s face was now not only tense but anguished, and she kept pushing nervously at the puff of hair piled on top of her head. But Asha was feeling much more relaxed and cheerful.

  Unfortunately the woman who was giving a speech wouldn’t stop, she went on and on talking with excitement about the rights of women from the lower income groups to free legal advice and representation. She was an ugly woman with a mustache and huge arms swollen to a diseased size above the elbows. That wasn’t her fault, Asha knew, but all the same who asked her to stand up there and lecture people and not know when to stop? She was spoiling Asha’s mood. And there was Sunita up there, so fidgety and nervous and waiting for what Asha might do next. Asha almost felt as if she was expected to do something. She expected it of herself—she wasn’t born to sit among a lot of housewives and listen to speeches about women’s rights. She began to drum her feet on the floor, the way people sitting in the cheap seats in the cinema do when they are not satisfied with the entertainment. This amused her and she did it louder and also began to clap her hands in a rhythmic, regular beat. A sea of whispers, hushes and shushes, and subdued cries of “Shame!” began to surround her. Sunita half rose in her chair and rang a little bell for order and the speaker raised her voice to be heard above the noise. All this acted as a challenge to Asha—perhaps she even lost her head a little—she climbed up on her chair and now she was no longer the audience in a cinema but the audience at a wrestling match and like them she made fighting movements with her arms, flailing them around while shouting “Break his leg! Pull his arms out! Kill him!” and accompanied herself with cheers.

  Naturally, Sunita had been very upset and she had stayed so all day. When Sunita was upset, her hair remained as sleek as ever and she cried with only one or two refined tears that rolled like pearls down her face and did it no damage at all. So Asha didn’t feel bad—not till later when Rao Sahib came home and was told about what had happened. Rao Sahib spoke to Asha more in sorrow than in anger. There had been so many similar incidents in the past, his anger had all spent itself and there was only sadness left. When Rao Sahib was sad, Asha was too. She loved him very much—not for what he was now but for what he had been i
n the past when they were children together. He had been a very fat child and the doctor had forbidden all sweets and chocolates; but Asha had stolen them for him and they had both locked themselves in the bathroom so that he could eat. She could still see his fat cheeks bulging and chewing —he had eaten very quickly in case he was caught and all these delicious things taken away from him before he could get his fill. He still had a very plump face, and although now he wore a mustache and quite a dignified expression as became an M.P. and there were big puffy rings under his eyes (cow’s eyes like Asha’s own), she remembered the little boy chewing chocolates and it melted her heart so that she wanted to cry. And it wasn’t only the way Rao Sahib looked that affected her strongly, but what he was saying too. He was so right. He said what was to happen, what would become of her, how could she go on in this way: her escapades had been bad enough when she was a young girl but now! What were they to say to her now? What could anyone say to her? Asha had begged him not to go on, to spare her. Everything he said she said to herself a hundred times a day. If he was in despair with her, that was nothing compared to the despair she inspired in herself.

  All this she told Lee with passionate contrition so that Lee became involved. There were just the two of them up; the rest of Rao Sahib’s household was fast asleep. It was about two o’clock in the morning. They were down in the drawing room because Asha couldn’t bear it up in her own room—she couldn’t bear the sight of her bed, which suggested nights of agonized thought. She had turned on all the chandeliers in the drawing room; she wanted as much light and life as possible. Everything sparkled and glowed—the cut-glass vases, the ormolu mirrors, the Persian rugs, the gold-brocade cushions, the seventeenth-century miniatures of doe-eyed girls engaged in spring rites framed on the walls: but the room remained desolate with just the two of them in it and profound silence all around. From time to time the watchman peered in at them through the open glass doors, and Sunita’s two little Pomeranians had come down to snuggle on footstools, glad to have someone awake and keep them company, even if it was only Asha, who didn’t care for them.

  “I hate it,” Asha said suddenly. “It’s the worst thing that can happen to anyone. You don’t know what it’s like—to get old, I mean. I never thought about it when I was your age. I thought it would go on forever, I would always have a good time and be in love and have men in love with me. That’s the best, by the way,” she added and unexpectedly her face lit up.

  Lee wasn’t interested—she was really quite the wrong person to make this kind of confession to.

  “To have someone really, really mad about you—so that he would do anything—and so anything you do, every time you care to smile at him, or just accept a present from him, it would just drive him crazy with joy. But it’s nice the other way round too—when it is you who are crazy: only that way there is such a lot of pain. So much suffering.” She saw Lee did not enter into her feelings and asked, “Haven’t you ever been in love?”

  “No,” Lee said decisively; and added as decisively, “And I don’t want to be either.”

  “Oh, Lee, Lee.”

  “Why should I?” Lee said. “It seems such a small thing—to get worked up like that just for one person.”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  “I know I don’t. That’s why I’ve come to India—to try and learn.” Lee was very serious; she sat bolt upright and frowned with concentrated thought. Her long earrings trembled a little against her neck.

  “You have lovely eyes,” Asha said. “What color are they? Gray? Or green? Lovely.” She gazed at Lee with hunger: to have such skin! Untouched, unflawed.

  But Lee was taken up with trying to express her thoughts: “If it’s really like you say—like everyone says—then it’s a waste. I mean, such feelings, they should go for something higher.”

  “There is nothing higher.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Listen to me. . . . Should I be telling you this? God knows. But I will because I love you. I truly truly love you, Lee, like a dear little sister.” She put out her hand and snatched Lee’s lying in the lap of her peasant skirt. She kissed it and then she squeezed it; she wore many rings which hurt Lee a bit.

  “You’ve seen his picture on my dressing table? My husband. He was a rotter. I can’t tell you. He was a rotter through and through. It wasn’t only other women—but with boys too. . . . For him I was only an object—less, less than an object—for an object you can have some respect, you don’t want to break it for nothing, it has some value. But for him I was only there to be ill-treated and crushed, the way he wouldn’t do to a paid woman. But I was his wife and the only pleasure he took in me was to be able to humiliate me, to bring me lower than the dust under his feet. You don’t like to hear all this, I can see from your face.”

  “Well, it’s only that it’s so painful, Asha.”

  “Yes, it was painful—terribly, terribly painful. But also you don’t know what joy! What bliss and happiness I had in him! Not at the end—then everything went—he went—he was a sick man, he had cirrhosis of the liver, that’s what he died of. But in our first years together, I can’t describe to you—oh, my God, what can I say? Even to think of it is unbearable. . . . And what is also unbearable is to think that it has gone and there is nothing like it any more and won’t be ever again. Now what is left for me? How should I spend my days? How go from one day to the other? You tell me.”

  “I can’t tell you,” Lee said.

  “I know you can’t. What should you know about it, my poor lamb? But don’t go away. Stay with me. You have no idea how lovely it is for me to have you here. Shall I put on a record? Should we dance?” She rose impetuously but stumbled over Sunita’s little white Pomeranian and gave it a kick that sent it flying from its footstool.

  Lee watched impassively. She had never cared much for dogs, especially not pampered little lap dogs; and here in India they infuriated her.

  Raymond Writes to His Mother

  “. . . Whereas a well-off middle-class Indian home will be stuffed with all the material possessions it can hold, the less affluent live in rather a bleak way. You remember I wrote to you about that rather nice boy I met, Gopi? Well he took me to tea with his family. His father is dead and his mother lives with his sisters and I think some more relatives in a couple of rooms in the upstairs part of a crooked little house in a very crowded locality. I don’t know how many people are living in that house. I’m told only two families, Gopi’s and the landlord’s downstairs. But what families! That place was bulging. Most of Gopi’s family had been banished into the second room and all that could be heard from them was whispers and suppressed giggles. Whenever the door opened they took the opportunity to peer in. Inside the room there was only Gopi, myself, his mother, and a couple of sisters who had been allowed in because they had to serve the tea. Conversation was very, very difficult. The two sisters didn’t say anything and the mother couldn’t say anything because she spoke no English. So she and I had to exchange a succession of smiles and she kept pushing plates at me and said, ‘Eat, eat.’ And I did eat—heaps of sweetmeats and other heaps of salty, spiced things. And the sisters kept coming in with more dishes and they kept refilling my plate and I kept at it manfully. I had to! It was the only thing to do, it was what I was there for; apart from feeding me they didn’t know what to do with me.

  “But they had taken such a lot of trouble. Not only frying all that food but cleaning up the room and making it as nice as they knew how. Only I’m sorry to say they didn’t know how very well—esthetic living isn’t something they ever pay much attention to, I think. There’s hardly any furniture, just a sofa with worn-out springs and a couple of hard chairs which I think had been borrowed. The crockery too seemed to have been borrowed and none of it matched and some of it had cracks with dirt ingrained in them. Yes, I know, unforgivable of me to notice these things—but I promise I didn’t make what you call my fastidious face, I really watched myself and did my best
to be enthusiastic over everything. Perhaps I overdid it a bit—an awful lot of ‘delicious’ and ‘divine’ and ‘most kind’ and ‘thank you so much’—but I dare say you would call that erring in the right direction. And I smiled, I think, continuously. So did Gopi’s mother; it was all we could do. Sometimes a harassed expression would come over her face, and I saw she was perspiring with effort and every now and again she wiped her face with her veil. I too perspired, with effort and with heat.

  “The only relief from the silence that engulfed our tea party came from the people downstairs, who seemed to be having a row. At one point they got very noisy indeed—and this rather animated our party and Gopi and his mother and sisters had a lot of uncomplimentary things to say about their neighbors. Evidently relations are strained. When the party was over and I was led away down the stairs, I was told to take no notice of them, which I didn’t though they came pouring out to have a look at me; obediently I never glanced in their direction and neither did I turn my head when one of them called after me ‘Good morning, sir,’ which Gopi said was just a characteristic piece of impudence on their part. . . .”