Travelers

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  “All right, Gerald, I challenge you! What do we have in common?”

  “My dear Deepak—two hundred years of history to begin with.”

  Deepak waved this aside with excitable gestures at variance with his cool English accent. “You foisted yourselves on us and it took all we had to throw you out again. If that’s what you mean by special relationship—”

  “But can you deny that in the process we did, like it or not, influence one another? That to some extent we did learn to speak one another’s language?”

  “Excuse me, Gerald, we had willy-nilly to learn yours; you didn’t bother about ours.”

  “I don’t only mean language, per se, Deepak. Look at the Americans—they speak English too, don’t they—”

  “If you like to call that English,” shrugged another Indian guest speaking in the same Oxford accent as Deepak’s. There was general laughter. For the moment English and Indians were united in a pleasant feeling of superior cultivation. Just then one bearer went round deftly substituting plates while another filled up glasses with the wine that was to accompany the new course.

  “Do you feel there’s a special relationship?” asked Raymond’s neighbor, the British Council wife, a young woman in a cocktail frock that left her bony shoulders bare.

  Raymond considered the question and had finally to say that he honestly didn’t know.

  “I don’t know either,” said his neighbor with the same honesty. “We certainly don’t seem to have too many Indian friends.”

  “Oh, I have Indian friends all right,” said Raymond.

  “Real friends?”

  “Very real,” he said with feeling.

  “You’re lucky then. The only time we ever seem to meet any Indians is at dinners like today and cocktails and receptions and things. And they always seem to be the same people.”

  Both she and Raymond looked across at Deepak. He was sipping from his glass of wine and as he did so exclaimed with appreciation, “Oh, I say.”

  “Well, Deepak,” said the host, flushed with food, wine, and good humor, “you’re in such a cantankerous mood with us today that I’m glad something pleases you at our table.”

  “My dear chap!” cried Deepak, holding up his slender brown hand in mock horror. “But it’s all entirely impersonal, don’t you see! On the personal level, my goodness don’t you know what feelings I have for you and of course need I add”—and here he turned and raised his glass and made a courtly inclination—“for our most charming hostess.” She raised her glass back at him and murmured warmly, “Dear Deepak,” while making an almost invisible sign to one of the bearers, who was tardy in passing round the parsley sauce.

  “I feel so odd,” said Raymond’s neighbor. “I mean, living the way we do, how can we, how do we have the conscience?”

  Raymond looked back into her earnest eyes. She was intense and sincere and looked at him as if perhaps she expected an answer. But he only nodded, a little ashamed of not feeling as deeply as she did. As a matter of fact, his feelings were engaged elsewhere. He was thinking, as he thought all the time, where Gopi was now, with whom, what was he doing.

  “When I first came,” his English neighbor continued, “I tried to do something about it—I don’t mean about things in general—how could I? how could anyone?—but just something to salve my own conscience. I joined all sorts of organizations and one of them sent me to distribute free milk to underprivileged children. . . . David told me I shouldn’t. He warned me.”

  Just then his other neighbor claimed Raymond’s attention. “Have you been to Kasauli? Oh, you must go. It is so quiet and peaceful, like an English village. All the cottages are in English style with honeysuckle. So pretty.” A sweet, happy smile was on her face.

  “Those children were underprivileged all right,” said the British Council wife. “But that doesn’t mean they got any of that milk.” Raymond turned back to her. Her face was plain and gaunt, so unlike his other neighbor, who was plump and, though middle-aged, had a glowing brown skin and wore flowers in her hair. “It was powdered milk in tins. Very convenient for selling on the black market. What can you do? Where do you start?”

  The general conversation was getting more than animated. Several guests had raised their voices and were shouting across each other. One Indian gentleman kept striking the table with the palm of his hand and exclaiming “Hear, hear!” in approval.

  “Within four years we shall be completely self-reliant in the production of screw valves!” Deepak shouted triumphantly at Gerald. “Another four years and our rolling mills will be supplying all our needs in small-scale hardware!”

  “I know—a simply splendid job—but my point—”

  “If you’re going to say who built the roads, who gave you the railways, then my answer is indeed yes, but for whose benefit? Tell me that—for whose benefit?”

  “What about Calcutta?” cried another guest, and at that there was such a hubbub that the hostess had to clap her hands for order: “You’re all getting far, far too noisy!” she reprimanded. “You’re supposed to be eating your pudding, not flying at each other’s throats. I’m ashamed of the lot of you,” she said in a severe voice, though accompanied by a merry wink.

  “Do you know the Haffners?” said Raymond’s Indian neighbor, helping herself with pleasure to the dessert held out to her by a bearer. “Such a nice young couple with UNESCO. Marilyn is expecting a baby soon. Last week they gave a lovely dinner—there was a marzipan dessert, it was colored green and in the shape of a fish. Oh, all right, just one more.” She laughed indulgently at herself as she took another spoonful before allowing the bearer to pass on.

  Raymond thought that Gopi might quite suddenly have decided to come back. Perhaps he had got tired of whatever he was doing—he did get tired of people and things quite quickly—or perhaps he wanted to come and make it up. It might well be that at this very moment he was in the flat. Perhaps he would wait for a while but then he would get bored with no one there and nothing to do and would go away again.

  “David says it’s no use feeling guilty,” said the English neighbor. “He says that’s simple self-indulgence. And pity of course is an insult. . . . What’s the matter, am I being a bore?” she asked in surprise, for Raymond was suddenly on his feet.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I am so sorry,” he turned his apologies to the hostess. “If I could get to the telephone. So careless of me, I completely . . .”

  Everyone was understanding and nice. He was taken out to the telephone. He dialed the flat. No, said Shyam, no one had come. No, there had been no telephone. No, no note had been left. At last Raymond asked, “Gopi?” “No, Sahib,” Shyam said with satisfaction, “he has not called.”

  Raymond stayed for a while by the telephone, looking absently at a picture hanging there, an original abstract by a talented young Indian painter. Then he dialed again. He dialed Rao Sahib’s house and asked for Asha. He was given the extension to her room but it was not she who answered. It was Bulbul. When they managed to understand one another, he gathered that Asha was not there, she had gone out. Where? Out. Suddenly Bulbul gave a scream of laughter in his ear and began to talk very fast. He could not understand what she said but it seemed to him that he heard the name “Gopi” in her stream of excited talk. He became excited too and shouted, “Gopi? She’s gone with Gopi?” Bulbul went on and on, giggling and babbling, full of side-splitting tales. And Raymond could not understand a word!

  A bearer passed, bearing coffee on a tray. Raymond appealed to him; he said if he could listen to the lady at the other end, if perhaps he would be kind enough to translate a little of what she was saying? The bearer put down his tray and took the receiver. He listened and Raymond saw the expression on his face change. He was first amazed, then outraged. He handed the receiver back to Raymond. “She is not speaking nice language,” he told him and, taking up his tray, departed with dignity.

  Red Roses

  When Lee arrived at Rao Sahib’s house,
Asha was not there and Bulbul was just leaving in a taxi with a suitcase. She invited Lee to join her in the taxi. She was in high good humor. When Lee asked her whether she was taking her to Asha, she dissolved in laughter and poked Lee playfully as if there were a lovely secret. All the way she sat in a corner of the taxi with her sari pulled over her mouth soundlessly laughing into it. Lee didn’t know what to make of this but thought she had better wait and see. After a while Bulbul poked her again and, opening the suitcase just a little way, invited Lee to peep inside. Lee saw a lot of lace underwear and several transparent negligees before Bulbul shut the suitcase again, very quickly as if afraid her precious secret would fly out there and then.

  They drove to the hotel with the swimming pool. Bulbul seemed to know her way around there very well. She went straight up in the lift to the top floor and beckoned Lee to follow her. They went in. Asha lay on a huge bed of gilded wrought iron, amid an expanse of pale lilac sheets and puffed-up pillows. Her limbs were disposed languorously and her eyes were half shut. When she saw Lee, she gave an exclamation of pleasure and, opening her arms wide, invited Lee into them. Lee could not refuse to enter this embrace. After a while she discovered that Asha was silently laughing to herself in the same way as Bulbul had done.

  At last she let Lee go but only to seize her hands and press them hard between her rings, saying, “Oh, my darling, my Lee, what shall I tell you.”

  “What?” Lee asked.

  At that Bulbul collapsed again. Asha’s eyes danced as she looked at Lee: “Well, sweetheart,” she said. “It’s happened again.”

  “What’s happened again?”

  “I’m in love.”

  Lee suppressed a groan of exasperation. She disengaged her hands from Asha’s and got up. She pressed a few buttons and concealed lighting sprang up here and there and taped music began to play. “Nice place you’ve got here,” she said.

  Asha laughed. “Don’t pretend to be so cold. I know how you really are.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t pretend. I know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “He told me.”

  “Who’s he?”

  From among the clothes piled on an armchair Bulbul extracted a pair of man’s shorts and held them up for all to see. Asha scolded her but she didn’t mean it; really she was as amused as Bulbul. Lee tried to ignore them both and stuck her nose into a great bunch of red roses that stood on a table. There was a little card in an envelope next to the vase.

  “Read it!” Asha called from the bed.

  Lee drew out the card. It said, “For Asha and Gopi from Asha.” She had used her lipstick to write this and also drawn a heart stuck through with an arrow. Lee put the card back.

  “Now do you know who told me?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know what there was to tell.”

  Asha made a playful exclamation, but the next moment she was quite serious and said, “Come here, darling.” Reluctantly Lee went back to the bed. Asha remained serious and it was in an almost solemn voice that she said, “You mustn’t be ashamed of it.”

  “Oh, Lord, Asha.”

  “It’s a very beautiful act of nature.” As she said this, Asha’s voice was not only solemn but also lowered in respect so that Lee couldn’t help laughing.

  “What did he tell you?” she asked.

  Gopi and Asha

  As a matter of fact, in recounting it to Asha, Gopi had rather exaggerated his afternoon of love with Lee. He wished to impress Asha. She impressed him so much that he wanted to give her something in return. He succeeded in intriguing her and she kept asking him more and more questions so that, bit by bit, almost in spite of himself, he had transformed that unsatisfactory encounter into something far more resonant.

  That was during one of their first days in the hotel suite Asha had engaged for them. Gopi was deeply thrilled to be there. He kept turning on the taped music and the concealed lighting. He also studied the room-service menu and it enchanted him to order dishes he had never heard of and have them brought up to the room at all hours of the day or night. He moved from one pastel-covered telephone to the other; he ordered and countermanded his orders. Sometimes when Asha slept—and she slept quite a lot, overcome with love and all those drinks Gopi kept ordering—he went down to the swimming pool and swam rapidly up and down as if wanting to exhaust his own inexhaustible energy; or he went into the smart men’s shop in the hotel lobby and ordered clothes on credit and ran up quickly to the room to try them on while Asha watched him.

  But when she called him, he willingly left the mirror to go to where she lay on the bed. At such moments he became like a child with her. He laid his head on her bosom while she stroked his hair and murmured to him. He shut his eyes and she tenderly kissed the closed lids. Then she began to question him in a soft voice. She wanted to know every detail of his experience with Lee. “I always thought she was a cold girl,” she said and then looked at him so expectantly that what could he do but laugh ironically and say “Cold?” like a person who knew more than he would say. And she was delighted and kissed him again and again. At other times she would ask him about other girls, and then too he felt compelled to hint at ineffable experiences. But in fact his adventures in that field had never been all that satisfactory. He and his friends had several times visited the prostitute district but no one had bothered to take much trouble for them. They were just boys, young and undemanding and very easily satisfied. Once even they had been bundled out quite unceremoniously when a party of older men with more money to spend had unexpectedly arrived.

  Everything that he had been disappointed in on those previous occasions he now found in Asha. Of course he was also thrilled by the luxurious surroundings in which their relationship unfolded—how different from those slum tenements in which the prostitutes lived!—but more than that, much much more, was Asha herself. It was true, she was not young, indeed she was old, her body was soft and sagging but, as he pressed himself against it and inhaled the odor of her flesh (pampered for a lifetime with oils and French perfumes), a rich new world opened to his mind as well as to his senses. His love for her was also his love for her past and everything she had been and done in it. There were her rich and famous friends; there were her lovers. There was her husband, who had treated her so cruelly and yet whom she had loved so gloriously. He had been a spendthrift and perhaps in many ways a worthless fellow but he had been a poet. All these years after his death, Asha was still suffused by the poetry he had taught her and she often quoted Urdu couplets to Gopi that ravished his soul away. Poetry for him, as for her, was a reflection of—a straining after—all that was finest and best in human life and as she spoke these verses—“O nightingale, forgive me your death, it was my tears that drowned you”—their feelings rose to a pitch.

  Lee

  Margaret has heard of a new swami. He’s supposed to be wonderful. He speaks English and lives in Benares. She wants me to go with her. I might.

  Today the mission had its expulsion order from the government of India. It wasn’t quite unexpected but all the same it was sad. After all these years here Miss Charlotte will have to leave. She didn’t say much—in fact, she didn’t really say anything—but was busy all day as usual. In the evening Raymond came. I had asked him to come and meet Miss Charlotte and I’m glad I did, it was certainly a success. I can see now that Raymond has lived mostly with middle-aged ladies and probably he misses their company here, for he was so pleased with Miss Charlotte. She asked him all those questions she’s always asking Margaret and me, only he was much better at answering them. It turned out his mother has the same literary tastes as Miss Charlotte—terribly fond of George Eliot and Hardy—though his aunt (the one who died and left him a legacy) had more of a preference for the Brontës and the metaphysical poets. He said they often read to each other at home, he and his mother and his aunt when she was still with them; and Miss Charlotte said that they had had readings at home too when she was a girl, she remembered them so wel
l, they had read all of Dickens and Thackeray and other classics. She thought nothing helped a child form good literary tastes so much as such readings aloud in the family circle, and Raymond agreed. They agreed about everything. They really took to each other.

  All the same, I could see he was quite pleased when she went to bed and he was left alone with me. I knew he wanted to ask me something and also that he didn’t know how to start. He went on talking to me about things that didn’t matter a damn to him (or to me), just so as to keep polite conversation going and not make it look as if there was anything he wanted except only the pleasure of my company. So at last I interrupted him to say I knew where Gopi was. To which he said, “Oh, yes,” and his voice shook only the tiniest bit and he seemed about to continue his boring conversation. But I cut him short again and told him about Gopi and Asha. I felt someone had to do this, though I wish it didn’t have to be me. He is very pale anyway but now his face was quite chalky. He quickly lowered his eyes with the ginger lashes, I suppose so that I wouldn’t be able to see the expression in them. But he still went on trying to make indifferent conversation.

  I said, “Raymond, you don’t have to be so controlled, not all the time.”

  He said, “Then what do you expect me to do?”—quite dry and sharp.

  Suddenly I began telling him about the new guru Margaret has heard about. I said she and I were thinking of going there. He pretended to be interested in what I was saying, though when I was finished there was a pause and I could see he was thinking of something quite different. I said, “Why don’t you come too?”

  “And do what?”

  I said, “Raymond, please don’t pretend to be more stupid than you are.”

  Perhaps I sounded a bit hurt—anyway he made an effort to concentrate more of his attention on me. He said, quite gently and patiently, that he was sorry but surely I knew that he didn’t care for these things. It might be that he was wrong, he said, but he simply wasn’t interested. I said it was wrong—what was the use of coming to India if all you did here was to be a tourist? Tourists don’t live, I told him, they only look—and looking is nothing, it doesn’t change you, it doesn’t help you really and truly find yourself. He pretended to be listening but he wasn’t at all, I could see that very well. His thoughts were quite different and how they made him suffer. That made me mad—that he should suffer like that and be so entangled in these feelings and making no effort to free himself. And I decided there and then that yes, I would go with Margaret. I was fed up with everything here, with all these small things that engulfed people. I didn’t want anything like that to happen to me.