Company of Women

by Khushwant Singh

  ‘That was heavenly,’ I said. ‘Don’t you think so?’

  ‘Never known anything better in my life,’ she replied with a smile. ‘But let’s not try to repeat it?’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘This kind of love-making in which every part of your body makes love to every part of your partner’s is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Dwell on it in your mind, never try to relive it in action. It will be a great disappointment.’

  Molly was by no means good-looking by north Indian standards: too dark, too short. Behind my back my friends’ wives would ask, ‘What on earth does he see in her? With his money and looks he could have got a much better looking and well-educated girl for the asking.’ And their husbands would smirk and reply: ‘She’s probably very good in bed. You don’t have to have a fair skin and a BA degree to be a good lay.’ And the wives would snort, ‘As if that is all that matters in marriage. Any wife can be a good lay if her husband knows how to lay her.’ And more of such claptrap.

  I wasn’t sure what Molly would think of a long-term commitment to me. The way she talked gave me the impression that she missed Goa very much. I could not very well ask her how long she meant to stay, as she might construe it as my wanting to get rid of her—which was far from the truth. I had enjoyed her being with me better than the company of all the other women I had known. But for how long? I knew she wrote to her mother every week: the letter was meant for the entire family. She received no post as, very sensibly, she had left no mailing address. One evening I asked her, ‘What did you tell your parents back home when you left for Delhi?’

  ‘I said I was going to treat an old woman suffering from partial paralysis. I told them I didn’t know how long I would be away because I had no idea how long this lady would need my services. Perhaps you can tell me. I know you won’t marry me, and I don’t want to marry you either. It would never work. So I’ll stay as long as you want me around. Don’t make it too long as it will create problems for both of us. Also don’t make it too short as that will hurt my feelings.’

  How much truer and matter-of-fact could anyone be! I was overcome by her candour and gave her a kiss of gratitude. ‘Molly, you are the nicest girl I have ever met,’ I told her truthfully. ‘I think I’m falling in love with you.’

  ‘Cut out the crap about love,’ she snapped, surprising me with her sudden fierceness. ‘You just enjoy being fucked by me. You’ll soon tire of it. I have an insatiable appetite for sex, mister. You won’t be able to cope with me for too long. Yes or no?’

  She laughed uproariously.

  ‘Yes or no?’ she repeated, waiting for an answer.

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘You may be a lot younger, Molly Gomes, but I’ll match you fuck for fuck till kingdom come.’

  ‘Amen!’

  Molly stayed with me for three months. It was becoming a little awkward for both of us. I was asked by more than one of my friends whether there was any truth in the rumour that I was planning to marry a Goan lady doctor. I denied it vehemently and replied: ‘She’s treating a paralytic who needs daily therapy.’ They would go on to ask, ‘How did you get to know her?’ I did not like that kind of interrogation. Molly also felt that her family and friends in Goa would be wondering why she had been away so long. She might also be losing her business contacts with five star hotels. ‘If my regular clients don’t find me they’ll find others. How will I earn my bread and butter?’ she asked.

  I left the decision to her. It was she who finally asked me to book her on a flight to Goa.

  ‘Molly, must you go? And so soon?’ I protested.

  ‘I think I must,’ she replied, ‘and it’s not as soon as you think. It’s been a full three months and a little more. All good things must come to an end one day, Mr Kumar. As does life.’

  Although the foreign tourist season was ending, many Indians were availing themselves of cheaper rates offered by hotels. My travel agent was able to get a seat for her, executive class, on a flight a week later. It left Delhi at a reasonable hour, 11.30 a.m. When I handed her the ticket, she clung to me. We made love. We made love every day of the week left to us. ‘I must give you your money’s worth,’ she said one day after a prolonged session in bed. ‘You are worth a lakh of rupees every time,’ I told her.

  ‘Oh yeah? Then you owe me at least eighty lakhs. I’ve kept a count in my private diary but I won’t charge you a single paise more than we bargained for as I’ve got more out of you than I got from any other man in my life. My womb’s got a tankful of your seed. All wasted. Not one bambino.’

  We made love the morning she was to leave. I drove her to the airport. As her flight was called, I embraced her and gave her a passionate farewell kiss. ‘Molly, promise you’ll write. We must keep in touch for as long as we can.’

  She did not make any promise. Just waved to me and was lost in the crowd queuing up to go through the security check.

  Molly did not write to me. The letters I wrote to her remained unanswered.

  It took me a long time to come to terms with life without Molly. Separation is always harder on the one left behind than on the one who goes away. More so in my case as Molly had filled my life to overflowing and the emptiness she left behind was excruciatingly painful. Many a time I thought of flying to Goa and looking for her in all the hotels there. It was not an impossible task. But I held myself back. I had nothing really to offer her and my presence would embarrass her. Her family and friends would rightly conclude that her visit to Delhi was not professional but for other reasons not acceptable to them. And I remembered what she had told me on the rooftop after the best sex I had had in my life. Never try and repeat this, she had said. She would rather we never met again; she would not risk disappointment. Gradually I reconciled myself to the idea that I would not see Molly any more. Her image receded into a misty haze till it became a memory, a very sweet memory.

  After I got my divorce, I felt that I had been freed of Sonu and could lead my life the way I wanted to. I had not reckoned with her vindictiveness. Whenever I went to the Gymkhana or the Golf Club, I could sense a change in the attitude of my friends and their wives towards me. They stared at me as if they were seeing me for the first time. The men made snide remarks calculated to hurt or irritate me. On one occasion a fellow slapped me on the back and said, ‘Yaar Mohan, you chhupa rustam (hidden champion), we hear you’re a tees maarkhan (one who knocks down thirty at a time); the Muhammad Ali of sex.’ I tried to laugh it off. On another evening one of the women in the circle I joined for a drink asked, ‘Mohanji, I hear you are already planning to get married again. Is that true?’

  ‘I haven’t heard about it,’ I retorted, ‘so it must be true.’ She got a bit flustered and went on, ‘Forgive me if I said the wrong thing. But everyone tells me you are going to marry some lady doctor from the south.’

  I knew she was referring to Molly. I countered her by replying, ‘I will be obliged if you could introduce me to this lady doctor from the south. I’d like to get to know her before I marry her.’

  Sonu was undoubtedly responsible for the gossip. Her servants must have got to know from mine that a woman who passed off for a lady doctor was staying with me. My sour ex-wife would not miss any opportunity to make my life public. She must have worked overtime to get the Delhi gossip mills working furiously. I went to the clubs to relax among friends. I left them more tense, with the whisky turning sour in my stomach. Sonu succeeded in giving me the reputation of a compulsive womanizer. Although many young women eyed me with a mixture of desire and curiosity, I knew they would never have the courage to step out with me. In their parents’ eyes I was simply a lafanga—a no good loafer who consorted with women of ‘loose character’. It was the loss of normal human dignity that bothered me. There was nothing dirty in what I did, but their looks and remarks made me out to be a filthy sex maniac. Gradually I stopped going to the clubs and turned down invitations to parties. I stayed at home, drank alone, listened to music or watched TV. I wallowed in
the misery of one whom no one loves. For a time I quite enjoyed my loneliness.

  I wondered if my experiment of taking on mistresses on a short-term basis had been successful. It might have been if Sonu had put me out of her mind and stopped persecuting me. On the other hand if it were not Sonu it could have been someone else, male or female, who resented my having a good time. But what was the alternative to the clandestine affairs I had been having? How could I openly have a woman companion whose parents, brothers, sisters, ex-husbands would accept her having an affair with a divorced man and not get upset with her? I could not think of a way out of the impasse because I needed sex on a regular basis, with a change of partners every few months. I did not relish the idea of visiting brothels or having call girls who serviced many men every day: my woman had to be exclusively mine for the time she was with me. I had no right to tell her what she should do with her life after she left me.

  I also realized that the sort of relationship I sought with women made me a social outcast. I did not like that. I wanted to regain respectability, but how was I going to do that in a society which could not accept my enjoying intimacy with unattached and willing women?

  During Molly’s stay in Delhi I had missed out on my monthly visits to Haridwar. I felt bad about it because the Ganga had in some mysterious way become my spiritual sustenance. My father had died by its banks; his ashes were immersed in its waters and in his later years a daily dip in the river had meant more to him than visiting temples and gurudwaras. I had inherited some of the reverence for the mother of all rivers from him. A post card from the secretary of the ashram where I had retained my father’s room enquiring about my health and asking me why he had not had my ‘darshan’ for some months helped me make up my mind. I consulted my diary which had a lunar calendar and wrote back to say that I would be there for the next full moon.

  I had often spoken about the aarti at sunset to my friends at cocktail parties. ‘If you want an experience of living Hinduism, you won’t get it from the sacred texts or by visiting temples, you will see it in Haridwar, in the worship of the Ganga at sunset,’ I told them. Many of them had asked me to take them along the next time I went there. Amongst them were quite a few foreigners whose idea of ‘doing’ India was confined to visiting Agra, Jaipur, Varanasi, Khajuraho and the temples in South India—all monuments, no people. At one such embassy party where I was holding forth on my pet topic, one person avidly taking in everything I was saying was a young, darkish, slightly built woman in her late twenties. I had never seen her before and could not make out whether she was Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi. She was none of these. She introduced herself: ‘Hello, I’m Susanthika Goonatilleke from the High Commission of Sri Lanka. I was very interested in what you were saying about Ganga worship. How does one get to Haridwar? Is there anywhere one can stay overnight?’

  We broke out of the circle and took two chairs next to each other. I told her of the route to take, the towns she would pass on the three-and-a-half-hour journey. ‘There are a good number of bungalows and a government tourism hostel, but you’ll be more comfortable in the guest house of Bharat Heavy Electricals, which is a few miles before Haridwar. Haridwar is a holy city and there’s strict prohibition—no alcohol and no meat. But the BHEL guest house is outside municipal limits. And I’m told it has a very good cook. I’d advise you to book a room well ahead of time. I’d suggest you spend two nights there near the time of the full moon. You should not have much problem getting accommodation. If your husband writes to the the General Manager at BHEL, I’m sure he’ll be honoured to have you as his guests.’

  ‘I’m not married,’ she said. ‘I’m only the second secretary in the High Commission, but I’ll try to get the High Commissioner’s private secretary to speak to the GM of Bharat Heavy Electricals.’

  ‘It would be advisable to have a guide to escort you. The place teems with beggars, priests, paandas, astrologers and sadhus—some of them with nothing more than ash smeared on their bodies. A single young woman going about the ghats would not be a good idea.’

  ‘Where will I find a guide?’

  ‘I’d be happy to show you around. I try to go there every full moon night. I have a room in an ashram. Unfortunately the ashram does not allow women visitors. I’ve promised to take my cook and bearer with me the next time I go, but we could fit you in our car.’

  ‘Car’s no problem, I have one with a chauffeur. We can follow you all the way. Will your wife be going with you?’

  ‘I’m a divorcee. If that matters to you, I’ll find you another escort.’

  She smiled and replied, ‘Your being married or divorced is of no concern to me. I’d be happy to go with you and your servants. How do I get in touch with you? I didn’t even get your name.’

  I fished out a visiting card from my pocket and handed it to her. She took one of her own out of her hand bag and gave it to me. ‘I have a long unpronounceable name, so my friends call me Sue. But I’m not a Christian, I’m Buddhist.’

  ‘I’ve never met a Buddhist. I hope you’ll tell me something about your religion and your people.’

  The full moon night was ten days away. I was in two minds about ringing up Sue whatever she was and having to explain my business to her private secretary before she put me through. I asked Vimla Sharma to inform Sue. She rang me up the next day and told me she had got a room in the BHEL guest house. I gave her details of the journey. She was to come to my bungalow in Maharani Bagh by eleven in the morning. I would be carrying a packed lunch for us to have on the way. We would reach her guest house by half past three. I would go to my ashram and send my car to fetch her around half past five and drop her back in time for dinner. If she wanted to bathe at Har Ki Pauri she could do so the next morning. She could return to Delhi whenever she wanted. I made it sound as matter of fact as I could.

  Susanthika Goonatilleke’s large Japanese Toyota bearing a blue diplomatic corps number plate drew up outside Ranjit Villa exactly at eleven. Jiwan Ram opened the iron gate to let it in. We were already packed and ready to go. I instructed my one-eyed jamadarni to look after the house while I was away, to not let anyone in, nor answer the door bell.

  Jiwan Ram and the servants went ahead in my car; I sat with Sue and followed them. I had instructed Jiwan Ram to pull up at some nice secluded stop at about one for lunch.

  On the way we got talking about each other. I asked her why she was unmarried. Of course I threw in a few compliments with my query: an attractive, intelligent girl in the diplomatic service, etc. She accepted the compliments with good grace and replied, ‘I don’t quite know why; it just did not happen. Perhaps Mr Right did not come along,’ she said shrugging her shoulders.

  ‘You’ve never had anyone you were serious about?’ I asked, a little incredulous. ‘Yes, I had a boyfriend, the son of a tea planter. He believed in good living, partying, drinking and dancing through the night. There are quite a few of that type in Colombo. I knew I would not fit into that kind of life. Then I qualified for the diplomatic services and that decided things for us. Delhi is my first posting. I’ve already done a year, another two to go before I’m posted back to Colombo or sent to another embassy. Maybe London or Paris or New York—anywhere. Diplomats are like rolling stones, here today, gone tomorrow. No permanent stay anywhere. The day I marry, I’ll quit the service and settle down somewhere. And what about you? I’m told you’re quite a ladies’ man. And rich.’

  ‘Where did you pick up that gossip?’ I asked. ‘Just because my marriage didn’t work out doesn’t make me a no-good philanderer. I come from a lower middle-class family. I started from scratch and made whatever I have myself.’

  She put her bony little hand on mine. ‘Don’t take my words seriously. I was teasing you. You were at Princeton and the only one to get a summa cum laude in your final examination. Right?’

  ‘Right. How did you dig up all that information?’

  ‘I didn’t have to do much homework. Just about every Indian I met at the emb
assy parties seemed to know about you and hold you in high esteem.’

  ‘That’s nice to know. All I hear is nasty gossip about my broken marriage.’

  ‘Envy, that’s for sure,’ she remarked. ‘A handsome young man from a poor family who becomes a topper in a prestigious American university and earns a million before he’s forty is bound to rouse a lot of jealousy and rancour. I wouldn’t bother with such types.’ Once more she put her bony, cold hand on mine. I noticed how thin her wrists were. She was even more slightly built than I had first thought. High cheek bones, thin dark lips, small breasts and a smaller behind. Her head would just about reach my chin. But her eyes sparkled as she spoke. She was highly intelligent and animated.

  Jiwan Ram pulled up under a cluster of mango trees a few yards off the main road along the Ganga canal. The sun was right above us. It was uncomfortably hot. A gentle breeze blew over the canal towards freshly harvested wheat fields. There was a village at a distance but no sign of humans or cattle. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could. Jiwan Ram opened the hamper he had brought. It had a variety of sandwiches and cans of chilled beer. ‘I don’t usually drink in the daytime but I’m hot and thirsty,’ she said accepting a can from me. She gulped the beer down and exclaimed, ‘Delightful! Nothing could be better than ice-cold beer on a dry hot afternoon.’

  We munched our sandwiches. Jiwan Ram and the servants sat on the canal bank gobbling parathas and potato bhujia. Sue and I resumed our dialogue.

  ‘Are you a practising Buddhist?’ I asked her.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean by practising,’ she replied. ‘I rarely go to a temple and I don’t pray very much. But I’m a Buddhist because I like what I’ve read about the Buddha’s teachings. To me it makes more sense than the teachings of other great masters. All the world’s religions have taken something from Buddhism. I’m sure there must be as many non-Buddhists who revere the Buddha as do practicing Buddhists.’