As I said before, she was very young, gawky, freckled, pimpled, snub-nosed—but also large-bosomed and even larger-assed. She wore a tight-fitting sweater with ‘Arizona’ printed across her boobs and bum-tight jeans frayed at the ends. I asked her what interested her more, people or monuments. She shrugged her shoulders, stuck out her tongue and replied in a voice full of complaint: ‘How should I know? A bit of both, I guess.’ She proceeded to take snapshots of the Carlyles, the house, the car—then handed me her mini camera so she could be in the pictures as well. She spoke very fast and dropped the g’s at the end of most words: goin’, comin’, gettin’, seein’. She was very animated and spoke with her grey eyes and hands; she interspersed her speech with noises like ‘unh’, and words like ‘shucks’ and ‘crikey’, and was constantly sticking out her red tongue.
‘What are we waitin’ for?’ she demanded turning to me the first day after she had finished the photo session.
I opened the rear door of the car for her. She ignored me and bounced into the front seat beside the chauffeur. I took my place in the rear seat. ‘Miss …’
‘The name is Georgine.’
‘Miss Georgine, have you …’
‘Not Miss Georgine; just plain and simple Georgine, if you don’t mind.’
‘I was going to ask you if you had read any Indian history. We are going to see …’
‘That’s a stoopid question to ask an American high school girl. Why in the name of Christ should I have read Indian history?’ I decided to keep cool. We passed through Delhi Gate into Faiz Bazaar. ‘What are all these jillions doin’?’ she demanded.
‘They are not jillions, they are vegetable-sellers. They …’
She turned round as if to make sure I were human. ‘You don’t know a jillion? It is the highest number—more than millions of millions. Even the dumbest American kid knows that.’
‘Oh, I see,’ I replied tamely. ‘The population of Delhi has more than trebled in these last twenty years. It is over four million now.’
‘I don’t want to know that!’ she snapped.
We went out of Faiz Bazaar. On our left, the Royal Mosque, Jamia Masjid; on our right, massive red walls of the Fort. She ordered the chauffeur to stop and took more snapshots. We drove up to the entrance of the Red Fort. While I queued up to buy a ticket for her, she took photographs: Chandni Chowk, the tongas, hawkers, beggars, everything. She stopped outside the entrance to take pictures of the guards, looked up at the towering walls and exclaimed ‘Yee!’
No sooner had we entered the arcade with its rows of shops aglitter with brass, gold and silver thread embroidery, miniature Taj Mahals and other bric-à-brac, than she stretched her arms wide and exclaimed, ‘I want everythin’ in this crummy bazaar. How much?’ She went from shop to shop picking up things and putting them down with a grunt. But she was canny. She parried every attempt to sell her anything.
A marble-seller would say, ‘Yes memsahib, some marbil-varbil?’ and she would shake her head and reply firmly, ‘No thanks.’
We came to the Naqqar Khana gate. I cleared my throat. She pulled out her Murray’s Guide and said: ‘Don’t tell me. This is where drums were beaten, right? And that red buildin’ in front is the Dear one somethin’-or-the-other where the kingee received common folk, right?’
‘Right on the mark. It is the Diwan-i-Am, the Hall of General Audience. You don’t need a guide, you know everything.’
‘No. I don’t,’ she snapped. Armed with Murray’s Guide she instructed me on Emperor Shah Jahan, when he had lived, when he had built the palaces, pointed out the figure of Orpheus behind the throne, the Rang Mahal, the ‘Dreamin’ Chamber’, the octagonal Jasmine tower and the ‘Dearonee …’
‘Diwan-i-Khas.’
‘Where kingee sat on the Peacock Throne to receive noblemen. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘Goodee! That pearly mosque built by the kingee’s son who locked up Dad and became King Orangeade.’
‘Aurangzeb.’
‘Aren’t I clever?’
‘Very! You could make a handsome living as a professional guide.’
‘I could at that! I am thirsty. Can I get a carton of milk or a Coke some place?’
‘Coke, yes. Milk, no.’
We returned to the arcade. She drank two bottles of Coke, pressed her belly and belched. ‘Sorree! I feel good.’
It usually took me over an hour and a half to take visitors round the Red Fort. Georgine did it in twenty minutes. I picked up a marble Taj Mahal encased in glass and nodded to the shopkeeper. He wagged his head to indicate I could have it for free. ‘Miss … I mean Georgine, this is for you. With my compliments.’
‘Me? What for?’ she demanded blushing. She grabbed it from my hands and clasped it to her big bosom. ‘It’s lovely! Thank you.’ She gave me a peck on my nose, ‘And that’s for you bein’ so nice to a horrid girl.’
In the car this time, she took the rear seat beside me. When I asked the chauffeur to take us to the Royal Mosque, she protested: ‘Nope. One mornin’, one buildin’. Okay?’
‘That would take us a whole month to do Delhi.’
‘Goodie! You can spend every mornin’ with me. Won’t you like that?’
We drove through Chandni Chowk, Khari Bawli and Sadar Bazaar. Georgine kept taking snapshots and making unintelligible sounds. Then she suddenly turned round, stared at me and giggled, ‘Gawd! You are a funny lookin’ man!’ she exclaimed. ‘If somebody had told me last week that I’d be ridin’ around with a darkie with a bandage round his head and a beard round his chin, I would have died.’ I made no comment. She sensed my resentment. ‘Don’t mind me,’ she added, ‘I am always sayin’ such dumb, stoopid things. What have you got under that bandage anyway?’ I made no reply. She grunted an ‘unh’ and said no more till we were back in Carlyle’s home. As she got out of the car she asked, ‘Can I pull your beard?’ Before I could raise my hand to protect myself she grabbed it in her hand and gave it a violent tug. She threw three ten-rupee notes on the seat, jumped out with the miniature Taj in her arms, and with a jerk of her big bottom ran to the door. ‘Bye! See you tomorrow.’
The bloody bitch! I muttered to myself. What she needs is to be put across the knee, her jeans ripped off and a few hard smacks on her large, melon-sized bottom. Followed by buggery.
At the Coffee House I found myself telling my cronies about Georgine. I didn’t like my Sikh journalist friend referring to her as ‘another quail (I) had trapped.’ Nor the politician warning me against carnal knowledge of a girl of sixteen. When I came out of the Coffee House, it was late in the afternoon. The jamun trees were alive with the screeching of parakeets. I wanted to fill my chest and yell her name so loudly that it would be heard all over Connaught Circus—Georgeeen—and the traffic would come to a halt. Georgeen and the parakeets would stop screaming. And the only sound to be heard would be Georgine, Georgine, Georgine, echoing round and round the Circus.
That evening I told Bhagmati about Georgine. As usual she did not like my being so enthusiastic about anyone other than her. I tried to laugh it off by reminding her that Georgine was forty years younger than me. That did not reassure her. And when I took her with greater gusto than usual, she asked, ‘What is the matter with you today?’ implying ‘You are not taking me but that fat-bottomed sixteen-year-old white girl.’ She was right.
I was less exuberant in the morning. However, I spent twenty minutes in my cold, damp bathroom dyeing my beard. By the time I turned up at Carlyle’s house, I was apprehensive of the kind of reception I would get.
Georgine was outside soaking in the sun. She looked more grown up. ‘How do you like my new hairdo?’ she asked turning her head sideways. The hair was bunched on top of her head and tied in a chignon. It made her neck look longer and bared her small pink ears.
‘Very nice! Makes you look like a lady.’
‘I am that. Shucks!’
In the car she asked me if I slept with my turban on.
I
replied: ‘If you were a little older, I would have said “Come and find out for yourself!”’
Her face flushed. ‘You are an ole lech! You makin’ a pass at me or somethin’?’
It was my turn to be embarrassed. ‘I said if you were older, and I meant a lot older. I must be older than your father.’
‘I don’t buy that kind of crap!’
I laid on some flattery. White people are not used to flattery and succumb very easily. She gave me an opening by taking my hand and apologizing: ‘Don’t be mad with me. I don’t mean to be nasty.’
‘You are not nasty,’ I replied taking a grip on her hand, ‘you are the nicest Missy Baba I’ve met.’
‘Messy what?’ she asked, raising her voice.
‘Not messy, Missy. No flattery; it is not often I have someone as pretty to take around.’
‘Unh’ she growled. ‘I am not pretty or good lookin’ or anythin’ like that.’
But it was clear that my compliment had hit the mark. Her face had gone pink with happiness and after a pause she said, ‘You’re a nice ole man. Can I call you pop? I don’t know your name anyhow.’
Girls are more easy to seduce when they are sixteen than when they are a year or two older. At sixteen they are unsure of themselves and grateful for any reassurance you can give them about their looks or brains—either will do. Georgine, despite her brashness, proved very vulnerable. I took her to the Coffee House, as I said, ‘to show her off to my friends.’ She blushed again and repeated, ‘You are an ole lech you know! But I like you.’
At the Coffee House, we sat in the section marked ‘Families Only’. I ordered a Coke for her and went to greet my friends. They were not very complimentary about Georgine. Said my Sikh journalist friend: ‘From the way you described her, I thought you had picked up a Marilyn Monroe. Nice fat boobs and bum though!’
‘She’s no Noor Jahan,’ opined the political expert. ‘Like any American schoolgirl. Must have a nice pussy. But you must be madder than I thought; you try any tricks with that one, you will be in for seven years’ rigorous imprisonment.’
Ugly, vulgar words. I rejoined Georgine. ‘What did they have to say about your girlfriend?’ she asked.
‘Girlfriend? Oh, you mean you?’ I replied, pretending to have been taken by surprise. ‘They said you were very beautiful.’
‘Liar! I bet you a hundred dollars they said, “What are you doin’ with a lil’ girl like that? Foolin’ around with anyone under seventeen can land you in a jail.” How ’bout that for a guess?’
‘Wrong, wrong, wrong,’ I protested vehemently. I could see she was happy.
This time she put my fee in an envelope and gave it to me with ‘Thanks a whole lot.’
That evening I was by turns exhilarated and conscience-stricken. In my confusion I rang her up without having anything to say to her. Her uncle picked up the phone. ‘You must not let Georgine make a nuisance of herself,’ he said, ‘and let me have your bill for the time she’s been with you.’ He put down the receiver without asking me why I had called. But I was excited to know that Georgine had paid me without telling her uncle.
I decided to use the information at an appropriate moment. Meanwhile I became bolder in my compliments. Since she changed her hairstyle every day, I got many opportunities to say things that would please her. One day she dressed herself in a bright red sari. It did not suit her, nor did she know how a woman in a sari should walk—like most Caucasians, she had a masculine stride. I said ‘How charming’—and she replied: ‘Oh thank you, I thought you’d sort of like to see me in your native costume.’ I explained that the sari was not native to the Punjab and that a salwar-kameez would look even nicer on her. ‘O great!’ she exclaimed. ‘I must have these thingees at once.’ I took her to a tailor and while she was choosing the material, I told him in Punjabi to send the finished products with the bill, to me. Georgine could not make up her mind. What she liked best, she said, was too expensive for her. So she settled for second best. I spoke to the tailor (again in Punjabi) to use the material of her first choice.
‘You think it will look nice on me?’ she asked me when we were in the car.
‘I am sure it will. We have a word in our language—jamazebi—which means, the ability to fit into any clothes. I think you will look nice in anything you wear.’ (Far from being jamazeb, because of her large bosom and broad hips, Georgine had difficulty in fitting into readymade clothes.) ‘You are nuts,’ she said dismissing the compliment. ‘I know none of the nice things you say are true, but I like you sayin’ them. So don’t stop, O-Kay?’
Getting her into my apartment was easy. Two days after she had been measured, I offered to drive her around in my own car. When I went to pick her up, I said as casually as I could, ‘Your things have been delivered to my apartment. Would you like to pick them up before we go sightseeing?’
‘O-Kay.’
She looked around admiringly at my books and pictures. ‘Nice, comfy pad,’ she remarked.
‘Thank you. Do sit down.’
She took off her shoes, bounced onto the settee and crossed her legs. ‘Nunc! What you starin’ at?’
I quoted Ghalib, first in Urdu and then translated it for her: ‘She has come to my house. Sometimes I look at her, sometimes I look at my house.’
‘That means you’re pleased to have me here. Where are my thingees?’
I brought the bundle and untied it. ‘I didn’t order that one; it was too expensive, you remember? That old tailor is tryin’ to rob me. All you Indians try to fleece us Americans. You think we’re a bunch of suckers, don’t you?’
‘He’s not charging you any more for this material. He knew you liked it better, so he’s made it just for you.’
She was nonplussed. ‘I am sorry. That’s very nice of him. And this?’ she asked, opening out a sequined dupatta, ‘It is very pretty, but I didn’t ask for this.’
‘That goes with the other things. Nothing extra.’
She draped it over her head and looked around for a mirror. ‘Where can I try them on?’ she asked, taking the bundle under her arm. I showed her to my bedroom. I was left alone for some time. I poured myself a whisky and gulped it down neat. I moved from the chair to the sofa.
Georgine came out in Punjabi clothes. The dupatta was like a small white cloud studded with stars haloing her red hair, face and shoulders. The clothes fitted her. It seemed as if she were formed to wear Punjabi clothes. ‘How’s that?’ she asked pirouetting on her toes.
‘Very becoming! Much nicer than anything you’ve worn.’
‘Thank you, I sort of like it too.’
She came and sat beside me on the sofa. She opened her handbag, ‘How much does he want for this?’
My voice stuck in my throat, I forced it out. ‘Nothing. Allow me the privilege of making this a present. Please!’
‘Thank you and all that. But I know you can’t afford it.’
‘Yes I can; and it’ll make me very happy.’
‘Okay, if it’ll make you happy.’ She turned around and gave me a quick kiss on my beard, ‘Thank you, pop.’
The kiss paralysed my tongue. After a while I was able to say: ‘And I owe you money. You paid me for the outings out of your own money, didn’t you?’
‘How do you know?’
‘I rang up your uncle.’
She turned scarlet. ‘That was a dumb thing to do! What did he say?’
I took her hand in mine. ‘Don’t worry. I did not tell him you had paid me. Now I can earn a double fee.’
‘You cunning ole Oriental!’ she laughed. ‘I’m relieved to know my ole uncle doesn’t know.’
‘Why didn’t you tell him?’
‘I dunno.’
The initiative was now mine. ‘Maybe you wanted to be with me without his knowing.’
‘Maybe,’ she replied tossing back her hair.
Any experienced lecher knows that one should not waste words with a teenager because when it comes to real business she gets tongue
-tied or can only say ‘No.’ It is best to talk to her body with your hands. That excites her to a state of speechless acceptance. I ran my fingers up and down her lower arm. She watched them till goose pimples came up. Thereafter, all I had to do was to put my arm around her waist, draw her towards me and smother her lips, eyes, nose, ears and neck with kisses. She moaned helplessly. I slipped my hand under her kameez and played with her taut nipples. Then I undid her pyjama cord and slipped my fingers between her damp thighs. A little gentle ministration with my hand made her convulse and she climaxed groaning ‘O God! O God!’ She lay still like a human-sized rubber doll. I put my hand on her bosom. She slapped it and pushed it away. She picked up her clothes and went to the bedroom. She came back in her jeans, tossed the bundle of salwar-kameez and sequined dupatta on the settee and strode out of the apartment.
That was the last I saw of Georgine.
And she was the last customer Carlyle put my way. I do not know whether what I had done had amounted to having carnal knowledge of a girl below the age of consent. But for many long days and nights, I pondered over the words in the Mahabharata: ‘As two pieces of wood floating on the ocean come together at one time and are again separated, even such is the union of living creatures in this world.’
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Khushwant Singh's Book of Unforgettable Women Page 17