A Life Apart

by Neel Mukherjee

  But this is all idle surmise. I have more entertaining things to occupy my time here. Now that autumn has arrived, the fields are full of blossoming giant grass, which they call ‘kaash phul’ here. We, by which I mean Bimala, Mr Roy Chowdhury and I, sometimes go on boat rides on the Jamuna river in Shukshayor. The river is now quite mild, although a very brown colour, and the majhi sometimes sings as he rows us along, very plaintive songs in his cracked voice which make me feel extremely melancholic and long for something but I don’t know what. It is a very calm exercise: the boat moves along very slowly indeed on the surface of the water, rocking gently from side to side in such a manner as to induce sleepiness – I was afraid of this soft pitch and swell the first time – while Mr Roy Chowdhury reads poetry aloud to us: Keats and Wordsworth – his favourite – and at times Bengali poetry too. I too read aloud, but from Bengali books – even if I do say so myself, my proficiency in the Bengali language increases apace, thanks to Bimala’s expert guidance – graded books called Sahaj Path, which means Easy Reading, and simple folk tales written for children. Bimala is quite proud of her achievement in this reciprocal education of her tutor and companion. I can only wholeheartedly support this happy arrangement wherein I teach her English, among other things, and she instructs me in her language. I hope I’m not being immodest when I tell you that I can have a reasonable conversation with Bimala and her husband in their mother tongue, while Bimala goes from strength to strength every day – she read out ‘A slumber did my spirit seal’ last week, beautifully, I thought, only tripping up on the word ‘diurnal’ in the penultimate line, a word with which she is unfamiliar. We applauded heartily and she took great joy from this little achievement. It is such a sad little poem, we were quite overwhelmed, I can tell you, and I even thought I heard Mr Roy Chowdhury’s voice tremble ever so slightly as he explicated the meaning of the poem to Bimala.

  Mr Roy Chowdhury has kindly allowed me the use of one of his two horses, a beautiful grey and white dappled gelding whose name is Pakshiraj, which he tells me is the name for the Bengali version of Pegasus, or indeed, any winged horse of myth or folklore. I also have the use of Mr Roy Chowdhury’s saees when I go riding and in this delectable weather, I do so quite often, sometimes in the early mornings, when the mist is still on the ground and on the rolling fields, and sometimes in the afternoons, when the delicate autumn light gilds everything orange and gold. It is one of life’s more unalloyed pleasures being able to ride for miles and miles, the wind in your face, leaving behind people, houses, habitations, hamlets here and there, just you, the steed and the rush of air and open country passing you by. I pass by rivers and fields, occasionally I ride through villages consisting of no more than a few straggling huts. Everywhere people are polite and friendly, and in our own village, Nawabgunj, a band of young men, whom I often see coming into the offices on the ground floor on, I assume, business to do with the zamindari, have taken to wishing me ‘Good morning, memsa’ab’, ‘Good evening, memsa’ab’ when they see me in the village when I go out to take the air or when I set out riding.

  Another no small joy in this mild season is Tea on the lawn, or garden, I should rather say, of ‘Dighi Bari’. I have been teaching Bimala some of our customs and sometimes I let her practise these during Afternoon Tea on the grass with little folding tables, chairs, parasols. She usually pours for everyone and serves the sandwiches and cakes with such poise that I can tell Mr Roy Chowdhury feels quite proud of her, as I do, too, and no doubt, you would have done as well had you been here, dear Violet. It is at these Teas I miss you most. I speak about you to Bimala and Mr Roy Chowdhury, although it seems he has heard a lot about you and your work from notable Bengali worthies who are his friends and also from the Rajah of Cooch Behar. He always refers to you as ‘your eminent friend, Mrs Cameron, who does so much for our country.’ I feel very proud of you when he utters your name with such respect.

  And now, dear Violet, you will scarcely believe your ears when I impart to you the next bit of information – I have finally embarked upon my book. I have drawn up a general plan for the disposition of the chapters, the distribution of ideas and the unfolding of the arguments in the first five chapters – there will be twelve in all – and, what is more, I have already started writing the first and the third. I have tentatively entitled it Essay on the Rights of Women. What do you think of the title? I miss your guiding intelligence, our numerous conversations and debates about many of the subjects, which will, no doubt, eventually find their way into the book. I miss your generosity with ideas, your willingness to discuss, correct, argue, modify. When shall we have the opportunity to do that again?

  I have written at length and now I think I should sign off lest this should become more prolix and tax your energies. Send me your news, dear friend, and let me know if you want me to talk to Mr Roy Chowdhury regarding any help you need for your school. My continuing best wishes for its success and smooth running and to you my love and affection. I remain ever

  Yours truly,

  Maud.

  P.S.: Give my love to Jane and Christopher. They must have grown quite beyond recognition now. Are they doing well at school? Think of me.

  There is a sudden great influx of men at all hours, but especially during the evenings, in the ground floor offices and study. There are important meetings, some lasting till very late at night; Miss Gilby can hear the murmur of departing voices and, sometimes, their coaches and traps, well after midnight. There are lots of heated, passionate exchanges, many of them in English, but she hasn’t been able to pick out a telling word or phrase to gather the specific nature of these debates. Bimala tells Miss Gilby that it would be better if the lessons were held in a different place, in Miss Gilby’s own study, or even in Bimala’s room in the andarmahal; the piano classes are best left to times when there are no visitors. When Miss Gilby asks who these numerous visitors are, Bimala grows vague and then confesses that they are all involved in business with her husband. Miss Gilby suspects that Bimala either doesn’t know the whole truth – for her answer has the ring of incompleteness to it – or she is hiding something from her. Miss Gilby doesn’t press her on this matter any further.

  The men who attend these meetings all seem to Miss Gilby to belong to the babu class – English-educated, wealthy, perhaps even holding government positions. They are attired in dhoti and shawls, some carry canes. And where is the gentle Mr Roy Chowdhury in all this? She hasn’t seen him properly for over a week, and when she has (only briefly in passing – they have exchanged polite greetings), the time hasn’t been right for her to ask him about the sudden spate of late night meetings conducted in his offices. And on those brief occasions, he has had a troubled, preoccupied expression on his face, or has she just imagined it?

  Afternoon Teas in the English style, complete with cucumber sandwiches, Victoria sponge, plum cake, scones, lead naturally to Bimala’s wish to make Miss Gilby a true lover and connoisseuse of Bengali food. If truth be told, this has been Miss Gilby’s secret wish for a long time, not so much the emphasis on the food and kitchen aspects as on the unobvious corners of another country that don’t reveal themselves unless one is taken by the hand and shown them by someone who lives and moves there with the ease of one born into them. Besides, the lessons with Bimala have fallen so imperceptibly into such a natural pattern of reciprocity, the two women teaching each other things about their own cultures in such a beautiful and harmonious exchange, that it would be inaccurate to call Miss Gilby tutor any longer. She started off as one but then shed that role to occupy more fully the other, companionate one. Could she have asked for any more? How fortunate she was that the very thing she desired, this immersion into the intimate India, which hardly any one of her countrymen knew or showed an interest in knowing, how serendipitous that such designs should be revealed to her. Maybe she will write a novel, a thinly disguised account of her days in this obscure corner of Bengal, and show her countrymen a true picture of this vast country, which they gov
erned but didn’t understand.

  So today’s morning lesson on Floral Arrangement – not a lesson, really, but just a pleasant way for the two women to while away their time, gossiping about Bimala’s jaas, the servants, Mr Roy Chowdhury’s MA years in Calcutta, Miss Gilby’s Club in Calcutta, Violet Cameron’s school, that infamous weekend at the Maharajah of Mysore’s palace, while the flowers lie around as neglected decoration – has been cancelled in favour of a trip to the kitchen.

  Miss Gilby has never actually cooked anything in a kitchen before: orders were given to servants and they carried them out. In India, this is one thing she has played by the rules. In the morning, she summoned the cook, planned out the day’s menu, went into the pantry, measured out everything that was needed – if this duty was left to the servants, they stole from you without batting an eyelid – reiterated the orders and instructions and left everything to the cooks and servants. Bimala, too, worked along similar lines: the cook came to her in the morning, she specified what was to be prepared; another servant went to the market and bought fish, meat, groceries; she issued orders – informed the cook that the fish was going to be cooked in a mustard sauce, that Mr Roy Chowdhury felt like lobster, that it was the season for pancakes – and the cook did her bidding. Only occasionally, as a special treat to her husband or a guest, would she do the cooking herself.

  This visit to a kitchen, and a true Bengali kitchen, not one in an Anglo-Indian household run by a memsahib and staffed by Indian servants, is going to be a novel experience for Miss Gilby. She is not sure her heart is wholly in this business but it is Bimala’s wish and she is, all said and done, curious to know how a native woman runs her household and her servants. Do the servants pull the wool over her eyes as well? Do they steal? Are they recalcitrant at times? Miss Gilby is eager to pick up any useful tips that might, in the future, enable her to get more value from her servants, more peace of mind with them.

  The servants have been warned weeks in advance of a visit by a memsahib to their domain. Bimala has asked them not to giggle, stare, or worry that the kitchen is going to be polluted by the presence of a Christian. When Bimala and Miss Gilby enter the kitchen, the three women working inside immediately pull up their aanchol and cover their heads: the movement is so fast and instinctive, it could be almost involuntary. They turn away, refusing to look, and stare at the stone floor, crushed by shyness. Bimala gives out orders in such rapid Bengali that Miss Gilby is left searching for an isolated word or two whose meaning she might understand and thereby make some sense of what she has said.

  Bimala turns to Miss Gilby. ‘We will make something special. A Bengali special food. You will see?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but what is it?’

  ‘You will see,’ Bimala repeats mysteriously. One of the women goes to a corner of the kitchen and carries a bucket to the centre. She pulls out a giant fish from it. It is still thrashing, overpowering the woman in whose hands it cannot be contained. It slips out of her small hands and lands on the stone floor with a wet thud, flailing around in that dry, alien world, starved of its own element. An excited chatter breaks out among the servants while Bimala, excited too, moves away a few feet from the beating fish and asks for someone to get hold of it. Two of the servants come forward – one grasps the head, the other the tail – gabbling away constantly. The captured fish still convulses, struggling to get free. Bimala says to Miss Gilby, ‘This is rui, a favourite Bengali fish.’

  The third servant gets out a bonti, an enormous sharp curved blade, like a broad, flattened question mark, attached to a wooden stand at right angles, and sets it down on the floor. Bimala shouts out something; everybody is talking all at once, very loudly. The servant with the bonti grabs hold of the fish with difficulty – Bimala, standing well away from the centre, shouts again, ‘Carefully, carefully’ – while another servant fetches her some ash with which she smears her hand while letting go of the fish momentarily, then catches it firmly by its head and neck, leaving the torso and the tail to lash about vigorously all over again. Holding the bonti down with her right foot and the fish with both hands she sets its head against the blade and with rapid sawing motions severs it from the rest of the body. A loud cheer goes up, there is blood on her hands and on the floor, Bimala says, ‘The head is for you, Miss Gilby. It is our special dish.’ She turns around just in time to catch Miss Gilby falling in a faint.

  FIVE

  He bumps into Sarah two days later in the main quad. They are both on their way to the library and stand around awkwardly for the brief pause of a couple of pulse beats and say ‘hello’ to each other as if they have been set up by mutual friends at a party, both primed beforehand that they are going to be introduced to a potential date. Then Sarah’s social sparkle gleams in into this unease; she starts talking, easily first, and then it builds up to a scatterfire, an excess of things and words that try to keep something at bay with their dense shield.

  ‘. . . and there are times I think is it really worth it, this whole business of being made to hang on, and then he smiles at me in that way he has and my knees turn to jelly . . .’

  Ritwik has been so nervous about this encounter with Sarah that all he has looked for is a telling sign of their new knowledge but she is not going to give him any. Why, he wonders. Principle? The rule of confidentiality and anonymity? He hasn’t paid the slightest attention to what she has been saying and suddenly it dawns on him that she is confiding in him about her long-standing problems with Richard, her commitment-phobic boyfriend who has been stringing her along for nearly two years now. The whole college seemed to know about it; Sarah’s closest friends thought she should end it immediately.

  ‘. . . sometimes aye, sometimes nay, I’m so confused, but Ritwik, you mustn’t think he’s bad or anything, it’s just that I’m his first important relationship and these are all teething problems, they’ll settle down soonish, but sometimes I doubt whether he’s in love with me as much as I’m with him. And he’s so clever . . .’

  This gives Ritwik a hook. He grabs it. ‘What does he work on?’

  ‘He’s doing a DPhil on Wittgenstein. He’s very bright. He’s now thinking of applying to the US for post-doctoral stuff and I can’t help feeling that he’s just trying to escape from me, you know, avoiding doing the dirty deed of dumping me and letting it happen the “long-distance relationship petering out” sort of way. God, it makes me so angry sometimes, this cowardice . . .’

  Ritwik cuts in, ‘Sarah, you might be misreading or misinterpreting. I don’t know Richard, so obviously I can’t say anything useful, and you know your situation best, but have you thought that some people might be like that – noncommittal, hedging their bets all the time, leaving all doors open. It doesn’t mean they love any less.’

  He is talking drivel now, platitudes of received wisdom, but it is the only way he can staunch Sarah’s flow. This flood of words, standing in the middle of the main quad, is the only way they both have of acknowledging their knowledge. He is grateful to her for this torrent and now that he has launched himself into it as well, he knows there could have been no better way.

  She smiles at his psychobabble, or it could have been a smile of complicity, receiving him into her strategy; from that moment on it becomes what it should have been from the very beginning – an effortless conversation between two friends.

  ‘But Ritwik, what am I to do?’ she wails.

  ‘You have to make up your mind firmly about what you want, whether you want a man who’ll give you all that’s conventionally associated with being in love, whatever that means, or someone with whom you’re able to negotiate something different.’ He gags internally at this shopworn counsellor-talk. Where did I get all this into my head?

  ‘Yes, I know all that’ – she waves an impatient arm in dismissal – ‘but, but what if I’m not happy with negotiating? Why do we need to negotiate? Why can’t we fall into an easy love rather than have this business of having to negotiate?’

  Ritwik can
tell she is getting more and more despondent by the minute; her face is flushed and warm now. He wants to scoop her up in his arms and tell her it is going to be all right, tell her she can lean on him always, but the moment passes.

  ‘Oh, Ritwik, why are all the nice, caring, sensitive and good-looking men gay?’ she cries out.

  They look at each other with something approaching horror and, in that instant, far more than knowledge passes between them; it is understanding, even deep empathy, for Ritwik realizes that Sarah has been telling him about Richard as a reciprocal confiding. This is her way of making them fall together as equals again and she offers him the best she can – not damage, not abuse, but the impossibility of happiness in love. He swallows a few times to rid his throat of lumps then wills himself to spin off the conversation to a superficial chit-chat about the attraction of unattainable things.

  ‘Ah, you see, it’s what you can’t have,’ he says. ‘Why do you think nearly all gay men fancy straight boys?’ There, he has done it.