“I don’t care,” she said.
She didn’t care. She was nonchalant about it all, and when she went out to broadcast she might have been going out to the shops, and she talked about it as little.
When I remarked on this, she said:
“You see, it is because I am selfish woman. I ought to remember I am doing war-work and be serious, but all I can remember is that I want you still to love me, darling. I don’t want you to go away again.”
“In a few weeks I shall come back.”
“Darling, when you come the time is gone in a minute, but when you are not here it is like big centuries.”
“I write letters.”
“That is best thing after not having you.”
“You’ve got me now,” I said.
We didn’t go out much during those weekends. There was nothing to do in New or Old Delhi except go to the pictures or dance, and we wanted to be alone. There were no places to go for picnics—the plain round about for miles was stony, uninviting country, and the banks of the Jumna were dreary mud-flats. So we sat in the garden of the hotel, and in the evenings I had long gin drinks and Sabby had lemonades, and we went to bed early. Sabby put up a white mosqinto-net—not because there were mosquitoes in Delhi in February, but because she wanted it to be like Bombay. I delivered her a little lecture about not trying to keep things the same, but she pleaded for the mosquito-net, and we slept underneath it and were happy. And on the following night she came to see me off at the station, despite my protestations that I hated station farewells, and she made up my bed neatly on a bunk.
I told her I should not be going forward until about May, and that is what I expected. I thought I should take the place of an officer when he came back for summer leave, landing in the jungle in the middle of the monsoons when the ‘shooting season’ was over. That had been the plan up to now.
Then suddenly there came a demand for someone at Imphal. It was the beginning of March, and the tour would last until September. I was detailed and told to pack.
“I wish it were me,” Fenwick said. “It’s much more fun forward.”
“You can go,” I said eagerly.
“I’d like to. It’s a pity I wasn’t chosen.”
“They’ll let you go in my place.”
“You’ve had the orders,” he said.
“Yes, but if you want to . . .”
“It’s useless trying to change.”
“If you’re so keen,” I said, “I’ll get it fixed for you.”
“I don’t approve of asking for orders to be rescinded.”
“For heaven’s sake,” I said, “cut out that pompous language. If you want to go, we’ll fix it, and if you don’t, I’ll go—though I’d rather stay here.”
“You’ll have to go, as you’ve been told.”
“Then don’t tell me again that you ‘wish it were you.’ ”
“I’m not shy of excitement, as you seem to be.”
“Excitement!” I said. “There’ll be plenty of rain and living in bashas, and probably not another Nip to talk to for the rest of the season. You’ve got all the fun here.”
“I’m not going to ask to change.”
“I know you’re not,” I said. “Nor would I, if I were you.”
It looked as though I shouldn’t see Sabby for six months. There wasn’t time to go to Delhi, because I had to leave the next night. The only hope was to meet at Agra, half-way in between. But there wasn’t time to send a telegram and wait for a reply.
I tried to telephone. It was hopeless. I wasted half an hour and got nowhere. I was frantic, and couldn’t make up my mind what to do. I asked Peter.
“Wire her—and go to Agra—and hope,” he said.
“But she has a broadcast.”
“She’ll be there if she can. It’s worth the risk.”
I left Peter and my bearer to pack the things I should need to take to Imphal, so that I should only have to pick them up on my return, and I took a truck into Cawnpore and was on the station just in time. It was one o’clock in the afternoon. Peter had sent off the wire which would reach Sabby by three, provided the Indian Post Office was not more than usually apathetic. Her train was at four. Of course she wouldn’t skip her broadcast, I knew she wouldn’t do that, but there were others besides her who could do it. If only she could get hold of one of them—that was the thing to pray for.
I prayed all afternoon. I reached Agra at seven, and took a tonga to the Cecil Hotel. There was a decent room empty, and that was a stroke of good luck, because I had been told rooms in Agra were impossible to get. I wondered if it was too lucky, and I should be mocked all night by that big room, and sleep alone in misery and despair. I went out to the portico to have a drink and wait for the Delhi train at half-past eight. By the reception desk I met the manageress.
“You are fortunate,” she said. “Tonight the moon will be at its best.”
“The moon?” I said.
“Haven’t you come to see the Taj?”
“The Taj Mahal?”
“It’s at Agra, you know.”
“Yes, of course it is—I’d forgetten. I shall certainly go and see it.” I’d never really wanted to see it. I would not have got off the train purposely to do so. I hate seeing the world’s wonders because it is difficult to disassociate them from the vulgarity of their fame and it is better to find one’s own little wonders that the world has overlooked. But now I wanted to see the Taj because it happened to be at the place where I might be meeting Sabby, and it had volunteered itself as a background complete with its moon.
By a quarter-past eight the daylight had gone and the moon was coming over the roof-tops. It was quite full, and still a little yellowish, but it was turning whiter as it rose. I went by tonga to the station and began to pace the platform, chain-smoking cigarettes. Indian pedlars tried to sell me hideous models of the Taj and fans made out of peacock feathers. I said “Challo, challo,” but they didn’t go away, so I said “Jaow!” impatiently and turned away myself. I kept looking up the line.
The train was less than five minutes overdue. The red-turbaned coolies swarmed to the doors as it pulled in, and the third-class passengers burst out of their carriages. Then others began to emerge. There was no sign of Sabby. I pushed my way through the crowd, and there was no Sabby anywhere. My whole body sickened.
And then suddenly I caught sight of her in a carriage doorway waving to me brightly, and the joy flooded over me. In a moment or two we were back in the tonga with her baggage and trotting towards the Cecil, and I knew this was our fate and nothing could have happened but this.
“Did you manage it easily?” I said.
“But of course, darling. I simply changed days, that was all. They are all so sweet to me.”
“Well, we’re going to see the Taj in the moonlight,” I said.
“Please, what is Taj?”
“I am so glad you don’t know. It’s just a tomb, I think.”
“Is it a good thing to see tomb?”
“It might be,” I said. “We can go and try.”
We had dinner first at the Cecil and a dawdling coffee in the portico, and kept the tonga waiting. When we set off again, the moon was high and dazzling in its whiteness, and the air was fresh and warm. We clung together on the narrow, uncomfortable seat, and jogged along the road for a quarter of an hour until we came to a giant archway. We got down, and the tonga-man pointed to the number on his carriage so that we should pick it out amongst the others. He spoke the numbers laboriously, the only English he knew: “Seven-two-nine.”
High up inside the archway a lamp of fretted metal-work was burning, dimly speckling the stone. We passed under it; and beyond, framed by the dark masonry of the arch, was the marble face of the Taj, cool and pale in the moonlight.
Sabby gasped and took my arm, and I felt her lit
tle body trembling. She was trembling with the beauty of it—the beauty of the minarets and the reflection in the long pool, and the lines of cyprus trees standing blackly like centurions against the naked whiteness. In a way, I think it was also the most lovely thing I had ever seen, because the moon on marble cannot help but be lovely, as it is upon snow, and here it gave to this formal scene an incredible stillness and purity.
“Please, is it true I am here with you, or is it dream that I have got to heaven?” Sabby said.
“It is only a dream,” I said.
“Please, pinch, then.”
“Go on sleeping for a bit longer.”
We walked slowly along the edge of the pool until we came to the steps up to the terrace. A chaprassy slipped big canvas sandals over our shoes and we went up. The whole surface of the terrace was marble, smooth as the surface of the pool, and extending all round the tomb. We climbed one of the minarets, up and up past two perilous balconies until we were in the topmost pavilion. There were many people crowded there, and there were two young Indian men, very drunk and rowdy; and Sabby clung more closely because if anyone had pushed us we should have fallen over the low balustrade. We only stayed a short while to look at the pale countryside, and then we descended and took off our overshoes and went back along the pool. It was from this distance, from the end of the pool, that it was most beautiful, and we lay on the grass and watched it and knew it was really a dream and almost gone.
“Darling, I would like to die now,” Sabby said.
“This is only the beginning of our happiness.”
“No, it is the end, and I don’t mind dying, darling, I have been so happy with you.”
“You must never talk like that,” I said.
“It is true, so it doesn’t matter talking.”
“But our lives are only beginning.”
“No, it is the end and you are going away to war.’’
“I’m not going to fight,” I said.
“All the same, you are going away.”
“You’re not afraid I’m going to get killed?”
“No, I didn’t mean that; you will never get killed.”
“Well then,” I said. “I shall be back in six months and we’ll have a month together. We’ll go to the Himalayas, to Jali Tal, and meet Margaret and Jennifer again and have wonderful pony rides in the mountains.”
“Yes, of course we will, darling.”
“You don’t say it as though you believe it.”
“I believe, honestry.’’
“Honestly,” I said.
“Oh dear, I shall never learn. Honest-ly honest-ly.”
“You are crying, Sabby.”
“I know I am. It is only because it is so beautiful. Please look at moon.”
“I can see it in your tears.”
“All Japanese girls drop big tears when they see something very beautiful. Why is it that beautiful things also make sad?”
“Because there is already sadness inside you.”
“Tonight I promised myself I would be strong and not be sad.”
“You can’t help it, darling, when your name is Sabishii.”
“Yes I can, I am not going to cry any more.”
“And you are going to think about our next holiday in Jali Tal?”
“I promise not to think of anything else,” she said.
“You won’t wish you’d fallen off the minaret?”
“No; I didn’t want to fall off minaret unless you had fallen, and then I would have jumped, too.”
“And you’re happy again?”
“Yes, because this is the most wonderful night in all my life.”
“There’s plenty of it left,” I said.
“There is fourteen and a half hours until your train, because I have worked out.”
“You should only count time until good things.”
“Then it is just one hour until mosquito-net, and then I am going to bite nose.”
“I shall bite your ears.”
“Do you like Sabby’s ears better than Taj?”
“Yes, darling,” I said. “They are better proportioned and they are just as white.”
“Then let us go and bite.”
“All right,” I said. “We’ll go and find the tonga.”
Chapter Two
(1)
When I came in from the bathroom Sabby was sitting in front of the dressing-table with her hands on her lap and her face miserably puckered. She brightened at once as she saw me, and began brushing out her hair with swift, practised strokes.
“Why were you looking like that?” I said.
“It is only because I have a little ache in head through too much looking at moon.”
“Then take an aspirin.”
“Yes, darling, please give aspirin. You will find bottle in drawer.”
I shook out two, and gave them to her with a glass of water.
She swallowed them and smiled and said:
“I am all right now. I didn’t mean to look miserable, because it is very happy night.”
It had been a long day since I had got up in the morning in the fort at Cawnpore, not knowing that I was going to Imphal or that I was going to see the Taj and meet Sabby, and I had also got a slight headache. When Sabby had gone to the bathroom I looked for the aspirin bottle on the dressing-table to take one myself, but it had gone. I waited for Sabby to come back, and when I asked her for it she took it from her dressing-gown pocket.
“I am so sorry, but now there is only one left.”
“There were five a minute ago,” I said.
“Yes, darling. I threw others away.”
“You’ve swallowed them, haven’t you?”
“It is only to make headache better so that I can sleep well with Michael.”
“But, darling, you can’t take six—you’ll make yourself ill.”
“It doesn’t matter because I am used to aspirin.”
“It’s a bad habit.”
“But it makes headache well. Please don’t scold, darling.”
I lay awake for a long time. Sabby’s face was close against mine, and I could feel her warm breath on my cheek and her lashes tickling as they brushed my skin. Then I could only feel her breath and I thought that she was asleep. I drifted into a half-sleep, dreaming of the Taj and the jungle and the Japanese prisoners. I could see their little bowing figures in khaki a size or two too large, and their heads with cropped hair. Then the pedlars trying to sell the icing-sugar models of the Taj, and the jogging of the tonga horse, and everything altogether in a jumble until I must have passed into a deeper sleep with no dreams that I could afterwards remember. I woke up when it was still dark and Sabby was moaning. It was a long, steady moan that began with each breath and tailed away and began again. I listened until I could stand it no more, and then I touched her gently and whispered in her ear.
“Is anything the matter?” I said.
She grunted sleepily, and I asked her again, but she didn’t reply. She suddenly put her arms round me and clung to me tightly with her fingers pressed into my back, and she remained like that as though holding me with all her might from escaping, until I had once more dropped off to sleep. In the morning when the bearer came in with the tea she was lying in the same position against me, but she had relaxed the pressure, and her face was so peaceful that I hated to wake her.
My own train was early, before hers. She came to the station, and we kept saying the same commonplace things over and over again for the sake of filling in the awful minutes. She bought me a model of the Taj, but only for something to do, and made me promise to throw it out of the window; and I said I would keep it always and we should have it on our mantelpiece in years to come to remind ourselves of this occasion when we had to leave each other for six months. And I kept telling her how six
months were nothing, how husbands who went overseas from England had to leave their wives for years. At last the train started to move, and she grew smaller and smaller, waving her tiny hand, and I could only see a little white spot that was her face. Then we swung round a bend, and there was nothing, no longer any Sabby. I shut the door of the carriage and went into the lavatory, staring into the mirror to see what I looked like with damp eyes. It looked so comic that I laughed or made myself laugh, and then I went back into the carriage and discussed servants with an old dyspeptic Lieutenant-Colonel.
At Cawnpore I got transport to the Fort, but I only had time to eat a quick supper and exchange hurried news with Peter and Mario. Mario was going on leave in a fortnight’s time in order to get married, and meanwhile was living in ecstasy. As for Peter, he said he was going to go mad in the Fort without either of us, and why didn’t they take over a good hotel as a prisoner-of-war camp just to show there was no ill-feeling? We finished up a bottle of whisky—it was Peter’s, because mine was packed—and I began to feel excited about going, though I wished I was not doing so alone. Then I paid the bearer his wages, had my tin trunk loaded on to the lorry, and set off back to the station. The moon hung brilliantly in the sky as it had done the night before; only it was a day older now, and I was a day older, and the night with the Taj was already receeding far into the past, like the beautiful dream we had known it to be.
I had a top bunk in the train. I laid out my bed and climbed in straight away, and began to read a book, but my mind was full of other things and I read it without taking in the meaning. I closed it up and put it under my pillow. I began to talk to the man who was on the opposite bunk, a gaunt, middle-aged Army Captain, with the face of a disillusioned artist. He was not an artist, but he was disillusioned; and the story of his life came out bit by bit as we rattled down the valley of the Ganges at midnight. He had been a failure at home in accountancy, tried to sell water-softeners to housewives, and had somehow got to Rangoon and managed a failing cinema there. And then the war, when he had joined the Army in Burma, and retreated through the country and come out with malaria. Now he was going back to the border.
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