Playing Fields in Winter

by Helen Harris

  *

  Although she had not really thought about it that much, Sarah had naturally assumed that they would stay at the political big-shot uncle’s house in Delhi. Ravi had never actually said that they would, but it did seem likely in view of the hospitality of the extended Indian family and all that. She hardly questioned him though on that dazzling, wonderful morning when he told her that they were going to an hotel. In fact, she squeezed his hand conspiratorially because it must mean that he wanted greater intimacy. They were sitting on the airport bus when he told her, driving into the city along a wide avenue which for the first few minutes looked quite deceptively ordinary. Only then she began to notice oddities like women in saris riding side-saddle on the back of motor scooters and more women at the roadside digging a drain and, further on, a very brown, ragged family apparently camping under a tree. The city proper seemed a spacious, comprehensible place and the central ‘Circus’ where the bus stopped almost an eroded version of England. Only bit by bit did she catch sight of things which startled her, but then for a lot of the bus ride, she had had her face turned to Ravi.

  It was not a very nice hotel; in fact, it was rather disgusting. But of course that didn’t strike her straight away. They had taken a funny scooter rickshaw from the bus terminus, with her suitcase wedged across their knees. On the way, they had shouted silly pieces of news at each other above the racket of the engine and held hands and kissed, while the driver – a big and ebullient Sikh – kept turning round to giggle at them over his shoulder.

  At a distance, beyond Ravi, Sarah became aware of an extraordinary, implausible place. It was not a tremendously long ride to the hotel, but in the course of it the city changed completely. The broad, reasonable avenues gave way to narrow, jammed streets and a cacophony of the most motley traffic surged around them: bicycles, buses, more scooter rickshaws, flower-painted lorries and cars. It did not seem controlled by any obvious means and every vehicle aggressively pursued its own path. There were so many people on the pavements suddenly, although the avenues had been empty; so many jostling arms and legs and, at a traffic light, an arm with no hand on the end of it thrust itself under the hood of their scooter rickshaw and poked up sickeningly into Sarah’s face. But Ravi bellowed at it and it disappeared.

  Almost all her attention had been for Ravi. The indescribable joy of finding him, the reassurance that he existed, that he was here and that he loved her removed everything else to a distant plane. The city seemed in any case confused and dream-like. A haze of pink dust and sunlight would intermittently come between them and the glimpses of the city which she caught that morning seemed afterwards incoherent and unlikely. Her exhaustion from the overnight flight blurred everything. What with the sunlight, the unremitting noise, the chaotic traffic and the eddies of dust, in the end she was glad to get inside their hotel and shut out everything.

  She did register the dingy hall and the dirty staircase. She noticed the horrid red splashes on the skirting board as she followed Ravi up the stairs. But once they were in their room, there was only Ravi and everything else receded.

  For a day or two, or perhaps it had even been three, they had more or less stayed in the hotel room, although it was small and smelly. They had lain on the hard bed without even a sheet over them, talking and making love. But they had not mentioned anything important during that time. They had simply lain together and been. For a while, Sarah had slept and when she woke, Ravi was beside her reading one of the books which she had brought him. Stray indications of India reached her from outside; shrill shouting and the tiring sound of someone hammering in the midday heat, a crescendo of car horns and later on – perhaps it was already evening – the smell of spiced food cooking under their window. When they got thirsty and hungry, Ravi had gone down and brought back fresh limes and bottles of soda water, samosas wrapped in brown paper and strangely pale oranges. Later, when it was already completely dark, they had gone out to have dinner at a little restaurant almost directly opposite the hotel. Sarah had been so happy just to sit and eat with Ravi again, and so careful also to observe the new rules and not kiss or touch him in public, that she did not take in as much of their surroundings as she might have done. They were run-down and crowded, that much she saw. Coming back across the street to their hotel, she heard a scuttling on the pavement behind her and looked round. A moan drew her attention down to the shape of a creature pulling itself urgently across the ground towards her. In the dark, it looked for a moment grotesquely as though its legs were only two bent bones and it was heaving itself along on a pair of straining, over-developed arms. She stood transfixed, but Ravi hustled her into the hotel. Again they lay together and again they slept.

  In the morning – or perhaps it was already the afternoon, for at the beginning her jet lag had confused things even further – Ravi had come back from a shopping trip with a present for her, a sweet little brass bangle. For a day or two – or perhaps it had even been three – she had been perfectly happy to lie there in that stuffy room and not go out to see India at all. She had not asked Ravi what they were going to do; she had not even really cared about it and it was only on the third or fourth day that he started to explain what would happen.

  They were not going to stay at his uncle’s at all, it turned out. As ill luck would have it, there was a big congress on in Delhi right now and his uncle’s house was overflowing. In fact, his uncle did not even know yet that Ravi was in Delhi; he was really too busy to be bothered. Ravi had told his parents that he would stay with an old college friend when he came to collect Sarah, but really the friend’s flat was so small that it would be impossible for them to stay there for more than a night or two. He had thought it best to begin in comfort, he explained. Sarah, looking around at the scaly walls and the grubby, wasted curtains, did have a brief moment of apprehension then as she wondered whatever the next place might be like. But the glamour of being connected, however negatively, with a political congress of national importance made up for the disappointment.

  They would stay in Delhi for about a fortnight, Ravi thought. Sarah would get a chance to do some sightseeing, he had one or two business matters to attend to. Since he came back in July, he had been rather lazy about looking for a job. He had felt he deserved a break. But now he was getting fed up with sitting at home in Lucknow and he had decided it was time to act. There were a couple of people in Delhi who might be able to help him. Only a bit put out, Sarah had asked, ‘But won’t you show me around?’ And Ravi had answered, ‘Yes, of course I will. And, anyway, there are bus tours.’

  Their first outing was to visit his old college friend, Birendra. Ravi felt ridiculously nervous at presenting Sarah for the first time here. It was not that he was embarrassed or worried about how she would behave, but it was the very first time that his two lives would meet and he found it difficult to imagine how they would mix. But Birendra was an easy beginning; he laughed uproariously when they arrived, because he was not expecting them and was at work in the middle of a monumental mess. His small room was crowded with newspapers and books, and the remains of several uncleared meals were distributed on top of them. Ravi noticed that, amid his laughter, he was examining Sarah keenly, but he must have liked what he saw because he gave Ravi a friendly punch in the belly and crowed, ‘Yes, you’ve quite forgotten what slumming is like, haven’t you, old chap?’

  He quickly cleared room for Sarah and Ravi to sit down and put a kettle on to boil on a camping gas cooker in one corner. Then he perched on the edge of his table, hugging himself with pleasure as he looked at his visitors in grinning anticipation.

  Birendra had been one of Ravi’s closest friends at college. In the distant life before he had gone to England, Ravi remembered that Birendra had desperately wanted to go too. But he had failed to win a scholarship and naturally self-finance was out of the question. He had failed – as everyone had known at the time – not because he wasn’t clever enough, but because he had spoilt his chances by writing deliberately contro
versial things in his General History paper. The estrangement which might have resulted between them because of Ravi’s good fortune had never materialised. Every time Birendra might have felt envious or less worldly-wise, he only had to remind Ravi of the compromises he must have made in what he wrote in order to be admitted to Oxford, for Ravi to feel morally his inferior and a sneak. Their friendship had always thrived on joky rivalry and right now, with his challenging job on a left-wing newspaper while Ravi sat unemployed at home, Birendra was well ahead. Did Sarah improve Ravi’s position?

  She had been frankly somewhat shocked by Birendra’s flat. They had taken a bus to get there, her first real Delhi bus. It had seemed an incredibly long way; they had actually left the city and driven out along a wide avenue to another quite separate one. When they got off the bus, she had followed Ravi through a maze of small, nightmarishly crowded streets. People had gaped at her in a way she was just beginning to find unnerving. Birendra’s flat – one poky room and a sleeping alcove – was at the top of a huge, dilapidated house. In England she supposed it would have been called a tenement, but somehow you could not put the same labels onto things here.

  Anyhow, she had liked Birendra. She had taken to him straight away because, quite unexpectedly in the middle of all that upheaval, he had seemed somehow familiar. Despite the heat and the din outside and the sweat from the bus ride, it was suddenly almost as if she were sitting back in Ravi’s room in Oxford, listening to him as he fooled around with Sunil and Dev. So she was able to relax immediately, although she too had been worried and nervous, and to behave quite naturally without any inhibition.

  ‘No sugar, thanks,’ she said to Birendra as he poured their tea.

  Ravi giggled nervously. ‘Sarah’s been having a terrible time with our tea. She can’t get over it coming ready sweetened.’

  ‘You don’t take sugar?’ Birendra asked incredulously, pretending to scrutinise her suspiciously. ‘I would never have guessed it!’ He slapped his thigh and laughed at his own joke. ‘Well, I have three, I’m afraid, and in fact four as there are guests.’

  He put as many spoonfuls into Ravi’s cup too and passed it to him. Ravi took it and straight away sipped it appreciatively.

  ‘Gosh, you take far more sugar here than you did in England,’ Sarah could not resist commenting.

  Ravi answered quickly, ‘When in Rome …’

  But Birendra gave another great laugh and cried, ‘He’s a chameleon, that’s why. His behaviour is coloured by his surroundings.’

  ‘He seems exactly the same as he was in England, so far,’ Sarah replied in the same facetious tone. But in fact, as she said it, she made one mental exception; Ravi did not look quite the same. In four months he had shrunk somehow, grown less clear-cut. Or was it just that here he did not stand out?

  ‘“So far!”’ Birendra exclaimed. ‘“So far!” But you’ve only been here for three days. How are you liking it?’

  Sarah hesitated, ‘Well …’

  ‘She’s hardly been out of the hotel yet,’ Ravi said. ‘Jet lag,’ he explained.

  ‘That’s right,’ Sarah said. ‘It sounds awful, doesn’t it? Three days in bed! But, really, I was shattered. Now I can’t wait to get started, though.’

  ‘Where are you going to take her first?’ Birendra asked Ravi.

  Ravi considered and shrugged. ‘Jama Masjid? Red Fort?’

  ‘Oh, that’s so conventional. Why not begin at the beginning; Qutb Minar?’

  ‘OK,’ Ravi said, ‘and then?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten everything already,’ Birendra teased him. ‘You’re not a foreigner here.’

  ‘Oh, cut it out!’ Ravi responded. ‘And then? Tughlaqabad? Of course, there are those bus tours, aren’t there?’

  Birenda hooted. ‘Sure, sure, if you want air-conditioning and an American tripper’s version of history.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Sarah interrupted, ‘I’d far rather have the real thing. I’m really not keen on guided tours. You know Ravi, I don’t mind if I don’t see all the traditional tourist sights. I’d be far happier just wandering around and getting the feel of the place.’

  ‘Well, that’s easily done,’ Ravi answered flippantly. ‘We’ll take a stroll afterwards around Birendra’s local haunts.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Birendra agreed eagerly. ‘I’ll show you – and Mister Kaul – some local colour.’

  For a short time at the very beginning, Sarah did still think that India could be the country it had been in England. For a short time, in the company of Ravi’s college friends, she conceived a small private version of India, from which all the misery outside could be excluded. She thought it would be quite possible for her to feel at home in that India.

  When they got up to leave Birendra’s, he asked, ‘So when are you two going to exchange the hotel for the delights of my humble abode?’

  Although the remark had naturally been addressed to Ravi, Ravi turned to Sarah as though the decision were hers and she giggled nervously. ‘Well, I’m not sure …’

  ‘Some time next week, maybe?’ Ravi suggested.

  ‘We’re going to be awfully in your way though, aren’t we?’ Sarah said politely and then felt dreadful because Birendra bristled and replied, ‘I’ve put up four or five people in here, you know.’

  ‘Yes, Birendra’s actually planning to open a hotel in here,’ Ravi said quickly.

  And Birendra laughed at himself louder than anyone. But there was nevertheless an unmistakable awkwardness as the three of them said goodbye.

  Out on the pungent stairs, Sarah said to Ravi, ‘Was I OK?’ and when he squeezed her hand quickly and answered, ‘You were tremendous,’ she added, ‘Look, you’d better just decide what to do about where we stay, Ravi, I really don’t mind.’

  They ended up staying in Delhi for three weeks. Ravi’s job interviews could not be arranged immediately. Sarah was aghast that he could spend the whole day sitting waiting to see someone and then at the end of it be told to come back the next day. But Ravi seemed to take it in his stride, telling Sarah wryly that that was the way things worked in India.

  She went off on her own sightseeing. It was not what she had imagined – traipsing around monuments by herself with a guide book. In fact, she had not even brought a guide book. But Ravi got hold of one for her and, once or twice between assignments for his newspaper, Birendra came with her instead. She did not enjoy sightseeing on her own because, although she had set out on the first morning full of enthusiasm and independence, the experiences she had within her first few days discouraged her considerably.

  For a start, she had to get used to being stared at. It was a new and distressing experience for Sarah Livingstone – to stand out in a crowd simply because of the colour of her skin. She was also nastily aware of being female. After a week or so she became perpetually conscious of her legs emerging, white and indecent, from beneath her skirt when all the other women’s legs were covered up. Yet it was too hot and sticky to wear jeans. At midday, the monuments danced in a shimmering haze and she retired under the trees with her guide book and a bottle of the horribly sweet fizz which Ravi had said was the only safe thing for her to drink. Enchanted, she watched the pretty gilharis playing; Birendra told her that they were not some kind of fantastic striped Indian squirrel, but chipmunks. She noticed that the sparrows were not sparrows, but long-legged, yellow-billed monsters.

  One day in the Lodi Gardens, a man came up to her as she sat writing postcards and asked her if he might practise his English on her. He was a student of literature, he said. Although she might otherwise have been suspicious, Sarah was beginning to feel lonely. She was still well-disposed towards people like him, so she let him sit down next to her – reproaching herself that it would be a form of racism to move her handbag out of his reach too obviously – and they began a rather stilted conversation about various English authors. For a student of literature, he seemed pretty ill-read. After a while, he leaned over to Sarah and suggested coyly
that they went for a cold drink. Her first inclination was naturally to refuse, but it occurred to her that at least if something happened to her, it might prompt Ravi to come sightseeing with her. So she followed the man in the direction where, he indicated with a vague wave, there was a drinks stall. But this led them into a desolate, rather empty stretch of the gardens way beyond the ruined tombs, and as they walked under a row of tall trees the man made a sudden lunge at her and grabbed her around the waist.

  ‘Get off!’ she shrieked indignantly, aware of her prim little voice echoing in the deserted gardens. Although she tensed for a struggle, at the sound of her voice rising shrilly in the stillness the man let go of her and ran off, but the experience made her even less adventurous.

  She liked it much more when Birendra came with her. He was terribly courteous and polite and, even more important, she could talk to him about Ravi. To begin with, he had been rather shy and silent when she had tried to broach the subject, but gradually he thawed and told her all sorts of stories about their college days which were a revelation. Far from being the maverick he made himself out to be, in Birendra’s stories Ravi was the less daring of the two and had to be goaded to take part in their escapades. She and Birendra got on together so well, in fact, that it nearly made up for Ravi’s repeated absences.

  Ravi’s job interviews were not going too well. Whether he was being too intransigent in his demands or whether there were simply no suitable jobs to be had, Sarah could not tell. But she rather resented the fact that, because of the delays, he had to spend so much time away from her. Quite unfairly, she began to blame him for this.

  They did go together to Agra, at Birendra’s and Sarah’s insistence. Whatever else, Sarah had to see the Taj. And although Ravi fidgeted quite a bit while they were there, worrying about the opportunities which he might be missing in Delhi, later those three days were among Sarah’s happiest memories of her whole stay.