Three Continents

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  I SAW a lot of the Lord Krishna during these days because of all the pictures we had, the Indian miniatures. They hung on the walls of the flat upstairs and there were more downstairs, in gold frames, and portfolios of them were kept in drawers. Many of them were scenes of nature and others were interiors, but they were all somehow erotic. New ones kept arriving, and Renée and Crishi pored over them together. Various kinds of people brought them—some of them were followers, who had no interest in the pictures but acted only as couriers. But there were also some Indians, most of them stout and shining all over—-their suits shone, their big rings with jewels in them, their oiled hair, their brand-new shoes—and these did have an interest and argued with Renée and Crishi over the date and place of origin of the pictures, and their price. Renée and Crishi usually won these arguments; they seemed to be real experts. I thought at first they were collectors but then discovered that they were dealing too. Besides receiving consignments from India, they visited salesrooms—here in London, or one or both of them would fly to Switzerland or Holland, and once or twice to New York. These trips were always very sudden; I didn’t even know they were gone till Crishi called me from Zurich or somewhere, or sometimes he didn’t call but was missing for a few days. When he turned up again, I would pounce on him in desperate relief—“Where have you been?” and he grinned and said “I’m back now.”

  They visited various art galleries, but there was a particular one, just off St. James’s, they were in all the time. Crishi often called and told me to meet him there. He was usually late, so I spent a good deal of time waiting for him and got to know the pictures really well—they were the kind I was familiar with at home, for the gallery specialized in Indian art. Many of the visitors appeared to know each other, and the gallery was almost like a club; and as in a club, if they didn’t know you, they didn’t speak to you, so I sat there reading the same catalog over and over, pretending I wasn’t hearing the conversations going on literally over my head. There were the usual very superior sort of girls who work in art galleries; and after asking in frigid voices if they could help me, they left me conspicuously alone. It was no better when Crishi finally came, for he knew everyone and had a lot to talk to them about. He never seemed to notice me sitting there waiting till he was ready to go, when suddenly he said “Well are you coming or not?” as if it had been I who had kept him waiting. The only person to take notice of me was the owner of the gallery, who gave me different catalogs to look at when he saw how long I had been reading the same one. In a way, he appeared to be as much an outsider as I was, for whereas everyone else had a lot to say in loud confident voices, he was quiet and withdrawn; when he did speak, he stuttered a bit, but that may just have been his hesitant way of talking. He was a tall, very English Englishman called Rupert.

  It was Bari Rani who first told me that Rupert had been Renée’s husband. She told me a lot of things, for we did finally have that talk she kept mentioning, at least in part. It wasn’t an undisturbed session, for it took place in her house, with the girls running in and out calling to her and to each other and to Teresa, who was pressing their clothes and packing them. They were all going to Bombay for a wedding—it was their second trip since I had known them; they stayed for a few days, did a monstrous lot of shopping, and came back loaded with presents for everyone. Teresa went too, to help with the luggage. It was about Teresa that our talk began, when the Bari Rani confided to me: “They’ve been trying to get at her—you know, to make her take things. But I said absolutely not.” I didn’t know what she meant and waited for her to go on. She had to exchange some more shouts with the girls, but she came back to me: “It’s something where I’ve always put my foot down, since the beginning: otherwise they would be on to us too, can you imagine—the girls and myself. And you, Harriet. You’ll have to be very firm about that.” Here I did have to admit I had no idea what she was talking about. She was astonished: “Oh my goodness,” she said and got up and shut the door, which was unprecedented in that house. She came and sat very close to me on her gold sofa: “I should have known,” she said. “You’re exactly the sort of innocent person they would trap. Trap and use. . . . No, Daisy, I’m talking, shut the door! I said, shut it!” She sat beside me, sighing. I waited and wondered; actually I didn’t want to hear too much. “Where to start,” she said and was silent a bit longer. I looked down at the floor. I thought, If she says too much, I won’t believe her.

  She started at the beginning, with her own marriage to the Rawul. “His family wanted him to marry some traditional girl from a royal house, but he chose me. I’m not even saying it was because of Daddy’s money—though he did need it, for his movement. I believed in the movement too. I thought it was wonderful. I thought he was wonderful—such an idealist and so clever and educated; and of course a very ancient title and a state of his own and a palace—not that I would spend five minutes in it—it is the most gruesome place, Harriet, and you must never let them take you there. But Daddy bought us a flat on Malabar Hill and a house at Devlali and these houses in London, so we could be wherever we liked and it was really quite beautiful, Harriet, in the beginning. I’m not saying it was ideal—no marriage is ideal—Baby, did you hear me! I don’t want to be disturbed, I’m talking to Harriet, very privately!—there were difficulties naturally, problems, I’ll go into that some other time, Harriet, when you’ve been married longer and will understand better—but it was working out quite all right, till she came. Renée. That’s her name—not Rani, not the Rani—she has no right to a title. Just Renée.” She had to collect herself a bit before going on: “She came for the pictures and things first. There were others like her who made friends with the royal houses and went from one to the other to see what they could buy up and sell at a big profit in their galleries or at auction. It was all illegal of course, high-class smugglers, that’s all they were, but so charming and such nice company, you know how English people can be when they want to. Not that she’s English, not properly, though she’s married to Rupert—you didn’t know that? Oh yes, poor Rupert. I don’t think he knows in the least what’s going on. No one really knows—not the Rawul, he’s much too up there in the clouds—only she knows, she and Crishi.” Here she gave me a sideways glance, and I felt we were reaching the point where it was not my business to hear much more. She caught hold of my hand urgently: “Don’t let them involve you, you mustn’t. They’ll use anyone in any way they can—I told you, even Teresa, the stupid girl. She had no idea what they gave her, she thought she was just taking a little package among her bras and panties; that’s what they told her. But when I found out, I put a stop to it, once and for all. I was furious. I told Teresa yes, and if the customs had opened your baggage, do you know where you’d be today? In jail where you deserve to be, not to speak of the terrible publicity for us. Let them use their own people, my goodness, there are enough of those poor sick creatures and no one would even miss them if they rotted away in jail for the rest of their lives.”

  She meant the followers. I’m afraid we all thought about them in that way, as if they were both indistinguishable and dispensable. Here in London the area of Earl’s Court where they lived together was in the process of being upgraded. Some of the houses had already been converted into apartments and had window boxes and yellow front doors. Others were boarded up, growing black and derelict as they waited to be refurbished; Crishi had taken one of them for the followers, and the boards were removed from those windows that still had glass in them and the electricity was reconnected. There was the usual copier, teleprinter, two office tables with typewriters on them, and a telephone standing on the floor of what had once been the front drawing room; on the wall hung a duty schedule and the Rawul’s official portrait. The followers slept all over the rest of the house, some in beds, some on mattresses on the floor, some in sleeping bags. There were plenty of extra rooms for anyone who wanted to stay there, but only one bathroom was functioning. The kitchen was in the basement, and everyone more or l
ess fended for himself down there—I think because they were all on different diets, many of them being vegetarians but not of the same kind, some eating eggs and others not even taking root vegetables like onions and potatoes. But there were also some who needed a high-protein diet, with lots of underdone meat.

  I went to see them sometimes, going there on the tube and walking through many streets identical with theirs. I had already discovered that being in London involved a lot of walking in the rain down long streets of grim and grimy houses. Whenever I arrived, they were busy at their own occupations or preoccupations and had no time for an outsider like me. Yes, it was strange but they did regard me as an outsider. Being married to Crishi evidently didn’t count with them; it wasn’t a real commitment like the one they had made. From their point of view, they were right. I hadn’t given up anything the way they had—I didn’t have to live in this bleak house and do every kind of menial work for the movement and its leaders. Here in London they stood at street corners distributing pamphlets announcing the Rawul’s meetings, and they went from door to door selling literature like the Rawul’s biography, and tapes of his lectures, and pin-on medals with his picture on them. They did everything they were told eagerly, regarding it as important to the movement, and to themselves personally. Why? For what? I couldn’t see what was in it for them, except the commitment itself. There was one girl, Debbie, whom I had known at home—she was the one with whom I had had the fight about the bathroom: One day in London I saw her come in soaked through and very dispirited because she hadn’t been able to sell her quota of literature though she had tramped around in the rain the whole day. The moment she entered, the phone rang and it was from headquarters—that was the office in Mayfair—saying they needed some people to help Crishi and Renée get a consignment of pamphlets ready to take to the airport. There was no shortage of volunteers, but they let Debbie go because she was so keen, and anyway she was wet already and could hurry over there just as she was.

  Debbie was the only one of them ever to ask me for money, and then not for herself—she didn’t need it; they had no personal cash but drew out of a central fund. While on the subject of money, I might as well talk about mine. A regular income was paid into my account, but I never used it so the accountant took it out again to reinvest or something. After my marriage, Crishi looked after all that for me, and he did use the income; and because expenses for the movement were so high, he tried to get a bigger allowance out of the trust fund and also some capital. There were a lot of arguments between him and the people looking after the trust, but he told me not to bother about it and I didn’t. It happened sometimes, when he asked me to sign something, that Mr. Pritchett had already called me from New York to inquire if I was sure I knew what I was signing; and in case I wasn’t, he explained it to me and seemed to suggest I shouldn’t, but I always did. Anyhow, when Debbie asked me for money, she said it was for Paul—“You remember Paul?” she said. She described him to me, but I soon interrupted her, for a scene I had removed from my memory arose with him: Crishi in the orchard kicking someone lying on the ground—“Yes, yes,” I said to Debbie, to make her stop describing Paul.

  “There’s this letter from him,” she said. It looked like an ordinary envelope with foreign stamps on it, somewhat grimy and creased as if it had traversed difficult terrain, but the return address was a jail in Turkey. “It’s the winter that’s the most difficult,” she said apologetically. “You wouldn’t think they’d have such a severe winter, but I guess being so near Russia. . . . He needs to buy blankets and some warm clothes. You can buy anything you want if you’ve got money but he doesn’t have any. Food too, and it does make a difference, I mean to have some proper food inside you instead of what they give you—you can read what he says.”

  But I didn’t—I just wrote a check for her, made out to bearer so she could cash it and send it to him. I didn’t ask Debbie too many questions as to why he was there. I remembered how he had pleaded with Crishi, “But why me, why me?” I guess I knew now more or less what that had been about, but all the same next time I saw Crishi, which was the next day, I asked him, “Why’s Paul in jail?”

  “For being a fool,” Crishi answered at once; and when I protested that no one gets put in jail for that, he said “Well they ought to be.”

  “But he must have done something.”

  It wasn’t easy to go on insisting this way because I knew that he hated being asked questions about what he considered his business and not mine or anyone else’s. Also, he was very good at evasion, and when it looked as though I were going to ask more, he picked up the phone and was soon in an important conversation with someone in Scotland. After that, it turned out there was an appointment he had forgotten about and, very tender and apologetic about having to leave me, he took off.

  Still, I would have returned to the subject of Paul—I had made up my mind to, even at the risk of getting Crishi angry or, worse, making him rush off—but I was diverted by something that happened with Michael. He came to tell me he was going away for a couple of days; when I asked where, he answered reluctantly, “To Amsterdam,” and when I asked what for, he didn’t answer. Crishi would have had no difficulty making up some lie—he would have enjoyed it—but Michael couldn’t, and said nothing. I told him about Paul being in jail, and how he must have got there through smuggling for Crishi: I didn’t have to use any roundabout ways with Michael—I could let him right into my mind and whatever I was thinking in there. And it seemed Michael knew all about it, had gone through it in his own mind, for he answered at once: “You have to take risks.” He had that stubborn look he got when he had struggled with a dilemma and had come out with a decision. Even if it was a wrong one, he would stick by it. His face was more white and bony than ever, and he looked as though he hadn’t slept for a couple of nights, going through this struggle with himself. But now he was resolved and nothing I could say would make him reconsider.

  While he was away, I was too tense and disturbed to think about much else, and anyway Crishi didn’t give me an opportunity to return to the subject of Paul as I had intended. And when Michael came back—and he did come back, still very pale and saying nothing about his trip—I was so relieved I again forgot about Paul. But in the meantime Crishi had been going through my checkbook as was his habit, and he found the bearer check I had made out to Debbie. When he questioned me about it, I could go right in about Paul again. This time he didn’t say Paul was a fool, but that Debbie was to ask me for money and I to give it to her.

  I said “But he’s freezing and starving and who knows what else.”

  Crishi wasn’t impressed: “He ought to learn how to manage. . . . Anyone can manage in jail if they use their brains, but he doesn’t have any. Last time too—he sat through the whole five years, without even trying to get out. Not even trying. How dumb can you be? Don’t look at me like that, Harriet: Of course I’ve been in jail and of course I’ve got out. They caught up with me again, but that was rotten luck. At least I tried. I didn’t sit there asking the girls back home to send me money.”

  Anna’s article hadn’t come out, with all the new information in it, so what he said was a shock to me. I tried not to show it, but he burst out laughing: “Who’d have thought it—Aunt Harriet married to a con.” But at the same time he took me in his arms and kissed my face and neck in the nicest way, to make me feel better. And after some moments of this gentle treatment, I saw it was naïve to be shocked, when people were in jail all over the world and for every kind of reason. I became calm and sensible and asked him what he had been in for, and he said “Political,” and looked serious. I nodded; it was natural that he should have been jailed for political reasons—after all, we were a new and revolutionary movement and had to expect opposition from the existing order. I said that to him, I was ready to talk about it, but he was more interested in making love, and we didn’t go into it any further.

  Although I spent so much time alone and with nothing to do, I can’t s
ay I was bored or homesick. They often called me from home—Sonya, Manton, Lindsay—each of them eager to know how I was, worried about me, wanting to hear from me. I had no difficulty assuring them that Michael and I were very well and happy. I was glad to hear from them but never thought of calling them myself. I suppose it is natural to be entirely engrossed in your new life when you are first married, even if it is not what you had anticipated. I lived in a constant state of excitement—principally waiting for Crishi, when he would call me, where he would tell me to go, if he would come upstairs at night or stay down with the Rawul and Renée. Although that was my central preoccupation, there were other new things, other aspects of my new life, I was beginning to learn about. But that too was part of being married, I thought, having to get used to a whole different pattern of life. It wasn’t a pattern that became clear to me all at once—really, it never did become entirely clear—but only in jigsaw pieces here and there. I never knew what piece I would find next.

  AFTER the Bari Rani told me about Rupert, I took more notice of him whenever I had to wait around in the gallery. It was hard to connect him in any way with Renée, let alone think of him as having been married to her. He looked very English, in his yellow sweater, Harris tweed jacket, and Old Etonian necktie, but there was also something unworldly about him. This may have had to do with his hesitant speech, and his shy smile, and dreamy eyes. He was the co-owner of the gallery but deferred to the girls he employed. These girls had a confident manner and were arrogant toward everyone except one person—Rupert’s partner, Nicholas, who was sharp and sarcastic with them, though very deferential with potential clients. Nicholas appeared to be completely in charge, deciding about hanging pictures, giving instructions to the girls, smilingly attentive to everyone who came in, and greeting many of them by their first names and kissing the air near their cheeks. Everyone in the gallery spoke in the same kind of English accent as the Rawul—the kind one doesn’t hear too much anymore—only with them it sounded not comic, the way it sometimes did with him, but intimidating.