“What time was all this?” I asked.
The jeweler’s report was not clear. Two in the morning, he said at first—it was a time when Crishi was with me in our room upstairs; next he said it may have been four—we were still having a good time with each other at that hour; or it may have been five, he said—by then I had been asleep and presumed Crishi was too. I asked “Who directed all this operation?” “He did of course,” said the jeweler—off the top of his head, I could see, and I took some melancholy pleasure in contradicting him: “Crishi was with me.” The jeweler shrugged; he didn’t believe me.
It was not known where they had carried Michael. Sonya had tried to call various hospitals, but the jeweler doubted that they had taken him to one, for fear of a police report. I lied quickly: “They probably took him to the Bhais’ house. That’s where he is.” Sonya said “We must tell the embassy to send their doctor.” She wanted us to leave at once and take an embassy official and their doctor to the Bhais’ house. She told me to hurry, she said the chargé d’affaires himself was waiting for us—“What, you’ve spoken to him?” I asked. “Did you tell him anything?” “Anything! Of course I told him—I’ve reported Michael missing—”
“Ah,” I said, sitting down instead of hurrying as she wanted me to, “I wish you hadn’t.”
Sonya began to defend herself, but she was not sure of her ground. She was used to making mistakes. Always trying to do her best, she was quick and impulsive to rush into action—too quick and impulsive, as Grandfather had known. But in the past he had been there to shield her from the consequences. “I was so frightened, darling,” she said to me, “and I couldn’t find you. I felt so alone. I had to speak to someone, get someone to help. There was no one.”
“The hotel is full of our people,” I said. “All my family is here—the Rawul, the Bari Rani, Renée—why didn’t you go to them instead of to strangers at the embassy?”
Sonya was silent. I felt sorry for her—especially to see her dressed up in her fringed and floral silk frock and with her slightly swollen ankles bulging above her high-heeled pumps. She was as frightened as I was, for Michael; and for her there was another fear: of the place, and the strangers among whom she found herself. But who had asked her to come in the first place—and, having come, to stay?
I said “You’d better call and say it’s okay, we know where he is. . . . We do know!” I insisted. “He’s at the Bhais’ house and I’m just going there to see him.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No. No. You call the embassy and tell them it’s okay. And someone has to wait here, in case there’s a message. Crishi might try to call. He will try, and if he doesn’t get me in my room, he’s sure to try here.”
The jeweler got up to leave. He and Sonya began to exchange courtesies—she thanking him profusely, he protesting that he had done nothing but was ready for any service. I think he was glad to retreat without further involvement. Just as he reached the door, the phone rang. Stung by curiosity, he hesitated for a moment, but on the whole felt it safer to know nothing more. He even hastened his departure, as if afraid that whoever it was on the phone might discover his presence.
Sonya said “If it’s the embassy, what shall I say?”
I said “I’ll do it.” I went into the bedroom and shut the door. There was no need for her to hear what lies I told them.
It wasn’t the embassy, but it was Crishi. I had to sit on the side of Sonya’s bed because my legs wouldn’t support me, between the relief of hearing his voice and the fear of what he had to tell me. Of course his voice was absolutely cheerful and normal and he went on the offensive at once: “Harriet, where have you been? I’ve been trying to ring you all day!” It was the way he had rung me from Holland or Basel or the States, when he had taken off without telling me and I had been going crazy for two days wondering what had happened. But there was this difference now—he sounded far far far away, so far his voice seemed to be disembodied, coming to me like a spirit across untold worlds of mountains, rivers, deserts. I kept shouting “Where are you? Where are you? Can you hear me?” Sonya came and stood in the door-way, her hand on her heart. I asked “Where’s Michael?”
“Michael’s right here!” cried the disembodied Crishi. “Right beside me! He’ll talk in a minute! But first listen to me, Harriet: very carefully. What you have to do.”
Well I did want to listen very carefully, but there was Sonya, plucking at my sleeve, and I had to tell her hastily, “Michael’s okay. He’s with Crishi,” before I could concentrate on that voice from far away.
What he wanted me to do was come where he was—“But where are you?” “Here of course in Dhoka.” “But how did you get there?” “Oh for Christ’s sake, Harriet. By plane.” “You and Michael?” “Listen to me—operator, operator, operator!—okay, listen: The planes have been canceled, because of the weather—you’ll have to come by train.”
It was very difficult for me, concentrating so hard on what he was communicating and at the same time having to give reassuring glances at Sonya, who stuck close beside me, eating my face up with her anxiety. Giving up on Sonya for a while, I threw my whole being toward him. “I want you to come alone,” he went on. “Don’t tell anyone where you’re going.” “No one?” I asked and flung another reassuring glance at Sonya. He said “This is what you tell Rani: to go to London and wait there for a consignment.” “What consignment?” “Are you stupid or something? . . . Tell her we’ll be joining her soon—tell her in a few days, a week at the most—can you hear me?” “Yes yes yes—” Sonya imploringly touched my arm and I said: “Can I talk to Michael?” He said “You should be here day after tomorrow—can you hear me? Operator—ah well—”
He was cut off. I too began to scream for the operator and to bang the cradle up and down. Sonya was clutching my arm: “Did you speak to him?” In my agitation I yelled at her— “Didn’t you hear? We were cut off” She snatched the receiver from me and listened into its blank interior. “Better put it down,” I said, “so they can ring back.” She did so. We waited. Nothing came.
“But didn’t he tell you where they are? Can’t we try to get through to them?”
“Michael’s all right,” I said. “I was just going to speak to him when we were cut off.”
The phone rang again—both of us snatched for it—I got there first: But it was the embassy. A very polite young man with a nice New England sort of voice-—I kept him talking for a while, not letting on I wasn’t Sonya. I wanted time to think; and also to readjust myself to the difference between that mild voice—the things that were in it! the ski lodge in the winter, the carved pumpkins at Halloween, the drive to Vermont to see the leaves turn—and the distant disembodied dearly beloved Crishi still tingling in my ear. Finally I asked the young man to wait and I laid aside the receiver; I took Sonya’s arm and led her some distance away from the phone. She looked up at me expectantly.
“Tell him we’ve found Michael”; and at the shadow that crossed her face, I said more intensely, “He’s all right. Tell him.” She didn’t move. “Sonya, Michael’s all right. “I was just going to speak to him when we were cut off. Be quick,” I urged her. “Michael and Crishi must be trying to get through now. We have to hang up. Go on, Sonya, hurry.”
She didn’t hurry but walked with slow steps toward the phone, slowly picked it up, and was silent for a moment while she threw me a doubting look. I nodded to her in impatient encouragement. She had to speak. I listened. She said Michael was found; she apologized for troubling the embassy; she thanked them for their efforts; she hung up, not looking at me, and not happy with what she had done.
I had no more time for her. I had to get started. I told her I was going to my room, in case Crishi and Michael tried to call there, and asked her not to move from hers, so as to answer the phone from hers. When I approached my room, I saw someone standing outside it and was surprised to find it was Paul. I said “I thought you were sick.” “I am sick. Bloody sick. But I
have to take you to the train.” As I let us both in, I asked “Did Crishi call you from Dhoka?” Paul said “Get your things together; we have to go. The train leaves in two hours, and if you miss the connection, there won’t be another one for three days.”
I decided to pack only a small overnight bag. Someone else could send the rest after me, or whatever had to be done with it. I asked Paul if Crishi had said anything about bringing some of Michael’s things. He didn’t hear me. He was lying back in a chair with his eyes shut, his hair damp on his forehead. I was very quick with my packing, for I still had to go and see Renée. I left Paul in the room, promising him I would be back very soon; he nodded—I think he wished I wouldn’t come back at all and he could stay there resting forever. Although the room was air-conditioned, I turned on the ceiling fan so that a breeze blew refreshingly over his wasted face.
Renée overwhelmed me with questions—or rather, first, with reproaches: She asked where we had been all day, said that she had been trying and trying to reach us, that she hadn’t dared leave the room in case we called. The room did seem as if someone had been shut up in it too long. The feral quality that was part of Renée’s personality was strong in the air, no longer that of a wild youthful tigress but of one who had grown desperate from restless pacing in a cage. Desperate and maybe a bit mangy too—I don’t think Renée had had her bath for some time; one could tell with her because she perspired so strongly that her odor overcame even the potent scents she used. The room was littered with her underclothes, which she had taken off and left lying where they were, and she had also pulled out everything she possessed in an attempt to pack up.
“I thought we were leaving,” she explained. “I was getting ready. But instead you disappeared and I hear all sorts of rumors from the bearers—where is he, for God’s sake?” For a moment I wondered if she meant Michael or Crishi, but of course it was Crishi. I said “He called—this minute. Actually he called for you. He tried to get you here, and then with great difficulty he got through to me instead. He just had time to give me a message for you before we were cut off. What rumors did you hear?”
“Not about him, about Michael: how he got in a fight with the Bhais. What message did he give you?”
I told her first where he was, and before she could protest at his taking off without warning, I said how I hadn’t known either but had woken up in the morning to find him gone. Well, that was true, at any rate. I gave her the message—I said I didn’t know what he meant about the consignment but that Crishi seemed to think she would? She nodded gloomily, she paced up and down in her usual way, her arms crossed over her bosom; she was sunk in thought, and I let her think for a while, though I took a quick glance at my watch because of not wanting to miss the train.
At last she stopped pacing and stood in front of me and said “All right, I’ll do it, but it has to be for the last time. Absolutely the last time, Harriet.” She had forgotten I had told her I didn’t know what it was about but took it for granted that I did: that I was in with them on everything. She asked me if I was coming with her, but I said no, he had told me to stay in Delhi and wait for further messages here. As I said this, I looked at her with the same direct and serious gaze Crishi had when he told lies.
She put her hands on my shoulders and looked back into my eyes. Yes, she trusted me, we were comrades now, we were united forever. She said “I promise you, it’ll be the last time. I’ll never let him take these sort of risks again. And he won’t need to, will he? It’s all changed now, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “It’s only a few more days before we’re twenty-one.”
Suddenly, impulsively—in a great access of maybe affection, maybe gratitude, maybe some fear of what might happen—she took me in her arms. This was entirely unexpected from Renée, who was not demonstrative by nature, and certainly had never been so to me. But now she loved me very much and drew me very close.
I felt uncomfortable—for one thing, I couldn’t return her ardor. I’m afraid I held myself as rigid as a broomstick within her embrace; and I kept thinking about the time and having to wait three days if I missed the connection! She didn’t notice—she was whispering into my neck, “I’m so glad it’s you, Harriet, and that we can be together, the three of us.”
But when she let me go, she said in quite a different voice, “I couldn’t live without him, you know. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t consider it for a moment.” She put her hand in the pocket of her negligee, and there was a little bottle of pills in there. She held it in the palm of her hand and invited me to look at it as at a precious object. “It’s nothing to me,” she said. “I wouldn’t care a damn. I’d just take a handful—” She cupped her other hand, threw back her head, and made the gesture of throwing a handful of pills into her mouth.
I uttered a shocked sound, then closed her hand over the bottle in her palm and said “Oh no, Renée, you mustn’t think of such a thing—and why should you, ever?” I pressed my own hand affectionately over her closed fist.
“He knows,” she said in a warning voice. “He knows I’ll do it.”
“You’ll never have to,” I promised—and got out as fast as I could: no time to stand on ceremony, I had a train to catch.
My plan was to pick up the bag I had packed, rouse Paul, and get going. I had forgotten Sonya; or had edged her out of my mind. But when I returned to my room, she was there. All she said was “I’m coming too.” I began to protest, but she was absolutely adamant. Paul said “You’ll miss your train.” I picked up my bag hurriedly and tried to kiss Sonya goodbye. “I’ll be back in a day or two, with Michael,” I promised. She repeated “I’m coming too.” When I went out with Paul, she followed us. She came with us in the taxi we took to the station; she was wearing the clothes she had put on to go to the embassy. She had no baggage of any kind, not having had time to pack anything, only her white purse.
At the station she gave Paul money to buy a ticket for her as well as for me. I had given up arguing with her, hoping to lose her in the crowd. But she clung to me while I pushed my way through and went up and down stairs and across a bridge, in search of the right platform. Paul explained that the train we were taking didn’t have an air-conditioned section so we would have to go in an ordinary first-class compartment. He installed us in a coupé and stood outside the barred window, waiting for the train to leave. Everyone stared at us—I guess we made a strange threesome, Paul and I in old jeans, and Sonya in her floral dress, with white hat, shoes, and purse. Paul was urging me through the window to remind Crishi about his passport; I only half-listened to him, for I was making a last-minute attempt to persuade Sonya to go back to the hotel. Vendors tried to sell us oranges and magazines, and in fact were successful with Sonya, who felt sorry for them. Other vendors came, selling tea and buns and plastic dolls. She bought from everyone. Paul explained where we were to change trains; he said he would leave us now, because he felt so rotten. He didn’t go far—I saw him stretch himself out on a stone bench on the platform. He lay between a fat peasant in a dhoti and with Shiva marks on his forehead and a very thin poor woman who may have been a beggar and was eating something messy from a leaf. People pushed and shouted and spat all around him, and skeletal red-clad porters, balancing huge metal trunks on their heads, screamed for passage way. Paul didn’t stir; he lay in the middle of it all, utterly spent and gaunt, his eyes shut, stubble on his face, the soles of his feet as black as any beggar’s or holy man’s. And like any holy man, he appeared beyond everything, beyond every desire except for rest and peace.
OUR compartment, or coupé for two, had only two bunks in it, one on top of the other. I climbed up the ladder to the top bunk, where my head was very close to the fierce little black ceiling fan. A door led to our bathroom with a brown-stained washbasin and WC and immemorial sewage smells seeping through the disinfectant. Before the train started, a sweeper went in there to give a last officious wipe around, and was rewarded by Sonya; and also a bearer in a frayed and food-stained
uniform came to make up our beds and take our orders for meals. We were entirely self-sufficient in this little box of a compartment; and for the next twenty-four hours the two of us might as well have been sealed in a capsule and hurtling through uncharted regions. First it was day, then night, then day again; it didn’t make much difference except that our box got hotter and grimier. Although we kept the window tightly shut, soot and cinders came through the cracks. There was nothing to see outside beyond an immense flat space wrapped in a pall of dust; at night the dim blue-colored bulb cast a ghostly light around the compartment. The train stopped several times at little wayside stations; both by day and by night, it seemed to be the same men who came up to our window with pitchers of tea, and the same raucous, incomprehensible cries of hawkers and railway officials were heard along the platforms.
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