Hindoo Holiday

by J. R. Ackerley

  If only there were some one to write again to the Commissioner to put the case before him, to ask for protection for Abdul—and to request the refunding of his money. If only Mr. Ackerley would do this for him—the last request he would ever make—for consider the effect Mr. Ackerley’s certificate had already had on the Commissioner.

  “Very well, Abdul,” I said, “get me some notepaper.”

  He was quite astonished—astonished and delighted. Pen and paper were brought.

  “By the way,” I said, as I signed it, “I’m dismissing you to day—this is our last lesson.”

  He could scarcely believe his ears.

  “What, Mr. Ackerley? No more lessons? But Mr. Ackerley, that is very bad. It cannot be. You will never learn to speak in this way, and you are much improved. Oh, my Lord! You are joking, I think. Is it not so?”

  I shook my head.

  “But why will you not go on with your lessons? What is the matter?”

  I said the weather was too hot.

  “Oh, my Lord! But what of your promises, Mr. Ackerley, that you will keep me with you till the last? Oh, my Lord! Do not forsake me also, gentleman, at this moment! Never mind, then, I will come without payment to teach you for nothing. Ah, Mr. Ackerley, do not send me away from you.”

  There was a lot more of this; but I was firm.

  “But I shall come to visit you, Mr. Ackerley?” he cried. “I shall come to visit you—from time to time—when I wish?”

  I wanted to refuse even this, but of course I hadn’t the courage. So I said that he might come, but not too often, and never again with any hope of assistance from me. Then I made him a present of his railway fare to Deogarh, and with this and the letter he departed slightly consoled.

  APRIL 18TH

  His Highness told me the Hindoo’s poetic conception of male beauty the other day as we drove out together. The hair, he said, should be like scorpions’ stings; the nose like the parrot’s beak; the eyebrows drawn bows meeting above it, and the eyes the eyes of a fawn. The cheeks should seem like looking glasses; the chin a lemon; the teeth pomegranate seeds; the lips coral, and the ears mother-of-pearl. The neck should be like a shell; the arms like serpents; the torso like the leaf of the sacred peepal tree, and the thighs plantains. I had never noticed the leaf of the peepal tree, so he stopped the car and sent his gray-bearded cousin to pick one for me. It was a beautiful bright leaf, and His Highness illustrated with it the poet’s fancy. From the stalk (the human neck) the edges of the leaf ran squarely out on either side (the shoulders) and then curved round and inwards to terminate in a finely-pointed tail, some two inches long (the waist), so that the suggestion was of a square, broad torso upon a very narrow waist, like the Minoan Vase-bearer. From the spine of the leaf, running from stalk to tip, the ribs curved out to join and form a fine tracery just within the outer edges, and from these ribs radiated a scarcely perceptible network of small and large veins.

  On our way back, a bird flew across the road. His Highness called my attention to it, but I was too late to see it. He said it was a bird he had never seen before. “Not that rare blue bird of yours?” I asked. No, this one was red.

  “It flashes like a jewel!” he exclaimed. “It must be the robin red-breast!”

  Narayan says that he has no physical love for Sharma or for any man. This is wrong, he thinks.

  But he kisses him sometimes in praise, as he beats him in blame. When Sharma does a good act Narayan kisses his hand, and when he makes a good speech Narayan kisses his cheek; but publicly, never in private.

  “Not his mouth?” I asked.

  “He eats meat,” said Narayan.

  One night, he told me, when they were lying together on a charpai , Sharma whispered:

  “Narayan! Narayan! Kiss me.”

  Narayan pretended to be asleep. But Sharma knew he shammed, and touched him. Narayan would not respond to this either, so Sharma leant over him and kissed his hand. And in the morning Narayan said that he had dreamed that some one had kissed him on the hand. But Sharma would not believe in this “dream”; he said Narayan had been awake all the time and knew it was he who had kissed him.

  Laughing, Narayan had denied this and asked why Sharma had kissed his hand; and Sharma had replied:

  “I got much love.”

  “He love me very much . . . very much,” said Narayan, recounting this story. “I say to him one day. ‘If I die, what you do?’ and he say, ‘I die too. I have no father, no mother, no God, no friend, only you. You are my God, my friend and brother. What can I do but die too?’ And then he say in English, ‘My darling Narayan.’”

  But Narayan’s feelings for Sharma are not so simple, so honest, or so beautiful.

  His affection towards him, I feel, is based chiefly on possession; he is proud of the influence he has over this wild, handsome creature, of Sharma’s unquestioning, unswerving devotion and respect. Sharma never does anything without Narayan’s consent; his eyes seldom leave his friend’s face; he reflects, like a mirror, all his moods and variations.

  Narayan is not unkind to him, but he is clearly indifferent to the handsome body and contemptuous of the childish mind, and treats him usually as if he were a slave or a hopelessly backward pupil.

  “He is a fool,” he said to me one day, “so I do not tell him anything.”

  And once, I remember, he sent Sharma to bring him some iced water, which he received and drank without a word of thanks.

  “He is my bearer,” he observed, with faint amusement, when Sharma had taken away the empty glass.

  I was walking with Narayan while we were talking of these things, and a hideous Indian pig came foraging and grunting towards us.

  “Pretty creature,” I remarked playfully.

  “Pretty?” said Narayan, looking at me in perplexity.

  “Very beautiful animal.”

  “Dirty!” replied Narayan loftily; “it eat shit.”

  “So do you,” I said.

  For a moment he didn’t understand what I meant; then he was very cross. Did I consider, then, he demanded, that there was no difference between the excrement of a cow and the excrement of a man? After deep thought I conceded a slight difference, and then, laughing, put my arm round his shoulders. Later he began idly kicking along in front of him some dry cow-dung, so I laid a restraining hand on his arm.

  “Don’t kick good food about,” I said; “ ‘Waste not, want not,’ you know.”

  But I don’t think he quite liked this form of jesting.

  APRIL 23RD

  Every morning at about five o’clock or even earlier, before the sun has risen, I go out riding into the jungle. This used to be rather fun, exploring the wild country and meeting peacocks, jays and parrots, jackals and wild deer. It was an adventure to see for the first time the chilla tree with its silver bark and thick clusters of little round leaves, like pale-green coins; or the bare, leafless dhak, apparently dead, burgeoning suddenly into flame-like flowers. It seemed, then, a good morning’s work to have traced a sweet smell to the tree or bush that emitted it; to have associated a strange bird-call with its author. I remember how pleased I was when I connected a loud, clear, sharp note with, to my surprise, the smallest bird I had ever seen, which was hopping about from twig to twig in the dim interior of a thick hedge. It was a dark-green bird with a black ring round its neck, a long thin beak, and a tail that stood up almost vertical. And how satisfied I was when His Highness, to whom I always recounted my adventures, told me that it was, of course, the sun-bird.

  “Why the sun-bird, Prince?” I had asked.

  “Because it eats nothing but sunbeams,” was the prompt reply.

  But now I have explored all the country within range, and am tired of revisiting it alone. My companionless state, of which I am now so conscious, causes in me petty irritations with whatever points it—my stallion’s behavior when he meets a mare upon the road; the unwanted flies that swarm about my head and cannot be left behind, however fast I canter, when I retur
n at seven. After about that time the sun becomes so dangerous that even the pith helmet is insufficient protection against it, and I do not leave the Guest House again until the evening.

  And the dust! the dust! It lies, this ash of a burnt-out season, over everything; I am caked and clogged with it when I return. I remember it vividly in Delhi and how active the sweepers were. Whenever I went out sight-seeing they seemed to spring up from nowhere in my path to lay about them with their bundles of twigs, valiantly attacking the unconquerable dust, so that it rose up in blinding, choking clouds, only to settle back again, partly where it was, partly upon me. Did it have to be disturbed at all, this dreadful, ubiquitous, deep gray powder, I wondered? Would not the winds shift it, the rains rinse it, in God’s good time?

  At any rate, I did not welcome it in my always moist face, or on my alternative white duck suiting which had to last a week; it got there fast enough in any case without being driven and directed, as many of those sweepers seemed purposely to drive and direct it, upon me as I passed. Perhaps they were revenging themselves upon the world they might not enter, or merely disporting in their own element—wretched untouchables, dregs themselves, whirling among the dregs.

  What does my friend, the Dewan, think of all that, I wonder, with his squeamishness about dirt and germs, his disgust with other people’s mouths, his dread of sputum in the teacup, his repugnance to the kiss upon the lips. With all his shrill prejudices against European customs, how does he fare in his own land? Indians are great expectorators. Hawked-up phlegm, streams of red betel-juice saliva, are shot about incessantly as they walk. It was one of the first things I noticed when I landed in Bombay, the patches everywhere of bright red spit. I thought it must be blood, until I was forced to the conclusion that, in that case, everyone was bleeding. And there the sweepers were in Delhi churning it about, whirling it all up in one’s face, the dried sputum in the dust, anonymous coughings; one could not help but have it in one’s nose, in one’s mouth. Give me the unhygienic customs of Europe! Give me the loving-cup! Give me the kiss!

  The horses they send me are drawn from the State cavalry. I have never seen this body functioning—though the Dewan is said to inspect it at his house every Sunday morning—but considering the condition of the more carefully selected ungelded mounts with which I am supplied, it cannot be a very fearsome company.

  The army, which is termed “irregular,” comprises also the Royal Guard and an emergency militia, which together are computed at five hundred strong in round figures; so I do not suppose the State cavalry could amount to more than a score of horse.

  His Highness has the greatest contempt for his military forces.

  “If there was a battle,” he remarked, “they would all fled away.”

  “Have you seen the barber’s son to-day?” he asked me, as we drove out yesterday afternoon.

  “No, not since the day before yesterday.”

  “He is a fool-buchcha!” remarked His Highness.

  “What is a ‘buchcha’?” I asked.

  “Has your tutor not taught you that word? ‘Buchcha’ is Hindi for ‘baby.’ I call Sharma my ‘foolbuchcha.’ He is always asking for things. He asks for too much from me. I do not like that. His last request is for a gramophone. ‘Maharajah Sahib, I want a gramophone’—just like a baby. So I teased him. I said, ‘Why must I give you a gramophone? You will break it. You are quite uneducated. You cannot read or write. You are a foolbuchcha!’”

  His Highness began to shake with laughter.

  “Last night I sent for him to come and talk with me, and what message do you think he sent back? ‘I am only a baby, a fool-baby. I am only five years old. I do not know how to talk or reason. Let me sleep!’”

  He chuckled over this for some time, and then asked:

  “Have you seen Narayan?”

  “Yes, Prince.”

  “When? When?”

  “Almost every day.”

  “What does he talk about?”

  I laughed.

  “Nothing much. Neither of them talks very much. Sometimes they will sit with me for an hour with scarcely a word passing. They aren’t very lively companions.”

  “Have you been to Narayan’s house?” asked His Highness.

  “Yes, he invited me there only the other day.”

  “What was it like? Was there furniture?”

  I became a little vague.

  “Yes,” I said, “I think there was some furniture.”

  “What furniture? What furniture?”

  “Oh, there was a charpai, and a bit of carpet, and a chair. . . .”

  “What kind of chair? Was it like a Guest House chair?”

  “I hardly remember. Perhaps it was like a Guest House chair. Why, Prince?”

  “The matter is that Sharma asked me for furniture from the Guest House and I gave him these things. Now I hear they are in Narayan’s house.”

  “Well, if you gave them to Sharma, can’t he do with them as he likes?”

  “But, my good sir, he told me they were for himself.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “I have sent two men to Narayan’s house to see what he has got there,” His Highness remarked.

  “I don’t believe Narayan would do anything dishonest,” I said. “I think you make a mistake in suspecting him.”

  “But I have very bad reports of him—all the time. They say he makes his widow sister lie down with Sharma. Is it true? Has he told you?”

  “Of course it isn’t true,” I said irritably, and told him of the conversation I had had with Narayan on the day that I visited his house. “Perhaps it would be a good thing if it were true,” I added.

  “It would be very bad,” said His Highness severely.

  “Well, it’s not true, anyway,” I replied.

  “But what must I believe? I do not know what to do.”

  I said I had always understood that the usual procedure was to start by cutting out the informers’ tongues; but he didn’t seem to think much of this suggestion.

  When I got back to the Guest House I heard a call from above and saw the grinning faces of Narayan and Sharma peeping down at me from the roof. The roof is flat and protected by a low wall; I sleep on it every night under the open sky, and often sit there in the evenings to get the benefit of whatever breezes may be about. I climbed the wide stone staircase now and joined the two boys, who were in high spirits, chewing betel and laughing over some private joke.

  “Well, you’ve done it this time, you two,” I said, as I sat down between them. “His Highness is very angry with you.”

  As soon as I had said this I regretted it; immediate gloom descended upon them both. In a scared voice Narayan asked me what I meant, and when I told him he passed it on to Sharma. Then silence fell upon them, and I realized that I had let myself in for a depressing evening. At last Sharma suggested that he should go off and see what was happening, and this being approved, he departed, leaving Narayan somberly brooding. I did my best to encourage him, but without success. Soon Sharma returned and reported that their worst fears were realized; His Highness’s spies had visited the house; they had been admitted to Narayan’s room by his father and had seen the Guest House furniture there. When he had told us this news he wept.

  “He say he is very much frightened,” said Narayan sympathetically.

  I took Sharma’s hand. He murmured something in a tearful voice.

  “He say he wishes to die,” interpreted Narayan.

  I pressed the bony hand; it returned my pressure, and again the unhappy voice mourned.

  “He say he wishes you to say some comfort,” said Narayan.

  I asked how the furniture had got into Narayan’s room, and learnt that it had been taken there the day before my visit for my benefit. They had been intending to restore it to Sharma’s house ever since, but had foolishly delayed doing so. At this point Narayan also began to weep, though less noisily than Sharma, so I took his hand too and said there was really no need for all t
his fuss, for His Highness was not a tyrant or an ogre, he believed that the furniture had been falsely obtained, and if they told him how it had come to be in Narayan’s house he would not be angry any more. But Narayan rejected this simple solution; he said that it was not really a matter of furniture at all; His Highness hated him and was always seeking some excuse for disparaging him because he was friendly with Sharma and with me.

  It was the first time I had ever heard any one speak disrespectfully of His Highness, and I said that it was nonsense.

  APRIL 25TH

  Narayan has intercourse with his wife once every two or three nights. She is fourteen years old and he twenty, and they have been married and together for three years. During the first two years he went with her too much; frequently they had intercourse two or three times a day and he found this bad for his health. She was then nearing twelve and he was seventeen. He had had many affairs with other girls before her, during his sixteenth year, and has had many since. She is not beautiful and he does not love her much.

  He was sitting with me in my room in the late morning when he told me these things.

  A dim green light filtered through the grass door-screen against which, from the outside, water was flung at short intervals, and the sweet smell of the grass pervaded the air. I said I should have thought it injurious for a girl to begin sexual practices at the age of eleven, but he disagreed. Girls were ripe for the marriage bed, he said, when they grew their breasts.

  “But has a child of eleven breasts?” I asked.

  “Yes. Little, little. So big. Like a lemon.”

  “How old is Sharma’s wife?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “And she has her breasts?”

  “Yes. Like a lemon.”

  “Does he lie down with her?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Do you not know?”