by Threes Anna
“He’s asleep,” Charlotte said to her niece. “It’s best not to wake him up.”
“Does he still have that huge moustache? We were afraid of his moustache. Dad told us that you both thought it was scary when you were little, and by the way, I never wore the baby cape that you knitted for me when I was born. Mama said it was ugly, but Elsa, my doll, wore it a lot. I can’t throw that doll away, even now that I’m grown up.” Issy put her feet up on the table and wiped the sweat from her forehead. “You’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff, haven’t you? In the old photos there are big pieces of furniture all over the place and a grand piano. Can’t we open the window, I’m suffocating. How can you stand this heat? Why don’t you buy air conditioners? We have air conditioning and it’s great, you’d never think that Dad was born in India, he doesn’t like the heat, he likes rain.”
Charlotte got up and turned the fan over their heads to the highest setting.
“Don’t they have rain dances here, like the Indians? Did you know that the pharaohs in Egypt had them, too? I heard that from my mother’s brother, he writes travel guides. When he hears about the stupid old guide that I have with me, he’ll probably come over next year and write a better one. He’s so much fun and he always takes me out to dinner in famous restaurants, did you know that London has great Indian restaurants, they’re supposed to be even better than here, I’ve heard.” She waved the panels of her jacket back and forth, but when she saw her aunt’s shocked expression, she buttoned up the jacket with a sigh. “Can’t we ask the butler to do a rain dance?” She giggled at the thought. “We can’t just sit around waiting for that . . . that monsoon. It’s really too, too hot.”
Charlotte stood up and rang the bell.
“Are you going to ask him?”
“No, he’s too busy, but I’ll have him bring you something to drink.”
“Do you have Coca-Cola? As long as it’s not tea again, everyone drinks nothing but tea here, but in this heat it makes me feel even hotter, just like the spicy food, it really makes you sweat.”
With a sigh, Hema put the jerry cans down on the kitchen counter. His legs were trembling and his back ached after carrying the heavy load. As he trudged up the hill, he kept asking himself why he wasn’t peevish when the girl used the five-day supply of drinking water to take a bath. He told himself that it was because she was Charlotte memsahib’s niece. But deep in his heart he knew that it was for quite a different reason that he went around whistling all day, something he hadn’t done since his teenage years.
The bell sounded. He picked up the tray and almost danced up to the big house. In the hall he bumped into memsahib, who immediately put a forefinger to her mouth.
“Do you know where they sell Coca-Cola?” Charlotte whispered.
“At the bottom of the hill,” he whispered back.
“Will you get me a bottle? My niece drinks Coca-Cola.”
Hema hesitated, the tray still in his hands.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t buy on credit there.”
Charlotte fished her wallet out of her pocket. She almost dropped the watch, but managed to shove it back in.
“How much does a bottle cost?”
“A large bottle or a small one, memsahib?”
“Large . . . she’ll be here for a few days.”
Hema beamed. “Not much, memsahib, not much.”
“How much?”
“About the same as two packages of fancy cookies.”
“What?” She forgot they were whispering. “Two packages!”
Hema nodded with conviction.
“Can’t you get the price down any further?”
“Not at the bottom of the hill, memsahib, maybe in the centre.”
“Auntie,” called a voice from the salon, “ask him if he can bring along a chocolate bar!”
Hema looked at Charlotte, who sighed, nodded, and resolved to sell the watch today.
MADAN SENSED THE unrest that hung in the house, and he knew that this time it wasn’t caused by him, but by the girl. After Hema had gone off in search of Coca-Cola for the lowest possible price and a chocolate bar, he had heard Charlotte going up the stairs. He was glad she didn’t come into the music room. He wanted to be alone. His thoughts shot off in all directions, and after that sudden recollection of his sister in her blue coat, he’d made one mistake after the other. He unpicked the entire blouse destined for the wife of the manufacturer of coconut oil, and when he made yet another mistake, he put the cap over the machine and went outside.
The rays of the sun pierced his back. Even in the shade of the withered trees, there was no relief from that fiery heavenly body. It was not often that he thought about his sister and wondered whether he had any other brothers and sisters. There were vague memories of a scene long ago in which there were a great many adults and children around him, but it wasn’t clear to him whether it was indoors or outdoors. He did remember awakening in the arms of a white woman. She smelled like jasmine and she kissed him. His sister was crying, and when he tried to console her, she got angry. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong, but it must have been something serious, since she was so furious that she left him standing there, amidst all those men’s legs, and never even turned around.
He walked down the hill, crossed the road, and went down a street with houses. The sun was nowhere near its pinnacle, but already there was almost no shade. The only protection came from a large banner stretched across the road with a picture of the building that housed the New Rampur Club and in giant numerals the number “200.”
The gala was two days away and the dresses were almost finished. But all of them still needed the finishing touch: an open seam here, a loose hem there. When he was finished, he would have to move on, but he tried not to think about that.
In the distance he heard the fire engine siren, a sound that had become more and more frequent now that the monsoon was so long in coming. A rickshaw passed him at high speed, with Hema sitting in the back. He was cradling a large bottle of Coca-Cola in his arms as if it were a baby, and gazing at it fondly.
~~~
THE WIFE OF Nikhil Nair filled her glass with cold lemon water. “That tailor isn’t anywhere near finished,” she sighed, and fell back into the cushions, panting.
“Oh,” said the wife of Ajay Karapiet, as she took a pair of glittering black evening shoes from their box and showed them to her friend. “These are the ones.”
“I thought you were going to wear the gold mules.”
“I like these better.”
“Have you tried them under the dress?”
“No, he still has to do the hem.”
“That’s just what he told me.” There was disbelief in the voice of the wife of Nikhil Nair.
The wife of Ajay Karapiet looked dubiously at her new shoes. “You just might be right. The gold mules are probably better.”
“Priya hasn’t gotten her dress back either, and Deepa called to say that he was still working on her collar. Isn’t that a bit strange?”
“The only thing is . . . the black ones are more comfortable.”
“Do you know if Harita already has her dress?”
“Harita’s going to wear gold shoes, too, but with a much higher heel. I can’t do that, of course, not with my back.”
“Does she have her dress already?”
“Well, she’s tried it on, and it fits like a glove.”
“But could she take it home with her?”
The wife of Ajay Karapiet hesitated and then shrugged her shoulders. “Kalpana doesn’t have hers either. I talked to her this morning. She was quite taken with these shoes.”
“Kalpana as well!” The wife of Nikhil Nair pushed the cushions out of her way and got to her feet. Despite the air conditioning, she was still warm. “
And apparently Mandira’s in the same boat. It’s only two days until the party, and we still have to choose our accessories.”
“Which shoes are you going to wear?”
“Is your glass empty?”
“I wouldn’t mind some more.”
“Later on.”
CHARLOTTE DIALLED THE number. By now she knew it by heart. The raucous voice at the other end did not give his name. She did, although with some hesitation. She knew that if she sold the watch, there would be a great many problems.
“I thought you didn’t have anything left?” snapped the man she disliked so intensely. “Only if it’s something valuable, otherwise I’m not interested.”
He hung up before she could reply.
Her niece was lying on the sofa, panting from the heat. Her father was asleep, and even the sewing machine was silent. Was Madan, too, finally floored by the lethargy that had overcome everyone? She tiptoed to the coat rack, put on her wide-brimmed straw hat, went to the front door, and slipped outside. Just as she pulled the door gently shut, she saw the black car that belonged to the wife of Nikhil Nair turn into the driveway. Her first impulse was to go back into the house and call Hema, to receive the ladies. But whether it was the sleepless night and the dance of love or the fact that she’d had her fill of the club ladies and their eternal gossiping, she ran down the steps and quickly hid under the branches of a withered Christmas rose that stood in the shadow of the house. She saw how the wife of Nikhil Nair alighted from the car, immediately followed by the wife of Ajay Karapiet. She heard one of them whisper that the ancient butler would probably serve those same old cookies that looked expensive but were actually cheap, that it would be a miracle if there were enough chairs to go around, that she couldn’t understand why they remained in that enormous house since everyone could see that they were living beyond their means, and that . . . Charlotte did indeed wish that Hema weren’t so old and that he could get to the door faster. And she didn’t enjoy being told that last night her father’s cries of distress could be heard at the bottom of the hill, and that people wondered what else was happening in the enormous house, and that when it came to the Bridgwaters, they never knew what to expect . . .
The door opened, and Isabella sounded surprised as she explained that she had just seen her aunt leave the house, and that they should have passed each other on the path. Then the girl stuck her head out the door and shouted Charlotte’s name as loudly as she could. Charlotte ducked farther under the shrub and pulled her hat down over her face. They mustn’t find her. Not now, not here. She heard Isabella let the women into the house, saying that she’d go and call the tailor. The door slammed shut with a bang. Charlotte thought to herself, Hema may be old, but at least he knows how to shut a door properly.
Charlotte looked at a fat beetle sitting on a twig. The heat didn’t seem to bother him, even though he had a very thick coat. She wondered if he was ever afraid. She’d like to be able to hide under a big wing case the way he did, so that no one could see her. The beetle shook his gleaming wings and continued to walk along the twig, taking tiny steps. It was the sudden golden lustre of the beetle’s case that made her reach into her pocket for the watch. Would her father already have missed it, would he have had another tantrum, and whom would he accuse this time? She ought to tell Hema, since otherwise he might suspect her niece or “that darzi,” as he referred to him with unmistakable disdain. It had surprised her that Isabella also found him handsome; the girl was at least thirty years younger than the tailor and ought to be interested in boys her own age. The thought disturbed her as she sat there, half hidden by the shrub. That youthful interest might have evoked certain feelings in Madan, just like the winter rose that blossoms fiercely after each monsoon. The likelihood of rivalry was not merely an illusion, it was fed by the searing torpor of the climate and the loneliness of the house. All things considered, she was no more than an older woman who stole from her father to make a good impression on her niece by buying a drink she herself had never tried. An older woman who hid under a shrub to escape the hungry eyes of two notorious gossips because she was afraid that they could tell by looking at her that she had fallen in love with the dark-skinned tailor who had to pay for a workplace in her father’s house and whom she allowed to work in the music room because that way he was closer to her . . . Could anything be more pathetic? What was happening to her? Why didn’t she tell her niece that there was no money, that the furniture had been removed not for aesthetic reasons but so that they could continue to eat, and that she, like any woman, wanted to look beautiful at the party, but that there was no money for fabric, and that she had again been forced to rob her father of the last memories of his wife in order to indulge her own desires. Why didn’t she tell her niece that she was so ablaze that she feared the bush would catch fire if she were to sit under it too long, and that — although they had never even exchanged a kiss — she was convinced that she had already lost him . . .
The beetle was creeping up the trunk. A bit farther on, Charlotte saw another beetle. Was the second beetle his wife? Or was that her husband? Were they together? Were they relatives? Lovers? Did they have secrets from each other? The beetle climbed higher and higher, and it was as if the other beetle was looking down over the edge of the branch, waiting for it to reach the top. Could beetles kiss? How did beetles make love? Didn’t their wing cases get in the way? Charlotte sat stock still. Holding her breath, she watched as, step by step, the tiny creature climbed higher. Defiantly, almost provocatively, it drew closer and closer to the other beetle. Mesmerized, Charlotte forgot about the suffocating heat as she waited to see what would happen. He had almost reached the other beetle. They looked at each other. Come on! Don’t give up now! The beetle took another step. Charlotte felt an urge to push the tiny insect toward the other beetle. They faced each other. Love her! He took another step and their heads were almost touching. Then out of nowhere she heard a rustling sound. Charlotte froze. But before she could think about what it might be, a crow swooped into view among the leaves, picked up one of the beetles from the branch, and flew off. The remaining beetle cowered and closed its case. Charlotte also cowered, with her head between her knees and her arms around her head. She wished she’d never listened to the women at the club, who had convinced her to take him into her house, she wished she had never seen him, had never let him move from the servants’ quarters to the music room. She wished she hadn’t danced with him, hadn’t let him look into her heart. Again she heard a rustling among the leaves and hoped that the crow would devour the other beetle as well, so at least they’d be together.
What’s wrong?
Charlotte looked up, startled. Through her tears she saw his face among the withered leaves of the winter rose.
You’re crying. What happened?
There was a bird.
Just a bird?
A crow. It ate the beetle.
Was it a special beetle?
No, just a tiny beetle, an insect.
Had you seen the beetle before?
No, it was the first time I saw him.
And he was eaten by the crow?
Yes, just as he was about to kiss his wife.
A broad smile appeared on Madan’s face.
“CAN YOU REALLY call anywhere?” The wife of Nikhil Nair and the wife of Ajay Karapiet gazed in admiration at the device in Issy’s hand.
“It has to be charged, the battery is low. In the store they said it would last around two hours, but it seems to me it went down much faster. Anyway, once it’s recharged, I can call you from the garden.”
“From the garden! Did your aunt give you our numbers?” asked the wife of Ajay Karapiet, who loved talking on the phone.
“No, of course not, but it sure would be convenient if Aunt Charlotte had one. Then I could call her and she could answer, even if she was sitting in a taxi.”
“In a taxi!”
The two ladies sighed. They were overwhelmed by the unexpected presence of the girl, as well as by her clothes, which left little to the imagination, the unkempt ponytail on the top of her head, and the fact that she was sitting on the sofa and didn’t even invite them to sit down. She chattered on about how she had made a phone call while she was sitting in a rickshaw in New Delhi and that the driver was so startled he almost ran into a cow. The wife of Nikhil Nair gestured to her friend to sit down unasked. She was thirsty and tried not to look at the large glass of Coca-Cola in front of the girl. She was annoyed that the old butler had not arrived to offer them a cup of tea, and she regretted not having finished her glass of cold lemon water before hastily getting into the car.
“I have absolutely no idea where she’s got to,” Issy said. “She was just going out the door when you two arrived, so it’s odd that you didn’t see her. She left only a couple of minutes before. I couldn’t imagine why she’d want to go outside in this heat, I’d probably just melt, and what I’d really like to do is take off all my clothes and lie down under the fan. She didn’t say when she’d be back.”
“That’s quite all right,” said the wife of Ajay Karapiet, putting a good face on it. But she was shocked at the very thought of the girl taking off all her clothes.
“Actually, we came to see the tailor.”
“Oh, you want him to make clothes for you, too? I don’t know where he’s got to, I told him he ought to go on strike, it’s much too hot to work.” Issy laughed when she saw the ladies’ shocked faces. “He’ll be back, he’s so serious. This morning he was working on a purple blouse, a terrific colour but too dark for me, and I asked him if he’d make something for me out of a piece of red silk.”
“Oh, are you coming to the gala too?”
“Gala?”
“Yes, the New Rampur Club is celebrating its bicentennial with a huge gala. All the dignitaries from the surrounding districts will be there, and even the state minister for sport and recreation has promised to attend,” said the wife of Nikhil Nair, conjuring up a mental picture of how jealous all the other ladies would be when she appeared in her splendid new pink outfit. She’d wear her black shoes, the ones with the really high heels, and a tiara with ten genuine diamonds in her hair.
