Algren at Sea (66 page)

I glanced about the room and saw nobody but the sleeping infant. I got up and looked into the bedroom. Nobody. Then the bath. Nobody. The windows were secure. Danielsen had frightened me more than I cared to admit to myself, I began to think, when I saw her.

She was squatting like a watchful fox in a corner, that old
ayah
who lived on the floor. And what had gotten her nose up was my cigar.

I held it out to her and she came a-scuttering, snatched it out of my hand, puffed at it twice while squatting, thrust it back to my hand and, holding in the smoke she had inhaled, held it until she'd scuttered back to her corner: there, her eyes bright with pleasure, she let the smoke out. I'd never seen anyone so old take so much joy out of so small a pleasure.

I returned to reading:

I glanced up: she was waiting for another chance at the cigar. It was hardly more than a butt but, when I held it toward her, she came and returned to the corner with it: now it was
all
hers.

In the corner she puffed the dying butt with her eyes closed, as if she'd lived her whole life for this moment. She didn't open her eyes till the butt went dead. Then, as though she'd known my eyes had been on her, she looked up at me with a mischievous air.

“
Brrrr-andy
,” she demanded, in a low, long growl.

Martha had put the stuff too high on the shelf for the
ayah
to reach. Well, I could stand a snort myself.

When I brought the bottle down she crouched beside me, eyes alight with apprehension lest I drink it all and leave her not a drop. I had one drink but I didn't trust this one with the bottle. She understood and put her mouth up like a baby lamb. I let her have enough to stagger a ewe and drew it away. The stuff ran down the corners of her mouth, brown as her brandy-colored hide. She flashed me a smile white as milk and scrambled back to her corner. I put the bottle on the shelf and went back to the trial of Commander Nanavati:

I fell asleep over the sorrows of Nanavati; and slept so soundly I did not hear Martha let herself in. I did not waken until she called to me from the bed.

My tactic was to make no love to her until she took the initiative: had she been making love, my approach would be tolerated only because I was supporting her for a short while.

So now, when she fell to sleep on my shoulder, I merely held her.

The drumming of the overhead fan began to drum to a slower beat; like the throb of great engines hauling below deck. They were whispering the same warning over and over—or was it a seaman, whispering to himself while he listened, on the other side of my stateroom door? Baliram, in a white uniform and his face bloodied, stood, smiling knowingly, above me.

“Bombay is a great city, my friend,” he said sorrowfully—and bent so low above me I felt his breath on my face and wakened.

It was Martha's breath, while she slept with her head on my shoulder. She had thrown her arm across me, and on the nape of my neck I could feel her fingers lying lightly. Her breasts, crushed against me, yet felt firm. She moved her thigh across mine and caught the calf of my leg with her heel, pressing herself against me. Her fingers tapped my nape: she was awake and waiting. I swept my hand down her back to the fullness of her hips and gently backward till she joined her hands about my back. Then joined her thighs.

When her breath began coming harder I took her mouth till her lips went cool in release. A moment later she had fallen back to sleep; her head upon her palm.

All night, in voluptuous gravity, this woman of Assam, wearing golden earrings, slept; her cheek upon her palm. All night the ceiling fan above her whirred. I saw her purchased breasts: their rise and fall.

While four roses made a shadow, as of many roses, on the wall.

Beyond the door her ancient
ayah
slept upon the floor.

All night, along the flaring street below, I heard the cabareting taxis' roar.

A night that roses, at one rupee for four, made a shadow, as of many rupees, on the wall.

I wakened to a tremendous crash, flinging my hands across my eyes—I thought the overhead fan had fallen.

Martha was pulling on a robe. There came a long low wail of fright. I got up and stumbled into the living room.

The top shelf of the great bookcase had crashed to the floor on top of the
ayah,
lying prone and wailing with the brandy bottle smashed across a litter of broken records. That she had tried to climb the shelves for the bottle and had gotten high enough to reach it before the top shelf crashed was plain enough. Martha was rocking the baby while keeping up such a flow of abuse—in a tongue I'd never heard—that the kid was becoming more frightened than ever.