Diamond Dust (3 page)

So Sarla and Ravi found themselves throwing a party—a party that was to be the setting for a recital given by Ila Dutta-Ray, a woman neither of them had any warm feelings for, remembering how unhelpful she had been when they had first arrived in London and so badly needed help in finding a flat, engaging servants, placing their children in school, all so long ago of course. Instead of
helping
, she had sent them her old cook, declaring he was the best, but really saving herself the air fare back to India because he proved good for nothing but superannuation. They rang up whoever of their circle of friends remained in Delhi to invite them for the occasion. It was quite extraordinary how many friends Raja remembered and managed to trace, and also how many who were on the point of going away, changed their plans on hearing his name and assured Sarla and Ravi they would come.

Then there occurred a dreadful incident: Sarla was choosing from amongst her saris one cool enough for the evening ahead, which was, of course, one of the summer's worst, that kind of still, yellow, lurid evening that it inflicted when one thought one could bear no more, and meant that the recital would be held not in the garden after all but in the air-conditioned drawing room instead, when a terrible thought struck her: she had forgotten to invite Maya! Maya and her husband Pravin! How could she have? It was true Maya had told her Pravin was very preoccupied with a special issue his paper was bringing out on the rise of Hindu fundamentalism but that was no reason to assume they might not be free. Sarla stood in front of the mirror that was attached to one leaf of the armoire, and clasped her hand over her mouth with a look so stricken that Ravi, coming in to ask what glasses should be taken out for the evening, wondered if she had a sudden toothache. 'Ravi! Oh, Ravi,' she wailed.

The telephone was brought to her—Balu unwinding the coils of an endless wire—and the number dialled for her. Then Sarla spoke into it in gasps, but unfortunately she had not taken the time to collect her wits and phrase her invitation with more tact. Maya's sharp ears picked up every indication that her sister had been unforgivably remiss, and coldly rejected the insulting last-minute invitation, insisting proudly that Pravin was working late and she could not possibly leave his side, he never wrote a line without consulting her.

As if that was not agony enough, Sarla had to undergo the further humiliation of Raja piping up in the middle of the party—just as Ila Dutta-Ray was tuning her tanpura and about to open her mouth and utter the first note of her song—'But Sarla, where is Maya, that aficionado of Tagore's music?
Surely
we should wait for her?
Why
is she so late?' An awful hush fell—and Sarla again assumed her stricken look. What was she to say, how was she to explain? She found herself stumbling over Maya's insincere excuse, but of course everyone guessed. Frowning in disapproval, Ila Dutta-Ray began her song on a very low, very deep and hoarse note.

In retaliation, Maya and Pravin threw a party as soon as Pravin's column had been written and the special issue had gone to press, and
their
party was in honour of the Minister of Human Resources, whose wife was such an admirer of Raja's, had read every word he had written and wanted so much to meet him—'in an intimate setting'. Since she had made this special request, they had felt obliged to cut down their guest list—and were sure Sarla and Ravi would not mind since they had the pleasure of Raja's company every day. But when Ravi stoically offered to drive Raja across to their house, he found the whole road lined with cars, many of them chauffeur-driven and with government number plates, and had the humliation of backing out of it after dropping Raja at the gate, then returning to Sarla who had given way to a fierce migraine and was insisting that they book seats on a train to the hills as soon as possible.

'But don't we need to wait till Raja is gone?'

'Raja is incapable of making decisions—we'll have to make his for him,' she snapped, waving at Balu who was slouching in the doorway, waiting to take away the remains of their meagre supper from the dining table.

She was still agonised enough the following morning—digging violently into half a ripe papaya in the blazing light that spilt over the veranda even at that early hour—actually to ask Raja, 'How can you bear this heat? Do you really not mind it? I feel I'm going to collapse—'

Raja, who had a look of sleepy contentment on his face—he had already meditated for an hour in the garden, done his yoga exercises, bathed, drunk his tea and had every reason to look forward to another day—did not seem to catch her meaning at all. Reaching out to stroke her hand, he said, 'I know what you need, my dear—a walk in the sublime Lodi Gardens when the sun is setting and Venus appears in the sky so
silently —
and went on to describe the ruins, their patina of lichen, their tiles of Persian blue, the echoes that rang beneath their domes, in such terms that Sarla sank back in her chair, sighing, agreeing.

What she did not know was that he had already arranged to walk there with Maya, Ila Dutta-Ray, and the wife of the Minister of Human Resources who, it turned out, had read that book of verses he had written when in Oxford and had published by a small press in London, long expired, so that copies were now collectors' pieces. All three women owned such copies. And Sarla found herself trailing behind them while Raja pranced, actually pranced with delight, with enthusiasm, in their company. At their suggestion he recited these verses:

'The lamp of heaven is hung upon the citrus bough,
The nightingale falls silent.
All is waiting,
For a royal visit by night's own queen—'

and then burst into mocking, self-deprecating laughter, waving away their protests to say, 'Oh, those adolescent excesses! What was I
thinking
of, in Oxford, in the fog and the smog and the cold I suffered from perpetually! Well, you know, I was thinking of—
this,'
and he waved at the walled rose garden and beyond it the pond and beyond that the tombs of the Lodi emperors surrounded by neem trees, and they all gazed with him. Eventually the Minister's wife sighed, 'You make us all see it with new eyes, as if we had never seen it before.'

Sarla, who had hung back, and was standing by a rose bush, fingering the fine petals of one flower pensively, realised that this was so exactly true: it was Raja who opened their eyes, who made them see it as they never saw it themselves, as a place of magic, enchantment, of pleasure so immense and rich that it could never be exhausted. She gazed at his back, his noble head, the silvery hair, the gracefully gesturing arm in its white muslin sleeve, there in the shade of the neem tree, totally disregarding the dust, the smouldering heat at the summer day's end, and seeing it all as romantic, paradisaical—and she clasped her hands together, pressing a petal between them, grateful for knowing him.

That evening she tried again. 'Raja, I
know
you would love Winhaven,' she told him, interrupting the Vedic hymn he was reciting to prove to Ravi that his Sanskrit was still fluent—hadn't he taught it to the golden youth of Berkeley, of Stanford, of the universities in Los Angeles and San Francisco, for all these years of his exile? 'And I would love to see you in the Himalayas,' she went on, raising her voice, 'because they would make the most perfect setting for you. Perhaps you would begin to write again over there—'

'But darling Sarla,' Raja beamed at her, showing both the pleasure he took in her suggestion and his determination not to be swept away by it, 'Maya tells me there is to be a lecture at India International Centre next week on the Himalayas as an inspiration for Indian poets through the centuries, and I would
hate
to miss it. It's to be given by Professor Dandavate, that old bore—d'you remember him? What a
dreary
young man he was at Oxford! I can quite imagine how much drearier he is now—and I can't resist the opportunity to pick holes in all he says, and in public too—'

'But next week?' Sarla enquired helplessly. 'It'll—it'll be even hotter.'

'Sarla, don't you
ever
think of anything else?' he reproved her gently, although with a little twitch of impatience about his eyes. 'Now I don't
ever
notice the heat. Drink the delicious fresh lemonades your marvellous cook makes, rest in the afternoons, and there's no reason why you shouldn't
enjoy
the summer. Oh, think of the fruit alone that summer brings us—'

But it was the marvellous cook himself who brought an end to Raja's idyll in Sarla and Ravi's gracious home: that very day he took off his apron, laid down his egg whisk and his market bag, declared that enough was enough, that he was needed in his village to bring in the harvest before the monsoon arrived. He was already late and had received a postcard from his son to say they could not delay it by another day. He demanded his salary and caught his train.

Sarla was sufficiently outraged by his treachery to make the afternoon tea herself, braving the inferno of the kitchen where she seldom had need to venture, and was rewarded by Raja's happy and Ravi's proud beam as she brought out the tea tray to the veranda. But dinner proved Something else altogether. Balu showed not the slightest inclination that he meant to help: he kept to the pantry with grim determination, giving the glasses and silver another polishing rather than take a step into the kitchen. Sarla had a whispered consultation with Ravi, suggesting they take Raja out to India International Centre or the Gymkhana Club for dinner, but Ravi reminded her that the car had gone for servicing and they could go nowhere tonight. Sarla, her sari end tucked in at her waist, wiping the perspiration from her face with her elbow, went back into the kitchen and peered into its recesses to see if the cook had not repented and left some cooked food for them after all, but she found little that she could put together even if she knew how. At one point, she even telephoned Maya to see if her sister would not come to her aid—Maya was known for her superb culinary skill—but there was no answer: Maya and Pravin were out. It was to an embarassingly inadequate repast of sliced cucumber, yoghurt and bread that the three finally sat down—Balu looking as if it were far beneath his dignity to serve such an excuse for a meal, Sarla tight-lipped with anger with herself for failing so blatantly, Ravi trying, with embarrassed sincerity, to thank her for her brave effort, and Raja saying nothing at all, but quietly crumbling the bread beside his plate till he confessed a wish to go to bed early.

But this meant that he was up earlier than ever next morning, and by the time Sarla rose and went wearily kitchenwards to make him tea, he had been awake for hours, performed his yoga and meditation, walked Simba round the garden several times, and was waiting querulously for it. Balu was nowhere to be seen. When Sarla went in search of him—surely he should have been able to make their guest a cup of tea?—she found the door to his room shut, coloured cutouts from film magazines of starlets in swimsuits stuck all over it, and when she called out his name, heard only a groan in reply. In agitation, she hurried to find Ravi and send him to find out what was wrong. Ravi went in reluctantly, his face bearing an expression of martyrdom, and reappeared to inform her that Balu was suffering from a stomach ache and needed to be taken to a doctor. '
You
do that,' she snapped at him, hardly able to believe this terrible turn in their fortunes.

By lunchtime Raja had made a series of phone calls and discovered that the Dutta-Rays were leaving for Kashmir next day and would be only too delighted to have him accompany them. Sarla stood in the doorway, watching him pack his little bag with beautifully laundered' underwear, and wailed, 'But Raja, if you had wanted to go to the hills, we could have gone to Winhaven
ages
ago! I
asked
you,
you
remember?'

Raja gave her a look that said, 'Winhaven? With you? When I can be on a houseboat in Kashmir with Ila instead?' but of course what he really did was blow her a kiss across the room and whisper conspiratorially, 'Darling, think of the
stories
I'll come back with to entertain you,' and snapped shut the lock on his bag with a satisfied click.

'Simba! Simba!' Ravi put his hands around his mouth and called after the dog who had loped away up to the top of the hill and vanished. Then he turned around to look for Sarla. He could see neither his dog nor his wife—one had gone too far ahead, the other lagged too far behind. He lowered himself onto a rock to catch his breath and picked up a pine cone to toss from hand to hand while he waited, whistling a little tune.

Evening light flooded down from the vast sky, spilling over the pine needles and stones of the hillside. Everything seemed to be bathed in its pale saffron glow. An eagle drifted through the ravine below. He could hear the wind in its feathers, a melancholy whistle.

'Sarla?' he called out finally, and just then saw her come into sight on a turn of the path below him, amongst a mass of blackberry bushes. She seemed to be dragging herself along, her sari trailing in the white dust, her head bowed over the walking stick she held in a slightly trembling hand.

At his voice she looked up and her face was haggard. He stared in surprise: he had not considered this such a difficult climb, or so long a walk. It was where they had always come, to watch the sunset. He himself could still spring up it with no more than a little panting. 'Sarla?' he asked questioningly. 'Want some help, old girl?'

'Coming, coming,' she grumbled, toiling on, 'can't you see I'm coming?'

When she reached the rock where he was waiting, she sank, down onto it and wiped her face with the corner of her sari. 'I can't do these climbs any more,' she admitted, with a wince. 'You had better do them alone.'

'Oh, Sarla,' he said, catching up her hand in his, 'I would never want to come up here without you, you know.' They sat there a while, breathing deeply. Beside them a small cricket began to chirp and chirp, and after some time it was no longer light that came spilling down the hill, but shadows.