East of the Sun (14 page)

Rose gasped.

“No, it’s all right, nothing like that,” Tor assured her. “Oh, darling, you should have seen your face—you went
white
.”

She told them about how she’d called him over and flirted with him and asked him to dance and then his pounce.

“The thing is,” Tor ended, “I suppose in a way I was stupid, but are all Indian men absolute beasts like that? Should one be really much more careful with them?”

“Of course they’re not beasts,” said Viva. “But I do think we confuse them.”

“How?”

Viva paused for a while, before saying, “Well, someone like Jitu has probably seen for himself that some white women are easier than their own countrywomen to get into bed. They see us mingling freely with men who are not relations and dancing in public places. In India, only prostitutes and dancing girls can do that. I don’t mean you, Tor, but in their own country, Indians see the mems having affairs, or flirting quite openly in a way none of their women would dare, so why shouldn’t we confuse them?”

“So, they’re mad for us?” Tor was agog.

“I don’t even know if that’s really true,” said Viva. “The lady writer I used to work for who had lived in India for years said that most Indian men don’t find European women particularly attractive. They think we look like uncooked pastry. But still, they are men and we are women, and a white woman is a curiosity, and for some a status symbol.”

“But are they more hot-blooded?” Tor wanted to know.

“Probably,” said Viva. She was almost blushing as she said, “I’m not sure.”

All of them breathed out together as though they’d inhaled some intoxicating gas, and then laughed a little shamefaced.

“So we should be more careful,” said Tor.

“Yes.”

“How thrilling.”

“Darling, please,” said Rose, “I really do think we should go up and have some lunch.” Rose wanted to stop thinking about this now. The cabin was too hot and she felt a little sick.

“Let’s drink a toast to, I don’t know,
afterglow
.” Tor pulled a silly face.

“You are such a twit.” Rose pinched her, thinking,
I’m going to miss you so badly.

When they got to the cabin door, Rose said, “Viva, will you come to my wedding in Bombay?”

Viva said yes.

Poona

M
any things had frightened Jack during the six years he’d been a cavalry officer. Four months after his basic training in Poona he’d been sent to a remote hill station, near Peshawar, on the northwest frontier, to help patrol one of the most dangerous and unstable borders in the world. After nights spent on horseback on mountainous roads where you waited for every shadow to kill you, the muscles on your neck stood out like organ stops.

Pig-sticking, a regimental passion and one of the most dangerous sports in the world, had terrified him for a while. You rode across rough country at a racing gallop, often unable to see more than five feet ahead of you the dust was so thick.

On the day his best friend, Scuds, died pig-sticking, he’d seen Scuds’s horse put its foot down the foxhole, watched Scuds catapult through the trees, and then heard the sickening crack of his neck breaking.

India frightened him. He’d once watched a Bombay crowd drag a motorist from his car, cover him in petrol, and turn him
into a shrieking funeral pyre because the man had accidentally knocked a child down.

But this was a new kind of fear. It clung to him like black netting. The thought that Rose was hours away now; the idea that in ten days’ time he’d be married.
I don’t know you.
He’d sat up in bed this morning with the words booming in his head. He’d tried for months now to hold on to her in his mind—that shy schoolgirly peck in the reading room at the Savile Club, a picnic at her parents’ house—but she’d suddenly gone, like a pleasing scent or one of those vague dreams that hangs around the edge of your consciousness when you wake. And now the whole thing was starting to feel like a hideous prank, a bad dream that wouldn’t end. And soon this living dream would be a matter of public spectacle.

The memsahibs at the club had already told him how excited, how
thrilled
he must be feeling, which made him feel like an awful fraud. The
Pioneer Mail
had phoned him yesterday to find out the correct spelling of her maiden name—Wetherby? Whetherby?—and where exactly she came from in England, and he’d actually had to disguise an embarrassing pause while he marshaled these most elementary facts about her. The marigolds the servants now placed regularly in front of her photograph only served to make him feel more wretched and fraudulent.

The improbability of it all was making him feel light-headed, and for the first time in years he yearned for his father. He wanted to go for a ride with him as they had a few times in the old days when there was a problem to thrash out; to hear him speak bluff, sensible words about all chaps getting windy in the weeks before they were married. But this was daft and he knew it: the old man had made a pig’s ear of his own marriage and they’d never really discussed feelings anyway.

He’d also thought of confiding in Maxo—Lieutenant Maxwell Barnes—the stammering, humorous man who was one
of his best friends in the regiment. He and Maxo had made friends during the riding-school period of his training at Secunderabad, they’d camped out together and once been held at gunpoint by a mob near Peshawar; or maybe Tiny Barnsworth, the six-foot gentle giant he played polo with four days a week during the season and with whom he got on well. But the moment never seemed to come, and besides, there was a rule in the mess about not talking about women.

He checked his watch. In twenty-two hours’ time the ship would arrive; the fear spread from the muscles in his neck to his stomach, which was growling. At six o’clock that night, he would drive to Cecilia Mallinson’s house in Bombay to have what she’d called “drinkies” with her before the girl arrived.

He’d met Cecilia—“Call me Ci Ci”—twice during the past month, and found her disconcerting with her bright stream of clever chat and her hooded, knowing eyes. She’d asked him over to the club to have what she called a little “gup” about wedding invitations and dresses and to talk over dates and plans for the hectic round of pleasures she’d planned for the girls in the ten days before the wedding.

“Of course, you don’t have to come to all of them.” She’d crossed her legs and blown a plume of smoke in his direction. He loathed women smoking; the bright stain of her lipstick on two cigarette butts disgusted him.

“I shan’t be able to,” he’d said bluntly. “I’m afraid the regiment is on partial alert with the Akali Crisis. It’s even possible we may have to go up north again soon.”

“Oh gosh.” She’d waggled her head and smiled at him. “Does the little woman know about this?”

“What little woman?” It was rude of him to snap at her, but honestly, what a cheek.

“Rose, of course.”

“No,” he said. “Not yet. I thought we should get to know each other first.”

Twenty-one hours to go. To calm himself he went down to the stables and walked into the stall of his favorite horse, Bula Bula. The name was Urdu for nightingale and the horse had been a miserable runt when they’d first met. Then it had no name and had never been out of its stall. Now, Bula’s hard muscles shone with his daily grooming. Jack could pluck a handkerchief off the ground from his back at full gallop. He’d taught Bula to lie quiet under a pile of straw while other riders ambushed a raiding party, all good training for men and horses.

“Bullsy, old chum.” He found the spot in the hollow of the jaw that made the horse almost stop breathing with pleasure. “My B.B. My Bullsy boy.”

He moved his hand to his horse’s mane, kneading it between his fingers, and felt his horse lean against him in bliss. It was so easy with horses if you took the trouble to get to know them—the stabled ones particularly were so hungry for touch.

“Morning, sahib.” His groom popped out from underneath the horse, saluted, and went back to his order of grooming: five minutes for each horse’s back, ten for the belly, and five for the face. Then on with the gleaming bridle, the blue and gold saddlecloth, oil Bula’s shoes, dust his face, squeeze his glossy neck again. He was feeling better already. Clatter of hooves, Maxo and Tiny had ridden into the yard and were calling for him. He watched them for a moment from the stable, against the dazzling sky. Tough young men in their prime. His best friends.

They were smiling at him the way people smile at funerals. Everybody knew in the tight world of the regiment that when you married things changed.

Five minutes later they were coated in red dust, shout
ing, galloping like savages up the long side of the polo pitch, where they played a boys’ game of polo pretending to clock balls to each other, and then they took the long red path that led up to the racecourse where the horses leaped forward again, their hooves pounding the red dirt, their sides sopping with sweat.

And it was here that he found himself shouting and crying at the same time, grateful that nobody could see him. It felt like the last day of his life.

Three hours later Jack was sitting in Colonel Atkinson’s office. He was shaved, bathed, uniformed, subdued.

His commanding officer was a cheerful red-faced man who spoke fluent Urdu and loved amateur theatrics. Jack liked him and admired the way he hid his more steely qualities, but today Atkinson was fiddling distractedly with the horseshoe that was his paperweight and soon Jack understood why.

“We had some rotten news last night from Bannu,” he said. “Three of our men up there were ambushed and have disappeared. I’m going to make an announcement this morning. Reynolds, who’s the senior man up there, is almost certain more attacks are planned.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”

“We all are, but the point is, it’s not going to stop and it’s almost certain we’re going to have to take some more of you up there, and we’d like you to command a company. The timing, I know, is wretched.”

“When, sir?”

“Couple of weeks, maybe sooner. I’m sorry if this throws your wedding plans but my hands are tied.”

The colonel’s look, more exasperated than contrite, said it all. Everybody knew he didn’t approve of his men getting married until they were at least thirty.

“Not your fault, sir. It’s an honor.” And it was, normally he would have been excited.

“Will your wife cope?”

The dry mouth, the pounding heart began again.

“I’m sure she will, sir.”

“And Chandler.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Good luck.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Bombay, 6,284 miles from London, November 7, 1928
Time Difference: Five and a half hours ahead

T
or’s and Rose’s trunks had been packed and placed outside their cabin, when Nigel knocked on their door.

“Message from the captain,” he stammered. “Last service at sea will be at four-thirty this afternoon in the grand salon. Message from me, I have a large bottle of champagne that needs attention in my cabin at one o’clock.”

“Oh, Nigel.” Tor put her arms around him and hugged him. “Do you honestly think you can live without us?”

He hugged her back, pink with embarrassment.

“Nnnnot sure,” he said. “I’ll write and tell you.”

Tomorrow, she knew, he’d take his train back to Cherrapunji, en route to the remote hill station he’d told them was one of the wettest places on earth. He’d mentioned in his offhand, jokey way that three of his predecessors had committed suicide there, driven mad by isolation.

“But at least I shan’t have to listen to your damn singing anymore.”

For Tor and Rose had taken to singing “Oh de painin’, oh
de pain,” in Negro spiritual voices when Nigel got low. They sang because they were not ready to listen to bad things being said about India.

“I must fly, I must pack,” he said, “but don’t forget the champagne and tell Viva to come, too.”

“I’ll ask her but I don’t think she slept a wink last night,” said Tor. “The Glover boy’s in a complete tizz about seeing his parents.”

“I feel very sorry for him,” Nigel’s clever face grew serious, “and for Viva—life won’t be easy for her in India.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine, she’s quite grown-up and she’s going to be a writer, you know,” Tor boasted. “And she’ll be picking up her parents’ things—they’ve probably left her plenty to live on.”

“She may not be. Fine, I mean. She’s too original, too free.”

“Nigel! I hope you’re not spoony on her, too.”

“Oh, shut up, Tor,” he said sharply. “You can worry about someone without being spoony about them.”

“But Viva’s our font of all knowledge about India. She was born there. She says she feels more at home there than she does in London.”

“She was a child when she left,” he said. “India’s grown up. It’s getting more frightening. They don’t want us there now, and I don’t blame them.”

But Tor’s fingers were stuffed in her ears now and she’d started to hum “Oh de painin’, oh de pain” until Nigel stopped and howled like a little dog, pretending it was all a joke anyway.

Viva, looking pale and jumpy, turned up later for the drinks party.

She, Tor, Rose, Frank, Patricia Ormsby Booth, and Marion, another new friend, squeezed into Nigel’s cabin.

“Oh delicious, divine.” Tor closed her eyes and held out her champagne flute. “What a good idea this is.” She was trying with every fiber of her being to show Frank how jolly and excited she felt in spite of their upsetting conversation the night before.

“Not so fast, my child.” Nigel put down the bottle and picked up a book. “I’m going to read to you all a very short poem first. Oh hush! Wretched philistines,” he silenced their groans and cries that they’d all been brought here under false pretenses. “It will take two minutes of your time and you won’t regret it. The poem is called ‘Ithaka,’ but it might just as well be called ‘India.’”

He sat down close to Viva and started to read.

“As you set out for Ithaka,

Hope your road is a long one,

Full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

Angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

You’ll never find things like that on your way

As long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

As long as a rare excitement

Stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

Wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

Unless you bring them along inside your soul,

Unless your soul sets them up in front of you.”

“Sorry,” interrupted Patricia Ormsby Booth, “I don’t do poetry. What’s he on about?”

But Viva and Frank shushed her. Nigel continued:

“Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

With what pleasure, what joy,

You enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

May you stop at Phoenician trading stations

To buy fine things,

Mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

Sensual perfume of every kind—

As many sensual perfumes as you can;

And may you visit many Egyptian cities

To learn and go on learning from their scholars.”

“Did you go ashore at Egypt?” Patricia asked Tor. “The shops were—Oops! Sorry!”

“Carry on, Nigel.” Tor put her hand over Patricia’s mouth. In the silence that followed Tor heard the rush of the sea.

Nigel began again. For some odd reason he didn’t stutter when he read poetry.

“Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

So you’re old by the time you reach the island,

Wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

Not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn’t have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

“And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

You’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.”

There was a silence after he’d finished. He popped the champagne cork and filled their glasses. “To marvelous journeys,” he said. “To all our Ithakas,” and Tor saw that his eyes were bright with tears.

“Bravo, Nigel,” said Viva quietly. She put her hand on his arm. “Who wrote it?”

“Cavafy.” He looked at her. “I knew you’d like it.”

“I do,” she said, and they looked straight into each other’s eyes.

“So here’s to Phoenician harbors and to Bombay.” Frank took Tor’s hand in his and made her giggle nervously.

“To fabulous journeys,” said Viva.

“And to all of you for making this one so ripping,” said Tor with such fervor that they all laughed, except Rose, who was looking pensively toward the horizon.

A little over an hour later, they put on their hats and sat in the upstairs salon, which had been made into a temporary church for the last service at sea. A Union Jack had been draped on a temporary altar, and from the windows they could see the faint blurred outlines of the coast of India.

A large, sweating woman plunged her fingers into the harmonium, and then one hundred or so voices floated out into the clear blue yonder. Tor glanced at them: the long rows of memsahibs, all dressed up today, the colonels, Jitu Singh, the missionaries, the red-faced man who was something in jute, the little children who knelt with their mothers and whose ayahs you could see outside the door in their brightly colored saris.

The hymn ended, they all knelt down, Rose, who was sitting beside her, was praying so hard her knuckles shone.

Viva walked in late with the boy. He was wearing his outsized suit and looking molelike and dazed.

Frank came late, too. He stood on the other side of the aisle from them, looking so handsome in his full uniform that Tor had to dig her nails into the palm of her hand.

Last night, she’d had a conversation with him that had hurt her very much, although he would never have known it.

They’d taken a turn together around the deck, and it had seemed so romantic with the silky breezes, the ship all lit up like some fabulous glass castle against the starlit night, that she’d thought,
If he’s ever going to kiss me properly, it will be now.
But instead he’d looked out in the blackness and given such a heartfelt sigh that she’d asked in what she hoped was a casual tone, “Frank, what
are
you going to do when you get to India? You’ve been very sphinxlike about the whole thing.”

He’d looked at her blankly. “Have I? Well, I’m a sphinx without a secret because I’m pretty much certain now that I will stay in Bombay for a few weeks and earn some money, then I’m going up north, to do some research.”

“Into that blackwater-fever thingy?”

“Yes,” he said gloomily. “I think I mentioned it before—horrible disease, nobody knows much about it yet.”

Under other circumstances she might have tried harder to draw him out.
All men love talking about themselves—take an interest in his work,
but he’d looked absolutely mis and had fallen silent, and Tor, trying to cheer things up, had said, “I can’t believe we’ll be in Bombay tomorrow morning. It really is too thrilling.”

“How sweet you are,” he’d said sadly. “So eager for everything.”

“Well, aren’t you? Come on, Frank, you must be. This is such a big adventure for us all.”

“Not really,” he replied. He’d lit a cigarette and exhaled moodily.

And then in the next five minutes she learned that she was a brick, a lovely girl, etcetera, and under normal circumstances just the sort of girl he should be spoony on, but that he was in love with someone else.

Tor had forced herself to nod and smile.

“Anyone I know?”

He’d turned away.

“No, I don’t think anyone does.” He’d said something else into the wind that she hadn’t caught. And then he turned to her and said with real desperation in his eyes, “I’ve tried so hard with her, too hard probably, but she’s frozen, all locked up, and now I won’t be able to get her out of my head. Oh, Tor, why am I telling you all this? It’s too sweet of you to listen.”

“Not at all. What are friends for?” She’d even added a little joke. “It’s what my mother calls doorknob secrets. The things you blurt out suddenly just as you leave a room. And this is the last night on board after all.”

Nobody had been around on deck, so he’d kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose. An uncley sort of kiss.

“And what do you want, you sweet girl? Romance? Babies? Parties?”

“No.” She’d been stung by this. “More than that.”

“Don’t be offended,” he said. The tranced look in his eyes had gone and he was staring at her. “So what is it?”

“I don’t know, Frank.” She’d felt a kind of unhappy mist cloud her mind and then it cleared, and as she looked at him, she felt for one moment that he was her enemy.

Make him feel the important one.
And so on and etcetera from all those soppy women’s mags, but suddenly she didn’t care.

“Something solid. A job. Something that stays with you and can’t be taken away.”

“Gosh, are you a suffragette,” he’d said bitterly, “or has Viva been getting at you, too?”

“Darling,” Rose gave her quite a jab in the ribs, “do stop staring.”

“I wasn’t,” said Tor, dragging her eyes away from Frank.

“You were,” hissed Rose, “simply
gawping
.”

They snuggled closer to each other, friends to the end.

They were singing “To Be a Pilgrim,” and then “I Vow to
Thee, My Country.” Nigel, who was on her other side, tried to make her laugh by singing the descants.

Dear, gentle, clever, funny Nigel. The sort of man she should marry. The stutter put him into her league. She squeezed his arm. Poor Nigel.

And then the music faded and when the captain stood up she was conscious again of the great hum of the ship’s engine slowing down, and of the water rushing by. The captain, solemn in his braided uniform, asked them all to put their hands together. He prayed for peace at a difficult time in India’s history. He prayed for the peace and welfare of the king and for the glorious British Empire of which they suddenly seemed such a tiny, temporary fragment.