Of Marriageable Age (30 page)

They clung to each other wordlessly till a furious Iyer pulled them apart. Men and women may not touch in public but both had forgotten and neither cared, for they were together again and all that remained was to breathe in and absorb the other, to make up for the years they had been apart.

Savitri drew away, looked at him again, and her silence too was full. And he, unbelieving in the light of her beauty and the sweetness of her love, could do nothing but gaze back and smile until his cheeks hurt, for his heart was too full for words and all words which had ever been spoken and ever been invented were inadequate, and could never match what he felt. She was exquisite.

David had seen many beautiful women in England. In fact, his silence towards Savitri during the previous years was the result of a distracted, adolescent mind growing into an awareness of female charms.

Savitri, though, was more than a beautiful body, more than mere symmetry of features. Her body seemed to him to be a vessel containing the very
essence
of beauty itself. That beauty poured from her every cell, from her eyes and her smile and her every gesture, it radiated from her in a warmth as enrapturing as the fragrance of an exquisite rose, folding him into itself.

Her beauty was more even than that inner warmth. He had seen it in the fleeting moment when she had sprung to her feet and run to him. It was the smoothness of her movements, her grace and suppleness acquired through years of carrying heavy water-vessels on her head, balancing them even without hands; it was the sum all of these things that had made of the fluttering butterfly of then the sleek gazelle of now; whose fluid buoyancy of being radiated from inside to transfix him into stillness.

Iyer, horrified at their indiscretion, pushed David out of the kitchen door and slammed it — a serious transgression of a servant towards the young master, but Iyer, as a wronged father, could be forgiven. Besides, David did not even notice. He leaned against the kitchen door in a daze, eyes shut, smiling like an idiot. He saw stars — literally, he saw stars. It had all been too sudden. He was in shock. But even in shock, he knew.

He had never stopped loving her.

Iyer lambasted Savitri for her indecorum and sent her home. And when the
memsahib
came back and the family had been served lunch and his duties for the morning were over he went home and lambasted Savitri again, and complained to her mother that she had raised her daughter badly, that she was completely spoiled and without morals.

Savitri sweetly apologised. 'He is my milk-brother,' she explained. 'I have not seen him for so long, Appa. You must forgive me but I was so full of joy.

And because he too was under the spell of his daughter and because he could not resist her contrite smile he only grunted and turned away.

'You must not see him again,' he said in final reprimand.

Savitri replied, 'Appa, but how can I avoid seeing him? I must help you in the kitchen, must I not, and don't you want me to serve the family when they sit to eat? I have always done so and it would not be fitting for you to serve them yourself. And I have always discussed the meals with the mistress, have I not, and the young master will surely want to eat this and that, he has been away for so long without eating proper food. I am sure he will want to discuss meals with me, and you cannot do so because you speak no English! So please, Appa, do not forbid me to speak to him for it would be most inconvenient!'

Iyer saw the sense of her argument so only grunted again. He then turned back to her and said: 'Very well, then, but remember you are an unmarried young woman and you may not speak to a young man alone and you must never touch him again. Remember you are betrothed, and what would your bridegroom say, if he heard you are associating with another young man, even if the young man is your master? Your reputation has been ruined once by your lack of discretion when you were a child and now that you are grown up you may not behave as you did then. You must attend to the proprieties. You and the young master are no longer children and you do not know of the dangers of young men and women mixing. You must discuss nothing but meals with the young master. Think of your bridegroom.'

Savitri's face clouded over.

'Very well, Appa.' This last was a command she could easily promise to keep, because her betrothal to Ramsurat Shankar was constantly in her thoughts, though not in the way her father meant. Ramsurat Shankar was perfect for her. He was a teacher in the technical college with an excellent salary, and his previous wife had died in childbirth, and the child too, and his two elder children were already living with his younger brother's family and he did not expect to take them back into his household when he remarried. It was only thanks to the generosity of the Lindsays that such a good suitor could have been found for Savitri—who was so far above marriageable age—and they were all delighted, except for Savitri.

It was not that she did not
like
Ramsurat Shankar. She had seen a photograph of him, for he was a modern man and had insisted on an exchange of photographs before the wedding. He was quite a handsome man of thirty-one and she knew he was an excellent match. If there had been no David it would have been a happy marriage. But there
was
David.

'You must honour and respect your bridegroom,' Iyer added, and Savitri nodded sadly. That was nothing new. But to do so would be effort. Whereas to honour and respect David was joy, and to love him yet more so.

S
HE DISOBEYED
her father twice before the day was over. She met David in their old tree-house that afternoon. He was waiting for her when she came, and leaned over to give her a hand up as he had never needed to do when she was a child. She didn't need the hand now but took it nevertheless, laughing up at him. She had met him alone, and they touched, and in these two things she disobeyed her father.

She had never disobeyed her father before, except when she knew obedience was in conflict with obedience to that within her which was Truth, and wiser than her father. Thus she had touched the dogs and prayed with the Muslims and loved the Harijans. Always. Because these were important things and it was more important to obey the Truth within her than to obey her father's words, which were not words of Truth, but words of ignorance. For if he could have known that the muezzins' call was truly the call of God, and that God lived in the dogs and the Harijans, he would not have given her those orders. And if he could have known that God lived in her love for David, he would not have given her that order either. These things were Truth. But it was the tragedy of her life that not Truth, but ignorance should be given authority over her, in the form of her father.

This tragedy was in her eyes now, as she turned them to David. She laughed, because not even such tragedy could completely stain the joy she felt at being with him. But she could not hide the sadness, and David, who felt her soul as intimately as if it were his own, and could read every flicker of feeling in her eyes, touched her cheek softly and said, 'What's the matter, Say? You're sad.'

She told him then of her betrothal. She told him of Ramsurat Shankar, whom she would have to marry when she was eighteen.

'You can't, Sav. You're going to marry me . . . you promised! Do you still have the cross I gave you?'

She smiled then.

'Of course! But I don't wear it. I've got it hidden in a safe place. And I've got your Swallow Book of Verse and your Bible.'

'You'll have to break the engagement. I'll speak to your father if you like.'

'Oh David, you don't understand! I'll never be able to marry you!'

'Why not? Maybe not yet; I’ll be at Oxford for a few years, but when I come down, when I'm finished. Why can't you just go on working with your father, or better yet, go back to school…

Savitri chuckled ruefully. 'Go back to school! That's over, David.'

'I don't see why. You were always the cleverest of us all!'

'Oh David, David. You don't understand. That's just not our way.'

'But you're different; you've always been different. You grew up with us and that makes you different. And not just that — you
are
different. Inside, you're different. My mother always said you were special, you know. That you had gifts, secret powers. Do you still have them?'

She laughed again, and looked at the palms of her hands, spreading her fingers. 'Who knows? I certainly haven't been trying them out. Remember the Colonel’s carbuncles? I suppose she was disappointed. I never thought about it. I never did anything special at all. Things just happened.'

'Maybe she was right, you know. If you'd developed them the way she wanted maybe you'd have been rich and famous by now. Instead of…”

She looked at him fiercely.

'Instead of a poor little nobody?'

'I didn't mean that. But you'd have been independent, you'd have had your own money to do what you want, and nobody could have ordered you about. You wouldn't have to mind other people's children or cook in other people's houses or prune other people's roses. Or marry someone you don't want to.'

'If I do have the gift of healing, David, then it's just that. A gift. You don't sell gifts.'

'It can't be a bad thing to have your own money!'

'Spoken like an Englishman!'

Her eyes softened. She turned to him, eager to explain. 'Not everything of value is for sale, David. Some things are more precious than money. And if you put a price tag on them they disappear.'

'Like the gift of healing?'

'Yes. If I tried to use it, to enrich myself through it, it wouldn't be what it is.'

'What's the point of having a gift, then?'

Savitri smiled and shook her head, as if marvelling at his thick-headedness.

'It came to me for free. I didn't ask for it, I didn't do anything to deserve it. I can't say it's mine; it isn't. It's just there. It doesn't come from me; it flows through me. It goes where it wants to.'

'And where does it want to go?'

She shrugged. 'To those who need it. There are so many millions who have no doctor, David! Who cannot afford one! I think I was given my gift in order to serve.'

He looked at her fondly, stroked her arm.

'You've been thinking about this, haven't you? It's not true, that you don't care!'

She lowered her eyes and smiled, a secret smile as at a pleasure only she knew of.

'Oh yes, David. I do care, I care a lot. All I said was that I never thought about what your mother calls my powers. But there are other things I care about… long for…'

She stopped, as if afraid of revealing too much, but then her eyes lit up with the fervour of purpose and she blurted out: 'Oh, David! I wish I could join Gandhiji! He's such an inspiration to me, I could just drop everything and go out with him to India's poor and serve them. Oh, that would just be heaven on earth!'

'And what about us?'

'Us?'

'Yes, us! How do I fit into your plan? Before or after Gandhiji?' There was a challenge in his words, and hardness. Her eyes clouded over.

'David, it's all just a dream, don't you see? It'll never happen. Not Gandhiji and not marrying you. None of it is going to happen!'

'Sav! Don't say that! The way you talk, it sounds as if you've given up! If you only
want
it we can do it! We can fight and win and marry and do everything we want to! Really we can! All we have to do is want it strong enough! Listen, did you know I'm going to study medicine?'

'You? Medicine! No! I thought you were going into the Navy! Since when?'

'Don't look at me like that, Sav! I'm just not a Navy man!'

'So you're going to be a doctor?'

'Yes.'

The silence fell thick and heavy between them. Her shoulders slumped. He reached out and raised her chin, and saw the pain in her eyes as sharp as an accusation.

'I know you wanted to be a doctor yourself. I know you'd be a far, far better doctor than I'll ever be. I know you have a gift and all I'll have is learning. I know it all, Sav. I know you deserve much more . . . you're like a rose that's not allowed to bloom and I'm sorry. But listen. We can do it. Together we'll do it. There's so much waiting for you, for us, Sav.'

'Ramsurat Shankar is what's waiting for me, David.'

'No. I am. But first you have to wait. A few years. Wait for me, and then I'll be a doctor, and we'll work things out together.'

Their eyes met, and she allowed herself to hope, and to believe; to believe all that he believed, and to allow him to believe for her: for faith of this kind came hard to her, faith in a destiny apart from the one laid out for her.

But David was fired with this new dream, which even as he dreamed it took on form and contours and became reality within grasp.

'Sav, don't you see? We'll have a hospital and… and… and I'll treat the rich, and earn the money, and you'll heal. Anyone you want to. You'll be the healer my mother wanted you to be, but for free… all the poor will come to you and you can be all that you're made to be…'

She had to laugh, then, for he was being carried away by a dream and she knew what was real, and the reality was painful, but she would bear it for him.

'Oh, David. I do love you so much.'

'I love you too. And it's all going to work out, you'll see. I believe in miracles. I've seen them myself. Yes, I remember the Colonel's carbuncles… does he still come?'

'Oh, yes! He's never forgotten, either! He always has a special word for me, you know, and he even flirts a bit! That old man!'

'I can't blame him. Any man . . . but Sav, what about that fellow? You've got to get your father to cancel the betrothal! Look, we'll go to my mother . . .'

'You're forgetting something, David. It's not just my father, it's your parents too. They'd never allow a marriage between us.'

'Of course they will! They do everything I want!'

'Not when it's a matter of your marrying an Indian girl, David. Believe me!'

'Nonsense. My parents were never racist. At least, well I don't know what my father thinks, but not my mother. She's a Theosophist, you know. She believes passionately in equality. Look how she treated you: you were almost a part of the family, all your life! I know some of the English are terrible, Sav — most of them. I know why you Indians want us out, and I agree, we've made a mess of things. But not my parents. And they both think so highly of you and want to see you happy. When they know we love each other they'll be happy for us. I know it. Most especially my mother.'