Three Continents (51 page)

I went back to our palace hotel, running along the street—people laughed at me, pointing at this mad girl—till I found a rickshaw. At the hotel, they were taking down last night's tent from the back lawn—the tent people were there to take it down, and some of the hotel staff were helping
them. These usually greeted me, but today they kept their eyes strenuously on their task though I hovered around, hoping someone would tell me something about last night. They did not; and when I spoke to the one I knew best—he had often been sent up by room service when Crishi and I called—his quite-fluent English failed him and he couldn't understand a word I said. The same happened with others I approached—they either couldn't understand or hadn't been on duty last night; in any case, they were exceedingly busy, shouting instructions to one another as they cleared away all traces of last night's feast. Kites came swooping down continually to a particular spot on the lawn and pecked at something there; and although they flew off when the bearers descended on them with flapping arms and dust cloths, next moment they were back. They didn't bother to fly off when I came to see what it was that had attracted them. I found it was just a mess of what I presumed to be gnawed chicken bones, flung there by careless guests. There were more kites behind the hedge where the makeshift clay ovens had been set up last night, and where Michael had gone to get food for the Bhais after our conversation together. This place was being disassembled, but the people on the job were also too busy to talk to me.

Was it my imagination, or was it the same inside the hotel lobby? Did the clerks behind the desk, the porters and the elevator boys, all know something they wouldn't tell me? As I passed through the shopping arcade, it seemed to me that the shopkeepers were peering out at me with the same secret knowledge as everyone else. I stopped outside the jeweler's shop and hesitated only a moment before going in—he
had
to tell me, whatever his feelings about me after our scene yesterday. His assistant was in the front part of the shop. I didn't believe him when he said his boss had gone out—I went past him and pushed aside the curtain leading to the back room: but it was as empty and seemingly innocent as everyone's stare at me. This stare was also in the assistant's eyes when I asked him directly if Crishi had been there, or when he had last seen Michael. He appeared not to know who these people were.

I had hoped to have more information before facing Sonya; but it was she who knew. When I went to her suite, I found
the jeweler there, and whatever it was he had told her, had made her both frantic and resolute. She was dressed to go out. She had on a frock and little white hat that I had seen her wear to lunches and matinees in New York. She said both of us had to go immediately to the embassy, we couldn't delay another minute. “Why, what have you heard?” I asked her. I looked down at the jeweler sitting there—he avoided my eyes, but Sonya said “He's trying to help us.” Then she asked “Have you heard anything?”

I sensed she was trying to hide something that
she
had heard; I was doing the same with her, so there we were, sparing each other. I stalled: “Why do you want to go to the embassy?”

“Who else will help us, who else will do anything!”

“Do what?”

“Find Michael! We have to find Michael!”

I turned on the jeweler—“Do you know anything?” He wouldn't answer me—he looked at Sonya; she was nervously running her tongue over her lips. I could see her little plump hands trembling. She did know something and was trying to prepare both herself and me to tell me. I thought I had better come out cautiously with what I knew: “Michael's been hurt a little bit. It's nothing much and in a way it's his fault, for playing around with that knife of his.”

Sonya looked at me with round eyes: “Then why did they—” she began; I intercepted an exchange of glances between her and the jeweler and got in there promptly—“Why did they what? What did you tell her?” I challenged him. Still he wouldn't look at me; his eyes were lowered. “What do you know?” I went on. “Or is it all just rumor again, just things you've heard and like to whisper around.”

“I don't know anything.”

“You must know something or why are you here?”

“Darling, he's trying to help us!”

“Then why doesn't he speak! If you know anything, why don't you speak!” Actually, I was shouting at both of them: my God, if they did know anything about Michael, what a time to keep quiet; what a time to spare me!

Sonya begged him: “Please be so kind—tell her what you told me.”

He still wouldn't look up; his face was sullen and closed.
I was so desperate, I was ready to assault him again. Sonya begged me: “Darling, he's the only person who's told us anything at all—”

I controlled myself; I spoke to him in the calmest voice I could, asking him for information. At last he consented to speak, though he remained sullen: “I don't know anything about this hotel. When my shop is shut, I go home to my place in Shakti Nagar. I eat my food and go to sleep. When I return in the morning, I open my shop and attend to my business. Yes, sometimes someone may come and say this and that has happened. I may listen but I don't ask, Is it true? It may be true, it may not be. I don't call that person a liar. I listen.”

After this cautious and cautionary preamble, he repeated what he had told Sonya. There had been some sort of scuffle between Michael and the Bhais. The cause was not known—it may have been that Michael had wanted to go into the tent and make a scene; or it may have been about their food, or some personal quarrel. The Bhais were always quick to draw—it was well known that they never lost a chance to use the knives they carried; and in the present case, with Michael, they had probably been waiting to use them for a long time; and so maybe had he. Anyway, whatever the cause, Michael had been wounded—here, said the jeweler, pointing to a place on his chest. I quickly said that I knew it to be only a superficial flesh wound; I spoke with confidence, for Sonya's sake, though I felt very little of it myself. The jeweler had heard otherwise but did not commit himself to any details; and I beat down my fears with the thought that in the telling everything tends to grow much bigger and worse than it is. They had wanted to carry Michael into the hotel but had been prevented by the hotel staff; the manager himself had come down to bar their way. He had explained that with their kind of clientele—wealthy Indians and international travelers—they could not afford a scandal, especially since it was a case where the police might be involved. In fact, he couldn't wait to get Michael off the premises, and taking no chances, had had him carried out by the back way, by the block of servant quarters.

“What time was all this?” I asked.

The jeweler's report was not clear. Two in the morning, he said at first—it was a time when Crishi was with me in our room upstairs; next he said it may have been four—we were still having a good time with each other at that hour; or it may have been five, he said—by then I had been asleep and presumed Crishi was too. I asked “Who directed all this operation?” “He did of course,” said the jeweler—off the top of his head, I could see, and I took some melancholy pleasure in contradicting him: “Crishi was with me.” The jeweler shrugged; he didn't believe me.

It was not known where they had carried Michael. Sonya had tried to call various hospitals, but the jeweler doubted that they had taken him to one, for fear of a police report. I lied quickly: “They probably took him to the Bhais' house. That's where he is.” Sonya said “We must tell the embassy to send their doctor.” She wanted us to leave at once and take an embassy official and their doctor to the Bhais' house. She told me to hurry, she said the chargé d'affaires himself was waiting for us—“What, you've spoken to him?” I asked. “Did you tell him anything?” “Anything! Of course I told him—I've reported Michael missing—”

“Ah,” I said, sitting down instead of hurrying as she wanted me to, “I wish you hadn't.”

Sonya began to defend herself, but she was not sure of her ground. She was used to making mistakes. Always trying to do her best, she was quick and impulsive to rush into action—too quick and impulsive, as Grandfather had known. But in the past he had been there to shield her from the consequences. “I was so frightened, darling,” she said to me, “and I couldn't find you. I felt so alone. I had to speak to someone, get someone to help. There was no one.”

“The hotel is full of our people,” I said. “All my family is here—the Rawul, the Bari Rani, Renée—why didn't you go to them instead of to strangers at the embassy?”

Sonya was silent. I felt sorry for her—especially to see her dressed up in her fringed and floral silk frock and with her slightly swollen ankles bulging above her high-heeled pumps. She was as frightened as I was, for Michael; and for her there was another fear: of the place, and the strangers among whom she found herself. But who had asked her to come in
the first place—and, having come, to stay?

I said “You'd better call and say it's okay, we know where he is. . . . We do know!” I insisted. “He's at the Bhais' house and I'm just going there to see him.”

“I'm coming with you.”

“No. No. You call the embassy and tell them it's okay. And someone has to wait here, in case there's a message. Crishi might try to call. He will try, and if he doesn't get me in my room, he's sure to try here.”

The jeweler got up to leave. He and Sonya began to exchange courtesies—she thanking him profusely, he protesting that he had done nothing but was ready for any service. I think he was glad to retreat without further involvement. Just as he reached the door, the phone rang. Stung by curiosity, he hesitated for a moment, but on the whole felt it safer to know nothing more. He even hastened his departure, as if afraid that whoever it was on the phone might discover his presence.

Sonya said “If it's the embassy, what shall I say?”

I said “I'll do it.” I went into the bedroom and shut the door. There was no need for her to hear what lies I told them.

It wasn't the embassy, but it was Crishi. I had to sit on the side of Sonya's bed because my legs wouldn't support me, between the relief of hearing his voice and the fear of what he had to tell me. Of course his voice was absolutely cheerful and normal and he went on the offensive at once: “Harriet, where have you
been
? I've been trying to ring you all
day
!” It was the way he had rung me from Holland or Basel or the States, when he had taken off without telling me and I had been going crazy for two days wondering what had happened. But there was this difference now—he sounded far far far away, so far his voice seemed to be disembodied, coming to me like a spirit across untold worlds of mountains, rivers, deserts. I kept shouting “Where
are
you? Where
are
you? Can you hear me?” Sonya came and stood in the door-way, her hand on her heart. I asked “Where's Michael?”

“Michael's right here!” cried the disembodied Crishi. “Right beside me! He'll talk in a minute! But first listen to me, Harriet: very carefully. What you have to do.”

Well I did want to listen very carefully, but there was Sonya, plucking at my sleeve, and I had to tell her hastily, “Michael's okay. He's with Crishi,” before I could concentrate on that voice from far away.

What he wanted me to do was come where he was—“But where are you?” “Here of course in Dhoka.” “But how did you get there?” “Oh for Christ's sake, Harriet. By plane.” “You and Michael?” “Listen to me—operator, operator, operator!—okay, listen: The planes have been canceled, because of the weather—you'll have to come by train.”

It was very difficult for me, concentrating so hard on what he was communicating and at the same time having to give reassuring glances at Sonya, who stuck close beside me, eating my face up with her anxiety. Giving up on Sonya for a while, I threw my whole being toward him. “I want you to come alone,” he went on. “Don't tell anyone where you're going.” “No one?” I asked and flung another reassuring glance at Sonya. He said “This is what you tell Rani: to go to London and wait there for a consignment.” “What consignment?” “Are you stupid or something? . . . Tell her we'll be joining her soon—tell her in a few days, a week at the most—can you hear me?” “Yes yes yes—” Sonya imploringly touched my arm and I said: “Can I talk to Michael?” He said “You should be here day after tomorrow—can you hear me? Operator—ah well—”

He was cut off. I too began to scream for the operator and to bang the cradle up and down. Sonya was clutching my arm: “Did you speak to him?” In my agitation I yelled at her— “Didn't you hear? We were cut off” She snatched the receiver from me and listened into its blank interior. “Better put it down,” I said, “so they can ring back.” She did so. We waited. Nothing came.

“But didn't he tell you where they are? Can't we try to get through to them?”

“Michael's all right,” I said. “I was just going to speak to him when we were cut off.”

The phone rang again—both of us snatched for it—I got there first: But it was the embassy. A very polite young man with a nice New England sort of voice-—I kept him talking for a while, not letting on I wasn't Sonya. I wanted time to
think; and also to readjust myself to the difference between that mild voice—the things that were in it! the ski lodge in the winter, the carved pumpkins at Halloween, the drive to Vermont to see the leaves turn—and the distant disembodied dearly beloved Crishi still tingling in my ear. Finally I asked the young man to wait and I laid aside the receiver; I took Sonya's arm and led her some distance away from the phone. She looked up at me expectantly.

“Tell him we've found Michael”; and at the shadow that crossed her face, I said more intensely, “He's all right. Tell him.” She didn't move. “Sonya, Michael's all right. “I was just going to speak to him when we were cut off. Be quick,” I urged her. “Michael and Crishi must be trying to get through now. We have to hang up. Go on, Sonya, hurry.”