Travelers (7 page)

“What's that?” she asked. “What are they doing? Gopi, do come here.”

He got up and joined her again by the window. He looked, but all he saw was the usual cotton-carders working the strings of their machines. Lee watched fascinated as the flakes of cotton rose and fell in fluffy clouds. Gopi put his arm round her and ran
his hand down her hip. “Don't,” she said and shook him off with an easy practiced movement.

What next? He felt utterly bewildered. He also felt that he was letting himself down—and not only himself but all the men downstairs whom he knew to be having exciting thoughts about what was going on up here.

Now Lee's attention traveled from the cotton-carders to the steps of the mosque. There were people going up or coming down from the mosque, stepping around others who sat there to rest or had stretched themselves out to sleep. Many of them were beggars and some importuned the passers-by while others held out their mutilated limbs in silence. There were some terrible sights down there, but Lee had already seen many like them in the course of her travels. She had begun to accept the fact that it was the fate of many to suffer hunger and disease. Just now the beggars seemed like essential props placed on the steps of the mosque to remind those who were going in to pray of how much there was to pray for.

Gopi again put his hand where it had been before; again she flicked him off with the same movement as of a practiced hand waving away flies. She really didn't notice or care; she was too engrossed in what was outside. Now her eyes had traveled up to the great domes hovering against a sky of a cerulean blue which she had before seen only in paintings depicting the birth or death of Christ. At that moment she had what she thought must be a mystic experience: at any rate, she felt a great desire to merge with everything that was happening out there—to become part of it and cease to be herself.

“Then why did you come!” Gopi suddenly shouted. She turned to him in amazement. She saw he was terribly upset.

“What happened?”

Her question, uttered in such innocence and her eyes also so clear and puzzled and innocent, increased his sense of humiliation. Why did she think she had been brought up here? What did she think of him? What opinion did she have of his manhood?
Tears of rage stung his eyes. He could not put up with such insult. Suddenly he flung himself against her. He bit her neck like an angry animal.

“Hey!”

Lee fought back and she was quite strong. He was surprised by her strength and eased off a bit. He was still struggling with her but at the same time he also said in quite a begging voice, “Come and lie on the bed with me.”

“No, why should I?”

“Please,” Gopi said.

“Certainly not.”

Then he let her go and lay down on the bed by himself. He lay there face downward and appeared in despair. She didn't know what to do about him. She wanted to get back to the window and look out and be filled by those wonderful sensations. But she couldn't just leave him lying there. Reluctantly she went and sat on the bed beside him. He didn't move. She couldn't see his face because it was buried in a pillow. “Turn around,” she said. “Look at me.”

“No, no. Please go away.”

Although she would not at all have minded going away, it was not in her nature or upbringing to turn from distressful situations. She saw that they would have to have this out and prepared herself.

He raised his head to see what she was up to: then he flung himself round to face her. “Yes, go. I know you want to.”

“No, I don't.”

“Yes, you want to get away from me. Because you hate and despise me.”

“Hate and despise?” she repeated. “Why are you talking like that to me?”

“It's the truth.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and saw he had her attention. “You know it's the truth,” he said. Perhaps they could have a quarrel. He wouldn't at all have minded that. Quarrels heated people, raised their emotions for one another; they could be exciting.

But Lee was not disposed to quarrel. She was busy criticizing herself. It was not true that she hated and despised Gopi but if he felt that way, obviously something had gone wrong, she had failed him somewhere. “Gopi, I
like
you,” she said with sincerity.

“Then why did you push me away?”

“I didn't mean to. I was thinking of something else.”

What to make of her? A girl who had been brought to a hotel room—had been led upstairs in full public view—and now she said she had been thinking of something else. And this was not an inexperienced, unknowing Indian girl like his sisters, but a Western girl who was traveling all round the world by herself. Everyone knew that Western girls were brought up on sex, lived on sex. She must have slept with many, many men, over and over again. This thought suddenly excited and infuriated him. Who was she to push him away?

“You're a bitch!” he cried.

“That's not fair, Gopi,” she protested. “I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I never thought of it, that's all.”

“Never thought of it! As if you English or American girls ever think of anything else! Everyone knows it. Everyone knows what you are.”

“Well, some of us,” Lee admitted, trying her very best to be impartial and truthful. “But it's not true about everyone, you can't say that. It's not true about me.”

Actually, he believed her. There was something disappointingly upright and cool about her as she sat there right next to him on the bed, prepared for serious discussion. But he didn't want to admit it to be true. He wanted to think about her as one thought about these girls, as the people downstairs thought about her.

“Then why did you come upstairs with me?” he taunted her. “Only for what? Only to sit here and talk and have conversation?”

“And see the view.”

He wanted to laugh and he wanted to cry. Everything was going so wrong.

“It's a marvelous view. I'm glad I came, Gopi. And now I'm glad to be with you and that we're having this talk. It's good to have the chance to clear up any misunderstanding. I mean, regarding the way I feel about you.”

“How do you feel about me?”

“I told you. I like you.”

“Like! This is not what we have come upstairs for.”

He was sitting up on the bed. They were very close together. She could see the tears that sparkled on his lashes. Although he already had a strong growth of beard, his complexion was as smooth as that of a child. His eyes were velvet and heavy. He looked very oriental. She wished they could be closer together in understanding, that she could explain herself better to him. But perhaps it was not possible by means of words.

“Okay,” she said. She unbuttoned her blouse and took it off. She was wearing nothing underneath. He stared. He couldn't believe it for a moment. Then he wasted no more time. He was a strong boy, brimful of appetite though not very skilled. She suffered rather than enjoyed while he lay on top of her. But she was glad to be doing this for him and, at the final moment, thought to herself that perhaps this was part of the merging she had so ardently desired while looking out of the window.

By the Swimming Pool

When Lee took her to meet Raymond and Gopi, Asha was delighted. She always liked meeting young people. She also adored Raymond's flat and marveled at the way a man could make himself so comfortable and have all these nice ideas.

She took a special fancy to Raymond. She sat close beside him and asked him many questions and while he was answering them she touched his knee in an affectionate way. She heard about how he had come here to spend a year or two on his aunt's
legacy, and she advised him about all the places he ought to see. She also invited him to come and stay in Rao Sahib's state of Maupur: “If you
really
want to see India,” she said, sounding a little doubtful. Raymond said he did, very much, and he would love to come, thanks most awfully.

“It's very dull,” she warned him. “Right in the desert—nothing to see, nothing to do,” but then she looked round at the other two and added, “Of course if we all go, we could have fun. All four of us together.” She became enthusiastic about this idea and seemed to wish that they could set off there and then. And failing that, why didn't she take them out for a nice drive, she said, she had Rao Sahib's car and chauffeur outside and they could go wherever they liked.

They drove to one of the big hotels which had a floodlit swimming pool. Although it was so late at night, the place was quite crowded. There was a band playing in white tuxedos and waiters hurried about with trays to serve the guests lying in deck chairs. Lee and Gopi hired costumes but Asha said she was too ashamed of her figure and would just sit and watch them. Raymond also didn't want to go in. Gopi asked him “Really? You don't want to? Really?” very solicitously; he had been solicitous and affectionate toward Raymond throughout these last few days, ever since he had gone off with Lee and left Raymond deliberately behind. Now it was as if he wanted to make up for that and also any other harshness he may have shown him.

Asha talked to Raymond. She still touched him as she talked, on his arm, his knee, but purely out of habit. While she had sat in the car beside him, she had squeezed herself against him but had felt no answering thrill. She understood; it did not make her like Raymond any less. Now she was telling him about the English governess she had had as a girl, a Miss Hart. Miss Hart had taught her to esteem everything English very highly. She had tried to curb Asha's appetite for Indian food in favor of a healthy diet of roast mutton and caramel custard. It was eating all that spicy food, Miss Hart had explained, that made Indian
boys and girls grow up so quickly, for it heated the blood and caused premature lust. She had also insisted on a lot of exercise and had taught Asha to play netball and hockey. Although there was no one to play except herself and Asha, Miss Hart had played in earnest and cheered the two of them on as if they were a full team. “Oh, butterfingers!” she had shouted; or “Well played, Alice!” She had always called her Alice; she said she couldn't pronounce Asha.

“What's so difficult about Asha?” Raymond asked.

“I know. It was only an excuse. She hated Indian names, like she hated everything Indian.”

“She sounds rather a horrible person.”

“She wasn't so bad. Sometimes she was quite fun. I think she was just terribly homesick—especially at Christmas time. She hated spending her Christmas in India. But when there were English guests come to stay—like Mr. Timrose, the political agent, or there was a Colonel Freshwater with his wife, Mrs. Freshwater, and a daughter, I've forgotten her name, was it Rose? Or perhaps Violet. They always came for shooting. When there were people like that, Miss Hart was very happy. She came down for dinner in an evening gown that was held up with two straps and after dinner she played the piano for them, all English tunes like Gilbert and Sullivan and ‘Tales from the Vienna Woods.' She spent a lot of time with them in the guest house, complaining about us. But when she left us and went back to England, she cried and cried and gave me her own penholder, which had a view of Brighton in it. . . . Hello, Gopi, I think that costume is too tight for you.”

Gopi shook himself so that the water came dripping down on Raymond, who pretended to protest. Gopi did it again and said, “Why don't you come? It's so nice and cool.”

“I prefer watching you.”

“Oh, what's this?” He took the glass Raymond had ordered for himself and at once began to drink. He finished it all and then ran off, ostentatiously graceful, water trickling down his
chest and back and making the hair look silky and matted. Both Asha and Raymond looked after him for some time in silence.

“Have you known him for a long time?” Asha at last asked and went on straightaway: “Do you like him?”

“Oh, yes,” Raymond said coolly. “We're great friends.”

Asha gave him a sideways look. She ran the tip of her tongue over her wide mouth, which always had too much lipstick on it. She drank her drink while listening to the band playing and watched Lee and Gopi throwing a plastic ball at each other in the pool. Raymond also watched. His hand tapped the side of the deck chair in enjoyment while the band played a very old Beatles song to rather a strange beat.

“My brother also had an English tutor,” Asha said.

“And did he hate India?”

“Oh, no. He was quite different. Quite, quite different. You know, Raymond, shall I tell you—” She squeezed his hand. How strange it was to hold a man's hand this way and find it lifeless, unresponsive like a woman's or a friend's. She smiled to herself and squeezed it once more before giving it back to him. “Yes, it's true, he was a bit like you. He loved India—he loved being with us, and our food and all the festivals, and he was terribly happy when he was allowed to dress up in Indian clothes. He sat on the floor and listened to our music and ate betel and did everything that everyone else did. All the Indians were very fond of him. But the English people didn't like it at all, that he should behave like that. Mr. Timrose wanted my father to dismiss him, he didn't think he was suitable as a tutor. My father didn't like to disoblige Mr. Timrose but when he told Peter—that was his name, Peter Kingsley—and asked him to go back to England, Peter got terribly, terribly upset. He begged my father—he begged like an Indian person—with his hands folded—and do you know he even got down to touch Papa's feet? Everyone was quite shocked. But he didn't care what he did or what anyone thought of him, just so long as he was allowed to stay.”

The huge plastic ball, thrown skillfully by Gopi, came bouncing on to Raymond. Gopi bobbed up and down in the pool, clapping his hands and shouting, “Come on, throw it back! We're waiting!” Raymond threw it back. Asha half lowered her heavy lids over her eyes and sucked Coca-Cola like a sphinx.