Waiting for the Monsoon (57 page)

The nurses are busy transforming the Rolls-Royce into a makeshift ambulance. Chutki has shoved her baby brother in his bloodied shirt into Charlotte's arms and gone off in search of a working radio so that she can tell her father that the operation has failed. The anaesthetist sits across from her with a crestfallen face, and Peter is crouching on his heels at the end of the corridor. Charlotte looks into the boy's face.
Please, wake up
, she prays.
Stay alive
. She strokes his hair and looks at the bandage around his throat. Carefully she hangs the gold chain with the family's coat of arms around his neck. She tries not to touch the bandage. “It's going to be all right,” she whispers. She is aware that the same feeling struck her earlier in the day, when he looked at her. There's something about this boy. She remembers the gossip that did the rounds of the palace . . . that the boy was doomed to lead an unhappy life because she — a white woman — had inadvertently been the first person to see him. She remembers the nurse's scream, the fury of the women in the
zenana
, and the reproachful glances.
Please, let it turn out all right
. She strokes him and gives him a kiss.
I would gladly give my life for you
. The boy opens his eyes. He blinks. He looks at her drowsily. She smiles at him.
It's going to be all right, everything's going to be fine. I promise.
He smiles back at her. The stadium explodes. “
India zindabad
!” screams the reporter; the emergency-room doctor jumps up and dances around in a circle. It's all going to be all right. Then she sees that the bandage around his neck is turning red. The wound hasn't been sutured properly! She stands up and is about to call for help when the boy is snatched from her arms and disappears through the outside door, with the two nurses.

Chutki doesn't say a word to her as they get into the Rolls-Royce. The two nurses are sitting opposite them on folding chairs, like a pair of guard dogs. The boy is lying on the seat, with his head in his sister's lap. He's looking at Charlotte and he's still smiling when the door closes and the car drives off.

“Drive carefully!” Chutki barks to the chauffeur. She's furious with him. He couldn't be found because he was glued to a radio somewhere, like every other Indian in the city.

They turn into the deserted street that runs parallel to the stadium, and at that moment the gates open and throngs of euphoric fans burst forth, chanting,
“India zindabad! India
zindabad
!” They pour onto the streets, numbering in the thousands. The chauffeur realizes that there's no way he can get through the crowd, and he starts to turn around. But Chutki orders him to keep going. The will of the maharaja's daughter is law, and he turns the wheel back, but the sea of people makes it impossible to move forward. They're waving, cheering, and whooping. Dancing, jumping, and singing. Laughing, screaming, and shouting: “
India zindabad
!” The people are delirious with excitement: India has beaten Pakistan! A man in a saffron-white-green turban — the colours of the Indian flag — celebrates by pounding on the roof of the Rolls-Royce with both fists. Although the car is well insulated, the blow reverberates alarmingly. The chauffeur starts honking his horn. Others hear the blows falling on the metal and join in.
“India zindabad! India zindabad
!”

“Make them stop!” Chutki screams.

The short nurse rolls down the window and a deafening cheers fill the car. She tries to stop the men, but they pay no attention.

The chauffeur sees in his rear-view mirror that Chutki is on the verge of panic. He gets out of the car and orders the men to stop.

“
India zindabad! India zindabad
!” The men continue to drum on the car roof. “Make them stop!” Chutki shrieks. Then she draws her coat tightly around her, opens the door, and jumps out.

The nurses, too, alight from the car, more to protect Chutki than to try to talk sense into the men.

The little boy looks around groggily. His throat hurts, but the cries of the men are so overwhelming that he sits up and looks out the open window.

“India zindabad! India zindabad!”
a man shouts into the car and waves at the little boy.

Madan raises his hand and waves back.

“Come out and dance!” the man shouts, and he opens the car door.

Slowly the boy gets to his feet and slides down onto the floor of the car. Cautiously he crawls out. He turns toward the man who wants to dance with him, and spreads his arms wide. He sees his sister, with her blue coat, amidst all those big men. She has her hands in the air, too.

“Yes, dance!” the man calls out. “We won!”

Stumbling along on his little legs, Madan follows the man: he loves to dance, just like his sisters and brothers. He loves the huge parties his parents give in the great halls of the palace. He watches as the dancing man in front of him disappears into the crowd. He totters after him. Madan Man Singh wants to dance with the others. Dance in celebration.

THE MOON MOVED
languidly across the cloudless sky. It was not the screech of the owl or the warbling of the birds that was keeping her awake, not the heat or her thirst, not even the suspicion that she already knew the identity of the man she was in love with. It was the question she should have asked her father years ago. In her bare feet, she went to the nursery and opened the door. By the light of the moon she could see that he was lying peacefully on the narrow bed, with only the bands across his legs. He had been lucid when he signed the power of attorney. What must he have thought all those other times? He must have realized that they had tied him up. Did he understand, or was that the reason for all of his extreme outbursts of anger?

He was gleaming with sweat, even though the fan above him was revolving at full speed. The mosquito netting floated over him like a jellyfish. The anxiety that she often felt when she entered his room was absent. How could she ask him the question when even her own memories were slowly fading, making way for desires rather than reality? What would change if she knew? Would her image of him change? Could she forgive him, or would she end up hating him? She noticed that his fingers moved while he was asleep, as if he was trying to grasp something beyond his reach. His breathing accelerated. His arms moved, but his thin legs lay still. Was he still able to walk and run and jump in his dreams? Or did those memories also dim and blur?

His uniform was hanging on the cabinet door. Had Hema hung it there? She would have to take it down before he woke up, since he could not possibly go to the ball with her. He would be confused by all those people, and they by him. The Distinguished Service Order hung among the other forgotten medals. In the end, even heroism exists only in memory. He groaned softly. His hands relaxed. She could tell that he was drifting into a dreamless sleep. She didn't want to go to bed yet. She wasn't tired, although she hadn't slept for two nights. She took his uniform jacket off the hanger and put it on. The scent of fabric, the past, and mortality embraced her. Her hand caressed the coarse linen, the weathered seams, and the medal.

“Take it off.”

She hadn't noticed that he was awake again.

“You can have it.”

“I didn't want to wake you.”

“I wasn't asleep.”

The jacket slipped from her shoulders. “Take if off,” he repeated.

She looked at him, trying to establish whether he knew what he was saying or was talking nonsense.

“You heard me, didn't you? Take it off!”

She opened the small metal pin on the inside of the uniform, attached to the cross that symbolized leadership and courage, and slid it off. The cross was heavier than she had expected and the corners were sharp; in the centre were a laurel wreath and a gold crown. She lifted the mosquito netting and handed it to her father.

“I told you it was for you.”

“For me? Why?”

“You're his widow, aren't you?”

She gave her father a penetrating look. Had she heard correctly? Was he lucid or was he crazy? Did he mean that he wasn't a hero, but Peter was? He looked down. An owl screeched on the hill. The moon cast its light over father and daughter. She let the mosquito netting fall. It came down between them like the barred gate of a fortress.

Charlotte found her way back to her own room. She lay down on her bed with the medal in her hand and fell into a dreamless sleep.

“
AUNT CHARLOTTE
!” The high-pitched, girlish voice echoed throughout the hall. “We're out of toilet paper again!”

At that very moment the telephone rang. Hema ran into the hall to answer it, but before he could do so, the doorbell rang. For a moment he hesitated, but then decided that if you don't know who is at the door, then it's a question of first-come, first-served. He put on his best telephone face, picked up the receiver, and repeated the sentence that memsahib had taught him years before. When he heard the voice of the wife of Nikhil Nair, he regretted not going to the door first.

Upstairs the clock struck nine. Memsahib was still asleep when he took her tea up at six o'clock, but the door of the nursery was open, so that he could hear the general singing his favourite song, about someone he'd see again. He didn't know where or when, but in any case it would be on a sunny day.

He had taken the tea back to the kitchen and finished it himself, since all night the heat had lain over him like a heavy blanket. Again, the doorbell sounded. Hema searched for some way to terminate his conversation with the wife of Nikhil Nair, but she continued to maintain that the table that the tailor had borrowed from her had to go to the club, because it was needed for the gala this evening. The fact that Hema didn't know where the tailor was, that the tailor didn't know that the table was on loan, and that memsahib was still asleep made little or no impression on the wife of Nikhil Nair. Against the background of her flood of words, he heard that the general was still in a good mood upstairs, for although Hema had locked the door, the old military man continued to sing the same song over and over. The doorbell rang again; this time it sounded louder and more insistent. If at that moment the young memsahib had not come into the hall with the mended teapot, he would no doubt have brought the conversation to a polite end, but he was so startled that someone else had taken over his work that he put the telephone down without saying goodbye, went over to the girl, and snatched the teapot from her hands. A splash of hot tea shot from the spout and landed on his hand. He gave a cry of pain that no one heard, because whoever was standing at the front door had his finger on the bell and was not planning on removing it until someone opened the door. With the teapot in his good hand, he opened the door with the injured hand.

“I came to pick up the table,” said a boy Hema had never seen before. He had a small moustache and was tapping his foot impatiently against the doorstep. Both Charlotte and the general had taught him the rules that are part of a butler's training, but now Hema forgot everything. “The servants' entrance is at the back,” he snapped, and slammed the door shut.

CHARLOTTE HADN'T SLEPT
so soundly in years. And when she woke up, the medal was still in her hand. Her memories of the deceased hero were gradually displaced by an unsettling notion. Was the tailor the son of the maharaja? The little boy she had held in her arms in the hospital? The child who vanished in the commotion following the first cricket game between India and Pakistan? His photograph had been published in all the papers, but no one had seen him. The prince had scoured the country in an effort to find his son, but the boy seemed to have simply vanished. Prayers were said for him in temples, mosques, and churches, and astrologers and fortune tellers were approached, and the maharaja offered a gigantic sum of money if he was found. Was he here, downstairs, in her house? Or was it nothing but an idle hope, a way of reinforcing his right to exist, and thus give her love a chance? But it all squared with the facts: the scar, the loss of his voice, his age, the colour of his skin, and his resemblance to the maharaja. He had a family! She had to tell him, she had to call the maharaja. She didn't dare leave her room — if she went downstairs, he would immediately hear her thoughts. . . . She would have to find a way to approach him calmly, and ask him whether he could remember anything from the past. If he were able to read, she could have written him a letter. If they were far enough away from each other, he might not be able to hear her thoughts, but then everyone else around would hear her shouting. The only thing she could think of was to tell someone else first and then have that person ask him, but there was no suitable candidate. So she decided she would have to do it herself. She put the medal in the wooden box where for years she had kept the lone cigarette, returned the box to the drawer, and went downstairs.

THE NOISE THAT
had awakened her had faded away. The house was filled with a serene calm. There was only the ticking of the clock and the squeaking of the stairs. She knocked on the door to the music room, and since she knew he could not answer, she gently opened the door, which creaked slightly.

The room was dark. The shutters and the curtains were closed. For a moment she thought he might have overslept, too. Except that he didn't sleep in the music room, but in the room next to the kitchen . . . when he did sleep. She turned on the light. The bulb wavered and her heart missed a beat. The room was empty; the table and the sewing machine were gone. The crimson dress hung on the wall, like a giant butterfly.

“Madan!” she called out, forgetting that the tailor didn't even know that that was his original name. “Madan, where are you?” She ran into the drawing room, which was also empty. She ran into the garden, and then the kitchen. There was no one there either. She found only a neat pile of sheets and a rolled-up sleeping mat in the room she'd had cleaned for him a few weeks ago. There were no other signs that anyone had lived there. She ran in the direction of the shed past the double row of pans and buckets. All that time, his bicycle had stood next to hers. It, too, had disappeared.