Arctic Summer (34 page)

They hadn't discussed him in weeks, but the interval might not have happened. Morgan said immediately, “I do wish you could get somebody for me.”

“I was waiting for you to mention it. There's not the least difficulty.”

Kanaya arrived at noon, a time Morgan had chosen because Baldeo was eating his dinner. He was a good-looking young man, perhaps a little effeminate, wearing a coat that was too yellow and a turban that was too blue, with a wispy moustache and thick black eyebrows that formed a single bar over his eyes.

This first meeting was an innocent one. The idea was that Morgan would decide if he liked the barber, and only then would he be asked to return. Kanaya shaved him, his fingers thin and delicate on the Englishman's pink face, and when he was done they smiled at each other.

“Come back tomorrow. At the same time.”

He went tripping away under a canvas umbrella, trailing the smell of cheap scent.

The next day he arrived a little late. The shaving ritual was repeated and in the middle of it Morgan stretched out a hand to touch the buttons on his coat. The razor stopped moving, Kanaya stood still. They looked at each other and then Morgan took hold of his sleeve and drew him closer. The little barber smiled and wobbled his head. It was a moment before Morgan remembered that in India this movement indicated assent.

To be sure, he asked, “Are you willing?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

The reply had seemed too quick. Perhaps they were misunderstanding one another. To add to the confusion, Kanaya resumed his work, moving the razor smoothly over his skin. But when he was finished, and he had packed away his equipment, he came back to Morgan expectantly. “Yes,” he said again.

Morgan bent his head clumsily—he was taller than the young man—and kissed him. It was a pleasant if passionless contact, and the Englishman was still nervous, because the other was so calm. But no upset occurred, and he hurried to the door to bolt it.

Almost immediately there was a small explosion. Baldeo had returned early from his meal and was hurling water at the tattie on the outside veranda. Haste and panic! Morgan hurried his visitor to the other door, on the inner veranda, to escape. As they parted, fumblingly, he hissed at Kanaya to arrive on time the next day.

That afternoon, when they met to play cards together, Bapu Sahib enquired how things were going, and Morgan told him everything.

“That is good,” His Highness said encouragingly. “But it is important that, the next time you see him, you make sure of it. Once you have taken action, he won't talk about it to anybody. And something else—you must be sure not to be the weaker partner. You understand me, I hope? You are not to be the lady. That sort of rumour would be bad.”

Shifting around uncomfortably, Morgan tried to change the subject. “We are to meet tomorrow at the same hour, that is to say—”

Instantly, His Highness blocked his ears. “No, no,” he said. “Don't tell me, because when the time comes I shall think of you, and that I don't want.”

The next day Kanaya arrived early, and was gone before Baldeo returned from lunch.

 

* * *

 

A week later, the rains came at last. The situation had been dire for some time. The cisterns were so low that Morgan's bath couldn't be filled, and buckets had to be carried in from the fish-ponds outside. The two wells had run completely dry and the gardens, lovingly designed by his predecessor, were a charred plain of dust. Pipes had been laid to water the gardens, but they led from an empty tank, which led in turn to one of the empty wells.

The first shower was mild, releasing odd odours from the ground. But the air had changed, turning misty and pastel-coloured, and there was the promise of more. It came two days afterwards, while Morgan was in the garden, planting seeds. At first there had been only rumbling dark clouds and a few stray drops, but suddenly the sky turned liquid. Violent wind made the rain horizontal, switching direction constantly, and took away the palm roof of the one available shelter. When the storm had eased a little, he staggered back towards the palace, his feet encased in mud.

Just as the dryness had been the defining feature of life, so the monsoon now took over. The rains had come in time to save the crops, and there were celebrations from the local townsfolk, with naked wrestlers and brightly clad women, and the faces of elephants garishly painted. The rush of water was a daily event and, though the heat persisted between showers, Morgan's mind revived. The feeling of stupidity that had slowed him down was washed away. The colours of the world returned, and his perception of those colours too.

It had only been a few days, but his meetings with Kanaya were a regular part of his life now, though they continued to be furtive and fraught. His rooms were on the first floor, at the end of a wing, and visible to the public eye. Both the inside veranda and the staircase that descended from the outside one were on full display, and his bathroom was overlooked by stairs that went up to the second floor. All comings and goings could be observed, and even the interior wasn't safe. There was no such thing as privacy in the palace; the warped and swollen doors meant that few of them could be properly closed, and it wasn't unusual, when one was sleeping, to be woken by the sound of servants creeping about the room.

A possible solution was to try to meet outside the palace. Beyond the guest house was the Naya Bagh, a garden that might provide some cover. One afternoon, they arranged to go there. Morgan went in first, and ensconced himself among leaves. But when Kanaya tried to follow, there was a commotion of shouting and blows: he had fallen into the grip of a gardener, who thought he was a thief. Morgan extracted him and they tried to proceed further, into the countryside beyond, but you could hardly walk five steps without coming across spectators, sitting or lying about, filled with curiosity. By the time he retraced his steps towards the palace it was fully dark.

Crossing the almost-empty tank in front of the guest house, Morgan became lost. The farce was complete as he ended up wailing Kanaya's name. The barber appeared in a moment.

“Sahib?”

“I don't know my way.”

“I help.”

He held out his hand. The Sahib took it. As they stumbled together across the pitted mud of the tank floor, they seemed joined in a childlike friendship. It came to Morgan that this, the tenderest moment that had passed between them, was what he was really after: the linked companionship in the dark, a guide who was keeping him from harm. The sex didn't matter so much.

But of course it did matter. He couldn't talk or laugh with Kanaya in the way he had with Mohammed. The barber couldn't speak much English and was, in any case, not very interested in Morgan. He was there to provide a service; he didn't understand anything else. So they were left with the same situation: namely, their bodies, and how to unite them unobserved.

The next day, he talked over the problem with Bapu Sahib.

“You know,” the Maharajah said at last, “there is a suite of rooms downstairs where you could meet. Nobody uses them, I think they could be ideal.” He explained which rooms he meant. “But it is important, Morgan, that you impress on Kanaya not to loiter in the palace. And he must not talk in the bazaars, that would be fatal. Tell him he will lose his job in consequence.”

“I have told him, Bapu Sahib, but I will tell him again.”

He had talked sternly to the barber, more than once, who had nodded earnestly in response. Kanaya was frightened of the Maharajah, who had a reputation for treating servants harshly. But in this case His Highness had been kind, going so far as to bestow on the barber a largesse of twenty-five rupees. Perhaps because of this generosity, Kanaya's discretion had slackened, and Bapu Sahib was right to be concerned.

People had begun to talk. Or perhaps they were only teasing; it was sometimes hard to tell the difference. Mocking people for supposed minorite tendencies was common among the courtiers; the Maharajah himself sometimes joined in. But it was one thing to joke and another to ridicule, and Morgan didn't want to cross the line.

When Malarao started to chaff, it was bothersome. Kanaya had a reputation, and his frequent visits to the Private Secretary had been noticed.

“You must be good-humoured in return,” His Highness told Morgan. “Do not ever become angry. And I will tease you myself, just a little, so that everybody knows it isn't serious.”

It was a good line of defence. The next time Malarao brought it up, Morgan asked him with a smile whether he was jealous. This made the other courtiers laugh, and the moment was softened. Not long after that, the Maharajah made a point of mentioning Morgan's age. This was a less obvious argument, which had to be explained.

“At forty-two,” Bapu Sahib told him, “no Indian can keep an erection. That part of life is over. Now nobody will believe that you can be having sexual relations with anybody.”

He chortled at his own devious wit.

 

* * *

 

The new rooms had been a success. Hardly anybody went there, and they had an outside entrance which Morgan could unbolt from within. Despite lavish furnishings, there was no bed, only a big divan in the middle of the main room. The place had a hushed, hot feeling to it, thin strips of light coming in through the shutters. Morgan wanted to roll naked with Kanaya among the cushions, whispering endearments, but wasn't brave enough to take off his clothes. And the little barber was without imagination or passion.

Morgan did try. He always kissed Kanaya, and often stroked and caressed him. Although he found him too willowy to be really attractive, he spoke fondly to him and made a point of smiling frequently, sometimes to cover his embarrassment. But all of it was wasted. The young man only looked puzzled, and waited for the next order. He seemed to have the soul of a slave.

Morgan became depressed. On a couple of occasions he felt quite close to anger, but that wouldn't have helped either. Any solidarity across race and class, like that which he'd achieved with Mohammed, simply had no purchase here. Affection wasn't part of the arrangement. It was useless to want what couldn't even be spoken, and all that was left was the physical. Afterwards, thinking back on what he'd done, he felt wretched.

He told himself:
give it up
. Send Kanaya away; tell him not to come any more. There would be no more shame, though the afternoons would be long and empty again.

But the shame, he slowly realised, was part of the point. Degradation had its own sensual power, and no sooner was he hurrying away from one encounter than his mind was leaping ahead to the next one. In the morning when he woke up he was already breathless with anticipation and the hours passed with grinding slowness till the appointed time. But the idea was far more thrilling than the act, which was over almost as soon as it started. The two of them lay in a stunned heap afterwards, stickily joined. On more than one occasion at these moments, the image of Searight passed across his inward eye. Scenes like this one were what the other man aspired to, but they provided no upliftment to Morgan. Buggery in the colonies: it wasn't noble.

His dependency on this daily event was starting to dirty his mind. His spirits were low and he was finding it hard to enjoy any aspect of court life. The palace was an inward-facing building and not much light came in from outside. Everything seemed to strain towards religion and away from art. There was a deadness of the mind and it took on, for him, a physical dimension: lately he had struggled to hear even the echoes of his own footfalls as he walked about.

He decided that he needed to get away for a while, to escape. In July he took ten days' leave and went down to Hyderabad to visit Masood: an enjoyable interlude, with no rocky outcrops of pain or pleasure. But when he returned, it was to upset and drama.

“That barber of yours has been foolish,” Bapu Sahib told him primly. “No harm's been done, but he was boasting in Deolekr's room that he was under your protection, and he said, ‘Sahib's fond of boys.' Wrong of him, that.”

The Maharajah spoke lightly, but the offence was serious. When Kanaya appeared brightly at the downstairs suite the next day, Morgan folded his arms angrily.

“You have been talking about me. You promised you wouldn't, and you have broken your promise.”

Instantly, the young man collapsed. His repentance was histrionic, but perhaps sincere. Morgan was even a little sorry for him.

“All right, all right,” he said severely. “But I can't see you for a few days. Go away now and don't do it again.”

But the incident couldn't be damped down so easily. Deolekr Sahib was the Maharajah's Indian Secretary, and not well disposed towards Morgan. He repeated the story, and it spread. Nobody confronted the Englishman directly, but he could see a kind of insolence in certain faces around him. He wasn't respected as he had been before.

Bapu Sahib confirmed his fears. “You mustn't mind,” he told his Private Secretary consolingly. “They don't understand the facts of your case and who is to explain it to them?”

Morgan knew that he was stretching the ruler's indulgence quite far. Miserably, he said, “I wish I could control my desires as you do.”

It wasn't meant as idle flattery, but His Highness became impatient.

“Oh, one can't teach those things,” he said brusquely. “When you are dissatisfied with your present state of existence you will enter another—that's all.”

His present state of existence continued, unbroken. After a few days' lull, he summoned Kanaya again and they resumed their relations.

 

* * *

 

A few weeks later, the attention of the court was distracted by the Gokul Ashtami festival, which celebrated the birth of Krishna. Much of the month of August was to be devoted to this event, which Morgan embraced eagerly: his disgrace might be completely forgotten. But, more than that, he sensed a religious happening which could provide him with some material he still needed.