The Day of the Scorpion (13 page)

When she analysed the pros and cons of Aunt Lydia she knew that it was Aunt Lydia’s dislike of India that stood in the way of her feeling affection for her. She took a red and blue pencil and drew a red ring round her Indian relatives on the family tree and a blue ring round her English relatives. Great-grandpa had a blue ring and so did Uncle Frank and Aunt Lydia (although Aunt Lydia had spent eighteen months in India after the war). There was a warming preponderance of red crayon on the tree.

‘That is my heritage,’ Sarah said, then noticed that so far she had put no ring at all round Aunty Mabel. She put down the red pencil to pick up the blue and then paused.

‘Why ever was I going to do that?’ she asked herself. And retrieved the red pencil, ringed Aunty Mabel firmly with that fiery colour; the one denoting the Indian connection.

Six years later in the July of 1939 she came across the exercise book among other relics of her childhood that had been packed in a leather trunk and stored in Aunt Lydia’s glory
hole. She sorted the trunk out now to make sure that nothing was worth saving from the bonfire – an incinerator, actually, at the far end of the untended weedy walled enclosure that Aunt Lydia called a garden – worth saving from the holocaust into which her English years were being thrown and causing her a degree of pain at separation she had not expected.

She sorted the contents of the trunk on a day when Aunt Lydia was out shopping with Susan and Aunt Fenny who was back again with Uncle Arthur from India. Susan was buying clothes for the tropics. Sarah thought that buying clothes for the tropics in Kensington was a waste of time. But Susan had set her heart on a topee with a veil swathed round its crown and hanging over the brim at the back to give extra shade to the neck; and on white shirts and jodhpurs to complete the outfit. Wearing these she would look like the heroine in The Garden of Allah. She also wanted some dresses in silk and georgette (which would be sweaty). And a shooting stick. And anything else that caught her eye and further excited the image she had of herself as a young girl – dressed and ready for a romantic encounter in an outpost of empire – whose father was a lieutenant-colonel, recently appointed to the command of the first battalion of his old regiment, the Pankot Rifles, and destined, no doubt, if there were a war – which seemed likely – to become a brigadier and then a major-general.

Possibly, she thought, the difference between herself and Susan was that Susan was capable of absorbing things into her system without really thinking whether they were acceptable to her or not; whereas she herself absorbed nothing without first subjecting it to scrutiny. Perhaps this was wrong. Perhaps she tried too hard to work things out. She didn’t relax. She didn’t have a talent for just enjoying herself, which was a pity because she must miss a lot that Susan never missed.

Finding nothing worth saving from the trunk she took the contents in several batches and several armfuls down the two flights of stairs and down the half-flight into the semi-basement and the kitchen whose door gave access to the garden.

There, on a warm July evening scented by warmed brick,
bruised grass and the fumes of traffic in the park and on the Bayswater road, she set fire to the relics of a youth she did not understand but felt had given a certain set to her bones, a toughness to her skin, and caused her now (half-shielding her cheeks from the heat of the fire in the incinerator) to stand watching the conflagration as it were in her own right as a person who now inherited the conflicting attitudes of the Laytons and the Muirs, and of Aunty Mabel, and of grand-grandpa who had ‘gone out’ on an August morning to the scent of cedars and stale flowers in vases, so that she had a vision of herself and her family as the thing she was burning, and of that thing, of that self, as an instrument of resistance and at the same time of acceptance. She could feel the heat on her bones, the heat on her skin. Within them remained the nub, the hard core of herself which the flames did not come near nor illuminate.

So I am really in darkness, she said, and this truly is the difference between myself and Susan who lives in a perpetual and recognizable light. The light that falls on Susan also falls on Aunt Fenny and Uncle Arthur. It falls, but in a way that makes different shadows, on Aunt Lydia and Uncle Frank. I do not know how it falls on Mother and Father – it is a long time since I have seen them – and I do not know who is in darkness except myself.

Two weeks later, accompanied by her sister Susan, her Aunt Fenny and her Uncle Arthur, Sarah Layton sailed back to India on the P & O.

Part Three

A WEDDING, 1943

I

Having handed young Kasim a glass of the forbidden whisky Count Bronowsky said, ‘So Mrs Layton drinks, you say. Do you mean in secret?’

Ahmed, taking the glass, held it well away from his nose. He disliked the smell of alcohol. In the palace there wasn’t a drop to be had except what his servant or he himself managed to smuggle into his room there. He smuggled it on principle and had trained himself to drink a certain amount every day. It disappointed him that regular tippling hadn’t yet given him a real taste for it let alone made him a slave of habit. A serious drinker, and finally an alcoholic, struck him sometimes as the only thing really open to him to become in his own right.

‘I don’t know about in secret,’ he said. ‘But she begins first, finishes last and has two drinks to anybody else’s one. Also I’ve noticed that her behaviour is erratic’

Bronowsky limped from the liquor trolley to the larger of the two cane armchairs that had been placed on the veranda, with a view on to the dark garden. He sat, settled his lame left leg on the foot-stool, raised his glass and looked at Ahmed with his right eye. The left leg and the blind left eye – covered by a black patch whose elastic, pitched at an angle, was countersunk by long use in a ring round his narrow head – were said to be the result of getting half blown-up in pre-revolutionary St Petersburg by an anarchist while driving along Nevsky Prospect to the Winter Palace.

‘In what way erratic?’

Ahmed sat in the other chair and watched the Count select and light one of the gold-tipped cigarettes that came in rainbow colours from a shop in Bombay.

‘She is irritable one moment, almost friendly at another. The almost friendliness occurs when she has a glass in her hand.’

‘Her husband is a prisoner of war in Germany, you said?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is she still attractive would you say?’

‘Her hair is not grey. She frequently powders her nose.’

‘Ah – Her sister, this Mrs Grace, she is also erratic?’

‘No. She is perfectly predictable. You can depend on her to be rude at any time. And she does not trouble to lower her voice.’

‘Dear boy, what have you overheard her saying about you?’

Ahmed smiled. ‘It seems I am quite efficient for an Indian.’

‘But it was a compliment.’

‘I would also make a good
maître d’hôtel
if I didn’t stink so abominably of garlic’

‘I doubt Mrs Grace would know a good
maître
from a bad one. The English seldom do. But she meant well. And you
do
.’

‘Garlic strengthens the constitution. My father used to carry an onion in his pocket to ward off colds. But that was mere superstition. Eating garlic is scientific. Also garlic is stronger on the breath than the smell of whisky. So you see it has its religious and social uses too.’

From a quarter mile or so away the drumming resumed. A Hindu wedding feast. Ahmed kept time on the arm of the chair with the fingers of his free hand. During Ramadan such a noisy manifestation of Hindu gaiety could cause communal trouble. He almost welcomed the prospect.

Bronowsky eased and re-settled the stiff lame leg. ‘Tell me about the two Miss Laytons. Are they more to your taste? The one who is to be married – begin with her.’

‘What an inquisitive man you are!’ Ahmed thought. He was not inquisitive himself. To him people were remote, people and things and the ideas they seemed to find electrifying. But he quite enjoyed these regular sessions with Bronowsky, partly because the old wazir had taken him up as if he were someone worth giving time to, but mostly because Bronowsky’s endless curiosity about other people helped him to form opinions about them himself, to consider them
with greater objectivity and interest than he felt when actually dealing with them. The exercise, he found, enabled him to peel off a layer or two of his own incuriosity. True, when the sessions were over, he usually felt those layers thickening up again and was likely to tell himself that Bronowsky encouraged him to call and chatter mainly because he preferred (or was suspected of preferring) above all other the company of young men. Nevertheless each session left a residual grain of involvement.

‘Oh, Miss Layton,’ he said, and conjured a picture of Susan Layton holding a length of white material up under her chin and hectic-coloured cheeks. ‘People do things for her. She must have trained them to think she can’t do them for herself. Every time she lifts a finger to do something on her own she makes it look like an attempt at the impossible. People come running. It’s not just the wedding, I think. She has probably always been the centre of attraction.’

‘Is she fond of this Captain Bingham?’

Ahmed thought. How could he judge? He did not really know what fond was. His father was fond of his mother. His brother had had been fond of the army. He himself was fond of chewing cloves of garlic. Bronowsky was fond of gossip. Fond seemed to be a combination of impulse, appetite and gratification. But even that didn’t define it properly. He himself, for instance, had an impulse to make love to girls. He visited prostitutes. He had acquired a taste for sexual intercourse and had gratified it not infrequently. He was therefore, he supposed, fond of copulating as well as of eating garlic, but this was not what the world meant by fond or Count Bronowsky meant when he asked if the younger Miss Layton was fond of Captain Bingham. That kind of fond hinted at a capacity for denying yourself if self-denial was for the good of what you were fond of. He did not think Miss Layton had this capacity.

He said, ‘No. I don’t imagine she is really
fond
of Captain Bingham.’

‘You mean it is merely a physical attraction?’

‘On his part, yes. He is more attracted to her than she is to him.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I think, when he touches her, instead of being agitated she is irritated. Especially if she has her mind on the cut of a dress.’

‘Embarrassment,’ Bronowsky said. ‘Obviously, what you saw was her reaction to a tender gesture made in front of others. The English are very shy of their sexuality. If you were a fly on the wall and saw Miss Layton and Captain Bingham together you might be surprised. Even shocked.’

Ahmed said nothing. He had been a fly on the wall; or rather an un-noticed figure rounding a corner of the guesthouse veranda where Miss Layton stood, holding up the length of white material, reacting rather violently to Captain Bingham’s two waist-embracing arms and saying, ‘Oh, Teddie, for God’s sake.’ Which was interesting and quite contrary to Bronowsky’s supposition, because in public Miss Susan Layton submitted to Captain Bingham’s protective and possessive touch with equanimity, even with approval, in fact with an air of demanding it quite frequently as if it were due to her at regular intervals. And she was no less eager in such circumstances to give as well as receive a caress. Only when they were alone, apparently, did the exchange of caresses become distasteful. Fortunately for him he had not been seen on the occasion of the breaking away from Captain Bingham.

‘What are you thinking?’ Bronowsky asked.

Ahmed smiled, took another sip of the whisky, and said, ‘Of being a fly on the wall.’

‘Does the idea appeal?’

‘Flies on walls sometimes get swatted.’

‘Every occupation has its hazards. Tell me about the younger sister, the Miss Layton who isn’t to be married.’

‘But she isn’t the younger.’

‘Ah. That is always interesting. I imagine she isn’t as pretty. But perhaps more serious-minded?’

‘She asks a lot of questions.

‘Questions about what?’

‘The administration in Mirat. Native customs. Local history.’

‘Is she so very plain then?’

‘I find all white girls unattractive. They look only half-finished.
When they have fair hair they look even more unnatural.’

‘She is fair, then?’

‘Yes. And to an Englishman probably as attractive as her sister. And she is better-natured. Is that dangerous?’

‘Why?’

‘I understand it can be. This kind of English person invites our confidence. They ask questions, at first of a general nature, then of a more intimate kind. You think, well, he is interested, she wishes to be friends. But it is a trap. One wrong move, one hint of familiarity on your part, and snap. It shuts.’

‘So says Professor Nair no doubt.’

‘But don’t you agree? I am asking you. I have no experience. It is what I’ve been told, not only by Professor Nair. Snap.’

‘What are you really asking me? Whether you should be careful how you answer these fascinating intimate questions you anticipate Miss Layton asking you?’

‘No. I am always careful. I was only asking your opinion of the belief generally held.’

‘What belief?’

‘That the friendly English are more dangerous than the rude ones.’

‘Are you sure you mean English? Not white? Am I dangerous?’

‘Oh, you are the most dangerous man in Mirat. Everybody says so. It goes without saying. One risks everything just talking to you. But then you are exceptional in every way, and I meant English, not white. If we had been subjugated by the Russians I would have said Russians. It isn’t the whiteness that matters. It’s the position of the English as rulers that makes their friendship dangerous. Dangerous on two counts. It weakens our resolve to defy them and it is against their own clan instincts. They are consciously or subconsciously aware of weakening their position by friendliness, so this friendliness always has to be on their own guarded terms. If we unwittingly think of it as mutual and go too far they are doubly incensed, first as individuals who feel they have been taken what they call advantage of, secondly as members of a class they fear they may have betrayed by
their own thoughtless stupidity. Then, snap! They are indifferent to the effect of such a situation on us.’