The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (49 page)

 

 

"You are blushing, Mrs. Wilson. Very charming. I wonder if you are
asking the question for Yale? I could see it in his eyes in Miami,
and the other day when we talked briefly."

 

 

"I'm asking the question for myself," Anne said, trembling a little. "Now
I'm sorry I asked it. Please forgive
me."

 

 

"I care for Cynthia very deeply," Mat said. "We were married not in
nineteen thirty-nine, but in nineteen forty-three . . . two years ago.
You look puzzled. I'm sorry I never did find out what actually happened
between Cynthia and Yale. I suspect it was a religious problem." Mat
touched her arm. "I would be very obtuse if I couldn't see your interest
in Yale." He looked out across the rolling green lawn of the club's golf
course. "So your question is one of dates. In this case I don't think the
dates substantially changed anything. I think you can safely say that
Cynthia still loves Yale." He noticed that there were tears in Anne's
eyes. "When you love you give away a part of yourself, don't you think?"

 

 

Anne agreed. As she walked the path that led through the village to
their bamboo house, she could hear the first sibilant sound of crickets
and night insects. Far away a jackal cried mournfully to the coming of
night. Rolling clouds seemed huddled close to the earth as if pressed
by infinity. Somewhere overhead an airplane droned. The round-the-clock
movement of pipe and gasoline into China continued. The night was close
and warm and somehow fidgety with a feeling of something about to happen.

 

 

She caught up with an Indian woman who smiled at her as she passed.
She was carrying a baby who nursed unconcernedly on his mother's swaying
breast, half covered by her flowing sari. The baby's tiny arms and
wizened penis bobbled in unison with his mother's step. Anne wanted to
hold the baby and she smiled her emotion through tears at the woman,
thinking as she smiled that she was becoming very sentimental lately.

 

 

Should she tell Yale that she had missed her period? Two weeks . . .
it could be nothing. What would it accomplish anyway? She had literally
asked for it. More than once when he was about to use a contraceptive,
she had told him it was all right, knowing that he was as reluctant
to interrupt their embrace as she was. And there was Cynthia. Could
Yale ever escape his desire for her? Certainly not because some blonde
stranger announced she had fertilized his seed.

 

 

"Baba achchha, manzur hai?" Anne parroted the words at the slowly
comprehending woman. She wondered if her pronunciation was correct.
The woman smiled. She repeated the achchha several times, patted the
baby's rump, and hurried along toward the center of the village.

 

 

Yale, sitting in front of the basha with Chatterji, caught sight of her.

 

 

"Hey, I've been scared to death. It's nearly seven o'clock. Chatterji has
baked a chicken. We are having a feast." He hugged her affectionately.
"You're too beautiful to be wandering around alone at night. I think
I'll have to make you wear a purdah, and just look at me."

 

 

She undressed, complaining about the dusty two-mile walk to the village.
With a wet cloth and soap he lathered her body, and then led her in back
of the house where there was a well. He threw buckets of water on her
while Chatterji, embarrassed, but still enjoying himself, watched them
defy the Hindu customs that forbade the exposure of one's body.

 

 

"Stop it! Please," she pleaded, shivering. Droplets of water coursed over
her body. "Ten minutes ago I never thought I would be cool again." He
helped her dry herself and watched with delight as she clumsily wrapped
herself in a sari.

 

 

They drank gimlets which Yale had taught Chatterji to make. He asked her
why she was late.

 

 

"Well, you know how it's been today. Everyone on the base acts stunned."
She wound her fingers in his. "I guess I feel a little bewildered myself,
Yale. I talked with a couple of G.I.'s who actually were crying. It doesn't
seem possible that he's dead somehow. It's as if a world had died;
a way of life. Some of the soldiers actually wonder if we can win the
war now that he's gone.

 

 

"It's funny," Yale said, "I come from a family who have probably said
'Thank God . . . at last he's gone.' Now the Republicans will come
blinking into the sun again, after so many years . . . but I feel the
way you do. I'll miss his 'My friends . . ." At the same time be glad
that all leaders are mortal, too. It's unfortunate that Hitler couldn't
have gone first."

 

 

They ate the meal Chatterji had prepared and told him how delicious the
chicken was. They both were a little worried as to what sanitary measures
Chatterji had taken. "Tastes as if it were boiled in ghee," Anne said,
wrinkling her nose.

 

 

"You've got to eat it," Yale whispered. "He's so proud of his culinary
ability." He had to admit that it was very greasy. "The liquor will
cut the fat," he said, and poured her another drink. "Anne, I want to
marry you."

 

 

She looked at him in surprise, a chicken bone suspended in the air.
"Oh, Yale . . . that's nice." Yale made the statement so matter-of-factly
that Anne at first didn't grasp the words. When she understood she
couldn't restrain her tears.

 

 

"I asked Mat Chilling if he would marry us but Mat said no." Yale shook
his head disgustedly.

 

 

"Why not? Who does he think he is, -- God?" Anne demanded angrily.
She brushed the tears out of her eyes. "He has Cynthia."

 

 

"It's not that he objects," Yale said, ignoring her reference to Cynthia.
"It shakes down to this. To make it legal, it has to go through Trafford
and then be okayed at Headquarters. Mat is absolutely certain we'd be
turned down. He thinks the best thing is to wait." Yale kissed her cheek.
"Anne. A marriage is in your mind. A ceremony doesn't make a marriage.
Mat feels that we are married. Why proclaim it? It's just asking for
trouble. Trafford would get one of us transferred."

 

 

"I know," Anne said dully. "He's right. I have a feeling we will never
be married. So what? When we look back on it we can say: He was nice. She
was nice. It was fun while it lasted. What lasts in the world, anyway?"

 

 

Yale led Anne toward the bed. He waved goodnight to Chatterji who grinned
understandingly. Chatterji bid effusive goodnights to them. Anne lay on
the bed unresponsive to Yale's touch.

 

 

"I didn't tell you that Sundari has talked with Surya Gupta," Yale said.
"Mat asked him to. It was Mat's idea. We could have a Hindu marriage!
Right here in the village."

 

 

"You mean like Sunanda suggested all of us get in a circle?" Anne
demanded fiercely. "I won't do it!" She started to cry. "Oh, Yale,
I'll do anything you want, I love you so very much."

 

 

"You mean you'd go through a Chakrapuja for me?" Yale grinned at her.
"Well, baby, get it out of your head. Surya Gupta can't have you!"
Yale hugged her, and kissed the wet corners of her eyes. "You dumb dodo.
This would be an ancient Vedic marriage ceremony. Very nice. Very sacred.
Something we could kind of hold onto until the war is over."

 

 

She lay in his arms, feeling the fulfillment of their love inside her --
and Yale's warm breath on her cheek. The nervous quiet of the night
presaged the monsoons. Somewhere in the methodical rows of tea bushes a
turkey buzzard flapped its wings. The shrill night yappings of the jackals
as they howled their discontent with the world rolled to a crescendo. Soon
. . . as they did every night, their plaintive calls would mysteriously
cease. A hush would descend on the village and the night would be more
intense and restless without their shrill howls. Anne could feel the warm
perspiration from their bodies; the boniness of Yale's chest, and the
curve of his stomach, wet and damp against her breasts and belly. She
kissed him softly and fervently as he slept.

 

 

 

 

 

 

7

 

 

Dressed in a pale purple sari woven with gold threads; a huge pearl, a
wedding gift from Yale, suspended on her forehead, Anne nervously watched
the crowds of villagers gathering for the wedding ceremony. Looking from
the window of Surya Gupta's house, she could see the ceremonial tent. The
accumulative excitement of the past two weeks had built to almost a kind
of hysteria for her. What had started out as a joke, being married in
a Hindu ceremony, had suddenly been embraced with great seriousness by
Yale and Mat as they studied the ancient ceremonies with Sundari.

 

 

Mat told her she would be taking part in a ritual older than any known
marriage ceremony. When she protested to Sundari that it was sacrilegious
for her and Yale to go through a ceremony they would scarcely understand,
let alone believe, Sundari had smiled. "Many people today are joined by
religious ceremonies they obviously don't believe. The important thing
for a man and woman seeking the divinity is the accumulation of shared
experience. For you and Sahib Marratt, this will be an experience that
will add one more link in the chain that binds you, and will merge you
with the Atman . . . until you both together can say, 'I am He' and your
cry of joy in this discovery will be the pinnacle of your ecstasy with
each other."

 

 

During the past month their bungalow in the village had become a kind
of literary and intellectual gathering place for those at the Army base
who had been accepted into their magic circle. On Friday evenings, which
was Anne's day off at the Red Cross club, Mat Chilling, Sundari, Surya
Gupta, and his wife Sunanda, Chris Powers, and Helen Axonby (who told her
husband that she was helping at the base), and several pilots that Yale
had met and trusted, gathered, and aided by beer, Indian whiskey, and
the exotic village setting, discussed philosophy, politics, and life. In
the intimacy of their shared knowledge, enchanted with the quick probing
mind of Sundari, Yale and Anne would forget the Army for a little while
and delight in the warm companionship they had engendered for each other.

 

 

"It's you and Yale," Helen Axonby told her. "Your love graces the entire
village and transforms these evenings. I'm amazed at how much Indian
culture you have assimilated in such a short time."

 

 

Anne had been surprised at Yale's obsession with learning. "The finance
office is running itself," he told her. "Oh, once a month there's some
activity, but mostly there's just a wonderful expanse of time. I could
spend it playing endless games of gin rummy or drinking at the officers'
club or out at the tea planters' club, but I have you and the vast world
to know."

 

 

Anne remembered the day he had said it. A Sunday, when they had their
basha to themselves. Yale was outside, lying naked on a charpoy, a pile
of books he had brought from Dacca on the ground. He had been trying to
converse in Hindustani with two naked Indian boys about five or six years
old, who regarded him with merry black eyes. They choked with laughter
at Yale's awkward pronunciation.

 

 

Yale had tried to persuade Anne to sun bathe with him, but she had declined.
"I come from the Midwest, honey. I'm not used to your wild ideas. Besides,
look at Chatterji. If he could blush, he would do it for you."

 

 

Surya Gupta had told Chatterji that the village was a little shocked
at Yale's lack of modesty. Amidst sighs and smiles Chatterji had tried
to convey this to Yale. Yale had looked at him with a dense expression,
enjoying Chatterji's confusion.

 

 

"Nanga Sahib," Chatterji shrugged. He looked hopelessly at Anne. Anne
thought it wonderful. Nanga meant naked in Hindustani. She had called
Yale her Nanga Sahib ever since.

 

 

"Tell Surya Gupta," Yale had told Chatterji, "that I am a reincarnation
of Krishna. Memsahib Anne is one of the Gopi girls. I'm filling her
with love."

 

 

Anne had blushed for Chatterji as much as for herself. She wondered
how much Chatterji, who looked at them in awe with solemn black eyes,
understood.

 

 

"I don't think Krishna is ever represented without clothes," Anne said
to Yale. "You're thinking of Shiva and Parvati."

 

 

Yale flipped the pages of one of his books. "Look, Chatterji. What do you
think of this?" Chatterji stared at the photograph for a moment which
showed a sculpture of Shiva and Parvati. Parvati was holding Shiva's
lingam in a tight grasp. Chatterji bobbed up and down grinning. "Very
good, Sahib, very good."

 

 

Anne chuckled. "You've struck a common chord of male delight. He likes
the idea."

 

 

"Look," Yale had said, ignoring her. "Shiva's naked. Parvati's naked.
I don't understand you Hindus. Nowadays, so far as I can see, even when
Hindus take a bath they wear dhotis."

 

 

"Long time ago," Chatterji said. "Now Hindu man very modest." He stared
at the photograph again. "Memsahib Anne. She Parvati. Very good. All
women Parvati."

 

 

Sunanda came into the room. She smiled at Anne. "You are very beautiful,
Mrs. Wilson. It will be only a few minutes now. Sri Sundari has obtained
the assistance of the priests from two nearby villages." Sunanda was
wearing a flowered print sari that Yale had brought her from Calcutta.
She looked at Anne, her large brown eyes sparkling with excitement.
"There are so many people. All the people from our village and from Taon.
They want to see a blond memsahib. Every Indian man thinks about this
marriage. They wish in their hearts they were Sahib Marratt."