The Splendor Of Silence (28 page)

At that moment, the rest of the world faded away for Mila. It was such a simple gesture on Sam's part, a mere holding of hands, but that was when Mila fell in love with Sam too. Not simply because of the gesture, of course, but it brought to a culmination all of her thoughts about this stranger who had come to Rudrakot to stay in their home, whom her father liked so much.

For all her little obstinacies and rebellions in driving the jeep, in riding the horse Jai had given her, in drinking pink champagne or smoking the odd cigarette, Mila had been brought up traditionally, in the shadow of her father and her brothers. It was the men who made decisions, who changed the courses of other people's lives with their actions. Mila would never have thought of Sam if Raman had not been delighted with him, and so it was Raman, with his enthusiastic welcome of Sam in the morning, who had inadvertently placed a morsel of affection within his daughter's heart--a fragment that blossomed eventually into love. Mila knew nothing much about Sam other than what she had gleaned from their conversations; she did not know if he had a father and a mother, brothers and sisters. She knew that he came from Seattle because Sayyid had rummaged through his bags and found, beneath the tailor's label behind his collar, the words Seattle Sam--a nickname the army had bestowed upon him.

Sam, who was cautious and pondered every deed before he took a step in the direction of anything, had clasped Mila's hand without thought, and once he held that small and slender hand within his, he did not want to let i
t g
o. What he wanted was to bring that hand to his chest and hold it agains
t h
is heart, but he stayed that action, his fingers shaking with want over hers.

At that moment, Mila looked down on their hands and thought it was an intimate act, unlike a mere shaking of hands to say hello upon meeting. She saw the fine hairs on his knuckles, a little tremble before he increased the pressure and wove his fingers into hers. The cool of the metal from the coins flooded her palm. There was a tiny scratch on the back of Sam's hand, and this Mila touched fleetingly.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

"No."

She had not been cognizant of the sound of her own voice or even that she had spoken aloud, but when she heard his voice, Mila realized that they were at the mela grounds, in front of everyone. Men and women simply did not touch in public, no matter how long they had been married, or how close their relationship. Indians certainly did not, and neither did the British; if anything, distant pecks in the air, accompanied by a "darling" was the closest one came to one's husband or wife. The noises at the mela pervaded her consciousness--the laughter, the music from the orchestra, the click of women's heels on the wooden. floor laid out on the lawn for dancing. But every sound came from a fading distance. Mila finally broke the grip, and it was with a reluctance that she recognized but refused to acknowledge, for it meant nothing, surely it meant nothing.

"I could not possibly take your money, Captain Hawthorne," she said, "Someone else will come along soon to make up my quota."

"Please do," he said, "I want to play."

"All right." Mila put the money in the box and placed the three tennis balls on the booth's table. Then she finally looked up to meet his smile. This close, with just the table separating them, she could see the oncoming sheen of dark hair on his chin and cheeks. Mila glanced around quickly, almost with guilt, to see if anyone else had been watching and saw with a growing fear that Lady Pankhurst, Mrs. Stanton, and Laetitia Sexton were grouped in a threesome just a few booths away.

When Sam picked up all three tennis balls with one hand, she said, "You are to throw them, one at a time, at the coconuts and knock as many down as you can."

"How many tries do I get?" Sam stood back from the counter and took aim.

"Just the three."

The first ball went sailing past the coconuts and thudded into the canvas backdrop of the booth.

"You need to try just a little harder, Captain Hawthorne," Mila said, "it's really quite easy." She put a hand up to her mouth. "Oh, I didn't mean to say that I meant "

Sam grinned. "I must try harder."

He stood even farther back from the booth and made an elaborate pretense of first closing one eye and then the other to take aim at the coconuts. He juggled the tennis ball from one hand to the other. He turned his back and made as if to throw the ball over his shoulder, twisting his body. As he tried this last antic, a grimace of pain swept over his forehead and he straightened up and turned around to face her again. "Sorry. I had forgotten that I was not quite back in shape again."

Despite this, Sam nudged an imaginary cap on his forehead with his knuckles, lifted his left leg, drew his right arm back, and sent the ball thundering out of his hand to knock down first one coconut, and then a second in quick succession.

Mila clapped her hands. "You were joking that first time. This is wonderful."

Sam bowed to her and she smiled at him, forgetting all of her worries. He had showed off to Mila with a preening of his feathers, with his pitcher's stance, his pitcher's throw, even his sham attempt at evoking sympathy from her by openly demonstrating his reaction to the pain from his injury.

As he stood there, his shoulder throbbing, the pain beginning to creep up his neck, Sam felt glorious, and they gazed at each other under the string of lights. Mila first broke that gaze, everything within her floating and delighted. It was as though nothing else mattered right now but Sam--the patches of night on his face where the light did not touch, the darkened blue of his eyes, the sweep of hair across his forehead. He stood rubbing his shoulder.

Mila ducked under the booth and ran her fingers along the wooden boards searching for a prize. She began to giggle, imagining Sam's surprise when he was given a neatly crocheted set of six napkins. She searched and realized that the prizes had all been given away. In one corner, long forgotten from some previous meta, was a little cardboard box.

Mila pulled it out and set it on the counter, her head almost bumping into Sam's, who had been leaning over to see what she had been doing.

A cloud of dust rose into the air when Mila thumped the box down and Sam coughed. "I'm afraid there are no other prizes left, Captain Hawthorne, but I found this instead. Whatever is in it is yours."

"Wait." Sam's grip on her wrist was strong this time and he yanked her hand away from the box. "Let me look. There might be a snake or a scorpion hiding inside." He pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket and gingerly flipped open the box's cover with one end. There was a pile of straw inside, quite flattened out, and on that straw rested three tiny monkeys, chopped roughly out of a light-colored wood.

"The Mahatma's monkeys," Mila said. "They speak no evil, they see no evil, they hear no evil." She picked them up one by one and set them on the table, facing Sam. "Are these good enough for a prize?"

"Yes," Sam said. "But let me give them to you. I want to give you something."

"Oh no," Mila said. "You have rightfully won these monkeys. They are yours, Captain Hawthorne."

"Are they made of sandalwood?"

They bent their heads to the carvings. Mila studiously kept her face away from Sam but was aware, with every breath and every sense, that Sam's head was thus so close to hers. She could smell the wood-sweet aroma of the sandalwood and the sharper cut of Sam's cologne in the air around her. She knew he was looking at her and wanted desperately to clasp his hand again. Perhaps if she made as if to place the monkeys in his hand Mila straightened up. As she did, she saw Lady Pankhurst drifting toward them, the chiffon from her skirt trailing along the grass.

"Mila," Lady Pankhurst said, waving her white arms around languidly to mean nothing at all. "Please do bring Captain Hawthorne to see me at my 'at home' tomorrow. How fortunate it is," she said, turning to Sam, "that you are here on a Thursday. My 'at homes' are usually tomorrow afternoon. At two o'clock."

Mila felt her heart still and die and all that silly euphoria of a few minutes ago come to a clean end. Three years ago, when Lady Pankhurst had first made her appearance in Rudrakot on Colonel Pankhurst's arm, she had arranged Friday afternoons as her "at homes," and these solely for Mila. For you know, my dears--she had told the civilian and regimenta
l w
ives, somewhat suspicious that this exclusivity was a sign of favor not bestowed upon them--/ must get to know her. We are to be at the same level, Edward says, though how I do not see. I must _find out.

Mila had visited Lady Pankhurst at two o'clock every Friday afternoon and sat for an uncomfortably long time in the drawing room attached to her bedroom. Mila was only eighteen when these forced "at homes" began, and she went because Papa had suggested to her that they might well be a very good idea. Until then, all of Colonel Pankhurst's parties and balls had occurred without a hostess, and suffered as a consequence. Lady Pankhurst was decorative in the best of ways, and Raman was man enough to appreciate this. That she was friendly to his daughter was simply wonderful.

The first three Fridays, Mila did not see Lady Pankhurst at all. She waited for two hours in the lush and hushed drawing room until she could recall everything in it from memory. There were long-stemmed dahlias in silver and porcelain vases; the poor stuffed tiger Colonel Pankhurst had shot in a past shikar with Jai gazed at her with a frozen stare; Dresden dolls lounged on the occasional tables. This waiting, this lack of attention from Lady Pankhurst, was all very bewildering to Mila, but she did not complain, or even, in the innocence of her youth, consider what it might mean. On the fourth Friday afternoon, the door to Lady Pankhurst's bedchamber opened and a lieutenant from the Rudrakot Rifles came out, buttoning his collar. He stopped and flushed when he saw Mila, but did not recognize her as the political agent's daughter; otherwise his momentary discomfort would have been more acute. When he had left, Lady Pankhurst emerged with a gin and tonic to talk for the rest of the afternoon with Mila. Or rather, she talked, Mila listened.

This ritual continued for the next three years, with only minor changes. Mila visited Lady Pankhurst promptly at two o'clock, sat in the drawing room, and read a book while a slew of young officers entered her bedchamber. Then she would hear the soft, singsong murmur of Lady Pankhurst's voice, unending and boring, and Mila would be thankful that all she had to do was wait outside, not listen to that voice. By now, Mila knew what was happening and once had even dared to flatten her ear against the door to listen. She heard a soft thumping of flesh on flesh, and Lady Pankhurst saying, "That was marvelous, darling. Hand me a cigarette, will you?" Lady Pankhurst's bedchamber did have another doo
r l
eading to the outside verandah and the back gardens of the residency, but she had very soon deemed it necessary for her young men to leave through the drawing room to the outside in case anyone was around to see this or ask questions. She could always tell Edward that she had been having a nice little chat with Mr. Raman's daughter and the young man.

Heat and anger crept under Mila's skin at the meta grounds. She watched a thick and large moth flap lethargically around Lady Pankhurst and settle on her thin shoulder, and wanted to slap at that shoulder with a newspaper, ostensibly, of course, to kill the moth. Mila's face seethed with warmth, and she wondered dispassionately, in the midst of all that rage, where this loathing had come from. She had never before hated someone as much as she hated Amelia Pankhurst right now. She had never even cared that she had assisted in Lady Pankhurst's randy "at homes," and when Raman asked--as he invariably did--how her afternoon was, she would reply noncommittally and he would be satisfied.

Lady Pankhurst held out a hand to Sam and he took it in his. To Mila, it seemed as though he held it for an unnecessarily long time, but it was Lady Pankhurst who left her hand in his, opening her mouth to talk a few times, but seeming not to succeed with the words until this came out somewhat coyly, "So I will see you tomorrow then, Captain Hawthorne?" It was a command, not a request.

Before Sam could answer, Mila said, "I'm afraid that will not be possible, Lady Pankhurst. Captain Hawthorne wishes to visit Chetak's tomb; we have a picnic planned for tomorrow."

Lady Pankhurst sighed and withdrew her hand from Sam's. "I think," she said, turning now to face Mila, "you must have misunderstood me, dear Mila. I would very much like to see Captain Hawthorne tomorrow. I'm sure he wishes to come too."

Sam finally cleared his throat and said, "Thank you, Lady Pankhurst. But we do have a prior engagement. It is a pity that your 'at homes' are only on Fridays, since I am not going to be here next Friday."

An immense hush then descended upon them. Lady Pankhurst's back grew rigid. To Mila, the band seemed to play American jazz unnaturally loudly and she watched the dancers twirl on the floor, their skirts flying, their mouths open and toothy. Sam looked away, his shoulders shaking. He was laughing, Mila thought with outrage. Laughing at them both. She should let him go to Amelia Pankhurst's lecherous afternoons and let hi
m b
e ensnared by her in an iron web. But she did not want that, really. She wanted Sam Hawthorne unsullied by anyone else here at Rudrakot. That was a thought that lurked unacknowledged somewhere inside; on the outside Mila considered that Sam was their guest, and Papa had said that she was to look after him. And tomorrow just happened to be a convenient time to take him to Chetak's tomb.