Who Are You? (7 page)

As if materialized by the order, 'Go and make sure he is off the premises,' Mohammed Dirwaza Khan receives the command with a bow, and immediately glides out in silent pursuit of the departing guest.

Husband and wife are now left alone. The latter hasn't moved, and remains in the same position, her face hidden, while the fan's squeak reaches a maddening climax, rasping the nerves. Owing to the defective mechanism, the high, shrill screech is repeated at slightly irregular intervals, and these marginal variations are unpredictable, and as agonizing as Chinese water torture.

The girl's silence is unendurable to the man, who now comes forward and stops in front of her, his eyes flaring crazily. As she still doesn't speak or look up, he seizes her shoulders, and roughly shakes her backwards and forwards to force her to attend to him.

‘Are you listening to me ?' — even now he's not certain That piddling pup isn't to come into this house again — ever ! Do you understand ?'

Even this doesn't make her open her mouth. And when, after a minute, he lets her go, she at once returns to her former pose, with her face in her hands. The only difference is that his rough handling has further disarranged the untidy hair, which now falls over her hands and wrists in such a way as to leave the back of her neck uncovered. More of the pale shiny mass of hair is exposed to the draught of the fan, loose strands of it thrust themselves out like tentacles in different directions, the many separate hairs on the surface weave in and out of each other continually, producing unexpected tremors and eddies, surrounding her bowed head with a misty effect, as ceaselessly circling insects surround a lamp.

The man is in a black rage, scowling, and compressing his lips till they disappear in a thin line, clenching and unclenching his hands convulsively. Convinced she's deliberately taunting him, he takes her silence as a challenge to his inborn supremacy, which is intolerable. Nor can he endure this frustration — why can't he
make
her speak ?

As he stands there, looking down at her, baffled, very slowly a faint tinge of doubt invades his furious, overbearing expression. He has no idea what to do next.

The quinine, already buzzing inside his head, blends with the squeal of the fan in a fiendish disharmony, increasing his rage and frustration to an insufferable degree of intensity. The lightly stirring hairs he is staring at seem to dissolve in mist . . . through which all he sees is the nape of her neck, pale and sprinkled all over with small, faintly glistening beads, stretched out before him like that of a victim waiting for execution . . .

Such a murderous frenzy of violence surges through him that, shocked by it, he turns away blindly, and hurries out of the room.

13

As soon as the Suede Boots episode ends, it seems never to have happened. It's almost
as
though there has never been any such person, as he no longer passes the house, preferring to make a lengthy detour, that must waste a lot of his time.

Dog Head has satisfactorily intimidated
him.
It's his wife he doesn't seem able to master. She never even says she's sorry — not a word of apology does she utter. He doesn't suspect her of a serious affair, but imagines people are laughing at him, which makes him mad. It's outrageous that she should dare to humiliate him like this. Somehow he simply must get his own back.

Officially the subject is closed. He doesn't refer to it any more. All goes on as
before. But, though outwardly he is the same as ever, underneath he seems to be changing. Always now there's that indefinable hint about him of something queer, almost like a touch of madness. A mad frenzy of resentment against her has got into him, which increases as the days pass. The atmosphere is changing too, in the house and outside. Every day the heat grows more intolerable; a weird undercurrent of electrical tension builds up . . . an uncanny excitement . . . as in a dream that has moved imperceptibly into nightmare . . .

He doesn't want to be with his wife, everything about her gets on his nerves, and yet he can't leave her alone. If he asks her to ride or play tennis with him, she always refuses. It exasperates him beyond words to see her mooning about aimlessly, or sitting for hours with her nose stuck in a book. If she's too lazy to take healthy exercise, he asks why she doesn't at least talk to the other women.

She knows it's foolish to answer such questions but, I her nerves not being immune to the general tension, is provoked into saying: 'What can I talk about ? If I mention anything that interests me, a book or a play, they think I'm affected — they don't understand intelligent conversation.'

This brings forth: 'Fuck you and your intelligent conversation !' The man looks at her in blazing indignation; how dare she put on airs just because she's supposed to be brainy? His arrogant face frightens her, the blue flame in his eyes really does seem a little mad, and she avoids him as much as she can.

Periodically his work takes him away for a day or two, which ought to be a relief. But then her absolute loneliness falls on her like a ton weight. The house is silent, full of heat, emptiness, and the hostility of the servants, who watch her with black unfriendly eyes as she eats her solitary meals. If only she could have her food on a tray somewhere ! But of course that's not to be thought of. The household routine must go on. Everything has been settled for her in advance by people who don't wish her well. Why are they all against her? She remembers the women who used to say, ' You'll get to like living here in time,' their voices showing they knew very well that she
wouldn't
like it, and were gloating over the fact.

What on earth is she doing here, anyway, among all these brain-fever birds, parrots, vultures, snakes, scor
pions, big bright spiders, and ants that can eat a whole bush in half an hour? It doesn't seem to be her life at all. It's more like a dream, that only is not a nightmare because she knows it won't last forever this is the knowledge that keeps her going.

In the meantime, the days seem endless. Each day is like a balloon, blown up to bursting point by the heat and the tension of the approaching monsoon. Electric tension gathers beneath the great clouds that pile up always gone the next morning — while the earth swelters in airless suspense. It's too hot to think, even. She seems to spend her time waiting — for night to come, or simply for the next minute.

She drags herself up the stairs to put some eau-de-Cologne on her neck and forehead, and afterwards wanders out on to the flat roof of the porch. Out here it seems hotter than ever, in the unnatural half-light under the clouds. She's never seen such clouds, enormous, massive, menacing, black, with yellow underbellies, forming an iron roof over the simmering world. Their shadow brings a strange burning hush in which a gong booms out startlingly. And suddenly a single tremendous buffet of hot wind, like a blast from the devil's furnace, almost sweeps her off her feet, showering her with dust and the small, dry, shriveled leaves of the tamarinds.

Her eyes are still full of dust, she hasn't had time to collect herself, when the youth who wears the white turban appears behind her. Missis come in now,' he orders disapprovingly, his attitude towards her modeled on that of his superior.

As she steps inside he immediately slams the shutters, and then goes all round the house, banging them to with a noise of protest. Padding away finally on his bare feet, he leaves her to stew in solitude under the squeaky fan, in the simmering gloom that seems like the end of the world.

It's too dark to read, and, when she switches the light on, the heat of the bulb slaps her face. So she turns it out again, kicks off her sandals, and sits doing nothing, simply waiting for time to pass, abandoned to heat and discomfort. Presently she hears someone coming, and rouses herself from this daze; her feet instinctively find their way back into the discarded sandals.

In comes Mr Dog Head, sweat streaming down his face, but otherwise unaffected by the heat, which he won't condescend to notice. Forgetting the nightmarish atmosphere momentarily, the girl actually finds his arrival a welcome break in the arid, interminable, eventless expanse of time. She smiles and says, 'Hello,' blinking in the daylight that streams into the room after him, against which he stands outlined. How can he be so impervious to the heat ?--it doesn't seem human. His tough, angular frame might be made of metal, or any substance that isn't sensitive to the temperature.

'Sitting in the dark ?' He neither smiles nor returns her greeting, addressing her in the same disapproving tone that the servant used not long ago. Even before she hears his censorious voice and sees him eyeing her with suspicion, she recalls despairingly the hopelessness of attempting to talk to him. And she says no more.

As he hasn't seen her for a few days he looks at her more attentively than usual, noticing that she's become paler and thinner than she used to be; which she seems to have done on purpose to annoy him, so that he snaps : 'What's the matter with you ? Aren't you well ?' She can't see his face clearly against the light, but doesn't need to, being only too familiar with that particular overbearing tone - surely he isn't going to start a quarrel already? She feels she can't stand the effort of quarrelling in this appalling heat, and says quietly that the weather makes her head ache.

'You strain your eyes reading too much,' he retorts. Then: 'Why the devil can't you get used to the climate, like everyone else ?' Her failure to make this adjustment also seems an exasperating device for making him angry. But, though she doesn't answer, he lets it go, preoccupied with a new idea, originating in her looking unwell, which slowly takes shape in his head.

The way he's still staring reminds her that she hasn't tidied her hair since the wind blew it about, and she smoothes it down with her hands, so that it catches his eye. He looks at the glossy, vigorous hair, in which all her vitality seems concentrated, and which is now so long that it rests on her shoulders, as she hasn't had the energy lately even to have it cut. All at once, he finds that his hands are twitching involuntarily — he wants to stroke it, which he hasn't done since the period of his infatuation. His gaze becoming proprietory, possessive, he takes a sudden step forward and puts his hand on her shoulder.

She is quite unprepared for this, thinking only about her hair. It makes her jump to feel the big, hard, heavy hand descend on her shoulder, like a policeman's, and tighten its grip there.

'Anything happened while I've been away?' he asks now, in a changed, peculiar tone, ingratiating and artificial; he doesn't really want to know, or expect an answer, and might equally well have made any other remark. The question is in the nature of a preliminary,
part of a routine, which she recognizes with horror from the bedroom, as he pulls her against him.

She feels the insufferable heat generated between their two touching bodies spring up like a flame and, acting purely on impulse, not stopping to think, wrenches herself out of his grasp. Instantly a murderous flare appears in his blue eyes, his face goes rigid, his hands clench
as
if to drag out by the roots handfuls of the hair they were about to caress. But he says nothing, turning his back on her, and marches out of the room.

She doesn't see him again until they meet at dinner, when he hardly speaks a word. To pay her out, as soon as the meal is over, he gets the racquets and starts the rat game. Though he can't compel her to play with him, he forces her to stay in the room. But she shuts her eyes tight and won't watch, so he's frustrated again.

He feels like bashing her with the racquet, and is only restrained by the resolve that's come to him suddenly to make her give him a son and heir; it's the least she can do in return for the honour of being married to him. Besides, it will take her down a peg or two, and show her which of them is the boss.

Grinning to himself over these thoughts, he goes on bashing the rats with particular gusto.

14

Without warning one evening, while dinner is being served, the electric light starts to fade. It doesn't go out altogether, but gives the impression of being about to do so at any moment, meanwhile maintaining a rapid, distracting, continuous flickering that has a distorting, hallucinatory effect, and makes everything seem unstable, unreal.

The girl asks what's gone wrong, looking anxiously at her husband. Any mishap of this sort generally starts him swearing and shouting abuse at everyone within earshot. But to her surprise he remains calm and only says, 'It's always like this at the end of the hot weather,' adding something about hydraulic pressure she doesn't take in.

The queer quick fluctuations have already made her disagreeably conscious that her head is aching; also, they produce a disturbing, impossible effect, as if the day's shimmering heat-haze had invaded the night-time room. Which is doubtless why she doesn't notice when, after the butler has handed the main dish, the vegetables are offered, not by his proper assistant, but by the youth in the white turban.

Nor does the man at the head of the table appear to be aware of any irregularity in the service, as he helps himself generously. He keeps his eyes on his plate, eating with his usual appetite, preparing each mouthful in advance, putting it into his mouth and repeating the process before he's finished masticating the last, display
ing a somewhat doglike conscientiousness in scrupulously cleaning up every morsel. After he's consumed a second helping with the same thoroughness, and while the butler's occupied with the next course, the youth slips out to the back porch. Here Mohammed Dirwaza Khan is waiting for him and mutters a brief question, which he answers by a quick affirmative nod, returning immediately to the dining-room.

His bearded superior too leaves the porch at once, silent as a shadow, entering the central corridor which divides the house and into which the stairs and all the rooms lead. He passes the flickering light in the dining-room, where only his master's legs are visible under the door flaps, and, without attracting attention or making a sound, mounts to the floor above. He does not hurry. If he is seen, he is merely on his way to prepare his master's room for the night, as he always does at about this time.