Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories Read online

  You nodded in the darkness. I could see the outline of your face in the faint moonlight that filtered through the skylight. You never replied directly to a question. I suppose that was feminine quality; coyness, perhaps.

  ‘Do you love me, Sushila?’

  No answer.

  ‘Not now. When you are a little older. In a year or two.’

  Did she nod in the darkness, or did I imagine it?

  ‘I know it’s too early,’ I continued. ‘You are still too young, you are still at school. But already you are much wiser than me. I am finding too difficult to control myself, but I will, since you wish it so. I’m very impatient, I know that, but I’ll wait for as long as you make me — two or three or a hundred years. Yes, Sushila, a hundred years!’

  Ah, what a pretty speech I made! Romeo could have used some of it; Majnu, too.

  And your answer? Just a nod; a little pressure on my hand.

  I took your fingers and kissed them one by one. Long fingers, as long as mine.

  After some time I became aware of Sunil nudging me.

  ‘You are not talking to me,’ he complained. ‘You are only talking to her. You only love her.’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry. I love you too, Sunil.’

  Content with this assurance, he fell asleep; but towards morning, thinking himself in the middle of the bed, he rolled over and landed with a thump on the floor. He didn’t know how it had happened, and accused me of pushing him out.

  ‘I know you don’t want me in the bed,’ he said.

  It was a good thing, Dinesh, in the next room, didn’t wake up.

  *

  ‘Have you done any work this week?’ asked Dinesh with a look of reproach.

  ‘Not much,’ I said.

  ‘You are hardly ever in the house. You are never at your desk. Something seems to have happened to you.’

  ‘I have given myself a holiday, that’s all. Can’t writers take holi- days too?’

  ‘No. You have said so yourself. And anyway, you seem to have taken a permanent holiday.’

  ‘Have you finished that painting of the Tibetan woman?’ I asked, trying to change the subject.

  ‘That’s the third time you’ve asked me that question, even though you saw the completed painting a week ago. You’re getting very absent-minded.’

  There was a letter from your old boy friend; I mean your young boy friend. It was addressed to Sunil, but I recognised the sender’s name and knew it was really for you.

  I assumed a look of calm detachment and handed the letter to you; but both you and Sunil sensed my dismay. At first you teased me, and showed me the boy’s photograph, which had been enclosed (he was certainly good-looking in a flashy way); then, finding that I became gloomier every minute, you tried to make amends, assuring me that the correspondence was one-sided and that you no longer replied to his letters.

  And that night, to show me that you really cared, you gave me your hand as soon as the lights were out. Sunil was fast asleep.

  We sat together at the foot of your bed. I kept my arm about you, while you rested your head against my chest. Your feet lay in repose upon mine. I kept kissing you. And when we lay down together, I loosened your blouse, and kissed your small firm breasts, and put my lips to your nipples and felt them grow hard against my mouth.

  The shy responsiveness of your kisses soon turned to passion. You clung to me. We had forgotten time and place and circum- stance. The light of your eyes had been drowned in that lost look of a woman who desires. For a space we both struggled against desire. Suddenly I had become afraid of myself — afraid for you. I tried to free myself from your clasping arms. But you cried in a low voice: ‘Love me! Love me! I want you to love me.’

  *

  Another night you fell asleep with your face in the crook of my arm, and I lay awake a long time, conscious of your breathing, of the touch of your hair on my cheek, of the soft warm soles of your feet, of your slim waist and legs.

  And in the morning, when the sunshine filled the room, I watched you while you slept — your slim body in repose, your face tranquil, your thin dark hands like sleeping butterflies; and then, when you woke, the beautiful untidiness of your hair and the drowsiness in your eyes. You lay folded up like a kitten, your limbs as untouched by self-consciousness as the limbs of a young and growing tree. And during the warmth of the day a bead of sweat rested on your brow like a small pearl.

  I tried to remember what you looked like as a child. Even then, I had always been aware of your presence. You must have been nine or ten when I first saw you — thin, dark, plain-faced, always wearing the faded green skirt that was your school uniform. You went about barefoot. Once, when the monsoon arrived, you ran out into the rain with the other children, naked, exulting in the swish of the cool rain. I remembered your beautiful straight legs and thighs, your swift smile, your dark eyes. You say you do not remember playing naked in the rain; but that is because you did not see yourself.

  I did not notice you growing. Your face did not change very much. You must have been thirteen when you gave up skirts and started wearing the salwar-kameez. You had few clothes; but the plainness of your dress only seemed to bring out your own radiance. And as you grew older, your eyes became more expres- sive, your hair longer and glossier, your gestures more graceful; and then, when you came to me in the hills, I found that you had been transformed into a fairy princess of devastating charm.

  *

  We were idling away the afternoon on our beds, and you were reclining in my arms, when Dinesh came in unexpectedly. He said nothing, merely passed through the room and entered his studio. Sunil got a fright, and you were momentarily confused. Then you said, ‘He knows already,’ and I said, ‘Yes, he must know.’

  Later I spoke to Dinesh. I told him that I wanted to marry ; that I knew I would have to wait until you were older and had finished school — probably two or three years — and that I was prepared to wait although I knew it would be a long and difficult business. I asked him to help me.

  He was upset at first, probably because he felt I had been decep- tive (which was true), and also because of his own responsibility in the matter. You were his niece, and I had made love to you while he had been preoccupied with other things. But after a little while, when he saw that I was sincere and rather confused, he relented.

  ‘It has happened too soon,’ he said. ‘She is too young for all this. Have you told her that you love her?’

  ‘Of course. Many times.’

  ‘You’re a fool, then. Have you told her that you want to marry her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fool again. That’s not the way it is done. Haven’t you lived in India long enough to know that?’

  ‘But I love her.’

  ‘Does she love you?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You think so. Desire isn’t love, you must know that. Still, I sup- pose she does love you, otherwise she would not be holding hands with you all day. But you are quite mad, falling in love with a girl half your age.’

  ‘Well, I’m not exactly an old man. I’m thirty.’

  ‘And she’s a schoolgirl.’

  ‘She isn’t a girl any more, she’s too responsive.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve found that out, have you?’

  ‘Well . . .’ I said, covered in confusion.

  ‘Well, she has shown that she cares a little. You know that it’s years since I took any interest in a girl. You called it unnatural on my part, remember? Well, they simply did not exist for me, that’s true.’

  ‘Delayed adolescence,’ muttered Dinesh.

  ‘But Sushila is different. She puts me at ease. She doesn’t turn away from me. I love her and I want to look after her. I can only do that by marrying her.’

  ‘All right, but take it easy. Don’t get carried away. And don’t, for God’s sake, give her a baby. Not while she’s still at school! I will do what I can to help you. But you will have to be patient. And no one else must know of this, or I w
ill be blamed for everything. As it is, Sunil knows too much, and he’s too small to know so much.’

  ‘Oh, he won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘I wish you had fallen in love with her two years from now. You will have to wait that long, anyway. Getting married isn’t simple matter. People will wonder why we are in such a hurry, marrying her off as soon as she leaves school. They’ll think the worst!’

  ‘Well, people do marry for love, you know, even in India. It’s happening all the time.’

  ‘But it doesn’t happen in our family. You know how orthodox most of them are. They wouldn’t appreciate your outlook. You may marry Sushila for love, but it will have to look like an arranged marriage!’

  Little things went wrong that evening.

  First, a youth on the road passed a remark which you resented; and you, most unlady-like, but most Punjabi-like, picked up a stone and threw it at him. It struck him on the leg. He was too surprised to say anything, and limped off. I remonstrated with you; told you that throwing stones at people often resulted in a fight; then realised that you had probably wanted to see me fighting on your behalf.

  Later you were annoyed because I said you were a little absent- minded. Then Sunil sulked because I spoke roughly to him (I can’t remember why), and refused to talk to me for three hours, which was a record. I kept apologising but neither of you would listen. It was all part of a game. When I gave up trying, and turned instead to my typewriter and my unfinished story, you came and sat beside me and started playing with my hair. You were jealous of my story, of the fact that it was possible for me to withdraw into my work. And I reflected that a woman had to be jealous of something. If there wasn’t another woman, then it was a man’s work, or his hobby, or his best friend, or his favourite sweater, or his pet mongoose, that made her resentful. There is a story in Kipling about a woman who grew insanely jealous of a horse’s saddle, because her husband spent an hour every day polishing it with great care and loving kindness.

  Would it be like that in marriage, I wondered — an eternal trian- gle: you, me and the typewriter?

  But there were only a few days left before you returned to the plains, so I gladly pushed away the typewriter and took you in my arms instead. After all, once you had gone away, it would be a long long time before I could hold you in my arms again. I might visit you in Delhi, but we would not be able to enjoy the same freedom and intimacy. And while I savoured the salt kiss of your lips, I wondered how long I would have to wait until I could really call you my own.

  Dinesh was at college, and Sunil had gone roller-skating, and we were alone all morning. At first you avoided me; so I picked up a book and pretended to read; and barely five minutes had passed before you stole up from behind and snapped the book shut.

  ‘It is a warm day,’ you said. ‘Let us go down to the stream.’ Alone together for the first time, we took the steep path down to

  the stream, and there, hand in hand, scrambled over the rocks until we reached the pool and the waterfall.

  ‘I will bathe today,’ you said; and in a few moments you stood beside me, naked, caressed by sunlight and a soft breeze coming down the valley. I put my hand out to share in the sun’s caress, but you darted away, laughing, and ran to the waterfall as though you would hide behind a curtain of gushing water. I was soon beside you. I took you in my arms, and kissed you, while the water crashed down upon our heads. Who yielded — you or I? All I remember is that you had entwined yourself about me like a clinging vine, and that a little later we lay together on the grass, on bruised and broken clover, while a whistling-thrush released its deep sweet secret on the trembling air.

  Blackbird on the wing, bird of the forest shadows, black rose in the long ago of summer, this was your song: it isn’t time that’s passing by, it is you and I.

  *

  It was your last night under my roof. We were not alone; but when I woke in the middle of the night and stretched my hand out, across the space between our beds, you took my hand, for you were awake too. Then I pressed the ends of your fingers, one by one, as I had done so often before, and you dug your nails into my flesh. And as our hands made love, much as our bodies might have done. They clung together, warmed and caressed each other, each finger taking on an identity of its own and seeking its opposite. Sometimes the tips of our fingers merely brushed against each other, teasingly, and sometimes our palms met with a rush, would tremble and embrace, separate, and then passionately seek each other out. And when sleep finally overcame you, your hand fell listlessly between our beds, touching the ground; and I lifted it up, and after putting it once to my lips, returned it gently to your softly rising bosom.

  And so you went away, all three of you, and I was left alone with the brooding mountains. If I could not pass a few weeks without you, how was I to pass a year, two years? This was the question I kept asking myself. Would I have to leave the hills and take a flat in Delhi? And what use would it be — looking at you and speaking to you but never able to touch you? Not to be able to touch that which I had already possessed would have been the subtlest form of torture.

  The house was empty but I kept finding little things to remind me that you had been there — a handkerchief, a bangle, a length of ribbon — and these remnants made me feel as though you had gone forever. No sound at night, except the rats scurrying about on the rafters.

  The rain had brought out the ferns, which were springing up from tree and rock. The murmur of the stream had become an angry rumble. The honeysuckle creeper, winding over the front windows, was thick with scented blossom. I wish it had flowered a little earlier, before you left. Then you could have put the flowers in your hair.

  At night I drank brandy, wrote listlessly, listened to the wind in the chimney, and read poetry in bed. There was no one to tell stories to; and no hand to hold.

  I kept remembering little things — the soft hair hiding your ears, the movement of your hands, the cool touch of your feet, the tender look in your eyes and the sudden stab of mischief that sometimes replaced it.

  Mrs. Kapoor remarked on the softness of your expression. I was glad that someone had noticed it. In my diary I wrote: ‘I have looked at Sushila so often and so much that perhaps I have over -looked her most compelling qualities — her kindness (or is it just her easy-goingness?), her refusal to hurt anyone’s feelings (or is it just her indifference to everything?), her wide tolerance (or is it just her laziness?) . . . Oh, how absolutely ignorant I am of women!’

  *

  Well, there was a letter from Dinesh, and it held out a lifeline, one that I knew I must seize without any hesitation. He said he might be joining an Art School in Delhi, and asked me if I would like to return to Delhi and share a flat with him. I had always dreaded the possibil- ity of leaving the hills and living again in a city as depressing as Delhi; but love, I considered, ought to make any place habitable . . .

  *

  And then I was in a bus, on the road to Delhi.

  The first monsoon showers had freshened the fields, and every

  thing looked much greener than usual. The maize was just shooting up, and the mangoes were ripening fast. Near the larger villages, camels and bullock-carts cluttered up the road, and the driver cursed, banging his fist on the horn.

  Passing through small towns, the bus-driver had to contend with cycle-rickshaws, tonga-ponies, trucks, pedestrians, and other buses. Coming down from the hills for the first time in over a year, I found the noise, chaos, dust and dirt a little unsettling.

  As my taxi drew up at the gate of Dinesh’s home, Sunil saw me and came running to open the car door. Other children were soon swarming around me. Then I saw you standing near the front door. You raised your hand to your forehead in a typical Muslim form of greeting: a gesture you had picked up, I suppose, from a film.

  For two days Dinesh and I went house-hunting, for I had decided to take a flat if it was at all practicable. Either it was very hot, and we were sweating, or it was raining and we were drenched. (It is di
ffi- cult to find a flat in Delhi, even if one is in a position to pay an exorbitant rent, which I was not. It is especially difficult for bache- lors. No one trusts bachelors, especially if there are grown-up daughters in the house. Is this because bachelors are wolves, or because girls are so easily seduced these days?)

  Finally, after several refusals, we were offered a flat in one of those new colonies that sprout like mushrooms around the capital. The rent was two hundred rupees a month, and although I knew I couldn’t really afford so much, I was so sick of refusals, and already so disheartened and depressed, that I took the place, and made out a cheque to the landlord, an elderly gentleman with his daughters all safely married in other parts of the country.

  There was no furniture in the flat except for a couple of beds, but we decided we would fill the place up gradually. Everyone at Dinesh’s home — brothers, sisters-in-law, aunts, nephews and nie- ces — helped us to move in. Sunil and his younger brother were the first arrivals; later the other children some ten of them, arrived and debouched all over the rooms. You, Sushila, came only in the afternoon, but I had gone out for something and only saw you when I returned at tea-time. You were sitting on the first-floor balcony, and smiled down at me as I walked up the road.

  I think you were pleased with the flat; or at any rate, with my courage in taking one. I took you up to the roof, and there, in a corner under the stairs, kissed you very quickly. It had to be quick,

  because the other children were close on our heels. There wouldn’t be much opportunity for kissing you again. The mountains were far, and in a place like Delhi, and with a family like yours, private moments would be few and far between.

  Hours later, when I sat alone on one of the beds, Sunil came to me, looking rather upset. He must have had a quarrel with you.

  ‘I want to tell you something,’ he said.

  ‘Is anything wrong?’

  To my amazement he burst into tears.

  ‘Now you must not love me any more,’ he said.