A Lovesong for India (21 page)
Read A Lovesong for India Online
Authors: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
It was this fantastic figure whom Nathan had chosen to be the subject of his film. There were only a few crude etchings in existence of his hero, and when he looked at them Nathan felt he was looking at his father, but as the years passed – for this project met with many vicissitudes – he recognised himself. Both he and his father were fleshy men, the very opposite of ascetic – but so was the Messiah. It had in fact been his mission to supersede all the restraints of the rabbinic law and inaugurate a new order where prohibitions gave way to licence. He himself had set the example by eating pork and marrying several wives; his marriages were reputed to have been unconsummated, so that Nathan surmised his ancestor’s tastes had coincided with his own. He had been subject to wild mood-swings – it was in his manic phase that he had thrown himself into every kind of forbidden joy, whereas in the depressive one he crouched in a corner and nibbled his beard.
It had always seemed right to Nathan that
his
Messiah should be like the original – a man of crude appetites and guilty of outrageous behaviour. But after he met Kris, his conception changed drastically. There were days when Rita, arriving at his apartment, found Nathan bleary-eyed after working till the early hours of the morning. He was revising his entire script, writing new treatments with a new central figure. He didn’t work in secret but shared his thoughts with everyone he met. He might be at some fundraiser in a hotel or club of Titian splendour seated at a donor’s table for ten, eating in the rather frenzied way he had – he perspired a lot when he ate and his black tie came undone. Telling his fellow guests about his new Messiah, he spoke with a passion that made him lay his hand on his heart to prevent it from brimming over. ‘Oh, you’re so wonderful, Nathan,’ they said. They really meant it. He was inspiring, and it was a marvellous sensation for everyone at that table to be inspired by something chaste and pure for an evening (though next morning they might not be returning his calls).
his
Messiah should be like the original – a man of crude appetites and guilty of outrageous behaviour. But after he met Kris, his conception changed drastically. There were days when Rita, arriving at his apartment, found Nathan bleary-eyed after working till the early hours of the morning. He was revising his entire script, writing new treatments with a new central figure. He didn’t work in secret but shared his thoughts with everyone he met. He might be at some fundraiser in a hotel or club of Titian splendour seated at a donor’s table for ten, eating in the rather frenzied way he had – he perspired a lot when he ate and his black tie came undone. Telling his fellow guests about his new Messiah, he spoke with a passion that made him lay his hand on his heart to prevent it from brimming over. ‘Oh, you’re so wonderful, Nathan,’ they said. They really meant it. He was inspiring, and it was a marvellous sensation for everyone at that table to be inspired by something chaste and pure for an evening (though next morning they might not be returning his calls).
It became a conversation piece at social events to cast Nathan’s new Messiah. The old one had been easy – there were any number of character actors or fat ageing stars who could have played him. But it was impossibly difficult to envisage the new Messiah in any actor – in any person, really. For the way Nathan described him was not like an embodied person at all but one who was – and this was a phrase he constantly used about him – ‘clothed in light’; and when he said this, Nathan shut his eyes as if himself flooded with light. His fellow guests teased him: ‘You’re in love, Nathan!’ He admitted it; yes, he was in love with the ideal of someone who walked the earth completely untouched and untarnished by its earthiness. ‘Whoever will you get to play him?’ they wondered, but went on to call out the names of several hot young actors. Nathan waved them away: all these young men had the wrong physical attributes – one had thick lips, another short legs – and they had also been tainted by ugly divorces, tax evasions, paternity suits, getting into fights and drugs. And even if there were some actor (though he himself couldn’t think of one) who had both physical and moral perfection, he would be disqualified by the fact that he
was
an actor – had been sullied by newsprint and the gaze of thousands eating popcorn. Nathan cited the precedent of other directors who had had to cast difficult parts. One, searching for a prophet in the wilderness, had found a young French aristocrat who had never left his family’s estate in Normandy; another, for the Virgin Mary, had chosen an English debutante fresh from her first London season.
was
an actor – had been sullied by newsprint and the gaze of thousands eating popcorn. Nathan cited the precedent of other directors who had had to cast difficult parts. One, searching for a prophet in the wilderness, had found a young French aristocrat who had never left his family’s estate in Normandy; another, for the Virgin Mary, had chosen an English debutante fresh from her first London season.
Kris had a piece of news. ‘I’ll make your drink first; you must be
so tired
, poor Rita.’ After she had drunk it, and they were eating the meal he had prepared: ‘I’ve got a job.’ She said, ‘Oh no. Oh why?’ He laughed. ‘Think of the money! Five hundred a week. Fabulous, what? A fortune.’ He kept this up all evening, trying to laugh and tease her out of her distress. He was used to having to do this whenever he took up some new employment. This one was in a very smart men’s outfitter where she knew he would be exposed to the eyes of every customer walking in off the street; and they would be exposed to his charm, which he could not help exuding.
so tired
, poor Rita.’ After she had drunk it, and they were eating the meal he had prepared: ‘I’ve got a job.’ She said, ‘Oh no. Oh why?’ He laughed. ‘Think of the money! Five hundred a week. Fabulous, what? A fortune.’ He kept this up all evening, trying to laugh and tease her out of her distress. He was used to having to do this whenever he took up some new employment. This one was in a very smart men’s outfitter where she knew he would be exposed to the eyes of every customer walking in off the street; and they would be exposed to his charm, which he could not help exuding.
Although usually she went to sleep long before him, that night she lay awake. Their walk-up apartment was noisy, there was a diner downstairs and the kitchen workers clattered and shouted till after midnight, and Kris was watching a late show in the other room, which was partitioned from the bedroom by a cardboard-thin wall. When his programme was finished, he turned it off and came into the bedroom. They had always slept together in twin beds side by side, since he was eight years old; before that, he had shared her bed and couldn’t sleep except curled up against her. She watched him now changing into his pyjamas. After some time, when they were both lying very still in their two beds, he stretched out his hand for her to take; and that was how she finally managed to fall asleep, not comforted but at least with his hand lying lightly in hers.
The next evening, Rita, having accepted Nathan’s invitation for herself and Kris, turned up alone. Nathan seemed to crumple up in his evening clothes. ‘Oh no!’ he cried, stamping his patent-leather pump, completely forgetting his usual courtesy and Rita’s feelings. She made an excuse – Kris had a headache. ‘He could have taken an aspirin or something,’ Nathan said. The two of them went alone and it was a depressing evening for Nathan; he didn’t notice it was for Rita too, that in fact she had arrived in such a mood, with her eyes red-rimmed. And soon there was another evening that Nathan had arranged for the three of them when again she came alone, again claiming a headache for Kris. But when it happened a third time, she had to tell him the truth – that Kris had an engagement with someone else. Nathan questioned her more closely than he might have done if he had been interested in keeping up the least pretence of indifference. And Rita too showed more of her feelings than she usually did when she told Nathan that Kris now had a job, which had inevitably widened his social contacts.
Nathan hardly ever got up in time to make lunch appointments, so when Rita saw him at eleven o’clock in the morning dressing up in a pearl pinstripe suit with a pale pink shirt and a tie with gold crowns on it, she could easily guess where he was going. She had gone there herself, on the second day that Kris had started work. Nathan arrived home carrying a package containing a cashmere sweater. The next time he came back with an Italian robe. He proudly showed off his purchases to Rita, but otherwise he was secretive about his morning’s activity – in so far as he could be secretive, for as usual his plump, white face expressed his inner feelings as though they had been plastered on in greasepaint.
Kris, on the other hand, could be secretive, if he wanted to. On this occasion he didn’t want to. Although he said nothing about Nathan’s first visit, when she asked him on the second day, ‘Did Nathan come to see you at the store?’ he replied: ‘Yes, wasn’t that kind of him? He bought a silk robe, Italian, very expensive, and he’s asked me for lunch tomorrow. I told him I only get forty-five minutes so he said we’d go somewhere nearby. He’s awfully nice.’
They went out to lunch three days in succession, and three times Nathan told Rita nothing and Kris described exactly, without her having to ask, where they had gone, what they had eaten and what Nathan had said.
On the third day Kris reported that Nathan wanted him to leave his job. ‘And do what?’ Rita asked.
‘You’ll never guess.’ Kris laughed.
She guessed at once. ‘You’re not an actor.’
‘That’s why: he says he doesn’t want an actor.’
‘Then what does he want?’
Kris laughed again. ‘He wants me.’
When she arrived for work, she told Nathan, before even taking off her coat, that she was going back to England. Nathan was still half asleep in his enormous bed, amid fleur-de-lys sheets. ‘Kris and I both, of course,’ she added.
Without waiting for his reaction, she went straight out to sort the papers he had left lying about for her in his study, which was also their workroom. This was no more worklike than the bedroom; Nathan had surrounded himself with exquisite and valuable objects, scattered about and so numerous that one was apt to stumble over them. Fortunately, not much could break because there were soft surfaces everywhere, cushions and carpets and upholstered chaises longues.
He had followed her, tying the robe he had bought from Kris. He tried to sound reasonable, even paternal. ‘What will you go to London and
do
?’
do
?’
‘Why, you think I’m not good enough to get another job?’
‘My dear, I know better than anyone how good, how very good you are.’
‘Thank you,’ she said tightly. She was aware of the way Nathan was looking at her. Rita had a good figure – she was tall and slim – and pretty dark brown hair; but she was used to people thinking, and even hinting, what a pity it was that the brother should have all the beauty. Even their mother had said it, when drunk and angry.
Nathan said, ‘No one understands the project better than you, and you know how close we are now to getting it off the ground.’
‘You don’t have a star.’
‘I don’t need a star. I’ve explained that to you and I thought you understood.’
‘Oh yes. I’ve understood.’ She began to tremble and then to accuse him: ‘Who are you to tell him what to do? He was so proud to have found work all by himself and to help me with our expenses. He’s always done that. I wanted him to have more education, but he left school at sixteen to go out and find work.’
‘And do you like him going out to work?’
‘Yes. Because
he
likes it.’
he
likes it.’
She had been through this before: men like Nathan, and women too, wanting Kris to leave whatever job he had and come to work for them in something they had concocted for him. Sometimes Kris did and sometimes he didn’t – but whatever his decision, it was always his own, reached for reasons of his own that he shared with no one.
‘Can we talk?’ Nathan said. ‘The three of us?’
‘Kris and I have talked. It’s all settled.’
This was far from the truth, but that was not for Nathan to know – any more than he needed to know that she was as much in the dark as he was. Kris’s nature was as clear as his countenance. Yet there was one area in him, one secret unknown place where even she could not penetrate. It wasn’t that it was deliberately shut off from her but that he seemed unable to reveal it: as if it were as much a secret place to him as to her, where his intentions formed themselves almost without his knowledge.
Kris liked working in the store, and everyone, colleagues and customers, liked him. Some of them loved him, which always happened, and though he preferred it when they only liked him, he did his best to deal gently with the others. He was very sensitive to people’s feelings, probably because of always being careful with his sister, who was easily hurt. He himself was immune in that respect: his attachments were light enough never to chafe him – including that to his sister, though he wouldn’t have admitted it. What he liked best was to be alone; one might have said alone with his thoughts except that he didn’t have that many, or as far as he knew any very deep ones. He was also fortunate in that he could be alone while – for instance – joking around with the other young salesmen and dealing with customers (or clients, as they were called in his high-class establishment). It was rare for anyone on whom he attended to leave the store without the purchase he had recommended. This was because he genuinely felt the client’s need for a particular item, and also because he himself admired it so much, stroking the luxurious silk of a scarf or necktie and making it irresistible by modelling it himself. All the time, though, he remained inside himself, detached and alone. The same when he was walking in the streets, which he enjoyed doing (but actually, he enjoyed everything). Often he would walk home instead of taking the subway, not to save money but to have an hour or so to himself. It didn’t matter to him whether he was in New York or in London, or in Rome or Paris, where he was sometimes taken to stay in villas and grand hotels. The streets, the buildings were everywhere beautiful to him, so were the parks and monuments, though everything he passed or passed through was no more than a scrim covering something else even better. The sky in all its times and seasons was the best of all to him, and he experienced it so intensely that it seemed to remain inside him, transformed into a flowering garden. At night, lying in the bed next to Rita’s and holding her hand, he lingered in that garden, staying awake much longer than she suspected – tranquil but also expectant not for anything in particular, not for a person, but for a call, a mission that might come to him provided he remained patient enough to wait for it.
Whenever the three of them attended some gala dinner, Rita would be placed at the same table with Nathan, as a pair, while Kris was accommodated wherever a single man might be required between two ladies. But on one occasion it happened that Kris too was seated at their table, exactly opposite Nathan. It was in one of the grandest clubs in New York and was to honour the scion of one of the oldest families of New York State for his work in preserving a well-known city landmark.
The dinner for two hundred and fifty guests was held in the main hall, which reached five storeys up to the glassed-in roof supported by cast-iron trusses. Granite staircases swept in two wings to the second floor where a small orchestra was seated under oil paintings of former donors and committee members. These were the ancestors of many of the guests assembled there, who were wry among themselves about the ways their money had been made – not in the railways and coal mines on which earlier family fortunes had been founded but in humbler products of domestic use. However, it was these families who were now the oldest aristocracy, and one already on the point of extinction. Everyone there was old, very very old; if they had children and grandchildren, these did not frequent the club but had taken a different direction – some to become carpenters, or to join spiritual groups, or make documentary films, fleeing every vestige of family tradition as though it were a curse. Sometimes it was a curse, and one that, if it hadn’t been generally known, would have been a dark secret – alcoholism, suicides, even a suspected murder: declines that it had taken European aristocracies centuries to reach had here been achieved within a couple of generations.
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