Beggar's Feast (29 page)

“You have not been to see Arthur's son, have you,” she said.

“No.”

No tea. No mercy then. “Do you remember George when he was a small fellow? How big he was? Where is George? Where are you keeping him? Under another of your padlocks? He should see the new fellow too, no?”

“Why?” But as he said it he knew why. Sam took a step toward her but then he turned and hammered down the stairs loud enough that he could not tell, no one in the city could tell over such crashing, what Latha was claiming down after him, what words and sounds were her last before she went down into the city herself, where she would never be called by name again.

Sam waved off Joseph and the vehicle. Instead he made his way by foot along Lotus Road, where there were enough beggars, sick men, and sellers to step over shoulder by and break past, enough to make a man feel like he was still moving through the world of his own volition. Even a forty-six-year-old grandfather. He walked the same route for two hours, trying to empty all of it there, the worry and the plotting and the outrage over what was asked of him now, from the village, from his sent-off son, from his well-kept walauwa people, from the British when they with their own rage for right numbers would demand why he was returning four prisoners and not six. He pounded out his worry and plotting and outrage through successions of layabouts and eventually curious doormen until enough of them knew to give this mad stomping Mahatteya a wide margin and so Sam Kandy could claim victory, but now there was nothing to do but go to the room and tell her he had to go to the village.

Only, she wasn't there, waiting for him, when he came back. He did not know where his wife had been for the middle hours of their anniversary day. And now he did not know what she had been doing for all the middle hours of their first year. But he would not ask because asking meant having to match her answer, meant having to know her as something other than one hundred warm pounds of milk skin without history or family or plans to get either, with only requests that he eat as she asked and go to the toilet when she wanted. A perfect year.

When, endless hours later, she returned, Ivory immediately smiled to see him waiting for her. He asked nothing. He stood and said that he was going to the village the next day, that he had no choice but to go to the village, that his father-in-law was to die. Her face was shocked, then blank.

“But why do you have to go there? Your wife's father is already dead. You have known this for more than one year now.”

Sam wondered how she could already know, and by the third time she said it, he was certain of the source of her knowing, which also had to be the reason for her absence from the room. It had to be. Ivory must have somehow met Latha in the time it took Sam to walk from Prince's Building to the Oriental Grand. There could be no other reason, and because he was this certain he would not ask her to deny it and so, instead, they went downstairs for Angels on Horseback, which, silent as a windowpane, she neither touched nor put before him. Back in the room, she didn't tell him to use the chamberpot either, and so Sam went to bed on his anniversary night expecting nothing. He decided the village would answer for that too.

They lay beside each other like boards until she began asking again and again that one question. Again and again Sam said nothing. Eventually, suddenly, Ivory shot up and shut the light on her side and he did the same on his and in the fan-droning dark he could feel her moving beside him, not onto him yet but all elbows and great pumping legs, like she was a frog swimming for its life. When she stopped, she began to breathe in and out, loud and long like sea blowing, and he went to touch her nightdress and could tell she had shimmied it past her belly and here at last, he thought, was forgiveness, return, obliteration. He touched her cool bared skin, its wonder-bending promises. And so Sam let down his night trouser and waited. But she only kept breathing like sea blowing, like she was a schoolgirl readying to take a jump, and then she reached for him, saying nothing, cupping his face, pulling him closer and she wanted him to climb on her this time and as ever she guided, commanded, but then she pushed down his shoulders and kept pushing and he was too confused then surprised then curious then absolutely shocked and horrified as she held him in place by his hair and after how many minutes she arched and hummed, a long sweet falling note, then let him go, and fell asleep. He sat up and looked sharply for her to stir, like a dog looks to be noticed after a trick, but in vain. Instead, Sam crawled beside her and stared at night shapes until he fell asleep. And in the morning, having studied night shapes for hours, he washed and spat and spat and spat and just as he bent down to tie his shoes, all that new belly folding against his ribs, she asked him again, as if never before, as if nothing had happened, that same question.

“But why do you have to go there? Your wife's father is already dead. You know your wife's father is already dead. You have known for more than one year.”

“
Mokatha?
” Sam finally demanded, walking over to the bed. How could she ask now, after that? How she could she ask anything more of him?

“But why do you have to go there? I know—”

“How do you know he's already dead?”

“Because he is my father! Because I am your wife now! Because I told you both my parents are dead more than one year ago, before you asked me to marry you, and you tell me she died how many years ago and still you have to go to her village and see to her father. But
I AM YOUR WIFE
. What you do for your wife you do for me.”

“You are jealous, Ivory,” Sam said slowly, angrily. She was breaking the arrangement. She was showing her blood and history.

“Not jealous. I know I have nothing to be jealous of in that village or in this marriage. I only want what is mine, Sam.”

“When he dies, the walauwa becomes mine and then I am Ralahami and you are—”

“NO. I told you I would never go back. I will never stay there and be some bloody teacup queen of a teacup village. I cannot believe someone like you, dressed as you are, living here, now, speaking English and listening to a music cabinet, even uses those words anymore, let alone makes like you have always wanted it, like you spend days dreaming of it while working the paddy, wearing nothing but the same amude your father and his and his and his wore. Ralahami. Hamine. Walauwa. All old magic, useless tricks. That is not what you should want. That is not what I want. That is not what is mine.”

“What do you want? What do you think is yours?” he asked. Did she really think she could tell him about the village? Did she actually believe centuries of mud and hanged stars could be conquered with English medium and a music cabinet?

“Did you hear me, Sam? Did you? I said I want the same as you do.”

“Ah. Right. You tell me what you think I want.”

“One year married I know, believe it.”

“What?” But his challenge sounded tentative, was too full of immediate longing that all be forgotten and forgiven, if only she show him what they both knew he wanted. She laughed.

“Same as I do.”

“Ivory, this is the last time I shall ask. What? Tell me what you think I want. Tell me what you want.” Desperate hopeful in spite of himself.

“I want more.”

Downstairs, Sam ate breakfast alone, declining the plate of crèmes and jam pastries and feeling wretched and triumphant for it. He told Joseph to take him to his harbour office, where he took a shave from the barber downstairs and paid him to tell anyone who climbed the stairs, whether a white man or a Greek from one of the ships or a brown boy from the village, that he would return and take care of it in two days. He sent Joseph for fresh banyans and sarongs, four this time, and then he went to see the English, to tell them that in two days he would bring the Ethiopians to the harbour as promised. If asked how many prisoners he would have to tell, but otherwise he would gamble that in their packing for home, the prisoner transfer sheet the warden had shown him triumphantly the year before was already at the bottom of some crate at the bottom of some ship already long past Gibraltar. But Sam had no idea just how mad had been their leavetaking. He went into the quartermaster's building and found nothing, the murky-shaped, ashen nothing of reclaimed space where a week before had been crates full of civilization. And though the grand trident doors were partly open on both sides and it was a bright day without, the emptied warehouse seemed to brown down all light. Now it smelled of old oil and of last night's cooking fires still smoking, of morning piss, beedis, cold tea thrown at the dogs. Now ragged little men were lying about where once were daily stacked and un-stacked whole economies. There was no one here.

“Where are they? Where did they go?” Sam said to a beggar digging a trench in the floor with his finger, who did not stop even when Sam dropped a divinely bright coin near his hand. “Now look at me will you.”

“Two questions, Mahatteya, but you only give once?” the man observed, still digging.

“Here. And here is another. And another. Now answer me and I will give you more when I am done asking if you can tell me something.”

“They went. They went away.”

“I will kick you flat as those coins. And I will take them back too. Now tell me something as if I am more than a blind man. Have they all gone?”

“Not all,” another voice answered from the other side of the grand doors. The beggar in front of Sam turned onto his back, covering the money Sam had dropped, waiting for Sam to either leave or stomp him down until the coins could be seen shining again. He did not seem to care. He was staring up at the electric lamps the British had shut off when they left, which were now roosting perches and spider maps. On days when the doors were open and there was sea-blowing, a bird's egg would sometimes fall, or wild skeins of web would trail down, whole lives' worth of work in vain.

“Last night, Mahatteya, they were still loading in the harbour,” the voice called out.

“They are always loading in the harbour,” said Sam as he crossed to the other side of the doors, to an upright beggar sitting against the warehouse wall. “You expect money to tell me that? Next you will tell me the sun comes in the morning and goes away at night and again hold out your palm.”

“I don't ask for money, Mahatteya. I only mean to say they were still loading prisoners last night. Did you bring your fellows?”

Sam studied the man's face. He was gaunt and especially black around the eyes and ragged-dressed as the rest but wearing loosefitting sand-coloured boots, the laces gone to some other purpose.

An Englishman's parting gift.

“You worked here.”

“Yes.”

“So you, you remember.”

“Yes, I remember when you came and took those Kaffir fellows.”

“Ethiopians. Do you know where the warden has gone?”

“War has been good for you, no?” he observed, tapping his own notion of a belly.

“I will give you better than those boots. Tell me where the warden has gone.”

“I told you, Mahatteya, I ask for no money. I am a patient man. And I do not know where the warden has gone, only that yesterday they sent off the Italian prisoners. One of them stopped on the gangplank and cursed the crowd and people started dancing a baila because his cursing sounded like a song, and even the English clapped for him and the Italian fellow of course spat as he turned to go but he was smiling, everyone was, because war is over and everyone is going home.”

“Except you, it seems, unless you were born in this warehouse.”

“I told you, Mahatteya, I am a patient man.”

“Patient for what?” Sam asked, even though he was certain another warship departed with every word passed between them, another known Englishman gone, another hour it would take to reach the village, where once were six and now were four, which meant at least another two hours away from Ivory who was waiting in the room or not waiting in the room but waiting where, and was she waiting with her knees up, and would this be for the whole second year of their marriage?