The Householder (7 page)

Indu quickly wound up her knitting and put it away in a paper bag. Even though he was angry, Prem noticed how deft and neat she was in her ways.

‘It is you who should speak to the Seigals,' he said.

Silently she handed him a letter. He saw that it was from his mother, but did not open it for a while. ‘For you it would be easy. All you would have to do——'

‘My mother writes my uncle will come and fetch me home next time he is in Delhi on business.'

‘What?'

‘My mother writes——'

‘I told you you cannot go. My mother is coming to visit us. This letter probably …' He opened it and when he had read it, looked rather smug. ‘Yes, she is coming next week.'

Indu abruptly left the room. Prem read his mother's letter again. He was very happy that she was coming; and of course it was out of the question that Indu should go away. He followed her into the kitchen to tell her so, but found only the servant-boy there. The boy was washing dishes and making a lot of clatter as he did so; he looked up at Prem as if challenging him to dare say something. As a matter of fact, Prem would have liked to say something, to assert his authority in the home, but meeting the boy's bold gaze, he contented himself with only making an important face and then retreated. He found Indu in the bedroom lying on the bed, turned over on her side and with her eyes shut. He was sure she was not asleep, but did not know how to disprove it. He sat down on the other end of the bed, hoping she would get tired of pretending. There were quite a number of things he wanted to talk to her about—about her not being able to go home and the rent and Mr. Khanna's tea-party.

Furtively he looked at her back which was turned towards him. Her hip rose in a fine curve and the sari was clinging to her in such a way that the shape of one buttock and tapering thigh were clearly outlined. Prem swallowed, and looked away. He looked at the opposite wall and noted how badly it had been whitewashed. It was hot in the room and intermingled with the heat was the smell of her perspiration and her hair-oil. He thought it would be better to go away, but his limbs felt heavy and reluctant, and it was only with some effort that he got himself out of the room. He felt his heart beating loudly and this continued even after he had left the house and was walking in the streets. He walked for a long time and all the time his thoughts were unworthy and filled him with shame, but he could not stop thinking them.

Wednesday evening was a great occasion for him. He left the college in a hurry, went home and dressed himself very smartly in a clean shirt and his best trousers; he also put a lot of hair-oil on his hair so that it became one smooth shining mass. He took good care that Indu should see him when he was ready and walked up and down several times in front of her where she was sitting on a mat in the sitting-room with her knitting. But though he cleared his throat, wound his watch and smoothed his hair, she apparently did not notice; nor did she ask him where he was going, which was disappointing for he would like to have told her how he was going by invitation to take tea with a German boy.

The address Hans had given him was an impressive one in the best part of New Delhi. The road was wide and shaded by rows of well-grown trees. The houses were very beautiful, all white with pillared fronts and large green lawns and flowers growing in painted pots. Hans' house was not so beautiful. It was equally large and the veranda had pillars, but it was cracked and crumbling in brown patches and the garden in front was dry and tangled. Prem walked up the driveway and into the veranda. One of the french windows was open, so he went in and found himself in a room with an old carpet, three faded red plush armchairs and a lot of dusty books. Someone was sitting in one of the armchairs reading a book which was held so high that the face was quite covered by it. Emerging from the top of the armchair was a tousle of blonde-grey hair and from its bottom a pair of stout white legs. The book was lowered and a lady's face emerged square and red. The lady smiled, pushing her stout cheeks upwards, and said in a voice which was deep like a man's and yet, in its intonation, seductive to the point of exaggeration: ‘Hallo.… Looking for
me
?'

Prem clenched his fists by his side and he said, much louder and shriller than he had intended, ‘Hans Loewe!' and it sounded not so much a request as a cry for help.

‘Oh, you're Hans' friend, are you?' said the lady in the same gruff honeyed voice.

‘He asked me for tea.'

‘Asked you for tea, did he?'

‘At six o' clock.'

‘Did he now? Well, we'll have to do something about it then, won't we? What's your name?' When he had told her, she said, ‘Sit down, Prem dear. Talk to me.'

‘Perhaps he has forgotten.… I will come another day.'

‘Oh, he's home all right, dear. Doing his exercises, I expect. I know the armchairs don't look very clean and you've put on such a nice pair of trousers, haven't you, but you'll really have to sit down if you don't want to hurt my feelings.' Prem sat down instantly.

‘Yogic exercises, you know. He's getting quite good at them. What do you do?'

‘I am a lecturer at——'

‘No, dear. Which Yoga do you do? Hatha Yoga or Bhakti Yoga or what?'

‘I don't think I——'

‘Well you should. We all should. How do you think you'll meet the Eternal and the Infinite if you don't? I'm Hans's landlady. Everybody calls me Kitty.' The room smelt of dust deep-ingrained; the skylight windows set under the ceiling were smeared and opaque, and lurking high in corners were shreds of cobwebs. A very old and shaky fan creaked noisily from the ceiling.

‘If he is busy, I will come again,' Prem said, not however daring to rise.

‘I've got a room free just now, if you're interested.'

‘What a marvellous idea!' cried Hans who entered just then. ‘Come and live with us, Prem!'

‘And be our love,' said the landlady. She chuckled: ‘That's a quotation, you know, Come and live with me and be my love, and we will all the something something.'

‘English poetry is so rich,' Hans said politely. ‘It is the room next to mine, Prem. We will talk all day and share our thoughts and in the nights we will talk more and drink black coffee to keep us awake. What friends we will be with each other!'

Prem sat on the edge of a frayed armchair. He held himself stiff and his hands were pushed between his knees. He wanted to be polite and sociable but felt very shy.

Kitty heaved herself to her feet. When she stood up, she was big and square and dressed in a belted black cotton dress with white dots on it which left a lot of heavy white arm and leg exposed. She said, ‘Let's see if that Mohammed Ali will come across with any tea for us—seeing as we have a guest.'

‘Since we met I have had a marvellous adventure,' Hans said. He was sitting, not on one of the armchairs though there were three of them in the room, but on the floor with his legs crossed under him. He was wearing shorts and a pale blue Aertex shirt with tiny cap sleeves. His legs and feet were large and naked and white like chicken-flesh. ‘Something has woken in me. You are surprised?' Prem nodded though he hardly knew what Hans was saying. He could hear Kitty shouting, ‘Hey, Mohammed Ali!' and her voice echoing as through a large and empty house. ‘Yes, I also was surprised,' Hans said. ‘I thought to myself. Already? But it is true. I feel so humble,' he said, folding his hands and laying his head wistfully to one side. ‘I ask myself, can I be worthy?'

Kitty came back and said, ‘The trouble with Mohammed Ali is he
despises
me so.'

‘Can I be worthy?' Hans repeated.

‘Everybody's worthy,' Kitty said. ‘But I don't think you've really come to anything yet.'

‘Yes, yes, it was real!' Hans cried. ‘I felt it, God-consciousness, I felt Him moving here, here, at the base of my spine!' He hit that place hard with his fist and cried: ‘What joy it was for me! I wanted to cry like a little child cries when it sees its mother. Mother, I wanted to shout, Mammi!'

‘It's hard to tell with these things, especially with an excitable person like you.'

‘It is true that I am high-strung,' Hans said with an air of modesty.

‘What about you?' Kitty said, turning abruptly to Prem who smiled and pushed his hands farther between his knees.

‘I think he is very advanced,' Hans said. ‘He looks so spiritual.'

‘They all look spiritual,' Kitty said gloomily. ‘Even this fellow,' she added, as the bearer came in carrying a tea-tray. He wore what once must have been a fine uniform but which now had turned grey, had only the faintest traces of red braiding and tufts of cotton where gold buttons had been. He was unshaven and visibly dirty, and his face bore an expression of profound melancholy. ‘All right, Mohammed Ali, that'll be all, thank you,' Kitty told him when he had softly placed the tray before her. ‘You see,' she said, ‘once I thought he despised me because of this deep spiritual quality which I thought he had and I hadn't.'

‘The man's eyes!' Hans cried. ‘All Eternity is there seen like in a mirror!'

‘Yes, well, that's what I used to think,' Kitty said. ‘Now I'm not so sure. Oh drat it, the milk's sour again.'

‘Oh drat,' Hans echoed, looking sad.

‘It's because I'm not like the British sahibs and memsahibs of old that he despises me so. He misses it all so much, poor dear—the hordes of servants and the dinner-parties and Simla in the summer and all that.'

‘You are too materialistic,' Hans said.

‘Not me, him,' Kitty said.

‘He does not think of such things at all. He has withdrawn himself from the world and contemplates. How sour your tea is always, bah, this is terrible to drink.'

‘You want to come to a party with me, dear?' Kitty. asked Prem.

‘He is my guest,' Hans pointed out.

‘Well next Saturday he can be my guest. I'll take him to Peggy's party.'

‘We must talk!' Hans cried, thumping his fist on Prem's knee. ‘Everything must be shared between friends, all thoughts and wishes and adventures, if they are of the body or the spirit!' Though this was consonant with Prem's own opinions about friendship, he felt too shy and too bewildered to respond. ‘Without a friend,' Hans said, ‘to whom I can lay bare my soul, I cannot live.'

‘Goodness,' said Kitty in calm surprise.

Hans put both his hands on Prem's shoulders and his pale blue eyes behind the rimless spectacles scanned Prem's face. ‘Now I must have the truth from you,' he said sternly.

‘Of course,' Prem murmured. To avoid Han's searching glance, he slid his own eyes sideways to look appealingly at Kitty, who however was paying no attention. She was bending over the tea-tray, with her big bottom in its black and white cotton dress stuck out at one end and her head at the other; her lips were moving slightly and she looked preoccupied and even a little sinister as she poured all the tea left over in the cups back into the teapot.

‘You are my friend,' Hans said. ‘You must tell me the truth.' His hands lay heavy on Prem's shoulders. ‘Do you think a Westerner like me can reach to the spiritual greatness of the Indian yogis?'

Prem said, ‘Everything is possible if one tries.'

Hans took away his hands and cried in agony, ‘But I have tried—oh, my God, how have I tried!' In his agitation he took a few skips round the room on his naked feet, raising them high up so that it looked as if he had stepped on a nail and hurt himself.

‘Well that's something, isn't it,' Kitty said.

‘In here I have a great longing to feel, to
be
! You, Prem, are Indian, you understand what is this longing that has come to me—'

‘You can pick us up Saturday evening for Peggy's party,' Kitty told Prem.

Hans said, ‘Please tell the washerman to bring back my good shirt for this day.' He put his arm round Prem's shoulder and walked him out on to the veranda. ‘So, my friend,' he said, ‘we have had a good conversation.' Mohammed Ali was squatting on the top step of the veranda, enjoying a little brown cigarette which he held cupped in his hand. He looked up at them sourly, but made no move to rise.

When Prem got home, lights were burning in all the rooms of the Seigals' house and there were visitors and card-playing on the veranda. But upstairs in his own house all was darkness and silence. Indu was lying on the bed fast asleep. The kitchen was empty, though there was still a spark of fire in the grate. Perched on top of the pile of ashes was a pot and on the lid of the pot lay a few dry chapattis. This, he supposed, was his food. He was hungry, so he sat down on the floor of the kitchen and ate. But he knew it was not right for a wife to go to sleep before she had served her husband however late he might come. He considered for a moment whether to wake her up and tell her so. But he did not feel angry enough for that. He was still a little dazed from his visit and kept thinking about Hans and Kitty. Their interest in spiritual matters puzzled him, for he had always thought that Europeans were very materialistic in their outlook.

The servant-boy appeared and Prem at once began to scold him for going out. As usual, the boy took no notice of him, except to assume a somewhat contemptuous expression. ‘Until the master of the house has taken his food,' Prem told him, ‘your place is in the kitchen.' ‘Finished?' the boy asked and took away Prem's empty pot for cleaning.

Prem lay down next to Indu on the bed. He could hear her regular breathing and at once forgot about Hans and Kitty and about everything else. He sat up and looked at her. There was a very dim light in the room, which came from a street-lamp a few houses farther down. He could just make out her shape as she lay there. He had already begun to notice that she had changed, that her hips and breasts, always fine and plump and round, had become burgeoning and luxurious. He supposed it was the baby. Reverently he placed his hand on her stomach and thought about how it was his child in there. But not for long. Soon his hand had found the string at her waist to untie her petticoat. After a while she woke up. She turned her head away to hide her face, but did not try to hide anything else.