The Way Things Were (47 page)

‘No cars?’

‘No. Viski and the boys have taken both cars down to Srinagar to get supplies for this evening. They’ll only be back after lunch. Are Gayatri and that lot coming tonight?’

‘I think so.’

‘I’m in a bit of a bind about Kitten.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know what to do about her.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean: should we ask her? She’s been poisonous about us both. I’m a suicidal wreck, apparently, and you’re, well, just a slut.’

‘That’s very rich coming from her . . .’

‘I know! But, there you have it. What do we do?’

‘Ask her, ask her, Ish. It’s too small a group here not to ask her. It’ll be noticed. Don’t let there be bad blood. Much better we neutralize her.’

‘If you say so. It’s your birthday. But I’m pretty bloody pissed off.’

‘Never mind. There’ll be so many other nice people; nobody will notice her.’

A film song began suddenly to play.

‘Ah, electricity’s back,’ Isha said, and flipping an old-fashioned black switch, turned on a naked weak-rayed bulb overhead.

‘You should take this with you . . .’ She went out of the room and returned a moment later with a pair of sneakers and an umbrella.

A few minutes later, the sisters stood on the stone steps of CM1, dry under its deep eaves.

‘So then,’ Isha said wearily, hanging in the glass double doors of the gallery, ‘if you see them at the Highland Park, Mr and Mrs Turd, ask them to come tonight.’

‘Why would I see them?’

‘You’ll see him, I’m sure. Poor fellow. He’s always there at lunchtime, crouched over his food in some corner, on his ownsome-lonesome, of course!’

‘Why? Where’s she?’

‘She? Oh, she doesn’t get up till one.’

The rain had stopped, and a few cautious spokes of light broke through the thick wandering clouds, distantly illuminating a crescent of meadow. Some unpainted sheets of corrugated iron blazed in the sunshine. Uma felt a surge of optimism: the sudden post-romance brightness of wanting to show someone something beautiful: and then it was gone, and she had a corresponding sense of vacancy.

She had found no way to assimilate what had happened with Maniraja that day. The nature of her attraction, its perversity, had always been a mystery to her even when she was young. But what happened that Sunday morning after their big fight was impenetrable even by her own standards. They had fallen into each other’s arms the moment she walked through the door. They had had sex and she had drunk in his smell. The evil reek of his armpits, pressing its way past the tired curtain of cologne. It had been enough – combined with the power of rapprochement and the violent unexpectedness of the encounter – to give her the full shuddering ache and terror of an orgasm. He hovered over her, as her face was grazed by the scorching cotton of hotel bed sheets, and she heard muttered, with the airy and fanciful quality of a nursery rhyme, the words, ‘My God, darling, you’re makhan. Pure butter.’

Then he was gone, and she was left to balance the power of the morning’s encounter with what had happened the night before. She was leaving for Gulmarg soon after and she had decided to think about it while she was away, to hold off his advances till her mind had cleared a little. As time went on, the dialectic of mind and heart produced a strange result in her. She still held on to the conviction that this was not the man for her. The argument stood, but what changed was that all the passion left it. It felt true, but inert: it had no power to animate her. Her passion, with double-dealing ease, went over to the side of wanting him, more than ever, to call. If anything remained of her earlier resolve to ward him off, it was just that she would not call first. It was not pride that made her act in this way, but the ghost of a self-protective instinct: for she still believed, in the rational part of her mind, so discredited by swelling desire, that he was not good for her, not right for her. In the face of her uncertainty, she found she slipped into passivity.

And yet, with every part of herself that was mysterious, that had the potential to stir the thoughts of others, she willed him to be in touch. He became the object of every horoscope she read, every coincidence she encountered, every little inkling she had that something was about to change in her life. She addressed herself to him in mirrors; she drove him into her dreams; she made him the invisible witness, as she did now, to the beautiful things she saw, the sun breaking over the meadow on a rainy afternoon . . . And naturally – anyone could have told her! – what she was doing, which excited the imagination’s talent for filling absences, was a far more certain way of her falling in love with Maniraja than if she had just picked up the telephone and called him. But she did not see it that way: she thought of herself, out of a virtue too heavy to bear, as denying herself the thing she wanted. This penance had the effect of creating a new Maniraja, far removed from the reality of the man. A Maniraja of her imagination. The more she resisted him, the more perfect he became, the staler her reasons for resisting him became. And it was in part to fortify herself against him that she had chosen Gayatri Mann to have lunch with that day: a woman she associated purely with the intellect, a woman whom she knew would loath a man like Maniraja, and who, more than anyone else, would be able to reinforce the case against him.

She saw her, in a lilac chiffon sari, at a table by the window. Smoking, reading, sipping a nimbu pani. A small woman, with short hair, and a dark intent face. Black Gums, her enemies called her, for she could be vicious. But she was also – in Uma’s view – among the most intelligent women she had ever met. Uma recalled the story Toby used to tell about her, ‘I’d just finished reading
The Crack-Up
, the Fitzgerald essay, you know; and it has this very memorable line: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” Now, for some reason – one afternoon in New York or London, I forget which – I remember quoting it to them, Zubin and Gayatri; and Zubin said, “It’s very good, but it’s not his, is it? This idea? It feels like someone else’s.” And Gayatri – without missing a beat; I hadn’t even thought she’d been listening – says, “It’s Hegel: it’s the idea of the dialectic.” I was so impressed, I can’t tell you! Because, of course, she was right. But to see one thing in the other like that, and so quickly . . .’

Uma and Gayatri had not always had an easy relationship, for Gayatri – unlike her direct opposite the fair-weather friend – was a tremendous support in bad times, but unreliable in good times.

On seeing Uma, she leapt to her feet, greeting her with that smoky rush of words, singsong and barbed, for which she was famous, ‘Uma ji! Many, many happy returns. Is it today?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Well, Happy Birthday in advance. How are you? What a pleasure to see you. How well you look. And Skanda baba? How is he? And Rudrani?! Beautiful names. I see Toby’s hand there, no doubt. Are they thriving, the both of them?! Please give them my love. I’m just in from New York. Zubin’s off at some sales conference or the other. He just gave a big bash for John Richardson, who’s working on a wonderful four-volume biography of Picasso. But, chalo, let’s leave the West in the West, shall we? It’s all AIDS there and nothing else. Terrible, terrible! Robert Fraser a few years back; Chatwin this year. It’s like the plague in Thucydides. You remember Chatwin from that little dinner Nixu gave in the Seventies? I was at the memorial in February. Poor Brucie. How he used to love India.’

Uma nodded, managing just to insert, ‘I know. I’m sorry also to hear about the trouble with Salman. Zubin must be . . .’

Gayatri did not tolerate the slightest incursion onto her turf. And if ever someone raised a subject that was clearly her territory – but was perhaps also in the public domain – she would cut them off, and say something so perversely contrary about it, so clearly opposed to all conventional opinion, that it was obvious her main objective was not to enlighten the person on this subject, of which she had intimate knowledge, but rather to remind them that it was not their place to have raised it in the first place.

‘Well, Salman,’ she said acidly. ‘That’s another story. And let me tell you: he had it coming to him: he knew just what he was doing with that crazy book. But leave Salman. Tell me about you. Or wait: let’s order first? You know how these cretins are!’

The lunch room at the Highland Park Hotel was one of the most festive places in Gulmarg. The hotel had a little flag, which it hoisted every morning with great ceremony, and took down in the evenings. Mealtimes were fixed, as were menus, and a bell would ring at 3 p.m. to announce the end of lunch. The waiters, distinguished older men, with neatly trimmed beards and thick bandgalas, their brass buttons blazing, knew all the regulars, and welcomed them with that stern air of efficiency that, like a form of tough love, is the hallmark of those places that are supremely proud of their clientele, but where, out of the need to cope with the excitement of serving dazzling celebrity, a kind of reverse snobbery prevails. Movie stars and the wives of rich businessmen were ushered to their tables, as if they were children in the canteen of a boarding school, and questioned brusquely before an open notebook.

Abdul Rahman Mir – the oldest of this breed – appeared before them now, and having taken down their order like an inquisitor, he slapped shut his notebook and was gone.

For a moment Uma’s eyes had a searching look; her smile fell heavily on the table; Gayatri made her anxious. She noticed the book she was reading.

‘Ah, the Eliot!’ Gayatri said, following her eyes intently. ‘The essays. I haven’t read them since Cambridge. Zubin’s doing a new edition this fall. There’s a wonderful one on
Hamlet
. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it. He says, “the essence of the play is the feeling of a son towards a guilty mother . . .” But then – listen to this, Uma ji. Are you fine with nimbu pani, by the way? I don’t think we can get a drink here for love or money – Wait, I need my glasses: can you imagine? How old we’ve become! When I was in Cuba with Helmut, I used to be able to read the numbers on his negatives. And, now, look! Sit, sit, sit.’

She reached for a slim pair of reading glasses that lay among the white table cloth and silver, and read aloud: ‘Haan, toh: “Hamlet”, he says, “is up against the difficulty that his disgust is occasioned by his mother, but that his mother is not an adequate equivalent for it.” Isn’t that nice? He says it “envelops and exceeds her”. . . “becomes a thing he doesn’t understand” . . . “and it therefore remains to poison life and obstruct action.” Wonderful, no?’

She removed her glasses and, eyes smiling, she said, ‘A better explanation for inaction I’ve never read. It’s about those people who, afraid of action, look for reasons not to act. And we know so many, don’t we, Uma ji? But enough with all this high-mindedness! Tell me about yourself. How is your heart? I saw Toby, you know.’

‘You did?’ Uma said, with some disbelief.

‘Yes. I was at the wedding. How could I not have been, Uma! I’ve known him for yonks. Small squalid little affair in a registry, followed by a nice lunch afterwards at Claridges. He’s married a terrible little drudge of a woman. Mousy, common, something between an au pair and a nurse.’

At this she cackled happily, and was every bit Black Gums.

Uma felt as though Toby, this person she had known so well, had suddenly been taken from her and returned to the world, like a card, essential to a winning hand, thrown back into the anonymity of the deck. She tried as best she could to seem unconcerned, but wavered between curiosity and a wish to know nothing more.

Gayatri, for she was far from simply malicious, must have sensed how she was feeling and said, ‘But you mustn’t think about it, Uma ji. You’re well out of that situation. Toby’s at that stage in his life where his rage will now turn to bitterness . . .’

‘Rage?’ Uma said with surprise. ‘And Toby? I’ve never heard those two words used in the same sentence before. What rage?’

‘Oh, such rage!’ Gayatri said, thinking nothing of lecturing Uma on her own ex-husband; and, as if wanting to erase the scepticism she saw in her eyes, she continued, ‘That pure intellectual rage of the visionary or the utopian. Thomas More, Allama Iqbal, Adolf Schiklgruber: these are Toby’s kindred spirits, his brothers in utopia. Don’t go by the placidity on the surface, or the fact that his interests seem esoteric. He is boiling underneath. His is that withdrawal into the world of pure form, that heaven of theory, where the strengthening or weakening of every root can be perfectly determined, every verbal formation governed by laws: this is the hallmark of the kind of man he is. He ain’t a Sanskritist for nothing. And it is, by no means, a private or benign vision. No! He would have this fierce system order the world, if he could. His dream of renaissance, Uma, is a frightening thing. And do you know what?’

‘What, Gayatri?’ Uma said, half-mockingly.

‘He is about to come face to face with reality.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You see all this time he’s held us lot in contempt. Deracinated, colonized, little brown sahibs, keener on Shakespeare than Kalidasa . . . And he’s not wrong there. All the time, he’s held out hope that some other truer, purer,
more authentic
India will rise, and push us out. Then, verily, we will see the coming of Ramrajya or whatever fantasy he’s cooked up in that head of his. There’ll be seminars on Tantric Shaivism and theatres full of well-heeled people applauding the latest rendition of Bhavabhuti: children in school will argue whether Vallabhadeva was a better commentator or Mallinatha: and in the drawing rooms of Delhi people will be made to feel small for not knowing the third person optative of the Class VII verb “
rudh
” . . .’

Uma laughed.

‘You’re mad, Gayatri.’

‘I mean it, Uma ji. He has always harboured some little hope of a second Ayodhya rising up, like a city upon a hill, out of whatever churning is due our way. And here, again, he’s not wrong. There will be a churning. This old order will not survive. And it is true: the people who come after us will have more regard for the things Toby has such high regard for. But if he thinks that it is Renaissance –
quattrocento
Florence-style – that’s coming our way . . . Wow-zee, does he have another thing coming to him! Because he doesn’t know rough till he sees this bunch. And what’s more . . .’