A Life Apart (16 page)

This cottaging business is developing into a kind of fixture in Ritwik’s life. Every evening, or almost every evening, he finds his way here unerringly, like an insect following a
pheromone track. Sometimes he does a round at the Angel and Greyhound Meadow under Magdalen Bridge, but it is a less familiar dance, not of the thoroughly rehearsed St. Giles variety. Besides, St.
Giles offers solid shelter from the frequent rains and wind. And an embarrassment of riches.

That, above all, is what he finds incredible – the sheer availability at practically all times, the accepted and understood fact that at certain types of places, at certain times, you can
get what you want. It’s there for the taking; you just have to turn up and wait for it.

But there are good days and bad days. There are cold evenings of nearly frozen feet, the socks like a thick sheath of ice, spent waiting, waiting for footsteps which are few and far between,
evenings when the cottaging population seems to have become almost extinct, or when the few available ones do not please at all. To wait is to experience time in its purest form; he understands how
viscous, like treacle, it is in its unadulterated state. During these evenings, he paces around inside his cubicle, running to the hinge at the slightest sound. Some of these evenings seem to be
jinxed – only the old, dirty-mac brigade seems to be out hunting.

Sometimes he sits on the toilet seat and thinks of how to carry on the essay from where he left off, still lying on his desk under the weight of a bottle of Quink. Sentences flit and hide, like
a sudden green flapping and screeching of parrots overhead:
It is the bright and battering sandal of representation that bruises Hopkins, not dark nights of the soul, not theological despair,
not the fugitive presence/absence of God. How to hold and contain, how to speak God’s grandeur, and nature, His book’s, in fallen language, language ‘soiled with trade’,
other than to burn, buckle and bend the old language to forge a new? This straining against linguistic representation is acted out as a personal drama of despair, but, paradoxically enough, the
bruising of the poet releases his scent, like camomile or thyme crushed
. . . The rain beats out its peculiar music on the reinforced glass and concrete roof overhead. It lulls and comforts
him. All he is waiting for is the sound of the right footsteps.

T
he room is enormous and for one which contains such a lot of furniture – an ornate gilt mirror, chairs, a sofa, a divan, a grand piano
with its legs resting on small saucers of water to prevent insects from climbing it and building their colonies inside, and books, books everywhere, in glass-fronted dark wood cupboards taking up
two entire walls and a large section of the third – it seems unusually full of light. The curtains are not heavy and the two doors are wide open, one to the courtyard, one to the interior,
which is also filled with diffuse light on this sunny day, so rare for monsoon. Miss Gilby has time to take in the room and its furnishings before Bimala arrives accompanied by her husband for her
first meeting with her English tutor and companion. Miss Gilby tries to steady her hand around her teacup; she is surprised she is as nervous with anticipation as possibly Bimala is this
morning.

She moves over to one of the bookcases; this appears to be the one that houses English books only. Complete works of Shakespeare. The collected poetry and prose of Milton. The works of Dr
Johnson. There’s a lot of poetry: Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Browning, Tennyson. Beautiful octavo editions in brown leather with gold-tooled letters on the spine. She picks out one
that says, laconically, ‘Lyrics’ only and starts leafing through it. Instantly she recognizes it as the volume of medieval English short poems so beloved of her and Violet, the very
book from which they took turns to read aloud to each other on evenings spent in each other’s company only. A random poem catches her eye – ‘Now springes the spray,/All for love I
am so seek/That slepen I ne may’ – then another: ‘He cam also stille/Ther his moder was,/As dew in Aprille/That falleth on the grass.’ She is so stabbed with nostalgia, with
a kind of homesickness, that she puts the book back and carries on with the safer activity of reading only the titles on spines. Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas More, Locke. She moves to
another cupboard. This contains only Bengali books. She has to bend slightly and crane her neck in order to read the writing on the spines. She can only manage to do this slowly in the beginning.
Before she has had a chance to decipher some of the letters, as a little test of her fledgling literacy in the language, she notices an edition of Mrs. Beeton. Surely a mistake in shelving
otherwise how could it have strayed here, among the Bengali books, she thinks, when she hears footsteps and the swish of fabric outside. Without hurrying, she moves to the sofa, sits and puts down
her cup on the glass-covered table in front of her.

As husband and wife enter the room, Miss Gilby stands up. Mr Roy Chowdhury says, ‘No, no, Miss Gilby, please remain seated, there’s no need to stand.’

Bimala stands at his side, head down, the
aanchol
of her sari lifted up to the back of her head and over it, the rich magnetic blue of the cloth accentuating the deep vermilion parting
in the middle. She looks as if she would prefer to be invisible or to hide behind her husband. Dark skinned, slightly built, arms with bangles – gold, coral, the mandatory white shell of the
married woman – but nothing ostentatious, the sleeves of her simple blue blouse coming down to her elbows, a plain gold chain around her neck, small gold earrings. She refuses to look
anywhere except at the coloured geometric designs on the tiled floor.

Miss Gilby takes in a deep breath – her heart is beating very fast – and says as clearly as she can manage, ‘How do you do Bimala. It is such a pleasure to meet you at
last,’ every word separate, enunciated, crystalline.

Bimala keeps her head bowed. Her husband stands at her side and says something in Bengali, which Miss Gilby cannot quite follow. They advance into the room, she so draggingly that it seems
she is willing the floor to open up and swallow her, and take their seats on the divan opposite.

Mr Roy Chowdhury addresses Miss Gilby: ‘She’s feeling very shy. She’s been so nervous about this meeting that she has stayed up nearly three nights in a row.’ He
laughs affectionately. Bimala whispers something quickly to him. The body language leaves Miss Gilby in no doubt that she is aghast that her husband should reveal this to her English tutor. Which
means, Miss Gilby rejoices in her heart, Bimala understands a lot more English than she had been led to believe.

‘What is there to be nervous about? I’m here to be your friend.’ Miss Gilby tries to make her voice as amiable as possible.

There is no verbal response from Bimala but she lifts up her face and looks at Miss Gilby. The large, doe-dark eyes take in the English lady, perhaps the first one she has ever seen at such
close range. There is a hint of a smile in the corners of her mouth. She looks down almost immediately again.

Mr Roy Chowdhury and Miss Gilby exchange glances that are at once amused and protective, the sort of look parents and teachers exchange over a child struck dumb by shyness. He says, ‘I
think she will speak but it might take time.’

Miss Gilby hastens to allay, ‘Don’t worry, this is just the first meeting. I’m sure she’ll open up with time, won’t you, Bimala?’ She turns her gaze on the
young woman who still continues concentrating steadfastly on the patterns on the floor.

Bimala says nothing then she whispers to her husband. Mr Roy Chowdhury nods enthusiastically, says something back, but Bimala seems to react to it with even greater withdrawal.

Mr Roy Chowdhury asks Miss Gilby, ‘Bimala wants to serve you some sweets that she has made herself. She wants me to ask you if you will have some.’

Miss Gilby immediately seizes her opportunity. ‘Yes, of course, I will be delighted. But on one condition.’ She pauses. Bimala looks up expectantly. Good, thinks Miss Gilby,
she’s understood every single word.

She speaks slowly and clearly, ‘I will be very happy to eat the sweets you have prepared, Bimala, but only if you ask me directly, not through your husband.’

Mr Roy Chowdhury is pleasantly surprised by this move. He looks at the Englishwoman with admiration.

The silence in the room is expectant. Mr Roy Chowdhury turns to his wife and asks gently, in English, ‘Did you hear that? Aren’t you going to ask her, Bimala?’

Bimala has her hands clasped tightly as if in desperate prayer. She whispers something to her husband and before he can say anything, she gets up and runs out of the room, a flurry of
swishing sari and tinkling bangles and anklets.

Mr Roy Chowdhury breaks the surprised silence by chuckling out loud. Miss Gilby joins in too. He says, ‘It’s all a bit new for her. It’s been only a year that she has
stepped out of the
andarmahal.
’

‘Please don’t apologize, I understand how terrifying it must be for her. Where did she disappear?’

‘I think she’s gone to get you tea. I’ll be surprised if she comes back. She’ll probably send one of the servants.’

She smiles in acknowledgement. They sit talking for a while – he asks her if she is comfortable, if she needs anything, apologizes for any oversight on his part – he’s
unfailingly gentle and courteous.

From the sound of footsteps outside, they know that Bimala isn’t the one who is approaching the room; there is no music from her bangles and anklets, but instead the gentle tremor of
crockery and cutlery being transported carefully on a tray. A servant appears at the threshold. Mr Roy Chowdhury says something, he enters, puts the huge tea tray down on the table between them and
departs.

‘Good, tea’s arrived. Now, Miss Gilby, how do you take your tea?’

There is a great deal of china on the plate, all white, and the teapot is covered in a cosy that has been beautifully embroidered with a motif of songbirds and creepers and roses. Miss Gilby
is certain it is Bimala’s handiwork, a special object to be taken out for a special occasion, or maybe even made for this one. The tray is laden with small dishes containing about six
varieties of sweets, four of each.

‘Goodness,’ Miss Gilby exclaims, ‘is this all her work? There’s just far too much of it for two. Won’t she be joining us?’

‘I doubt very much. But you must try one of each, at the very least. Otherwise, she’ll think you don’t like her.’ He can’t help smiling when he says
this.

Miss Gilby laughs: she is not wound up inside any more. As she watches Mr Roy Chowdhury pour tea, there is once again the sound of footfall outside and, along with it, the jingle of bangles,
the rustling of cloth. It stops suddenly. Expecting Bimala, both Mr Roy Chowdhury and Miss Gilby look up. There is a long pause but no one enters. They look at each other and exchange a
conspiratorial smile.

‘I think she wants to hear what you think of her sweets. Or what the two of us have planned for her,’ Mr Roy Chowdhury whispers.

Miss Gilby whispers too, ‘Does she know that we know?’

Mr Roy Chowdhury raises his voice and calls out to her. Instantly, there is a sound of hasty retreat, footsteps, rustling, tinkling, all fading down to the interior of the house. Mr Roy
Chowdhury and Miss Gilby fall about laughing as if they’ve been the ones caught playing children’s games.

The house, called ‘Dighi Bari’, or ‘Lake House’ – although there is no lake near it, just a big pond with dark, unfathomable water and wet,
green woods ringing most of its circumference – is big, not half as big as the palace of the Nawab of Motibagh, but capacious enough for it to be recognized as a local
zamindar
’s
house: three storeys, painted a buttery yellow, in a regular quadrilateral shape, enclosing a large, brick-paved central courtyard. All the rooms in the house open out on to this courtyard. The
rooms facing east look out on to a garden, big and rambling, which leads ultimately to a track to the village, about half a mile away: this is the designated ‘front’ of the house. Miss
Gilby has her quarters in this section of the house (East Wing, she calls it) on the top storey. Mr Roy Chowdhury must have told the
malee
about the English love of gardens, so he has
dutifully brought up dozens of pots of plants and flowers and arranged them on the verandah outside her rooms. There are canna, zinnia, dahlia, rose, even petunia and snapdragon, a couple of ficus
plants, a flowering jasmine, which he has lovingly trailed around the iron railings. He comes to water the plants every morning, bows low when he sees the
memsahib,
so incongruous in this
house, so conspicuous in this village, which has hardly ever seen a white face.

While this back verandah with the plants, which is also a running corridor linking all the rooms on that floor, looks out on to the courtyard below, she notices that half of the first floor
– the two sides on the floor directly below hers – situated to the westfacing back of the house, which should open east to the courtyard, have wooden shutters and stained glass running
their entire length, from the floor to the ceiling. The other side of the rooms in that ‘West Wing’ presumably has a view of the woods that nestle the dark pond that gives the house its
name. This is the
andarmahal
, the secluded area of the house where the women live and, until recently, Bimala did too. She hasn’t been invited to see that area; it’s not that she
has been told to stay off, but just that that section of the house hasn’t featured in any conversation so far. The open area of that floor is Mr Roy Chowdhury and Bimala’s quarters,
while the ground floor is given over to a study, the living room, three offices, a ‘meeting room’ for conducting business, and a smaller library.

It is in the living room that Miss Gilby gives piano lessons to Bimala and conducts most of the English lessons as well. A few lessons have occasionally taken place in Miss Gilby’s
study upstairs – she knows Bimala is quite curious to see how a
memsahib
might appoint her living space – and it is very likely that they are going to take place in that more
intimate room with increasing frequency. One thing Miss Gilby knows for certain is that the passage from stilted, shy formality to an apparently easy companionship in Indian societies is swift, but
whether she will be let in to that intimacy is another question. She will have to wait and see.