The Death of Mr Love, page 24
Sybil was captivated, as so many people initially were, by Maya’s strange view of history and consequence. They swapped family stories. Under Maya’s tutelage, Sybil (to Killy’s surprise and pleasure) began to learn Hindi. She practised writing the script.
On a sheet of paper which also contains a pencil sketch of a dhow and a brown ring made by a cup of tea, were the following enigmatic definitions: ‘dhaivat, the song of the frog in the season of rain; miyan ki malhar, the song of thunder; nívar, wild rice; vishálákshi, large-eyed.’
She and Maya talked a great deal about the things they were writing, or at least hoped to write. Maya had published some short stories and by then must have been well underway with the script of Badnaami ka dilaasa, but said she lacked the courage to tackle anything long. Sybil was struggling with her novel about Bombay. Evidently, it would not come, because a sheet dated February 1958, tucked into her diary, lists twenty-one separate attempts, each a false start, with comments that get progressively terser:
a) One sheet typed on old Remington typewriter begins, ‘As usual we found Selim’s apology for a cab waiting by the sea wall . . .’
b) pp 39–68 of draft, fragment begins, ‘The presence of the transmitter was disturbing . . .’ Rewrite to turn descriptive passages into dialogue.
c) pp 1–126, in sections I to XIII typed single-spaced, ‘Wind whinnied in the ropes . . .’
d) pp 1–128, typewritten carbon copy, ‘As usual we found Selim’s apology . . .’
e) pp 1–35, pages 11–20 missing. Begins, ‘As usual we found Selim’s apology for a gharry . . .’
f) One sheet, ‘Grey Notebook’, begins, ‘When she arrived in India, the last thing on Marlene’s mind . . .’
g) pp 1–56, many pages missing, begins, ‘India became real late one night . . .’
h) pp 1–5, perforated, bound in Thakur Shipping file; ‘India became real one misty dawn . . .’
i) pp 1–42; ‘As usual we found Selim’s apology for a hansom . . .’
j) pp 1–15, titled ‘Meeting’, begins, ‘I came to India in the autumn of 1948. I had wanted to travel . . .’
k) One page, same title as (j), begins ‘Gorai. Fish, eggs, rice and arak, smooth as Saqi Baba’s finest . . .’
l) pp 1–3, typed, paperclipped, begins, ‘Salty gusts of wind whined through the rigging . . .’
m) pp 1–12, typewritten, dark new ribbon, begins, ‘My home is an island called Gorai . . .’
n) pp 1–6, with interpolated note, begins, ‘James, I am wondering how to explain everything to you . . .’
o) pp 1–5, on good quality bank, begins, ‘Somewhere beyond Madgaon, love begins . . .’
p) pp 1–15, 2 pages missing, double spaced, begins, ‘Marlene Dance fell in love on a day of rain which in her native Surrey . . .’
q) pp rough notes, mostly handwritten
r) pp 1–44, double spaced, good attempt, begins, ‘Jealousy is an infection of the eye . . .’
s) pp 1–5, ‘He lives with that awful blonde tart in the Taj . . .’
t) pp 1–32, ‘Two floors below, glints of light spun in the waves as they gulped at the rocks . . .’
u) pp 1–68, ‘As usual we found Selim . . .’
Who this Selim was, he who occupied so much of her thoughts, never became clear. Perhaps a fantasy. The horse-drawn gharries, as she called them, functioned only between the extravagant outrage of the Taj Hotel (where the blonde tart was in residence) and a loop which took in part of Colaba Causeway and a short stretch of Marine Drive. The horses were poor emaciated things, their ribs as prominent as those of the half-built dhows that lined the shore of the Back Bay.
One of the people to whom Maya introduced Sybil was the novelist Mulk Raj Anand who, when she asked for his advice on writing a Bombay novel, replied, ‘I am not a novelist, I am trying to be a man. Burn your so-good poems and short stories. Give me a true picture of our poorest people.’
About a year into their friendship, Maya and Captain Sahib were planning their move to the hills. Some time towards the end of 1957, Maya and Sybil travelled up to Ambona on the train to look at the house Mohan Apte’s friend had found. It was a happy trip, they seem to have laughed a great deal. Sybil had been a charming, friendly, vivacious woman. Just as quickly as any of us, she fell under the spell of the hills. Her diary, showing the undoubted influence of her favourite author, records:
Market day. Village women bundled slimly in green and red saris, posing like dancers with baskets on their hips. They strut through the bustle, magnificent, proud creatures, wearing their poverty like rubies. Great fish with red gash bellies lie on black stone, foolish fish eyes winking at flies. Hands weigh and lift them into crushed ice. Quails, wild fowl, guinea fowl. Partridges mewing in wicker baskets. These were the unwary, caught in basket traps baited with millet by grubby cunning boys. In the market square, a musician turns, vina on shoulder. The music exhilarates me. People throw small coins in the dust, Judas coins, dry and salty silver . . . Night pounces like a panther. On the way here I passed a sloughed-off snake skin and brought it home. The villagers believe snakes have magic powers. They hang the dry leathery thongs of skin on their houses and temple walls. Tonight there was no moon. We heard the sound of drums from the village, and the notes of a flute.
Maya plainly couldn’t be doing with this sort of thing, because they had an argument.
When I read her these passages Maya grew quite cross. She said my response to India gives me away. I have a foreigner’s eye, always looking for the exotic. Maya was with me in the bazaar when the musician was playing, but noticed quite different things. The village woman, whose gaudy sari caught my eye, Maya said, was quietly counting a few coins in her hand, wondering which of the many things she needed, she would have to do without. When the bus came, a number of villagers boarded it, but this woman did not. She may have had to walk five or six miles back to her home. She had already walked to market; Maya asked if I had not noticed the dust which coated her feet up to her ankles, like socks? Life for this woman, said Maya, is a daily confrontation with helplessness. She said I must learn not simply to be satisfied with seeing the outside of things. There is nothing exotic about poverty. And Indians don’t talk to one another in quaint, funny, third-class English, they have normal conversations in languages which they speak without accent, and with no mistakes. Of course I was thoroughly chastened by this tirade, but stuck up for myself by saying that it is impossible to write anything about India, at least in English, without it sounding exotic. Maya made a bet with me. She said I could choose a story, as romantic as I liked, and she would demonstrate the two ways to tell it. First, what she called the Rumer Godden way: rivers of green silk, coconuts, temple bells. Second, her preference: reality, the salt and grit of Manto. So I challenged her to tell the story of the dancing girl, Nafísa Jaan. She has promised to write two versions. One ‘sweet’ and the other ‘bitter’.
I put down Sybil’s diary, unable to read further. ‘Death deceives with a blow, it disguises a deeper loss. It takes time to realise that the gone ones are lost for ever.’ My mother’s words, from Badnaami. When Maya died I was unable to cry, unable to grieve. It had taken all these months to realise that it wasn’t just Maya I’d lost, but everything she knew; her memories, stories from her childhood, snippets of family history, anecdotes, dates, rhymes, songs: precious things, which belonged to me as much as to her and which I had always left entrusted to her care. So when I reached the part of Sybil’s diaries where my mother’s name began constantly leaping out at me, I found myself unable to go on. I returned the diaries to their painted box, re-affixed its tiny padlock and put the key away.
THE WOMAN’S GIFT (SYBIL’S JOURNALS, 1957)
Next contact from Phoebe was not until March. The post brought a parcel from London. Inside was a child’s book. On the flyleaf, in my mother’s writing, was my name, Bhalu Sahib, Ambona, 1959.
‘I’ve kept it long enough,’ Phoebe’s note said. ‘At least it’ll be in time for your grandchildren.’
A couple of mornings later she phoned the bookshop.
‘Where have you been?’ I asked when the pleasantries were over. ‘Why these long silences?’
She apologised. Said she had been here and there. Busy. A lot on her mind. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I didn’t want to hound you. Bhalu, have you read them?’
‘You mean your mother’s diaries?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I started,’ I said, and began to explain why I had stopped.
‘Bhalu, if you would only read them again – read them properly – maybe you could work out what was going on.’
‘Nothing was going on,’ I said. ‘Nothing that would explain what you told me. At least nothing I’ve read so far.’
‘But you haven’t read everything. Please promise me you’ll read the rest.’
I wanted to explain my apparent negligence, and began to tell Phoebe how I had surprised myself by becoming upset, when I read about Maya as a young woman. ‘In Sybil’s diaries she’s almost twenty years younger than I am now.’ I told her what had come to my mind, the Badnaami ka dilaasa speech about what the loss of a loved one really means: the loss of their stories, memories . . .
‘My God,’ said Phoebe at the other end of the phone, ‘if that were really true, I’d be so grateful.’
So I found the little key and re-opened the box.
Sybil had tended to use large notebooks, and fill them quickly, so that there might be two, or even three, covering a single year. She must have been lonely, to have the time to fill so many cahiers, and that was on top of the endless versions of her novel – 668 pages, at a quick count – although heavily cannibalised. It was a wonder she found time for all those parties.
Soon the diaries started telling a darker story. She was trapped in a cold and failing marriage, alone for long periods in Killy’s dark house. The child, Phoebe, was by now at school and the person with whom Sybil had most contact during the day was Rosie the ayah. They evidently loathed one another.
For some time I have been convinced that Rosie spies on me. There is something almost feudal about her loyalty to Killy, whom she adores. As for me, I am a parvenue, not up to the mark. Her conversation, when she deigns to speak to me at all, is full of stories about ‘Old Killymem’, Killy’s mother, whom she professes to have met a number of times. Old Killymem knew how to look after her sahib. When he and his friends came home at dawn from a shoot, the table would be laden with silver dishes of eggs, kidneys poached in beer, bacon, a side of beef (where did they get it from, it is virtually unobtainable nowadays), thick pork sausages (ditto). In the evenings there were, apparently, such parties here, the men splendid in their uniforms, the women in elegant ballgowns. She makes it sound like something from a Jane Austen novel. I listen to all this nonsense, smiling, but seething inside, and point out that the world has changed. The dashing colonels and majors are as extinct as the brontosaur. But thinking about the way they lived, I am filled with incredulity. The British in India inhabited a world of their own dreaming, a vivid fantasy which at no point seemed to touch the real lives of the millions they ruled. The miracle is that the Raj lasted so long. I celebrate its death . . .
. . . Rosie has begun asking me where I go in the evenings. She comes to my room, knocks and stands in the doorway. ‘Killymem,’ she will say, ‘last night when you came home late I was so worried. It is not safe in the city at night. You should tell me where you are going then we can telephone . . .’ I wonder if she is reporting to Killy. If he is worried about me, he has never shown it, but of course he is hardly ever here to show anything. In any case, everything I do is written in these diaries, which live in a drawer of my desk. It may be that Rosie reads them when I am out. If so, Killy, you will know that I have done nothing that you, or anyone else, can reproach me with.
Less than a week after this, the diary records that on a trip to Old Man Popli’s antique shop behind the Taj she saw a charming painted wooden box on legs. It would do very well for a jewellery box. It had a little hasp and was secured by a tiny padlock. She bought it, but when she got it home, she did not put her jewellery into it. She put her diaries inside and locked it, and hung the key on a chain around her neck.
Killy came home and dropped a bombshell. He was nearly fifty. It was time to recognise that the world he knew had all but vanished. He did not see a future in India for their daugher. He talked of going ‘home’. But Sybil did not want to leave, and now the reason for locking her box became clear. The diary began to fill with a story she had so far dared not mention.
She had met a man. He was Indian, handsome, rich, single, utterly charming and he worshipped her.
S and I hideously bored at the Willingdon last night. Everyone will insist that we look like twins, so we decided to swap identities. I found myself cornered by some ghastly old Lebanese banker and gave him S’s phone number, which was wicked because, poor girl, her husband really is away. I was amused when she confessed she had played a similar trick on me. Later, I introduced her to L.
Something in this passage rang a loud bell. I knew I had heard it before. Then realised with a shock that it was part of Maya’s puzzling Retribution story. I read on eagerly. The next few pages were full of trivia. Coffee with Homi and my mother, a trip to the Jehangir Art Gallery. Soon a new entry caught my eye.
People say, usually women being catty, or men who are merely envious, that L is a womaniser. They complain that if he sees a beautiful woman on her own at a party, he will go up and ask her if she’d like to dance. But this is hardly a crime. Good manners, more like, although it isn’t quite how we met. It was at Noor’s. I was with a small group of people and noticed him in a corner of the room. He caught my eye and smiled. A little later, he came over and said hello. We spent the rest of the evening together. He was nothing but kindness. When it was time to leave, he offered to drive me home. His car awaited. A spanking new Ambassador, he announced proudly, emphasising its brand-newness by adding that he had just taken delivery. That lapse into vulgarity was the only thing he did all evening that annoyed me, but I suppose it’s flattering when someone is interested enough to try and impress you. He drove home via Marine Drive, and we got out and strolled on the sand at Chowpatty. Since then we have met a few times. Last night he took me to see a play.
Rosie, of course, was hanging around when I got home, and next morning I had a call from nosy Noor who wanted to know everything that had happened from the moment we left. She warned me to watch out. ‘. . . That one likes women whose husbands are away a lot.’ Well, mine certainly is. It’s been so long since we made love that I am beginning to feel quite unattractive. Is it surprising that I am pleased when a good-looking man notices that I am a woman?
I read this with growing excitment. Here, coming back to life in Sybil’s diary, were the characters described in Retribution. A few pages later, there it was.
Today L asked me to lunch. He took me to Gourdon’s and ordered Lobster Thermidor, which I know to be the most expensive thing on their menu. I chided him for his extravagance. His reply was that a woman like me deserved nothing but the best of everything. I am not much of one for flattery, so I tried to laugh this off. I told him that I was aware of his reputation. ‘Do you believe those stories?’ he asked. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you do a pretty good Casanova impression.’ So then he looked hurt, or pretended to, and said that while he admitted to liking women, and having many women friends, there was no one in his life who was special. ‘And yet I have a great need to love,’ he told me. What a scream! I suppose I didn’t look convinced, because then he said he would tell me a secret. I was thoroughly enjoying this performance. He leaned very close, and gazing at me with dark, defenceless eyes, he whispered that in Hindi his name meant ‘love’. I couldn’t hold it in a moment longer. I simply screamed. I was hooting. I laughed so hard that people at other tables were turning to stare. He sat there and smiled, giving me his hurt puppy look. ‘You think I am funny?’ he asked, when I had stopped laughing. I said, ‘You are well named, a perfect little Narcissus, and from now on I shall call you Mister Love.’
Mister Love! So he had been real. And Sybil had been one of his lovers. But which? Was she One, or Two? Did it mean that the rest of the story was true? Mister Love in his bath towel? A black mouth that spoke a word to end his life? Mister Love had been murdered. But my enthusiasm was blunted when I recalled that, according to my man in Bombay, no such murder had been reported in Blitz. A far more plausible explanation was that Maya liked to base her stories on nuggets of reality, events from her own life, or those of her friends. Had she just taken the story of Sybil’s love affair, Mister Love and all, and used it as the basis for a fictional murder?
On the other hand, there was The Eel Fisher, in which Maya seemed to blame herself for Mister Love’s murder. A murder that never happened?
Love, what is it? A luxury, in marriage. Marriage kills love, does it not? Sybil confided her feelings to my mother.
Met Maya for coffee at the Mockba. Couldn’t keep it in. I was bursting to tell someone. I had to. I hope she was not shocked. It’s feelings. Just feelings. It’s not as if I’ve done anything. One can’t help having feelings. The thing is not to act on them. I assured Maya that I am determined never to reveal my feelings to L because I am afraid of what might happen. Maya thinks this is wise. She says that it is probably no more than an infatuation.
Maya told Sybil of the experience of a friend of hers, who was in love with a man who had treated her miserably – on off, off on – for years. Maya’s friend yearned for this man, suffered agonies for him. One day, having returned from one of his long absences abroad, he took her to lunch. Over soup she noticed a shred of watercress stuck to his moustache. She laughed out loud. In that instant she knew that she did not love him. He was ridiculous. He was still sitting there, smiling when she pushed back her chair and left. She never saw him again.
