But then, when she saw him, looking over my head, he wasn’t at all like his picture. He looked awkward, absurdly young, and somehow very reassuring. Also a little funny, because his eyes were hugely magnified by those glasses of his, and he kept blinking in an anxious, embarrassed kind of way. She hadn’t been able to help throwing her arms around him; it was just pure relief. She knew at last why she had come, and she was glad. It had nothing to do with curiosity.
She was given our guest room — a large, airy room which looked out over the garden. I used to slip in there whenever I could. I would sit on the bed and watch her — writing letters, playing her recorder, brushing her hair. I loved the smell of her: the smell of shampoo and soap and something else, not perfume, I was sure, because I hated the smell of perfume. Something cool and breezy.
I leant over, picked at her pullover and sniffed it. She drew back, startled.
What’s this now? she said. What’re you up to?
I’m wondering whether you still smell the same, I told her.
And do I?
Yes, I said. You do. What do you smell of?
She sniffed her pullover herself and made a face: Sweat? Grime?
No — something else.
All right, she said, laughing. I’ll confess: it’s lavender water.
Later, in my adolescence, I was ashamed, nail-bitingly ashamed, of staring at her like that, sniffing at her, fingering her clothes surreptitiously. I used to squirm, thinking of how I had behaved, and then I would argue with myself, try to restore a sense of balance: she hadn’t minded, I would say, she probably liked the attention; maybe she hadn’t even noticed — after all, to her I was probably like a boy from Mars. But then I would be ashamed again, for I knew it wasn’t the truth. The truth was that she was kind — so kind that she had not spared herself the sight of herself seen through my eyes.
One evening we went for a walk. I led her down Southern Avenue, towards Gole Park, partly because I wanted to show her our old flat, and partly because I wanted to teach Montu a lesson. In school I had bragged to him about our visitor and he had laughed and refused to believe me. On the way we encountered the ‘cotton man’. He was, as usual, twanging on the instrument he used in the plying of his trade — the single-stringed tool, like a very long bow, with which he fluffed up the cotton in old mattresses and quilts. May stopped dead on the pavement when she saw him. What is that instrument? she asked me. I was trying to think of an answer when she said: It’s a kind of harp, isn’t it? I didn’t know what a harp was, but she was looking so eager, I nodded anyway. She was delighted that she had guessed right. Oh please, she said, do you think you could ask him to stop and play for us a bit?
I had no choice now. I went up to him and said: This foreign lady wants to hear the sound of your machine. Can you sit on the pavement and twang on it for a bit? He was taken aback, but he nodded, squatted on the roadside and duly plucked at the string. We listened for a while to its deep, monotonous drone. May was a little disappointed. It’s a rather limited instrument, she said. Isn’t it? But she gave the cotton-man five rupees and he went off, twanging happily.
I don’t remember any longer whether we did go to Gole Park in the end, nor whether I managed to score a point off Montu. But I do remember that when we got back home we found that the cotton-man had already been there and told my parents about his encounter with me and May. My father had laughed so much, he was hiccuping. I made faces at him, trying to get him to be quiet, but it was no use; the secret was out. I was afraid May would be angry with me when she found out; that she would not let me sit in her room any longer. But she wasn’t; she merely twinkled her blue eyes at me, ruffled my hair, and said: So you played a little joke on me, did you?
She won my heart.
Years later, when I told Ila about May and the cotton-man, she curled her lip and said: Sounds exactly like her. She has a kind of wide-eyed air about her even when she’s in London — like one of those worthy women who come down from small towns on weekend-return tickets.
But that wasn’t what I had meant at all. To me it seemed that May’s curiosity had grown out of a kind of innocence; an innocence which set her apart from all the women I knew, for it was not the innocence of ignorance, but a forthright, unworldly kind of innocence, which I had never before met in a woman, for among the women I knew, like my mother and my relatives, there was none, no matter how secluded, who was free of that peculiar, manipulative worldliness which comes from dealing with large families — a trait which seemed to grow in those women in direct proportion to the degree to which they were secluded from the world.
Often, especially during the first few days of her visit, May would take me along with her when she went out with Tridib. One morning Tridib drove us to the Victoria Memorial, which May had particularly wanted to see, in the old blue Studebaker. It was May who insisted on taking me along. I was glad to go, of course: there was nothing I liked better than to eat chaat and ice-cream at the Victoria Memorial. On the way, leaning over the front seat, I told May about all the nice things she would get to eat when we got there. When we reached the corner of Lower Circular Road and Chowringhee, I told her to shut her eyes. She humoured me, and when the immense marble edifice was directly in front of us, I cried: May, look!
I remember she cried out — My God! — so loudly that Tridib trod hard upon the brakes and the Studebaker came to a sudden halt at the foot of the huge, black statue of Queen Victoria. We found ourselves staring up at her, like maharajas at a durbar. Tridib and I began to laugh, because it was after that statue that Ila’s mother had been named, because she sat just so, with her hands planted regally on the arms of her chair, clutching her teacup like a sceptre. We started to explain the family joke to May but got lost somewhere halfway through. And then, at the same time, Tridib and I both noticed that May had turned her head, averted her eyes from the statue and the building.
She saw us looking at her and threw her door open. Come on! she said. Let’s have a look at that Memorial.
We went up to the wrought-iron gates and gazed at the odd little dome and stunted minarets. Then she put a hand on my shoulder and said: Let’s go, please, I can’t bear it.
She had gone very pale. Tridib put his arm around her, led her back to the car and helped her climb in. He gestured to me to get in and climbed in himself, behind the wheel. He reached absentmindedly for the ignition-key, but then he let his hand drop and turned to look at May. She was staring blankly at the dashboard, crouched in her seat.
He stretched his hand out, cupped her chin in his palm and turned her face towards him. May? he whispered. What’s the matter, May?
Her teeth were clenched; she would not look at him.
What’s the matter? Tell me.
It shouldn’t be here, she blurted out. It’s an act of violence. It’s obscene.
Tridib laughed and tilted her face up. Her eyes were wide open now, looking directly at him.
No it’s not, he said. This is our ruin; that’s what we’ve been looking for.
Then she laughed too, and put her hand over his, turned the palm up and kissed it.
Yes, she said. This will do for our ruin.
Then Tridib handed me a five-rupee note and told me to go and eat whatever I wanted. He said they would wait for me.
Why do I remember this incident when I have forgotten so much else? I don’t know. Because of the way they looked at each other, perhaps, the way he touched her and she kissed the palm of his hand, the way they smiled, as though there were a secret between them that I would never understand. I was jealous, achingly jealous, as only a child can be, because it had always been my unique privilege to understand Tridib, and that day at the Victoria Memorial I knew I had lost that privilege; somehow May had stolen it from me.