And then, because Mrs Price didn’t know about his present, Tridib told her about the story Snipe had promised him.
But, of course, in the event he got a birthday dinner and other presents as well. Mrs Price looked in her larder and found a few odds and ends with which she managed to put together a fairly hearty meal (no boiled cauliflower leaves today, dear) and a Cornish heavy cake (with invisible Blackout candles, Snipe said). And he got a jacket and shirt from his mother and father and a nice old pair of brass opera glasses from Mrs Price, to watch the planes with, and best of all a brand new Bartholomew’s Atlas from Snipe. So altogether he’d done quite well, even before the story. But he couldn’t linger over his presents, as he’d have liked, because the Alert sounded while they were still at the dinner table.
They knew it was going to be a bad night as soon as they heard the first planes. They could tell from the noise as the planes flew over the house — in massed groups, their engines chugging along in a steady determined rhythm. Then the gun in the cricket field in Alvanley Gardens opened up, and at once the pictures on the walls and the cups on the table began to rattle. Soon Snipe led them down to the cellar, carrying May in his arms, and they sat on their beds, looking at the ceiling in the light of the oil lamp, and wondering how long the raid would last. There was a very loud explosion somewhere near by: it shook the floor of the cellar and nearly toppled the oil lamp off its shelf. May began to cry, and Tridib, just when he was beginning to wonder how much longer he’d be able to hold out without crying himself, remembering Snipe’s promise: Please Snipe — the story — you promised …
And what of the story?
I see it in the mouths of the ghosts that surround me in the cellar: of Snipe telling it to Tridib, of Tridib telling it to Ila and me, in that underground room in Raibajar; I see myself, three years later, taking May, the young May, to visit the house in Raibajar the day before she left for Dhaka with my grandmother and Tridib; I see myself leading her into that underground room in that old house, showing her the table under which Ila and I had sat when she first introduced me to Nick; I tell her how Ila cried that day after telling me the story of Magda; and now May talks to me about Nick, and later I show her how Tridib had come into the room while Ila was still crying on my shoulder, crying for her brother Nick, and I tell her how Tridib asked me what the matter was with Ila, and I tell him, so to stop her crying he crawls into the house on Lymington Road and leads us down to the cellar, and tells us the story Snipe had once told him.
What story? May said. I tried to remember, tried very hard, but somehow it wouldn’t come back to me. But later that day, back in Calcutta, in Tridib’s house in Ballygunge Place, when Tridib asked me what I’d shown May in Raibajar, I said: I took her to that underground room — do you remember, where …
… Where I found Ila crying, and you sitting beside her? he said.
And to stop her crying you told us a story, remember?
What was the story? said May. I want to know. Tell me.
Tridib seated himself on a mat and folded his legs.
It was a wonderful, sad little story, he said. I forgot all about the air raid while he was telling it to me.
Where did it happen? I asked. Which country?
Ah, said Tridib. That’s the trick, you see. It happened everywhere, wherever you wish it. It was an old story, the best story in Europe, Snipe said, told when Europe was a better place, a place without borders and countries — it was a German story in what we call Germany, Nordic in the north, French in France, Welsh in Wales, Cornish in Cornwalclass="underline" it was the story of a hero called Tristan, a very sad story, about a man without a country, who fell in love with a woman-across-the-seas …
That was on the day before they left for Dhaka: it was the last story Tridib ever told me.
And I heard his voice again, in that cellar, while Ila cried, sitting beside me on the camp bed.
She was crying very hard. I had never seen her cry like that: her whole body was racked by the effort of her sobs; at times it seemed as though she was going to retch into her handkerchief.
I put an arm around her and held her tight against me. I knew; I’d known from the moment I’d seen her eyes at Trafalgar Square that she wanted to tell me something. I knew she was waiting for me to ask her what it was, but also knew I wouldn’t: I did not want to know; I did not want to offer a sympathy I did not feel.
It was a while before she stopped crying, and even after that she lay with her head against my chest, hiccuping, unable to speak.
I’m sorry, she said at last. I don’t know what came over me.
I waited, in silence.
It’s Nick, she said.
All right, I said. Go on, tell me. What’s he done? Forgotten to buy you roses or spilt your morning tea?
You bastard, she said, pushing herself upright. Don’t you dare talk to me like that.
Go on, I said. Let’s get it over with. You may as well tell me now. What happened? Did you creep back home in the still of the day and find him in bed with another woman?
She gave me a startled glance and turned away again, to look at her fingernails.
Could I ever have imagined, she said, that I, Ila Datta-Chaudhuri, free woman and free spirit, would ever live in that state of squalor where incidents in one’s life can be foretold like teasers for a bad television serial? I suppose not, but there you are. Yes, you’re right, more or less — you’ve seen it all already, on TV. That’s more or less exactly what happened.
She had telephoned him at home, one afternoon, soon after they got back from their honeymoon in Africa. She used to miss him dreadfully while she was at the office; miss being with him all day long, miss his voice, the smell of him. But she’d made it a rule not to telephone him too often; she didn’t want him to feel that she was being too possessive.
But that afternoon she gave in. She picked up the phone in her office, when the others happened to be out for a bit, and dialled the number, hoping he’d be at home. He usually stayed in, or so he said, since he wasn’t working yet. The phone rang for a while, and just when she was about to ring off, a female voice answered — breathless, as though they’d had a playful tussle. The voice said: ‘Allo, with a French kind of intonation. Ila was so taken aback, she found herself saying: Could I speak to Nick Price please? as though she were asking her bank manager’s secretary for an appointment. The voice giggled and said: ‘Oos speaking please?
His wife, Ila answered, and slammed the phone down.
Despite myself, I began to laugh. Oh, sad little Ila, I said. Your sins have finally come home to roost.
I wish it were that, she said, with a tired little shake of her head. I wish I could say to myself, why, I used to do that kind of thing too, it doesn’t mean anything. But I never did, you know. You see, you’ve never understood, you’ve always been taken in by the way I used to talk, when we were in college. I only talked like that to shock you, and because you seemed to expect it of me somehow. I never did any of those things: I’m about as chaste, in my own way, as any woman you’ll ever meet.
I was ashamed now. I dropped my eyes and said: Did you ask him about it?
Yes, she said. He was waiting for me when I got home. He was very calm, very cool. He had obviously thought it all out. I think he’d wanted me to find out, in a way; maybe he’d even guessed I’d ring and asked her to answer the phone. He wanted to make a point; to let me know that I shouldn’t take anything for granted just because we’re living in a flat my father’s bought for me. And because I have a job and he doesn’t.
She turned to look at me, her eyes hysterically bright, her mouth twisted into a smile.