Reappearing almost immediately on the back porch, he stares down with a vicious sneer on his face at the recumbent chuprassi, who’s sound asleep, his beard stirring slightly each time he breathes out with a little snore. The other man stands poised like a stork on his left leg; the right leg, thin as a stick but immensely strong, shoots out with the sudden force of a mule’s, kicking him in the kidneys.
‘Pig-dog! Is this how you guard the master’s property?’ His voice rises to a thin scream.
The chuprassi wakes with a yell of pain, scrambling on all fours, endeavouring at the same time to retrieve his badge of office and to massage the injured spot, pouring out a guttural flood of confused excuses, apologies. The only answer is a violently ejected, neatly aimed blob of spit, which sizzles into the soft dust, making a deep pit there, only just missing his hand.
Having thus aroused his subordinate to a sense of duty Mohammed moves on, his large horny feet with their widely splayed, almost prehensile toes rising and falling soundlessly, impervious to stones, splinters, cactus spines, scorpions, snakes — all the assorted hazards of the compound.
Silently circling the silent house, he rather resembles animated, gnarled, ancient piece of wood, from which sap has long ago been extracted by the relentless sun, padding along, indefatigable, indestructible-seeming, in thee blasting noonday heat, watching everything out of blinking eyes.
10
Down the stairs comes a handsome major of about forty, immaculate in R.A.M.C. tropical uniform. The girl is waiting for him at the bottom. She is relieved that his visit has gone off quietly, with no explosions of bad temper on the part of the patient. It now only remains for her to show this army doctor out to his car, waiting in the shade of the porch. She’s never met him before, and, as he comes down, looking cool, smart, and assured, he seems to personify all that’s acceptable socially, and that she is not. For this reason, his presence makes her slightly uneasy, and she’ll be glad when he’s gone.
‘Not to worry,’ he tells her. ‘He’ll be over this in three or four days.’
His voice is pleasant, but off-hand. She expects him to go straight out to his car, and is surprised when he pauses instead, looking at her. At the same moment, she hears bottles being put down behind her, looks round, and sees that Mohammed Dirwaza Khan has brought a tray of drinks into the sitting room. The Moslem lifts his head, confronting her with the frown of disapproval he puts on these days when he thinks she’s done something wrong, hardly troubling to hide his contempt, now that he’s in triumphant charge of the sickroom. The faint flush that appears on her cheeks could equally well be because she’s ashamed of not standing up to him, or afraid the major will notice she doesn’t, or because it hasn’t: occurred to her to offer him a drink.
Now she does so, and he accepts. Together they go into the room, which, except for a few books lying about, is just as it was when she saw it for the first time, months ago, and was discouraged, once and for all, by the hopeless dull dreariness of it, which seems beyond improvement. The man isn’t interested in the room. It’s her youth that has caught his attention — she looks, and is, years younger than most of his women friends — and he fixes his eyes on her while she awkwardly measures whiskey into a glass.
They haven’t met because she seldom goes to the club, where he is a prominent figure, as he is everywhere, a leading light of the little community, yet, as an army man, above it; a member of a privileged caste. He is universally popular, and has the reputation of being a discreet Don Juan. The men like and admire him; the women are crazy about him.
The girl hands him his glass, suggesting that he add the soda himself. Without taking his eyes off her he squirts the siphon once, then picks up the glass, gazing at her all the time. ‘Cheers!’ He lifts it slightly, and drinks. ‘Aren’t you drinking?’
She shakes her head, her hair swings forward, and she puts it back from her face, rather embarrassed by his prolonged, cool, perfectly open stare. His next remark, too, is embarrassing.
‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’ Disregarding her silence, he calmly continues to stare at her without the least concealment, divesting her of her dress… is she wearing anything underneath it? No brassiere, certainly… figure all right without… Probably no pants either…
She has heard rumours about him, and gives him a dubious glance. In spite of his good looks she doesn’t see him as a romantic figure; to her, he seems middle-aged. She vaguely supposes he’s a contemporary of her dead father’s, which somehow seems reassuring. Suddenly more at ease, she smiles and tells him: ‘I’m sure you haven’t heard anything nice about me.’ Half aware that she hasn’t smiled for a long time, she’s grateful to him for making it possible for her to be amused and to speak naturally.
He smiles back, having reached a mainly favourable conclusion about her, though with reservations. Her smile, at least, has charm. Otherwise, he finds her devoid of this quality, like a schoolgirl, with her clumsily-bobbed hair, which must have been cut by one of the local Jap barbers, though it might have been hacked off with nail scissors in the school dorm. He thinks this a pity, since her hair attracts him, and he wants to stroke it. Thick and shining, it’s so fine that it stirs all the time in the draught of the fan as if it had life of its own. She herself, on the other hand, strikes him as oddly lifeless, so absent and vague she might almost be sleep-walking. There must be something wrong with her, he can’t make it out. She doesn’t appear to appreciate the fact that he’s sacrificing his valuable time in order to get to know her. How can she be oblivious of this honour? Is it possible that she doesn’t realize other women would give their ears to be in her place?
To her surprise, he now asks, ‘How are you, by the way?’ introducing a personal note via his profession, as she gives him no opening. ‘I don’t mean to be uncomplimentary, but you’re looking a bit washed-out — climate getting you down?’ But this gets him nowhere. She misses the point, not catching on at all, and merely replies: ‘I can’t get used to this heat’
‘We can’t do much about that, I’m afraid.’ He begins to sound slightly impatient. ‘But cheer up! The rains are coming.’
For a moment they look at one another in silence, the man smiling with automatic charm, giving her a last chance. She feels, but does not understand his dissatisfaction, which only bewilders her, so that she doesn’t know what to say to him.
Irritated by such unresponsiveness, his impulse towards her expiring, he gives her up, finally, as a bad job. ‘Oh, well, let me know if you feel out of sorts,’ he says, not quite hiding his annoyance. He puts down his empty glass and strides to the door, where Mohammed Dirwaza Khan has already appeared, preparatory to seeing him off. The girl stays where she is, calling goodbye to the major, who suddenly seems in a hurry. Exasperated because he’s been wasting his time he jumps into his car without answering, accelerates, and is gone.
She is left with that peculiar sense of frustration which results from the unexplained, premature ending of something pleasant. The true cause of the man’s behaviour never dawns upon her. He was nice at first; they seemed to be getting on well. So what happened? What did she do wrong?
All at once she starts violently, amazed to see her husband appear. He seems to have grown taller and thinner in bed, and looks an eight-foot skeleton. Even in his pyjamas, which hang loose on his bony frame, he has a sort of overbearing dominance that’s rather impressive, although he has to clutch at the furniture for support. She moves instinctively to help him, but stops at the sound of his angry voice.