The Day of the Scorpion

  So I am really in darkness, she said, and this truly is the difference between myself and Susan who lives in a perpetual and recognizable light. The light that falls on Susan also falls on Aunt Fenny and Uncle Arthur. It falls, but in a way that makes different shadows, on Aunt Lydia and Uncle Frank. I do not know how it falls on Mother and Father – it is a long time since I have seen them – and I do not know who is in darkness except myself.

  Two weeks later, accompanied by her sister Susan, her Aunt Fenny and her Uncle Arthur, Sarah Layton sailed back to India on the P & O.

  Part Three

  A WEDDING, 1943

  I

  Having handed young Kasim a glass of the forbidden whisky Count Bronowsky said, ‘So Mrs Layton drinks, you say. Do you mean in secret?’

  Ahmed, taking the glass, held it well away from his nose. He disliked the smell of alcohol. In the palace there wasn’t a drop to be had except what his servant or he himself managed to smuggle into his room there. He smuggled it on principle and had trained himself to drink a certain amount every day. It disappointed him that regular tippling hadn’t yet given him a real taste for it let alone made him a slave of habit. A serious drinker, and finally an alcoholic, struck him sometimes as the only thing really open to him to become in his own right.

  ‘I don’t know about in secret,’ he said. ‘But she begins first, finishes last and has two drinks to anybody else’s one. Also I’ve noticed that her behaviour is erratic’

  Bronowsky limped from the liquor trolley to the larger of the two cane armchairs that had been placed on the veranda, with a view on to the dark garden. He sat, settled his lame left leg on the foot-stool, raised his glass and looked at Ahmed with his right eye. The left leg and the blind left eye – covered by a black patch whose elastic, pitched at an angle, was countersunk by long use in a ring round his narrow head – were said to be the result of getting half blown-up in pre-revolutionary St Petersburg by an anarchist while driving along Nevsky Prospect to the Winter Palace.

  ‘In what way erratic?’

  Ahmed sat in the other chair and watched the Count select and light one of the gold-tipped cigarettes that came in rainbow colours from a shop in Bombay.

  ‘She is irritable one moment, almost friendly at another. The almost friendliness occurs when she has a glass in her hand.’

  ‘Her husband is a prisoner of war in Germany, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is she still attractive would you say?’

  ‘Her hair is not grey. She frequently powders her nose.’

  ‘Ah – Her sister, this Mrs Grace, she is also erratic?’

  ‘No. She is perfectly predictable. You can depend on her to be rude at any time. And she does not trouble to lower her voice.’

  ‘Dear boy, what have you overheard her saying about you?’

  Ahmed smiled. ‘It seems I am quite efficient for an Indian.’

  ‘But it was a compliment.’

  ‘I would also make a good maître d’hôtel if I didn’t stink so abominably of garlic’

  ‘I doubt Mrs Grace would know a good maître from a bad one. The English seldom do. But she meant well. And you do.’

  ‘Garlic strengthens the constitution. My father used to carry an onion in his pocket to ward off colds. But that was mere superstition. Eating garlic is scientific. Also garlic is stronger on the breath than the smell of whisky. So you see it has its religious and social uses too.’

  From a quarter mile or so away the drumming resumed. A Hindu wedding feast. Ahmed kept time on the arm of the chair with the fingers of his free hand. During Ramadan such a noisy manifestation of Hindu gaiety could cause communal trouble. He almost welcomed the prospect.

  Bronowsky eased and re-settled the stiff lame leg. ‘Tell me about the two Miss Laytons. Are they more to your taste? The one who is to be married – begin with her.’

  ‘What an inquisitive man you are!’ Ahmed thought. He was not inquisitive himself. To him people were remote, people and things and the ideas they seemed to find electrifying. But he quite enjoyed these regular sessions with Bronowsky, partly because the old wazir had taken him up as if he were someone worth giving time to, but mostly because Bronowsky’s endless curiosity about other people helped him to form opinions about them himself, to consider them with greater objectivity and interest than he felt when actually dealing with them. The exercise, he found, enabled him to peel off a layer or two of his own incuriosity. True, when the sessions were over, he usually felt those layers thickening up again and was likely to tell himself that Bronowsky encouraged him to call and chatter mainly because he preferred (or was suspected of preferring) above all other the company of young men. Nevertheless each session left a residual grain of involvement.

  ‘Oh, Miss Layton,’ he said, and conjured a picture of Susan Layton holding a length of white material up under her chin and hectic-coloured cheeks. ‘People do things for her. She must have trained them to think she can’t do them for herself. Every time she lifts a finger to do something on her own she makes it look like an attempt at the impossible. People come running. It’s not just the wedding, I think. She has probably always been the centre of attraction.’

  ‘Is she fond of this Captain Bingham?’

  Ahmed thought. How could he judge? He did not really know what fond was. His father was fond of his mother. His brother had had been fond of the army. He himself was fond of chewing cloves of garlic. Bronowsky was fond of gossip. Fond seemed to be a combination of impulse, appetite and gratification. But even that didn’t define it properly. He himself, for instance, had an impulse to make love to girls. He visited prostitutes. He had acquired a taste for sexual intercourse and had gratified it not infrequently. He was therefore, he supposed, fond of copulating as well as of eating garlic, but this was not what the world meant by fond or Count Bronowsky meant when he asked if the younger Miss Layton was fond of Captain Bingham. That kind of fond hinted at a capacity for denying yourself if self-denial was for the good of what you were fond of. He did not think Miss Layton had this capacity.

  He said, ‘No. I don’t imagine she is really fond of Captain Bingham.’

  ‘You mean it is merely a physical attraction?’

  ‘On his part, yes. He is more attracted to her than she is to him.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I think, when he touches her, instead of being agitated she is irritated. Especially if she has her mind on the cut of a dress.’

  ‘Embarrassment,’ Bronowsky said. ‘Obviously, what you saw was her reaction to a tender gesture made in front of others. The English are very shy of their sexuality. If you were a fly on the wall and saw Miss Layton and Captain Bingham together you might be surprised. Even shocked.’

  Ahmed said nothing. He had been a fly on the wall; or rather an un-noticed figure rounding a corner of the guesthouse veranda where Miss Layton stood, holding up the length of white material, reacting rather violently to Captain Bingham’s two waist-embracing arms and saying, ‘Oh, Teddie, for God’s sake.’ Which was interesting and quite contrary to Bronowsky’s supposition, because in public Miss Susan Layton submitted to Captain Bingham’s protective and possessive touch with equanimity, even with approval, in fact with an air of demanding it quite frequently as if it were due to her at regular intervals. And she was no less eager in such circumstances to give as well as receive a caress. Only when they were alone, apparently, did the exchange of caresses become distasteful. Fortunately for him he had not been seen on the occasion of the breaking away from Captain Bingham.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Bronowsky asked.

  Ahmed smiled, took another sip of the whisky, and said, ‘Of being a fly on the wall.’

  ‘Does the idea appeal?’

  ‘Flies on walls sometimes get swatted.’

  ‘Every occupation has its hazards. Tell me about the younger sister, the Miss Layton who isn’t to be married.’

  ‘But she isn’t the younger.’

 
‘Ah. That is always interesting. I imagine she isn’t as pretty. But perhaps more serious-minded?’

  ‘She asks a lot of questions.

  ‘Questions about what?’

  ‘The administration in Mirat. Native customs. Local history.’

  ‘Is she so very plain then?’

  ‘I find all white girls unattractive. They look only half-finished. When they have fair hair they look even more unnatural.’

  ‘She is fair, then?’

  ‘Yes. And to an Englishman probably as attractive as her sister. And she is better-natured. Is that dangerous?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I understand it can be. This kind of English person invites our confidence. They ask questions, at first of a general nature, then of a more intimate kind. You think, well, he is interested, she wishes to be friends. But it is a trap. One wrong move, one hint of familiarity on your part, and snap. It shuts.’

  ‘So says Professor Nair no doubt.’

  ‘But don’t you agree? I am asking you. I have no experience. It is what I’ve been told, not only by Professor Nair. Snap.’

  ‘What are you really asking me? Whether you should be careful how you answer these fascinating intimate questions you anticipate Miss Layton asking you?’

  ‘No. I am always careful. I was only asking your opinion of the belief generally held.’

  ‘What belief?’

  ‘That the friendly English are more dangerous than the rude ones.’

  ‘Are you sure you mean English? Not white? Am I dangerous?’

  ‘Oh, you are the most dangerous man in Mirat. Everybody says so. It goes without saying. One risks everything just talking to you. But then you are exceptional in every way, and I meant English, not white. If we had been subjugated by the Russians I would have said Russians. It isn’t the whiteness that matters. It’s the position of the English as rulers that makes their friendship dangerous. Dangerous on two counts. It weakens our resolve to defy them and it is against their own clan instincts. They are consciously or subconsciously aware of weakening their position by friendliness, so this friendliness always has to be on their own guarded terms. If we unwittingly think of it as mutual and go too far they are doubly incensed, first as individuals who feel they have been taken what they call advantage of, secondly as members of a class they fear they may have betrayed by their own thoughtless stupidity. Then, snap! They are indifferent to the effect of such a situation on us.’

  ‘Is that what you believe?’

  ‘It’s what I am told. People are always warning us. It is well known. Fortunately, unlike my father I have never felt the urge to make friends with any Englishman, or Englishwoman. But it is interesting to observe them. It is interesting to come across one of the friendly ones, like the elder Miss Layton. It is like being a student of chemistry, knowing a formula, waiting to see it proved in a laboratory test.’

  ‘Your glass is empty. Help yourself.’

  Ahmed got up to do so. Bronowsky held his own glass out as Ahmed was passing him. Ahmed took it, but for a moment the older man retained his own hold on it.

  ‘Have you kept your promise to me and written to your father?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The same reason as always. I begin writing and stop, there isn’t anything to say, and even if there were every word would be read by someone else before the letter reached him. It is very off-putting. I write to my mother. She tells him what I am doing.’

  ‘It isn’t the same.’

  Ahmed, in possession of Bronowsky’s glass, went to the drinks trolley and poured generous measures of White Horse: two fingers for himself, three for Bronowsky. He filled both glasses almost to the brim with soda-water and came back to the chair where Bronowsky sat looking up with his good eye half shut as if measuring an effect. Ahmed offered him the replenished glass, but Bronowsky did not take it immediately.

  ‘It isn’t the same,’ he repeated. ‘Is it?’

  ‘No, but he’s used to the idea that I’m a disappointing sort of son.’

  Bronowsky now grasped the base of the tumbler and when Ahmed felt it held securely he let go.

  ‘You are more used to it than he is,’ Bronowsky said. ‘I think the idea that you’re a disappointment to him has become your basic security. You’d feel lost without it. You know, dear boy, the most disturbing thing that happened to me when I was about your age was discovering that my father approved a particular step I proposed to take.’

  ‘What step was that?’

  ‘Marriage. The girl was my cousin, we weren’t in love, but she would probably have made me a good wife and we always got on well enough together. I decided on marriage because I thought my father particularly disliked her. I anticipated the most vigorous opposition. Instead he embraced me. He almost wept. Really very alarming. I cooled off the idea at once. I felt some regret, of course. Perhaps I loved her after all. But I felt better directly I told him I’d changed my mind. He turned away without a word, but with his old comforting look of utter disdain. I felt secure again and never again felt insecure until he died. Then I had to earn his posthumous disapproval in a variety of ways, doing things I felt he would despise me for. Making liberal gestures rather popular at the time among intellectual landowners. Not gestures I had my heart in, but then you don’t need your heart in good to do it. I did the right thing for the wrong reasons, which is what you are doing, efficiently carrying out the job you are paid for, even earning the approbation of the ungracious Mrs Grace. But you are carrying it out well because you think your father disapproved of your taking it and would be ashamed to know that a woman like Mrs Grace described you as a potentially first-rate hotel manager. You want him to be ashamed because his being ashamed of you is what you understand. You feel exactly the same about it as another boy might feel about his father being proud of him. Determined to keep it up. But the question you should ask yourself is whether he is ashamed. Has he ever been? Isn’t it truer to say you grew up in a household where clear views were held on a number of questions that concern India, that you expected to inherit this clarity as you might inherit a share of the household goods and chattels and were startled to find you didn’t. Startled is the wrong word. It was obviously a much slower process. But the upshot of it all was compensation for feelings of inadequacy, transference of your disappointment. You imagined the disappointment was your father’s. But perhaps the truth was that he observed your struggles to take an interest with affection and compassion but didn’t know how to help you. You didn’t make things easier by withdrawing from him although what you were really doing was withdrawing from yourself. It’s because you are fond of him that you don’t write to him in prison.’

  Ahmed smiled.

  ‘You shouldn’t be afraid of your emotions,’ Bronowsky continued. ‘In any case to be afraid of them is un-Indian. Now there’s a danger for you if you like. You young men ought to watch out for it – losing your Indian-ness. It’s a land of extremes, after all, it needs men with extremes of temperament. All this Western sophistication, plus the non-Western cult of non-violence, is utterly unnatural. One without the other might do but the combination of the two strikes me as disastrous. After all the sophistication of the West is only a veneer. Underneath it we are a violent people. But you Indians see no deeper than our surface. Add to that the non-violence cult and the result is emasculation.’

  Ahmed grinned. Bronowsky said, ‘Fornication can be a refuge as well as an entertainment. Your visits to the Chandi Chowk are no proof of your masculinity, dear boy.’

  ‘Oh well, what am I to do? Raise an army to release the prisoners in the Fort at Premanagar?’

  ‘You could do worse. In fact I can think of nothing more splendid. It interests me that it’s the first thing that occurs to you. Such a passionate idea. How could the world fail to respond to it? It’s what sons are for, to lead armies to deliver their fathers from fortresses. The British would lock you up for ever. They would laugh as well, of
course, because projects obviously doomed to failure have their comical side, but they would laugh unmaliciously. They would respect you. On the other hand if you announced your intention to fast unto death if they didn’t release your father they’d let you get on with it. They’d feed you forcibly. They’d be furious with you for attempting moral blackmail. I must say I’d sympathize with them. Non-violence is ridiculous. I’m not in favour of it. Can you stay to dinner?’

  ‘No, I had a sudden invitation from Professor Nair.’

  ‘What is he up to?’

  ‘Nothing he tells me about.’

  ‘Perhaps you don’t listen hard enough. He’s always up to something. Nawab Sahib expects to be kept informed. He will be back on Friday, incidentally.’

  ‘Did you enjoy your visit to Gopalakand?’

  ‘It was amusing. I left Nawab Sahib to enjoy himself a few days longer. He will be pleased with poems of Gaffur. Which of them thought of it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Have they been into the palace?’

  ‘I took them over the public rooms this morning. Will Nawab Sahib be going to the reception?’

  ‘He will if I say so. I think I shall say so. What is arranged for tomorrow?’