Casually, I ask him about this new house he has seen. He needs little encouragement and begins to tell me about his plans, schemes that no one in the Valley has ever imagined. Tiger would be proud, he says. He misses Tiger, I know. His voice barely rises above its usual gentle monotone, yet it is easy to sense how thrilled he is. His thoughts flow faster than he can speak; he pauses now and then, his brow furrowed as he tries to recall a word. Sometimes the force of his emotion is so great that he cannot find the words; he looks at me with an expression that is at once imploring and resolute in its determination to continue unaided. The cloud that hangs heavily over me begins to lift: he does not need my help. He does not need me. That is why I want him to think of the shop. It is something — the only thing — that is truly his. People come and they go, fluttering at the edge of his world, never properly entering it. I, his wife; Peter, his fleeting foreign friend: even we merely hover outside. But long after we are gone, he will still have that shop. It belongs to him; it is utterly his: to mould, control, love, and destroy. As he speaks he looks at me and it is as if we both know: I will never belong to him. Nothing needs to be said. A blank, inscrutable expression returns to his face. He realises, just as I do, that all the things that stood between us before we were married, well, they remain. We were wrong to believe that we could pull down the barriers. It was a mistake, a simple failure, that is all.
I begin to tell him that it’s no one’s fault, but I stop because I know, even if he does not, that the fault lies with me.
Thus, wordlessly, our world ends.
I WAS SITTING on the verandah reading when Johnny appeared. I was not surprised to see he had Peter with him.
“I heard you had dinner with the bishop,” Peter said. “How was the Right Reverend? Fat as ever?”
“It was the first time I met him,” I said, continuing to read, “so I cannot say if he was as fat ‘as ever.’ ”
“Well,” said Peter, “one savage bout of dysentery is all it’ll take to make his figure sylphlike.”
I did not answer. Johnny was holding a fine fishnet, which he proceeded to add to the pile of things he has assembled for our trip. Peter stood with his scrawny arms folded across his chest. I knew he was watching me, but I kept my gaze firmly on my book. I heard Johnny packing and unpacking some boxes in the room. I wished he would hurry up and return, but he seemed to go on forever, clanging metal plates, dropping tin cans, dusting off canvas sheets. All this time Peter and I remained motionless, unable to move. I read the same words over and over again. Finally, I could not bear it. I snapped my book shut and looked straight into his face.
“How are you finding life in the Valley?”
He looked startled. I noticed his milk-white skin has not reacted well to the sun — his cheeks and forearms bore hot, tender red burns.
“Fine,” he said, “fine. In fact, more than that, it’s a ball. With sequins and tiaras.”
“I’m pleased to hear that. Foreigners usually do not adapt well to the conditions here. They find us primitive.”
“Primitive? Mais non, mais non,” he said, looking at the house. “If this is primitive, then I am a savage.” He lifted both arms in a strange gesture I could not decipher. I think it was perhaps intended to be theatrical in its effect. I could not stifle a giggle. To my surprise, he laughed too, a whooping, singing laugh that seemed to come from the depths of his body.
Johnny returned and kissed me lightly on the forehead.
“Looking forward to our trip,” Peter called out as they got on their bicycles and pedalled away.
Another thing: this evening I noticed that the photographs of our ancestors which father keeps in his study have already become hazy and indistinct in their frames. In a few more years we shall not even remember who those people were.
LATE THIS AFTERNOON, as I was returning from a walk along the river, I heard Father conversing with someone in his study. The door was closed; the talking stopped abruptly when I entered the hall. I wondered if the visitor was Honey, but the tone of the voice seemed wrong. Curious to find out who the other person was, I hesitated for a moment before proceeding to my room. I closed my door firmly, making sure it made a noise as it shut.
After a considerable length of time I heard Father’s study door open. I went to the window to see who the visitor was. It was Kunichika.
WE SET OFF IN THE DARK, dawn still an hour away. Five silent bodies in that huge black car: Honey at the wheel, Kunichika next to him in the front seat, and at the back, Johnny, Peter, and me.
