Three Continents. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
said “If the Rawul takes over the house, what’s going to happen to Lindsay and Jean?”
“They can stay and work for him. It’ll give them something more to think about than fighting with each other.”
“They’re doing it now,” I said, pointing them out to him.
“I don’t have to see that. And neither do you.” When he was mad at something, Michael literally ground his teeth: “That’s why I’m glad this has happened—the Rawul and everything—to get away for once in our lives from all the personal squalor.”
But actually Michael had never done anything except get away from it. He had never allowed himself to be involved. When we were children, he saw to it that we had games and secluded places of our own, whether it was here in the house or in different embassies with our grandparents. Later, when he grew up, he traveled to faraway places; but even in between these journeys, when he was physically present and surrounded by his family, he always managed to be engrossed in something of his own; to absent himself in spirit. He tried to make me do the same, but I did not have his gift for it. Michael had never cared what people thought of him and made no effort to please or placate anyone. Both our parents were afraid of him; it’s a terrible thing to say, but I think neither of them liked him. Michael was the one subject on which they were in agreement.
He was pushing up the screen window in order to lean out: for Crishi had come running across the grounds and stood under the window to shout up to us. He was asking if we had any fireworks—“Everyone says there has to be fireworks!” “Do we have any?” Michael turned to me. I said “We were only expecting everyone for the afternoon. That’s all they were invited for.” “Well now we need them. Everyone wants to stay.”
Crishi called for us to come down, but only Michael went. I decided that for me the party was over; I was tired—it may have been from having been made to run all those races, but not only that. I wanted to go and lie down in my room without turning the light on and to be as alone as possible. But I didn’t even get there—as I was going from Michael’s room to mine, Jean came storming up the stairs. When she saw me, she said “You can help me carry them, though really I feel like flushing them down the toilet. The goddamn flipping fireworks,” she said, going into her room.
I followed her. Jean’s room was the homeliest and tidiest in the house. She kept everything just so: her luggage stowed away on upper shelves, her tortoiseshell brush, comb, and mirror set, and her Mickey Mouse alarm clock she had since her college days, winter clothes in polyethylene bags in back of her closet, and in front her boots and shoes arranged in rows, the better ones with trees in them. She had boxes of fireworks on the same shelf as her Christmas tree decorations and also cartons of old photographs and letters, everything numbered. As she was getting down the fireworks and handing them to me, she said indignantly, “I told her this is not what I went and got them for; not for this crowd.”
“Then why are you giving them?”
“How many fights can you have,” she said dully. “The moment she heard what they wanted—‘Oh Jean’s got fireworks haven’t you Jean, go and get them.’ And we’d talked about it, we’d agreed—not this year, not with all these people here. Not after last year.”
I tried to remember last year and it took some effort. For me, it had been very dull. Michael hadn’t been here—in fact, there was no one except Lindsay and Jean and me. I suppose that was what Jean was remembering. At night the three of us had sat by the lake and Jean had let off these fireworks and at each one Lindsay had exclaimed “Oh Jean look!” She clasped her hands and had stars in her eyes. I must have dozed off at one point, and when I woke up, the display was over, and Jean and Lindsay were sitting on the bank with their arms around each other, not talking at all, looking at the moon in the sky and again in the lake.
I helped her pack the boxes in shopping bags and carry them down, but I didn’t want to come out with her. I held the door open, so she could get through; just as she was going down the porch steps, the Rani was coming up them. Jean had her back to me so I couldn’t see how—if at all—she returned the Rani’s greeting, which was very friendly. And the Rani was also very friendly to me as she passed me through the door, and whispered, coming up close, “I have to go to the little girl’s room.” It was not the first time I had been taken aback by the Rani’s simpleness. In fact, almost every time I heard her say anything, it seemed to be banal or naïve. Maybe that was why she rarely spoke at all—because she knew she could not live up to the expectations aroused by her spectacular looks.
I shut the door of my room and was glad to be alone. But after a while I was surprised to hear the Rani calling me—she was opening doors along the landing, trying to find me. When I came out to see what she wanted, she said “Come along—time to join the fun”; she sounded like a games mistress I had had when I was at school in England for a year.
I told her I had a headache and wanted to rest. “Oh poor Harriet,” she said, in a voice rich in warmth and sympathy. She followed me and turned on the light—“So this is your room?” She looked around and noted how little there was to see, how bare it was, on principle; and “Charming,” she lied politely.
“Do you mind turning the light out? It’s hurting my eyes.”
“Oh—” another very warm sound; and she sat down next to me, close by me on the bed, in the dark. “Poor darling,” she breathed at me, and touched my brow and gently pressed it with her fingers. It seemed to me that her fingers were transmitting a strange sensation into my brain, but this may have been just my imagination, which was overwhelmed by her physical presence so close to me. She exuded, from inside her heavy silk, a perfume compounded of some costly essence of blossoms and of her own womanliness: This mixture was as potent as those flowering Oriental bushes that come at you in waves of cloying scent and knock out your sense of smell.
However, her conversation continued absolutely banal, and in a tone and language that combined schoolgirl with games mistress: “We’ve had the most lovely day, Harriet; such fun; such a good time. . . . I’m sorry you have a headache—is this doing you any good? no? should I stop? It must be with all the excitement we’ve had, and perhaps the sun, running in the sun. I saw you run with Crishi—you were fab, Harriet! Quite a team, aren’t you, you two? We should be entering you for the Olympics—just joking, dear; I can be very silly sometimes. . . . Everyone has been so kind, all those nice, nice people down there. Mr. What’s-it from the bank, and the sweet lady who comes to clean. And your parents, Harriet: I like them enormously, both of them. And it’s a great, great privilege for us to be in an American home, and today is such an important day for you isn’t it, historically. We’re very proud that you’ve allowed us to share it with you. It’s wonderful to have such good friends,” she summed up, “and the whole day’s been adorable. . . . I think they’re calling us.”
“They’re calling you.”
From all sides down below her name rang out—her name, or was it her title—“Rani! Rani!”—truly, it was like a queen being implored to show herself. And like a queen she stepped to my window—“Rani! Rani!”—it was a chorus, everyone had taken it up, some seriously, some in fun, or just to join in. “Aren’t they childish,” she said, smiling, but at the same time she did make a gracious gesture with her hand in acknowledgment. And when I joined her at the window, she put her arm around my shoulders as if I were—I don’t know what—maybe some junior princess, anyway someone to be drawn forward and drawn in. I stood still—I had no alternative—I could hardly shake her off with all those people looking up at us. I didn’t see Crishi down below—no wonder, for he was already in the house, up the stairs, and there he was rapping on my door and then inside without waiting for an answer.
“Aren’t you coming for the fireworks? Everyone’s waiting for you.”
“Yes we’re just on our way down—we got talking. Girl talk,” she said with a merry laugh.
“And in the dark,” he said, turning on the light. “It must have been some very intimate secrets.”
“Oh but of course. Harriet