Three Continents. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
looked as if he did—very resolute, with his high color and clear cold eyes.
“I won’t be a minute, darling,” Barbara said; she had already stepped out of the robe in which she had been lounging around all day and was eagerly getting into her clothes.
“I’d forgotten what your mother was like,” Manton was saying to Michael. “She’s a madwoman. I feel more sorry than I can say for you two, that you have to live with such a complete lunatic.”
“That’s all right,” Michael said. “We can manage.”
“Yes but don’t you think I feel a certain responsibility? However much I might like to get out of here and never see the place again, there is the question of my children.”
“Ready?” Michael asked Barbara, who nodded; she was swiftly twisting up her long blond hair. Michael took the bag she had packed. “One moment,” Manton said. “We have to discuss this.”
Michael was not in a mood to discuss anything. Much shorter and lighter than Manton, he moved much faster. Barbara, usually a bit phlegmatic, was also moving fast. I followed behind them with Manton, who was addressing himself to me: “I feel I’m letting you down, baby,” he said.
“I’ll come to New York. I might stay a few days.”
“If you really want me to,” he offered, “I could stay. I’ll swallow my pride and stay—good Lord, one can do that much for one’s children.”
By the time we reached the front porch, Barbara had driven the car around and Michael had put their bags in. He held open the door for our father.
“Good-bye, Daddy,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.” I only called him Daddy when I wanted him to feel nice; dignified. And in spite of his scrambled departure, he did look dignified. He sat beside Barbara and turned to us for a last word: “It might look as if I’m running away from the situation, but believe me that is not the case. It’s simply that one can take so much and no more. Please make my apologies and farewell to the Rani and Rawul. I hope everyone will understand.”
Michael shut the car door. As Barbara drove off, Manton looked back at us with a sorrowful expression. “‘Good-bye, Daddy,’” Michael quoted at me. He could often be cold and contemptuous, and he was so now. He never had any sympathy for Manton; he made no allowances for him at all.
I’m sure Barbara was happy as she drove away with him; and in fact the day ended happily for other people too, so perhaps the Rawul was right and the celebration had been a success. He and the Rani stayed for a long time down by the water where the flags were; they walked up and down there arm in arm—a dynastic couple, an embodiment of traditional matrimony (I didn’t know at that time that they weren’t married at all). Jean and Lindsay were in the kitchen, where Mrs. Schwamm was fixing a supper for them. It was Jean’s belief that quantities of food were the best antidote for Lindsay whenever she had been drinking, while Mrs. Schwamm was at all times happy to feed Lindsay. And Lindsay, relieved to be taken charge of, was calm and obedient and ready to do and eat whatever they wanted her to. Mrs. Schwamm was surveying the events of the day with Teutonic humor, which made Lindsay laugh; and when she laughed, Jean, full of fond love, kissed her cheek and said Lindsay was all better.
And the day ended happily for Michael and me too. Crishi and Michael decided to go for a midnight swim by the waterfall on the outskirts of the property; Michael told me to come along too—he and I often went there; we were the only people who used it except for some Pickles or gardeners’ children who had always shared it with us. I would have gone, I wanted to go, but I still had bad feelings about Crishi, so I stayed behind. Awhile after they had left, I was surprised to see Crishi back again. It appeared he had returned for me. When I still wouldn’t come, he said “Because of this afternoon.” I didn’t deny it. “It was just a game, Harriet; a party game.” “All the same,” I said.
He was silent; he looked down at the ground; he said “What can I say.” He sounded rueful, perhaps a bit annoyed but, if so, it was with himself, not me. He didn’t apologize; he didn’t try to make me change my mind; he didn’t look at me but kept his eyes averted. But I wanted to go swimming! And it had been a party game! I said “Oh all right; let me get a towel.” “I’ll get it!” He bounced off, bounced back again, he took my hand and pulled me along; he was laughing and skipping, so I had to skip along with him. He appeared so glad and relieved that I felt quite flattered, to have had this effect on him.
Not many people knew about our waterfall. It was down a steep incline, and to get to it, you had to leave your shoes at the top and negotiate a descending series of slippery stones, and at the same time hold aside the branches and bushes overhanging this narrow path. Of course for Michael and me it was easy because we were so used to it. Crishi came behind me and once or twice I had to put out my hand to help him and he took it, but mostly he managed very well by himself. Michael was already in the water, swimming around in the pool formed under the waterfall. It was always dark down here even during the day, and at night the pool was like an underground cavern and Michael a white shape gliding around it. Crishi and I left our clothes on the stones at the side and got in with him. One of the good things about swimming here was that conversation was impossible—the roar of the waterfall drowned out all other sounds as it rushed down the rock in a cascade of foam and spray, which was white by day and silver by night. The three of us swam around in and under the water, and sometimes on our backs, looking up at a few stars flickering there so faintly that only people like us with very good eyes could see them. Crishi, a darker shape than Michael but as slender and swift, seemed to love being underwater, and we never knew when he would be appearing underneath Michael and when underneath me. Michael got out first and sat naked on the stones with his legs drawn up and his arms around them. I saw him look up at the sky and the expression on his raised face was one of utter bliss; the phrase “his streaming countenance” came into my mind. Next moment he was back in the water, and the three of us continued to flit around and beneath one another, our bodies forming patterns that sometimes appeared to intertwine.
THE Rawul wanted to meet our grandparents—that is, our paternal ones, from Manton’s side (our grandparents from Lindsay’s side were dead—that was how we owned Propinquity and the rest of their property). I couldn’t see the point of it myself, but he seemed to think it was important; he wanted to make influential contacts wherever he could. Actually, Grandfather wasn’t all that influential anymore, for he had retired several years ago. He was also too preoccupied with his own affairs to have time to spare for anything else. By his affairs I mean the book he was writing about his public career; his moves between his house in town and his place on the Island, with all the books and papers he needed to take, and the clothes and makeup Sonya needed; and Sonya herself. She was his wife now—our grandmother had died several years earlier—but they had been together long before that, and whenever he was sent on a new posting, she used to take a place nearby. In the end she moved right into the residence and they became a ménage à trois, which was useful after Grandmother got sick and needed someone to look after her. By that time Sonya was really like her sister, although they couldn’t have been more different—Grandmother was New England, and Sonya some sort of Russian refugee. Sonya was much, much more effusive than Grandmother, and she adored children and had never had any of her own, so Michael and I benefited from that all through these years.
When the Rawul wanted to make contact with Grandfather, Michael and I decided that the best way was through Sonya. Although he had been a diplomat for so many years, there had always been something skeptical and aloof about Grandfather, which made it difficult to approach him; and after his heart attack, it became even more difficult, as though he had withdrawn a little farther from the world. Sonya was the opposite—she must have been in her late sixties by this time (no one knew how old she was), but she was still open to every kind of new enthusiasm, and when we phoned and told her about the Rawul, she gave a gasp and said she must meet him. I went with him to the city; I drove the car and he sat in the back so he could spread out and study his papers.
The meeting was an immediate success. Meetings with Sonya always were; she was so eager to be won over that she ran forward most of the way herself: literally, for although their manservant