Three Continents. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
they did, and I watched them from my window, walking across the lawn with their towels and wet hair—dreamy and happy, which was the way we always felt when we had swum and afterward lay in the field under the moon. Next morning again I couldn’t bring myself to join them, and again they went off by themselves and I felt more miserable than ever. The third night too—this was after the beer-and-tacos party—I had intended to stay behind; but when Crishi said to me, quite casually, over his shoulder almost as he was about to go off with Michael, “Coming, Harriet?” I went to get my towel and hurried after them.
During these days, after his breakfast with the Rawul, Grandfather stayed the entire time in his bedroom. When I went to see him there, I found him propped up in the great four-poster in which our other grandfather had died. Sonya sat beside him on a chair, very wifely and domesticated, with some embroidery in her lap; she smiled at me and said “This big bear isn’t feeling so good today.”
“Nonsense,” said Grandfather; and “We’re leaving tomorrow.”
“If you’re better,” Sonya said.
“There’s nothing wrong with me at all.” But he did look sick; his head was laid back against the pillows, as one who is very, very tired. He appeared immensely aged, and grand, with his large head and the tufts of white hair showing where the top button of his pajamas was undone. His hands lay like sculpture on the covering sheet. Sonya laid her own little warm plump hand on one of them and said “Stubborn as a mule, as always”; she looked at me and tried to smile again, but her eyes were scared.
And next day, in spite of her protests, they did leave. Their car, packed with books and luggage, drove up to the porch, and everyone came out to watch their departure. It did not have the stateliness of their arrival, although the Rawul and Rani were both in attendance. In fact, it appeared rather scrambled, as though they were getting away in a hurry; people had to be sent back in the house several times for things Sonya had forgotten to pack. She was crying, and I don’t know whether it was because she thought Grandfather wasn’t well enough to leave, or because she was sorry to part from her friends new and old. She embraced everyone with the same fervor—that is, all of us as well as the Rawul and Rani and whatever followers were within reach. Grandfather stood a little to one side, as though it were nothing to do with him. I thought he still didn’t look well, almost frail in spite of his heavy build; it seemed to me that his clothes had grown too large for him, but perhaps this had been so for a long time and I hadn’t noticed it before. The Rawul tried to make a little farewell speech, but with Grandfather remaining grim and withdrawn, it died, and the Rawul was left standing there, smiling and patting one of his hands on the other. While Sonya was still kissing and embracing, Grandfather went down the steps of the porch and settled in the back of the car. He beckoned to me from there, and when I came to the car window, he asked “Where’s Michael?”
It was embarrassing, but I had to tell him Michael wasn’t there. He had driven with Crishi to the printers to collect a new set of Fourth World literature. If he had known that Grandfather was leaving that morning, he might have postponed his errand; but, as I said, Grandfather left in a hurry—wanting to get to the Island, or just wanting to get away.
“Tell him—” Grandfather began to say to me, and then stopped. His eyes swept up the porch steps, where the Rawul stood smiling with the Rani beside him and some followers behind them. Whatever it was Grandfather had wanted me to tell Michael, he changed his mind and said instead, “Why don’t you come to the Island, both of you; come and be with us. I want to see you,” he added and stopped looking grim for the first time that morning. He had his hand on the car window and I took it and held it in mine. He smiled at that, and seemed completely to forget about the Rawul and his party standing there. “See that you come now,” he said. “Bring Michael; and soon.” I said “I’ll tell him.” “Not just tell him: make him. Make him come home.” I couldn’t say anything to that; I couldn’t promise. I didn’t think Michael would want to go to the Island and I didn’t think I myself wanted to either. I too felt that we had work to do here, that we had begun to undertake something.
But Grandfather didn’t want to know about this. He withdrew his hand from mine and called to Sonya. Before they drove off, he said again, “I want to see you there soon”—but he seemed to have lost interest in me almost as much as in the others standing on the porch. I guess he was just looking forward to being on the Island and doing his work there, writing his book to sum up all his life and what he had done in it.
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