Free The Folded Earth: A Novel by Anuradha Roy Page B

admired the geometric precision of the flower beds. Within the beds, segregated by color and type, were the plants that would flower in summer. Several flowers already bloomed in the martial lines of tulips, lilies, and carnations, staked and tied with string so they could not stray. Some of the women got up from their chairs to examine the flower beds closer too, so as to show off their saris. When one of them bent down to sniff the tulips, her companion broke into giggles and exclaimed, “Oh, Mrs. Sood, those flowers have no smell! They are tulips. They come from Holland. I went there once on a Thomas Cook tour! Whole fields of tulips, as if they are wheat or rice—this is nothing.”
    I sat down next to Diwan Sahib and he said, “Had enough of the Burra Sa’abs?” His eyes twinkled and his wrinkles deepened when he smiled. I felt immediately at ease. I stretched out my legs, swiveled my ankles, and rested my head against the backrest of my chair.
    “Why come,” I said to him, “if you will not meet anyone?”
    “I am happy enough meeting only you,” he said. “But I never seem to see you. Even when you come in the afternoons you hide behind a newspaper.”
    The General began talking at us as he advanced, tap-tapping the Naga spear he used as a walking stick, although it was much taller than him. His voice had long ago acquired the ability to reach the last row of soldiers in a parade. “I never read the papers. And look at my eyesight, perfect! Still driving. Why? Because I never read anything smaller than the headlines. Nothing but anarchy, I say, bombs and terrorists everywhere, waste of time reading about it. ‘Improve your Eye Sight, Never Read or Write’: I told Chauhan to nail that one to a tree—right next to the Central School.”
    “Don’t come anywhere near our school,” I said. “It’s hard enough as it is, getting the classrooms filled.”
    He frowned at me. “What? Who—ah, it’s you, Maya. Better off empty, I say, those classrooms. You’re ruining those pretty village girls by teaching them to read. Social misfits.” Though his head was just about level with mine, the General was confident of his authority. He held himself very straight, and like a cartoon general, he had a thick, white mustache that was curled at the tips. He adjusted the Kumaon Regiment cap he invariably wore and looked at the empty chair beside us.
    Diwan Sahib held his flask out and said, “Sit down, General Sahib, I know why you’re interested in my company all of a sudden.”
    The General lowered himself into the chair and held a glass out toward the hip flask. “Where’s that boy of yours? Hasn’t he come? Heard he lives here now.”
    “He’s gone off somewhere. Wandering. Trekking, he calls it,” Diwan Sahib said, concentrating on his pouring of careful drops from his flask into the glass.
    “Strange to see him after all these years, our young Veer. Don’t mind me, Diwan Sahib, he’s your nephew, of course. But—Maya, I knew this boy when he was just this high, and even when he was a little child he was like a grown-up. You know? I’d make jokes—every other child would laugh his head off, but this boy? Nothing. Not a smile even. Couldn’t get a word out of him.”The General gave a loud laugh after his first sip of rum. “Takes after his uncle, doesn’t he? Yes, Diwan Sahib?”
    Ramesh ambled across and patted the General on the shoulder. He was the only man in Ranikhet who would take such a liberty. “I say, General,” he boomed, “you have named your house General’s Retreat, but generals should never retreat, they should always advance.” His face turned pink as he chortled with merriment. Ramesh was a retired economist from Harvard whom everyone called Professor. He told people to their faces what others did not dare to say behind their backs. He got away with it because of his unquenchable good humor. Now he settled down with a sigh, helped himself to Diwan Sahib’s hip flask, and