Free Translator Translated by Anita Desai

Translator Translated

    T HE TWO WOMEN had not met since they were in school together. And at that time they barely had anything to do with each other. That is how it is, of course, when one is a natural-born leader, excels in both sports and studies, is captain of any number of societies, a model for the subdued and discouraged mediocrities who cannot really aspire to imitating her and who feel a disturbing mix of envy and admiration—currents travelling in opposite directions and coiling into treacherous and unsettling whirlpools—and the other, meanwhile, belongs to the latter group, someone who stands out neither by her looks nor her brains and whom others later have a hard time remembering as having been present at all.
    Yet, at the Founder's Day function held at their old school one year, they were both present in the small group of alumni who attended. Prema, now middle-aged, even prematurely aged one might say, found herself in the presence of someone she had admired for so long from afar. It would not have occurred to her to approach the tall, elegant woman with a lock of white hair gleaming like a bold statement amid the smooth black tresses that swung about her shoulders. The woman wore enormous dark glasses—they used to be called 'goggles'—which she removed only to read the programme, but she must have looked around her and taken in more because she half turned in her seat to Prema who sat behind her and said, quite naturally and unaffectedly, 'We were in the same class, weren't we? Do you remember?' And Prema had to make a pretence of being puzzled, confused and surprised, before remembering—as if she had ever forgotten.
    Prema's astonishment at being recognised made her tongue-tied. As a schoolgirl she had never gone up and spoken to Tara—there had been no occasion to do so. Only once was a connection made, when she threw a ball right across the court with an unaccustomed, even anguished force, and Tara, leaping to catch it, twirled so that her short pleated skirt whipped about her hips, and effortlessly, balletically, lifted the ball into the net to eruptions of cheers. Now Prema could find nothing to say. If only there were, again, a ball to fling and to catch, so gloriously! Finally, 'It's been a long time,' she stammered, and wished she had dressed better and brought her new handbag with her instead of the cloth satchel into which she stuffed books, papers, everything—just the way only the most despised and unfashionable teachers did.
    'Not when one is back here—it's changed so little,' Tara said easily. 'Miss Dutt is gone, of course. I wish I'd come sooner and seen her again.'
    Miss Dutt, the dragon? She wished she had seen her again? Prema blinked: it just showed what different worlds they occupied. To Prema, Miss Dutt had never been anything but a scourge and a terror; she could still remember the withering stare she cast at Prema's battered shoes, unshined, slovenly and uncouth.
    'One is too busy,' she said finally, awkwardly. 'Where is the time?'
    She should not have said that; it made Tara ask, 'What have you been doing all these years?' which of course uncovered the hollowness of Prema's words. What
had
she been doing that she could talk of, compared with Tara's achievements of which everyone knew?
    Prema had kept herself informed of Tara's career: how could one not when it had been so much mentioned in the media—one of the first interns to be taken on by a national paper, later a contributor to an international magazine, especially popular in their part of the world, eventually with her own syndicated column. It had been a bit surprising when she gave up her career in journalism and took up publishing instead, in those days not so glamorous as it seemed to have become now. She had founded the first feminist press in the country and made it, unexpectedly, an outstanding success. At least once a week a photograph of her attending a conference or speaking at a seminar appeared. And how