Free An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy Page A

awkwardly, like a child in a bus, waved as well.
    The day after, when Mrs Barnum returned with the strange man, she pointed Kananbala out to him and he looked up and waved too, a wide smile crinkling his eyes. He and Mrs Barnum looked at each other and, laughing, Mrs Barnum said something to him in English. The night was still and quiet and Kananbala could hear each word, but she understood no English.
    Mrs Barnum said, “Poor old thing, Ramlal says she’s completely mental, babbles dirty words at people; fun, don’t you think, darling? Would you like it if I did that to you?”
    They laughed together and the man said, “Go on, say something, that’ll be delicious.”
    Mrs Barnum waved at Kananbala every night, whenever she returned from anywhere. Kananbala waited for her at the window. Barnum thought his wife very odd to get out of the car outside the gate, whatever for? Once, when he saw her waving upward after they had returned from a shopping expedition, he decided it was time to be stern. Larissa had no sense of propriety, really. What must the servants think, their mistress waving at the local mad woman? There was something in all those things people said about mixed blood. The longer he was married, the more he felt sure of this.
    * * *
    The following week Barnum left on one of his long trips. Kananbala had got used to watching Mrs Barnum go out every afternoon and return every night, later and later, with her young man. It had been playful, all that waiting to see what new, subtly shimmering gown Mrs Barnum would be in each night, when she would arrive, and when she would notice her at the window and wave.
    But tonight was different. Tonight Kananbala’s throat contracted, her heart thudded and her fingers went cold as she watched Mrs Barnum and the young man returning in his car.
    It was perhaps one in the morning. The night was luminous, with a great, wobbly, yellow egg yolk of a moon bobbing behind trees that swayed in the breeze. Kananbala leaned outside as far as her bulbous body would allow and waved with both arms when the car stopped and she saw them out on the road, a few yards from the gate of the Barnum house. She knew she had to stop them.
    Kananbala had seen Mr Barnum that afternoon. He had come back before time and found Mrs Barnum absent. Kananbala had seen him drive off soon after he arrived, perhaps in search of his wife, and return without her. From a little after twelve at night, Barnum had been waiting outside the gate, concealed in a cascade of bougainvillea. Kananbala could see from the way he stood hidden that he intended to catch Mrs Barnum and her lover together and then … what? Kananbala stared mesmerised at the spot in the bougainvillea into which he had disappeared.
    Mrs Barnum wondered why the Indian woman was waving with both arms. Then, with a happy laugh, she raised both her own in imitation. Her lover bounded out of the car and ran behind her. Kananbala saw his teeth gleam as he smiled. The road was bright with the moonlight, in which they had grown sharp shadows that followed them. Mrs Barnum was giggling and making as if to push the clinging young man away. Her high heels clattered on the tarmac.
    They reached the gate. He kissed Mrs Barnum’s fingertips and murmured something that Kananbala thought the breeze floated towards her. She looked away in panic at the distant, dark outline of the fort and the shadowy bulk of the forest, wishing something would stop what she knew was going to happen.
    Barnum stepped out of the leaves and orange flowers.
    Mrs Barnum swivelled towards him. In a quick rattle, she exclaimed, “Darling … is everything alright? The Munby party … went on so long … ”
    Mr Barnum pulled his hand out of his pocket, thwacked the side of his revolver into her cheek and snarled, “Shut up.” His wife stumbled back with a gasp of pain. Before Barnum could turn the gun the other way, Kananbala saw the