Free Waiting for the Monsoon by Threes Anna Page B

eyes dart from left to right. Where is her father? Or has he sent someone else, someone who won’t recognize her? Her little blue hat is askew and she’s hot. After ten years in England, she is no longer used to the oppressive heat. She wipes her forehead and adjusts her hat. She is standing next to her trunk. Men with red cloths wrapped around their heads walk back and forth, balancing suitcases and crates on their heads. She’s already sent three of them away. Charlotte has no idea where to have her suitcase taken. She has only one address in India and that is her parental home in Rampur, a two-day trip. She listens to the characteristically accented English, which she hasn’t heard for so many years, and watches the affirming nodding of heads. Nearby stands an English soldier, a captain, whose uniform inspires confidence. Could he have been sent by her father? She catches his eye and smiles somewhat awkwardly. The handsome captain looks down and blushes.
    There is almost no one else left on the quay but Charlotte and the captain. The former boarding school girl walks over to the officer.
    â€œHave they forgotten you, too?”
    The man smiles shyly.
    â€œMe, too.”
    They stand side by side, without speaking. The last of the lading is tackled from the ship, divided up, and loaded onto handcarts.
    â€œDo you know Bombay?”
    â€œI’ve been here once, but that was before the war,” are the first words spoken by the man, who is older than Charlotte.
    â€œMe, too. When I had to leave,” Charlotte says softly. The memory of the last time she saw her mother appears clearly in her mind. The waving hand, the handkerchief, her slight figure. “I’ll write every week!” she had called out. But there were no more monthly letters. Six months later she received a letter from her father announcing that her mother had died suddenly. “I was in England,” she says. “At boarding school. I wanted to go back, but my father thought it would be better for me to spend the whole war in England.”
    The man nods. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes and offers her one. She looks around somewhat nervously and takes a cigarette from the pack. He gives her a light. Charlotte breathes in the smoke.
    They smoke in silence and watch as the last handcar rolls down the quay. The doors of an enormous shed are closed with a chain and padlock. A barefoot boy walks by with a crate of carrots on his head, singing as he goes. In the distance a ship’s horn sounds, and overhead a flock of twittering birds flies by. It’s the first cigarette she has smoked since leaving England. She hopes that she’ll never have to return to that country, where it rained constantly, the houses were cold and dark, and no one ever laughed.
    â€œAre you hungry?”
    â€œYes, a bit,” Charlotte says. She skipped breakfast because she was so excited to be back in India at last. She picks up her suitcase and says, “But I think I ought to go by the shipping office first. Otherwise, when my father gets here, he won’t know where I am.”
    Behind the counter sits a greying man in thick glasses, surrounded by thousands of fat folders full of yellowed pages. “Put a note on the bulletin board,” he says, pointing to a large notice board near the entrance. It is already plastered with messages from lost travellers and those who came to meet them. Charlotte adds her message to the others.
    THEY WALK ALONGSIDE one another. The captain, who has a slight limp, carries her suitcase. He’s afraid to look at her, and vice versa. She notices that he is missing a little finger, but outside of that she finds him quite attractive. He has dark eyes, a straight nose, and a cleft chin like Cary Grant. She’s aware of a delicate scent she has never smelled on a man before. Not that she’s had much opportunity to compare men’s scents at boarding school: the regime was too strict,