Free East Into Upper East by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Page A

marriage and, like him, she was of a minor royal house of the warrior caste; she rode horses and hunted tigers and was more at home in deserts and jungles than in political drawing rooms. So Too was mostly alone, and lonely; and Sumitra was also lonely. It was easy for them to come to an understanding, not so easy to become lovers. At the conclusion of the social events at which they met, they were driven home in their respective official cars; and although no family members lived with him, he was surrounded by his family retainers. However late it was, his batman waited up for him, to take off his boots and help him change for bed; and in case Too wanted anythingat night, he slept outside his door on a little string cot, the way he had done throughout their army years together.
    By the time Sumitra came home, her husband Harry was asleep. His drinking made him breathe heavily, even snore, which disgusted her so much that she tried to wake him; but he only grunted and turned over onto his other side, his long nerveless arm flung out on the sheet. She shut the two doors of their connecting dressing room, and lay in bed thinking of Too. In the course of their evening together, they had managed not only to exchange glances but also surreptitiously to brush up against each other, the lightest of contact—of arms or hands—setting up a conflagration of nerves. It was fearful, painful, but also so exquisite that they kept finding opportunities to do it again. It was strange how they managed to contrive their understanding; neither of them had experience of secret affairs, they were innocent except in marriage. But it may have been that both had an ingrained habit of secrecy—of snatching moments of privacy out of communal living among family members, and the ever present family retainers, wakeful in service.
    Night after night she lay in bed, longing for and plotting the next step beyond the secret touch of arm against arm. She liked to think that Too was lying in his house, in his bed, plotting in the same way. It was only later that she discovered how deep was his sleep, deeper than Harry’s and in his case not induced by drink but by an untroubled mind and a robust constitution. But at that time, at the beginning, she lay awake straining her ears for the sound of his arrival, certain that he was as tormented as she was and had contrived a way to come to her. But all she heard was dogs barking to each other across the dusty night, and sometimes the howl of jackals that still infested the unbuilt areas around the capital; and worst, though faint through two closed doors, her husband’s troubled alcoholic snores.
    One night she could bear it no longer—she got up and let herself out and started up the little sports car she kept for her private use. She woke the watchman and put on such a stern preoccupied face that he unlocked the gate fast and without question. She drove through the wide and silent tree-lined streets. Too lived in an area of mansions requisitioned by the government of India for their own high-ranking officers; in the evening there were always many cars parked outside under the trees, for in almost every house there wassome official function to which important guests came. But now all the parties were over and the houses shut up behind their high wrought-iron gates.
    She reduced speed when she approached his house. She had vaguely planned to rouse his watchman in the same domineering manner as her own: but his watchman was not the usual sleepy old retainer with a blanket thrown over his shivering shoulders but a brisk little Gurkha soldier with a rifle that sprang alive in his hands as he shouted, “Who’s there!” At once the dogs started up—Too’s Alsatians, brought from his estate—and, frightened as any miscreant, Sumitra stepped on the accelerator and drove off. Tears of fury and frustration splashed on her wheel, and when she got home, she was so careless in her