Chapter 22-

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE BEACH

At the end of the war, the regiment to which Sundari's husband, Gopal, belonged was ordered to Java, where the Dutch were trying to re-establish their rule. Evidently he had volunteered for service in Java. Sundari, for her part, did not mind how long he stayed away. She spent the winter of 1945 with her parents in Duriabad, and returned to Bombay late in March 1946, just a week before Gopal was due back from war service.

For a man with his kind of background, Gopal had done all the right things. He had won the Military Cross in the fighting for the relief of Tobruk, and was now retiring only after all the fighting was over, with the rank of major. His British business firm acknowledged his war service with the offer of a director- ship. His friends welcomed him back with a party at the Willing- don Club. Even members of his family who had tended to ignore him since his marriage, wrote letters telling him how proud they were of him.

Gopal had come through the war unwounded, and yet he was not the same man; it was as though the war had given him some inner scar, and at the same time, helped to fuse the two sides of his personality, the orthodox Hindu upbringing and the Western education, to make him a mature, well-rounded person.

Sundari could not help being conscious of the artificiality that had crept between them. Even when they made love, it seemed to be more from politeness to each other's susceptibilities than for love or self-indulgence.

Almost from the very day of his return, he plunged into the life of his set with a new restlessness, and what seemed to Sundari an altogether new zest, sharpened by association with soldiers. It was almost as though he wanted to be surrounded by other people rather than being by themselves, using race meetings and card parties as a kind of shield to avoid being alone with her more than he could help.

Did this happen to all marriages which were about to break, Sundari kept thinking? Could he not read the signs just as well as she? His apparently docile attitude towards the whole situation preyed on her mind."

She knew now that he did not love her, had never been in love with her. Was he also making an effort to give their marriage an appearance of success, much as her parents had enjoined her to do herself? She had come to accept that a Hindu wife must subordinate herself for the sake of convention; but did the husband too have to become a party to the fraud? What about the Hindu male's special prerogative the religious and social authority to break up a marriage at will? It would be much easier for him to take the initiative.

Or was he one of those who believed that once two people were married, they must live together until death parted them- an unhappy grafting of Western rules of behaviour on Hindu orthodoxy? If a mistake had been made, did he hold that it must be lived with, not rectified, the deceit perpetuated, not exposed to the light of day?

Perhaps he just felt less strongly about it than she did. The thought made Sundari acutely conscious of the difference in their ages: he was now in his thirty-fifth year, a mature, greying, slightly bald man who had obviously acquired a degree of emotional stability that she lacked, and who could bring himself to be kind and generous to her without being in love with her.

And that, she kept telling herself, was where the danger lay. The longer you went on living together, the easier it was to make adjustments. Would their marriage grind its way into a groove, adjusting itself to the outward requirements of convention, or would it drift in the opposite direction and soon find itself beyond the point of no return?

And that was the point at which she would shrinkingly admit her infatuation for Gian: Gian who was simple and sincere, a living refutation of all that was artificial, of everything in Gopal's dark-glasses-and-white-sandals set which had become so repugnant to her.

For days, she had been nervous and irritable, conscious of her own burden of guilt, and yet resenting what she could see was a growing intimacy between her husband and Malini. Did they think that she did not know they had been lovers, or did they simply not care? One evening she had been shockingly rude to Malini.

Sundari had always regarded her with undisguised condescen- sion; the typical girl from the slums who had found her way unerringly into the false glitter of their circle by making the most blatant use of her fierce, sensual earthiness. She had won her way back into the Prince's favour after a fierce and unrelenting battle with Tanya, and was now the acknowledged high-priestess of their set; a she-leopard once more on the prowl, businesslike, self-assured, knowing that she could pick and choose. She had chosen Gopal almost as though by right-a woman turning back to her first love, Sundari thought.

You can't afford to throw stones at others,' Malini retorted very evenly, loudly enough for all the others to hear. 'All of us haven't got our own houses to receive our friends in while our men are away."

Too late Sundari realized it was pointless to match crudities with someone like Malini. She tried to salvage what was left of her dignity. "Will you please take me away?' she had called out to Gopal. I can't stay here and be insulted by this type of woman."

Malini merely sniggered and shrugged her shoulders to signify her triumph, and then turned to give Gopal a private smile, almost as though to explain that she was not to blame for whatever had happened.

Sundari swept out of the room, and Gopal, who had been involved in a game of chemin-de-fer, found someone to take his place and followed her. They got into the car and drove home. They said not a word to each other throughout the drive until, just as they were turning into the porch, he asked: I wasn't listening. How did it all start? What did Malini say that annoyed you so much?" 'She asked me if it was true that Debi had been helping the Japanese in the war."

You mustn't be so sensitive about it,' he said. 'Everyone's saying it.' 

I can't help being sensitive,' she snapped. 'He is my brother, and she is not my girl-friend."

He brought the car to a halt but did not switch off the engine.

But what did you say that made her call you-made her say what she did ?

I'm afraid I called her a whore and a tart-that's what she is! -for daring to suggest that I am just one of them!'

"They're saying that, too, many of them." he told her quietly. "You can't stop people from saying things. They live on gossip and rumour-like the sort of thing that you suggested that there is something between Malini and myself."

She had glared at him in the darkness, angry enough to want to lash out at him, but she controlled herself. I never want to go there again,' she told him. "If you want to, you must go by yourself."

'I am going back now,' he replied, reaching across and opening the car door for her. I asked Bob to take my hand only until I came back."

"Then why didn't you stay on?" she taunted. 'I could have found my own way back." 'No doubt you could," he said, "but not all of us can afford to despise convention as you do."

He had gone back. She had fallen asleep, exhausted with rage, still ruminating over his last remark. Convention!-that was all their marriage meant to him. She did not know what time he returned. The next morning, she stayed in bed until she heard his car drive off to the office.

It was long past eleven when she heard the telephone ring. Baldev came and told her that someone was asking to speak to her. She took the call on the sitting room verandah. Her heart gave a sudden leap. 'Debil' she gasped. 'Debil"

Debi-dayal and Mumtaz left Bombay on a Friday morning. On Saturday, Sundari rang Gian. "I want you to come and see me,' she told him. "This evening.'

They had not spoken to each other for more than a year now, not since Gian's outburst on the beach. She had often longed for him to telephone, but had been too proud to make the approach herself. And at that it was a narrow escape, she had to admit. Now that particular complication had been neatly sorted out, almost as though by a surgical operation, leaving behind too, the pain and the shock of surgery, and even more, a seething anger. Debi's visit had opened her eyes. Pure love, she kept telling herself was there anything more impure than love?-There was always deceit in it, a question of how much you could get for how little.

She noticed his hesitation. 'I don't know,' he said. 'I am not sure that I should."

But you just have to come,' she entreated. "You promised- that you would come when I had something special to tell you."

He was silent for a while. 'Have you something special to tell?"

"Very special. I simply must see you."

'I have a feeling it will only complicate things,' he said. 'Just when I am beginning to learn to live without making myself miserable over you."

He sounded so sincere as he said it, that it was difficult for her to control her voice. She clutched the receiver hard. 'No, no; it will only help to uncomplicate things,' she laughed to reassure him. 'Come for a swim first, so that we can talk. I shall be alone. My husband will join us about six. Then... then we can talk it over."

She knew that that was something that would draw him; the suggestion that they were both to go to her husband and tell him they were in love. He had told her they should not see each other unless she was ready to become his wife. That was exactly what she was now promising him. 'Don't be late,' she warned. "I particularly want you not to be late. Gopal is always punctual, and I want a little time to ourselves-to talk to you." 'No, I won't be late,' Gian assured her. 'And thank you for calling. I love you, darling," he added.

As she replaced the receiver, she noticed that her hand was shaking.

Gopal was going to the club for a game of golf. Just as he was leaving his room, he called out to her.

'Sundari, who is this man you have asked?' 

"A friend of Debi's. Why?"

'Nothing. I thought it was rather odd that he shouldn't have been here before."

'He has been here; in fact, I went and brought him once.

That was during the fire. He stayed in the spare room. That's

what Malini and the others have been talking about." If he wondered why she was telling him, he made no comment.

"Has he been in Bombay all this time?" 'Most of it. Are you going to be late?"

"No. I should be back at six, or soon after."

'Don't be late."

"You know I'm never late.'

Yes, that was quite true; he could be depended upon to be always on time, Sundari admitted to herself with a sudden pang of compassion. He was a creature of habit; that was why she could be sure that her plan would go through without a hitch.

"Why did you ask?' he was saying.

I might have a little surprise for you.'

*Surprise, darling? Pleasant, I hope.'

"I hope so too."

He paused at the head of the stairs, then came back.

"What's the matter?" he asked looking intently at her. "You're looking so tense... excited.'

She advanced towards him and placed her hands on his shoulders. He could feel the warmth of her body, close to him. She was looking directly into his eyes, and there was a cruel, almost malicious twist to her lips. He felt uncomfortable under her steady gaze. "Why are you smiling?" he asked.

I was just thinking. of something that happened years ago. One of our neighbours was drowning a puppy because there was one too many. And when Debi burst into tears, he called us weak and sentimental. I offered to drown it for him, just to show that I wasn't weak.'

'Did you drown it?"

No. In the end he changed his mind. He gave the puppy to Debi . That's how we got Spindle.' "What put that into your mind?"

I was thinking that when the time comes to do something harsh, one should go ahead with it, and not delay, which only makes it more difficult."

He laughed nervously. "That sounds like something they used to teach us at the Military Staff college,' he said. "Why hasn't this man been here all this time?

'Mr. Talwar? Because he's old-fashioned and rather earnest. He thought you wouldn't approve.'

"What nonsense!"

'So I told him.'

"Told him what?"

"What you just said: "What nonsense!"-that ours was a modern marriage, that we both maintained contacts with our old friends almost as if as if we weren't married. Don't we, darling?"

'Look,' he said. 'I am only going to play golf with Malini- in a foursome. Surely you are not objecting?"

"But of course not! What an idea!"

Then why all this talk about who we see and all that?"

She dropped her hands from his shoulders. "I don't know why you thought I objected. I was just trying to tell you what I told Mr. Talwar.

"Why should he suppose I'd object to his seeing you?"

'Perhaps he has a guilty conscience. He says he's in love with me. At least he used to be.'

He laughed. 'It will be interesting to meet him.'

It was a few minutes after six when Gopal came back, pleasantly tired after his round of golf. It had been a hot afternoon and his clothes were wringing wet.

"Where is the memsahib ?" he asked Baldev.

'Memsahib has gone for a swim, sir.'

*All by herself?

'No, sahib. With another sahib. Mr. Joshi.'

"Yes, of course,' Gopal nodded, remembering their talk after lunch. Baldev had mixed up the names, surely? She had said his name was Talwar. 'Has memsahib told you whether he's staying to dinner?

"No, sir, I mean he is not staying. I asked memsahib."

"Oh, somehow I had thought... bring me a drink, will you, a whisky, and then turn on my bath.'

After a bath, he changed into linen slacks, sandals and a cellular shirt. He was glad that they were going to be by them- selves for dinner. Afterwards, he could just nip across to the Prince's shack for a game. It might have been awkward if Sundari's visitor had stayed on to dinner. It would have meant dawdling over the food, coffee afterwards, perhaps a brandy. Now it seemed that he could just have a drink with them after their swim and then leave.

When he came into the sitting room, the sun was just going down. Baldev had already put out a tray of drinks and switched on the lights. He was a little annoyed that Sundari should still be on the beach herself when she had told him to be back at six. He picked up a magazine and walked onto the verandah over- looking the sea. He switched on the lights.

Even as he turned, he felt that something was wrong; and then his eye fell on the short black telescope on the window-sill, like a miniature piece of artillery. For a moment, he stood in the doorway, hardening his mind against the thoughts that came flooding over him. Then, steeling himself, he advanced to the instrument.

It was locked in position, aimed at the patch of palmyra and coconut at the edge of the high ground shelving down to the beach. He was aware, even as he applied his eye to the telescope, that he was looking at exactly what he was meant to see; that the scene that had been put on would not have been complete without his own participation. Sundari and a man lay in the thicket of reeds and palms, leaning against the trunk of a tree. They lay on towels spread out on the short grass, and neither of them wore a stitch of clothing. They looked relaxed and con- tented, as though wishing to give the impression that their passions had been assuaged, and almost as a corroboration, he noticed that her hair was disarrayed. They were not even talking to each other. The man was gazing blankly towards the sea, and she was looking in the direction of the house, her right hand shading her eyes. And then he realized that she was looking directly at him, seeing him bending down to the telescope. He drew back from the window and switched off the verandah lights..

So this was her way of getting her own back, delivering the death-blow to their marriage as she had once offered to destroy a puppy, ready to hold it down, squirming, to watch it wriggling in a bucket of hot water, as she was watching him now. She had always pretended that she had not seen Malini and himself that day; now, after all those years, she was telling him that she had.

He remembered how cool and deliberate she had sounded, putting her hands on his shoulders, when she asked him not to be late. He felt defeated, curiously humbled; it was somehow far worse than if she had created a scene that day. Instead, she had waited for this kind of revenge, calculated and openly retaliatory, staging a scene for his benefit which shrieked of artifice, and yet made it clear to him that she would have no hesitation in giving herself wantonly to a stranger just in order to get her own back on him.

The cigarette burned his fingers and he came to with a start. She had waited six years, he kept telling himself, for the entire duration of the war, to tell him what she had meant to say all along: that their marriage was irreparably broken and that it was he who had broken it.

Sundari had been watching the window of the glazed verandah where she had placed the telescope, and when she saw the light go off, she turned to Gian.

They had said nothing to each other for a long time. He too had been conscious that he was at one of the crucial moments of his life; it was almost the exact feeling he had experienced when he had set out to kill Vishnu-dutt after finding the axe, and later again, when he had got off the ship at Madras. In a few minutes now, they would get up and dress, and then walk back to the house to wait for Gopal; the husband he had never met but whom he had already wronged. After that would come the straight, man-to-man talk, with Sundari by his side. He was ready, elated. Darling,' he said. "I have waited for this moment all my life."

' She sat up, putting her arms round her knees. He wanted to reach out and take her into his arms, but something about her expression made him hold back.

I too have been waiting for this moment,' she said. 'Perhaps not all my life, but for several years.'

The sudden change that had come over her made his flesh creep, as though someone had scratched a pin over glass. He stared fixedly at her face, not prepared to believe that anything could go astray now, in this hour of triumph. I asked you to come, merely to tell you how much I detest you,' she said. "How can you say such a thing,' he said. 'What right have you to..

I have every right. Remember you owe your freedom to my father's charity-your job too. You got him to give you another chance, pretending that it was Debi-dayal who told you to approach him-Debi, whom you let down just as he was about to make his escape.

"Oh, my God! he said, suddenly feeling limp. "Who has been telling you all these lies?"

You were the liar, Mr. Joshi, or Mr. Talwar; you who acted as a spy in the Andamans against my brother... betraying him and getting him flogged." No,' he said. "That's not true. I can explain everything."

Explain! I saw the marks myself. His poor back is covered with them-they will be there all his life.'

She paused only to regain her breath. "You! With your talk of love! Such great, overwhelming love! Keeping those snapshots all these years. Debi never gave you those photographs. You stole them stole the money too that I had sent. And the only thing you did for Debi was to give him away.'

He hung his head down. There was a film over his eyes, blurring his vision; his limbs felt clammy, as though bathed in perspiration.

You, a common thief,' she went on, 'even despised by the other prisoners, talking of love! And when the time came, you ran away, knowing that the other prisoners would have murdered you for what you did, toadying to the authorities and spying on your friends. And when you got here, you had no compunction about taking advantage of those you had wronged; preying upon the love and the feeling of guilt of a father and mother to get. yourself a safe job, pretending you'd befriended their son, when you were the one he had most cause to hate even more than the jailer, or the man who wielded the flogging cane. 

'Please!" he implored. 'Please! Even to himself his voice sounded like a whimper.

And then you came to me, his sister, with a long story built round photographs you had stolen, talking of love! Love! How grotesque the word sounds in the mouth of someone like you . an insult to the kind of love that even a woman in a whore- house can achieve. Love for what? My father's money? You thought his son would never come back." He had got his wind back now. The blur before his eyes had thinned out. 'Have you finished?' he asked.

"There is just one thing more. Last time you asked me if it meant nothing to me that I had slept with you. I want to tell you about that. On the day we returned from our honeymoon, my husband lay here, yes, exactly here, with a low woman. That was six years ago. Ever since, I have been waiting to avenge myself. Today I have succeeded. I arranged that he should take a good look at us, you and me, while we were here, making love, or giving the impression of it, naked. If you hadn't been here, anyone else would have done, but you happened to be handy and to have very few scruples. So that's what you were to me a male whore; that's what your great love has meant to me." Has Debi-dayal been telling you all "Has he been here?" this?' he stammered.

Yes, he has been here, and he told me. But I am not going to tell you where he is, knowing that the first thing you'd do would be to go to the police... perhaps earn your pardon that way. What did we ever do to you?' she asked.

He felt strangely composed now. "No, you did nothing to me," he told her very quietly, and then his voice rose to a tremor. "You did nothing. But you have now. I had just begun to believe in myself, taking courage in the fact that somewhere, in spite of all his weaknesses, there is in every man something that he can value. You have now destroyed that faith."

She gave a queer little laugh which made him flinch. She got up, grabbed the towel, wrapped it around herself, and then walked away, without a backward glance, erect and proud and contempt- uous. He watched her, feeling numb with pain, unable to think.

He waited until she was out of sight, and until the sound of her footsteps had ceased. Then he rose to his feet and began to dress.