The Ivory Swing (3 page)

Thank god that Annie was coming soon, a brisk inrush of evidence that everything beyond the paddy had not utterly extinguished itself in the secret way of ants.

And I will write to Jeremy, she thought urgently. Bring him out of the dream-space. Weave a spell with tales of sandalwood and peacocks, lure him to reply. A letter would be something to hold, a talisman.

But would a letter ever reach him? And would he bother to reply? And would a reply ever find the unnamed road among the backwaters of Kerala, backwater of the world?

More practical perhaps to cable Annie, Simply: When? Please hurry.

Annie had called long-distance when plans were still shape-shifting.

“What have you decided?” she asked.

“I'm going.”

“Well thank goodness. You'd be crazy not to. And I would have been furious.”

“You
furious? Why? What's it got to do with you?”

“In the first place, husbands and wives shouldn't be apart for so long. Too risky. In the second place I'm thinking of dropping out of law school for a while and bumming around Asia. Naturally I've been hoping for a free billet in South India.”

“ ‘Husbands and wives shouldn't be apart'! What kind of reactionary talk is that for an academic woman of this decade? And which lover are you up to now? I've lost count!'

“As a matter of sad fact, I'm between lovers. That's not the point. You are my link with stability and the middle class. What else is an older sister for? You and David are my living proof that perfection and permanence are attainable.”

“Oh David is perfect, of course. I just add milk every morning for instant happy marriage.”

“He's damn well very close to perfect. You can take my word for it, based on extensive and disappointing experience. I'm serious though. If you and David ever split up it would really unhinge me. Please keep that in mind when you're making any major decisions.”

“You're a great comfort to me, Annie.”

“Oh well. Ever your admiring sister. Listen, I can't afford to prolong this call. I'm so glad you'll be in the south. I already have friends I can stay with in Delhi and Pondicherry. I'll send a postcard when I'm coming. I won't be any bother. Have sleeping bag, will arrive. Love to David and the kids.”

I will write to both of them, Juliet decided. To Annie and to Jeremy. I need to catch hold of my own life before it slithers into the underbrush.

She would visit the woman who lived in the forest beyond the paddy. She asked herself uncertainly: She
was
real, wasn't she?

5

Back at the house Miranda was scraping out the flesh of a coconut and Jonathan was shaking rice across the mesh pannier the way fossickers sift river silt for gold. Patiently he picked out grit and pebbles and dead insects.

Juliet made the curry paste, grinding leaves and berries and shredded coconut between the stone roller and stone slab. Over the fire the chicken was bubbling fragrantly in coconut milk and spices when Jonathan called: “Someone coming! Shivaraman Nair and some other men.”

They peered out through the grille. Four men were visible in the distance, their crisp white
dhotis
and shirts flashing against the early evening shadows as they followed the winding path through the coconut trees. They all carried black umbrellas and the effect was rather comic; like a small congregation of somewhat portly penguins coming to the door.

“
Namaskaram.
” Juliet bowed slightly over her hands.

“Hello, hello, Mrs David Juliet!” boomed Shivaraman Nair. “Where is Professor David?”

With him were his son, Anand, and two men she did not know.

“He is not home. He was visiting some Brahmin priests in Tampanoor. And after that back to the university, I think.”

“Good, good. University is very good” beamed Shivaraman Nair. “Professor David,” he explained to his companions proudly, “is great scholar. He is studying history of the Nairs of Kerala. From his deep knowledge he is writing a book in which he will speak of my family and my estates. Students in western universities will be hearing of us. Another time you will meet my important guest.”

He turned to Juliet. Evidently she was a sorry substitute for Professor David. Not worth an introduction.

“I am wanting my kinsmen to see this beautiful house,” he said. “They are visiting from Alathur in Palghat district and I am showing them inside. We will not be disturbing you. Please to continue your normal activity of this time.”

“I am cooking in the kitchen so it is convenient for you” she said with quiet sarcasm.

“Yes, Yes. Correct, correct,” laughed Shivaraman Nair, untouched. “In the West,” he explained to his companions, “they are not having any servants. Mrs David Juliet is western woman.”

They shook their heads in disapproving wonder that such things should be. “
Ayyo
,
ayyo
,” they said. Alas!

The men removed their sandals and left them at the doorstep.

Seething inwardly, Juliet returned to the kitchen. She could hear them touring the bedrooms, Shivaraman Nair giving a running commentary in loud and rapid Malayalam. She could hear them pick up objects — the children's books, David's tape recorder, Miranda's violin — and exclaim over them. She could hear the small portable typewriter being tentatively tapped.

They are so arrogant, she raged silently.

The house was Shivaraman Nair's toy. He had designed it himself and eventually it would be part of his daughter Jati's dowry, but in the meantime it was a profitable source of income as a rental property for Westerners. Previously a French dance troupe had lived there for a month while studying
Kathakali
, the classical Keralan dance form. A Russian cultural delegation had been resident for several weeks. A German botanist had stayed for a year. And now the professor's family. As Shivaraman Nair himself had told them: “I am very cosmopolitan man. I am knowing people from all over the world.” He had also travelled as far as Bombay and Delhi.

The house (which was beautiful as a fantasy and had in fact been used as a set by an Indian movie company for a heavily romantic tale of tragic love) was his jewel. His pride of possession, his pleasure in sharing his masterpiece, was untroubled by any awareness of the sensitivities of tenants. The house is his stage, Juliet thought. The theater of his importance. And we are his prize puppets.

She heard the scrape of wicker chairs on the latticed porch. The men were settling in for siesta and discussion. Anand appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“My father says we will take tea now,” he said.

They speak to me as though I were a servant, Juliet fumed inwardly. She repressed the urge to say something cutting. She bowed her head in assent, not trusting herself to speak. Was this, she suddenly wondered, why South Indian women always went about with lowered face and averted eyes?

She took a tray with teapot, cups, cream, and sugar to the front porch. It was not the correct Indian way. Tea was always served with the scalded milk and lashings of sugar already added. A sweet and sickly syrup of tea. Penance for those, like Juliet, who preferred to take their beverages without any sweetness at all.

Shivaraman Nair frowned.

“My wife must be teaching you our ways of the tea,” he said.

“When you are visiting in our house,” Juliet said evenly “it is interesting, is it not, to learn
our
customs? Everyone may add as much milk and sugar as he wishes.” She would at least preserve this chimera of independence.

“But this is not your house, Mrs David Juliet,” he said, immediately perceiving the flaw in her argument. “This is my house.”

“And this is my tea.”

There was a momentary hush. Then Shivaraman Nair laughed with the good humor of an entrepreneur who has a marketable object of rare curiosity on his hands.

“This is the way of western women,” he chuckled, worldly wise.

“
Ayyo
,
ayyo,”
sighed his companions, shaking their heads forlornly.

Out of sheer irritation Juliet decided to pour a cup of tea for herself also. The cup rattled slightly against the saucer in her nervousness at the enormity of her action, but as calmly as possible she pulled up one of the vacant wicker chairs and joined the circle.

There was a stunned silence. A stillness. It was too much for the gentlemen from Palghat, who did not have the cosmopolitan advantage of those who lived in the capital, and who were in no way prepared for the outrageous ways of western women. With much muttering and shuffling, they rose and placed their cups on the table. They put on their sandals. Shivaraman Nair joined them hastily, without looking at Juliet. All three moved away from the door. They did not make
namaskaram.
Shivaraman Nair was talking volubly and quietly explaining. Anand stood uncertainly in the doorway shuffling his sandals, not yet moving away, clearly a little apologetic.

Juliet felt close to tears, and could not escape the sense of having committed some awful blasphemy even as she felt the wild injustice of their reaction.

“You are not understanding our customs,” Anand explained. “And my uncles are not understanding that you do not understand. It is not correct for a woman to eat with men. This is against the ancient laws. Women must only bring food to men, and serve them. I know it is different in your country, but my uncles do not know this.”

Juliet said nothing.

“My father and I are not angry with you,” he said, “because we know that you are not understanding. Please continue to come to me for help with learning our language.”

He made
namaskaram.

Juliet also bowed her flushed cheeks over her trembling hands.

They were both standing in the doorway and so they both saw what happened on the path.

Yashoda was returning from her walk, stepping lightly and quickly. It was obvious that she had just come from the public road and was moving through the coconut grove towards the rice paddy. She paused for a moment like a frightened deer when she saw the little knot of men in front of the house. Then she lowered her eyes and resumed her quick walk.

Shivaraman Nair called out something sharp and harsh, a command. Yashoda began to run in a breathless tripping way. One of the Nair uncles from Palghat spat forcefully onto the ground. He had been playing agitatedly with a stone and now, in a sudden access of rage or outrage, he tossed it after the fleeing Yashoda as a landlord throws a stone at scavenger dogs to keep them away from the cows.

The stone must have struck her because she uttered a little cry. Her assailant screamed something after her, rhythmic words sounding like an incantation, a curse.

“My god, what is happening?” Juliet asked.

“This is the result when a woman does not follow the requirements of her
dharma,”
Anand said. “That woman was married to my fathers cousin. Three months ago her husband died. It is forbidden to a widow that she be seen in public for one year after the death of her husband. It is most especially inauspicious that she is wearing jewellery at this time.”

Shivaraman Nair and the Palghat uncles began to walk away through the coconut grove. Anand still lingered.

“It is wrong of my uncles to be cruel,” he said apologetically. “Their ways are still very orthodox. But it is also wrong,” he added sadly, “for my cousin to disobey ancient laws. She is too modern. Her father has taken great risks with western travel and western education and western tutors and this is the result. She does not have the proper respect for our laws.”

6

David placed a flower between her breasts.

“I am too angry and upset,” she said.

“Little spitfire!” he teased, covering her body with a flight of kisses, soft and tantalizing as doves. “You must have crashed down on them like coconuts at harvest time. They were battered. Overwhelmed”

“They were bloody well barbaric!”

“Poor old men, what chance did they have? Their world is crumbling. Attacked on all fronts at once by two beautiful and bewitching
yakshis
.” He stroked her inner thigh.

Juliet sat up, disengaging. “What is a
yakshi
?”

“A spirit, usually demonic, who takes the form of a woman of surpassing beauty to lure men to damnation,” he explained, pulling her back into his arms. “She lies in wait to seduce the
sunyasin
meditating in the forest. He can only remain pure by killing her in spite of her extraordinary beauty. That is how the holy men rise above their brute senses. The rest of us yield in simple passion and are lost.”

She smiled, and felt her body rising from the ashes of its rigid outrage like a phoenix, turning soft and moist and eager.

“Still,” she insisted, unwilling to relinquish her right to be angry, “it doesn't seem possible that this climate gave the
Kama Sutra
to the world. It's too hot and damp. Another body feels like a penance. And of course the electricity has to be off as usual.”

“I definitely prefer making love to you by the glow of an oil lamp. You look golden as Radha.”

“I was referring to the ceiling fan. Which isn't turning.”

“Let me distract you. There … Are you still uncomfortable?”

“Well …” she murmured, turning to him.

And came like the monsoon after a long dry season. A jubilant storm.

Later she said in the darkness: “I forgot to tell you. Her name is Yashoda.”

“An interesting name.”

“Why?”

“Yashoda was the foster mother of Krishna, according to the legends. She had a lot of trouble with him when he was a child. Had to tie him up to her great stone mortar to keep him out of mischief.”

I would miss his pedantry terribly, she thought fondly deliberately tangling her legs with his so that she could feel his damp thigh against her crotch — still hot and swollen and ready to come again.

“Some people, however,” he said, moving against her, “just can't be kept out of mischief.”

“Meaning Krishna, of course.”

“Of course. He was one of those people who can make the earth move too. He crawled off, dragging that mortar behind him and uprooted two trees.”

Why should it be impossible to convince him to leave Winston? she thought.

“Hey,” he said reproachfully. “What's wrong? What happened to the uprooting of trees and the earth moving?”

“Ahhh,” she said, responding to his rhythmic insistence. “Ahh, ahh …”

“Oh god,” he laughed. “You're gorgeous when you're like this.”

“Promise me we won't go back to Winston.”

“And have you pining for Lake Ontario ever after?”

We'll stay forever, if necessary, he told himself. Her discontents will fade like a photograph left out in the Indian sun.

They drifted into sleep, damp with sex and monsoonal heat.

Juliet dreamed she was drowning in the rice paddy. The warm mud was sucking her down, down, down. Yashoda floated alongside, pale as a reflection. Don't fight, Yashoda said. It's useless to fight. She was eating lotus petals.

I can't just drown! I won't! Juliet gasped, struggling, the mud at her throat.

But every time she reached for the levee to pull herself out, the Palghat uncles threw stones at her.

Jeremy! she called, seeing him suddenly and inexplicably. Jeremy! Help!

He was too absorbed in watching the antics of the Palghat uncles to hear her. He thought they were playing a game, senile children skipping pebbles across paddy water.

Jeremy! she shrieked, drowning.

But he turned and walked away, seeing nothing.

David! she screamed, waking, clutching at him.

But he slept on, dreaming perhaps of a woman pure as ivory, swinging through a world of innocent delight.