day in contemplation and in the study of Sacred Books, such as the Gita and the Upanishads, and he prays for enlightenment. A few renounce their wealth and their families and become beggars, asking only for food from the householders and cotton cloth to cover their bodies.’
‘By ridding himself of worldly ties, he expects to give all his thoughts to God?’
‘The same idea exists in the Christian religion,’ he said, nodding his head in assent to my question. ‘It is, however, in one particular different. In Christianity blind faith is required. In Hinduism faith is not asked. A man must by earnest contemplation discover what he feels to be true, and in that only he must believe.’
‘It is a hard religion.’
‘On the contrary. It provides for every man. It asks only belief to the best of a man’s ability – no more.’
Mother and Father had brought up their daughters to go to church on Sundays and babble the Lord’s Prayer every night. They had also taught us the accepted rules of conduct in society. Good children, they said, did not lie or cheat. Good young women lay only with their husbands; they were not too vain; they did not gossip unkindly, and so on. I had often questioned these teachings, but it was clear that they contributed to the peace of the community, so I accepted them. But when the war came to our city with all its savagery of persistent air raids, when most of the boys with whom I had grown up were dead in an apparently futile war, my mind sought for a reason for all the suffering I saw – and found none. And subsequently had not found any.
I had dug amid rubble with nothing but a coal shovel and bare hands to free a mother and children from the cellar of their ruined home, and had prayed at the same time that God would not let the tottering walls around me fall and crush me too. They had not fallen – but I had not then believed in God. With a crushed child in one’s arms it is hard to believe in any kind of Divine Mercy. My confused mind seemed symbolic of a whole world which faced the same issues.
Rather than continue a discussion which threatened to resurrect old worries, I suggested that we have lunch, and we sought shelter from the wind in a deep hollow ringed with rough grasses. It was a pleasant place, and the sun which had strengthened as we walked warmed us as we munched the sandwiches that I had brought. Afterwards we sat and smoked in silence.
Ajit took my hand and opened it. Very lightly he traced the lines upon it with his finger.
‘Your hand is full of good,’ he said finally.
‘I suppose I am really a fortunate woman,’ I said, ‘but I do not feel so.’
He puffed at his pipe, and looked again at the hand.
‘The early life is broken, full of small illnesses and disappointments – later on it greatly improves.’
‘Does it?’ I asked hopefully, leaning closer to him to have a better look.
He caught his breath as I moved nearer, but went on: ‘Yes, there is a husband – and three children.’ He broke off and then asked: ‘Have you been married? Forgive me for asking.’
It was my turn to catch my breath. ‘Not quite,’ I said, ‘I have been engaged twice and both my fiancés were killed.’
‘Forgive me,’ he repeated. ‘I should not have asked, although it is written in your hand.’ He closed the hand but kept it in his own firm grasp. His head was bent as he stared at our clasped hands; his hair was glossy, like the back of a cat.
He looked up, straight into my eyes: ‘Why are you so unhappy today?’ he asked.
Although I was totally unprepared for such a question, I tried to evade it lightly, as I said with forced gaiety: ‘Do I look unhappy? It must be old age creeping up on me.’
‘Age – you?’ he exclaimed. ‘No, some shock has come to you – and I wondered if I could be of comfort.’ He stroked my hand absentmindedly.
At his words, my mind was flooded with the pain and humiliation of yesterday. The quivering of my lips became a general trembling, which he felt in the hand he stroked.
‘Say to me,’ he said very gently.
‘I – er – it is rather a personal matter.’
‘Naturally it is personal – that much I realise. It is good when in trouble to speak to another of one’s personal matters – it makes better.’
His voice was full of sympathy and, after a hesitating start, the whole story poured from me in short, bitter sentences, and, just as he had said, it made me feel better.
Finally I said: ‘Unknowingly I hurt Angela, who loved me enough not to let me see the jealousy she must have felt.’
During the recital he had continued to hold my hand as he sat stiffly cross-legged, but as I finished he let go of it and lay down on his back and relit his pipe. The smoke rose in cloudlets, as he thought. Then he looked at me and grinned mischievously. Feeling very self-conscious at having confided in a stranger and a man, I smiled rather tremulously back at him.
‘You are lovely when you smile,’ he said, as if he had not heard the story at all.
The incongruity of the remark struck me and I laughed a little harshly.
‘That is not a good laugh,’ he said, raising himself on his elbow, so that he was quite close to me, and taking my hand again. ‘I have some advice to give you.’
‘Yes?’
‘Let me marry you. Let me show you what life and love can really be.’
I started up as if to run away, but he would not let go of my hand.
‘Don’t go away. Hear me to the end.’
I looked down at him and was astonished at the beauty which flooded his face; it was transfigured. There was love in it such as I had previously seen only upon the face of a new mother – no lust – just a glow of affection. I knew I was seeing something rare, and I sat down again, hardly knowing what I did but fascinated by a loveliness I did not know a man’s face could show.
‘I have loved you from the first day I saw you – you must know it.’
I did know it although I had not acknowledged it to myself. I nodded.
‘We would have to fight many difficulties together, as we are of different races – yet those difficulties could also make us cling together and know each other.’ His eyes were imploring. ‘I would love you so that sadness and weariness left your face, and contentment filled your life.’
‘You do not ask me if I love you.’
‘I do not ask your love now – only the chance to win it – and the privilege of giving you happiness.’
I felt curiously humble before him, very uncertain of myself, but the desire to run away had gone. It was as if unimagined treasures had been laid before me; and it seemed to me that I had done nothing to merit such a gift.
I tried to think clearly, to imagine what living with a man who was brown would be like. My mind refused to grasp anything, however, except that a delicate, brown finger was stroking my wrist and that a man of known integrity and ability was looking at me with adoration, and had just offered me all that he had and an entirely new life.
‘Ajit – I am not worth all the sacrifice it would mean.’
‘My Rani – my Queen, you are worth everything to me.’ He slipped his arm round me and drew me closer. Suddenly I turned my face to his shoulder and wept wearily. I wept the last tears I had for Barney, who had been such a scallywag in life and was so pitiful in death. And for the first time for years I desired to make someone else happy instead of hugging my own miseries to myself.
The Chinese say that the time to court the widow is immediately after the funeral, and there had certainly been a funeral the day before, a funeral during which love had been replaced by hate and then by pity – pity for Barney, pity for Angela, pity for myself.