Page 49 of A Shimla Affair
He turned around, ‘You think you’re free now, Miss Mistry, allowed to make your jokes?’
‘What’s the point of my jokes, if they don’t cut through your anger?’
He said nothing to me as we went on, only dropping my hand when he was sure that I was following him. Now it was rather dark, and I felt more at ease.
In town, we walked farther away from each other than we had in the forest, and he led me up an unfamiliar path. I realized he was taking me to his home.
‘Careful now, you wouldn’t want your future wife seeing us and getting upset,’ I said, all boundaries forgotten.
I don’t know why I felt that I could address the matter of Eliza May in this reckless and frankly shameless manner. Yet, apart from being scared that Charles had discovered me spying, I was also mad at him. If he was so keen on marrying Eliza May, then why did he always talk to me like I was so special?
‘What do you mean?’
We entered his house, and I looked around, sure that Charles had not made a single change since moving in here and being allotted this place. It was a typical Shimla cottage reserved for English officers coming up for the summer. I doubted he spent any time here.
‘Don’t pretend ignorance. I know you’re getting married to Eliza May.’
But when I saw his face, I knew he hadn’t been feigning ignorance.
‘Why would I get married to Eliza?’
But who else then? Had he been seeing more women in town? Or perhaps someone back in England? It needn’t surprise me so much—after all, he was a young, handsome bachelor with great prospects. Mothers would queue up to have their daughters meet Charles. Perhaps he had been scouting, seeing the best he could get, and just couldn’t stop being charming and flirtatious with everyone he met, including me.
‘Oh, not her—who is it then? Mary? Anne? Bridgette? Isn’t that what all British women are named?’
He shook his head as if shaking off a particularly cumbersome fly. Apparently, this had shocked him more than anything else he had found out today. ‘What in the world are you talking about? Why would I marry any Mary or Anne?!’
‘Oh, stop it, Charles, are you forgetting I was there today? I heard you! You said that you want to marry her, if she would have you, whoever she is!’
It took him a moment to understand what I was talking about, and then he held his head in his hands, his mouth forming a little oh. He leant against the wall, arms behind his back, head hung low. When he looked up—he looked defeated. Perhaps I had pushed it too far. Perhaps he didn’t want to talk about his private life, especially now, here, with me.
‘I’m sorry that—’
‘I meant you,’ he said simply.
The walls around me started spinning, and like him, I too felt the need to hold on to something, so I steadied myself. My heart thumped wildly, quite outside the control of my body.
I couldn’t bear to look at him, and, with difficulty, I turned away, looking around at this classic, unremarkable house, trying to steady my breath. The lamps cast a dim glow in the quietness and there was only silence except for the buzz of the crickets. We stood that way for what turned to minutes, what could soon turn to hours. My face felt hot, my eyes refusing to look anywhere near where he stood. His confession tortured me more than anything he had said so far, and I almost switched back to talking about how I had sneaked into Beeson’s house.
After what could have been eons, I heard him walk towards me. I wondered whether I should flee. The door was eight or nine steps away from me—if I made a run for it, there was a good chance I could get away. I had always been a fast runner.
‘Nalini,’ his hand was warm and in response to that simple touch, I turned towards him. I still did not have the courage tolook up at his face, but my hands traced his on their own, our fingers interlocking, pulling us closer. I had never been so close to him, I had never been so close to any man. My face was against his chest and I still refused to look up. Instead, I leant forward and breathed in, and it felt as if I should have been there all along. He put his arm around my back, and the other one at the nape of my neck. My head turned up of its own accord.
His face was incomprehensible. His eyes betrayed a battle, and his cheeks were flushed. His grip around me tightened and nothing mattered any more. None of it made any difference, except the warmth that enveloped us.
He kissed me.
Time stood still, or perhaps dissolved altogether, but who cared about it anyway—his mouth was on mine and my hands on the sides of his face. His hands were on my back, one moving up into my hair, the other clutching my side. He kissed me impatiently. I searched for his lips, tracing my hands down his neck and we stumbled towards the room next to us, flailing in the darkness. He held my face and kissed me again, a question inscribed in his breath. A sigh escaped my lips, and I was moved by its longing. I pulled his face to mine, to my neck, as our bodies pressed into each other. My willing body answered the question in his eyes.
In a few days, I would be a fugitive, if I wasn’t already dead. It was only fair I was allowed this moment of love and passion. I knew that God would not begrudge me that.
We fell on the bed.
A calm persisted in the room, augmented by the dim glow of a candle on Charles’ nightstand—only lit after we had bumpedour heads against each other, collapsing in a fit of laughter. The sheets beneath us were soft and cool, and I reached for the sari that now lay discarded at the edge of the bed. There was an almost eerie quietness now, wildly contrary to the earlier sounds of our pounding hearts, so loud that house threatened to shake off its foundation. I wrapped the sari around myself, and Charles held my wrist, stopping me from leaving.
‘I’m in love with you.’
My heart stopped and I thought I would drown; drown deep inside a sea of bliss and despair, of tenderness and sadness.
