The other side of the moon

The doctor walked me back to the Club. He asked me if I cared to see the Minto Hospital in the morning. ‘Thank you’, I said, ‘I have seen it already.’

‘I suppose the Civil Surgeon took you’, he said.
‘Yes, and Mrs. Callendar.’
‘Ah!’, he said, ‘a very charming lady.’
I had to think about that.
‘Possibly’, I said, ‘when one knows her better.’
‘You didn’t like her?’

‘Well’, I said, ‘she was certainly intending to be kind, but I did not find her exactly charming.’
He burst out: ‘She has just taken my tonga without asking my permission! That indeed is not charming! And major Callendar interrupts me night after night when I am dining with my friends and I go at once and he is not there and not even a message! But what can I do? I am just a subordinate, my time is of no value, and Mrs. Callendar takes my carriage and cuts me dead… You understand me! Oh, if others were like you!’
‘I don’t think I understand people that well’, I said. ‘I only know whether I like or dislike them.’
‘Then you are an Oriental’, he said.

I liked the doctor. He was Mrs. Callendar’s opposite: charming without the intention of being kind. I wished I was a member so that I could invite him into the Club. But he told me that Indians were not allowed there.

Cousin Kate was in the third act when I entered the Club. The heat was immense now and only one electric fan was working. I went to the billiard-room, where I found Adela.
‘Where have you been?’, she asked. And then, with a smile: ‘Did you catch the moon in the Ganges?’
‘I went to the mosque’, I said. ‘I saw the moon, but I did not catch it. I wonder if I saw the same side of it as we see it in England. Let me think — no we see the same side over here.’
‘And we aren’t even seeing the other side of the world over here’, said Adela.
She was right, I thought. But who knew what adventures were awaiting us?