The earth’s mirror

When the National Anthem was played, we all rose from our chairs. Ronny offered me a drink, but I had had enough drinks. I had drinks all the time. Adela said she wanted to see the real India.

‘Try seeing Indians’, I heard someone say.
‘Who was that’, Adela asked. The speaker had vanished quickly.
‘Our schoolmaster – Government College’, was the curt answer.
All remained silent for a while.

I recalled my meeting with the doctor. What was he doing in the mosque? Was he mourning? After Anthony’s death I visited the church very often. I had only Ronny, three years old at the time. Ralph and Stella were much older when their father died, but still living at home. I think people go to churches and mosques when they want to feel small. They want to be lifted up, like children.

‘As if anyone could avoid seeing them’, said Mrs. Lesley.
‘I have not spoken to an Indian since landing. Except to my servant’, said Adela.
‘Lucky you’, Mrs. Lesley said.
‘I have seen a great deal of natives when I was a nurse, before my marriage’, another woman said, ‘so I know the truth about Indians. One’s only hope is to hold aloof.’
‘Even from one’s patients?’, Adela said.
‘Well, the kindest thing one can do to a native is to let him die’, said Mrs. Callendar.
‘How if he went to heaven?’, I asked.
‘He can go were he likes as long as he doesn’t come near me’, the woman who had been a nurse said. ‘They give me the creeps.’
‘Do you really want to meet the Indian?’, Mr. Turton asked Adela. ‘It can easily be fixed up. You can practically see any type you like. I know the people of the Government and the landowners, Heaslop can get hold of the barrister crew, Fielding can show you some teachers.’
‘I only want to meet Indians whom you come across socially, as your friends’, Adela said.
‘Well, we don’t come across them socially’, he laughed.

The party then broke up, everyone went to his or her bungalow. Ronny walked us to his house. The moon was right above our heads. She looked beautiful. In the mosque I had seen her in the mirror of the water, but here she herself seemed to mirror the earth and what was on it. She was so much more vivid here than she was in England!

When we turned around the corner I saw the mosque, tiny and far away.
‘That’s were I have been’, I said.
‘Been there when?’, Ronny asked.
‘Between the acts.’
‘But mother, you can’t do that sort of thing.’
‘Can’t I?’
‘Not here. It’s not done. There are snakes, for one thing.’
‘Yes, the young man said so.’
‘You meet a young man in a mosque and you didn’t tell me’, Adela said.
‘I was going to tell you, but I forgot. My memory is deplorable.’
‘Was he nice?’
‘Very nice.’