Read Online East Into Upper East by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - Free Book Online Page B

go with her; he said he couldn’t stand another set of speeches extolling the amity and friendship between two great nations. At first she coaxed him—laughingly agreed with him that yes, wasn’t it horrible, but if she could suffer why couldn’t he, and anyway please for her sake—till he said, oh all right, and put on his high-collared coat with the jeweled buttons. But more and more he preferred to stay at home and cultivate his own interests. He tried his hand at translating couplets of Urdu poetry—purely as an amateur of course, he wasn’t a poet, he wasn’t a scholar; and when collections of these verses were published by real poets and scholars, he was content to admire and retreat, claiming nothing more for himself than the pursuit of a hobby. And as with all hobbies, this one could be taken up and put down at will, which suited him for he liked to spend his time in his own way. He lay under the ceiling fan, thinking about translating Urdu poetry and reading English detective stories. With the cessation of imports, he could no longer cultivate his taste for fine wines so he took to stronger drink—whisky and vodka.
    His daughter Monica became his most constant companion. By this time she was old enough to be aware of the increasing tension between her parents. There was a quarrel now every time Sumitrawanted Harry to accompany her to one of her important functions. She no longer coaxed, she begged, and then she commanded, and then she remonstrated: didn’t he realize that this was her work, her contribution to her country? That made him laugh: oh yes, wonderful contribution, to flirt around in her sari and jewels, like a professional—if he didn’t come out with the word, she challenged him: professional what? What? And she stood demanding an answer, and he said, Courtesan. It amused him the way she went wild. They no longer shared a bedroom but they had a connecting dressing room, and with her gorgeous brocade sari half tucked in and half trailing on the floor behind her, she stamped up and down between their two bedrooms, reproaching him with the difference between her sense of duty and his utter lack of responsibility. He hummed to himself, and the more she worked herself up the calmer he became. Once he playfully trod on the sari trailing behind her so that she tugged it furiously from under his foot and it tore, and she sat down on the bed and burst into tears and he did not comfort her.
    She accepted her fate and went everywhere by herself and he accepted his and stayed home and drank and read and played snakes and ladders with Monica. Later he taught Monica whist and contract bridge; by this time she was at college—she read history and international affairs—but she spent all her evenings with her father and they ate their dinner together, usually the two of them alone while Sumitra was needed elsewhere. And she was really needed —even Harry admitted it, that she was there to lay down the social and cultural guidelines of her newly independent country. An official car and chauffeur were at her disposal and stood parked in their driveway. Sometimes she had to go at dawn to the airport to receive and be photographed with some foreign cabinet minister and his wife; later in the day she took the wife shopping for Indian handicrafts. She had become an arbiter of taste, an expert on all aspects of Indian culture. Almost singlehandedly she revived cottage industries to export the best in Indian textiles and craftsmanship. She was the chairwoman of a committee to rename New Delhi streets, which had once commemorated English statesmen and soldiers such as Lord Kitchener, in honor of Indian freedom fighters; also of another committee appointed to take down statues of Queen Victoria and arrange design competitions for sculptures of Mahatma Gandhi.
    She and Harry had settled down to a sort of brother and sister relationship. He mocked her work—of which