Read Online The Day of the Scorpion by Paul Scott - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Paul Scott
Tags: Historical fiction, Classics
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ready to transport the passengers from the shikaras to the square where the buses and motor-cars halted.
In the water immediately below the verandah there was a cluster of shikaras – one for the luggage, one for the passengers, and upwards of half a dozen laden with Kashmiri art: woodwork, shawls, carpets, flowers; and even a fortune teller – although it was only 7.30 in the September morning, and the mist through which a future might be seen to have substance had not yet cleared. But in the last half-hour before a departure there was always the possibility of a sale. From her room, Lady Manners heard the cries of thevendors offering inducements, bribes, to persuade Suleiman to go back in and bring her out to be tempted.
And today, she thought, I am going to be tempted. And followed Suleiman through to the veranda where he was standing, a thin, frail, stoop-shouldered man, in a moth-eaten fez and floppy pyjamas, with Henry’s old Harris tweed jacket hanging on him to keep out the early morning September chill, showing his shirt-tail, blue against the baggy white trousers: and holding the box to his breast, like a reliquary, saying nothing, but watching the opposite shore, standing on guard over the piled luggage. Aware she had come, he spoke to the khansamar, ordered him to have the luggage stowed, and the khansamar beckoned to the man below who came scrambling. The vendors, seeing that departure was imminent, set up a new cry, making their appeal directly to her, holding up whatever it was they most wished her to be tempted by. She beckoned to the man who had sold her a shawl three years before, and had ever since been hopeful. She beckoned to him because of this, not because his shikara was closest (although it was, having been paddled into position early). He clambered, laden, across her own empty shikara and the luggage shikara, elbowing the men who were dealing with the luggage, reached the houseboat verandah and laid his bundle down, salaamed, untied the knot, opened and released a cascade of fine woven wool, with gold, silver and coloured embroidery. The khansamar had brought out a chair. She sat on it and watched the man – his skull-cap, and his touchingly dishonest eyes whenever he looked up to emphasize the truth of the lies he was telling her.
But Suleiman (she thought) stands detached from this foolery. Well, there was a time when he protected me from rogues, for he was our rogue, our beloved rogue, who never cheated us but knew rogues, being brought up with them; and their ways, being brought up in them; and saw lesser rogues off, and equal rogues, and bigger rogues. He taught me all I know about the ways of the bazaars and what he taught me is all that he knows too. He stands, holding the reliquary, and lets me get on with it as if I were a pupil old enough to know better, too old to be corrected. And does not look, but listens to the crying of the child.
And I choose this one, to warm my shoulders on a frosty night, for I am of an age that can grace a faint vulgarity, am I not? So much silver-thread, and too much scarlet silk. Shall I ever wear it? Perhaps that is doubtful. Or even this one? The green is a bit bilious, after such an early breakfast. Well, any of them? Am I too old, then, for this kind of gesture? For whose sake am I making it? My own? Henry’s? Suleiman’s? Daphne’s? Or for Kashmir’s because after all these years of arriving and departing I feel it in my bones that I am going this time never to return? Or is it an insurance? To buy believing it the last, to ensure that it is not? Perhaps I buy for the child, for Parvati, whose crying Suleiman listens to and will not speak of. Has Suleiman yet looked at the child?
She chose a shawl that could have offended no one. But when she had paid for it and gone back inside after repeating the word and the gesture: Khatam: she regretted buying something that would give her neither pleasure nor pain, and wondered at the marvel of losing an
In the water immediately below the verandah there was a cluster of shikaras – one for the luggage, one for the passengers, and upwards of half a dozen laden with Kashmiri art: woodwork, shawls, carpets, flowers; and even a fortune teller – although it was only 7.30 in the September morning, and the mist through which a future might be seen to have substance had not yet cleared. But in the last half-hour before a departure there was always the possibility of a sale. From her room, Lady Manners heard the cries of thevendors offering inducements, bribes, to persuade Suleiman to go back in and bring her out to be tempted.
And today, she thought, I am going to be tempted. And followed Suleiman through to the veranda where he was standing, a thin, frail, stoop-shouldered man, in a moth-eaten fez and floppy pyjamas, with Henry’s old Harris tweed jacket hanging on him to keep out the early morning September chill, showing his shirt-tail, blue against the baggy white trousers: and holding the box to his breast, like a reliquary, saying nothing, but watching the opposite shore, standing on guard over the piled luggage. Aware she had come, he spoke to the khansamar, ordered him to have the luggage stowed, and the khansamar beckoned to the man below who came scrambling. The vendors, seeing that departure was imminent, set up a new cry, making their appeal directly to her, holding up whatever it was they most wished her to be tempted by. She beckoned to the man who had sold her a shawl three years before, and had ever since been hopeful. She beckoned to him because of this, not because his shikara was closest (although it was, having been paddled into position early). He clambered, laden, across her own empty shikara and the luggage shikara, elbowing the men who were dealing with the luggage, reached the houseboat verandah and laid his bundle down, salaamed, untied the knot, opened and released a cascade of fine woven wool, with gold, silver and coloured embroidery. The khansamar had brought out a chair. She sat on it and watched the man – his skull-cap, and his touchingly dishonest eyes whenever he looked up to emphasize the truth of the lies he was telling her.
But Suleiman (she thought) stands detached from this foolery. Well, there was a time when he protected me from rogues, for he was our rogue, our beloved rogue, who never cheated us but knew rogues, being brought up with them; and their ways, being brought up in them; and saw lesser rogues off, and equal rogues, and bigger rogues. He taught me all I know about the ways of the bazaars and what he taught me is all that he knows too. He stands, holding the reliquary, and lets me get on with it as if I were a pupil old enough to know better, too old to be corrected. And does not look, but listens to the crying of the child.
And I choose this one, to warm my shoulders on a frosty night, for I am of an age that can grace a faint vulgarity, am I not? So much silver-thread, and too much scarlet silk. Shall I ever wear it? Perhaps that is doubtful. Or even this one? The green is a bit bilious, after such an early breakfast. Well, any of them? Am I too old, then, for this kind of gesture? For whose sake am I making it? My own? Henry’s? Suleiman’s? Daphne’s? Or for Kashmir’s because after all these years of arriving and departing I feel it in my bones that I am going this time never to return? Or is it an insurance? To buy believing it the last, to ensure that it is not? Perhaps I buy for the child, for Parvati, whose crying Suleiman listens to and will not speak of. Has Suleiman yet looked at the child?
She chose a shawl that could have offended no one. But when she had paid for it and gone back inside after repeating the word and the gesture: Khatam: she regretted buying something that would give her neither pleasure nor pain, and wondered at the marvel of losing an
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