Miss New India - Bharati Mukherjee [31]
When Ali opened it, she greeted him with a smile and by name, not as a servant but as just another boy of nearly her own age. "I have to see Peter," she said. Peter, not your master, not Mr. Champion. He let her in and then went down the stairs to retrieve her bag.
Peter was standing by the two-burner gas stove, sipping his morning tea. He wore pajama bottoms, and a knotted shawl covered his chest. For just an instant he stared, and she wanted to say "It's me, Angie. I know it's early, I know this is shocking," but he refocused his eyes and smiled. He took a step toward her, arms out, and she took a step forward, then another, and found herself in his arms—he, who'd barely ever touched her, had never even shaken her hand.
Ali came back with the red suitcase. For a moment he seemed confused, then scampered to the almirah and took out an ironed shirt. He lifted Peter's shawl, folded it, then helped Peter into the shirt. He buttoned it. The action was, to Anjali, tender, even erotic. Ali's fingernails were long and red. Then he took down a mug and poured tea for her.
"Ginger cookie?" Peter asked, and Ali lifted a cloth off a platter. "Please," he said. "Things must have taken a bad turn."
"Very bad," she said. "I should have seen it coming."
"As I remember your last visit, we didn't part on the best of terms. There was that question of a marriage portrait. After you left, I thought to write you an apology—"
"I was so confused. I went straightway to the college and asked poor Nirmal Gupta to post that portrait on the biggest wedding site he could find. You said that picture would only cause trouble, but I thought that it would change everything. And just look what it did. I still don't know anything except that I was vain, and I caused that boy's death, and for a while, I thought maybe mine too. The boy my parents want me to marry attacked me. I had to leave."
PETER SICNALED TO Ali and pointed to the almirah. Ali came back with a round cookie tin. Inside were stapled stacks of hundred-rupee notes. He began counting them; each stack a hundred notes, ten thousand rupees. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty thousand rupees, half a lakh, more money than she'd ever seen, ever handled.
"This may seem like a lot of money," Peter said, "and for a girl in Gauripur, it may be. But you can make this in a couple of months in Bangalore." He slipped the entire tin into her backpack.
"You have the two names and addresses I gave you?"
"Yes," she said. She pointed to the Samsonite. "Everything I have is in that." She sipped her tea and nibbled on a proffered ginger cookie. "Two saris, two salwar-kameezes, three pairs of jeans, and my T-shirts." She patted the closing flap of her backpack. "And addresses of your two friends in Bangalore."
"Don't lose those addresses, Angie. I'll write them so they expect you. And guard the money just short of your life. The train to Bangalore leaves at nine o' clock. Ali will walk you to the station."
"I didn't reserve," she said. "How could I reserve a train ticket with my father sitting in the railway office? He would have heard of it." She had imagined his furor over and over again: "Bose-babu, quick, quick! Daughter is buying one-way ticket to Bangalore!"
"Anyway, I thought there'd be a wedding."
"Or you counted on a magic solution?"
"I want to go to Patna and visit my sister there. Then she can buy a train ticket for me."
"Then the intercity bus is your only option." Peter seemed to be contemplating a gargantuan task. "Lord," he sighed. "I did it thirty years ago. We had to close the windows against dacoits and tribals with bows and arrows. The price you pay for procrastinating."
She recognized the word but had never used it.
"Putting things off—you've got to work on that."
"I will."
"When? Tomorrow?" But he asked the questions with a smile, gathered up the remaining