The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [238]
And then they had plunged into the bazaar, crowded with people dressed in white muslin. Where could they all possibly live? An incongruous picture came into Fleury’s mind of a hundred and fifty people squatting on the floor of his aunt’s drawing-room in Torquay. The gharry lurched suddenly and turned into some gates. They had arrived. His heart sank.
They had not arrived. Harry had climbed down and was arguing with a man who had been scrambling along beside the carriage shouting and had caused them to turn into these gates which, it turned out, belonged to the dak bungalow. Harry seemed quite angry; this was not at all where he wanted to stop. A laborious parley was taking place, Harry’s grasp of the language being limited to a few simple commands, domestic and military. He was becoming exasperated and beginning to shout; soldiers are notorious for reacting badly when their will is opposed. Yet though the man flinched slightly at every fresh outburst, he stood his ground. They might have continued like this for some time, Harry shouting, the native flinching, but for the appearance of another man, elderly and very fat, who hurried up from the direction of the bungalow. When he opened his mouth to speak, Fleury saw that it was stained an astonishing orange-red from the chewing of betel. Hypnotized he stared into this glowing cavern from which English was emerging, though not of a sort he was able to understand. This man was the khansamah from the dak bungalow, Harry interpreted for Fleury’s benefit, and what he wanted to say was...wait!
A look of alarm appeared on Harry’s face and without waiting to hear any more he sprinted towards the bungalow, up the steps, and vanished inside. Fleury would have followed had not Chloë chosen this moment to wrench herself from his grip and bolt into the enticing green jungle of the compound. Ignoring his shouts she careered away at high speed with her nose to the ground. He pursued her despairingly and after a long search found her experimentally licking the brown stomach of a baby she had come across playing in the mud by the servants’ huts some distance away. He dragged her back, slapping and scolding. Harry had returned.
“What was all that about?”
“I thought you heard. The khansamah said a woman was trying to kill herself.” Harry paused, looking shaken. “She appears to be...well, I suppose one would say ‘drunk’, not to put too fine a point on it.”
“A Hindu?” ventured Fleury with medium confidence. He had remembered that Mohammedans do not drink.
“Well, that’s the whole thing. She appears to be English, I’m afraid. That is, I mean to say, she definitely is English. I’d heard something about her before, actually. It seems...” Harry cleared his throat artificially. His already pink cheeks grew pinker and he threw an embarrassed glance in the direction of Miriam. “It seems some officer took away her virtue. He left her then, of course, or he’d have got into trouble with his colonel. She’s done this before, you know. I mean, tried to kill herself. One really doesn’t know quite what to do.”
The sun was setting by the time Fleury and Miriam found their way to the Joint Magistrate’s bungalow. It turned out to be a yellow-plastered building surrounded by a verandah and thatched for coolness. Bearers appeared out of the twilight to wrestle with their boxes while they peered inside. Two bedrooms, each with a bathroom attached, and two other rooms, divided from each other by pieces of red cotton cloth instead of doors. Saying she was tired, Miriam swiftly vanished into the emptiest bedroom with her boxes, leaving Fleury to his own devices. Fleury felt resentful towards her for so suddenly deserting him in this unfamiliar place; she had become like this since the death of her husband.
Melancholy overwhelmed him at the thought of the lonely evening