Ravi was on time and looked very handsome in a dark suit, white shirt, and pink-striped school tie. I had been hovering at the door looking for him, and I immediately led him into the sitting room, where Aunt Ethyl and Aunt Louise, in their Sunday church dresses, were prepared to welcome him. I had expected Aunt Ethyl would be a bit surprised that Ravi was an Indian and wondered if I should have warned her, but I wasn’t prepared for her shocked look or her inability to say a word.
Aunt Louise jumped up and hurried over to take Ravi’s hand and lead him to a comfortable chair. “I’m Louise Hartley, and this is my sister Ethyl. We are both so pleased to have you with us. I understand from Rosalind that you had a very narrow escape from the cholera.”
“Yes, ma’am. I think I survived because Rosalind took such good care of me. She’s an excellent nurse.”
I asked Ravi about school, and he said, “Oh, it’s Greek from morning to night. I am learning everything about the ancient world—the Trojans and the Peloponnesians and Athens and Syracuse and why Oedipus put out his eyes.”
“Don’t you find the Greek language very difficult?” Aunt Louise asked.
“Well, it’s better to learn it than to have your ears pulled or your hand hit with a ruler.”
“Do you miss India, Ravi?” I asked.
“Yes, every minute, but I tell myself I must keep busy and the time will pass. Today, because of your kindness, I don’t miss it so much.”
Ravi had a natural courtesy and seemed comfortable in this strange home. Aunt Louise’s warm welcome and my chatter covered up Aunt Ethyl’s stiff silence. Perhaps he thought there was something wrong with her that kept her from speaking, because from time to time he smiled at her and included her in his conversation, which only made Aunt Ethyl redder and angrier.
When Rita came in to announce dinner, she looked about, blinking at Ravi. “Dinner is ready. Where is your guest?”
“He is right here, Rita,” Aunt Louise said, and indicated Ravi.
Unlike Aunt Ethyl, Rita quickly covered her surprise and said to Ravi, “If I’d known it was a young boy with a boy’s appetite, I would have had a proper joint of beef instead of chicken.”
Ravi didn’t look disappointed at all.
Aunt Ethyl led us into the dining room and seated herself in her accustomed place at the head of the table, looking as if she were going to preside over some frightful thing like an execution. Aunt Louise indicated a chair for Ravi and seated herself at the other end of the table while I sat down across from Ravi. In her first words to Ravi, Aunt Ethyl said, “Who are your parents, boy?”
“His name is Ravi, Aunt,” I said, but she paid me no attention.
Ravi looked a little surprised that Aunt Ethyl could actually speak, but he said politely, “My father is a solicitor, Miss Hartley. He helped Gandhiji in his fight against the Rowlatt Act.”
“It is a very unfair thing done by the British, Miss Hartley. It says you can imprison someone without a trial.”
“Your father is against the British government!”
“No, ma’am. We Indians have all learned the blessings given to us by the British. In my school in India I had to list them on my examination paper. I can still recite them: public health, law and order, schools, roads, irrigation works, bridges, telegraphs, and railways. But in the Rowlatt Act and in other things the British gave us injustice as well. My father is against injustice.” Ravi smiled politely and dug into his chicken with enthusiasm.
Aunt Ethyl pushed back her chair and stood up, her napkin dropping to the floor. “I will not sit at the table with someone who associates himself with treason against the British government.” With that, she stamped out of the room.
Ravi looked from me to Aunt Louise. “Ought I to go away?” He looked reluctantly at the chicken still on his plate.
Hastily, Aunt Louise said, “No, indeed. You will excuse my sister. I am sure that in India as well you have people who are not quite rational.”
Ravi looked relieved. “Oh, yes, Miss Hartley, they are called holy fools and are greatly revered. It is believed God has paid them special attention. You are fortunate to have so spiritual and virtuous a person in your home.”
“Yes, Ravi,” Aunt Louise said, “we can hardly be thankful enough.”
Without being asked, Rita brought in a serving platter and watched with satisfaction as Ravi piled more chicken onto his plate. When the time for dessert came, she saw that he had a very large helping of pudding.
With Aunt Ethyl no longer there to inhibit her, Aunt Louise chattered away at Ravi, asking a thousand questions about India. “Have you seen the Taj Mahal? The Golden Temple of Amritsar? The Ganges River? The houseboats in Kashmir? The Agra Fort?”
Ravi had to admit that he had never been far from Bombay. “But I went with my parents just outside the city to the island of Elephanta to see the caves. Carved into the rock of the caves are magnificent temples with pillars and statues, all done fifteen hundred years ago.”
When he saw how interested Aunt Louise was, and perhaps because he was a little homesick and liked to talk of his city, Ravi went on to tell of the pleasures of Bombay. He described Ganesh Chaturthi, the holiday when everyone took their statues of Ganesh, the elephant-headed deity, to the seashore. “We pack our lunches and our bathing suits, and we take our statues of Ganesh down to the sea and drown them!”
“And why do you do that?”
“Parvati was the wife of Shiva, and when Shiva was away at war, Parvati needed someone to guard her door while she bathed, and so she made a son, Ganesh, out of sandalwood paste. He was to guard her door, but when Shiva returned, the son did not recognize Shiva and wouldn’t let him in, and that made Shiva angry and he cut off Ganesh’s head. Parvati was very angry, and to pacify her Shiva got the head of an elephant for her and put it on the body of the son he had slain, and Parvati breathed life into it and was very happy with her new son.”
“My, what a story!”
Ravi was encouraged by Aunt Louise’s rapt attention and kept on telling stories and legends. The afternoon passed so quickly that Ravi, seeing the time, said he would have to hurry back to the school. He thanked us both and even thought to go into the kitchen to thank Rita, who pronounced him a “real little gentleman with a fine set of teeth.”
When she heard the front door close, Aunt Ethyl came down the stairway, taking each step as if it had to be stamped on and killed. “You are a most irresponsible girl,” she said to me. “I can’t think why you invited that boy into this house.”
Before I could say a word in my defense, Aunt Louise said, “I thought he was a very nice young man, and I thought you were very rude to him, Ethyl.”
Instead of flying into a rage, Aunt Ethyl flung herself onto a chair and commenced a fit of tears, whereupon Aunt Louise hastily apologized. I saw that Aunt Ethyl knew more than one way to control her sister.
Nothing more was said about Ravi, but after we went upstairs for the night I heard a timid knock on my door, and there was Aunt Louise in her wrapper, her hair loose about her shoulders and without her glasses, looking younger and prettier. She held a knife, and her hand shook.
“Rosalind, I have broken into Ethyl’s desk and retrieved my checkbook. Will you come with me tomorrow morning to book my passage on the steamship you are taking to India? I believe I will need moral support.”
“Yes, yes, of course I will.” And I hugged her.
Making some excuse about my wanting to take home Mother’s favorite perfume, which wasn’t available in India, Aunt Louise and I hurried off immediately after breakfast, wanting to leave before Aunt Ethyl went into the study to find the checkbook gone.
First we went to the bank, where Aunt Louise withdrew a generous sum of money, and then to the steamship office, where I produced my ticket with its cabin location. Aunt Louise was given a nearby cabin. On the way to purchase her train ticket, she kept opening her pocketbook and looking to see that the ticket for the ship was still there. From the train station we went on to Liberty of London, a large timbered building that looked like something medieval but was really a department store. “I wouldn’t want your mother to be ashamed of me, Rosalind. None of my clothes are suitable for the Indian climate.”
Aunt Louise moved about in Liberty in the same way Isha and I wandered in the bazaar, relishing everything but buying nothing. She put her hand greedily on a dress and then took her hand away as if the dress might burn her. I knew she saw her sister looking over her shoulder, frowning, forbidding. At last we came to a silk dress printed all over in bright flowers. “Millefleur,” she whispered.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It is a print called ‘a thousand flowers.’ It is just the way I think of India.”
She bought three of that same dress in different patterns. After her first purchase, the others came easily, and at the end of the day it took the two of us to carry all the packages.
There was the question of how her purchases were to be spirited into the house without being seen, and I hit on the idea of buying a length of cord, which Aunt Louise hid in her pocketbook. I stood under her window with the packages while she went upstairs and dropped the cord out her window. I fastened the cord to each package, and Aunt Louise pulled them up one by one.
I was glad to hide the ugly clothes Aunt Ethyl had bought me under my bed, leaving room to pack Aunt Louise’s things in my suitcase. She had a great deal of difficulty deciding what she would take and what she would leave, but in the end she took only her new clothes, a sad little bundle of pictures, her mother’s pearls, and a pincushion my own mother had made for her when they were both girls.
There was a bad moment that evening. Aunt Ethyl spent most of her spare hours knitting socks for orphans in an institution she supported. From time to time Aunt Louise was called on to hold her hands out to help in the winding of the yarn from the skein into a ball. When she had performed her usual duty, I watched how her mouth drooped and her eyes teared. I was sure she was wondering who would be there to perform the task after she left, and, indeed, the idea of Aunt Ethyl sitting alone in that big house was daunting. On an impulse I asked, “Would you like to visit India one day, Aunt Ethyl?”
“I am perfectly content where I am, Rosalind. Why would I want to cross the ocean to see what could not possibly compare with my own country?”
I believe the smugness of the answer relieved Aunt Louise, for she sighed a large sigh and a look of relief came over her face, the look of someone who has just escaped a great danger.
In the morning a taxi took my aunts and me to Victoria Station and the train. Aunt Louise was in her usual brown serge suit, which was shiny at the elbows and seat. While Aunt Ethyl was busy paying the taxi and hailing a porter to carry off my luggage, I kept an eye on Aunt Louise, who was unusually silent and preoccupied. She turned to me and whispered, “I’m losing my courage.” I grasped her arm to keep her close.
When it came time to board the train, Aunt Louise threw her arms around Aunt Ethyl, knocking off her hat, which always looked as if it had been clapped on with a mallet. “Louise!” she cried. “Have you lost your mind?” She pushed at Aunt Louise and untangled herself, as if Aunt Louise were a python intent on squeezing her to death.
“Good-bye, Aunt Ethyl. Thank you for everything. I’ll be sure to write.” I headed for the train, pulling at Aunt Louise, who was like a fish that wouldn’t be reeled in. She opened her pocketbook and extracted an envelope, which she thrust at her sister. For a moment Aunt Louise stood there, trying to find words. When the words did not come, she turned away and followed me onto the train.
As the train pulled out I watched Aunt Ethyl from the window of our compartment. She stood openmouthed on the platform, the envelope clutched in her hand. Aunt Louise wouldn’t look and was crying into an already-sodden handkerchief. I gave her a fresh one and tried to console her, but the sobs kept coming, as if she had years and years of tears saved up and was at last getting rid of them.
It was only when we were well out of London and the porter came through with his announcement of first seating for dinner that Aunt Louise dried her eyes. “It is such a treat to eat on a train,” she said. “I always thought it extraordinary that you could sit at a table and have dinner while the countryside flew by. Let’s go at once, shall we?” She blew her nose and headed out into the corridor.
In the dining car Aunt Louise reached across the table and took my hand. “I would never have had the courage to leave without your support, Rosy. I really think you were an angel sent to deliver me. I do feel guilty when I think of my sister alone, but inch by inch I was suffocating.” She sat up very straight. “Perhaps I shall be punished for leaving Ethyl, but for now I mean to enjoy myself.”
She looked greedily out the window at the scenery and then turned to smile at the passengers at the table across from us and at those in the tables on either side of us, as if they were all guests at her party. She ordered her dinner from the little menu card in a clear voice that faltered only a little among the many choices. When the dinner was over and our dessert of omelette aux confitures, which turned out to be a jam omelet, had been eaten, the waiter brought our tea. With great ceremony Aunt Louise dropped three cubes of sugar into her cup.
As I watched her put the cup to her lips I thought Aunt Ethyl had, at last, been swallowed up in a sip of sweetened tea.