CHAPTER 17

There was nothing Arthur could do to get out of serving dinner—Mr. Hinton had made that clear. What could he do except his duty, his real duty, to be a servant to the Hintons?

As he prepared the trays to carry into the house, thoughts of Jaya swept through his mind. Where could she have gone, a woman like that? She wasn’t from anywhere in Bengal, and she didn’t know anyone. If she went into the jungle, she might last a few days if she was smart. But if she headed east toward Howrah, she could catch a train to anywhere. She would be out of his life, just another lost soul in the mass of India. His hands shook so much at the thought that he dropped a jar of chutney. He had no time to clean it up—he was already behind. The family would be pulling in their chairs right about now, and no food was on the table. He used his bare foot to sweep the refuse under the cupboards. The shards of glass only glanced off his callouses. He couldn’t feel a thing.

When he returned to the dining room, everyone seemed quiet. A conversation about school took a few fledgling steps, then died. Arthur wasn’t paying attention; his mind was somewhere else. For the first time, he didn’t really care about what the Hintons needed of him. But still—his body went through the motions anyway, unable to break the habit. So he numbly shoveled palak paneer and basmati rice onto a plate. It looked horrible, overcooked and limp as mud. He was actually grateful that Jaya wasn’t here to see it. He set the plate in front of the burra sahib and began to move down the table toward Mrs. Hinton, whose headache had ebbed just enough to come down.

“Arthur,” said a voice from the other side of the table.

He looked up and found John staring at him.

“Yes, sahib?” he said.

“Uncle Ellis didn’t get any roti.”

Arthur looked at the judge’s plate. It seemed perfectly full to him. But the boy was right—no roti.

“Well, don’t make him say it again. Come back here,” said the judge.

“Say please, Ellis; that’s not polite,” said Mrs. Hinton.

“I’ve had a hell of a day, you all leaving me alone with that woman.”

“What about you, boys,” Mr. Hinton said. “See anything interesting at the Old Gope?”

The boys were quiet, and Arthur caught a pointed glance between Gene and John. “No,” Gene said.

“Arthur, some more water, please,” Lee said.

“Yes, sahib.” He quickly moved on from the judge’s roti-filled plate. But just as he passed the judge, he noticed something strange about his silver hair. It was not smoothly combed as it normally appeared. Silver strands matted together in the back, and the slightest crumbles of dirt clung to the ends. It would have been imperceptible from the front. From the judge’s place at the other end of the table, the back of his head was safe from everyone’s gaze, all except Arthur’s. He thought back to what he’d heard had happened between Jaya and the judge. There had obviously been some sort of a struggle. Or else, why would the judge be lying in the dirt?

“Darling, how’s your head?” Mr. Hinton held a glass in his hand, full and still, as he looked pointedly at his wife. That word, darling—it sounded so unnatural.

She shook her head and tilted it in mock response to his affection. “Fine, darling. Just the heat is all. You know how it gets to me.”

The meal didn’t last long. For once, no one seemed much for talking. Arthur cleared the table quickly, and when he could be sure the family was deep in their own nighttime routines afterward, he slipped out of the house. He didn’t know where to find Jaya, but something tugged him toward the forest. The only thing he knew was that the sun was setting fast and the evening rain threatened to fall.

Usually he followed the trail easily. He knew every uncovered root, every turn, every shadow. But he couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t focus. He could only see Jaya swirling somewhere in his mind, and nothing else. The clouds and the canopy let no starlight through. Every turn he tried to take proved wrong. Surely the path curved here, didn’t it? But when he tried to turn, walls of leaves smacked him in the face. For a brief moment, he imagined the leopard waiting on a branch above him, ready to pounce. It probably still lurked in the area—leopards stalked their prey, and he’d been in and out of the forest often lately. But Jaya. If she were here, in the jungle, that was all the more reason to push on. She’d never survive a leopard attack all by herself.

He had never been afraid in the forest before, but everywhere seemed alien to him. His eyes tried and failed to focus—he felt sure he was going blind. A twig snapped somewhere up ahead. He turned every which way, trying to gain some sort of recognition of his surroundings. Something deep inside him flicked on, an animalistic fear, an ingrained urge to flee. He tore through the brush, straight forward, leaving the path behind him. He felt as though something were tugging him, reeling him through the darkness. The fear clung to every bit of his skin. His lungs turned to lead. Leaves and branches clutched his limbs and his clothes. He stumbled—somehow his body kept moving, darker and darker the jungle grew, closing in around him, and then—

There.

A light through the trees, a little pearl in the deep. It rippled. A single shaft of moonlight through the clouds on a lone pool of water.

And there.

A body floated on the surface. He couldn’t tell if it was moving. The curves of the body could just be made out—upturned face illuminated by the emerging moon, hands at the sides, breasts . . .

She was still clothed, a relief for his embarrassment. But that made Arthur worry. Had she slipped on the rocks and fallen in? Oh no, he thought.

He hadn’t moved from his place in the shadows. Carefully he crept forward, afraid of what he knew to be true. Now he could see that she wasn’t moving, except for the dark mass of hair that clouded the water around her head.

He stepped out from the brush and onto the rocks that skirted the pool. Enchanted, he kept his eyes on her, forgetting his manners. But it didn’t matter. The moon provided just enough light to see her.

He said her name. She remained motionless. “Jaya,” he called, this time more loudly.

His heart lurched into his throat when she looked up at the sound of his voice. She came to life then, her arms skimming the water above her head. Arthur was surprised she could swim. As she came closer, he could hear her crying, from somewhere deep inside her. It sounded unnatural, or maybe it had been so long since he had heard such despair from one body. He waded toward her, worried that at any moment she might give up and sink straight toward the bottom. But the water was shallow, and soon enough she was in his grasp.

“Right there,” she said through shaky breaths. “He was right there . . .”

“Right where?” Arthur searched her face. But she stumbled on the slippery bottom and dug her fingers into his flesh, hard. Startled, Arthur tried to gather her up, her dripping sari like sails from a sunken ship. “Right where?!” he said again, eyeing the surrounding trees for any movement in the shadows, listening for a sound.

He heard nothing though, just the mournful drip of water as it ran down her hair and fell back into the pool.

“You and I . . . we must be friends,” she said.

Her randomness alarmed him. “We are,” he said. He began to pull away to get a good look at her, to see if she was hurt. He couldn’t tell if she was of right mind.

“No!” she sobbed and tightened her hold on his body, her arms like vines around his back. “Don’t let me go.”

He had no idea what on earth had made her act like this. Just the presence of her body so close to his own was enough to make him faint. What would the Hintons do if they knew? He looked at the sky, wondering what he should do. Above them, stars emerged from the clouds like concerned and well-meaning friends.

“We must be more than friends. You and I are of the same earth; don’t you see that we must look out for each other? Save each other?”

“From what?” He laughed. But joy did not seem to have a place in this moment. He worried she might think him callous. He touched her matted hair, which had looked so soft that day she lay in the sun. “What has made you so . . . afraid?”

She started from him then, hardening herself against that word, and at once he knew he had said the wrong thing. But then she rearranged herself, adjusting to it.

“I’m not afraid,” she said. She seemed to struggle with what to say next. After a long pause, she looked him in the eye. “How do you think they came to have such a nice house?”

Arthur grew angry at the accusation in her tone. He had never heard anyone speak against the Hintons before. Besides, she had come to them in the first place. It’s not like they had forced her to stay in the Big House. She had asked for their help.

“Hmm?” she filled in his silence. “Or an automobile, when you live in such a small hut and sleep on a charpoy? The house is filled bottom to brim with nice furniture, and you, yourself an Indian, can’t afford your own country’s goods? Is that what being Christian is about?”

Arthur couldn’t deny that the Hintons did have nice things and that he did not, but everywhere in India, things were that way. It wasn’t unusual that Westerners had more than Indians. And no, they weren’t his things, but he was around them and called the Big House home.

“They’ve made my life better. Not with things, but by showing God to me,” he said.

“Is it really better? Better than it was before?”

“You don’t even know what my life was like before.” He felt his ears growing hot. “They are good people,” he said, his jaw clenched. “People of God.”

“Is the judge a man of God?”

Arthur didn’t answer. He took one step away from her and tried to lead her out of the water. She was shaking, which worried him. He guided her toward a huge slab of rock on which he liked to lie after bathing. He knew its crevices well, its juts and recesses, the curves that caressed his body.

“I will answer for you,” Jaya said after a time. “He is not.”

“You don’t know that. Besides, the faith of the burra sahib should not matter to you. It is not your place to judge.”

“But it does matter to me,” she whispered. “He . . . tried to undress me.”

She took his hand and drew it to her waist, where he found the ragged fabric that ran all the way to her navel.

If not for the rock to steady him, he would have nearly fallen over. He simply couldn’t believe what she was saying about someone so close to the Hintons. The judge had made it clear what he thought of Indians. Why would the burra sahib attempt such a thing with an Indian woman—a pregnant Indian woman?

She sat in silence next to him, still holding his hand at her belly. He pulled it away.

“Is this true?” was all he could say. She didn’t answer. Everything felt so fragile now—the tear in her clothes, the shallow breaths coming from her mouth. Even the rock beneath them felt as though it would crack. Somehow he felt responsible. He had warned her to keep away from the burra sahib, but it hadn’t been enough.

“For the past several days, when no one was around, the judge had . . .” She gave up on saying the words. “But I am glad. I can’t stay in that house.”

“But you must. Because of your . . .” He didn’t know how to continue. “You need someone to look after you.”

“There is no child coming.”

The breeze had picked up, and the leaves were rustling all around them, as if murmuring their disbelief at what she had said. Even the stars seemed to widen in surprise. Arthur kept his eyes on the sky, too stricken to look at Jaya.

“You lie,” he said.

“It’s true,” she said.

He cleared his throat. “You lie to the Padre Sahib. You lie to memsahib. You lie to me.”

She had lied and taken advantage of their kindness. Surely this was the only explanation. Well, then, he thought, she deserved what she got. One sin for another. Wasn’t that fair? But he knew the Padre Sahib would not think in this way. Still, how could he forgive her? And if she wasn’t pregnant, why then had she come to the Big House?

“It has been such a weight, carrying this secret. A child that is not there,” she said. She rested her small hand on Arthur’s beside him. He did not move. Her voice was soft as starlight. “Thank you for taking it from me.”

Arthur couldn’t help but soften. He had never had a secret with someone before. He thought of the day when Gene had seen him smoking and promised not to tell, but Gene was a child. This was different. This meant something. Now, he would keep someone else’s secret safe. Now, someone’s safety depended on him. He rolled his head to one side, looking down at her hand on his. He squeezed it tightly.

“You know I won’t tell anyone,” he said.

What was there to do now? Hours passed unnoticed as they lay on the rock, and Arthur tried to imagine where to go from here. She couldn’t go back to living at the house, but at least now she was not as fragile as he had thought. He supposed she could go anywhere, but he felt he should protect her. She wasn’t from Bengal—in fact, he didn’t have any idea where she had come from.

“Can you return to your . . . home?” he asked.

The word home had an unexpected effect. Even through the darkness, Arthur could see something burning in her. He had the immediate desire to get out of the way.

“There is no home to me anymore,” she said.

Rolling onto her stomach, she drew her face close to his and hovered above him, a light in her eyes he couldn’t interpret. Then, like something melting away, she peeled her damp sari off, and, sure that he must be in a dream, Arthur watched her rise up naked before him. She pulled him onto his feet, and taking no notice of the clothes between them, she pressed her hips into his. Arthur realized their bodies aligned perfectly. Her lips found his. He had no time to react.

Was this the sort of thing that happened between lovers? Was his mind supposed to go blank like this, the way it did when he nodded off to sleep, or the way it did that day down by the river, the Padre Sahib’s gentle hand on his submerged head? Love was the sort of thing that let a mind rest, wasn’t it?

For that was what happened to him in this moment. It didn’t take long for her lips to not feel like lips anymore, but like air itself, breathing life into him. And her arms didn’t feel like arms anymore, but like silk wrapped around his waist. There remained only the gentle ripple of the water and the whispering of the jungle around them. Too often he had heard these sounds and wished for someone to share them with.

But something felt wrong. Maybe it was the fact that he had never been in the presence of a naked woman before, or maybe it was the night air growing cold, sending a shiver through his body. He pulled away and gently unwrapped her arms from his body.

“This is not right,” he said. “I should take you somewhere to stay.” He thought of his hut, how the Hintons usually left him well enough alone there. But he couldn’t risk any of the boys catching sight of Jaya, so close to the path that led into the forest. “We need a plan,” he said.

She shrunk down to the rock and reached for some pebbles at her feet, then tossed them into the water with a forceful plunk. “Tell them I have left for Calcutta. Tell them I have family there to meet.”

“Do you?”

“Of course not. But I can find my own way. There are plenty of ways for a woman to live in Calcutta.”

“Not alone. Unless you intend to . . .”

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. She looked back at him, her face showing nothing in the dark.

But how could he not? Calcutta wasn’t a place for a woman to be alone, without family, without friends. Even he knew this, and he hardly went into the city. “You said so yourself,” he said. “We must look out for each other.”

He could just make out the hard line of her mouth as she pressed her lips together, calculating. He waited for her answer—but she only kissed him again, passionately, expertly. And he could only give in to the gift she put forth, the idea that someone cared about him enough to make him feel wanted. Cautious hands became curious. Wet skin on skin exchanged body heat. Here in the jungle, she led him into new territory, not gently as one dips his toes into the shallow shore, but forcefully, holding his head under water until he learned to breathe without oxygen.