Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

… that night Bowles had me to his room. I sat there for a while, on a hard wooden chair. He had hunting prints on the wall. Then he came in, and he let on he was drunk, but I think he was putting it on. I mean he had to act drunk so he could do what he did, which was put me on the bed. He was cursing and pushing me about, not that I was fighting him but rather that I was completely passive, even when it hurt. The candle flickered and he whispered bitch but I didn’t shut my eyes, just bore his weight as if it were far away, and it was. Afterwards I was very cool and methodical, putting on my pants and buckling up, and it rather impressed him. The next night it was Hodges, and then Bailey. So when Durrell called me up, and I went to his digs, and he walked in, I started to unbutton, and he said sharply, oh stop that, you silly child. I must have looked puzzled, because he seated himself across from me, crossed his legs, put an elbow on a knee. You’re too sharp for those simple pleasures, he said. Oh no you’re much too keen. I have a special plan for you. I’ve been watching you he said.

At first nobody understood what I said because I half-sung my words. I had a whole new language to learn. Bogs were the privies. When you were flogged it was a good tunding you got. Not chapel but the gaol was where we went Sunday mornings for a wailing. Nothing was good, but it was top .

In mathematics, soon enough, I was at the head of the class. There is something restful about a theorem when you are far from home and your heart is like a sore chancre. An angle against another angle is like all the universe. The question of it is the relief.

Durrell said you have talent. I said what. Look here, he said. What I want from you is not what they. What I want is you to find a dog for yourself. D’you see? Bring me somebody you can fuck, and show me you can, right here in front of me. Now for a moment I had the oddest feeling. I can’t catch it now as I write. It was like an opening up. Like something had opened then like a seam, as if the evening had rupturedalong its centre and had pressed its warm secret heart to me, revealing itself completely. Like suddenly I understood, like I knew. So I said, but how, but I was nodding yes. Durrell smiled and said, you’re a crafty little experimenter, ain’t you? Use your imagination.

My father and mother were always talking. In rooms filled with the grey light of piety they talked. But when I walked away from Durrell with my mission I never asked why.

In an attic, one summer, I found an enormous cross. It must have hung in a church, high and life-size. But there had been some accident perhaps, because now there were only the crossed beams, lovely dark wood, and the nails, heavy black iron. The image of Him was gone, perhaps broken and removed for repair and then forgotten, but the thing that was left frightened me terribly. It affected me to a degree that I cannot explain still, because it was only after all a large but perfectly ordinary cross with the nails intact, lying covered with dust. But it was the heaviness of the wood and the thickness of the nails.

I looked around, examined those around me and there were the usual lady lot you find in any school company. I mean there were a few obvious choices, smooth pretty little boys who looked always a little scared because they knew what they were. However none of these interested me, I daresay precisely because it would have been easy or at least plausible. I felt, you see, a certain obligation to perform well, to do something that would gain my mentor’s admiration. There had been the note of challenge in what he had said, and the gauntlet being flung I did not think it sporting or manly to take an easy slide. No, he expected great things of me and I wanted to do him proud. So I looked around, and waited, and meanwhile the whisper of the house was that I was Durrell’s friend, so naturally I put on side and acted older than my years and took no guff from anyone. He saw all this and I thought I saw a clue of a smile on his face, approving or so I imagined.

Every morning I looked in the mirror hoping the dew, the freshness and the wet would take some of the colour from my skin. I did notlike the cold but I became accustomed to it, and after a while I remembered the glare of India and the endless heat plains with horror. But even relief from that terrible sun and the good chill winds of Norgate were never to remove the swarthiness from my skin, and to the last of my stay there were sniggers and cutting remarks, although by the end they learned to be careful. By the end of it nobody called me Mary.

My mother I never knew. I have a very small likeness in a clasped locket, of a thin dark-eyed woman with dark hair. My father’s second wife treated me well, and as we came to England and I to Norgate through her money, I am grateful. She was a thick, suety woman, very serious, who had displeased and scandalized her family by following my father out to India and marrying him. A candle and tallow fortune, it was, and then later cloth, but they had hoped higher for her than an indigent missionary. I always thought her charmless and stupid, and as I grew older it was her endless and sentimental kindness that was most annoying to me. When I was rude to her she grew sweaty and fatter with hurt, and even more defenceless, which threw me always into a rage.

It’s the Boss, said Durrell, and the lot straightened up, Hodges cupping a cigarette behind his back. Well good morning quoth Dr Lusk, and we chorused back. Except that Durrell drawled Maw’nin, and a look Dr Lusk gave him, but Durrell was ever the cool cove, and gave him back stare for stare. Mr Sarthey you know only the uppers may wear cravats. Take it off and assembly Saturday. You must pay attention to rules, Mr Sarthey, and with that he was off. Six I think for you, laddie, said Hodges. It don’t signify, I said and took a wheeze at the smoke. You’re growing up, pal, said Durrell. He had somehow realized a perfect treasury of cheap American novels and had taken to a lazy drawling affectation of what he called Yankee speech. He may be the Boss, said I, but he can’t do a thing to me. Oh he can’t, can he, said Durrell. And I said, just you wait, just you wait. And the others, who knew nothing of our contest, or wager, or call it what you will, looked baffled at us and our friendly chaffing. They had stopped, by now, calling me to their rooms, they had. Couldn’t grasp what I was at, and didn’tunderstand their god Durrell’s interest in me. He’s the Boss, I said, but I’ll settle his hash.

We had a fair for Merrie England. The Third Form were peasants. The Fourth tradesmen. Some of the Fifth got to be minstrels, and other diplomats. The Sixth were knights and barons. There were tents on the green, strolling players, theatricals and tableaus. All this was for parents’ weekend so Dr Lusk gave a speech on chivalry. What we try to do here is to produce Englishmen he said, and what is it we expect of an English gentlemen? We expect application, but I do not expect my boys to be clever, there is nothing worse than a clever boy who hangs back from his fellows out of pride, who shirks his responsibilities and splits fine hairs over the truth. Were one of my charges to become a cabinet minister but a sophist and an atheist, I should think worse, much worse of him than one who never achieved fame, or wealth, or land, but who told the truth always in a forward manly way, who kept his body unsullied and strong, and who performed his duties as a Christian and a loyal subject of his monarch. We live in a curious wintery age, and although we feel the promise of spring we feel the darkness close around us, for the old times were best, when spears clashed on shields, and hardy knights rode out to give battle to the foe. Here there was honour, and trust, and fellowship, and true faith, a Christianity not weakened and effeminised, but strong and potent, that one might fight the good fight, and bring light to the world. Around you today, as you look at your sons, see not the tender faces of your offspring, but the frank, fearless and forthright visages, loving and stern under plumed helmets, of those who ride by St. George for the cross and the crown.