Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

Bela was the youngest in the house: at fifteen, she was a thin, gawky girl, blossoming into a late and awkward adolescence. She was alternately apprehensive and exhilarated, unsure of whether to throw herself into the festivities or to hide in her bed.

As the wedding approached a whirlwind of telegrams— until then so rare and so dreaded — blew through Lankasuka, rattling its shuttered doors and windows. Not a day went by without Bela spotting a postman, running up the stairs with a pink envelope. Arjun was to arrive by rail, accompanied by his batman, Kishan Singh. Dolly, Dinu and Rajkumar were flying in two days before, on one of KLM’s brand-new DC3s.

The excitement reached its pitch the day the Rangoon party was to arrive. Providentially, the family had just that year decided to buy a car, with the expenses shared equally between Uma and her brother. The car was delivered just as the arrangements were getting under way, a brand new 1939 model, a modest, 8 horse-power Jowett, with a long bonnet and beautiful oval grille. In addition to this, the wedding party also had the use of the Delage Drophead, which Neel had once again succeeded in borrowing from the dealer.

They arrived at Dum Dum airport to find it completely changed since the time of Uma’s return to India. The old airstrip was now a fully-fledged airport, with customs facilities of its own. A hundred and fifty acres of land had been cleared and three new runways built. There was a fine three-storeyed administration building with a glass-paned control tower and radio room. The visitors’ area had changed too: they found themselves entering a large, brightly lit gallery with fans whirring energetically overhead. At one end of the gallery there was a radio tuned in to the news; at the other there was a counter selling tea and snacks.

‘Look!’ Bela went running to the windows and pointed to a plane that was circling above. They watched the DC3 as it came in to land. The first to come out was Dinu. He was wearing a longyi and a loose shirt, and his clothes flapped against his lean, compact frame as he stood on the tarmac, waiting for his parents.

Dolly and Rajkumar were among the last to emerge. Dolly was wearing a striped green longyi and as always there was a white flower in her hair. Rajkumar was walking very slowly, leaning on Dolly a little. His hair was covered with a thick frosting of white and the lines of his face had sagged into tired, drooping curves.

Rajkumar was now in his mid-sixties. He had recently suffered a minor stroke and had left his bed against his doctor’s wishes. His business, wounded by the Depression, was no longer as profitable as it had once been. The teak industry had changed over the last decade, and old-fashioned timbermen like Rajkumar had become anachronisms. Rajkumar was saddled with huge debts and had been forced to sell off many of his properties.

But so far as the arrangements for Neel’s wedding were concerned, Rajkumar was determined to put aside his financial difficulties. Everything that everybody else did he wanted to do on a larger and grander scale. Neel was his favourite and he was determined to make his boy’s wedding an occasion to compensate for all the missed celebrations of his own life.

Dinu was a favourite of Bela’s: she liked the way he looked, with his thin, bony cheeks and his wide forehead; she liked his seriousness and his manner of listening to people with an attentive frown, as though he were worrying about what they’d said; she even liked the way he talked, in explosive little bursts, as though his thoughts were spurting out of him in jets.

The day they went to Howrah station to get Arjun, Bela made sure that she was sitting next to Dinu. She noticed that he had a leather bag in his lap.

‘What have you got in there?’ she asked.

He opened the bag and showed her. It was a new camera, a kind she’d never seen before.

‘It’s a Rolleiflex,’ he said. ‘A twin-lens reflex. .’ He took it out of the bag and showed her how it worked; it opened like a hinged box, with its hood flipping back so that you had to look down on it from above.

‘I’ve got a tripod for it,’ he said. ‘You can look through it. . when I set it up. .’

‘Why’re you taking it to the station?’ she asked.

He shrugged vaguely. ‘I saw some pictures recently,’ he said. ‘Railyard shots by Alfred Stieglitz. . they made me wonder. .’

The camera caused a stir when Dinu set it up at Howrah. The station was crowded and many people gathered round to stare. Dinu adjusted the tripod’s height to suit Bela. ‘Here, come. . look.’

The platform was a long one, and it was topped with a steepled roof of corrugated steel. The late afternoon sunlight was filtering in from under the roof’s scalloped skirt, creating a stark, back-lit effect. In the foreground there were great numbers of people: red-jacketed porters, hurrying tea-boys, and waiting passengers with mountains of luggage.

Dinu pointed out the details to Bela. ‘I think this is even better than the pictures I had in mind,’ he said, ‘because of all the people. . and the movement. .’

Bela looked in again, and suddenly, as if by magic, Arjun appeared in the frame. He was hanging out of a carriage, holding on to the steel bar of the open doorway. He jumped off when he spotted them and the momentum of the still-moving train gave him a running start. He came racing out of the opaque white fog that was pouring from the engine’s steaming smoke-stack, laughing as he dodged the vendors and porters who were swarming across the platform. The tunic of his khaki uniform was drawn tight around his waist and his cap was tilted back on his head. He swept down on them with his arms outspread, laughing, and lifted Manju off her feet and swung her round and round.

Bela stepped away from the camera, hoping to conceal herself until the first flush of Arjun’s homecoming exuberance was spent. But just then he spotted her. ‘Bela!’ He swooped down to fling her up, over his head, ignoring her cries of protest. As she flew upwards, with the tumult of the station whirling around her head, her eyes fastened on a soldier who had approached unseen and was standing just a step behind Arjun. He looked younger than Arjun and was smaller in build; she noticed that he was carrying Arjun’s luggage.

‘Who is that?’ she whispered into Arjun’s ear.

He threw a glance over his shoulder, to see whom she was looking at. ‘That’s Kishan Singh,’ he said, ‘my batman.’

He put her down and went on ahead, with the others, talking excitedly. Bela followed behind, keeping pace with Kishan Singh. She stole a glance: he was nice-looking, she thought; his skin had a sheen like dark velvet, and although his hair was very short she could tell that it was fine and straight; she liked the way it made a pattern along the edges of his forehead. His eyes were fixed ahead of him, as though he were a moving statue.

It was only when they were about to get into the car that she knew without a doubt that he was aware of her presence. His eyes met hers for an instant and there was a fleeting change in his expression, a slight smile. Bela’s head reeled: she had never known that a smile could have a physical impact— like a blow from a flying object.

As she was about to step into the car Bela heard Dinu say to Arjun: ‘Have you heard? Hitler’s signed a pact with Mussolini. . there could be another war.’

But her brother’s answer was lost to her. All the way home, she didn’t hear a word that anybody said.