Paul Theroux - My Secret History

Unmesh unpacked the lunch in the shade of a familiar-looking building: it was the same spot where we had had our lunch before.

“Pignig,” Unmesh said.

Jenny and I sat together on a stone seat. “Tell me what is in this sandwich, Hamish.”

“Cheej,” Unmesh said.

“Delicious,” Jenny said. “This is heaven.”

“Maybe too hot for missus,” Unmesh said.

“Let’s not talk about the weather,” Jenny said. “What is the name of this building?”

“Khwabgah,” Unmesh said.

“Meaning?” I asked.

“House of Dreams,” Unmesh said.

“How wonderful,” Jenny said. “ ‘House of Dreams.’ ”

“Because they sleeping inside.”

“You see, Andy? He really does know everything.”

Her praise fired Unmesh and he said, “And that is Panch Mahal where mister was climbing. Panch meaning five. Five levels.”

“Punch — the stuff you drink — has five ingredients. That’s why it’s called punch,” I said.

“You see, Hamish? My husband knows everything, too.”

“Yes. He knowing everything,” Unmesh said, and then perhaps fearing that Jenny doubted him he pointed with his sandwich and said, “That Daftar Khana, that Rumi Sultana, that Jodh Bai’s Palace, that Jami Masjid—”

“He is a bit of a bore,” Jenny said, when I found her alone later on. “But he’s awfully sweet.”

“Where is he?”

“I sent him off to find me a nice cup of tea.”

“Tea? In this heat?”

“Don’t be so ignorant,” she said. “Tea is just the thing. It makes you sweat, and that cools you. Ask anyone. And you’re supposed to be the great traveler!”

She laughed as she always did when she said something dismissive — but it was a gentle laugh. She was not malicious. She was simply preserving her own identity, distancing herself, testing my ability to be challenged or defied. I secretly admired her for standing up to me, but it annoyed me when she was in the wrong or when she went too far. And I could not stand arguing in public, particularly in front of Unmesh. I felt she owed it to me, out of solidarity, if not to agree with me at least not to bully me when Unmesh was present. He had no right to see us argue. But I knew her well enough to be able to phrase her reply for her: What right did I have to win an argument, simply for the sake of appearances?

Our petty dispute over Unmesh’s tip lay unresolved, but I felt she was paying for it in the way Unmesh tagged along after her and babbled and howled, believing that at the end of it there would be more baksheesh.

There was no more. He did not know Jenny as I did. And as always she spelled it out.

“I know you want another tip, Hamish. But I’ve given you quite enough already. You should be happy with what you’ve got.”

Still he persevered, hoping to impress her, and just before we left he hurried us urgently to the south wall of the mosque, where there was an enormous gateway and a long flight of steps.

“Gate of Victory Buland Darwaza,” Unmesh said. “Look, look.” He was gesturing to an inscription in Arabic script. “I am read it.” He traced the script by moving his skinny finger through the air and said, “Issa, peace be on him, saying, ‘World is bridge. Pass over bridge but do not build house on bridge. World lasts one hour only — spend it by praying.’ ”

“Who is Issa?” Jenny said.

“Jesus,” Unmesh said.

“Our Jesus?”

“Your Jesus!” he said triumphantly.

He looked hopeful, but there was no reward.

On our way back to Agra on the rutted road I prayed for something to go wrong with the car, as it had when I had traveled this way with Eden. The car was just as wrecked-looking and noisy, but rattled along without an engine failure or a flat.

So at a certain point, I said, “Stop the car, Unmesh. I have to make water.”

“What a quaint phrase,” Jenny said.

I slipped out as Unmesh’s face — his big brown nose, his close-set eyes, his spiky hair and narrow head — rose up from the front seat.

“Are you making water, missus?”

Her gaze went straight through his head and she did not reply.

I took my time by the roadside. It was late afternoon and the air was sultry and unbreathable, with the accumulated heat of the day. Dust clung to my damp arms. The fields next to the road were dried out and looked cracked and infertile. Voices carried from nearby huts — children’s laughter and the chattering of women. Where did they get the energy to raise their voices?

A young man approached the car. He looked in at Jenny with curiosity, his mouth open, and then put his tongue out and cringed and whined.

“He wanting money, missus,” Unmesh said.

“What is he saying?”

“He say he is very hungry.”

Jenny seemed undecided. She looked at him through her sunglasses.

I reached into our picnic basket and took out a slender cucumber and handed it to the young man. He screwed up one side of his face and muttered twice and stepped into the crumbly field.

Jenny called him back and gave him five rupees. He groaned, thanking her, as Unmesh looked on resentfully.

“You are such a jackass,” Jenny said to me softly, almost with affection.

I was still standing by the car, on the broken road.

“How would you like to live here?”

“You mean here in this scruffy little place, or in India in general?”

“Here — in that village over there.”

“I am know this willage,” Unmesh said.

But Jenny was laughing. “What a silly question!”

We left Unmesh at Agra Station one hot night. The darkness was like a thick blanket lying suffocatingly over us. Unmesh’s gesture of farewell was to show us snapshots of his daughter, Vanita. Jenny said, “She looks just like you,” but he protested, saying “Not at all!” as though this was an unwarranted slur on the little girl.

Two trains pulled into the station at once from opposite directions. This sent Unmesh into a passion of explanation.

“Over here Up-train. That one Down-train. This for Gwalior, that for Madras Express. Two bogies, four coaches freight, sleeping coach this one—”

At last I relented and gave him a tip to calm him. And he and the driver stood on the platform perspiring at us as we boarded.

Jenny said nothing about him until I asked her.

Then she replied, “He’s a funny little person, isn’t he? Do you suppose he’s a bit simple?”

The Madras Express was not air conditioned, but the scorching draft that blew under the raised window shutters was only part of our discomfort. There was no bedding, the compartment was dirty, the mattresses stank of bug shit, and we were told that there would be no food until tomorrow morning.

“This compartment has taken away my appetite,” Jenny said. “And I’m so tired I don’t think I’ll notice the lack of sheets. But God, sometimes you have the silliest ideas, Andy.”

She wrapped herself in a length of cloth she had bought in Delhi and she went directly to sleep. I lay awake cursing the train but also thinking that with Jenny this was a different trip. I had not decided whether it was better or worse; it was like a trip through an altogether different country. The hotels did not seem the same, the people were altered, Ismail was not Ismail, Indoo was not Indoo, and even the Taj had changed. The merchandise in shops — the antiques and crafts — seemed less exotic and rather crude. The weather was different, so hot I felt feverish, and the noise made it seem hotter still.

“It will be cooler in the rains,” the conductor said the following morning. “The monsoon is late.”

Dawn had come early and suddenly, the sun rising — an extraordinary size and shape from the simple flat fields. Then the whole sky filled with light and turned bluer, until at noon the day was drenched with heat under a white sky.