Helen Simonson - Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

“Might as well get it all on the table, then, Ernest,” he said. “My wife was in tears after that stupid dance. She feels that she may have been unkind.” He stopped and they both understood that this admission, while pathetically short of the mark, was nonetheless extraordinary coming from Daisy.

“I am not the one to whom any apology is owed,” said the Major at last.

“That will be the burden my wife will have to bear,” said the Vicar. “But as I told her, the best way to prove our remorse is not to compound the injustice with a lie.” He looked at the Major with a determination in his tightened jaw that the Major had never seen. “Therefore I will not sit here and pretend that I wish things had turned out differently.”

The silence seemed to reach to the very walls of the sanctuary and hum against the rose window. Neither man moved. The Major supposed he should feel angry, but he only felt drained, realizing that people had been discussing him and Mrs. Ali and that they had evoked such a strong response that the Vicar would state his opinion, even though the subject was moot.

“I’ve upset you,” said the Vicar at last, rising from the pew.

“I will not pretend that you haven’t,” said the Major. “I appreciate your candor.”

“I thought you deserved honesty,” said the Vicar. “People never speak of it directly, but you know that these things are difficult in a small community like ours.”

“I take it, then, that you won’t be giving a sermon on this subject of theological incompatibility?” asked the Major. He felt no rage, only a calm and icy distance, as if this man, who had been both a friend and an adviser, was now talking to him on a bad phone line from an ice floe in the Arctic.

“Of course not,” said the Vicar. “Since the Bishop’s office did market research on the devastating impact of negative or unduly stern sermons on the collection plate, we’re all under orders to stick with the positive.” He patted the Major on the shoulder. “I hope we’ll see you back in church this Sunday?”

“I expect so,” said the Major. “Though, since we’re being candid, I’d rather welcome a stern sermon, since what you usually read puts me to sleep.” He was gratified to see the Vicar flush even as he kept a smile fixed on his face. “I thought your honesty deserved reciprocity,” he added.

Upon leaving the church, the Major found himself walking toward the lane in which Grace lived. He felt an urgent need to talk over his immediate sense of permanent estrangement from the Vicar, and he felt cautiously optimistic that Grace would share his sense of outrage. He was also certain he could bully her into telling him what people were really saying. At her front door, he paused, remembering the night of the dance and how everything had seemed possible in the sparkling hours of anticipation. After he rang the bell, he placed his fingertips on the door and closed his eyes as if he might conjure Jasmina in her midnight-blue dress, but the door stayed stubbornly real and the hall behind it now sounded with Grace’s footsteps. He was grateful to hear her coming. She would give him tea and agree with him that the Vicar was being absurd and she would talk to him about Jasmina and be sorry that she was gone. In return, he now decided, he would invite her to join him at Roger’s cottage for Christmas dinner. “What a nice surprise, Major,” she said as she opened the door. “I hope you’re feeling better?”

“I feel as if the entire village is against me,” he burst out. “Everyone is a complete idiot.”

“Well, you had better come in and have a cup of tea,” she said. She did not bother to pretend she did not understand what he meant, nor did she ask to be reassured that she herself was not included in his sweeping denunciation of his neighbors. As he stepped into her narrow hallway, he was very glad that England still created her particular brand of sensible woman.

The Major, with Grace’s complete agreement, had decided he would look ridiculous, and be more talked about, if he avoided the village shop, so he continued to pop in though every visit was painful, like picking at a scab. Amina, who worked during school hours and in the evenings, had lost the spiky tufts from her hair and no longer wore any bright colors or wild footwear. She maintained a subdued, noncommittal tone when Abdul Wahid’s ancient auntie was around.

“How’s little George?” he asked during a moment when she was alone. “I never see him.”

“He’s fine,” she said, ringing up his bag of cakes and two navel oranges as if she had always worked a till. “Two kids were mean to him his first day of school and there was a rumor that one family was taking their kids out. But the headmistress told them they wouldn’t get a free bus pass to the school they wanted, so that told them.”

“You seem very accepting.” Where had her usual prickliness gone? She looked at him squarely, and for a moment her eyes flashed with the old anger.

“Look, we all make our own beds,” she said in a low voice. “George lives here now, and he has a father who makes a solid living in his own business.” She looked around to check the shop was empty. “If that means biting my tongue and not chewing the heads off the customers, well, I know what I have to do.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling a little nibbled.

“And if it means giving up dancing, and having to wear old-lady shoes, well…” Here she paused and gave him a conspiratorial grin. “I can stand it while I need to.”

A few days later, on Christmas Eve, he met her in the lane by his house. She was pressed into the hedge shivering and smoking a cigarette. She looked nervous when he smiled at her.

“I don’t smoke anymore,” she said. She ground the stub beneath her sensible shoe and then kicked it away. “Soon as I’m married, I’m going to make Abdul Wahid send that old bat home. She gives me the creeps.”

“You don’t get along?” asked the Major, hoping for a dizzy moment that Mrs. Ali might return.

“They say she was a midwife in her village.” Amina spoke as if talking to herself. “If you ask me, I think that’s code for some kind of witch.” She looked at him and anger burned in her dark eyes. “If she pinches George one more time, I’m going to slap her silly.”

“Do you hear from Mrs. Ali-Jasmina?” he asked, desperate to bring her name into the conversation. “Perhaps she might return to help you.” Amina hesitated, as if unwilling to say anything, but then added in a rush, “They say if Jasmina doesn’t like where she is, she’ll go to Pakistan and live with her sister.”

“But she never wanted to go to Pakistan,” said the Major, appalled.

“I can’t say for sure. It’s not really my place to get involved.” Here she looked away with what the Major took to be a consciousness of guilt. “She’ll have to work it out herself.”

“Your happiness was important to her,” said the Major, hoping to suggest a similar responsibility in Amina.

“You can’t reduce life to something as simple as happiness,” she said. “There’s always some bloody compromise to be made-like having to work in a godawful shop for the rest of your life.”

“I was supposed to teach George chess,” said the Major. He realized he was clutching for some last continued filament of connection to Jasmina, however tenuous.

“He has a lot going on right now,” she said too quickly. “And he’s spending his free time with his father.”

“Of course,” said the Major. Hope melted in the soft cold of the lane.

He held out his hand and, though she looked surprised, Amina shook it. “I admire your tenacity, young lady,” he said. “You are the kind of person who will succeed in making your own happiness. George is a lucky boy.”