Bharati Mukherjee - Miss New India

Sunita and Tookie mumbled, "G'day, madam," and sidled out of the hallway, leaving Anjali alone with Minnie Bagehot.

"Cat got your tongue?" the woman snapped. "No greeting? Where are your manners, young lady?" Ten seconds into Anjali's new life at Bagehot House and-from fear or fatigue-she had committed some fatal mistake in etiquette. The old woman turned her back on Anjali and led the way to the dining room. Very straight posture, Anjali noted; Mrs. Bagehot glided rather than walked, the only sound being the clicking of her glasses, suspended on a silver chain, against her strand of pearls. She gripped the carved armrests of a chair at one end of a long, formal dining table and carefully lowered herself into it. She wore white lace gloves without fingertips. Anjali tried not to stare at the bluish tint of the exposed finger pads as they gathered up thin sheets of a handwritten letter. Angie recognized Peter Champion's spidery scrawl.

"G'day, madam," Anjali mumbled. Should I stand? Should I sit in the chair next to her or across the table from her? My clothes must smell, best not to get too close.

"I can't hear you. Did you wish me good day? Rather late in the day for that. Come closer." It was a command. The old woman indicated that Anjali should seat herself in the chair to her left by rapping the tabletop in front of that chair with the knuckles of both hands.

Seen from inches away, Mrs. Bagehot's forehead, cheeks, and throat were deeply wrinkled, and the wrinkles were spackled with pinkish face powder and orangy rouge. Her eyes were large and brown, her lips so thin they couldn't quite hide stained dentures.

Minnie Bagehot waved a gloved hand at the clutter on the dining table: stacks of floral-patterned, gilt-rimmed china dinner plates, salad plates, soup bowls, soup tureens, platters, tea cups and saucers, cake stands, butter dishes, red glass goblets furry with dust, a couple of tarnished silver trays, and a few pieces of crockery Anjali couldn't identify. "What do you think?"

Anjali was being interviewed by an imperious octogenarian whose good opinion she needed. She didn't have to like Minnie, but she did have to humor her if she wanted a cheap, safe roof over her dazed head.

"I am truly speechless, madam."

"This is a historically important residence, as your former teacher has doubtless informed you. In this very room, on these very plates, a very long time ago, His Majesty Edward VII dined, as well as innumerable minor royalty."

And they haven't been washed since, she thought.

Minnie's voice was deep, almost masculine, and her accent, so far as Anjali could determine, perfectly British. Unlike earlier generations of Indians, Anjali was too young to have heard a pure English accent or to have experienced the icy rectitude of the British character. Mrs. Bagehot's questions left her defenseless. "May I ask why you have come to Bangalore?"

No problem; she'd already rehearsed it. "My father just died, madam. I have to support myself." May my lies be forgiven. I am dead to my father; therefore he is dead to me.

Minnie's painted face registered no response. "Will you shame the memory of such company?"

She answered, "I shall never be worthy of royalty, madam."

"But your teacher says you are quite the best English student he has ever had! Is he lying? I must admit I am most fond of that boy. He doubtless told you of our friendship."

"Of course, madam." She lied.

"He wrote his book right here, staying in these rooms, interviewing me and tracking down old pictures. He even made a complete inventory of all the furnishings-their origin, style, provenance, and date of manufacture. It's still somewhere on the premises."

His book? Had the old lady confused Peter with some famous scholar? He didn't just tape village music-he actually wrote a book? She almost laughed out loud: For a minute, I thought you said he'd written a book! She knew Peter as a man who read books, but she never imagined knowing a person who'd actually written one. If anything, that knowledge was more wondrous than taking the gift of his money and knowing his sexual secrets. Then she connected the dots: the mysterious American who had written the very special book that Mr. GG had been praising was her own Peter Champion.

She wondered whether she should lower the expectations concerning her English proficiency or add to this praise of Peter Champion. Mrs. Bagehot arched an eyebrow. "My English was judged very good in my school, madam. But… that was in Bihar." Anjali said it as though she'd uttered a confession. "I've only been in Bangalore a few hours and I've already heard much better English than I'm capable of." Of which I'm capable? Minnie frowned, and Angie scrambled for a save. "Better American English, at least."

Minnie briefly smiled, or twitched her lips. "If you can call that English." She seemed to be taking in everything Anjali had said and for some reason was finding it amusing or not quite relevant. "This residence has ten bedrooms, but only four are kept open. We had a retinue of over one hundred, including drivers, gardeners, cooks, butlers, khid-mugars, chaprasis, bearers, durwans, and jamadars. Now only Asoke is left, and he has worked here for over seventy years. The garage in the back housed twenty motor cars-when I say motor cars, I am referring to Bentleys and Duesenbergs, not the rattletraps Indian people drive. My late husband staged durbars for five hundred guests, nizams and maharajas and the viceroy. For entertainment we knocked croquet balls into the hedges and played badminton under torchlight, and the guests arrived on fabulous elephants decked out in silk brocade, with gold caps on their tusks and wondrously decorated howdahs, making their way in a procession down Oxford Street, which I hope you've noticed is now Bagehot Alley, turning in at Kew Gardens Corner, then up to the porte-cochère. There, each dignitary would disembark down decorated ladders, still stored somewhere on the premises. If you doubt me, there are photographs to prove it."

"I know it is true, madam," she said.

"How so?"

Anjali's talent for spontaneous dissembling never failed her. "I've seen Mr. Champion's book," she said. "Then a photographer named Rabi Chatterjee showed me more pictures. He said there are many wonders in Bangalore, but that Bagehot House is the most important."

"Perhaps you've also seen pictures of my late husband?"

"I don't believe so, no, madam."

She lifted her arm, and Asoke shuffled to her side. "Asoke, album deo," she commanded. Page after page of blurred and faded photos of Raj-era life in Bagehot House had to be admired, awe expressed, weak tea in chipped cups sipped, stale ginger cookies nibbled, and finally Anjali passed the landlady's interview and was admitted as a paying guest with probationary status.

"Unfortunately, no bedrooms are open at the moment," said Minnie, and Anjali must have flinched. But Mr. Champion promised! Where am I to go, then?

"I quite understand, madam," she managed to say.

"No proper bedroom, that is." Anjali detected a softening of tone, and leaned forward. "You might even hesitate-"

Was she being tested? A British game of some sort? A test of her dignity, of her self-respect? Her desperation? Should she grovel?

"I have a shuttered porch, humble but livable, cot, chair, and dresser, two hundred a week, bed tea and one tiffin included."

"That would be most satisfactory, madam." A thousand a month, she calculated, with food, in Bangalore. I can live for months on Peter's gift!

"In England after the war, we would have considered this a very desirable bed-sitter for a single working girl." After assessing Anjali's reaction, she added, "I understand that some ladies in Kent Town are asking for more, with no food," she said, but left the corollary unstated-I am doing a great favor, but if you break house rules, you'll be out on your ear.