Riot by Shashi Tharoor Page B

I’m saying?”
    I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
    â€œAfter Darryl, it was easier to be a normal, red-blooded American woman,” she said matter-of-factly. “I went out with a lot of guys in college, dated a couple of them quite seriously, even, but they just weren’t right for me, you know? One of them, a guy from Boston, Winston Everett Holt III, even wanted to marry me. It was in my junior year of college; he was a senior. Win was a Boston Brahmin, very preppy, with that accent only people with his sort of breeding have, y’know, ‘cah pahk’ and all that — no, of course you don’t know, how could you know — anyway, he had it all, name, family, wealth, good looks, good connections, good prospects. This was what my mother wanted for me. And I turned him down.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause I didn’t love him. Or maybe I should say that I couldn’t love him. He was too much like my father.”
    â€œThis father of yours has a lot to answer for,” I said, lightly, but it was not lightness I felt at her revelations. I was troubled, even hurt, strangely, even though intuitively I had known all along that her life must have been something like this, an American life. I tried to gloss over my own feelings, but they would not be contained, and I found myself blurting: “These guys you went out with, did you sleep with them?”
    â€œSome of them,” she replied, and then she looked at me curiously, realizing that the question was not a casual one. “Oh Lucky, does it matter to you?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said, only half untruthfully, because I really didn’t know how much it did, though I could scarcely be oblivious to the emotions seething inside me.
    â€œLucky, I’m twenty-four,” she said, holding me by both shoulders. “You didn’t expect me to be a virgin, did you?”
    â€œNo,” I replied honestly.
    â€œWhen you made love to me, here, that first time after the sunset …”
    â€œI wasn’t thinking then,” I said defensively.
    â€œWell, you must have been pretty glad I wasn’t a virgin then, right?”
    â€œRight,” I said in the same tone, but my cheerfulness was strained, unconvincing. “It’s not important, Priscilla. Forget it.”
    She looked at me quizzically, then nestled herself into my body, her head upon my chest. I was silent. “Can I ask you something?” she said at last.
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œYour wife. When you met her — was she a virgin?”
    â€œDoes the Pope’s wife use birth control pills?” I asked in mock disbelief. “Are you kidding? An Indian woman in an arranged marriage? Of course she was a virgin. Forget sex, she hadn’t kissed a boy, she hadn’t even held hands with one. That’s how it is in India. That’s what’s expected.”
    â€œExpected?”
    â€œExpected,” I asserted firmly. “If she wasn’t a virgin, no one would have married her. No decent woman from a good family would be anything else.” I had surprised myself by my own vehemence.
    She was very silent, very still, and I realized I’d hurt her by my choice of words. “I’m sorry, Priscilla. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
    â€œWhat did you mean, then?”
    â€œJust that things are very different here, in India. I guess we’re repressed, after centuries of Muslim rule followed by the bloody Victorians. And of course there’s a lot of hypocrisy involved. But as Wilde would have said, is hypocrisy such a terrible thing? It’s merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.” I tried to lighten my tone. “But sex simply isn’t something that’s acceptable or even widely available outside of marriage. There’s still a great deal of store placed on honor here. Women don’t sleep around. And if they did, no