their hands, what matter was contained in their brains. Asked what his mother, Maude, had worn when she left the house, he had never remembered much, not even an impression of a color. But this is what he remembered of Mila that morning. When she had turned to meet him, her eyebrows had lifted into the narrow expanse of the skin of her forehead and created fine lines of questions. She had a tiny mole flanking the outer edge of her right eyebrow. Her hand was easy in his grasp, her grip was firm, not insipid, and her palm fitted around his warmly. He followed her into the drawing room and noticed the creases in the khaki of her jodhpurs where they were tucked into the top half of her boots, from where they blossomed into exaggerated, wide, buckram-enforced curves around her thighs. He saw the curve of her breast under the thin white shirt, the plunge of the collar in front, drowned in the aroma of her skin without being anywhere close to her.
And despite that near reference to Mike--or at least Sam thought it must have been Mike that Mila mentioned--he did not think of Mike. He did not think of his mother's letters from home, or of his purpose in being here in Rudrakot, or even of the four short days he had to accomplish what he had come for. He listened instead to the sound of her fading footsteps, and hankered for her to return.
Chapter Five.
I was neither Englishman nor Indian, but it was not a national matter. It looked to me as if the whole globe might be in the war before it was over It might be America's business, too, before so very long. The world had shrunk. India was no longer far away from anywhere. What with the radio and the Quiz Kids, we talked in New York Gandhi was no stranger to US . I found myself tingling with a kind of impotent impatience. Europe was aflame, the sparks were flying in India's direction, but the politicians would not help man the fire engine!
--Post Wheeler, India Against the Storm, 1944
*
Sayyid came to lead him to his bedroom, not Mila, and upon entering L., it, Sam saw nothing in that room--not the gossamer white curtains on the windows and the door leading to the balcony, not the malachite green mosaic floor or the burnished teak furniture; Sam saw only the bed.
He touched the cool sheets, bent to rub his face against the clean soap-nut smell of the fabric. An immense weariness overtook him; his limbs turned to water, his legs folded beneath him, and he barely heard Sayyid asking when he wanted breakfast. One moment Sam had his nose against the fragrant dhobi-washed pillowcase, the next the bed reached out to yank him into its inviting embrace. He fumbled with the alarm clock on the bedside table in those last few moments before he slept. Sam slept with his boots on, on his face, just as he had fallen, and did not move the entire morning.
His dreams were manacled with images of Mike, of their childhood together with their mother, and, briefly, of the father he had not known. George Ridley had left his wife and children, unable, quite simply, to bear the burden of a family. Maude herself was silent to a stillness about the husband she had once loved, but there were lingerings of their father's presence all around the house, in photographs tucked into the flaps of albums, in a letter laid facedown at the bottom of a box under Maude's winter sweaters.
Little by little, Mike and Sam had pieced their father together--a salmon and crab fisherman in Alaska, a man who preferred the seduction of the wild, the cold, the raw land up north, who had abandoned their mother after a few years when the sea called out his name so insistently that it shut out everything else. The photographs showed a prematurely white beard on a startlingly immature face, a wide smile, and burly shoulders. Even then, when he was ten or eleven or fourteen, Sam had wondered what had attracted them to each other, kept them together for as long as they had been married, since they had so little in common. Their
And despite that near reference to Mike--or at least Sam thought it must have been Mike that Mila mentioned--he did not think of Mike. He did not think of his mother's letters from home, or of his purpose in being here in Rudrakot, or even of the four short days he had to accomplish what he had come for. He listened instead to the sound of her fading footsteps, and hankered for her to return.
Chapter Five.
I was neither Englishman nor Indian, but it was not a national matter. It looked to me as if the whole globe might be in the war before it was over It might be America's business, too, before so very long. The world had shrunk. India was no longer far away from anywhere. What with the radio and the Quiz Kids, we talked in New York Gandhi was no stranger to US . I found myself tingling with a kind of impotent impatience. Europe was aflame, the sparks were flying in India's direction, but the politicians would not help man the fire engine!
--Post Wheeler, India Against the Storm, 1944
*
Sayyid came to lead him to his bedroom, not Mila, and upon entering L., it, Sam saw nothing in that room--not the gossamer white curtains on the windows and the door leading to the balcony, not the malachite green mosaic floor or the burnished teak furniture; Sam saw only the bed.
He touched the cool sheets, bent to rub his face against the clean soap-nut smell of the fabric. An immense weariness overtook him; his limbs turned to water, his legs folded beneath him, and he barely heard Sayyid asking when he wanted breakfast. One moment Sam had his nose against the fragrant dhobi-washed pillowcase, the next the bed reached out to yank him into its inviting embrace. He fumbled with the alarm clock on the bedside table in those last few moments before he slept. Sam slept with his boots on, on his face, just as he had fallen, and did not move the entire morning.
His dreams were manacled with images of Mike, of their childhood together with their mother, and, briefly, of the father he had not known. George Ridley had left his wife and children, unable, quite simply, to bear the burden of a family. Maude herself was silent to a stillness about the husband she had once loved, but there were lingerings of their father's presence all around the house, in photographs tucked into the flaps of albums, in a letter laid facedown at the bottom of a box under Maude's winter sweaters.
Little by little, Mike and Sam had pieced their father together--a salmon and crab fisherman in Alaska, a man who preferred the seduction of the wild, the cold, the raw land up north, who had abandoned their mother after a few years when the sea called out his name so insistently that it shut out everything else. The photographs showed a prematurely white beard on a startlingly immature face, a wide smile, and burly shoulders. Even then, when he was ten or eleven or fourteen, Sam had wondered what had attracted them to each other, kept them together for as long as they had been married, since they had so little in common. Their
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