Vande Mataram to you, she wants to scream. I was born here. It’s my motherland too. But is that a lie? Does it matter that she feels more Indian than British when she has all the privileges of the latter? Living with Claude is the biggest lie of all. The fear of losing her children paralyzed her, kept her from leaving. It made her something other than who she really is, and she can no longer abide that. Yet somehow, Claude’s craven, despicable lie to save his skin has become true—she is having an affair with Digby. Why? Can the body explain? Can the mind come up with reasons after the fact? She’s grateful to Digby for awakening the part of her that lay dormant, the truest part of her. He did it by adoring her in his portraits, by making her feel human again, by loving her. Does she need his validation, or the validation of anyone, for that matter, in order to exist? If she had to start all over again and if she were younger, Digby could well be the one she would seek. But now? Love?
She pedals faster. Racing from, or racing to? When she reaches Digby’s quarters, perspiration soaks her blouse. Minutes later, sinking into his body, moving as one with him, she wonders how she survived so long in a marriage that only briefly knew this intimacy. Digby’s touch is a drug; his freshness, his eagerness make it all the more potent. Their escalating need for each other is a sand sculpture that they shape together. She doesn’t recognize the brazen, demanding woman who commands her young lover, rolling him this way and that, even biting him in her passion.
But in the aftermath of lovemaking the sculpture collapses. The world and its agonies recall themselves. Sooner or later, she must sit down to the meal of consequences. On rubber legs, she rises and dresses. Digby lies on the bed, watching her, his eyes begging her to never leave, to stay forever. They don’t utter her husband’s name. They hardly speak. He doesn’t ask when he will see her again.
Soon, they become reckless. On the days she cannot come, he thinks he’ll go mad. His restlessness drives him to the Adyar Club to play tennis, a recent obsession. The Madras Club is Claude’s hangout. It is in the Adyar Club, after returning from the courts, that he finds the letter someone placed in the trousers he left in the locker room.
Kilgour: Please forgive this method of conveying certain information to you. You can make of this what you will. It is common knowledge that your testimony could damn Claude Arnold, and this writer will shed no tears for him. But you should know that Arnold plans to file for divorce and name you as a co-respondent. It is of course absurd. Nevertheless, by naming you, Arnold makes your testimony suspect. There is no reason to believe Mrs. Arnold is a party to this. The woman is a gem. My guess is she has no idea he is doing this. It shows you what a cad the man is. Arnold’s intent is to get you to back down. If you don’t, the man may be low enough to go through with it. Be warned that he’s the sort who would happily manufacture evidence. If you are found guilty, the court can order you to pay substantial damages. Praemonitus, praemunitus.
One who thought you should know
Forewarned is forearmed, yes. But what is he to do with such a warning? And why an anonymous letter? Which of the casual acquaintances he’s made in the club penned this note?
He folds the paper and returns it to his pocket. His indignation, his rage is gelded by the fact that Arnold’s accusation is true. As he motors home, he considers the letter from every angle. For the briefest moment he wonders if Claude wrote it and had it delivered. No. That would be too farfetched.
As he nears home, he says aloud, addressing the letter writer: “I intend to testify. I have no choice. I saw what I saw. I could care less about my name or my career or what people think.” And if Claude divorces Celeste, she’ll be all mine.
CHAPTER 22
Still Life with Mangoes
1935, Madras
At four thirty, as Celeste takes her tea in the cool of the library just off the living room, she sees the Model T pull up. Claude tumbles out. He bumps into the stationary Rolls, bounces off it to knock over the potted jasmine on his way indoors. He’s drinking more recklessly, starting from the moment he gets up, she suspects. When Claude sees her, he’s surprised. He vainly attempts to gather himself, but his eyes are swimming.
“How was your day?” he says, enunciating too carefully, and still managing to slur. She cannot conceal her revulsion. “What the hell are you looking at?” he says at last, in an ugly voice, giving up all pretense of politeness, not waiting for the driver to withdraw.
In the past she could count on his civility, no matter what else was going on. Wasn’t that the mark of an English education, as opposed to her chee-chee one? He might be planning to draw and quarter her, but till such time, he’ll pull out the chair for her at dinner.
“Get me a drink, Celeste,” he says. He looms over her.
The absence of “darling” is a relief. She rises to get away, disgusted by this proximity to him. Claude assumes she’s headed to the drinks cart and says magnanimously, “Pour yourself one.”
“No, it’s much too early,” she says. “Get a hold of yourself, Claude. You hardly need another drink.”
She might as well have slapped him.
“Celeste!” he shouts, pointing a sweeping finger that seeks to find her, swaying, as he spins around. “I’ll have you know—” But he loses his balance and falls, striking his head on the coffee table. He touches his forehead with his hand; his fingers come away bloody. “Oh, God!” he says, in a frightened voice, and then throws up over the coffee table.
He looks up pitifully at her, a string of saliva hanging off his lips.
She gives a bitter laugh. “Claude, your only real talent used to be that you could hold your whisky. I don’t know why I stayed with you so long.” And she walks out and mounts her bicycle. There is someone else she must be honest with.
It’s dusk when she pushes through the door to Digby’s quarters, startling him. He’s in his studio, bare-chested, cleaning his brushes with turpentine. A paraffin candle throws a ghostly light on the still life he has arranged: an eccentric earthen pot and three mangoes on the wooden worktable. Next to the pot, an emerald silk sari looks casually tossed on the table, so that a part of it cascades down the leg like a waterfall, and the excess folds form a careless bouquet on the floor.
She drains a glass of drinking water. When she studies Digby’s face she senses a change. Did they get to him? She surveys the room, a long sweeping look, as though trying to memorize it, and then turns to Digby.
Digby sees her expression, and he understands at once that she has come to say goodbye. His insides turn to stone. A pike has been shoved just under his rib cage, into his solar plexus: Is she part of the plot?
At long last, she says, “Digby.” Her eyes glisten with tears. “I—”
“Don’t! Not yet. Wait . . . don’t tell me.” He moves closer, breathing in her scent, seeing moisture on her brow, the circumferential groove left by her hat. In medical school he’d seen Harry the Alienist perform, dragging people out of the audience and then, finger on his temple, revealing startling personal details about them. “You’ve decided to stay with Claude, haven’t you?” he says, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
“No. Just the opposite.”
He’s thrown off his script. His features lighten.
“Digby, I came to tell you that Claude plans to file for divorce and will name you as—”
“I know.” It’s her turn to be surprised.
“What? How?”
“I got an anonymous letter warning me. At the Adyar Club. Someone with no sympathy for your husband. But what I want to know, Celeste, is how does Claude know?”
Her laugh sounds like the crack of a whip. “He doesn’t know about us, Digby! It’s just a stratagem. Since he can’t threaten you directly, he’ll sacrifice me to get at you.”
“Wait . . . Is that why you came here the first time we . . . ? The day you showed up unexpectedly? Did you come on his behalf to tell me not to testify?”
“God, no! I came to warn you. The moment he told me what he meant to do—make me an adulteress to suit him—I was furious. I walked out on him. I rode my bicycle to get away. I ended up here. Yes, I intended to warn you.” A flash of anger enters her voice. “I never got to it, if you recall.”