maneuvers, in everyday affairs he was straightforward to the point of being simple, and it was up to her to devise a way. Now, whenever there was a function they had to attend together, she drove herself there in her little sports car; and when he arrived, he sent his car home, so that it was left to her to drive him back to his house. Only it was not there that they drove but beyond the confines of the city—this was before it had crept up with rows of government housing, and also before pollution from industrial plants and noxious fumes from decrepit buses had cast a pall over the Delhi sky. The stars were still visible and pure, and moonlight washed like ice water over the tombs and palaces and the desert into which they had been sinking for undisturbed centuries. Sumitra parked the car, and they crept up the stairwell of a deserted pleasure pavilion (only the bats stirred and squeaked). They carried a mat and cushions that she had brought, and spread them on a balcony with a railing of stone arabesques. Music was missing, but the air was laden with the scent of plants mysteriously flowering in the desert dust. Their lovemaking—undisturbed now, unbridled—was charged with the energy of those male and female divinities who between them are responsible for creating and upholding the world.
But when the schools were closed and his children on holiday, nothing could keep Too in New Delhi. Sumitra argued with him, pleaded the importance of his being in the capital at this time, when only a few months were left before the retirement of the current commander-in-chief. She pointed out that Too had to be constantly seen in the right circles to remind those who mattered of the superiority of his claim. But Too wouldn’t listen to Sumitra. He took all his accumulated leave and returned to his home state for several of the crucial weeks when he should have been in the capital advancing his career.
It was left to Sumitra to keep his interests alive, and at this time she made herself particularly indispensable to the Minister of Defense, who was in overall charge of the top military appointments. This portfolio had been assigned to him not because he was in any way qualified for it but because some such cabinet post was due to his political standing. He however coveted another Ministry—that of Foreign Affairs—for which he was even less suitable. He was a peasant who had worked his way up from his village council through the political machinery of his native state, and from there, by shrewdness and cunning and the majority of votes he commanded, to a position at the national centre. In New Delhi he had been allotted one of the stately requisitioned mansions, but he had no idea how to live in it. His family were left behind in the village to look after their fields and their herd of buffalo (he had been, and still was, the local milk supplier). Like others, he turned to Sumitra to help him furnish his ministerial residence and, on diplomatic occasions, to act as his hostess. He made use of all her skills; and of her time too—she had hardly arrived home at night when there was a note from him to accompany him in the morning to the airport where some VIP had to be received with garlands. Or he telephoned—here he never made use of an intermediary but his own voice oozed down the line in the unctuous tone he had adopted with her, suggesting a wealth of understanding between them. And there was such understanding—when she urged Too’s claim to him, he nodded to reassure her that he was ready to fulfill his part of whatever bargain it was they had made with each other.
Harry scorned him—he called him the Milkman, and whenever his peon arrived with a note, Harry told Sumitra, “Here’s another love letter from your Milkman.” She retorted angrily that he knew very well how all her efforts were to help their friend Too; and Harry shrugged and said yes, Too was a decent chap, one of their own sort, but the Minister was not. Sumitra defended the Minister, holding him up to Harry as an example of that manly ambition that was so lacking in Harry himself.
“What a pity he’s so ugly,” Harry said.
She shouted, “How does that matter? I’m not going to bed with him!”
“You’re not?” Harry taunted her—aware that this would make her more furious than anything, the suggestion that anyone so squat and ugly and stinking of peasant fodder might be thought to aspire to her bed.
Yet later—many years later—that was what her daughter Monica alleged. With outsiders, Monica always spoke in glowing terms of her mother’s contribution to her country and boasted of the honors she had received. But to her daughter Kuku she said, “How do you think she did it! By sleeping with people of course . . . Well, what else!” she added, as though Kuku had contradicted her. “How do you think she got her appointment to the UN—or her Padma Bhushan or whatever medal it was they gave her.”
Kuku protested, “It was on merit; because she was so extraordinary for her time, so absolutely modern.”
“Oh yes, so absolutely modern that she’d sleep with anyone—even the Milkman,” Monica sneered. She still called him that, as her father had done, although he had filled some of the highest offices, and when he died, schools and government departments had been closed for two days as a mark of respect.
Kuku asked, “What about Too? Did she—”
“Oh, I’m sure she’d have liked to, but he wouldn’t look at her. He was our friend—Papa’s and mine.”
Certainly, when Too returned to Delhi, his first visit was to Harry and Monica. It was the day of his arrival and he showed up unexpectedly and stood in the doorway, declaiming, “‘The nightingale has heard good news: the rose has come.’”
All three laughed with the pleasure of being reunited. It was teatime, but when the tray was brought, Harry said, “Do we really want this?” so only Monica drank tea while the other two recalled the servant to bring out the drinks of their preference. “Much too early of course,” Harry admitted, “so it’s lucky for us that she’s at the All India WC”—this being his facetious name for the All India Women’s Conference, of which Sumitra was the president.
Too had a lot to tell them—about his children, especially his eldest daughter who was already such a good shot that he was thinking of entering her for the Ladies Olympic team. Oh yes, and he himself had shot another tiger: not a man-eater this time, but the villagers had complained of some goats being killed, so he had gone out with his gun-bearer. He knew of its whereabouts because of the monkeys.
“The monkeys?”
“Yes, the monkeys. When they know a tiger’s near, they run up to hide in the trees, shivering and chattering, and all the tiger has to do is walk around and around the tree. Around and around—around and around—and they become so completely paralyzed with fright, they drop off the branches like apples, one by one they come down: plop,” and Too raised his arms and let himself drop out of the chair onto the carpet.
At that moment Sumitra entered, and he quickly got up, laughing uproariously to hide his confusion. Whatever her feelings at the unexpected sight of him, she showed nothing but the pleasure of greeting an old friend and became at once the gracious hostess: “Have you had tea—ah good, they brought the tray.”
Harry raised his vodka glass to her: “Yes, have some . . . Too was telling us about the monkeys and the tiger. And how to shoot a croc. Do you know how to shoot a croc?” he asked Sumitra.
“In the eye,” Too said, raising an imaginary rifle. “Straight in the eye.”
Harry said, “Bang bang,” then turned to Sumitra, “How dull it’s been without him—we told him it was really high time he came back.”
“Yes, high time,” Sumitra confirmed with her hostess’ courteous smile.
Only two days later an important reception was given by the Minister of Defense (the Milkman) to honor the visiting president of a neighboring country. This man had
