sleep… so what can she do? Shutting her eyes, she presses her fingers against the eyeballs, and sits limply under the fan. Without actually thinking about her husband, she’s vaguely relieved because he is not in the house.
Perhaps she dozes for a few moments — anyhow, there he is suddenly, in the room, right in front of her. Startled, she snatches the nightdress and covers herself; how can she not have heard the car?
‘Why so modest?’ he sneers with a vicious leer. And she knows he’s been drinking as usual. There is a dangerous look about him, he looks a bully, a touch of hysteria in his slightly unbalanced air.
The white trousers he put on for dinner are now crumpled, his shirt is undone to the waist, displaying his hairy chest, which he scratches, raking his fingernails through the reddish fur, as he comes towards her, moving his big, muscular, bony body like a machine which can’t be stopped or avoided. He is so close to her now that she can smell his male sweat, mixed with the stale smells of smoke and whisky.
‘What about this?’ he demands suddenly, and, to her utter astonishment, flourishes a sheet of writing paper in front of her face, which she recognizes at once by the heading, exclaiming: ‘My letter!’ indignantly reaching out for it.
‘Oh, no!’ jeers the man, snatching it back and stowing it away for future use. ‘So you’re planning to rat on me, are you, behind my back?’ His voice has become venomous; he stands over her menacingly, his lips tightly compressed, a muscle twitching above the jawline, his blue domineering eyes madly bright.
‘I’m not planning anything,’ she mutters, overcome by shuddering repulsion at the word rat, and shrinking away from him.
‘You’d better not!’ Suddenly violent, he seizes the flimsy nightdress and, with one savage tug, rips it in half, tossing the pieces over his shoulder. Come here!’ he shouts, determined to get her down finally, contorting his face in a fierce grimace as he grasps her arms. She struggles desperately to push him back, protesting breathlessly: ‘Oh, no! It’s too hot — go away!’
‘Why should I go away? You’re my wife…’ Roused by her resistance, his repressed rage and resentment suddenly mount to frenzy, his eyes flashing blue murder. His expression now is an extraordinary blend of arrogance, lust and fury, with which is mingled something dangerous and demented, reminiscent of a mad dog. ‘You’ll do as
Although she writhes and fights and struggles, she has no chance against him, he’s so much stronger. In his mad frenzy he flings her down on the bed, holding her there with one arm while the other hand tears off his clothes. She hears the clash of metal when his belt buckle hits the floor, and sees his blue blazing eyes just above her, full of insane dominance and frantic lust.
Down comes his whole hard heavy body then, crushing her flat, the prominent bones digging into her flesh. Now she can struggle no longer, can’t even move her head, immobilized by his weight, and his hot mouth glued to hers. Sickened, she’s forced to inhale his breath, stinking of whisky, and can only gasp in repulsion. She becomes panic stricken… she’s suffocating… she can’t breathe… His hot heavy body is hard as rock — a rock overlaid with damp, dank, shaggy fur… It’s as though a fiery rock from an erupting volcano has fallen on her, and is painfully crushing her to death… she can’t stand it another second… she’s dying… being horribly murdered…
‘There, that ought to fix you, my girl,’ the man says, with bullying satisfaction. He unglues himself from her, tearing away his sticky, hairy flesh from hers, and stands up by the bed, dripping all over, as though he’s just emerged from the sea. Sweat drips from his chin, from his nose and ears, from each drooping hair of the saturated pelt that covers his body, from his dangling fists, and from his limp penis.
For an instant of nightmare panic, she really feels out of her mind, looking up at his well known nudity as at some horrid apparition — a sort of devilish merman, he seems, standing there in triumph, after raping an earthly woman. The rapid flickerings of the light distort everything, and add to the unreality of the scene. She still sees him as an overbearing figure of nightmare as she struggles up, the imprints of his fingers standing out red on her arms, and shakes back her hair, strands of which remain damply plastered to her face and neck. But now his spiteful, gloating expression and crazy grin (exactly like the grin of a mad dog) make her recall what he’s just said.
‘What do you mean?’ She stares at him, blankly uncomprehending at first, gradually growing aghast as what he implies dawns upon her. ‘You mean… you didn’t…?’
He nods, with that slightly demented grin, enjoying every moment of her horrified agitation, as she jumps up and flies to the bathroom. ‘That’s no use!’ he calls after her. ‘It’s too late to do anything now!’
Desperately splashing water, she hears his malicious laugh, followed by a shouted, ‘Leave me, would you? I’ll teach you!’ and then the smack of the door flaps as he goes out. It can’t be true, she is thinking… this can’t really be happening to her… she must be having a nightmare…
Now that he’s gone, she turns back to her room. At this moment, a blinding flash of lightning forks its way down the sky, splitting it apart, its lurid brilliance lighting up every detail: the broken mirror, a few jagged splinters of smashed glass adhering to the frame; the disordered bed and half torn down mosquito net, collapsed in draggled folds on the floor, like the wreckage of an airship disaster; the torn halves of her nightdress, lying among the scattered clothes the man has left where they fell.
As a terrific thunderclap rocks the house, the flickering light dies right down, only recovering partly, so that she’s left in near-darkness. Wind gets up with a sudden crash, something outside keeps on frantically banging, the tamarinds make strange rushing noises. She stands bewildered in the midst of all this, rubbing her arms without knowing she’s doing so. The glimmer of light is too feeble now to show the red fingerprints, already darkening into bruises; but, by some chance, it does illuminate her dress, and the sandals lying beside it, which she puts on hurriedly and quite mechanically. Lightning is now almost continuous. Vast hollow crashes of wind or thunder fill the darkness, together with the wild rushing noise of the trees.
All of a sudden, in a brief lull, the miniature crash of a glass breaking sounds unexpectedly, startlingly near, to remind her of her husband, drinking in one of the other rooms.
Beginning to tremble a little, she goes to the door, softly pushes the flaps apart, and lets them close soundlessly after her. The man is not in the centre room, but in his bedroom; she hears him shout for his boy from the back window, which faces the servants’ quarters. Then, without waiting a second longer, she runs down the stairs, her heelless sandals silent on the bare floors. In any case, the opening and shutting of the front door is inaudible in the uproar of the storm. Instantly she’s sucked out into a black, boiling vortex, a ripping, rushing, thundering bedlam, in which she can’t stand, hurled along helplessly by the gale.
A blazing white streak of incandescence splits open the sky, and reveals the solitary palm tree, bent over in a thin, impossible arch, its topmost leaves sweeping the ground like a witch’s broom.
16
Climbing out of the turmoil of wind and thunder, a slight figure appears on the back porch like a castaway sailor. Sheltered there from the violence of the gale, Mohammed Dirwaza Khan’s successor pauses to get his breath, and to adjust his white coat and turban, before going into the house. He doesn’t seem quite as impassive as usual as he goes upstairs, carrying in both hands a small brass tray with one tumbler on it. His movements are jerky, and from time to time his eyes roll, so that the white shows all round the black pupil. Moreover, he has omitted to fasten his collar. These manifestations of discomposure are perhaps the result of having been torn away from his private absorbing pursuits and hurriedly dispatched on this unexpected errand; or they may come from a superstitious fear of the storm.
Having set down the glass near his master, who is wearing only a pair of shorts, he starts fumbling with his collar buttons. But the man doesn’t even glance at him, ordering him to pick up the shattered remains of the glass he knocked off the table just now.
The youth stoops obediently, his dark hands shaking. One of them, with its paler palm and delicate tapering fingertips, gropes for the broken pieces and puts them on the tray the other hand is still holding. The fragments are scattered all over the floor, and not easily seen in the weak wavering light; it takes him some time, with his imprecise movements, to find them all.
While still engaged in this task, he says, without looking up: ‘Missis has gone out.’
In precisely the same tone he might have said, ‘Dinner is ready,’ or anything else at all. He invariably speaks in the same flat, level voice, so that all his sentences sound alike, whatever their content. Besides, no native servant ever attempts to understand anything about the white people he serves.
