drain afterward.” She bent down to pick two pale leaves of peppermint.
“Shall we go in and drink our tea while it’s fresh?” he asked. He waved his left arm toward the house.
“Oh, did you hurt your hand?” she asked.
“Oh, no, it’s nothing.” He tucked it quickly behind his back. He had hoped she wouldn’t see the ugly pink sticking plaster mashed between his thumb and forefinger. “Just gave myself a bit of a whack with the hammer, doing a little carpentry.”
The Major poured them each a second cup of tea and wished there were some way to stop the late afternoon light from traveling any further across the living room. Any moment now and the golden bars would reach the bookcases on the far wall and reflect back at Mrs. Ali the lateness of the hour. He feared she might be prompted to stop reading.
She had a low, clear reading voice and she read with obvious appreciation of the text. He had almost forgotten to enjoy listening. During the dusty years of teaching at St. Mark’s preparatory school, his ears had become numb, rubbed down to nonvibrating nubs by the monotone voices of uncomprehending boys. To them, “Et tu Brute” carried the same emotional weight as a bus conductor’s “Tickets, please.” No matter that many possessed very fine, plummy accents; they strove with equal determination to garble the most precious of texts. Sometimes, he was forced to beg them to desist, and this they saw as victory over his stuffiness. He had chosen to retire the same year that the school allowed movies to be listed in the bibliographies of literary essays.
Mrs. Ali had marked many pages with tiny slips of orange paper and, after some prompting from him, she had agreed to read from the fragments that interested her. He thought that Kipling had never sounded so good. She was now quoting from one of his favorite stories, “Old Men at Pevensey,” which was set soon after the Norman Conquest and had always seemed to the Major to express something important about the foundations of the land.
“‘I do not think for myself,’ ” she read, quoting the knight De Aquila, master of Pevensey Castle, “ ‘nor for our King, nor for your lands. I think for England, for whom neither King nor Baron thinks. I am not Norman, Sir Richard, nor Saxon, Sir Hugh. English am I.’ ”
The Major gulped at his tea making an unfortunate slurp. It was embarrassing but served to quell the “Hear, hear!” that had leaped unbidden to his lips. Mrs. Ali looked up from her book and smiled.
“He writes characters of such idealism,” she said. “To be as grizzled and worldly as this knight, and yet still so clear in one’s passion and duty to the land. Is it even possible?”
“Is it possible to love one’s country above personal considerations?” said the Major. He looked up at the ceiling, considering his answer. He noticed a faint but alarming brown stain that had not been there last week, in the corner between the window and the front hall. Patriotism was momentarily dangled in the scale against urgent plumbing concerns.
“I know most people today would regard such love of country as ridiculously romantic and naive,” he said. “Patriotism itself has been hijacked by scabby youths with jackboots and bad teeth whose sole aim is to raise their own standard of living. But I do believe that there are those few who continue to believe in the England that Kipling loved. Unfortunately, we are a dusty bunch of relics.”
“My father believed in such things,” she said at last. “Just as Saxons and Normans became one English people, he never stopped believing that England would one day accept us too. He was only waiting to be asked to saddle up and ride the beacons with De Aquila as a real Englishman.”
“Good for him,” said the Major. “Not that there’s much call for actual beacon-watching these days. Not with nuclear bombs and such.” He sighed. It was a pity, really, to see the string of beacons that ran the length of England’s southern shore reduced to pretty bonfires lit for the benefit of TV cameras on the Millennium and the Queen’s Jubilee.
“I was speaking metaphorically,” she said.
“Of course you were, dear lady,” he said, “But how much more satisfying to think of him literally riding to the top of Devil’s Dyke, flaming torch at the ready. The jingling of the harnesses, the thudding of hoofbeats, the cries of his fellow Englishmen, and the smell of the burning torch carried next to the banner of St. George…”
“I think he would have settled for not being so casually forgotten when the faculty agreed to meet for a drink at the local pub.”
“Ah,” said the Major. He would have liked to be able to make some soothing reply—something to the effect of how proud he would, himself, have been to partake of a glass of beer with her father. However, this was made impossible by the awkward fact that neither he, nor anyone else he knew, had ever thought to invite her husband for a drink in the pub. Of course that was entirely a social thing, he thought, not anything to do with color. And then, Mr. Ali had never come in himself, never tried to break the ice. He was probably a teetotaler, anyway. None of these thoughts was in the least usable; the Major was mentally a hooked carp, its mouth opening and closing on the useless oxygen.
“He would have liked this room, my father.” He saw Mrs. Ali’s gaze taking in the inglenook fireplace, the tall bookcases on two walls, the comfortable sofa and unmatched armchairs, each with small table and good reading lamp to hand. “I am very honored by your graciousness in inviting me into your home.”
“No, no,” said the Major, blushing for all the times it would never have crossed his mind to do so. “The honor is mine, and it is my great loss that I did not have the chance to host you and your husband. My very great loss.”
“You are too kind,” she said. “I would have liked Ahmed to see this house. It was always my dream that we would buy a small house one day—a real Sussex cottage, with a white boarded front and lots of windows looking out on a garden.”
“I suppose it is very convenient, though, living directly above the shop?”
“Well, I’ve never minded it being a little cramped,” she said. “But with my nephew staying… And then, there is really very little room for bookshelves like these.” She smiled at him and he was very happy that she shared his appreciation.
“My son thinks I should get rid of most of them,” the Major said. “He thinks I need a wall free for an entertainment center and a large TV.”
Roger had, on more than one occasion, suggested that he pare down his collection of books, in order to modernize the room, and had offered to buy him a room-sized television so that he “would have something to do in the evenings.”
“It is a fact of life, I suppose, that the younger generation must try to take over and run the lives of their elders,” said Mrs. Ali. “My life is not my own since my nephew came to stay. Hence the dream of a cottage of my own has reawakened in my mind.”
“Even in your own home, they track you down with the telephone at all hours,” said the Major. “I think my son tries to organize my life because it’s easier than his own—gives him a sense of being in control of something in a world that is not quite ready to put him in charge.”
“That’s very perceptive of you,” said Mrs. Ali, considering a moment. “What do we do to counteract this behavior?”
“I’m considering running away to a quiet cottage in a secret location,” said the Major, “and sending him news of my well-being by postcards forwarded on via Australia.”
She laughed. “Perhaps I may join you?”
“You would be most welcome,” said the Major, and for a moment he saw a low thatched hut tucked behind a gorse-backed hill and a thin crescent of sandy beach filled with wild gulls. Smoke from the chimney indicated a fragrant stewpot left on the wood-burning stove. He and she returning slowly from a long walk, to a lamp-lit room filled with books, a glass of wine at the kitchen table…
Conscious that he was dreaming again, he abruptly recalled his attention to the room. Roger always became impatient when he drifted off into thinking. He seemed to view it as a sign of early-onset dementia. The Major hoped Mrs. Ali had not noticed. To his surprise, she was gazing out the window as if she, too, was lost in pleasant plans. He sat and enjoyed her profile for a moment; her straight nose, her strong chin, and, he noticed now, delicate ears under the thick hair. As if feeling the pressure of his gaze, she turned her eyes back to him.
“May I offer you the full garden tour?” he said.
The flower beds were struggling against the frowziness of autumn. Chrysanthemums held themselves erect
