“I appreciate how much Jasmina has tried to do for us,” she said. “I want George to have all the family he can get.”
“I hesitate to speak for anyone but myself,” he said. “I have not yet had the chance to officially ask Jasmina to marry me.”
“You old dog,” she said. “I knew you two were off doing it somewhere.”
“Setting aside your crude manners for the moment, young lady,” he said in as severe a voice as he could manage, “I would like to assure you that you and George will always be welcome in our home.”
“You are a very good man, for an old git.” She stood up and leaned down to give him a kiss on the forehead. The Major wondered again at how much love and grief could feel the same as he watched her walk away down the darkened corridor, her legs reflecting their long dancing shadows in the watery polish of the linoleum.
Epilogue
The view from the book-lined room that now went by the name “The Squire’s Morning Room” took in the comings and goings on the terrace and lawn of the manor house. The Major had a full view of Mrs. Rasool, resplendent in saffron coat and billowing lime-green silk trousers, who seemed to be arguing loudly and happily into a tiny black headset. The microphone part rested on her cheek like a fat fly. She waved a clipboard and two tuxedoed helpers rushed to assist more guests to the semicircle of white folding chairs arranged in front of a low dais surmounted by a plain canvas campaign tent which flapped in the light breeze of the May afternoon. The Major, half hidden behind the pale linen drape, was glad to have a moment of silent reflection before the wedding. It was meant as a small and deliberately casual gathering of friends, and everything, including the sunny weather, appeared to be cooperating. Yet he still felt the festivities as an impending squall and braced for the ceremonies to break upon his head.
He heard the door open; turning, he watched Jasmina slip into the room and gently close the door. She was dressed in a coat and trousers of old silk that glowed with the ruby-dark softness of fine port. A spider’s web of a scarf in a pale Wedgwood blue was spun about her head like a vision. She trod softly across the carpet in low slippers and came to stand at his shoulder. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said.
“I thought it wrong to leave even one small tradition unbroken,” she said, smiling. She took his arm and they both watched for a while in silence as the guests gathered.
Roger was talking with the musicians—a harpist and two sitar players. Roger ran his hand over the strings of a sitar and the Major assumed he was checking the musician’s tuning and opining on the music selections. The groom’s side of the chairs was filling up, the men largely invisible between the large bobbing hats. The Major spotted Grace talking to Marjorie, whose hat shook violently with her muttering. The Major could only assume her acceptance of the coming nuptials did not preclude a continued gossiping about their unsuitability.
The Vicar hung about looking lost. Daisy had refused to attend. Alec and Alma were here not speaking to each other in the front row. The Major was very grateful to Alec for standing up for their friendship and quite demanding that his wife accompany him, but now they would all have to put up with her rigid face and her sighs of mortification. As they watched, Alice from next door billowed out from the wide French doors, wearing some kind of batik tent and a pair of hemp sandals. She was accompanied by Lord Dagenham, just back from his annual spring visit to Venice, who had sent word that he would like to receive an invitation but who now seemed rather bewildered to find such strange people waiting on his back lawn.
“Do you suppose Dagenham likes what the Rasools have done with the place?” asked the Major.
“After that incident with the schoolchildren and the ducks, he should think himself lucky things have arranged themselves so profitably,” replied Jasmina. The local authorities had come to hear of the duck shooting fiasco and had promptly closed the school. It was only recently, as part of a long-range plan instituted by Gertrude, the wife of the Laird of Loch Brae, that the Rasools had quietly leased all but the east wing as a country house hotel, allowing ample funds for Lord Dagenham to go back to dividing his time between Edgecombe and other society haunts. It seemed only appropriate that this eclectic affair should be their first catered wedding.
The bride’s guests—a very small party made up of an assistant imam named Rodney, Amina and her auntie Noreen, Mrs. Rasool’s parents, and the man who supplied the shop with frozen produce and had begged to come— now began to cluster on the terrace as if held behind an invisible rope. Abdul Wahid was to lead them to their chairs in a small traditional procession at the appropriate time. He stood to one side with his usual frown, as if he disapproved of all the chattering frivolity around him. He did not look over at Amina. They had developed a strict policy of mutual avoidance, so rigid as to show clearly that they still felt a strong attraction. No doubt, thought the Major, Abdul Wahid also disapproved of the number of dimpled knees and ample matronly bosoms on display in the groom’s section. Abdul Wahid tousled the hair of his son, who leaned comfortably against him, knotted tie all askew. George seemed wholly impervious to all the activity and was reading a large book.
The Major sighed and Jasmina laughed at him and took his arm.
“They are a motley and ragged bunch,” she said, “but they are what is left when all the shallow pretense is burned away.”
“Will it do?” said the Major, laying his hand over her cool fingers. “Will it be enough to sustain the future?”
“It is more than enough for me,” she said. “My heart is quite full.” The Major heard a catch in her voice. He turned to face her and pushed back a stray tendril of hair from her cheek, but he said nothing. There would be time to speak of Ahmed and Nancy in the ceremonies to come. At this moment, there was only the pause of quiet reflection pooling between them like sunlight on carpet.
Outside, the harpist improvised a wild glissando. Without looking, the Major could sense the guests sitting taller and gathering their attention. He might have preferred to stay in this room forever and gaze at this face which wore love like a smile about the eyes, but it was not possible. He straightened his own shoulders and offered her his arm with a formal bow of the head.
“Mrs. Ali,” he said, delighting in using her name one last time, “shall we go forth and get married?”
A long time ago, a stay-at-home mother in Brooklyn, who missed her busy advertising job, stumbled into a writing class at New York’s 92nd Street Y looking for a creative outlet. It’s been a long journey since and, as in any good story, I would not have made it without the help of many strangers and friends. So thank you all.
Thank you to my Brooklyn writing community, including writer Katherine Mosby, who first taught me to appreciate the beauty of the sentence; Christina Burz, Miriam Clark, and Beth McFadden, who make up the decade-old writing group with whom I trade blunt criticism and cheap wine; and early readers Leslie Alexander, Susan Leitner, and Sarah Tobin.
Thank you to the accomplished writers who have taught me through the Southampton Writers Conference and the Stony Brook Southampton MFA program. Special acknowledgment to Professor Robert Reeves, teacher, friend, and shameless promoter. He never stops believing in his students. He never wears socks. Thanks also to Roger Rosenblatt and Ursula Hegi; Melissa Bank, Clark Blaise, Matt Klam, Bharati Mukherjee, Julie Sheehan, and Meg Wolitzer; and writing friends Cindy Krezel and Janis Jones.
Thanks to the Bronx Writers Studio, which gave me a First Chapter Award in 2005. Julie Barer read that first chapter and waited three years for the rest of the novel. Thank you, Julie—I now know what it must feel like to win the lottery. Thanks to Susan Kamil, who makes me laugh so much I’d do anything she asks. Fortunately she is also a brilliant editor, so it all works out. Paragraph, workspace for writers, provided me a desk and a community. William Boggess, Noah Eaker, and Jennifer Smith made life easy with their editorial assistance.
In cyberspace, thanks to Tim at timothyhallinan.com for butt-kicking writing advice.
