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thing tonight, I said.  I guess it was a mistake for the three of us to come. I
underestimated how difficult it would be for you with Victoria along.
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Somewhere from above came a sharp series of commands in what sounded
like Arabic followed by a rush of nasal Bengali. A door slammed.
Amrita walked over to sit next to me again. She took Victoria and laid her
across her legs.  It s all right, Bobby, she said.  I knew what it would be like. I
guessed that you probably wouldn t need me as a translator until after you got
the manuscript.
 I m sorry, I said again.
Amrita looked back at the pool.  When I was seven years old, she said,
 the summer before we moved to London, I saw a ghost.
I stared at her. I could not have been more surprised or incredulous if
Amrita had told me that she had fallen in love with the old bellhop and was
leaving me. Amrita was  or had been to that instant  the most unrelent-
ingly rational person I had even known. Her interest and belief in the super-
natural had until now seemed nonexistent. I had never even been able to
interest her in the trashy Stephen King novels I would bring to the beach
each summer.
 A ghost? I said at last.
 We were on our way by train from our home in New Delhi to our uncle s
in Bombay, she said.  It was always exciting when my sisters and I traveled
with our mother to Bombay each June. But this year my sister Santha became
ill. We got off the train west of Bhopal and stayed in a railway guest house for
two days while a local doctor treated her.
 Was she all right? I asked.
 Yes, it was just the measles, said Amrita.  But now I was the only one of
the children who had not had them, so I slept outside our hotel room on a
small balcony overlooking the forest. The only way to the balcony was
through the room where my mother and sisters slept. The rains had not yet
come that summer, and it was very hot.
 And you saw a ghost?
Amrita smiled slightly.  I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of
crying. At first I thought it was my sister or mother, and then I realized that
an old woman in a sari was sitting on the edge of my bed and sobbing. I
remember feeling no fear, only wonder that my mother had allowed this per-
son to go through their room to join me on the balcony.
 Her crying was very soft but somehow very terrible. I reached out my
hand to console her, but before I touched her she stopped weeping and
looked at me. I realized then that she was not really old, but that she had been
aged by some terrible grief.
 And then what? I prompted.  How did you know she was a ghost? Did
she fade away or walk off on air or melt down to a pile of rags and grease,
or what?
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Amrita shook her head.  The moon passed behind the clouds for a few
seconds, and when there was light again the old woman was gone. I called
out, and when my mother and sisters came out onto the balcony they assured
me that no one had come through their room.
 Hmmm, I said.  Sounds sort of dull to me. You were seven years old and
probably dreaming. Even if you were awake, how do you know it wasn t some
chambermaid who d come up a fire escape or something?
Amrita lifted Victoria to her shoulder.  I agree it s not a very frightening
ghost story, she said.  But it frightened me for years. You see, in that second
before the moon was obscured, I looked right into the woman s face and I
knew very well who she was. Amrita patted the baby s back and looked at
me.  It was me.
 You? I said.
 I decided then that I wanted to live in a country where I would see no ghosts.
 I hate to break it to you, kiddo, I said,  but Great Britain and New
England are famous for having their share of ghosts.
 Perhaps, said Amrita and rose with Victoria secure in her arms.  But I
can t see them.
At nine-thirty P.M. I was sitting in the lobby, nursing a growing headache
from heat and fatigue, feeling queasy from too much bad wine at dinner, and
going through various excuses to give to Krishna when he appeared. By nine-
fifty I had decided to tell him that Amrita or the baby was sick. At ten P.M.I
realized that I didn t have to tell him anything, and I had risen to go upstairs
when suddenly he appeared, disheveled and distraught. His eyes looked red
and puffy as though he had been crying. He came forward and shook my
hand solemnly, as if the lobby were a funeral home and I the bereaved next
of kin.
 What is it? I asked.
 Very, very sad, he said, and the high voice broke.  Very terrible news.
 Your friend? I asked. I felt a sense of relief in the sudden hunch that his
mysterious source had broken his leg or been run over by a trolley or col-
lapsed of a coronary.
 No, no, no. You must have heard. Mr. Nabokov has passed away. A
great tragedy.
 Who? Through the dialect I had heard only another rattling Bengali name.
 Nabokov! Nabokov! Vladimir Nabokov! Pale Fire. Ada. The greatest prose
stylist in your native language. A very great loss for all of us. All men of letters.
 Oh, I said. I had never even got around to reading Lolita. By the time I
remembered my resolve not to go with Krishna, we were outside in the humid
dark and he was leading me to a rickshaw where a gaunt, wizened little rick-
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shaw-coolie dozed in a red seat. I pulled back. Something in me rebelled at
the thought of being pulled through filthy streets by this human scarecrow.
 Let s take a cab, I said.
 No, no. This is reserved for us. It is a short ride. Our friend is waiting.
The seat was wet from the evening rains but not uncomfortable. The little
man jumped down with a slap of his bare feet, grabbed the twin yokes,
jumped into the air with a practiced agility, and came down straight-armed,
balancing our weight expertly.
The rickshaw had no running lights, only a kerosene lantern that swung
on a metal hook. It did not reassure me that the trucks and cars that swerved
around us, horns blaring, also ran without lights. The trolleys were still run-
ning, and the sick, yellow pall of their interior bulbs showed sweaty faces
crowded behind wire-mesh windows. Despite the late hour all of the public
transit was loaded, buses swaying from the weight of people hanging from
barred windows and outside grips, passing trains showing innumerable heads
and torsos protruding from the black carriages.
There were few streetlights, but alleys and half-glimpsed courtyards
glowed with that pale, decaying phosphorescence I had seen from the air.
The darkness had not brought any relief from the heat. If anything, it was
warmer now than it had been during the day. Heavy clouds could be seen just
above the overhanging buildings, and their moist weight seemed to reflect the
heat of the city streets back to us.
Anxiety rose in me again. It is hard even now for me to describe the nature
of this tension. It had little to do with a sense of physical danger, although I
felt absurdly exposed as we rattled over loose paving stones, heaps of garbage, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]