‘The women are in the lounge on the first floor,’ she finished.
I took the letter from my pocket and showed her the signature. I had memorized the name, but I preferred to let her see it written so that there would be no misunderstanding. ‘Vimala Sar,’ I said. ‘I want a girl called Vimala Sar.’
She threw a quick glance at the two young men sitting on the sofa. ‘Vimala Sar doesn’t work here any more,’ she said. ‘She’s left.’
‘Where did she go?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but we have prettier girls than her.’
The situation didn’t look promising. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw the two youths shift a little, but maybe it was just an impression.
‘Find her for me,’ I said quickly. ‘I’ll wait in my room.’ Fortunately I had two twenty-dollar bills in my pocket. I laid them among the coloured stones and picked up my suitcase. As I was climbing the stairs I had a small inspiration dictated by fear. ‘My embassy knows I’m here,’ I said in a loud voice.
The room looked clean. It was painted a light green colour and on the walls were prints showing what looked like the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho, but I didn’t particularly feel like checking. The bed was very low with a tattered armchair next to it and a small mountain of coloured cushions. On the bedside table were various objects whose purpose could not be misunderstood. I undressed and found some clean underwear. The bathroom was a painted cubbyhole with a poster on the door showing a blonde straddling a bottle of Coca-Cola. The poster was yellow with age and smutted by insects, the blonde wore her hair à la Marilyn Monroe, fifties style, which made her look even more incongruous. The shower had no shower head, it was simply a pipe sticking out of the wall with a jet of water that gushed out at head height. Still, washing seemed the most voluptuous thing in the world: I had an eight-hour flight behind me, plus three hours in the airport and then the ride across Bombay.
I don’t know how long I slept. Perhaps two hours, perhaps longer. When the knocking on the door woke me I automatically went to answer, not even realising where I was at first. The girl entered with a rustle of clothes. She was small and wore a pretty sari. She was sweating and her make-up was running at the corners of her eyes. She said: ‘Good evening, sir, I am Vimala Sar.’ She stood in the middle of the room, her eyes down and arms at her sides, as if I was supposed to inspect her.
‘I’m a friend of Xavier’s,’ I said.
She lifted her eyes and I saw the total amazement on her face. I had set up her letter on the bedside table. She looked at it and began to cry.
‘How come he ended up in this place?’ I asked. ‘What was he doing here? Where is he now?’
She began to sob softly and I realised I’d asked too many questions.
‘Take it easy,’ I said.
‘When he found out I’d written to you he was very angry,’ she said.
‘And why did you write to me?’
‘Because I found your address in Xavier’s diary,’ she said. ‘I knew you were good friends, once.’
‘Why was he angry?’
She put a hand to her mouth as if to stop herself crying. ‘He’d got to be very hard on me those last months,’ she said. ‘He was ill.’
‘But what was he doing?’
‘He was doing business,’ she said. ‘I don’t know, he didn’t tell me anything, he’d stopped being nice to me.’
‘What kind of business?’
‘I don’t know,’ she repeated, ‘he didn’t tell me anything. Sometimes he wouldn’t say anything for days and days, then all of a sudden he’d get restless and flare up in a furious rage.’
‘When did he arrive here?’
‘Last year,’ she said. ‘He came from Goa. He was doing business with them, then he fell ill.’
‘Them who?’
‘The people in Goa,’ she said, ‘in Goa, I don’t know.’ She sat on the armchair near the bed; she wasn’t crying now, she seemed calmer. ‘Get something to drink,’ she said. ‘There are drinks in the cabinet. A bottle costs fifty rupees.’
I went to the cabinet and took a small bottle full of an orange liquid, a tangerine liqueur. ‘But who were the people in Goa?’ I insisted. ‘Don’t you remember the name, anything?’
She shook her head and began to cry again. ‘The people in Goa,’ she said, ‘in Goa, I don’t know. He was ill,’ she repeated.
She paused and let out a long sigh. ‘Sometimes it seemed he didn’t care about anything,’ she said, ‘not even me. The only thing that interested him at all were the letters from Madras, but then the next day he would be the same as before.’
‘What letters?’
‘The letters from Madras,’ she said ingenuously, as if this were information enough.
‘But who from?’ I pressed her. ‘Who wrote to him?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘a society, I don’t remember, he never let me read them.’
‘And he answered?’
Vimala sat there thinking. ‘Yes, he used to answer, I think he did, he spent hours and hours writing.’
‘Please,’ I said, ‘try to make an effort. What was this society?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘it was a scholarly society I think, I don’t know, sir.’ She paused again and then said: ‘He was a good man, he meant well. It was his nature. He had a sad destiny.’
Her hands were clasped together, her fingers long and beautiful. Then she looked at me with an expression of relief, as if something had come back to her. ‘The Theosophical Society,’ she said. And for the first time she smiled.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘tell me everything, take your time, everything you remember, everything you can tell me.’
I poured her another glass of the liqueur. She drank and began to tell. It was a long, rambling story, full of details. She talked about their affair, about the streets of Bombay, the holiday trips to Bassein and Elephanta. And then about afternoons at the Victoria Gardens, stretched out on the grass, about swimming at Chowpatty Beach under the first rains of the monsoon. I heard how Xavier had learnt to laugh and what he laughed about; and how much he liked the sunsets over the Arabian Sea when they walked along the seafront at dusk. It was a story she had carefully purged of any ugliness or misery. It was a love story.
‘Xavier had written a great deal,’ she said, ‘then one day he burnt everything. Here in this hotel, he got a copper basin and burnt everything.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘He was ill,’ she said. ‘It was his nature. He had a sad destiny.’
By the time Vimala left the night must have been over. I didn’t look at my watch. I drew the curtains across the window and lay on the bed. Before falling asleep I heard a distant cry. Perhaps it was a prayer, or an invocation to the new day that was dawning.