“And men?”
“What about them?”
“Were you a virgin when you had your precious arranged marriage?”
“Practically,” I said.
“What kind of an answer is that?”
“I hadn’t had a girlfriend or anything like that. There were some guys in college who did, but they were a tiny minority, and I’m not even sure how many of their girlfriends actually slept with them. I mean, it wasn’t easy — girls and boys weren’t allowed into each other’s hostels, no one in college could afford a hotel room, you couldn’t even hold hands in public without stirring up trouble. But yes, I did lose my virginity the way many of my friends did. We all had the same normal urges as anyone in America, after all, but none of the same opportunities. So, one night, a group of us from college paid a visit to a brothel.”
“No,” Priscilla breathed, sitting up. “That’s disgusting.”
“It’s the time-honored way,” I replied. “Men have to learn what it’s all about, and no decent girl will show them, and in the normal course you only meet decent girls. That’s why red-light districts exist. A hundred rupees, I think it was, for a dark chunky woman with betel-stained teeth and too much powder on her face. It lasted two minutes: she never took off her blouse, just lifted a crumpled petticoat and let me in. I never went back.”
“I hope not,” she breathed.
“Oh, some of the fellows did, the ones who could find a hundred bucks from time to time. I couldn’t, but I didn’t want to. My curiosity was satisfied. And I was repelled.”
“So what did you do?”
“Do?”
“For sex, of course.”
I laughed. “My dear woman,” I said in my most Wildean voice, “have you never heard of the sin of Onan?”
She blushed then. This lovely woman, who had just told me so matter-of-factly of having experienced the touch-and-thrust of sex with God knows how many men, was blushing at the thought of my having given myself a helping hand.
“So you understand why, when my parents wanted to arrange my marriage, I didn’t protest too much.” I smiled. “I was ready. Boy, was I ready!”
“Well, I hope you weren’t disappointed,” she said, a bit cuttingly, returning her head to my chest.
“Actually, I was,” I said very quietly. “Geetha wasn’t just a virgin, she was horrified by what I wanted to do to her. Her mother, it seems, had given her the most basic instruction in what to expect. She refused to disrobe completely — she thought the very idea was disgusting. She showed no desire for my body either. So yes, I guess you could say I was disappointed.”
Priscilla looked directly at me with those amazing eyes. “I’m sorry, Lucky,” she said softly “That couldn’t have been easy for you to tell me.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’ll tell you something, too, that I haven’t told anyone. There’s one thing I’ve never done. In bed, I mean. I’ve never let anyone make love to me the way my father was doing it with that woman. From behind.”
I looked at her, and she looked back, unblinking, and I was overwhelmed by the desire to seize her in my arms, to turn her around, to do to her exactly what she’d said she’d never do. I touched her gently on the cheek.
“I understand, Priscilla,” I said.
from Randy Diggs’s notebook
October 12, 1989
Muslim professor I’d met in Delhi, Mohammed Sarwar, came to see me here at the guest house. He said he was staying with relatives in Zalilgarh while doing historical research, and it would be more convenient if he came to me. Unusual for an Indian — they’re always inviting you home. From which I surmise not just that this isn’t his home, but that the people he’s staying with are very poor. Or conservative. Or both? Mustn’t ask.
Sarwar arrives, young, slim, moustache, thinning hair, while I’m sitting on the verandah with Rudyard Hart. There’s my first surprise.
“Don’t I know you?” asks Hart, his eyes narrowing. “I’m sure we’ve met before.”
“We have, Mr. Hart,” Sarwar replies, as he mounts the steps and shakes his hand. “Over ten years ago.”
“Ten years… of course! I remember you now. You were — what did they call you? A student leader.” He pronounces the words with exaggerated care, as if they were a rare species of butterfly. Or an exotic disease.
“That’s right.” Sarwar is unabashed.
“With the commie student union, if I remember right.”
“With one of the commie student unions, Mr. Hart. There are two at the university.”
“Only in India.” Hart is cheerful. “Communism is fading away everywhere else in the world, but in India it sustains two student unions.” He wags a finger at Sarwar. “And you were leading a demonstration outside my office.”
“Down with American imperialism,” Sarwar recites. “U.S. capitalist exploiter murdabad. Coke is a joke on India’s poor.”
“I liked that one particularly. Coke is a joke. You must have had great fun making those up.”
“Not really. We took ourselves very seriously.”
“Of course you did. I invited you into my office to discuss your demands.”
“That’s right.”
“And,” Hart adds with satisfaction, “I offered you Coke.”
“Which I declined.”
“Which, as I recall, you accepted. And drank two.”
“No, that wasn’t me. I refused. I was from the SFI. It was the girl who was with me, from the AISF. Her father was an extremely rich landlord from Calcutta, a member of Parliament for the Communist Party of India. She had grown up on the stuff. She told me later that it wasn’t thirst that led her to accept; drinking your Coke was a way of exploiting the exploiter. She was extremely good at rationalizing the indefensible.”
Hart laughs. “What’s she doing now?”
“Oh, she’s teaching at an American university, Emory I believe. Lecturing on postmodernism and feminism. I’m told she has a green card, a tenure-track post, and the best music system on campus. She still contributes articles to the ‘Economic and Political Weekly’ here critiquing India’s dangerous compromises with the forces of global capital.”
“And you? Are you still leading demonstrations outside American imperialist institutions?”
“No.” It is Sarwar’s turn to laugh. “I gave that up a while ago. I’m a professor now.”
“A professor? In what subject?”
“A reader, actually, in the Department of History at Delhi University. What you’d call an associate professor.”
“History,” Hart murmurs. “You have a lot of that in this country.”
“Yes,” Sarwar agrees. “Unlike yours. When I was at college I wanted to take an optional course in American history. The head of the department dissuaded me. Americans, he said, have no history. We, of course, have both history and mythology. Sometimes we can’t tell the difference.”
“What sort of history do you teach?”
“I’m specializing in what we call Mediaeval Indian History. Also called by some the Muslim Period. The time when most of India was ruled by various Muslim dynasties, ending with the Mughals.”
“An odd choice, for a communist.”
“Oh, I gave that up a while ago too. It was a faith, really, and I soon discovered two other faiths that I realized meant more to me.” “And what were those?” Hart asks.
“Democracy,” Sarwar replies quietly “And Islam.”
“Sounds like a perfect segue,” I chip in. “This long-delayed reunion is marvelous, Rudyard, but do you think I could proceed with my interview with Professor Sarwar now?”