—40— #2
“In me? Why? The picnic was absurd. Grayson was an ass. I understand all that, but how was any of it my doing?”
He turned, eyes blazing. “You brought me here. You must have known what it would be.”
“How could I know?” I frowned. “It’s a new world to me here, too.”
He bowed his head. “Yes, I see that, too. I just—”
“What? What have I done to so ruin the harmony between us? What have I done, Tanveer? Not my friends, not this world. Me.”
At last, he took my hands, and he spoke in Hindustani. “You did nothing, jaan. It was that I saw too clearly what lies between us.”
“What, Tanveer?” I spoke in the same language, determined to close the widening gap between us. “Nothing! We have our own world, here between us. No one else is here.”
“And if it were only that, always, just this meeting place between us, we could live there and be happy. But it isn’t. There is no place for me to thrive here, and there is nothing for you in my world.”
“But we have now. Why are you fighting with me tonight? We have so little time.” I reached for his cheek, touched his neck. “When you return to India, we’ll revert to our letters, and distance will shape this thing between us anyway.”
He switched to English. “But don’t you see? We cannot exist in this place of distance and yearning and love without some toll on both of us. It’s beyond foolish. It will be destructive.”
Anger flared. “I did not kiss you in the garden that first night. You kissed me.” Tears filled my eyes, and I was furious with my weakness. “I said that we might hurt each other, and nothing had changed.”
He nodded. “I did. Perhaps I was wrong.”
“How convenient! Now that you’ve swept me into this . . . world with you again, you change your mind and cast me away when it becomes difficult. Just like you did before I left India.”
“I’m not casting you away.” He made a noise of frustration and bent his head to mine. “You did not step in today. You were one of them. It made you someone else.”
I heard the anguish in his tone, and I felt an answering wail. “I was caught in the middle, and I didn’t know what to do. I am so sorry.”
“I love you,” he said. “Like an arm, like water. But I fear there is no way to cross this gulf.”
“Stop!” I cried, pushing at his shoulders.
“You’re wallowing in your superiority. You’re judging me very harshly on something I’ve only had a little tiny taste of.
You send me off in exile before I even have an opportunity to try on a new set of clothing.
How can you be so gentle in your letters and so judgmental in person?
” I felt my face heating. “Is it not the challenge of two souls to learn to navigate the world with each other? Am I supposed to know in this very moment everything I must know forever?”
“No, Elsie—”
“I can’t speak for anyone else here, but you do know me.” Clutching my skirts, I shook my head. “You’re not the only person who has feelings.”
I stomped back to the party and left him standing on the shores of the lake. The beautiful, bucolic lake with its perfect little swan. I thought he would come after me, but he did not.
My heart bled all the way up the lawn.
I had no taste for the party, and made my way to my bedroom, where I shed the foolish fairy dress.
Clad in a dressing gown, I sat by the window with my sketchbook, flipping through the drawings from recent days and weeks.
The park the day Tanveer arrived, and his hand on his leg, and a quick profile.
In my mind, I went over the events of the picnic, and I could see clearly moments I might have spoken or acted in a more supportive way.
But I’d been afraid to upset anyone—Tanveer or Rocky or Nina or even Grayson. My mother had taught me to be polite, and I fell back on that at moments of consternation.
Because it had been a moment of consternation, riding up to the tent, seeing the mishmash. Grayson had been an ass from the start, but it was Tanveer who defended me, not the other way around.
I felt as aggrieved as I had examining my paintings. Like a foolish, embarrassing girl who knew nothing.
And in truth, I didn’t. I was learning to know myself more in my painting, but this was an entirely new thing, this place where I had to face the role I might play in upholding the old system.
For my painting, I was learning to study everything about my work, and the world of others, to observe where Orientalism started and ended, and how to circumvent it to find something real. Perhaps the same could be true of the greater world. I could read and study, just as Tanveer had.
I stood and went to the window, looking toward the lake. I did not see Tanveer in the gloaming, and rested my forehead on the windowpane. How could it have gone so quickly wrong between us?
A scratch came to my door, and I flew across the room. Tanveer stood there with wildflowers drooping in his hand. “A peace offering,” he said.
I flung myself into his embrace, relieved when he clasped me back fiercely.
“Forgive me, Elsie.”
“No, forgive me. I am so sorry. I am so very, very sorry I didn’t speak up more, that—”
He pushed me back into my room, and tilted my chin up with his thumbs. “We shall learn together, jaan.”
We kissed, and then healed the wounds we’d given each other with hands and lips and flesh to flesh. The rocks of our conflict subsided under the high tide of our passion.
It was only later, our bodies close, the quilt enfolding us that he said, “It is difficult to reconcile feelings about England as a political force that has harmed my country with my feelings for you.”
A pang struck my chest. “Is it? Do you dislike things about me because you dislike British things?”
“Not personally, not you.”
“But I am English.”
He nodded. “And the Guru tells us that all of us are equal, but that does not make it easy to love everyone.”
“Is it hard to love me, Tanveer?”
“No. Never.” Tenderly, he touched my jaw, stroked, the line of my neck. “Our souls are one. I love you easily and always.”
I bent to kiss him, his precious mouth, so giving, so rich.
Light filled me, head to toe. “That part I know is true.” I closed my eyes and tucked myself into his shoulder.
“The rest—I don’t know.” I rested there, feeling whole as I never did elsewhere.
How could such a feeling be erroneous? How could such a union be anything but a good force in the world?
“What if,” I asked quietly, “the whole point is that we do love each other?”
His hand moved in my hair. “Then we are succeeding, at least in this.”
At least in this. I shoved the world aside and nestled closer to him. Somehow, there would be a way forward for us. There had to be.