The Sandalwood Tree Read Online Free PDF Page B

confused and upset without understanding why, so she slipped on her nightdress and slid into bed, pretending to fall asleep immediately. Felicity thought it must be the effect of the wassail, and she eased into bed quietly, trying not to disturb her friend. The punch had indeed been strong, and she fell asleep very soon herself.
    That night Adela watched Felicity sleep, and for the first time she acknowledged the true nature of her feelings. She held a trembling hand inches above her friend’s sleeping form, moving it over the contour of Felicity’s shoulders and along her arm, dipping at the waist, rising over the hip and down the length of her leg. There seemed to be a warm prickling current between her hand and Felicity’s body, which made Adela feel tingly and a little sick in the pit of her stomach. She took a long shuddering breath, then lay down and pulled the covers up to her chin. She wept as quietly as she could.
    But she wasn’t quiet enough. Felicity woke to the rhythmic shaking of the bed and heard Adela’s stifled sobs. She didn’t have to turn and ask what was wrong. In a cloudy, half-understood way, she knew. She had noticed the soft-eyed way Adela looked at her and it was not the way girls normally looked at one another. She had feltAdela’s hand lingering longer than necessary on her neck when she fastened the clasp on her pearls, and she had puzzled over the pressure of Adela’s thigh against hers when she sat close on the settee. She had only an imprecise grasp of what it all meant, but she knew Adela loved her differently from the way she loved Adela. She also knew Adela was good, Adela was her friend, and Felicity would not judge her.

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I heated water on the old cooker, opened a can of sweetened condensed milk, and gave Billy a handful of pistachios to nibble while the tea brewed. He held a nut to Spike’s miniature muzzle and made chewing sounds. I poured a splash of tea into Billy’s cup, filled it to the brim with thick sweet milk, and we sat at the table sipping and munching while a bamboo wind chime on the verandah clapped in the breeze. I noticed that yesterday’s garbage was gone and realized that Rashmi must have arrived to find the house empty, perhaps done a few chores, taken the garbage and left. There had been so much emotion and so little time the night before I had not sent a message to the village. But having told no one of our departure meant that Habib would arrive as usual in the late afternoon to prepare dinner. With this strange arrangement of having a kitchen attached to the house, and the even stranger penchant we had for eating in the same room where he cooked, it was uncomfortable for Habib to be around unless he was working.
    After breakfast, Billy played rickshaw on the shady verandah, carting Spike around in his red Flyer wagon, weaving between potted plants and faded wicker chairs. Now and then he shouted,“Cheerio!” or “Namaste!” to a passing monkey. I called out, “Don’t touch the monkeys,” and he answered, “I knooow.” His piping voice made me smile as I returned our household cash to the tea tin and unpacked, tucking Billy’s cotton undies back into drawers and hanging his little shirts in his almirah.
    I ran a fond hand over my lemon silk sari, once again imagining myself floating around a faculty cocktail party, the returned expat, holding forth on Hindu temples, painted elephants, and colorful customs. I blessed James Walker for saving me from having to leave too soon as I slipped the old letters back under my bras and panties, enjoying a sense of danger averted. Martin would calm down in a few days.
    After getting up at dawn, the hurried snack before leaving, and then the tense hour at the grimy train station, Billy was drooping by tiffin. He usually loved to wait by the front door for the tiffin-wallah, lumbering along, his bullock cart heaped with deliveries. The tiffin basket was like a treasure trove for Billy. He