Travelers Read Online Free PDF

eaten, and the games they had played. And he grumbled to Raymond, “You see, this is the trouble—you don’t play anything, you’re not fun for me.” But Raymond knew he didn’t mean it.
    Raymond crossed over to the other side of the parapet and now looked over the forecourt of the mosque with the little tomb and the graves shady under trees. He checked himself from wondering whose graves they might be. As he stood there gazing out, brimful of satisfaction, he saw a girl come in through a gap in the compound wall. She was an unexpected apparition in that place: a Western girl in a yellow peasant skirt and gypsy earrings. She wandered in and looked around and Raymond watched her. Gopi, always sensitive to whatever Raymond was doing, noticed a change in his attention and asked, “What are you looking at?”
    â€œCome and see,” Raymond said.
    Gopi stood beside him. He looked at the girl and began to say bravado things, the sort he knew boys were expected to say about girls. When Raymond didn’t react, he thought perhaps he wasn’t going far enough so he went as far as he knew how. The girl remained totally unaware of them. She shuffled off her sandals and went into the mosque and then she came out again and looked around the tomb and then she sat on a grave under a tree.
    Gopi said, “I’ll go and talk to her.” He said it like a challenge and when Raymond didn’t answer he added, “I’ll pick her up.” It was a phrase he had learned fairly recently and he offered it—half daring, half timid—as if he weren’t quite sure about it. But next he said, “You think I can’t? You think I don’t know how? Just watch me!”
    He turned and climbed down the steps leading from the terrace. Raymond watched him emerge from the side entrance of the mosque and make his way toward the girl. Raymondenjoyed watching him—he was proud of him and the way he advanced like a purposeful conqueror, tossing the hair out of his eyes. Gopi had a boy’s figure with very narrow hips on which his trousers sat jauntily. Ever since he had met Raymond, he had laid aside the somewhat gaudy shirts he used to wear in favor of the more elegant ones that Raymond bought for him. He had natural good taste and had learned very quickly.
    Raymond saw the girl look up. He also saw a look of annoyance on her face. This deepened as Gopi went on talking to her. They were too far away for Raymond to hear what they were saying, but evidently Gopi was saying all he could think of and the girl was answering him very shortly. After a while she stopped answering altogether and looked away from him. Gopi too seemed to have run out of conversation. He continued to stand there, continued even to display his air of bravado, but evidently he did not know what to say or do next. Raymond realized he would have to go down to rescue him.
    Although he pretended to be in command of the situation, Gopi was clearly relieved to see him. He said, “She is not a friendly person.” There was a quite uncharacteristic leer on his face.
    â€œIs he with you?” Lee asked Raymond. “Perhaps you could tell him it’s bad manners to disturb people who want to be alone.”
    â€œWhy does she want to be alone?” Gopi said. “Ah-ha—you see, she doesn’t answer. There must be a very bad reason.”
    Lee looked at Raymond for help. Gopi too seemed to want help, to be relieved of the girl and the situation which were not turning out as expected.
    â€œWe’ll go,” Raymond offered.
    But they didn’t. They stood there rather awkwardly and in awkward silence till Lee asked Raymond, “Are you American?”
    â€œEnglish.”
    â€œOf course. . . . Are you with your embassy or something?”
    â€œNo. Oh, no.”
    The emphatic way in which he said this pleased Lee so that for the first time she smiled a little bit.
    Now it was Gopi who