Who Are You? Read Online Free PDF Page B

like every letter that comes to the house, he has marked its arrival, and noted it in his mind. Her preoccupation with it strikes him as highly significant, and from the care with which she keeps it hidden he has concluded that it is a love letter. He has actually had it in his hands and examined it with the closest attention, but to no purpose, as he can't read English. He daren't take it away to get it translated, sure she will notice if he abstracts it from its hiding place. Looking like an Old Testament prophet with his stern ascetic face and grey beard, he frowns at her disapprovingly; then, deciding nothing is to be gained by watching her any longer, he retires into the house.
    Reappearing almost immediately on the back porch, he stares down with a vicious sneer on his face at the recumbent chuprassi, who's sound asleep, his beard stirring slightly each time he breathes out with a little snore. The other man stands poised like a stork on his left leg; the right leg, thin as a stick but immensely strong, shoots out with the sudden force of a mule's, kicking him in the kidneys.
    ‘Pig-dog! Is this how you guard the master's property?' His voice rises to a thin scream.
    The chuprassi wakes with a yell of pain, scrambling on all fours, endeavouring at the same time to retrieve his badge of office and to massage the injured spot, pouring out a guttural flood of confused excuses, apologies. The only answer is a violently ejected, neatly aimed blob of spit, which sizzles into the soft dust, making a deep pit there, only just missing his hand.
    Having thus aroused his subordinate to a sense of duty Mohammed moves on, his large horny feet with their widely splayed, almost prehensile toes rising and falling soundlessly, impervious to stones, splinters, cactus spines, scorpions, snakes - all the assorted hazards of the compound.
    Silently circling the silent house, he rather resembles animated, gnarled, ancient piece of wood, from which sap has long ago been extracted by the relentless sun, padding along, indefatigable, indestructible-seeming, in thee blasting noonday heat, watching everything out of blinking eyes.
    10
    Down the stairs comes a handsome major of about forty, immaculate in R.A.M.C. tropical uniform. The girl is waiting for him at the bottom. She is relieved that his visit has gone off quietly, with no explosions of bad temper on the part of the patient. It now only remains for her to show this army doctor out to his car, waiting in the shade of the porch. She's never met him before, and, as he comes down, looking cool, smart, and assured, he seems to personify all that's acceptable socially, and that she is not. For this reason, his presence makes her slightly uneasy, and she'll be glad when he's gone.
    'Not to worry,' he tells her. 'He'll be over this in three or four days.'
    His voice is pleasant, but off-hand. She expects him to go straight out to his car, and is surprised when he pauses instead, looking at her. At the same moment, she hears bottles being put down behind her, looks round, and sees that Mohammed Dirwaza Khan has brought a tray of drinks into the sitting room. The Moslem lifts his head, confronting her with the frown of disapproval he puts on these days when he thinks she's done something wrong, hardly troubling to hide his contempt, now that he's in triumphant charge of the sickroom. The faint flush that appears on her cheeks could equally well be because she's ashamed of not standing up to him, or afraid the major will notice she doesn't, or because it hasn't: occurred to her to offer him a drink.
    Now she does so, and he accepts. Together they go into the room, which, except for a few books lying about, is just as it was when she saw it for the first time, months ago, and was discouraged, once and for all, by the hopeless dull dreariness of it, which seems beyond improvement. The man isn't interested in the room. It's her youth that has caught his attention — she looks, and is, years younger