Waiting for the Monsoon Read Online Free

to it that the chest goes to the shed? My husband is coming home tomorrow to his son, Donald.” She stresses the word “son.”
    The butler stares at the chest, which is as tall as he is and resembles an upright coffin. There is lettering on one side, but he has never learned to read. He thinks of his father, who after the Great War was given the task of capturing a tiger for the London zoo, along with a Scottish officer named Macintosh. It wasn’t difficult to find a tiger and kill it. Macintosh had already killed some forty tigers. But this one had to be taken alive. They built a chest and set a trap. With the raging tiger in the chest, they drove to Bombay, where they were to deposit the beast in the hold of a ship. During the five-day car journey to Bombay, his father lost first his forefinger and later his entire right hand, because Macintosh refused to help him feed the animal. The butler looks at his own attractive hands with their long fingers. . . . Not a scratch to be seen.
    THE ENTIRE STAFF is assembled in the kitchen, a stone building with a roof made of palm leaves. Forty Indian men and women, each and every one in uniform, are packed together in the narrow space, looking at the butler with shocked faces.
    â€œAnyone who’s afraid can leave now,” he says.
    No one moves a muscle. The servants are terrified of the butler. Everyone knows that he comes from heroic Kashmiri stock and that an English zoo once named a tiger after his family. But they are also struck with fear when they think of the general, who is arriving home tomorrow.
    â€œPick up the poles.”
    The servants walk back to the house carrying the long poles. The butler, a worthy descendant of his forebears, has explained to them how they are to transport the chest. They will lay the poles on the ground, tip the chest over using another pole, and then carry it to the shed as if it were a stretcher.
    â€œQuiet now, or you’ll wake the baby.” The butler opens the door.
    In the hall stands Victor Bridgwater, his swagger stick still under his arm. Next to him stand his five-year-old daughter, Charlotte, and his wife, Mathilda, with the baby in her arms. The chest is open.
    â€œGeneral! You’re here already?” the butler stammers, surprised that he didn’t hear him coming.
    â€œWith my hands still covered in blood!” Victor booms. “What’s the meaning of all those poles? Is this how you protect my son?” He laughs heartily and turns to his wife. “Your troops would appear to be more competent than mine, Tilly.”
    Mathilda glances uneasily at the group of dark-skinned men and women holding their sticks, relieved that her husband has returned just in time. But why are all the servants suddenly carrying poles? She clutches her newborn baby tightly to her breast.
    Victor pushes the lid of the chest aside and says, “Have any of you ever seen an electric lawnmower before?”
    ~~~
    THE GENERAL IS standing at the top of the stairs. The toes of his boots extend over the edge of the top stair. At the bottom, Sita is holding the howling infant in her arms. Next to him stands his wife, Mathilda. Charlotte, who spent all afternoon playing with Sita and her dolls, slips noiselessly over to her mother’s side and searches for her hand, which she holds hidden in her skirts. Excruciatingly slowly, her father’s white-gloved hand goes up. He points his swagger stick at the outer door, where the butler is standing with an umbrella. Everyone stares at the motionless stick. The only sounds are the crying of the baby and, in the background, the monotonous strokes of the sweepers’ brooms in the salon.
    â€œBut, sarkar  . . .” The words issue haltingly from Sita’s mouth as she gently caresses the wailing baby. “ Chota-sahib is so little.”
    The swagger stick seems to grow larger. Sita, in her faded sari, walks hesitantly toward the large grey