Waiting for the Monsoon Read Online Free Page A

pram with its hood and lace trim, all the while comforting little Donald with her caresses. The baby stops crying. The young woman, still a girl herself, transfers the baby to her other arm. Charlotte’s sigh of relief is audible. She knows that Sita will protect her little brother, as she has always protected her. Outside there is a loud thunderclap and the sky breaks open. The baby starts to cry again. Charlotte finds her mother’s hand and squeezes it hard. There is no response.
    The swagger stick motions briefly in the direction of the pram and then points again to the outer door. Sita puts the baby in the pram. He starts to cry even harder. She goes to pick him up again, but a sound from the top of the stairs stops her. The butler opens the outer door. The rain pelts down on the tiles. Sita rocks the pram gently back and forth, in the hope that the cries will subside, but the opposite is the case when a flash of lightning illuminates the hall, followed by a deafening peal of thunder. For the second time, Sita slowly pushes the pram with the screaming baby outside. As the first raindrops hit the hood, she stops.
    â€œThe middle of the lawn,” orders the general.
    The girl cautiously pushes the carriage down the stairs. She tries to cushion the jolt at each stair, as she used to do with Charlotte, but the child’s cries grow even louder. Once on the path, she looks back. Behind her the door is already closed. In despair, she walks onto the grass; the rain is pounding down with tremendous force. She slides the baby as far under the hood as possible, so that he doesn’t become soaked, but on the inside the sound of the rain must be deafening. In front of the salon window stands the broad figure of the general, who has just returned from a mission during which he made short work of a group of Indian protesters whom he regarded as mutinous slaves. Sita stops in the middle of the lawn. She bends over the pram and tries to quiet the baby. She knows that she must now leave him alone, otherwise the general will come storming outside and she will lose her job. She caresses the child once more and pulls the sheet over him as best she can. The lashing rain continues unabated. She walks away, leaving the pram in the middle of the lawn. Out of sight of the window, she crouches down near a bush full of winter roses. She hears the cries over the peals of thunder.
    Charlotte runs back to the nursery. Looking out the window, she sees Sita sitting next to the bush, not far from the lonely pram, ready to jump up at any moment. “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” she whispers to her baby brother. “If you go on crying, he’ll leave you out there for hours, just like he did with me.”
1995 Rampur ~~~
    ALL THE WOMEN gazed in bewilderment at the secretary of the New Rampur Club. No one said a word. Only once before had he walked into their midst unannounced, after Mr. Chatterjee — the owner of two fashionable ladies’ apparel shops in the town centre, but a poor tennis player — hit the ball straight through the windowpane of the “Ladies Club.” Now the secretary was standing before them again, wiping his brow, while the women stared at him. The ceiling fans were going at full speed.
    â€œAre you sure?” The query was launched suddenly from a corner of the room.
    The secretary nodded. He was surprised by the identity of the speaker, seeing that the wife of Alok Nath, the goldsmith, invariably spoke in an inaudible whisper because she thought it sounded aristocratic.
    â€œWhat?” said the widow Singh, who was sitting next to the wife of Alok Nath and was awakened by the unexpected sound of a voice next to her.
    â€œThat’s impossible! Quite impossible! On my way to the club I dropped off a very expensive length of pink Chinese silk.” The corpulent wife of Nikhil Nair, district director of the Eastern Indian Mining Company, was on her feet, glowering at the