The Splendor Of Silence Read Free Page B

window? The noise of the wind disturbs me greatly."
    "Of course, Mrs. Stanton." Sam pulled the shutter down. The air in their compartment stilled. Sam put his nose to the slats of the shutter and heard the soft whistle of the breeze outside. He breathed deeply, drawing the air into his lungs, closing his eyes as it lifted the hair sloping over his forehead and cooled that first effect of closeness. A minute later, Sam rose to switch off the lights, and the blue-tinted globe of the night-light came on.
    On the bunk above Mrs. Stanton, his back straight even in sleep, the black of his coat still uncreased, was the Indian gentleman. He slept in his clothes, unlike Adelaide Stanton, who had changed in the adjoining bathroom. He wore a white churdar, tight about his shins, a fitted black coat with a mandarin collar, a gold watch on his right wrist, and leather sandals that were now under the bunk. He had not moved in four hours; he did not even seem to breathe, his form as rigid in sleep as it had been when he was awake.
    Early that morning, at Palampore, Sam had been the first inside the bogie, desperate for the quiet of a bunk where he could lie down.
    He had pulled himself upright when the Indian gentleman paused at the doorway. The Indian though was so diffident, he almost melted back into the corridor again upon seeing Sam. His demeanor seemed retiring, but nothing about his clothing or his person was--his sherwani coat was made of a fine and thick black silk, exquisitely tailored; his hair was cut well, his nails manicured. After a moment, he came into the compartmen t a nd nodded, his expression watchful. They said good morning to each other, and Sam added, "How are you?"
    "Well, well, thank you," the man said. "My seat is here." His voice was firm, yet with an underlying hint of a quaver, backed by defiance.
    "I'm not in your seat, am I?"
    "No, no. This," he said, pointing to the bunk opposite, and the seat near the door, "is mine. Thank you."
    And then Mrs. Stanton appeared. She hesitated at the doorway, ticket in a sweating lilac-gloved hand, three coolies behind her sporting a variety of baggage.
    "I'm sorry," Mrs. Stanton said, "but I believe you have my seat."
    She was looking toward the Indian, who jumped up from his seat and reached into the breast pocket of his long, black coat. She was not actually looking at the man, not meeting his eyes, that is, but placing her gaze at the first button of his coat, just below his well-trimmed beard.
    "I do not think so, madam," he said with an abbreviated bow, not proffering his ticket to her though. "Everything is quite correct here."
    Mrs. Stanton's face congealed into a grimace. She was at that indeterminate age that some women achieved once they reached forty, not really aging more until they were seventy, when what little freshness youth provided had long gone, when ideas and prejudices were firmly settled. She had not even glanced at Sam, though perhaps from the corner of her eye, and registered, somehow, that Sam was not Indian. But he looked Indian to a casual, uneducated glance, for now at least, his skin charred by the Burma sun he had trudged under for weeks, his hair a glossy black, his eyes a deepening blue. The color of his eyes was misleading, for Indians too had blue eyes, or green or hazel, an unfortunate legacy of indulgence and lack of self-control on the part of Mrs. Stanton's countrymen. Yet she somehow knew. Something in the way Sam sat, in his manner, proclaimed him not Indian. Mrs. Stanton had no casual, uneducated eye in India. She knew.
    "The native carriages are at the back of the train," she said. "Please find your way there. This is my seat. There can be no possibility of a mistake here."
    The British conductor hovering behind Mrs. Stanton's vast figure, with a "May I?" edged through the narrow doorway to look at the Indian's ticket.
    "It's quite all right, Mrs. Stanton," he had said, and cleared his throa t i n that uncomfortable silence. He held