Dr. Sarin bent forward as he reached for his teacup. He watched the morning sun fill the cup and glide a cross the surface of his tea. He took a sip and spoke. “Have you heard them talking?”
“What, what can you be talking about?” He’d interrupted his sister’s morning gazing out the window to their garden.
“I believe a few of them are being sent home,” he said.
“But some of them come and go, although...” Although they both knew that most of the English in the colony had been on Third Street, on Wallaby street, most of their lives. The children were growing up in Kharagpur.
“Perhaps it’s just a change of personnel. Perhaps.” Dr. Sarin’s cup clinked loudly as he put it down. He and his sister drank the black tea of their English, not the spicy tea of their childhood. “But fewer are planning to go to the ocean this year. Mrs. Parker told me that. she of course gave a precise number.”
His sister laughed.
He knew she held the same images of Mrs. Parker that he did. Mrs. Parker was like a stick of butter before it melted, solid and square. He shuttered at the idea of her melting.
“Well, if Mrs. Parker says a number, she’s sure to be right.” They laughed with resignation. Mrs. Parker tried to get them to join in on certain parties, certain ones. Dr. Sarin was aware that they were part of the “certain ones” list.
But the idea of anything changing with the English disturbed Dr. Sarin. Life changes, he thought, everything passes, everything comes around again. So why did he feel so unsettled. Nothing but a few numbers spoken by the solid English woman sent him off-kilter. And he didn’t like that. And he didn’t like seeing his equilibrium disturbed.
“When shall we discuss the school?” They were supposed to decide about which school his nephew would attend at the start of the next year. Dr. Sarin was honored that his sister’s husband would allow him to speak his mind on this. Dr. Sarin loved the child as if he were his own, maybe more than if he were his own.
“Yes, when I return from the clinic. I promise to be home in the afternoon.”