The Zigzag Way by Anita Desai Read Free Book Online Page B

an-thro-pol-ogy? In the Huichol Indian?”
    Eric could only lie to be polite and avoid inflicting pain, not for any boastful reason. “Not really,” he muttered, hoping the yipping of the pugs would drown out his craven response. He found himself actually shuffling his shoes. Now, if he had been the delivery man of a patisserie, he thought ruefully. Instead, he had to admit, “It’s for a personal reason . . .”
    But she had already decided he was of no interest and no importance. Rising from her chair with one pug in her arms, the others milling at her feet, she started toward the house, calling over her shoulder, “Here, we conduct se-rious studies, señor.”
    He watched the entourage as it turned its back on him and made its way to the house. Above, the pale disk of the sun had slid over the ridge of the mountain and below, the grassy basin had filled up with darkness. Only the lake, a tarnished mirror, refleeted whatever light remained in the sky, dully.
    Unenthusiastically, he followed the grande dame and her retinue of masked miniatures at a safe distance, and saw that up and down the length of the corridors, lanterns of perforated tin had been lit, casting more shadow than light. Doña Vera must have given some instruction because the limping maid came out and picked up his bag and conducted him to a room at the end of a long corridor. From the sounds that reached him, it appeared that preparations were being made for dinner. Perhaps he could have a bath beforehand. Turning on the tap to fill the rusty tub in the tiled bathroom, he asked himself dejectedly why he had made the error of stopping at her malevolent establishment and not gone straight up the mountain to the mines. He lay back in the tepid water, floating in doubt, till the dinner gong boomed.
    Â 
    G OING THROUGH the crepuscular entrance hall to the dining room with its single refectory table under a chandelier made of stags’ antlers—many stags’ antlers—he found most of the seats already taken, so he had to sit at a long distance from the head, where Doña Vera presided. He was irked and relieved at the same time: sitting closer to her might have been rather like being close to a coiled serpent, but after all, he had come this long way to have a conversation with her and could not afford to be the timid mouse now.
    Glancing up and down the length of the table, he saw that most of the guests were very young, practically children, and from the talk that was flying around in a carefree, even oblivious fashion, they appeared to be students from American universities, universities in the western states, he guessed. This was surely not the company Doña Vera had chosen for herself. It must have to do with her turning the hacienda into a center for “serious” studies, and she must surely have her doubts, at such times, regarding her generosity. His ears ached already. It had been some years since he was an eager undergraduate. He hoped Doña Vera would appreciate that. He began to spoon up his soup from the bowl placed before him and felt it beneath him to join the chatter.
    As he ate his soup, deliberately avoiding eye contact with the diners in front and to either side of him, he became aware that there were other totally silent guests present at the table. At the very foot of it, leaving a few seats vacant between him and the rest of the company, sat an Indian who was, in every way, not only physically and in dress, different from anyone else at the table, awkward with his hands and expression. After a while, another man, younger but dressed in the same fanciful costume as he—embroidered, beaded, and beribboned—came and slipped quietly into a chair beside him; so did a woman with long braids and a colorfully embroidered blouse. They occupied the three seats at the foot of the table, murmuring quietly to each other as they ate, resolutely avoiding looking at anyone else.
    Eric