Page 69 of A Thousand Painted Hours

“Hmm. Will there be nudity involved?”

“No.” I reconsidered, thinking of the edict to dress as fairies for dinner on Saturday. “Er, well, there might be some very thin coverings.”

He looked around the courtyard, then pulled me close. “Will I have time alone with you?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “That is certain.”

“Then I do not care what else occurs.” He pressed his forehead to mine, paused. Then, quietly: “Is it too much to hope that we might lie together again?”

A flash of our limbs entwined, our skin bare and sliding, sent heat through me. To counter it, I said lightly, “As I am already ruined, I suppose it would be all right.”

He lifted his head, stricken. “Ruined! By me?”

“No!” I cupped his face, touched his ears. “By me, and willingly.”

“That is not ruination,” he said softly, brushing his nose against my cheek. “That was our souls weaving together.”

The words gave me a vision of a loom, silver and gold threads looped and tightened into a cloth of great strength. “Then we shall weave again.” The heat of anticipation rose beneath my skin, enlivening every inch. Then I gripped his shoulders tightly and looked him in the eye. “But we must take precautions.”

“Of course.” He brushed my hair off my cheek. “It feels a hundred years until the weekend.”

“A thousand.”

He kissed me, slowly, a promise.

The Carriage of Time

Autumn 1940

London

—35—

October 19, 1940

London

Dear Tanveer,

[In English]: I am removing my paintings to Nina’s estate, which involves taking all the canvases from their frames so they can be rolled up and stored. I have moved the most valuable pieces already, those that will be, in some future time, the legacy I have given my old lady self, a source of income if the war ever ends, if the value of my work holds (and I am quite aware that it might very well not—art lovers are fickle, and I have not yet captured the eye of museum curators, which is where the legacy might live).

Just now, I discovered the painting I made of you in the studio at Slade. Do you remember that day?

How young you were! How young I was! How delicately innocent the world was, just at that turning. It is one of my favorites that I’ve painted of you, although I have many and even more sketches. I feel quite tender looking at young, idealistic Tanveer, andI want to weep, too, in my desire to protect you from what was to come. Protect myself, too.

But, of course, that is not possible. We are participants in the century that created us, and there is no escape. This war, crashing around us now, is yet another carriage on the train of this time. Will they write about us someday?

We are safe here. Just now, we’ve had a few days without bombs, so perhaps the Nazis are moving on to some other target and we can breathe again.

[In Urdu]: Mother and I are readingA Passage to India, and it reminded me to see if I could findUmrao Jan Ada, which was tucked among my books. I read it aloud to myself even if my accent must have degraded over time, just to keep myself in practice. If I lose Urdu, I will have lost a piece of myself.

I’ve torn a page from my sketchbook to share a moment of those halcyon days that last summer.

Tumhari Rafiq-e-Jan,your soul companion,

Elsie

[Enclosed drawing of Rocky, Nina, Tanveer, and the lake on Nina’s estate.]