Page 80 of A Thousand Painted Hours

“Aside from the obvious beauty, it’s reliable, isn’t it? Wave after wave, one after the other, for as long as time has existed. It’s untamable. It’s bigger and wilder than anyone, or anything.”

“Like the desert.”

I looked at him. “I never thought of it that way, but I suppose so.”

Peter and Grayson were on the other side of Tanveer. “I’d like to see the desert,” Peter said. “Have you been to the Sahara?”

“Afraid not,” Tanveer said. “Though Elsie once imagined she might have been one of the builders of the Pyramids. Perhaps she’ll remember that former life for you.”

I smiled, unbothered by his teasing, and closed my eyes. “I didn’t remember, I just hoped.”

“Really, Elsie,” Peter said, “are you interested in the Pyramids?”

“Oh, very! Who would not be?”

He sat forward eagerly, facing me over the body of Tanveer. His nose was quite sunburned, and his hair had gone askew with salt. He was in some ways much younger than the rest of us, though I couldn’t have said just why. His earnestness. Guilelessness. “They’re a remarkable feat of engineering.”

“Enough slaves, you can do anything,” Grayson said.

“Just ask England,” Tanveer said lazily, eyes closed.

“You’re not suggesting England enslaved the colonies?” Grayson frowned.

Restless discomfort rose in me, and I sat up, ready for—what?

Tanveer raised a brow. “Am I not?”

“Indians aren’t enslaved, and anyway, you have your own servant class, caste and all that.”

“It’s true there is a caste system in India, but Sikhs do not believe in it, and while Indians are not technically enslaved, they are treated by the British like children who couldn’t possibly run their own country.”

Grayson opened his cigarette case and tapped one against the hard surface. “Fair enough, man, but for the sake of argument, why haven’t they got off their arses and tossed the colonials out?”

Alarmed, I tried to think of what I might say, but felt tongue-tied and nervous. Perhaps this wasn’t my battle. Tanveer could stand up for himself.

“I believe they have tried,” Tanveer said. “I believe they are still trying.”

I expected him to say what he believed about independence, and almost boasted on his behalf, and then realized I had no idea what the stakes were in this conversation. It was above me, outside of me.

“Natives around the world are making these noises,” Grayson said impatiently. “It’s purely economic. The textile trade would collapse without Indian cotton and jute. We face the same in the Congo, the rubber trade.”

“Another trade that’s famously just,” Tanveer said with savage sarcasm.

Peter said, “At least the British have created some semblance of colonial government. King Leopold simply took the entire country.”

Nina suddenly appeared, clapping her hands. “Boys, boys, boys. No more politics. Let’s all go for a swim to celebrate the day, shall we?”

Tanveer looked at me, shook his head infinitesimally. A burn of color touched his cheeks and temples, and I realized he was very, very angry. “I’d like to walk,” he said.

When the others trooped out to the water, I asked, “Would you like to be alone?”

“For a little while,” he said.

I watched him go, sun gilding his form as he walked barefoot away from the party. The others had forgotten it already and danced in the waves, splashing each other. I stayed where I was, betwixt and between, a sense of that dense gray fog rising from the ground one more time.

That evening, there was a dinner party, and everyone was meant to dress up like fairies. Tanveer declined, arriving only as himself, in a kurta and pajamas with his sandals. I was dressed in a diaphanous gown and wings, with glitter falling off the fabric at every step. When I saw Tanveer, I felt immediately foolish, like a little girl.

He joined me and said quietly, “You look lovely.”