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“ and then,” he concluded, half kissing him, “you and I shall be friends.”
“Why can’t we be friends now?” said the other, holding him affectionately. “It’s what I want. It’s what you want.”
-- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
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“You will take Mr. Fielding riding in the Mau, won’t you, Aziz?” Professor Godbole implored. Aziz frowned at the memory. At the time, he had assumed that he could tolerate riding in silence with Cyril for an hour or so. After all, Fielding had given up on being friendly after his cold reception by Aziz a few days before. He had feared Cyril might try to speak to him in private, but Aziz successfully evaded him each time they saw one another. Pretending that nothing had happened between them was easy enough in the company of others. He could keep his bruised ego in check, and convention prevented him from embarrassing himself. Privacy, however, was unpredictable -- vulnerable. The atmosphere between them was uncontrollable, as it always had been. Setting out into the dense Mau jungle, Aziz hoped he hadn’t imagined their unspoken agreement of mutual avoidance. His hopes were quickly dashed as he soon found himself dodging Fielding’s paltry attempts at polite conversation.
“How are your children?” he attempted. Cyril must have truly run out of options, as they both knew that Aziz’ family was one of his least favorite topics of conversation.
“My heart is for my own people henceforward. I wish no Englishman or Englishwoman to be my friend, and have told my children as much,” Aziz replied, deliberate but not cold. He nudged his handsome bay-coated mare up a shallow incline, edging Cyril out of his line of sight. He realized he had been too harsh just as Cyril interjected:
“Aziz, stop!”
And so stop he did. The incessant clamor of the jungle buzzed dully in his head, chirping insects, singing birds, the rustle of vines against one another in the humid breeze. To anyone else in the world, the noise would be stifling. To the children of Chandrapore, the cacophonous heartbeat of the forest was just as vital as the blood that ran through their veins. Aziz focused on the endless expanse of foliage ahead of him; he feared the consequences of turning around.
“You must tell me what has caused this change in you,” Fielding implored. The painful sincerity of his voice sent a pang of grief through Aziz. Nothing could be easy between them.
“No,” Aziz started, still facing away from Cyril on his horse. “I mustn’t tell you anything, Mr. Fielding. I hold no more hatred for you in my heart, and no more love. You are nothing to me. I wish you had not returned, that I might have expelled you from my mind, yet here you are. It is difficult enough for me to see you and be reminded of you, but I cannot be expected to carry on as if nothing has occurred between us. I have made peace with your betrayal, but I have not forgotten it.” His hands shook as he clutched the reigns.
“My betrayal?” Fielding choked somewhere behind him, for once at a loss for words. “Surely you have been betrayed by the Turtons, or the Callendars, but I don’t see you refusing to speak to them.” There was laughter in his voice, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.
Aziz seemed to deflate. He was aware of his own tendency to wax poetic, but it was clear Cyril wouldn’t have comprehended him no matter what words he used. “I should not have expected you to understand, for if you did, you would not have disdained me in the first place.”
“Enlighten me then, Doctor,” Cyril retorted reproachfully, losing his patience. “How have I disdained you so unforgivably?”
There it was: the anger Aziz had been hoping for. Anger could cauterize the sorrow that was wrapping itself around his mind, poisoning the words that fell from his lips. There was safety in anger. Aziz turned his mare around sharply and steered her back down the incline until he and Fielding were side by side, sudden fury in his eyes.
“Don’t you see? Ms. Quested, Mr. Heaslop, the Turtons, the Callendars, and most every other Anglo-Indian in Chandrapore — they have been betraying us from birth. From them, hatred and injustice are routine.” Stop talking, stop talking. It was too late: hurt flowed freely from him. “You had me fooled, Mr. Fielding. Fooled into thinking you were any different, that you saw me as your equal and not something lesser than yourself. The lie is what makes you the most wicked of them all,” he spat. He looked away from Cyril as he said his last piece. “But what does it matter to me who you marry? Don’t trouble me here at Mau is all I ask. I do not want you.” The words reverberated in Aziz’ head even as he spoke them. I do not want you, I do not want you.
Fielding’s expression shifted into something unreadable. “Marry? Who on earth do you suppose I’ve married?”
Aziz laughed bitterly. “You must think me an imbecile. There is no longer any need for your merciful façade, Mr. Fielding. Do not try to spare my feelings, as if you haven’t married my only enemy in the world.” He felt feverish.
“Ms. Quested? Aziz, I assure you I am not married, least of all to her. However did you make such a mistake?” The enmity had vanished from Cyril’s voice. His eyes were tender, pitying. Aziz could not bear it -- he looked away, blinking back tears.
“Mahmoud Ali said you had,” he said bleakly. His spirit felt raw, like a burn that wouldn’t heal, and he felt sure that the world was falling to pieces around him.
“No, Aziz. I never considered it,” he said gently. “Do you really think so little of me that I would marry her, knowing what she put you through?”
Aziz desperately missed when they had been angry not a minute ago. “Why did you leave, then, if not to marry an Englishwoman?” He knew even as he spoke them that the words were empty. He was running out of ways to delay the inevitable: if Cyril did not hate him before, he certainly did now.
“My reputation had been soured by the trial. I wanted to spend some time with my sister and let time settle everybody’s resentments. Did I not explain it in--”
“In your letters,” Aziz said flatly, “which I discarded, thinking I would spare myself the details of your married life.”
Both men were silent for a time. Aziz slipped off his horse and looked out at the jungle again. Surely he had not wasted the last two years of his life making himself miserable over something so blatantly untrue. Surely he was smart enough to have prevented this. But, he thought, perhaps it wasn’t a matter of intelligence; perhaps he had needed to believe that Fielding was fundamentally no better than any other Anglo-Indian. How else could he reconcile the coexistence of Adela Questeds and Cyril Fieldings in the world? If Ms. Quested was able to be exceptionally cruel to him, then Cyril was able to be exceptionally kind to him -- and truthfully, Cyril’s kindness frightened Aziz. Even now, he knew that if he turned around he would see nothing in Fielding’s eyes but an endless sea of forgiveness, more infinite than the jungle they stood in.
He heard Fielding dismount, and moments later he appeared beside Aziz.
“I have been foolish,” Aziz said quietly, turning to his friend and seeing only the ocean.
“We both have been,” Cyril replied, placing a hand on his arm. It burned. “It isn’t your fault. You said it yourself -- you have been betrayed your whole life. Of course you expected the worst.” It seemed unfair that he forgave Aziz so easily. Two years had passed and though Aziz claimed he had moved on from entertaining Anglo-Indian friendships, in truth he was no closer to forgiving Fielding than he had been the day Mahmoud Ali had told him (or lied, apparently) about Ms. Quested. Why did he deserve this?
“Why did you come back, Cyril? Would it not have been better to forget me, to forget India, to return to your old life?”
“Aziz, Aziz,” Cyril said, now gripping both of his shoulders, “in those two years, not a day passed that I did not think of you. Had I married the Queen, I could not forget you. What choice did I have but to return?”
Aziz’ skin no longer burned; some new feeling began to bloom inside of him. It was small and fleeting, a new flame desperately clinging to a scrap of tinder, but it was alive, and it left him breathless.
“Tell me -- what else did I miss in your letters?”
“Nothing important,” Cyril said wryly. “Too much self-indulgent philosophizing, I think. Would you like me to summarize the central argument?”
“I think I have some idea,” Aziz said. He pulled Cyril down to him, pressing their lips together, and the horses wanted it; the earth wanted it; the temples, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, the Mau jungle wanted it, and they said in their hundred voices, “Yes, right now,” and the sky sang, “Yes, right here.”