Page 310 - DENG201_ENGLISH_II

English - II

Notes “Yes, everything, we found them all in the house, in the most unusual places,” he heard Twinkle
saying in the living room. “In fact we keep finding them.”
“No!”
“Yes! Every day is like a treasure hunt. It’s too good.
God only knows what else we’ll find, no pun intended.”
That was what started it. As if by some unspoken pact, the whole party joined forces and began
combing through each of the rooms, opening closets on their own, peering under chairs and cushions,
feeling behind curtains, removing books from bookcases. Groups scampered, giggling and swaying
up and down the winding staircase.
“We’ve never explored the attic,” Twinkle announced suddenly, and so everybody followed.
“How do we get up there?”
“There’s a ladder in the hallway, somewhere in the ceiling.”
Wearily Sanjeev followed at the back of the crowd, to point out the location of the ladder, but Twinkle
had already found it on her own. “Eureka!” she hollered.
Douglas pulled the chain that released the steps. His face was flushed and he was wearing Nora’s
feather hat on his head. One by one guests disappeared, men helping women as they placed their
strappy high heels on the narrow slats of the ladder, the Indian women wrapping the free ends of
their expensive saris into their waistbands. The men followed behind, all quickly disappearing, until
Sanjeev alone remained at the top of the winding staircase. Footsteps thundered over his head. He
had no desire to join them. He wondered if the ceiling would collapse, imagined, for a split second,
the sight of all the tumbling drunk perfumed bodies crashing, tangled, around him. He heard a
shriek, and then rising, spreading waves of laughter in discordant tones. Something fell, something
else shattered. He could hear them bobbing around a trunk. They seemed to be struggling to get it
open, banging feverishly on its surface.
He thought perhaps Twinkle would call for his assistance, but he was not summoned. He looked
about the hallway and to the landing below, at the champagne glasses and half-eaten samosas and
napkins smeared with lipstick abandoned in every corner, on every available surface. Then he noticed
that Twinkle, in her haste, had discarded her shoes altogether, for they lay by the foot of the ladder,
black patent-leather mules with heels like golf tees, open toes, and slightly soiled silk labels on the
instep where her soles had rested. He placed them in the doorway of the master bedroom so that no
one would nip when they descended.
He heard something creaking open slowly. The strident voices had subsided to an even murmur. It
occurred to Sanjeev that he had the house all to himself. The music had ended and he could hear, if he
concentrated, the hum of the refrigerator, and the rustle of the last leaves on the trees outside, and the
tapping of their branches against the windowpanes. With one flick of his hand he could snap the
ladder back on its spring into the ceiling, and they would have no way of getting down unless he
were to pull the chain and let them. He thought of all the things he could do, undisturbed. He could
sweep Twinkle’s menagerie into a garbage bag and get in the car and drive it all to the dump, and
tear down the poster of weeping Jesus, and take a hammer to the Virgin Mary while he was at it.
Then he would return to the empty house; he could easily clear up the cups and plates in an hour’s
time, and pour himself a gin and tonic, and eat a plate of warmed rice and listen to his new Bach CD
while reading the liner notes so as to understand it properly. He nudged the ladder slightly, but it
was sturdily planted against the floor. Budging it would require some effort.
“My God, I need a cigarette,” Twinkle exclaimed from above.
Sanjeev felt knots forming at the back of his neck. He felt dizzy. He needed to lie down. He walked
toward the bedroom, but stopped short when he saw Twinkle’s shoes facing him in the doorway. He
thought of her slipping them on her feet. But instead of feeling irritated, as he had ever since they’d
moved into the house together, he felt a pang of anticipation at the thought of her rushing unsteadily
down the winding staircase in them, scratching the floor a bit in her path. The pang intensified as he
thought of her rushing to the bathroom to brighten her lipstick, and eventually rushing to get people

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