Swimming During a Monsoon

June 30th 1952

Night before Monday we all went out to the Ambassador’s house to hear what he had to say about his trip to the States. This is the monsoon season and it began to sprinkle as we were all collected on the back lawn so we moved in the house and it was packed, with people sitting all over the floor and hanging in all the doorways of the living room. The local staff was also invited. They all love Chester. He does make nice speeches – so warm and genuine and unaffected.

Sunday, I slept until almost 12:00 noon, got up and had lunch with Helen and her boyfriend, Ali Khan who I think I have told you about. He is the Pakistan Ambassador’s son, has a string of race horses, talks rather good looking in a toothy way, soft voiced, and constantly at Helen’s – she’s crazy about him, poor girl. Anyway, after lunch Alan took Barbara and I to the pool, stopping at Joe Krene’s apartment in the Bharat Bank Building in Old Delhi to see if he wanted to go along. He was sleeping in his nice air-conditioned bedroom and we went in and the three of us stood there and beat our arms to keep from freezing for a few minutes, the contrast between that room and the outside heat was so great. He showed us some movies that he had taken on the hunting trip that Barbara took with him and Scottie and George Campbell. Joe is our Motion Picture Officer and he has some equipment of his own.

Everyone was at the pool. I’m so proud of my accomplishments in the water. It isn’t much, but I never could swim decently before and now I can make it across the long way of the pool two or three times. Also, I do a lot of diving practices. We really swim quite a lot – several times a weekend. Sunday, the sky suddenly grew dark and before we hardly realized it the monsoon had swept down upon us. We all screamed, “The monsoon is here. The monsoon is here.” And we stayed right out in the cool pelting rain in our swimsuits and swam and dived and practically had to holler above the roar. We have been waiting and watching for days for the monsoon and the paper kept reporting that each day it was going to break. It gets very hot and sticky during the morning and everyone is broken out in prickly heat, almost, except me. Alan and Mannie both have it. When it starts to rain people put on shorts or swimsuits and run out and stand in it, and when the water gets ankle deep on the lawns they run up and down splashing each other and having the gayest time.

When we came home from the pool Sunday I rested for a couple of hours and then got up and was extremely restless. No one seemed to be stirring and it had stopped raining and was hot and sticky again. Alan had said that he had things to attend to when we came home and I hated to go over to his place for fear he wouldn’t want company but finally my loneliness (and some attraction from his end) sent me knocking at his door. He was just saying to Mannie as I came to the door, “Now go and be nice to all the lovely people.” Mannie was having dinner with the Awagains. Alan was glad to see me and said, “Let’s sit out on the porch and eat cold chicken and potato salad and have a glass of Port wine…which we did. It started raining again and the clatter of the raindrops on two big palms just off the veranda made it very cozy and fun. I talked him into sleeping outside on the veranda and we went down to Barbara’s room and took the charpoy that we had used when we were sleeping on the lawn and set it in front of his place. So we curled up on it, each going in the other direction, with my head propped up on his knee and I told him in detail about a show that Mannie and I had seen a few days before named, “Always Room For One More.”

He got sleepy listening to me and would only say, “Ummmmm” every once in a while but when I would stop he would say, “Go on. I’m interested. Just sleepy.” When I finished, I thought I would go home but he said, “Wait a while. What’s your hurry? I’ll see if I can make you sleepy.” So he tried to think of a show and finally started sleepily out on some jungle picture but wasn’t too successful in keeping coherent. Gosh he’s a doll. So, I finally kissed his little bare shoulder and ran home at 12:00.

Which silliness reminds me that in your letter you talk about people reading mine. Cut it out, will you. How can you possibly pass this trash on to anyone to read. They will think I’m a crazy, lovesick adventuress – and I’m not. I’m a sane sensible, well behaved, normal girl, who just happens to go all to pieces and tell everything she knows when she gets a little time and a typewriter under her fingers. I suppose (or should say hope) that other people think silly things too and just don’t get around to or have the discretion not to write them down.

Day before that was Saturday. Helen Traubel the metro opera singer was in town and Alan has asked me to go to her concert with him and have dinner afterwards at the Imperial Hotel. She was a charming woman and we enjoyed her singing very, very much. The auditorium was nice and cool. Another formal deal. On the way home a car full of Germans pulled out from along side us and splashed mud all over the car and in the windows on us. We went to Helen’s room and tried to sponge off the worst of it and then all went to the Imperial. Our crowd was: Alan and I, Mannie and Barbara, Helen and Ali Khan. Alan and I have worked up some really nice, rather fancy dancing together and we make a hit. He’s a wonderful dancer – people who know boys from Princeton say he’s typical of their best. He’s even taken to jitter-bugging since he hit Delhi and does all right. Night before that there was a party on at the Taj that Barbara and I were invited to, but after work we went with Scottie and George and Howard, the tall drink of water, and a Bombay wallah (Standard Vac., too.) to the Cecil to swim, and they argued us into going to Scottie’s for something to eat and after that, late in the evening, we went again swimming to the Gymkhana Club in the dark… so it was rather late when we got home. The party was on my corridor and still going on. Lo and behold we discovered that it was an engagement announcement party for Virginia Butt and a new boy who has been with us for only a couple of months, Thomas Francis Grey. Was I knocked for a loop. All this time I had thought that Virginia had eyes on H.M. (His Majesty) and I had taken an immense dislike to her because she was always having parties and inviting him. Everyone was really surprised. This makes the third engagement party of late, and one of them was really an announcement of a secret wedding. I think it is a bug going around. I can think of someone I wouldn’t mind biting.

Night before that – the show with Mannie. Alan was playing bridge. And for several days before that Barbara and I both were staying home. We called it “S-I week” We were self-improving – going to bed early, etc. Two of those nights (then we were sleeping on the back corridor on the lawn) we went to bed while parties were going on a few yards away, but it was dark so they couldn’t see us but we could see them. One of them was on wild west theme and they had gotten a horse and tonga and the horse grazed around close to our beds.

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