CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

I didn't notice her when I entered the room - it was l o'clock, I'd come for lunch, but the light in the high ceilinged room was dim and air-conditioning kept the interior cool.  As we were introduced, she rose to her feet,  immensely thin, beautifully dressed in silk, white hair and large, heavily lidded eyes.  She must have been about eighty, but she could also have been a hundred - aristocratic, ageless, reflective, in some other dimension.  She sat apart in the large room and yet seemed attentive across the distance.  Various other people were arranged around the room - courtiers to the main protagonist, the old lady's daughter, who held the floor with dynamic energy expressing herself in amazingly complex sentences of great length.  Her black kohl rimmed eyes were bright as she challenged and confronted, criticized and pronounced with aggressive  assertiveness, making outrageous statements, aware of the consternation they would arouse.  One felt manipulated, a puppet in a play, for which one had not read the script and felt ill-prepared.  The old lady sat quietly watchful.  But drifting towards her later, I felt the intensity of her gaze and she suddenly said in the most beautiful English accent, 'Are you happy here?'  Did she mean India, or in that room that afternoon...?