China Room

by Sunjeev Sahota

  ‘You okay, Dad?’

  ‘Just lying down.’ He was grimacing with every step, a hand to his lower back.

  ‘You don’t look good,’ but he waved me away and entered his room.

  By two in the morning he was in the bathroom crying out in pain. I knocked on the door. ‘Dad, what’s the matter? Open up!’

  When he unlocked the door and came out his face was wet with what I thought was water but then realised was sweat. It was running down his arms.

  ‘I’m calling an ambulance.’

  He looked at me aghast. He was so removed from any idea that he might not be able to sort something out by himself, that he might have to impose on someone else. ‘It’s just a muscle,’ he said and limped back into his room.

  I heard his alarm go off at five as normal and listened to him struggle down the stairs, where he’d carry in the newspapers and sort out the deliveries. By the time I came down in my school uniform he was trying to lift the six-packs of milk that had just arrived. His breathing was hard.

  ‘Dad? Please?’

  ‘Get to school,’ he managed, before dropping the milk and collapsing to the floor.

  I went with him in the ambulance. The doctor, a young Asian guy, said it was a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot, that he should have come in straight away and was lucky to be alive. Years of high blood pressure. High stress, he’d added, as if all this was somehow Dad’s fault. When the doctor left, Dad gestured to my tie and wondered if it was too late for me to get to school. I didn’t reply. I put my hand on his brow and didn’t say anything at all.

  * * *

  *

  Perhaps that was my first proper inkling that this place, this town, this estate, would kill us, but it would be another three months before I fully understood. Dad was still recovering, on daily blood thinner, though he’d already dismissed my mother from the shop and installed himself back behind the counter. One sunny afternoon, in the middle of my exams, I was walking home through Ringwood Park after sitting my history paper. Halfway down our street, the shop came into view. An ambulance was parked outside and I ran to it I ran to it I ran to him.

  He’d been beaten up by two men, two men who didn’t steal anything, who only wanted to inflict violence on a middle-aged brown man. The paramedics were tending to his arms, but it was his face that was bloodied, his nose broken, his eyes already swelling shut. I remember the blood rising through his moustache and covering his lips and teeth. The bubbles of it and Dad trying to spit it out. Around two weeks later, on my way home from my summer job in a laundry, I recognised Dad’s white van parked up on a side street around the corner from where we lived. He was sitting inside, on the driver’s seat, the engine cut, and his head was down, as if he was praying, except I knew Dad never did that. He looked so quiet, solemn, sad. White stitches still under his eyes. What was he thinking? Did he think he’d made the right decision in coming here? To this town? To England? Did he wonder, like I did, like I still do whenever I see my daughter be so casually, so unthinkingly, sidelined in the playground, did he too wonder if these people would ever agree to share ownership of this land? Did he worry that our lives here would always be seen as fundamentally illegitimate? I think of Dad in that moment, sitting in that van, in that pose, so often. It is like a drug, that memory, one I keep needing to return to no matter the hurt it brings. When lying in bed or writing an email or bundling the kids out of the car and back into the house, I’ll suddenly think of it, of Dad all alone with his private pain, and all I can do is shut the door on the kids and go into another room and wait for the feelings to pass through me. I watched Dad for many minutes and he did not once move. I didn’t want him to see me, but I knew if I went straight home, he would arrive soon after, laughing, smiling, his sadness tucked away. I found that thought unbearable. I swear I would have grabbed a knife and driven it through my shaking wrist. So I didn’t go home. I took myself off to Ringwood Park, where I stayed all evening, until the cars arrived and some older kids who’d left my school the previous year rolled down their window. They’d offered me smack plenty of times in the past but this time I got in the car, added a tenner to the pile, and once they’d scored we drove to a filthy flat on the same estate as my school and I watched them fight over who would get the first hit.

  27

  The wheat is cloaked in sleeves of red and apricot and a nightjar perches watchfully on the well, jerking its head this way and that. The bird seems rooted to its own shadow, plumage fiery in the sunset, until it spots a moth and, in no especial hurry, unfurls its graceful wings and pushes up into the air. Had there been anyone there to observe it, they would surely have marvelled at the animal’s long and single-minded attack, at the perfect parabola it described as it swooped around the stone hut. But, no, there is no one there to observe the spectacle. All is quiet in the village of Sunra. Children are being rocked to sleep, milk is bubbling in brass pots, men are washing off the mud of the day. And inside the old parrot farm’s disused stone hut (as the nightjar passes unnoticed overhead) Mehar is unhooking her tunic from the metal peg while Suraj lies naked on the stone floor, lighting a roll-up. It is the fourth time they have met like this and she can feel the intensity of his gaze as the cotton of the tunic slips like running water down her body. She steps into her bottoms and yanks tight the drawstring.

  ‘I’ll get a job,’ he says, and it is almost disappointing, the revelation that it is not, after all, a deep appreciation of her beauty that has rendered him silent these last few minutes, that his mind has only been stolen by more practical concerns.

  ‘If you want,’ she says.

  ‘Then we’ll move. To a big city far away. One we can get lost in. Lahore, I think. It won’t take me long to save enough.’

  Such confidence! As if the world only existed to be cowed in the face of his youth and courage. She is five years younger but sometimes feels so much the elder, so much the one who can think ahead, foresee obstacles.

  ‘I can start putting things aside,’ she says. ‘Things we’ll need. And we should go before the rains, before the roads flood again.’

  ‘That gives us three months, yes? Three months.’ He is adamant. He sits up, roll-up dangling from the rim of his lower teeth. He is looking up to the window, at the square of purpling sky. In that moment, Mehar sees what he sees, a country beyond convention, a life beyond the walls of the china room. How much of her love for him is bound up with this promise of freedom? Guilt creeps up on her, confusing her, and she looks away from him.

  ‘I’ll think of a story,’ she says. ‘Something we can say to the people of Lahore.’

  He keeps his gaze on the window. ‘We can say what we want. And does it matter anyway? Does it matter what they think?’

  ‘In time it will matter. When it comes to marrying our children it will matter. They’ll want to know our background. Who our ancestors are. The world isn’t so modern yet, you know.’

  ‘The world will be completely different by then.’ He turns to her, his eyes full of hot certainty. ‘We’ll make it different.’

  Both dressed, he helps her with her wicker basket of red chillies.

  ‘One thing,’ he says, as she steadies the load on to her head-cushion. ‘Has he restarted his visits?’

  ‘Not really,’ she says, after a small silence. She doesn’t say how tender his brother now is with her, that when she complains of still feeling unwell he never insists and instead tells her to rest, that children can wait.

  ‘Well. Be careful.’

  She turns and drops the veil so he might not see the anger on her face. Be careful. As if she could do anything to stop it. ‘Why?’ she says, her voice all bite. ‘Would you not bring up another man’s child, you modern-modern man?’

  ‘Don’t be foolish.’

  ‘Are you still enjoying your wife’s company?’

  ‘Barely. For appearances’ sake.’ He reaches for h
er hand. ‘Would you have her complain to Mai again?’

  ‘I think we’ve established that what I’d have doesn’t matter.’

  * * *

  *

  She wakes up feeling surly and irritable, something of their spat having carried over into the morning. Perhaps that’s why she’s overslept, because already the tea has been made, the dough kneaded, and there is no sign of her sisters. She lies back, sighs. Closes her eyes. She hears a cart coming down the track: the clop of the horse, a man imploring his son to put down his silly slingshot and listen, that being a watchmaker requires attention. In Lahore, Mehar thinks, she will have a watch, a timepiece that she will carry around the city, a city she will walk through freely, her face uncovered. Sitting up again, she hears voices in the yard and puts her eye to the slats. It is Gurleen, upset and being comforted by Mai. Though there is something odd about the comfort Mai is offering, something too insistent, too lingering in the way she is pressing Gurleen’s arm, her shoulder. Gurleen, too, looks unsure, hesitant. A memory flares – Mai’s hard hands, Monty’s sobbing embrace – but is immediately quashed by Gurleen’s entrance.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Mehar asks. ‘What’s got you so upset?’

  Gurleen takes up the dough.

  ‘I said what’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing. Children. I’m sad I’m not in that way yet.’

  A pause while Mehar watches her, decides that that makes sense. ‘We all feel like that. Give it time.’

  28

  Suraj secures a job as an apprentice sign painter in Mission bazaar, the main thoroughfare in the city. He pushes his rented two-wheeled cart of rented materials – ladders, brushes, stencils, heavy buckets of coloured powders – all day long, from one end of the vast market to the other. By the time he returns the equipment to the warehouse, his shoulders are cramping so much that it is all he can do to lift his hand and collect his payment.

  ‘There isn’t work enough around here?’ Mai says, as he washes the green dye from his neck and arms, from the brown trunks of his legs, looking for all the world like a shedding tree.

  ‘I want to be paid for my labour,’ he replies.

  Mohan has to pump the water because Suraj lacks the strength, and then he kneads life back into his younger brother’s shoulders. Watching from the window of the china room, the pearls in her fist, Mehar has an odd, spacey realisation that she will leave this place without ever speaking a word to the middle son, Harbans’ husband, that there has always been too much formality for them ever to express anything to one another. The strange thought dissolves the moment Suraj rises, and when he hobbles over the courtyard and disappears into one of the inner chambers, she finds a handkerchief, makes a parcel of the pearls and hides it inside her tunic, against her breasts.

  * * *

  *

  At the hut the following morning, Mehar rests the buckets in the slanting shade and steps indoors, where he is waiting, once again looking out of the window.

  ‘What took you so long?’

  ‘I had to deliver the milk.’ She doesn’t mention that it was a task Gurleen had foisted on her; that would only sour their time together.

  Afterwards, he lies there on his stomach, walking his fingers over the fine notches along her hipline, indentations left by the tight panel of her salwar. How neat, how soft, these little ridges of flesh. He runs his tongue over them.

  Outside, something stirs in the wheat.

  She reaches under the pile of her tunic, for a parcel of some sort.

  ‘And what do I do with these?’ he asks, as the pearls slither into a heap on the flat of his palm. ‘I’ll get some strange looks if I wear them to work.’

  ‘Sell them,’ she says, head popping through the neck of her tunic, arms wriggling into place. ‘Add it to the money you’re saving. We’ll get to Lahore that much sooner.’

  ‘I’m working now.’

  ‘And don’t you just make sure everyone knows it! Crawling to your room. Complaining of your aches. Sell them and save us our pity.’

  ‘And Mai?’

  ‘She’s never asked me about them yet. Then we’ll be gone.’ She can tell he’s not convinced and decides to press him. ‘I don’t even like them. White’s not my colour.’

  ‘What is your colour?’ he asks, humouring her.

  She thinks. ‘Red. Pink, maybe. Yes, light pink. Buy me some pink jewels in Lahore.’

  ‘You’ve already got a lovely pink jewel,’ he says, and she spins round, shock on her face.

  29

  A few clothes. Maybe two pairs. The green cotton and, in case of cold weather, the chequered twill. Her wedding shawl, too. She’s not leaving that behind. Though she shouldn’t take too many things. They’ll need to be light on their feet. They’ll be travelling by night. By beautiful moonlight they’ll make their escape, disappearing into the silver abroad. Lines from where, she cannot remember. A parent maybe. Her father? Tallow sticks. Yes. A knife. Fruit. Perhaps she could hide some rotis from the evening meal. Inside her shawl. So, yes, maybe she will take her shawl. It’s a long journey. He’ll probably wear a shawl too. Or a blanket over his head. He’ll be cold. Will he be cold? Some oil to massage his feet. Walking so much. Walking there. Will he find work there? A new life. With him. Only him. What a temper he has. But I know not to stand it. To control it. His blessings in my ear and I will wash my face with the dust at his feet. The lightning of his touch. My pink jewel! Wedding jewels. Mai’s trunk. If only. How they’d help once they got to Lahore. How to get the key, how to get . . . A small bag. She could start hoarding these things in the hut – or, nearer, in the field? – ready for the day. Oh, God, oh my Lord, please protect us. Lead me out of here safely. Me in my shawl, he in his blanket, setting out over the road and out of this village. Out out out. Please protect us. Show us mercy.

  ‘You’re going to ruin the life out of that,’ Gurleen says, and, apologising, Mehar lifts the wick out of the melted tallow. ‘Too busy daydreaming these days, you are.’

  ‘I’m working. Don’t push me.’

  ‘Working?’ Gurleen says archly. ‘Is that what they call it?’

  ‘Stop it!’ Harbans snaps, pleads. ‘Can’t we just do our work? Please!’

  Mehar dips the wick back into the fat. And then, because they will be left behind and part of her twists in guilt at every sight of Gurleen: ‘How are you anyway? Can I help?’

  ‘Wretched things,’ Gurleen replies, from the charpoy. She is still applying mint leaves to her forearms, where the wasps did their worst.

  ‘Where do you keep coming across them?’

  ‘They deserve to die,’ Gurleen says, and looks over to Harbans, sieving lentils, her hand shaking.

  * * *

  *

  They are in bed, and all is silence when the door opens, without so much as a knock. They sit up at once, and then Gurleen stands, as if she’d somehow been expecting Mai at this hour. She has a small lantern in her hand, and shadows vault up the wall.

  ‘I heard something about wasps,’ says Mai. ‘How are things now?’ A pause. ‘Still the same?’

  ‘Yes. Still the same.’

  ‘Well,’ Mai says, turning away. ‘It’s your own fault.’

  30

  Afternoon torpor and a giant, male-sounding knock on the gate. Mai, dredged up from her nap, emerges to see five men, armed.

  ‘And?’ she says, unbowed.

  ‘I want to speak to the head.’

  ‘So speak.’

  The brothers set out the chairs, find the table, and when the main man sits he plants the rifle between his outspread legs, the barrel of the gun leaning against a thigh. He has an Italian moustache, ends curling and slicked up to a great shine, and only the lightest of beards, as if this were a fine hammock holding up his head. His eyes are long and bright, lashed like a woman’s. An elegant face. Only his hands be
tray something rougher: hard yellow bulbs all along the seam where palm meets fingers. It does look heavy, the rifle. His name, as the whole state knows, is Tegh Singh.

  ‘Your sons like to observe,’ Tegh Singh says, bringing his tea-glass down.

  ‘They take their cues from me,’ Mai replies. Legs spread too, hands on her knees and elbow jutting out like a teapot. She twists the reed of straw in her mouth.

  ‘It is a good thing, to observe. To always be watching, questioning. It’s the way ideas develop.’ He graces Suraj with a smile. ‘It’s ideas that make revolutions. That will make this one.’

  Suraj looks away, off into the blandishments of the sky. He doesn’t want to meet the man’s gaze, to engage with him. This struggle, this fight, is not what he feels he is about, is not about him at all, a twenty-year-old who has yet to talk to a white man.

  ‘Purna swaraj,’ Tegh Singh goes on. ‘We will settle for nothing less. Complete self-rule. It will take time, but not too much. Because I can hear the new India breathing. I can hear her waiting for us to raise her on to our shoulders and up to the light. It will take sacrifices. There will be those who die in the fight. But we must all be prepared to take on our burdens.’

  An oft-repeated little speech, by the sounds of it. Jeet shows three fingers to Mohan, who promptly detaches from the group and returns with a small brown parcel for Mai.

  ‘Three sons,’ Tegh Singh says. ‘Perhaps one might join us? Join the fight? We’re planning an attack and, let me say, mother, we need men more than money.’

  ‘I’m not in the business of giving up my sons. At least not yet,’ she adds, smiling at her boys. ‘And only a fool would turn away money. You’re not that, are you? May this help your cause,’ she finishes, passing the notes on.