China Room

by Sunjeev Sahota

  She tapped her ash on to the ground and was gazing at him curiously, steadily. I wanted to say something to her, to add words of my own to the conversation about love, but I couldn’t think of any.

  ‘What of your ancestor?’ Radhika said then, and gestured to my room. ‘I wonder what love did for her.’

  Tanbir spoke. ‘It’s different for women, isn’t it? They have no choice in where they go. They grow up in a prison and then get married into one.’ He too looked at my room, with its iron bars. ‘I mean – Jesus. At least we’ve moved on from that.’

  ‘Not all prisons have bars,’ Radhika said, extinguishing the cigarette under her sandal. ‘And not all love is a prison.’

  Tanbir lowered his chin on to his chest, as if he was giving this the greatest and most considered thought, but he didn’t say anything further. The sun had almost disappeared and by the time the first of the bats made themselves heard, Radhika and Tanbir had left and I had the courtyard to myself again. I wandered over to my room and held its bars. A woman, my great-grandmother, had been locked in here. I remembered Prince mentioning it on that morning when I’d been more concerned what Radhika would make of my food deliveries. How typical, to fixate on the thing that was least important and not hear the thing that mattered. I peered through the bars and imagined Mehar sitting on the other side, and I wondered what her life might have been.

  * * *

  *

  A few days later the three of us put the final touches to the house and celebrated with whisky and fried fish that Tanbir bought from the bazaar. We ate on the roof, in what felt to me like the only pool of moonlight in the entire world. Radhika looked stunning. Her eyes gleamed, her smiling teeth rested on her full bottom lip. She’d piled her thick hair back off her face and her long prominent collarbones flared out. When she walked on top of the wall, she didn’t seem at all afraid of falling, of the sheer drop to the brown field.

  ‘I think we should buy this place off my uncle and live here,’ I said, my voice high with drink.

  Some music started up, I’ve no idea from where, and Radhika and I were dancing, ballroom-style, and I remember my fingers were greasy with all the fish and I apologised whenever they touched her back, her shoulder. She kept laughing and Tanbir watched her with what looked like pride.

  ‘You’ve had your hair cut!’ she said. ‘I’m so pleased.’

  ‘Ages ago. I didn’t think you’d noticed.’

  She twirled out, then back to me, and I wanted to tell her that I thought I loved her, that she was unlike anyone else I’d ever known, but I didn’t, or for some reason couldn’t.

  More drinking and laughter followed, and I can’t remember much of what else was said, but I do have a memory of drifting off to sleep and of Radhika pulling a cotton sheet over me, while, at the top of the stairs, Tanbir waited, spinning the keys to his scooter.

  When I woke, it took me a moment to blink away the dream-trails and realise I was still on the roof. There was a slight nip in the air so I wrapped the white sheet around me and stepped towards the edge. The morning mist was dove-grey and light and lifting away from the fields. I looked but I could see no child making his unhappy way through them. That child seemed to have gone. What remained was a feeling of quiet rapture, of dawn colours slowly involving themselves with the day, a champagne brightness starting to warm my skin and the waving acres of corn and wheat, the soft green hills that followed no pattern, a distant stone hut that held the horizon and a long tapered track driving on until I couldn’t even imagine that I could see it. The orange sun broke upwards and placed, and they did seem placed, great beams of light across all that waiting land. For the first time in my life I had a sense of the world turning. All these years later and I can still see myself standing there, spellbound, marvelling, my breath taken.

  35

  From the safety of their rooftop, the three women watch the riots over in the main village. Small fires burn. Smoke rises. Gurleen, whose eyesight is sharpest, says she can see men leaping from roof to roof, tin helmets on their heads.

  ‘You can see what’s on their heads?’ Harbans says dubiously.

  ‘Well. Almost.’

  Eventually, Mai informs them that things have calmed down, that the village court has managed to clamp down on the ringleaders and call a truce. God knows how long it will last.

  ‘But who was fighting?’ Mehar asks. ‘Was it about that whole dominion business?’

  ‘Well, I’m blown!’ Gurleen says, snorts. ‘What fancy ways she now talks!’

  It is Suraj who tells her that for once the British weren’t involved, not directly, at any rate; that the Hindus and the Sikhs had tried to create a Mohammedan-only quarter of the village outside which they weren’t to stray, and the Mussulmans had retaliated by smashing the statue of Krishna above the sweetshop.

  ‘It’s no longer there?’ Mehar says, incredulous. ‘Lord Krishna’s statue?’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t say “Lord”. It’s painted stone.’

  ‘It’s what it represents. And I’ll say what I like.’

  He reminds himself that she is barely sixteen. The impertinence will go. ‘I noticed the guavas were especially fine today,’ he says, brightening, and he takes one from her basket, sits up and starts gobbling it gleefully.

  ‘Such a child,’ she says. ‘I don’t know anyone who loves them as much as you.’

  ‘Have some. You need to be eating more now.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Too sweet.’

  ‘For the baby, then. Don’t let him miss out.’

  Before she leaves, he says she shouldn’t go too close to the village, where things are still jittery, and should take the circling route via the rear cornfield instead. It near doubles her walk home and the path is full of dung and dense with wasps, so many wasps that she has to lower her arms and bring them under the protection of her veil. She can feel their little legs on her nose, her ears, a shifting mass pressing through the material, as if searching for a way to her face. She is cowering, absolutely frightened, but knows she can only carry on. What must she look like, a walking cloak of wasps? She should ask Gurleen for mint when she gets home. Even once she is free of them all, she can still feel them covering her, hear their frantic drilling.

  36

  It is dawn and already Mai is sitting up, cursing the light, groping about under her charpoy for sandals. Everyone covers their feet first. You never know when a scorpion might get caught underfoot, though Mai is rumoured to have crushed a baby one with her naked heel. She stretches high and fully, arching her back, and it is only when she brings her arms down that she spots Jeet out in the yard, gazing at the new pink wall.

  ‘Had breakfast?’ she asks, yawning. She traps a fly against her neck, examines it, then dusts the sparkly remains to the ground.

  ‘I’ve not been back an hour.’

  ‘Did you find them?’

  He nods, still admiring the house.

  ‘You have his details? Telegram? It shouldn’t take them long to get here?’

  He says nothing for a while, and then: ‘Did she like it? The colour? Has she said anything? She does like it, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ Mai says, running a hand down the length of Jeet’s arm, and he puts his head against her shoulder and breaks down in tears.

  * * *

  *

  That night, he asks for Mehar and she is waiting on the bed when he arrives, though he doesn’t cross the room. Instead, he says into the blackness, ‘Are you here?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replies, and waits for him to come, ready to flinch from his touch and beg forgiveness for still being unwell. But she doesn’t hear him move from the door.

  ‘I only wanted to check how you were.’

  ‘No improvement yet. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. But I’m back now and promise to look after you bett
er.’

  Her hand goes to her stomach and the child growing inside, and something like pity for her husband flows through her. ‘I hope it was a successful trip? Did you find good cattle?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Whatever success means. Time will tell.’

  She hears something, a rattle, his hand on the doorknob.

  ‘I’ll let you rest,’ he says, and he leaves her lying there in the deep dark, still stroking her stomach.

  37

  Determined to find the men, Jeet had hung around the city temple morning, noon and night, making enquiries, offering bribes, until at last he caught the necessary lead and was handed an address. He went the next day, surprised to discover not a dark, secret hideaway, but a house like any other: small, clean, a leather settee and wide rosewood bed, just off the main thoroughfare in Jalandhar. Maybe they weren’t hiding at all.

  ‘It’s my sister’s place,’ Tegh Singh explained, as teas arrived. ‘They’re keeping an eye on things in Delhi. Never know when that pandit might screw us over.’

  Jeet nodded. He was sitting on the very lip of the settee, puzzled at the opulence of a table made of glass, at the workings of the cloth fan mounted overhead. There were several other men waiting around the edge of the bed, quiet, solemn, no doubt keen to hear the reason behind Jeet’s visit. A map of India hung across the wall, inset with a more detailed one of Punjab.

  ‘You came to our house,’ Jeet began. ‘We contributed money to your fight. Our fight,’ he adjusted.

  ‘Yes, of course. Your mother.’

  ‘Yes.’ Jeet sipped his tea. ‘Are you still planning the attack? In Delhi?’

  ‘You’ve come to join? We still need men. Brave men.’

  ‘Will the men survive, do you think?’

  Tegh Singh leaned forward over the table, and Jeet saw the pistol at his back. ‘It’s a fight for freedom. There will be casualties. But,’ he went on, reclining, ‘you’ll die with your head high, I promise you that. Songs will be sung about you.’

  Suraj was right, Jeet thought. He really was a fool, this Tegh Singh, a worthy and humourless one. Despite his shaking hand, Jeet put his cup down so carefully it didn’t make a sound on the glass. ‘Not me. My brother. You may come and take him when the time is right.’

  38

  Lakhpatti Shoewear has a huge awning and into its shade Suraj pulls his cart and begins arranging his stencils and pots: the powder, the water, the flour and the salt. His brushes are clean and he runs his thumb over the bristles of each one before lining them all up. Around him the lane is greasy with sun. Three shirtless boys are baiting a starving dog. A pastry-seller sets himself up on the corner, oil spitting from his shallow pan. Veiled women lean over tiny balconies, whispering, pointing out things below: the escaped hog, the old teacher dyeing his beard, the two white men jumping the queue at the soda cart. The balconies and the arched windows and, behind all the fancy brickwork, the sleeping courtesans, dreaming gravely until the mistress shocks them with a jug of thrown water and the morning chores begin. All the while, over the bazaar, beyond the mosque, the sun continues to rise, indifferent to it all. He does love being in a city.

  When he’s finished the second coat and just about succeeded in drawing the strap of a sandal so it curls around the length of the ‘k’, the proprietor appears, lips glistening with syrup.

  ‘Looking nice, Mr Painter. Looking nice.’

  ‘It’s even better than I thought,’ Suraj says, descending the ladder. He keeps one foot on the lowermost rung to suggest an eagerness to get back on it and do a good job. ‘Shall I add a gold surround?’

  ‘A gold surround? Do I look like I piss money?’

  ‘It’s in season, uncle. And no one else has it. Your friend has only a bronze.’

  The proprietor turns towards The Shoe King across the avenue, with its brown board filled with insistent capital letters. No image at all, of a sandal or a shoe, or even a crown. Some king!

  ‘He came nosing around yesterday,’ Suraj says. ‘Asking what I was up to.’

  ‘He did? Go for gold. All around, yes.’

  ‘It’ll be the best sign in the bazaar. Have no fear.’ The owner cuts his eyes, because it is clear this is a claim too large. ‘You can pay me when I’m finished,’ Suraj says.

  ‘Finish first, yes?’

  ‘Three days and I’ll be done. Pay me in full. I don’t want to have to come all the way back to collect the money. Three days.’

  * * *

  *

  Home by late afternoon, he goes first to douse his head at the pump, strangling the rubber seal to keep the water from fountaining everywhere. When he stands up, it is straight into Jeet’s gaze.

  ‘You’re back,’ Jeet says.

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘You left early this morning.’

  ‘I had to fetch my cart.’

  Jeet nods: of course, the cart. ‘There’s a rumour wheat prices have gone up. Thought I’d go now and check it out.’ He points to the bicycle by the gate. ‘Come with me. We’ll double-saddle. Like we used to.’

  ‘No. Thank you. I’m tired. I’m going to rest.’

  ‘I should have thought. You rest.’ He places his hand on his youngest brother’s shoulder and for a moment Suraj thinks he sees emotion in his eyes. ‘I do care about you, you should know that. I care that you’re working so hard. Don’t you get scared,’ he goes on, taking back his hand, ‘that high up the ladder?’

  ‘A little, at first. Not so much now.’

  Jeet smiles, turns away, and Suraj watches him ride off, feeling as if something true has passed between them, to do with the pain of being brothers in this place. Sighing, he sits on the warm edge of the stone bath and is glad of the unexpected peace, of the opportunity to get a good and proper look at the farm. He won’t miss it, he is sure, with its smallness and boredom, the way it throttles life. He’ll be glad to go, though once they are away and all this adventure is over and he has her to himself, will that be enough? Will she be enough? Will he be a good father to his boy? He shakes the thought free. Leave that for later. First he needs to speak to her. He stands and peels his trousers from his skin, where the wetness of the ledge has seeped through. He looks over to the window, slatted shut, and imagines her lying inside, in the dark, out of the heat . . . Though that is not where she is.

  At that moment, Mehar and her sisters-in-law are in the enclosure at the rear of the farm, planting a peepal tree in the upper right corner of the walled pen. Why they’re planting this tree with its heart-shaped flowers, Mehar doesn’t know. It is simply something that Mai has ordered them to do.

  ‘You do it,’ Gurleen says, and thrusts the clay pot at Mehar. ‘Please,’ she adds, with rank insincerity.

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake, can’t you even . . . ?’ But why argue? If she gets this over with, she can start frying the snacks she plans to take for the journey. Something to share and nibble on the way to Lahore. So she crouches and Harbans passes her a trowel and soon a hole has been dug and she removes the baby peepal from its clay basin and presses it into the peat. Done, she squints up into the faces of her sisters-in-law, which are violently framed by the sun. ‘Water?’ But neither has brought any and neither looks like budging so Mehar rises to her feet in a show of frustration and is through the barn when she sees Suraj idling by the gate, hands on his slim hips. She pauses, watches him. What is it that is making him smile? What is he thinking of? Where is his fear? She pulls her veil down and continues across the yard, towards the pump, where she takes up a brass jug. She can feel him approach, darkening the light over that side of her veil.

  ‘I can do that,’ he says, so she leaves the jug on the ground and steps back. He bends into her field of vision and runs his fingers over the jug’s rim. ‘Be ready to leave in three days. I’ll be waiting at the hut, on horseback. Don’t laugh.’

  But she is not
laughing. She is not even close to laughing. ‘If they catch me—’

  ‘They’re not going to catch us.’ He starts pumping water into the jug, as if to wash away that thought, which he is annoyed she’s even brought up. ‘They won’t catch us.’ He remembers the stars, and that he and Mehar are forging something new. ‘There’s enough meaning in the world to allow us that at least.’

  She says she should go, that they’ll wonder what’s taking her so long, and he passes up the jug full of water.

  ‘Next time you speak to me I’ll be on a horse!’ Is it levity he is attempting? She’s not sure and a note of doubt plays suddenly loud in her mind: is he serious? Is it a game? She turns and steps back through the barn, feeling light-headed, dizzy. She halts, takes a sip of the water, then continues out, where the sisters-in-law are still standing around the peepal. Mehar pours, muttering a prayer as the soil soaks and darkens.

  39

  In three days. Those words, like the sun’s incessant eye, follow her everywhere around the farm. At the pump, folding two curd spoons into the end of her chunni. On the roof, where she rolls her underwear into one tight ball and secures it with string. In the barn, on her knees, petitioning God. By the final evening, a bag is loaded and hidden in the field and she is clear in her mind where she must be and at what hour. But she wants her shawl, the one her family gave to her, and so she slips into Mai’s room, takes it from the cupboard, and then folds it into an old salwar and hides it in the china room.

  * * *

  I didn’t wait for the tuk-tuk to come to a complete stop before I jumped out and headed to the surgery. I’d been thinking about us all night and was finally ready to tell Radhika how I felt. I figured she’d probably already guessed at my feelings for her, but I worried that she thought me too young, too immature for anything serious to develop between us. I wanted to sit her down and calmly tell her I wasn’t. When I arrived, though, Dr Duggal said she was out doing her rounds.