‘Nahi chahiye,’ she said, turning swiftly to go, her hand throbbing, skin hatched with tiny red scratches. The last time she’d worn glass bangles she’d smashed them all in one go and the cuts had gone up her arms.
‘Doctor-ji said you did Indian dance at school.’
‘Yes. Did he also tell you he didn’t approve?’
‘He said you were very gifted. Beautiful dancer.’
Ruth was silent for a moment. ‘Well, he never told me that,’ she muttered. She had always felt the bitter irony that the one thing she’d excelled at was the very thing they would not celebrate. ‘He and Mom tried to stop me.’
‘No, no. He is telling me they were in the two minds, but good Reverend Verghese is persuading them to permit.’
‘Yes, but reluctantly, and they hardly ever saw me perform.’
‘Such shame,’ Iqbal sighed. ‘You must join the dancing at Oaklands.’
She nearly choked on her harsh laugh. ‘I’m telling you, I don’t dance anymore. Ever.’
The dancing at Oaklands. At one time she’d been at the heart of it, spinning in her Garwhali skirts, feet slapping the floor with Kathak rhythms as ankle bells rang, her lithe body tipping and balancing like a long-legged bird in the rigour of Bharatnatyam. She could still feel the pulse of it, still hear the tabla and her teacher’s dha dhin dhin dha and still remember the steps. But she did not speak of it.
They passed the gurudwara where a handful of Sikhs were removing their shoes as a repetitive singing spilled from the temple door. At Mr Bhasin’s shop just beyond, Iqbal inspected the vegetables, squeezing, sniffing and running his fingers over the skins. He chatted with the dignified Sikh grocer, exclaiming over the size of the paw paw and the price of tomatoes, all the while expounding for Ruth his planned menu for the week and his dismay at James’ diminishing appetite.
‘Tell me, Ruthie,’ he said. ‘What were his favourite things? We have to tempt him!’
Ruth scrunched her eyes, summoning memories of childhood dining tables. She saw her father eating, often with his hands, though it was a custom Ellen only adopted when cutlery was unavailable. Their main meal had been Indian food at lunch time, prepared by the ayah or khansamma, and in the evening it was plain fare: bread, eggs, maybe soup. Ellen delighted in cooking but because James insisted on a frugal table, her art was in bringing richness to the simple: the fluffiest scrambled eggs, broths that warmed the heart, bread of heaven. Whatever was put before him, James ate with quiet appreciation. Ruth had never known him to complain about food or to refuse it. He received it as a gift, whether stale crackers or a wedding feast, always thanking God at the start of the meal and the cook at the end. But had there been any dish that he particularly favoured? Anything that made his face light up?
‘Mangoes!’ she said, at last. ‘He adored them.’
‘Ah yes. This I am knowing! We are both beloved of the kingly fruit. Are you a lover also?’
Ruth smiled. ‘I haven’t had a really good mango in years.’
‘Then mountains of mangoes for us!’ Iqbal declared. ‘Three kg, Bhasin-ji.’ With a tilt of his lavender turban, the Sikh piled the fruit onto his metal scales and Iqbal beamed at Ruth. ‘We will have fresh and cooked, mixed up and alone. We are finding every variation on mango theme and setting before the Doctor-ji!’
‘Good,’ she said, and felt the prickling of tears.
In Shangri-La Handicrafts Haven, she twisted a scarf around her neck and looked into the mirror. There were shadows under her eyes, grey half-moons that told more than she wished. Next to them, the stud in her nose and the row of silver hoops up her ears were jarring.
‘Beautiful madam,’ the shopkeeper declared. ‘This is silk-wool mix, madam, from Kashmir.’
Iqbal nodded keenly. ‘But you must try pretty colours! This grey is not for you.’
‘Neither is that pink,’ said Ruth, warding off the wildly patterned fuchsia that Iqbal proffered. She could imagine it somewhere in his vivid bedroom, but not on her. He sighed and stroked the other shawls unfurled across the counter. Ruth drew out a black one.
‘You will take one for your boyfriend?’ he asked.
‘Haven’t got one.’ Ruth draped the black shawl over her head.
‘Doctor-ji is thinking.’
‘He’s got no idea.’
‘Then you should tell him.’
‘Why?’
She could feel him looking at her, but kept her gaze on the mirror.
His voice was soft. ‘Because no-one is loving you more.’
Her eyes fell to the tasselled ends of the shawl in her scratched hand.
He spoke again, quietly, urgently. ‘And there is still time.’
They stopped at Mrs Chatterji’s Antique Shop under the Clock Tower, where a satellite dish jutted from the wall and a goat bleated at the door. Inside, the gloomy cavern was crammed to the ceiling with the debris of the raj: china plates, snuff boxes and umbrella stands slumbering together under layers of dust. The first time Ruth had been here she must have been about seven and remembered playing with a prayer mat while her father stared at a mounted buck’s head on the wall.
Today, the light was a jaundiced yellow, the air heavy with incense. The stock had not changed – most of it barely moved – and the woman with a gaunt face and stringy hair sitting hunched in the corner was unmistakeably the daughter of the first proprietor. She had a hairball dog in her lap and a nasty cough.
‘That is antique,’ she said about everything Ruth touched. ‘Very expensive.’
The buck’s head was gone and in its place hung a Mogul-style painting. Three be-jewelled men rode on camels across the desert, a domed city in the distance, a star above.
‘Looks like a Christmas card,’ said Ruth, a little scornfully.
‘Journey of the Magi,’ wheezed Miss Chatterji, pronouncing it “Maggie” like the packet noodles. ‘This is silk, Madame, not card. Very famous painting. Everyone is wanting.’
‘I am thinking the Maggis were Sufi,’ said Iqbal.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Muslim mystics – like the dervishes, na? Whirling.’ He circled a finger in the air, hips swishing.
‘Yes, but the Magi who visited Jesus were around before the Muslims.’
‘Ah, but the roots of Sufi are also before the Muslims.’
‘Muslims with a small “m”, eh?’
A rolling, drumbeat laugh. ‘Yes, yes!’
‘Cool,’ she smiled wryly and looked back at the painting. ‘I love the camels best. All that high-stepping, haughty stuff. Wonderful.’
‘Very expensive,’ came Miss Chatterji’s thin voice, through a phlegmy spasm of coughs. The dog shook itself, an animated wig with a tinkling bell. ‘But I can give discount.’
‘No thanks,’ said Ruth.
‘Are you knowing why the camel is proud?’ asked Iqbal, a dimple forming in his cheek.
‘No.’
‘Because of the Beautiful Names of God.’
‘Oh?’
‘There are one hundred divine names and Allah – may His Name be praised – revealed 99 to his prophet Mohammed – may peace be upon him. But the last one he is telling only to the camel.’
Ruth grinned. ‘I like that.’
‘True story,’ said Iqbal, with a tilt of his head.
She laughed.
In the afternoon the rain returned and they took shelter in Baba’s Sweet Shop, settling onto benches at opposite sides of a laminate table, their bags and parcels pressed around their feet. Ruth had bought a stiff broom, a basin and a bottle of Dettol at Godiwala Plastics, whilst Iqbal’s prize purchase was a glow-in-the-dark crucifix from Miss Chatterji’s. He thought the Doctor-ji might like it. Ruth did not tell him otherwise or that she’d known the original owner.
When a dark-skinned waiter with a withered foot had taken their order, Ruth picked up a newspaper on the table and scanned a feature on staying healthy and happy through Ramadan.
‘Hey, aren’t you supposed to be
fasting?’ she asked.
Iqbal smiled sheepishly. ‘I’m not a very good Muslim.’
‘Doesn’t bother me,’ she shrugged. ‘I’m not a very good anything.’
‘This is not true, Rani! You are good at many things.’
‘Nothing that matters, Iqbal.’
‘What matters?’
She folded the newspaper and pushed it away. ‘I wish I knew.’
They were quiet for a moment.
‘You are coming here,’ he said. ‘It matters very much.’
She wondered if Iqbal believed she’d come simply to provide comfort at James’ final hour, or if he knew more?
‘So,’ he asked, when their sweets arrived. ‘You will go back to Glasgow?’
‘I don’t know.’ She picked up a jalebi.
‘Doctor-ji thought you were at last happy.’
She laughed softly and took a bite, a squirt of sugar syrup hitting her chin. ‘Whatever that means,’ she murmured.
Iqbal raised an eyebrow.
‘There’s nothing to keep me there,’ she said.
‘Where will you go?’
‘I have no idea.’ She looked over his shoulder to the street outside. A giant bull was standing in the road on a diagonal, blocking traffic. As the rain poured over him, bleeding the puja powder on his forehead, the driver of a stuck car started honking his horn and shouting. The bull didn’t budge but flicked his tail and let out a golden stream of piss.
At the top of Mullingar Hill they paused for breath. The rain was spent, clouds snagged on the slopes like fluffs of cotton from a beaten razai. Ruth pointed across to the tumble of Mullingar Hotel.
‘Is the Lhasa Café still there?’
‘I am not hearing, no,’ said Iqbal. ‘You were frequenting?’
‘Ah… yeah,’ she said. ‘Great momos.’ She didn’t mention the illegal fare that the sallow-faced owner had sold quietly alongside his steamed dumplings and chow-chow. She’d been introduced to it by the Australian boyfriend who took her into the back room on Saturdays for a joint, where they’d blown the smoke out the windows and giggled throatily as they ran their hands over each other’s thighs. She’d returned many times and always had a little supply tucked into her sock drawer or the inner pocket of her handbag.
‘Many Tibetans are still abiding,’ Iqbal said, ‘but not running café, I think.’
‘Right.’
She and Iqbal stood looking at Mullingar: school children straggling home in navy uniforms and ribbons, a motorbike careening past, three old men squatting with bidis. There was the sound of hammering on metal and the burning scream of an angle-grinder.
‘That is Malik’s blacksmith,’ said Iqbal. ‘On the very site of Captain Young’s original stable.’
‘Who?’
‘You are not knowing? This man was first resident in Mussoorie and Mullingar is first house. His hunting lodge, only. Maybe he was friends with your Scotland Sahib from Askival.’
‘Yeah maybe.’
‘Captain Young is very bara Sahib. He is starting the Gurkhas, even. These Nepali wallas gave him such a thrashing he signed them up!’ Iqbal clapped his hands together and laughed.
‘Huh. I never knew that. So the old bit at the back was his house?’
‘Yes, yes. And courtyard was potato garden. He is hailing from Ireland, you see.’
‘Oh, right. I always wondered where the name was from. But why the Hotel bit?’
‘Mullingar has been many things. Hunting lodge, orphanage, hotel. In war time it was hospital also.’
‘What a history. Somebody needs to look after that place.’
She turned and started walking up the path. Oaklands lay on the opposite ridge, laced with mist.
‘Are you looking round the school yet?’ Iqbal asked, following her.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ He sounded astonished.
‘Haven’t got round to it.’
‘You must see! So much is changed! Really fancy now.’
There was a pause. The path was narrow and covered with litter, the entire slope serving as a rubbish dump for the houses above.
‘Yeah, I will. Sometime.’
‘And you might be bumping with old school friends.’
‘Oh?’
‘There is one fine boy – Kashi Narayan. He is excellent artist and coming time to time for projects.’
‘Yeah, I remember him. Kinda sad, strange kid.’
‘No, no. Is very happy fellow. Always laughing.’
‘God, that’s a change.’
‘Oh yes. I was working with him on big dance and music show one time. He is full of the joys.’
EIGHTEEN
Ruth hadn’t known Kashi very well until The Gospel of Jyoti in their senior year. It was the kind of production that brought strangers together and tore friends apart. It was how she fell in love with Manveer and how she lost him.
Manveer had started at Oaklands in the seventh grade, but she’d paid him no attention at the time and he’d done nothing to gain it. They occupied different territory. Whilst he dwelt quietly on the social margins, she was firmly centre stage, talkative, pretty and colourful as the fringed scarves she wore. That was in the days when her bright plumage still hid her wounds and she could fool everyone that she was doing just fine. She had fooled herself.
Indeed, it was a bravura performance, gaining applause from parents, teachers and the missionary community at large. And an essential one, though at the beginning she didn’t know it. She let the side down by weeping openly when she was first left in the dorm, aged six, and went on to cry every night till mouldy stains mushroomed on her pillow and her room-mates hissed at her to shut up. And she bubbled more at meal times, and when teachers rebuked her, and when the other girls were mean, which seemed like every day.
True, it was not all bad. She hurled herself into the skipping and hopscotch, could rattle off the hand-clapping rhymes at high velocity and was a whiz at jacks. Tea in the afternoon was always accompanied by a square of cake or a handful of namkin and some teachers were kind and some girls friendly, at least some of the time. But none of it compensated for the ceaseless ache of homesickness that ran like a cold stream through her life, sometimes low and quiet, but easily rising and too often flooding.
In the second grade she tried to run away. She had rehearsed the route in her mind countless times: walk all the way through the bazaar to Paramount Picture House, get a bus to Dehra Dun, get a train to Kanpur, get a rickshaw home. Her pulse quickened as she imagined herself rounding the corner at the hospital gates and being swept into her mother’s arms. But in the event she only got as far as the turning beyond the school when a truck sprayed her with filthy brown water. She ran back to the dorm, a mess of mud and tears, and was scolded, stripped, dressed in her pyjamas and made to sit alone through supper.
That night in bed she cried again and prayed for her mother to come. She was a passionate believer, though her faith was a potent cocktail of love and fear – a thing her elders would have deemed entirely appropriate. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But it was not making her wise. Just anxious. On the one hand, she loved the Lord Jesus when he appeared in soft blue robes with children on his lap and sheep across his shoulders. She pictured herself nestled against him when he told his stories, or helping him hand out the multiplying loaves, or dancing and whooping like a mad thing when he raised the centurion’s daughter.
But several of the Oaklands teachers were at pains to remind her that He was Coming Back to Judge and she had better Be Ready. No More Mr Nice Guy. Worse still, He would deliberately time his arrival for the moment everyone was least expecting Him, just to catch them all out. Ruth’s mind boggled. The chances of Him turning up while she was singing a hymn or reading the Bible where hopelessly slim. She sweated at the thought of all the other things she might be up to when He swept in. It put her in mind of the times she lifted rocks and watched the tiny critters beneath scrambling about in panic. Justifiable
panic, as it happened, because she usually stomped on them. What would Jesus the Judge do?
When Mrs Cornfoot took evening Devotions, she was clear: He would decide who went to Heaven or Hell. Though she had a few misty-eyed things to say about Heaven, it was her descriptions of Hell that were especially vivid and Ruth would sit with arms clenched around her nightie-clad knees, eyes watering with fear. The vital thing, it seemed, was to make sure you had said The Sinner’s Prayer and asked Jesus into your heart. Then you were Saved and everything would be ok. This was a momentous and life-changing act and one should record it in the front of one’s Bible and notify one’s parents. (Perhaps for evidence, should there be any dispute on The Last Day.) Desperate that there be no doubt whatsoever, Ruth said the prayer fervently, wrote it down (in CAPITAL LETTERS, UNDERLINED) and wrote to her parents immediately, who duly rejoiced.
But she was plagued with doubts. Mrs Cornfoot had also said, in another Devotions, that God’s ears are closed to the prayers of sinners. Then he can’t have heard Ruth’s prayer. And it can’t have worked. She was too ashamed to admit this to any of the adults (who had somehow got around this logical impossibility) so she huddled under her covers at night and said it again, and again as quickly as possible, and again and again and again, desperately hoping that somehow, for even the slightest moment, she might no longer be classed a sinner or that God might experience a temporary reprieve in his deafness. She was never sure if it worked.
But she still believed. In God and his Providence; in her parents; in faith itself. After the initial devastation of boarding school, she came to accept that it was the necessary sacrifice for the Lord’s work because without it, Mom and Dad couldn’t run the hospital in Kanpur and preach the Gospel in its wards and corridors. This service to God was the purpose of life and nothing – not even family – should be placed above it. She sincerely believed this, and by enduring the homesickness she and Hannah were doing their part, taking up their own crosses. And she wanted to do that. She loved the Lord Jesus and wanted to obey him and give her life for him as he had given his for her. It made her feel significant, gave meaning to the pain. Hers was not vain suffering, but purposeful, and Ruth could not help casting herself amongst the martyrs, the drama of her life helping her to bear it.
A House Called Askival Page 12
