A House Called Askival

by Merryn Glover

  Now, with Manveer at her side, she was glad she’d made the effort. He shot her shy, approving looks and said she looked nice. In turn, she thought him more handsome than ever in black trousers and turban, a pale pink Oxford shirt and a down jacket.

  ‘How you doin?’ she asked. ‘Must be pretty shaken up.’

  ‘A bit. But I was so bushed and so relieved to be back I just crashed.’

  ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘I had the weirdest dreams.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I’m not saying.’ She smiled.

  ‘Why not? Come on, tell me.’ He gave her arm a soft punch.

  ‘No way, man. Too embarrassing.’ She playfully pushed the hand back but let her fingers tangle in his.

  ‘Oh, I bet I can guess.’ He was still holding her hand. There was no one else on their stretch of path.

  ‘What then?’ she teased, stepping closer to him, her face lifted.

  ‘I’m not telling.’

  ‘Manveer!’ She swatted him. ‘Tell me!’

  He tucked her shoes under his arm and captured her flailing hand.

  ‘Ok, ok,’ he grinned. ‘After chapel. I’ll walk you back. You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.’

  ‘No. Now.’

  ‘We haven’t got time.’

  ‘Then ditch chapel.’

  He looked shocked. ‘It’s compulsory.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘But you’re Christian!’

  She took a breath. ‘Not any more. I don’t give a damn about that now. I just want to talk.’

  ‘Could be big trouble,’ he said, searching her face. She knew he was careful about rules. There were great expectations on him. Family savings, family reputation, family dreams.

  ‘It’s just skipping chapel,’ she murmured. ‘What’s the worst thing that can happen?’

  He continued up the hill, drawing her with him, walking in silence. As they came out of the trees at the school buildings they stopped to look south. The sun was a vivid ball with a train of fire-lit clouds. Below it lay the dusky ridge of the bazaar and the Winter Line, a belt of red and gold that stretched across the sky, dividing the light above from the well of black below.

  He tugged on her hand. ‘Where d’you want to go?’

  In Benson Hall, as the final chords of the hymn faded, Mr Haskell leaned across a couple of stiffly coiffed girls and touched Sita on the arm. She turned to him, huge brown eyes cool in her sculpted face.

  ‘Sita, do you know where Ruth is?’

  She raised one eyebrow.

  ‘Or Manveer?’

  Her eyes narrowed. On the stage, Mr Park was tapping the microphone and starting to speak, so Mr Haskell dropped his voice to a whisper.

  ‘Any idea where they might have gone?’

  They moved quietly up the forest path, slipping like shadows through the trees. Behind them, the sun slid through the Winter Line and disappeared into the dark, leaving the sky gaping, haemorrhaging colour. Feeling their way with their feet as the light dimmed, they talked. About why she wasn’t a Christian anymore and the fear on that bus trip and how sad it was about The Gospel of Jyoti. Manveer said he admired Mr Haskell’s talent and passion and hoped the Oaklands performance would compensate for the loss of the Delhi ones, but Ruth just murmured yes and changed the subject. As they walked, they held hands like their lives depended on it.

  It was a steep climb to the top of the hill and then long and dark round the back chakkar. They walked quickly past the graveyard, giggling as they recounted the stories (mainly Sita’s) and felt their flesh prickle. When they got to Askival it was waiting, silent, and full of shadows. They stood on the south veranda looking down at the lights of Dehra Dun, a blaze of fallen stars on a black lake. The air was so cold and clear it brought a sharpness to everything: the silver rim of the moon, the smell of pine, the pure notes of an owl. Ruth shivered and he pulled her into the folds of his down jacket, her back against his chest. He smelt of freshly ironed clothes and a grown-up aftershave, although he never shaved. His beard tickled as she rested her head into his neck.

  ‘Manveer,’ she whispered.

  ‘Mmm?’ He tightened his arms around her, lowering his face so his cheek brushed hers, the folded edge of his turban against her ear.

  ‘Show me your hair.’

  For a moment he was perfectly still. Breath held. She wondered if she had broken some rule. Were Sikh men not supposed to reveal their hair? Or not to women? Or not to non-Sikhs? Then she felt a rush of warm breath on her neck and a tight squeeze of his arms.

  ‘Ok.’ His voice was husky. ‘Just don’t laugh.’

  She twisted round. ‘I would never laugh at you, Manveer.’

  He studied her face, then undid the pins on his turban and lifted it off. Underneath there was the cotton patka in a top knot, which he unravelled, revealing the dark coil of his hair, held in place by a small wooden comb. Ruth reached up and tugged the comb free.

  ‘My kanga,’ he whispered. ‘Keep it safe.’ She slipped it into her back pocket and unwound his hair till it fell in soft, curling sheaves down to his chest. As she teased out the tangles, he slipped his arms around her waist, eyes resting on her. She met his gaze, and drew back the hair from the sides of his face, breathing in the smell of shampoo and sandalwood. He pulled her closer, lowering his face as she lifted hers, till they closed their eyes and kissed. Just one, light and brushing, electric, kiss. Then another, and another. Gentle, soft-pressing kisses, faces stroking against each other, noses bumping and lips beginning to part. And then the deeper tasting, the stronger pressure, the hunger and giving and the flood of feeling in breasts, navel and thighs. Ruth had never felt anything like this. Anything so sweet and yearning and deep as Manveer’s intoxicating mouth. Anything so thrilling as him whispering that he had never kissed a girl before, and he never wanted to stop.

  So they did not stop. They kept kissing and holding and feeling, hands moving softly under the thick folds of jacket and coat. And they continued kissing as they tugged shirts up, slowly, inch by inch, and touched cold fingertips to warm skin. And they kept on kissing, as their hands slid like blue flame over liquored backs. And still they did not stop as he stroked over her bra and then under it, both of them moaning as he found her nipples. And there was certainly no stopping once she discovered the line of hair that lead down from his navel.

  They lay tangled together on the dirty floor of the living room, Sita’s coat spread beneath them, his jacket above. They were still as tree roots. Just the breathing and the blinking of eyes, the soft fall of his hair across their skin. Outside, the pine trees were hushing and whispering in a light breeze. The moon was higher, brighter, a curved and gleaming blade against the black.

  As a small gust of wind blew into the room, Ruth flinched and tucked her legs up under the jacket, pushing her icy feet between Manveer’s thighs.

  ‘Yow!!’ He yelped and pulled back. ‘You are frozen!’

  ‘I know,’ she laughed, tugging him close again. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘No. I’ve never felt so warm.’ He kissed her. ‘But you should probably get some clothes on.’

  They sat up and found their underwear, using it to wipe the sticky spillage from their thighs, then tossing it to the side. Sita’s coat was a mess. Their trousers were cold, the fabric hard and unyielding as they tugged them on, shirts and socks gritty from the floor. Ruth brushed pine needles and dirt from Grandma Leota’s cardigan and could feel it unravelling on one sleeve. She buttoned it up.

  ‘Do you need help with your turban?’

  Manveer was feeling around on the floor and didn’t answer.

  ‘I think you left it on the veranda.’ She went out and found it, lying like an empty bowl beside a pillar. The patka was beside it. ‘I’ve got a brush if you want,’ she said, stepping back into the living room and reaching for her bag. She fumbled and searched, then tipped it out onto the floor, makeup, wallet and brush falling along with a crumpled hanky and a couple of
dusty joints.

  ‘Oops,’ she giggled, but he didn’t seem to have noticed. He was squatting beside the fireplace, holding something, his hair spilling over his shoulders like the delta of an inky river.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘My kirpan.’ He drew a small knife out of a leather sheath.

  ‘A penknife?’

  ‘No. Didn’t you listen in RE?’ he teased.

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘The Five Ks?’

  ‘Oh yeah, your long hair and stuff.’

  ‘Exactly. The hair is kesh, kanga’s in your pocket—’

  ‘Kara’s on your wrist,’ she said, touching his steel bangle.

  ‘Kachha is a mess,’ he pointed to the wadded underwear on the floor and they both laughed. ‘And this is kirpan.’

  ‘Shit, I didn’t know you had that on you all the time.’

  ‘It was always just a ritual thing, you know, a habit, like combing my hair or putting on socks. I never really thought about it until today. After that bus trip and all. When I put it on, I felt so much anger… and hate.’ The knife glinted as he turned it. ‘I wanted to kill all those people who were killing my brothers. Who tried to kill me.’

  Ruth watched him, uncertain. The breeze in the pines was picking up, like the rushing of waves.

  ‘Are you going to do your turban?’ she asked softly, holding it out to him.

  He shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘You going back to the dorm like that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how I go back, everything’s changed now, hasn’t it?’ He raised his eyes to hers. ‘It’s nearly 9.30, Ruth. Check in was half an hour ago.’

  ‘Oh, my god, I’m so sorry, Manveer. I’ve got you in trouble. I’m sorry, I—’

  ‘No.’ He put the kirpan on the mantelpiece and pulled her to him. The turban fell to the floor. ‘I’m not sorry.’

  ‘But your parents! The school will write and tell them and—’

  ‘And your parents.’

  ‘Mine have already had lots of letters, believe me, and I don’t…’ She felt the stinging of tears. ‘I don’t give a shit, anymore. They’ve given up on me.’

  Manveer pressed her into the nest of his jacket. ‘No, no,’ he whispered, stroking her head. She was starting to cry. ‘How could they not adore you? They must, they must.’

  ‘They’re never here!’ she choked, scraping the spilled mascara from under her eyes. ‘Always leaving me, pushing me away, working, working, working!’

  ‘Mine are on the other side of the world! And my Mom doesn’t even work.’

  ‘But they want the best for you. That’s why they sent you here.’

  ‘The best for me or for them? All they want to know about is my grades, my exams, my college applications… then they show off to all the relatives.’

  ‘But it’s for your life. My life doesn’t matter. It’s all about God.’

  ‘Is it my life? I already know I have to do law, I have to get married to their choice, I have to make big bucks. No one asks if I want to or not. Better to lose your life to God than money.’

  ‘I hate God.’

  ‘Thought you didn’t believe in Him.’

  ‘It’s the believing I hate.’

  ‘All believing?’

  ‘The believing that makes people kill in the name of God, that makes people cause harm and claim it’s for good, that makes people save the whole world but sacrifice their children!’

  Her crying rose like an earth tremor, shaking her, releasing sobs and gasping breath. Manveer held her, soothing and cradling, caressing the back of her hair where it was tangled and snagged with pine needles. When the crying had eased, he drew back gently.

  ‘Will you wear this?’ he asked and pulled the steel bracelet off his wrist.

  ‘Your kara?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She looked at it, then up at him.

  ‘Manveer, you can’t do that.’

  ‘I want you to have it.’

  ‘Well… give me something else, then. Not this – it’s sacred to you.’

  ‘No. Love is sacred. That’s all. Please wear it?’

  She touched it softly. A long quiet.

  ‘Ok. If you really want me to.’ He pushed it onto her wrist and began kissing her. She wrapped her arms around him. ‘I’ll never take it off.’

  They kissed for the longest time, bound to one another at mouth and breast and hip, till finally he drew back again and took her face in his hands.

  ‘You are the most beautiful thing in the world.’

  It was like lightning; a whip of fire down her spine; a shot of love.

  She shook her head, a fresh tear spilling down one cheek. He released her and took the kirpan from the mantelpiece.

  ‘I want you to cut my hair.’

  She stared at him. He was perfectly still, the knife on his palm catching the moonlight. She shook her head again.

  ‘Manveer…’

  ‘Now. With this.’

  ‘No Manveer.’ Her breath was short. ‘You can’t cut your hair. It’s the most important thing. And it would kill your parents…’

  ‘I have to. I want to.’

  Her face, lifted to him in the half-light, was pale as marble. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t believe in it anymore.’ She waited, searching him, not fathoming. ‘My hair nearly got me killed. But worse – it made me want to kill.’ He rolled the knife softly in his hand. ‘What’s the use of religion if it does that to you?’

  She said nothing, barely breathing.

  ‘You know, my parents still tell stories of their relatives killed at partition. And they are terrible stories and I always thought they were exaggerating… until now. But they don’t talk about the Hindus and Muslims killed by Sikhs. And no-one talks about my Uncle Kushwant – a very proud Sikh – but he was in the troops that stormed the Golden Temple this year.’ A soft hissing laugh like a puncture. ‘Sikhs killing Sikhs! Should we just kill ourselves now? Like kamikaze pilots? It’s mad. All mad, and I don’t want it anymore.’

  His hand gripped the knife, knuckles white and bulging.

  ‘Manveer, Manveer… Don’t say these things.’

  ‘They’re true! And you know it. You’re saying the same things, you’ve given up on religion. You’re right.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Being here with you tonight I felt really alive for the first time, really happy, really me. I don’t want to be a Sikh anymore, or a Singh, or a this or a that. I want to be me.’

  ‘You are you, Manveer, and I love you—!’

  He gripped her arm. ‘What?’

  ‘I love you.’

  His voice was thick with feeling, his words slow. ‘And I love you.’

  They kissed again, sealing their lips and their fate as he pressed the handle of the kirpan into her hand.

  The hair lay around them like a harvest of black wheat; above them, the sickle moon. The kirpan was sheathed and back on the mantelpiece, the kara on her wrist. It chinked against her glass bangles and bumped on his skull as she stroked his head, trying to smooth the choppy stubble that remained. He caught her hand and kissed it. Outside, the wind had died and, in the stillness, they could hear the octave owl’s two sweet notes, and in their embrace they whispered the counts, waiting for the next two.

  But they never came.

  Just footsteps and the crashing door.

  THIRTY-SIX

  By the Monday in Kanpur, the attacks had subsided, but the city still smouldered with the burning of Sikh homes, and in the hospital, the morgue was overflowing. As James stepped out of the house that morning, the smoke stung his nose and eyes. He had barely slept and not touched breakfast – even his morning coffee made him sick – and though his hands had been scrubbed raw, he hadn’t bathed fully in days. His hair was greasy, his mouth sour, body smelling of old sweat and disinfectant. And he could not stop the tremor in his hands.

  Entering the ward he heard the furious cries of a baby, and
then he saw her. She was sitting on the floor next to a woman who did not move, pulling on her hand, except that it was not a hand, it was a stump.

  James bent to the baby and lifted her. She was screaming now, wet and soiled. He looked around for a nurse, but could see none.

  ‘Nurse!’ he shouted blindly into the crowd. ‘Come now! Jaldi!’ The entrance hall was teeming with people, with cries, with misery. He felt a sudden urge to roar, to scream, to smash things. At that moment a nurse came running and took the child.

  Shaking and smeared with the baby’s excrement, he turned to the next body on the corridor floor. A great felled tree of a man, beaten and burnt. James lifted a flap of turban that covered his face, the charred fabric disintegrating in his fingers.

  It was his Senior Book-keeper, Gurpreet Singh.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  When Ruth brought home her copy of the new Landour Community Cookbook, it caused something of a stir between her and Iqbal. James feigned disinterest, but was unsettled to hear Iqbal cry out and Ruth hush him. There was much page-turning and exclaiming, feverish whispering and scribbling of ingredients on shopping lists. Tonight, they told him, he was in for a treat. There was a gleam in Ruth’s eye; in Iqbal’s, a tear.