‘And all different beliefs?’ asked Ruth.
‘Right. But he is telling to me he does not believe in religion, he believes in… what is he saying…? Oh yes! In the One and Only whose Name is Love.’
Ruth stared and there was a quiet around the table.
Then Mrs Puri sighed, beaming, and set her fork on her empty plate.
‘Food for the gods!’ she declared.
‘Please be having seconds!’ Iqbal cried, gesturing to the food.
They indulged in the customary ritual of offers and refusals before she tilted her head coquettishly and relented.
‘Just the smallest morsel, Iqbal-ji,’ she said happily as he heaped food onto her plate.
‘So, Reverend,’ Ruth asked, passing the cornmeal naans to Mrs Puri. ‘If pretending we’re all the same isn’t the answer… what is?’
‘It depends on the question.’
‘Ok then: how do we make peace?’
‘Ah, but what is peace? Is it truth and freedom and the right of each individual to choose their own path, or is it everyone staying in their boxes and not upsetting the apple cart, as Dr Lakshman here would recommend?’
‘I never—!’
‘You did. Everything’s fine so long as no-one converts.’
‘No, it’s the trying to convert others that is the problem. Going into a place where everybody’s perfectly happy and messing it up – pulling families apart, spoiling culture, breaking down the whole way of life. That is what causes the backlash.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Mrs Puri.
‘Do you think India’s 250 million Dalits are perfectly happy? Hmm? Untouchable, outcaste, oppressed? Do you think the young bride forced into marriage then tortured for the sake of more dowry is perfectly happy? What about the beggar whose karma renders him responsible for his own despair? Hey? And the savage violence in Orissa just now! Burning, raping, killing! Is this all part of your precious way of life, Lakshman? To be preserved at any cost?’
There was a terrible silence. No more chewing or tick-tack of cutlery. Lakshman and Verghese were locked eye-to-eye across the table, both motionless except for the twitching of a muscle in the doctor’s jaw. Mrs Puri looked from one to the other, hand at her breast. Iqbal’s face was a map of misery, James’ lowered, masked. At last Ruth spoke softly, slowly.
‘Sounds like… there are no easy answers. I’m sorry I asked.’
A slight breathing out of the tight air. A tilting of Iqbal’s head.
‘No, no,’ Lakshman muttered. ‘It’s not you.’
James spoke, the sound of his long-absent voice a shock.
‘You have to.’
All eyes turned; his remained on his hands, knobbled, gripping his knife and fork.
‘Keep asking.’ The voice was low, cracked. ‘Keep… seeking.’
He looked up at Ruth, expecting at worst a face twisting with scorn, at best, a joke. Instead she was gazing at him, eyes bright, lips slightly apart, in a kind of alert wonder. It was the look on a wild animal’s face when it has smelled something. That moment of waiting, of sensing, before the hunt closes in.
‘I think we are needing dessert,’ said Iqbal, leaping to his feet.
‘Yes, yes,’ agreed Mrs Puri, with a nervous giggle. ‘When in doubt, eat dessert.’
Everyone started bustling. Scraping plates, passing plates, stacking plates. The relief of chores. Ruth laid a hand on Lakshman’s arm as they passed, to-ing and fro-ing from the kitchen area. His face flooded with gratitude but she moved on before he could speak. Then she landed a soft pat on Verghese’s shoulder as she took his plate, and he looked up, startled, then busily folded his napkin. Leaning over James to pick up the jug of juice she hesitated for a moment, then rested her hand on his back. He did not move.
Iqbal was like a dervish, spinning from table to kitchen, tossing forks into the sink, scooping rice grains from the cloth. He kept running his hands down his apron, turning on the spot, humming frantic little snatches of song. Ruth smiled at him and winked. The smile he returned was shaky, quivering on the brim of joy and fear. At last, when the table was clean, she nodded at him and stood by the wall as he disappeared through the door to the store-room. There was scuffling and the striking of matches.
‘Ready?’ she called out.
‘Ooh, what’s happening?’ said Mrs Puri, clasping her hands together.
‘Ready!’ yelled Iqbal.
Ruth snapped off the lights. Cries of oh-my-god! what’s this? hey? and the store-room door banged open. A halo of candle-light wavered through the dark, casting a glow on Iqbal’s chest and face.
‘Happy Birthday to you!’ Ruth sang, with cheerleading spirit. The others joined. ‘Happy Birthday to you!’ Iqbal’s voice was resonant, Verghese’s a monotone, Lakshman’s uncertain and Mrs Puri’s like Bollywood’s best. ‘Happy Birthday dear Ja-ames.’ As the candles flickered closer, James could see they rose not from a conventional cake, but a strange white confection with lumps and pinnacles. It loomed from the shadows like an apparition. ‘Happy Birthday to Yoooooooou!’ The singers were enjoying themselves now, hanging on to that last note like a herald’s blast, ushering in an awesome personage. They burst into cheering and applause.
The ghost was upon him.
‘Mogul Mango Meringue Pie!’ cried Iqbal setting the sugared Taj Mahal at his place. More cheers. Iqbal held up his finger for silence, then with a voice brimming with emotion, cried out, ‘From The Book, recipe of Mr Aziz Mohammed Hashim!’
James twisted, tried to push back the chair, but caught it on the rug and swung over. With a cry and a shooting pain up his side, he fell.
THIRTY-EIGHT
The last time James had been served Mogul Mango Meringue Pie was at Askival. Barely a week after, the pie’s creator had sat huddled on his bed smelling of Dettol, with a tear-stained face, a mug of tea and a chocolate-chip muffin crumbling in his hands.
Outside, a mob of Sikhs.
At the sound of their arrival, Aziz leapt up, knocking cup and muffin plate to the floor and squeezed under the bed, shoving a guitar case and a tin trunk out of the way. James saw his legs sticking out, bleeding feet scrabbling against the floor, and it was absurdly funny and terrifying at the same time.
He turned to look again through the slit in the curtains and his stomach clenched. About half a dozen men were gathered at the foot of the veranda steps, burning torches in their hands and madness on their lips. They were shouting in a language James did not understand, but thought must be Punjabi. The light from the torches flickered over the high folds of their turbans and across their faces, sweating and contorted with passion. One of them came up to the door and pounded on it. His body bristled with a physical power James had never seen before and his eyes held the wild desperation of the hunted leopard, the charging boar. There was more banging and shouting and James felt his heart thumping as his head swarmed with images from Bunce’s report and his father’s letter: the burning and butchering in the Punjab, the hacking apart of two nations, the death trains.
It was then that he saw the kirpans. At each man’s waist, tucked into a cummerbund, there rested a curved blade, glinting in the torchlight.
Fear possessed him. A vision of his father rose in his mind like a towering spirit, and he turned and picked up the gun that he’d dropped on the floor. Aziz had managed to tuck his legs under his body by then, though the trunk and the guitar case still jutted out at absurd angles, as if cruelly sign-posting his whereabouts. For the first time that evening, he was absolutely silent.
James returned to the window just in time to hear his mother unbolting the front door. ‘No, no,’ he breathed and heard a strangled gasp from under the bed. He watched in disbelief as Leota stepped out from the door and addressed the Sikhs.
‘Brothers,’ she began, in Hindi. She was trying to adopt the warm tones she used for leading Bible studies, but James could hear the tremor in her voice. There was a torrent of speech from the Sikhs, a fierce gesturing of hands, a raisi
ng of torches. Fighting the trembling in his fingers, James drew back the latch on the window. His mother was spreading her hands and tilting her head towards the men, trying to understand. He pulled gently on the window, opening it a crack, every hair on his body raised, heart racing. A man at the back of the group was screaming.
Leota tried again. ‘Do you speak Hindi? I don’t understand Punjabi.’ The Bible Study voice was failing, though she still clung to a note of good will. James cocked the gun and lifted it to his shoulder, clenching his jaw to stop his shaking. The Sikh who had banged on the door took a step towards Leota, gesturing, repeating the same urgent phrase. James could not see his mother’s expression, but he had the Sikh right in his sights. The man’s face was jewelled with sweat, black with the beard that began high on his cheeks and curved into a roll under his chin. His brows were thickets, his eyes fierce, mouth trembling. Then the group surged forward and James fired.
The bullet hit the Sikh right in his heart, hurling him backwards down the steps onto the others. There was howling and a collision of bodies and a jet of blood.
James pulled back from the window and leaned against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut against the demonic din. The tremor in his hands spread through his body till he was shaking uncontrollably. He let the gun fall and pressed his hands over his ears, barely aware of someone next to him and a touch on his arm. Outside, the shouting and shrieking were borne away on the sound of pounding feet, leaving only a choked cry on the veranda.
He tore back the curtain and pushed the window wide, half falling out.
‘Mom!’
She stood at the bottom of the steps, back to him, arms thrown out into the dark. As James stumbled towards her she whirled around, dress spattered with blood.
‘What have you done?’ she cried. ‘What have you done?!’
James stared at her, caught mid-stride, legs failing him. His mother was crying now and clutching herself with shaking arms.
‘James!’ she sobbed, her face crumpling. ‘What in God’s name—?’
‘It was not James, Memsahib.’
They turned.
Silhouetted in the light of the window, stood Aziz, the gun in his hands.
In that moment, the world held its breath. They stared at him, the clear outline of his figure, the darkness of his face; how strange the gun looked held against him.
And then the world breathed out on a great rush and burst its veins. James sank to his knees and Leota flew to the window, bellowing at Aziz. It looked like she was going to hit him, but the cook took a step back, and her hands flayed the air.
Aziz shook his head, tears running into the creases round his eyes as he accepted her charges. Yes, he had been a terrible fool. No, he had not thought, Memsahib, not considered the consequences. Yes, unforgivable violence. And yes, Memsahib, worst of all, perhaps these Sikhs were not his attackers. Perhaps innocent men.
Yes! Leota cried. They had not come for harm but for help! One of their men was wounded and they were bringing him forward when the shot was fired.
James felt these words split him like an axe, the black night spilling into his head, his eyes, his heart. Huddled on the veranda, arms gripping himself, he watched his mother in horror. She was hoarse with ranting, hair pulled in tufts from her grey bun, face twisting as spit flew from her mouth. Under the beating of her anger, Aziz was bowed, head bobbing softly.
James wanted to speak, to tell the truth, but he could not say a word, or move, or stop the sirens in his head, nor the great rift opening up beneath him.
As Leota finally ran out of words, Aziz spoke, low and urgent.
‘They will come back, Memsahib, with others, for revenge.’ He was sniffing and slapping the tears off his cheeks. ‘I will go raise the Gurkhas to guard the house. You go to Colonel Sahib. Go, go. I will fix everything.’
James saw Leota giving Aziz a pair of socks and his red basketball high-tops. They looked like clown’s boots on the little man.
And then he was gone. Running down the path into the darkness, the shoes slap, slap, slapping.
He did not speak to James, and the boy said nothing to him.
He did not even see his face.
THIRTY-NINE
They left immediately for Colonel and Mrs Bunce’s house on the back chakkar road. Once Leota delivered the story in a breathless rush on the doorstep, the Colonel donned his long black boots and strapped a revolver round his waist.
‘Right then,’ he said. ‘Better find some Gurkhas and sort these buggers out.’ And with a torch in one hand and a neatly furled umbrella (BUNCE 1) in the other, he strode off into the night.
Mrs Bunce ushered them into her living room where Leota went through the whole story again over mugs of cocoa. As James watched the skin form on the top of his drink, he listened to his mother solidifying what she believed – and what she needed to believe – into immutable fact. The women gasped together over the violence of these people and shook their heads.
Leota was given the guest bed and James a sleeping bag on the couch. He did not sleep, but spent the night staring at the window, flinching at every creak and rustle outside. Before dawn it began to rain, and the rain slowly washed the dark out of the sky, leaving a weak grey that seeped into the ground, the swollen walls of the house, the pith of his bones.
Then Colonel Bunce returned. James heard him stamping in the front porch and beating the rain off his umbrella. As he came into the living room, Leota appeared, wrapping a borrowed dressing gown around herself, hair hanging in greasy tendrils around her shoulders. Her face was pasty and drawn, eyebrows bunched with worry, mouth half open and gummy in the corners. James, sitting fully clothed in his sleeping bag, tucked his legs up to make space for her. He looked down at his hands, cold and white, veined with silent, sunken rivers.
The Colonel sat heavily in the armchair in the corner, pulling his trouser legs up to reveal startled black hairs above his socks.
‘Well, it’s all rather ghastly,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid the bastards got the poor fellow.’
A winded sound from Leota as her hand shot to her mouth. James could make no sound; he could barely breathe.
He kept his eyes on his hands as Bunce described how he and the Gurkhas had made straight for Mullingar Hotel where a crowd of Sikhs were refuged, but found only women, children and old men who refused to say a thing. How they’d moved up the mountain and met a triumphant throng coming down, with torches, knives and cries of victory. How they’d marched this lot down to Mullingar, removed their weapons and established a permanent guard at the place. How Bunce and a few of the Gurkhas had gone back up the mountain to scan for others. Which was when they’d found Aziz. Lying in the road, hacked and burned.
‘His face was a ruin,’ said Bunce, shaking his head, eyebrows arching. ‘But I knew it had to be your chap because I recognised James’ shoes. He was wearing your basketball boots, wasn’t he, my boy?’
FORTY
Back at Askival, Leota’s first act was to scrub the blood off the veranda steps. James watched her use the same basin and Dettol that last night had held Aziz’ bare and bloodied feet. The feet that had slipped into James’ shoes and run off into the dark. In his bedroom he took apart the rifle, piece by piece, cleaned it and put it away in the case and into the tin trunk that still jutted from under his bed. The black buck watched him. James would not meet its eyes. All the while he heard Leota scrubbing, and the faint huffing of her effort. She’d asked Colonel Bunce if they should leave everything at the house untouched so the police could inspect and take fingerprints.
‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that,’ Bunce had said. ‘The whole country’s drowning in its own blood, the police won’t care about one little servant in a sleepy hill station. I’ll have a word with the Superintendent for you, but he won’t be trotting up to Askival with a notebook, I can assure you. He’s got all the other Mohammedans to get safely out of town and these hot-head Sikhs to settle. Quite enough for one afternoon.’
He carried the backpack down the mountain, his mother beside him. He was silent. She could not stop talking: They would send a telegram to Stanley. And Aziz’ family in his home village would need to be notified. But that area of Kashmir – was it still in India or part of Pakistan now? Oh what a mess the whole thing was! If only they could live side by side in peace none of this would be happening.
They reached the place where Aziz had died. The Gurkhas had put the charred remains of the body into a bag and left it at the hospital morgue, awaiting instructions. The rain had washed everything else away, leaving only a dark stain and the smell of wet smoke.
They stared at the shadow on the ground, Leota now unable to speak. She clasped her arms across her chest, gripping the flesh as if trying to hold the halves of herself together. She kept starting to say something, her mouth dropping open on a suck of breath, but then clamping shut again to stop the wobbling. At last she gave up. James heard her sobs, felt her hand gripping his arm and her body shuddering against his, but he did not look, or turn towards her. He could only stare at the inky patch of ground.
At Rampur House, a young Gurkha with a gentle smile ushered them through the main gates. A short, tree-lined drive led steeply upwards to the white mansion where women were spreading washing on the grass and children swarmed in giggling, bare-foot packs. Leota approached an old woman picking lice from a child’s hair and asked for Salima. There was discussion amongst the women and a boy was sent.
James put down the pack, heavier now with food from the bazaar. He shoved one hand down his pocket and held onto his arm with the other, his sides running with sweat. The seven mile walk with a heavy bag in the cloying monsoon air was partial cause, but the imminent arrival of Salima was the most of it.
A House Called Askival Page 25
