She heard him take a sharp, impatient breath, turn toward her and turn away again.
“I want to see you again,” he said. “I must. What happened has nothing to do with the riots or with Guy. You know that’s true.”
She said nothing because that felt safer.
She was trying to hold on to the idea that the night before had been a moment of temporary madness, a lapse in discipline. Nothing hurt as much as love, that was what she had to remember.
“Not yet,” she said. “It’s all been too soon, and so…”
When the words were out, she felt vaguely nauseous again. What she most wanted was to wash, to sleep, to stop thinking for a few hours.
“Are you worried about me coming up to your room?”
When he moved his head closer to hers, she could smell his hair, his skin.
“Yes.”
“I thought you didn’t care what other people thought of you. I like that about you.”
When he smiled at her, she trembled.
“Well, I do care,” she said. The car had stopped at the traffic lights, near Churchgate, and on the curb, not ten yards from them, two men were soaping themselves, splashing water from an old bucket over their heads. “Everyone cares in the end,” she said. “Unless they’re mad or ill.”
A swarm of beggar children clustered around their car, fighting to polish its gleaming body work. When Frank rolled down the window to give them a handful of annas, his arm brushed hers and her body sang as if it led a separate life of its own.
“When will we know?” she said when the car was moving again, past the Flora Fountain and in the direction of the hospital. “About Guy, I mean. Have the police told his parents yet?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I expect some news at the hospital when I get back. Shall I leave a message or come over?”
“Leave a message,” she said. “Don’t come over.”
He looked at her and said nothing.
“I was horrible to him,” she said. “If he was ill—I mean seriously, mentally ill—I should have got help.”
“Viva,” he tried again, “you weren’t horrible. Don’t forget, I was there, too, and it wasn’t your fault.”
“How far is it to the hospital?” She was longing suddenly for his confusing presence to be gone.
“Two streets from here.”
“It’s beginning to feel like ‘Ten Green Bottles’ with Tor and the Mallinsons going back.”
She could hear him trying for a more conversational tone. “Are you leaving, too?”
“Not yet,” she said. “What about you?”
“I’ve been offered a job in Lahore,” he said. “That research job I told you about.”
“Will you take it?” She looked straight ahead of her.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
One side of her mind now watched the street sellers setting up their stalls, the lights being lit around the Flora Fountain, the wispy clouds in a rainbow-colored sky; the other wondered if she would regret it for the rest of her life if she let him slip through her fingers like this. While the chauffeur parked the car, she followed Frank up the steps toward the main entrance.
“I should probably thank you for coming to Ooty to rescue us,” she said, “but I don’t know what to say anymore. I don’t think I’ve quite taken it in yet.”
He stopped with one hand on the door. “About us or about Guy? Please don’t forget it’s only a rumor—I did tell you that.”
“Both.”
He looked exhausted, she noticed, and pale. His eyes searched her face for clues. “Don’t say anything you don’t mean,” he said, “but promise me that you won’t feel ashamed.”
“I’m not ashamed,” she said. “I feel as if I’ve been through an earthquake.”
He gave her a steady look. “I know,” he said.
He was about to say something else, but she put her hand over his mouth.
“No,” she said. “Don’t. Please. Not yet.”
There were no signs of riots as the chauffeur took her back through Byculla, the same old potholed streets, crumbling houses, street markets, flower stalls.
She let herself into the house—everything the same here, too: bicycles in the hall; the smell of Mrs. Jamshed’s curries in the air.
Mr. Jamshed was in his front room in the middle of his afternoon prayers. He was facing the sun and wearing his sudreh, the shirt he prayed in tied three times with the kusti cord he wore to remind him, he had once explained, of the three principles he lived his life by: “Good words, good thoughts, good deeds.”
She stood at the door waiting. In prayer, his normally jolly face looked guarded, forbidding, like an Old Testament prophet.
When the door squeaked, he opened his eyes. “Miss Viva.”
“Forgive me for interrupting you, but is everybody all right?” she said. “I’ve been so worried about you.”
“We are tolerably well,” he told her. He looked at her, polite, distant. “No riots in the streets, thanks be to God, and I have heard nothing to the contrary from your school or your home or whatever it is you call it.”
“Oh good. What a relief.”
“Well, not really.” He still had that strange look on his face. “Other things have been going on here that I am not happy with. Come.” He gestured toward the open door. “It’s better I show you myself.”
He put on his battered sandals and padlocked the front door behind him, something she’d never seen him do before.
“You see,” he explained as they were walking upstairs, “while you were away, an unruly element broke into our house. They made a mischief in your room and did other things. At first I thought it might be hooligans, now I think it might be a friend of yours.”
“A friend of mine?”
“Wait.” He held his palm up at the threshold of her door. “I will explain to you in a minute.”
When he opened the door, she cried out with shock. The curtains were closed, but even in half-darkness she saw her typewriter slung on the floor; her dresses, knickers, blouses, pictures lay in random heaps. A suspender belt had been draped on an empty picture hook on her wall.
“Oh no!” She ran to the little pine cupboard beside her bed where she’d kept the first draft of her book. It was still there.
Mr. Jamshed drew the curtains with a scraping sound.
“That’s not all,” he said. “Look.” He pointed to the wall. Gazing into the half-light, she saw above the washstand a photograph of herself leaning against the railings of the Kaisar-i-Hind, next to Nigel, the young civil servant. The wind was blowing her hair, and Nigel, looking spivvy in a striped blazer, was poking her in the ribs. A photograph nailed on the opposite wall showed her leaving Daisy’s party, her shoes in her hand, looking drunkenly dazed and happy. “Whore” was written in large untidy letters across the corner of it. In the third picture, she and Frank were leaving Moustafa’s. On the bed, beside a hammer and a pile of nails, was an out-of-focus photograph Tor had taken of her and Guy side by side on deck chairs.
Moving toward it, she felt the crunch of glass under her foot. She’d stepped on a small votive pot, with a spent candle inside it.
“All these pictures had candles alight underneath them when I found them,” Mr. Jamshed said. “My house could have burned to the ground.”
She sat down on a heap of clothes on her bed and shook her head.
“I know who did this,” she told Mr. Jamshed. “But he may be dead. I don’t know yet.”
As soon as the words were out, she realized how peculiar they sounded. “You must think I’m mad,” she said.
“Madam,” Mr. Jamshed spoke very formally, “I don’t think you’re mad, but I cannot allow you to bring danger and other things to our house.”
“What do you mean?”
He gave a snort of disgust. “You know what I mean. How can your father or your brothers let you live like this?”
“I don’t have a father or a brother,” she said.
“I don’t know anything about you,” he said. He was standing a few inches from a picture of her laughing and carousing with Tor and Frank. “And I’ve never spoken to you about my beliefs, but I will tell you something now. The god I was praying to when you came in, his name is Ahura Mazda. Nothing happens in my life except through him. When I see all this”—he gestured toward the photographs, the underwear—“I know I have let him down. I am like a child who has brought a dangerous toy into the house. No! No!” He held his hands out when she tried to protest. “I must finish what I have to say. This is partly my fault, because my girls so want to be modern like you and I want them to be educated, but this is the danger. In our religion purity is at the heart of everything we do, and this is…” Words failed him and he threw up his hands, looking stricken. “This makes my house feel unclean.”
“These are my friends.” She could feel the ground moving under her and didn’t know what to do. “You saw us at the party. You liked them.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know them. And him.” Mr. Jamshed jabbed his finger at the picture of Nigel. Who is he? And him?” He pointed to Guy. “Is he another man who comes to your room?”
“He’s just a boy. I brought him over on the ship. I was paid to do it. I didn’t even know him before.”
“You didn’t know him,” said Mr. Jamshed. “And you, a young girl, were paid to bring him? No, I don’t believe. Even in England, they wouldn’t let this happen.”
His eyes were large pools of suffering. His forehead deeply furrowed.
“Madam, I am a Parsee, we are broad-minded people, but I found alcohol bottles in your room, too, and now this. And I’m very worried for my family. I already get stick from some local people for letting my girls go to the university—more shame for me. And what about those children you are supposed to help?” He smacked the side of his head to show how impossible this was.
She lowered her head. All their previously intriguing differences had suddenly become a chasm impossible to leap.
“Mr. Jamshed,” she said, “I understand how this looks, but I must ask you something as a matter of urgency. Did anyone see this boy in the building?” She pointed toward the picture of Guy.
“This boy?” Mr. Jamshed examined the photo closely. “My neighbor Mr. Bizwaz described a fellow like this. He said he looked like an Englishman. He went out into the street; he took off his coat and shoes and set light to them. He shouted after him but he ran away.”
“Only his coat and shoes?”
“Only his coat and shoes.”
It took a while for this news to sink in.
“Are you sure?”
“Mr. B. does not lie.” He glared at her when he said this.
“Oh God,” she cried. “But this might be good news. We thought he might be dead.”
“You thought he was dead?” Mr. Jamshed had begun to scratch his head as if bad thoughts swarmed over him like cockroaches. “Mrs. Daisy Barker told me you were a very respectable young English lady, and now this, too.” He stopped scratching and looked at her. “Crisis for me, Miss Viva,” he said. “I can’t let you stay here. Not tonight, because it’s dark, but tomorrow you must leave. You can’t stay here.”
“Mr. Jamshed,” Viva protested, “I honestly can explain everything. Let me bring Mrs. Barker over to speak with you tomorrow, she—”
“Madam, forgive me.” He held up his palms like a shield. “But you are both foreigners, so you don’t know everything. I can only repeat: there are men who live around here who are very fanatical. They already think women like you are—” He stopped, unable to say the words. “Not pure,” he said. “I have been sticking up for you with them. I can’t now. It’s too dangerous.”
“I understand.” She could feel the heat traveling from her neck to her cheeks. “I’m not a fool.”
And now the words tumbled out of Mr. Jamshed. “You are not a fool, and it pains me to say such harsh words to you, but I am so worried not just for you, but for the children’s home. You don’t know how the ordinary people around here look at you. They may be smiling but they’re completely confused. You have no family, no husband, no baby, no jewelry. What are you? Who are you? Believe me, madam, it’s horrible, to say such things to a stranger in our country, but I must.” He nodded his head stiffly and walked toward the door.
“May I say good-bye to Mrs. Jamshed, and to Dolly and Kaniz? You’ve all been so kind to me.”
“No,” he said. “I’m sorry. Daughters are home but I don’t want them to see you again.”
Chapter Forty-one
Viva had heard of the phenomenon by which certain people—the feeble-minded, she’d always assumed—had only to be accused of a crime to feel themselves guilty of it. The next day, as she walked through the gates of the children’s home, she understood it: she felt as if she was carrying a bomb with her.
After Mr. Jamshed left, she’d spent over two hours pulling down the creepy photographs and putting them in the rubbish bin, and then packing up her room.
After that, she’d hardly slept at all, her mind whirling with thoughts of Guy and Frank (for she could not rid herself of the idea that her wild night in Ooty had somehow been instantly punished), and Daisy, and the home, and whether Mr. Jamshed might relent and let her stay.
Somehow she doubted it, and she had no idea yet where she would go next. In the normal run of things, Daisy would have offered her a bed, but Daisy would be upset to lose Dolly and Kaniz, her prize students. And what if Daisy believed the rumors about Viva’s immorality, what then? It was possible that Daisy would never want to speak to her again, in which case it would be back to the YWCA, a dreadful thought.
She pushed open the elaborately carved gate at the front of the home. It was a relief to her to see how absolutely the same everything looked. The same dim and shuttered rooms that reminded her of a large and shabby dovecote, the same birds in the tamarind tree, and, across the courtyard, in the shade of the veranda, Mrs. Bowden was reading to her sewing class in the same broad Yorkshire accents from a book Viva recognized—English Poetry for Indian Girls.
“Little drops of water,” the girls chanted back in their singsong voices.
“Little grains of sand,
Make a mighty ocean,
And the pleasant land.
Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Make our earth an Eden,
Like the heaven above.”
As Viva carried on walking across the courtyard, carrying her invisible bomb, the gardener, wearing the flat cap of a Muslim, was pushing around a few wet leaves with his broom. A row of patients sat on benches waiting quietly for the dispensary door to open at ten-fifteen.
Walking down the dim corridor toward Daisy’s office, she felt almost giddy with nervous tension. What if Daisy didn’t believe her about Guy and the photographs, the fake suicide or why Frank had suddenly turned up in Ooty? Even she could see how far-fetched the whole thing sounded.
She found Daisy in her office. She was sitting, a small solitary figure, behind a pile of letters, scratching away diligently and fully concentrated. When she saw Viva, she gave a start, then stood up beaming.
“Oh, greetings! How nice to see you. Did you have the most wonderful time?” She’d stuck a pencil absentmindedly through her bun.
“I did, Daisy.” Viva had decided to grasp the nettle all at once. “But I’m afraid I have rotten news to tell you.”
Daisy listened carefully while Viva poured out her story, only punctuating the silence with a mild “Oh golly” and “Oh goodness me.”
“What a terrible shame if he stops Dolly and Kaniz coming to the university” was her first reaction. “They’re brilliant students and they love their work. But what about this other business with Guy?” A nervous rash had appeared in the V of Daisy’s frock, even though her face was serene. “Do you think he’ll carry on spreading rumors about us? That could be very serious.”
“Oh, Daisy.” Bot
h of them jumped as the pencil fell from Daisy’s bun on the floor. “I am so, so sorry,” said Viva. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t come here.”
“No, that I can’t accept. That’s nonsense,” said Daisy briskly. “Mr. Jamshed is right—there are spies everywhere and none of the locals really know what to make of us: why should they? They’ve never seen women like us before.
“Also, dear Mr. Gandhi may preach nonviolence, but what he’s done is to show poor people and women, who have been incredibly downtrodden up until now, that they can make a difference. So there’s anger at the British, the anger of poverty, and anger at our educating their women. In a sense we’re stuck inside two revolutions and sooner or later, the whole boiling lot will explode, and, of course, when people like your man Guy start spreading rumors, it doesn’t help matters. But don’t imagine for one moment he’s the cause of it.”
“So what can we do about him?” said Viva.
“Good question. You can’t arrest someone for setting their coat on fire.”
“But he broke into my room.”
“So what do you think?”
“I think the police should be told.”
“Maybe.” Daisy hesitated. “But if we do that, we open another can of worms. The police, you see, have already been under pressure from certain hotheads in the new Congress to try and close us down. So far we’ve resisted.”
“What about our people, what do they think?”
Daisy fiddled with her papers. “The last time a government official came here, he admitted we were doing fine work but thought we should close down; he said that they could no longer guarantee us protection. That was before you came. Perhaps I should have told you.”
The two women looked at each other.
“When I told the staff and children, they all wept and begged us not to go. It was horrible and heartbreaking. These children, Viva, have nothing. I’m not saying they all want to be here, they don’t, but if we leave them, they die or end up on the streets. Someone has to understand this.”
East of the Sun Page 36
