by Irene Black
“Sounds good to me.” Duncan was clearly impressed. “I’ll get onto it as soon as I get back. Try and trace Salers’ publisher. May give us a head start.”
* * * *
After two days in hospital, Hannah had endured enough. She scribbled a note to Ashok.
Much better. Have checked out. Gone back to Chamundi.
See you there,
Hannah.
Much better? Who was she kidding? Her head was an inflated balloon, and her leg scrunched and screamed when she put weight on it, but she knew she had to get out of the hospital before Ashok arrived, because he’d veto it. The nurses, too, were horrified and at first forbade her to leave, but they finally compromised by lending her a pair of crutches and calling a taxi.
At the Chamundi, she showered and slipped into clean clothes. She lay down on the bed and felt reborn.
A knock on the door.
“Hallo?”
“Me.”
“It’s open.”
The next moment, she was in his arms. No smiles. No tears. Simply an outpouring of relief.
Ashok was muttering. “Damn you, woman. Damn you. Will you never learn? What the hell are you doing?” He broke away and held her at arm’s length. “Look at you. It’s obvious you should be in hospital. What were you thinking of?”
Hannah laughed feebly. “I’m fine. Really. I just wanted freedom, a change of clothes, a proper shower instead of a bedwash, privacy, you...”
A pause. Both minds working overtime. Awkward thoughts unspoken. Each entangled in a recurring shockwave to twist and stab at the comfortable certainties of their lives.
“Look,” he said at length. “I know what you’re thinking. We’ve both got to come to terms with what’s happened. With the past.”
She nodded. “That’s it, isn’t it? It’s an enormous chunk out of both our pasts. Are we up to it? Is it something we can face together? Or do we have to do this alone?”
Ashok paced the small room for a few nervous seconds. Then he swung around to Hannah. “I can’t speak for you. We all have own way of dealing with trauma. All I know is that I’d rather tackle this with you than without you.”
“Are you sure? You seem…”
“What?”
“You seemed to be wrestling with your conscience just now.”
He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked steadily into her eyes. “Hannah. You remember what I told about reaching a crossroad? How life had been too easy for me?”
She nodded. “I remember. You said Maighréad took the final decision out of your hands.”
“Yes. But this time, no one’s going to take the decision away from me. No crossroad this time. Only one way to go. I’m doing this because I love you. Not because I need to prove anything to myself.”
She spoke slowly. “We have to promise each other, though—no deceit, no lies. Cards on the table. Honesty. Always. We’ve both had our lives shattered by someone we trusted. I will find it very hard to trust anyone ever again.”
“That’s why we’re so right for each other. We understand each other in a way nobody else can.” He sat down and took her hand. “I promise you, you will never have cause to doubt me.”
* * * *
Willi’s flimsy postcard arrived at the hotel on New Year’s Day. It was postmarked Cochin and showed a poor reproduction of rural Kerala—tranquil waters against a backcloth of waving palms. In the foreground, an ancient Chinese fishing net, slung across the sea like gauze across a stage to separate reality from dreams. On the back, a scribbled note, squashed to fit into the small space.
Brilliant here. Staying at cool palace on island in bay. Coconut palms, paddy fields, and blue, blue sea. What more can a girl want? (Don’t answer that!).
I’ve signed up as a deck hand on a three-master sailing to Amsterdam on 4th January. Why don’t you come down for a few days before then? You’ll love it!
Hugs,
Willi.
“Why not?” Ashok said. “Let it be our honeymoon.”
“A honeymoon before the wedding,” she replied. “All right then. Let’s go. I think I can hobble well enough to get around now.”
* * * *
Ashok braced himself. The atmosphere at home was fat with the unresolved matter of his marriage plans, his mad dash to Nanjangud, and his continual absence from the family fold. The subject of Hannah hung like a poised avalanche over them. There had been no more talk of inviting her to the house. Now he had to tell them that he was off to Kerala. They would all know. He wouldn’t even have to mention Hannah.
As it happened, it was his sister, Priya, who forged an opening to the discussion. Ashok had left Hannah to rest at the Chamundi until the evening and gone home for lunch. For once, the whole family was together. Not because it was New Year’s Day. That meant very little to them. Priya had just returned from a field trip in the Western Ghats, where she had spent the past week studying the movement of elephants as part of her Forestry degree course. Incensed at first that the trip coincided with Ashok’s visit home, she had been unable to change it. Now she was bursting to catch up with the news.
“So tell, Ashok! I can’t wait to hear what you have been up to. Have you found girl of your dreams?” Her eyes sparkled with anticipation, and her enthusiasm and innocence numbed her to the tension around her.
Ashok cursed inwardly. He was under no illusions. His own plans could have a devastating effect on Priya’s future. Some months previously, she had agreed to marry Harsha, a young dentist living in Canada. It was this arrangement that had opened the way for Ashok’s own marriage. In keeping with tradition, his parents would have preferred Priya to marry before him. However, she insisted on first completing her studies. Like Janaki, Ashok reflected bitterly. Why did Priya have to be so stubborn? If only the marriage had already taken place. But now how would Harsha’s family feel when Ashok’s news broke? Would they still accept Harsha’s commitment to Priya? It was one hell of a mess.
He knew that he could no longer expect any support from his father. At first, Srinivasa had taken a philosophical line and had apparently convinced himself that Ashok’s infatuation with the English girl was a temporary aberration that would not, in the long run, affect his relationship with Janaki. Lately, however, Srinivasa’s patience had worn thin. His mood of appeasement had hardened in line with Ashok’s inexplicable behavior of the preceding days. Now, Srinivasa wanted the matter settled.
Ah well. Nothing for it, Ashok decided. Time to smash open the termites’ nest and break the news.
But Srinivasa cut in before he had a chance to open his mouth. “He has a very nice girl in mind. Janaki. Is it not so, Ashok?”
Another lost moment. Like so many recently. Ashok struggled to let his father down gently. “Bapa, Janaki is a very nice girl. But she is not wanting to marry for many years yet. She is intending to complete PhD studies first. This could take four, five years—”
“A clever student can complete in three. And even if it is taking longer, Janaki is young, twenty only. As long as matter is settled, no rush.”
Girija, hovering with a plate of chapatis in her hand, had been regarding Ashok through anxious, motherly eyes. As ever, he reflected, in her quiet, undemonstrative fashion, she had a way of knowing his thoughts. However, she kept silent, eyes now downcast, resigned.
“I have spoken to Janaki’s father,” Srinivasa continued. “It would seem that the girl will not be persuaded to consent to marriage before studies are finished. It would appear, Ashok, that already you and she have come to some arrangement.”
Ashok looked up sharply. “Arrangement? What arrangement? We were telling only we would write.”
“There, you see.” Srinivasa sat back. “As good as settled. A few loose ends only. And this match will be approved by Harsha’s family also. Now we can put our minds to Priya’s wedding.”
“Bapa...” Ashok began to protest. His father was blinding himself. Refusing to accept the obvious. Then he saw his sister’s anim
ated face. Not the moment to explode the myth. Better to tackle Bapa in private. Or talk to Amma or Ajji first. He caught his grandmother’s eye. Shrewd. Conspiratorial even. She was no fool. Like Amma, she knew. But somehow he felt she would understand, if not condone. Amma, no. It was tearing her apart.
“I have to go away for a few days,” he announced coldly.
“Again? Is it too much that you should spend at least small part of your holiday with your family?”
“It’s just for two nights, Bapa. After that, I’ll be here for another two weeks.”
“So where is it to be this time?”
“Kerala. My Dutch friend is in Cochin. I should like to say goodbye to her before she sails for Amsterdam on fourth.”
Questions left unspoken. Ashok knew their thoughts. Alone? With the English friend? Answers that would be unbearable for them to hear. Protest was useless.
Instead, a faint nod from Srinivasa, clearly searching in brave desperation for a reason to justify his son’s action and thus make the pill less bitter. “After all,” he said to the women, “it will be at least three years before the wedding. Ashok is a healthy young man. He cannot be expected to shun company of women until Janaki is finished with studying.”
Lakshmi Devi said nothing. Priya and Girija scuttled back into the kitchen to disguise their disappointment in a flurry of culinary activity.
Later that afternoon, Ashok paid his grandmother a visit in her rooms downstairs.
Here it was cool under the fan, away from the oppressive heat. The room smelled of sandalwood and frangipani. Lakshmi Devi had been burning incense in her little shrine room behind the ornately carved teak doors. She was seated in the corner of the couch, as insubstantial as a wisp of curling incense smoke. Carefully and with slow deliberation, she rearranged the silk of her fine cream sari around herself.
“So,” she said at length. “You have come to tell me something.”
Ashok took her small, bony hand in his. “Ajji...”
But she placed a trembling finger over his lips. “Ashok, think, my child, before you are telling me secrets of your heart. Is it really that you are wanting to place this burden on me? After all, I cannot help you. It is for you to weigh up consequences of your decision and act according to your conscience.”
“Ajji. I have already decided. I am going to—”
“Then is no further discussion necessary, isn’t it? Ashok, whatever you are deciding, you must be telling your parents first, no? And the girl, Janaki. She has a right to know your decision also.”
“I have tried to tell Bapa. He refuses to listen. I have to find right moment. Tomorrow I am going away. But I will tell them, Ajji, I promise, before I return to England. And now I must go. I have some parcels to deliver.”
He stood up and quietly opened the door.
“Ashok.” He stopped and turned. “Know that whatever you will be deciding, you have my blessing.”
Ajji: wise and fragile like an ancient, lovingly carved Saraswathi.
By the time Ashok had torn himself away from the effusive hospitality of Dr. Patel’s mother-in-law, it was early evening. He caught an autorickshaw to the Chamundi. There was no answer when he knocked on Hannah’s hotel room door.
Worried, he went back down to the reception desk. “Is there a message for Dr. Rao from Miss Petersen?”
The receptionist leafed through a pile of papers. “No, Sir. No message. But she was checking out not half hour ago. I myself procured a car to take her to airport.”
* * * *
Hannah’s departure was inexplicable to Ashok. He had rushed to the airport after her. At Bangalore airport, there was chaos. The usual crowds were thicker than ever, and airport officials were turning back non-ticket-holders. The Chief Minister of Karnataka was expected from Delhi. Only passengers were allowed inside the building. Goodbyes had to be said outside. Ashok was stopped at the terminal doors. Still he scrutinized the scrum of travelers for hours. He checked the timetable of departing aircraft. Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai. She could have been on any of them. As night fell, he tore himself away and went back to the Chamundi. Perhaps there had been a mistake. But no. No mistake. No message. Nothing.
Next day, Ashok flew down to Cochin as they had planned, in the hope that Hannah had gone there. Willi was waiting for him at the airport. Alone. She could offer no explanation for Hannah’s disappearance. She was as baffled as he was.
For the next two days, they toured the churches and synagogues, palaces and temples in and around Cochin. They scoured the backwaters, the restaurants, the hotels, but the search was fruitless. By the evening of the third of January, Ashok was drained, bewildered, and bereft of all hope of finding Hannah. The emptiness inside him mauled his senses.
Willi’s ganja was comforting. Her bed was warm and inviting. He needed to be held.
When he awoke with a headache next morning, she was lying next to him, grinning.
“Thanks,” she said. “You don’t know how much I wanted that.”
Ashok stared at the ceiling. “What the hell were we thinking of?”
“Well, you certainly know how to make a girl feel good.”
“Sorry,” he said sharply, “but you know what I mean. Damn. What a mess.”
“Chill out, Ashok. It’s not a major crime. Hannah would understand.”
“I doubt that. It won’t happen again.”
She laughed it off. “I’ll live off the memory. How about you? Feel any better?”
He softened. “If I don’t, it’s not your fault. Thanks for trying.”
“The pleasure was all mine.”
“Not all.”
“You’re a star, Ashok. Come on. I don’t want them to sail without me.”
That afternoon, Ashok saw Willi onto the three-masted schooner, Helena. He stood on the dockside and waved as the ship slowly pulled out to sea. He felt empty, lonely, as he realized that he would probably never see Willi again. They had, in their confusion, forgotten to exchange addresses.
Back at his parents’ house, discretion reigned. It didn’t take the women long to realize that the Englishwoman had slipped from the scene. Srinivasa, though, appeared not to notice the change in Ashok’s demeanor; how he was distracted, downbeat, morose even. His father did not comment on the constant telephone calls to hotels—the Chamundi, the Pandava in Chennai, even the Krishna in Hyderabad, asking whether a red-haired Englishwoman was staying there. When Ashok took a car to Mysore, Srinivasa openly speculated that his son was paying a secret visit to Janaki, despite overhearing his arrangement with the driver, to drive on from Mysore via Nanjangud to Bandipur.
Srinivasa clearly chose to block out of his mind the call to the police in Mamallapuram and overseas calls to directory enquiries in England, where Miss Hannah Petersen’s telephone number appeared to be unlisted. There were also the calls to some publishing company in London, where a Mr. Duncan Forbes was never available, and never rang back despite being entreated to do so. Srinivasa managed to sail through Ashok’s troubled seas as nimbly as a seal in an Arctic storm, refusing to be distracted from steering a sure course to an eventual liaison between Ashok and Janaki.
“I myself will be traveling to Mysore weekend next to visit family,” he announced cheerfully.
Girija and Priya exchanged anxious glances. They were perfectly aware, as was Srinivasa, that all was not well with Ashok, but, unlike him, they were not able to hide behind the electric fence of obstinate determination. Ashok himself appeared oblivious to, or did not care about, his father’s machinations.
The day before Ashok was due to return to England, Girija found him walking in the garden, amidst her potted jungle foliage, absently clipping the new shoots off an ancient coffee bush with his thumb nail.
“That is not a good idea. It will stop tree from growing, Ashok.”
Ashok shrugged.
“What is it, my son? I know all has not been well since your English friend has departed. But we must clear up this matter before you ar
e returning to UK. Your father has all but agreed to a marriage with Janaki. Does this arrangement suit, or no?”
Ashok turned to his mother with glazed, uninterested eyes. “Does it suit you?”
“Me? Well, yes. Although I am wishing it could be happening sooner. But it is the girl’s will, and you, I believe, are agreeable to wait.”
“It is soon enough for me, Amma. Do as you wish. I respect your decision.”
Despite Girija’s evident relief, the look on his face must have told her that the fight had gone out of him. Thus he knew, although he was helpless to alter the fact, that her happiness was tempered by great unease.
Just before the taxi arrived to take him to the airport, Ashok paid a last, lone visit to his grandmother.
“I’ve come to say goodbye, Ajji.”
Lakshmi Devi nodded and clasped his hands between hers. “Try to be happy, Ashok.”
“I’ll try, Ajji.”
The old lady looked at him tenderly but unflinchingly. “She has left you?”
Ashok nodded, avoiding her frank gaze.
“Then perhaps she is wiser than you understood.”
He looked at her uncomprehending.
“All is for the best, my boy. You will see. All is for the best.”
Chapter 16
The rain hit Ashok like an icy slap around the face when he stepped out of the taxi in Richmond and struggled with his suitcase up the slippery steps to his flat. He opened the door with frozen, shivering hands and pushed his way inside, against the resistance of four weeks’ accumulated mail.
“Damn!” he cursed. “What the hell has happened to Mrs. Maxwell?” It was instantly clear that his twice-weekly cleaner had not been doing her job. The place was freezing, despite her promise to “have the flat all warm and snug for you when you get back, Doctor.” It even smelled damp and neglected.
