Under the Jeweled Sky

by Alison McQueen

  He stood up, feet unsteady. “I have to go,” he said, then began to pace up and down as if trapped, wanting to push the walls down and run. “I have to leave.”

  His aunt got up and took hold of him, grasping his arms firmly.

  “Jagaan! Look at me!”

  He turned his face away. Sophie. His Sophie. She had borne a child, his child, and he had not even known about it. Now he realized why the gods had made the doctor disappear. He was not meant to follow the doctor. He had been destined to come here all along.

  “Jagaan!” His aunt pulled at him hard. “Listen to me!”

  “I can’t stay,” he said.

  “You must,” she told him. “You uncle has already gone. He took the advocate with him and the barber. They left two weeks ago.” Jag stared at her, his mouth opening mutely. “What did you think?” she said softly, reaching to his face. “Did you think we would leave a child of our family to the mercy of strangers?” She smiled at him, a painful smile filled with happiness and sorrow. “They have gone to claim him,” she said. She steadied him as he sank to his haunches, the breath knocked out of him. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “They will bring your son home.”

  1959

  Francis Xavier Nursing Home, Delhi

  39

  The rains over, Delhi emerged renewed from the damp fog of winter’s chill. The thick smell of wood smoke and dung fires lifted, the air now clear and blue and laced with the scent of hibiscus and frangipani where slumbering borders had miraculously sprung back into life. Sophie leaned back in her chair and lifted her face to the sun, its springtime warmth soothing against her skin. Her father had insisted upon moving her to the nursing home some weeks earlier, with its charming gardens and manicured lawns, neat paths cutting through them, wide enough to take small exercise on the supportive arm of a nurse, comfortable white wicker chairs set out here and there beneath the wide veranda.

  “You are looking so much better, memsa’b.”

  “Thank you, John.” Sophie smiled from behind her dark glasses, the two of them taking tea in the shade. The pleasant surroundings had come as a blessing after the starkness of the hospital, and her father had been quite right. She had still been suffering from the shock of it all, and just because her scars had begun to heal hadn’t meant that she was well again.

  She had known that it was gone from the moment she woke up from the second surgery, feeling the emptiness beneath a haze of morphine. It had all happened so fast, the onslaught of blood, the nurse’s confusion, the way she had been rushed to the theater again. No one had said anything to her afterward, yet she knew. It had been written on their faces, a cloak of sympathy creased so deeply into every touch, every bravely born smile. It was over for her now, all choice removed, and she must come to terms with it, like she had with so many other things. Who knows what this life will deal to us? she thought. Perhaps her mother had been right, her sins so great that she would be made to atone for them for the rest of her days. And atone for them she had, in spades. Sophie moved a little in her chair, adjusting one of the cushions, smarting briefly from a sharp twinge in her abdomen, still tender.

  They had taken good care of her here, but she would not be sorry to leave. It was as though part of her had expired, left for dead in a devastated drawing room on that terrible morning when the world fell in around her. The part of her that remained, the part that had survived this, felt strangely alive now, as though it too had woken from a winter slumber, like the flowers in the garden. Everything was different now. She wasn’t afraid any more.

  “I won’t be coming back to the house,” she said.

  “No, memsa’b.”

  “But I think you probably knew that already.”

  “Yes, memsa’b.”

  “Have you received any news about Mr. Grainger?”

  “No, memsa’b.”

  “No word at all still?”

  “Nothing, mem.”

  No one had seen hide nor hair of Lucien. At least, that had been the official line, although it had been obvious that someone must have assisted him in his disappearance. The police had been too busy dealing with the matter laid out so unequivocally before them: Tony Hinchbrook, a smoking gun in his hand that he had attempted to turn upon himself before it was wrestled from him.

  On her arrival at the hospital, the first priority had been to attend to Sophie’s injuries, and by the time the details began to emerge—the terrible fight John had heard behind the barricaded door, the smashing of furniture, the way she had been screaming—Lucien was already gone.

  The passenger lists showed that he had taken a flight to Karachi. Where he had gone from there, nobody knew. The police inspector had said that he had probably got on a ship, and they wouldn’t have a hope of finding out which one, his file quickly closed and swept under the carpet. It was not police business, as far as he was concerned, a woman caught having relations with a guard and being beaten by her husband. She should count herself lucky. If he ever caught his wife with another man, he would have killed the fellow as well, and her too.

  “There have been some rumors,” John said. “The cook from number eight heard them talking at one of the memsa’b’s dinners. He said that he had heard that Mr. Grainger had gone to South America, to Argentina. He wanted to borrow some money, but I don’t think they sent him any. One of the memsa’bs was very angry about it.”

  “I see,” Sophie said. They would have sent him the money, of course. That was the way of it with that set, closing ranks, disposing of problems quietly and efficiently behind a diplomatic smokescreen. Tony Hinchbrook too had been removed, extracted from police custody by the powers-that-be at the British Consulate. They would clear up their own mess, they insisted, and the chief of police was only too happy to oblige, once his department’s expenses had been disbursed, of course, his own pockets comfortably filled. Hinchbrook had been flown back to London, to be dealt with by the Home Secretary, his name quietly erased from the lips of all who remained in New Delhi. These things happened now and then, dreadful scandals that had to be cleaned up posthaste to minimize the embarrassment.

  It was rare that a situation ever blew up in their faces like this. Usually they were containable, passed over as unpleasant gossip that could be overlooked provided nobody went about parading their sordid little peccadilloes. June Smythson carrying on with their bearer, for instance, or Jim Bevan’s penchant for the company of young Indian men. One did whatever one had to, to bear a dystopian, transient life of foreign cities and unfamiliar customs, of rigid etiquette and high manners frozen in aspic. It was another world, a tiny microcosm of stagnant ideals and old-fashioned thinking. Sophie would not miss it, not for one second. It had been like living in a sealed jam jar: no air, no space, the view to the outside just an unreliable distortion of reality.

  “We will have new people coming to the house soon?”

  “Yes, John. I expect so.”

  “We will all miss you very much.”

  “Thank you, John. That is kind of you. Dr. George will be coming to tie up any loose ends. I have decided to go back with him to Ooty for a while. If you could have my things packed up by the weekend, I would very much appreciate it. All I want is my clothes and personal effects. The things from my dressing table and so forth. There won’t be terribly much. Two trunks should do it, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, memsa’b.”

  “If it runs to any more than that, then you’ll have to cull some of it. I’ll leave it to you to decide what stays and what goes, but I don’t want to be bogged down with a lot of pointless clutter. It doesn’t do.”

  “Yes, memsa’b. What about Mr. Grainger’s things?”

  “Do whatever you like with them.”

  “But won’t he be wanting them?”

  “I really don’t know, John. And I’m not sure that I care either. I suppose you could ask Mrs. Hinchbrook
if she knows where he would like them sent.” She slipped John a dry smile. “She seemed to know more about my husband’s whereabouts than I ever did.”

  “Yes,” John said. “And she is currently knowing the whereabouts of the husband at number eleven.”

  Sophie regarded him closely for a moment. “I’m sorry about all this fuss, John. Heaven only knows how it looks to you, all these lies and tawdry behavior. You must think us all savages.”

  “I don’t think anything, memsa’b.”

  “Of course you do.” She gave a resigned tut. “And you are very kind to keep those thoughts to yourself. I want to thank you for that and for all you have done for me.”

  “You do not need to thank me, memsa’b.”

  Sophie sighed to herself. “What a terrible mess.”

  “Do not feel bad, memsa’b. It is not good for you.”

  “No,” she said. “What’s done is done. The future is what matters now. Not the past.”

  “And you will have a good future, memsa’b.”

  “Thank you, John. I do hope so.”

  “There is no need for you to hope.” John smiled at her and pointed to the wide blue sky. “It is written.”

  They sat and drank tea for a while, John helping himself to a biscuit. He would miss the memsahib, but he would not miss all the trouble, the fighting and arguing and the husband’s bad temper and keeping him out with the car until four o’clock in the morning. Still, he liked working in the British houses. They paid much more than the Indians. He finished his biscuit and thought about taking another. Perhaps the next people would be better. They had been talking about it at the house, him, the cook, the gardener, and the maid. They would all say that they were being paid fifty rupees a month more than they were. The new people would be bound to match it without question, and Mrs. Grainger would not be around to enlighten them.

  “So you are going to Ooty, mem?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very nice. Very…picturesque.” John nodded approvingly, as though he knew the place well, although he had never been. His family had come from the Punjab, part of the mass migration into Delhi that had taken place a decade before, and he had never left the city after that. “Very clean air,” he added.

  “Do you know it?”

  “Oh, no, memsa’b. But I have heard about it, from Dr. George.”

  “You are to take good care of him when he arrives and make sure that he eats properly.”

  “Yes, memsa’b. Dilip knows what he likes.”

  “This has all been very upsetting for him.”

  “It has been upsetting for everyone, mem. Bhavat Singh, one of the other guards, was most upset. He was very shocked about the whole thing. I think he was very good friends with the man who died.”

  “With Jagaan Ramakrishnan?”

  “Oh yes, mem. He saw to it himself that his things were sent back to his family and that he was paid the wages he was owed. Every month he was sending money to his family. I think they relied on it very much. Bhavat Singh went to a lot of trouble. He has a son of about the same age. Perhaps that is why he felt so sorry about it.”

  Sophie felt her face tighten. “What?”

  John put his cup down and looked at her cautiously. “Memsa’b?” All the color had drained from her face. “Are you all right, memsa’b?”

  Sophie felt herself liquefy. Her hands started to tremble, her breathing suddenly difficult.

  “Memsa’b?”

  “The dead man.” She pressed a hand to her throat. “Are you telling me that he had a son?”

  “Yes, mem.” John shifted awkwardly in his seat. He had said something bad, and he had no idea what it was. She looked like she had been struck by lightning.

  “Who told you this?” she asked quietly.

  “The other guard, Bhavat Singh.”

  “And did he tell you how old the son is?”

  “No, memsa’b.” John tried to think quickly. “But I can ask him.”

  “Did he say where the boy was?”

  “Amritsar,” John said. “He had been sending his wages there every month.”

  Sophie folded in her seat, closing her eyes, murmuring oh my God, oh my God, over and over.

  “Nurse!” John got up from the table and rushed inside. “Nurse! Come quickly!”

  40

  George Schofield sat on the edge of the empty bed, sheets stripped, shafts of sunlight streaming through the windows. He watched his daughter gather the last of her toiletries into her case, the scar across her cheekbone less red where the stitches had knitted neatly together. He would have killed him, killed him with his bare hands had he been given the chance, but Lucien had been long gone by the time he received the news. For a while, a whisper had circulated that he had been seen in South America, in Buenos Aires, but the rumor was never substantiated. Even if it had been, what was he going to do about it? Fly off to another continent and go searching for him so that he could beat him to within an inch of his life? The thought had crossed his mind.

  George had been furious when he discovered that Lucien had fled, that they had let him escape like that from right under their noses. He didn’t mince his words with the police, nor indeed with the men from the embassy. The police didn’t give a damn. It had even been intimated by the chief inspector that his daughter had brought the trouble upon herself. The men from the embassy were less insensitive to Dr. Schofield’s rage and assured him that Lucien would be utterly ruined, a persona non grata, unable to show his face anywhere. His career was over, and should he ever turn up, he would of course be arrested and detained, although the chances of that ever happening were pretty much nonexistent. Dr. Schofield thought of Lucien often, a dozen times a day or more, fantasizing about having him in his grasp. It was the first thing he had prayed for in years, hoping to God that he would get his comeuppance and that when it came to him it would be terrible. He envisaged him a bloated mess, living in poverty and squalor in some godforsaken place, riddled with disease and taken to a slow, painful death. He wished the worst things imaginable upon him, things that he never thought himself capable of thinking, taking from it some small compensation, all the anger and hatred he had gathered through his life concentrated on that one man. He took a few deep breaths. One of these days he would have to let these feelings go, before they poisoned him.

  Sophie clicked her case shut and sat in the chair beside him.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked her.

  “Yes,” she said. “I have never been more certain of anything in my life.”

  “Then let me come with you.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. I want to do this on my own.”

  He let out a weighty sigh. “I wish you’d change your mind.”

  “I can’t.” She shrugged and smiled at him. “You do understand that, don’t you?” Her father nodded at her. “I have to go. My son is there. I am sure of it.”

  “What if it is not him?”

  “Dad. We’ve talked about this already.”

  “He could have got married and had a child by his wife.”

  “There is no wife.”

  “The man said he had a wife and that she was dead.”

  “He was lying,” Sophie said. “Of course he’s going to say that he had a dead wife. How else was he going to explain a son?”

  “You’re chasing dreams, Sophie.” Dr. Schofield took his daughter’s hand. “I can understand it, with everything that’s happened. It’s been a terrible shock for you, but this will just lead to more heartache.”

  “I don’t care. If I don’t go, I will never know. Don’t you see? This is my only chance. St. Bride’s has gone. There are no records. You can’t seriously expect me to just sit here and do nothing?”

  “Then let me come with you.”

  “No.”

  “Or at least take one
of the staff.”

  “I am perfectly capable of getting on a train, and they’re not my staff any more.”

  “Sophie, Sophie.” Dr. Schofield sighed to himself. “How much more pain are you going to put yourself through?”

  “Pain?” She smiled at him. “You think this is pain? This isn’t pain, Dad. It’s hope, real hope. Do you have any idea what it has been like for me to live like this, knowing that I had a son that I gave away, simply because he wasn’t convenient? Can you imagine what it’s like to deal with that, day after day, or the loathing I feel for the terrible thing I did?” Her father studied the floor, nodding silently. “And what if I do find him? For all I know, he may not even realize that I exist. He might think he’s somebody else’s child. And even if he did know me, he might walk right up to me and spit in my face. Do you think I haven’t thought about these things?”

  “You must have,” Dr. Schofield said.

  “Of course I have. It makes me sick, down to the pit of my stomach.”

  “What if you get there and he is not your child?”

  “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.” She broke off, her mouth set into a hard line. “If he is not my son, then I shall tell him what a brave man his father was, and that he sacrificed his life in order to save a man who was not worthy to breathe the same air as him.”

  “Sophie…”

  “And then I will offer the family anything that I can give, and more, because nothing I ever do can ever make up for the loss they have suffered.”

  “Sophie. Don’t upset yourself.”

  She leaned forward in her seat, face in her hands, rocking gently, as though trying to comfort herself. Dr. Schofield watched her, feeling impotent, unable to reach out and touch her. This fate was as much his doing as hers. Would it have been so very bad if they had kept the baby? Yes, he thought quietly. Yes, it would have.

  “I have to go,” she said. “I have to go and find out, otherwise I shall never be able to live with myself. It is already hard enough. Nothing could be worse than this.” She lifted her head. “And if he is not my son, then so be it, and I promise I will let it go.”