The Kashmir Shawl

by Rosie Thomas

  Evan felt keenly the precarious position of their own much younger mission, and the pitiful size of his congregation compared with the numbers who made their way to worship at the Moravian church. He condemned himself for his lack of achievements, practical as well as spiritual.

  ‘You don’t have to think of it in that way. They are our Christian brothers, and we are doing the same work,’ Nerys had once said.

  Their fellow missionaries were currently an Englishman, who had spent all his ordained life working for the Moravian church in India and was soon to retire, and a middle-aged Belgian couple. For the endless months of the winter they had been almost the only other European residents in Leh, and Nerys had grown to like all three of them. It had been Madame Gompert, with Diskit, who had nursed and comforted her through the blood and grief of the miscarriage.

  She hadn’t said anything this evening, and it had been Evan who had put down his knife and fork and closed his book. ‘Nerys, I have something to discuss with you.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It will soon be winter again.’

  She could hardly be unaware of that. This year, now she knew about the depths of cold and silence, the monotony of eating the same food, the frozen water in their washing jugs, and the isolation of their little world, she thought that she would deal with it better. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t sit here in the mission all that time. In summer when I go out to villages and the nomad camps, the people are almost all out with the herds. But if I went in the winter, do you see, they would be in the settlements. They will have less work to do and I would have their attention.’

  Nerys considered this. There were tracks out to villages in the valley, and hazardous routes over the mountains to outlying gompas and clusters of huts surrounding them, but she could only just imagine what it would be like to travel through snow and wind when the temperature fell to nought degrees Fahrenheit.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ she said.

  Evan was silent.

  Look at me, she willed him. At last their eyes met.

  He wasn’t hostile towards her, neither did he blame her in the least, but the loss of the baby had tipped them over the lip of a divide. As much as he had wanted the child, Evan also needed her to be strong and dependable in the joint enterprise that preoccupied him. Her physical frailty since the miscarriage and the unspoken weighty mass of her sadness suggested that her strength was no longer available for him to draw on. In some recess of his consciousness he resented the withdrawal, and that resentment must loom in his mind as yet another of the personal failings he was obliged to atone for.

  They were at an impasse, Nerys wearily concluded. They couldn’t talk to each other: it had been his child as well as hers and, of course, Evan grieved for it, but he put up too many defences against her and she had lost the will to try to break through them. She felt the beginnings of anger, too, at his weakness, which was so determinedly masked with stubbornness.

  ‘I couldn’t agree to that,’ he said, in his most wintry voice. ‘You must take better care of yourself than I could undertake to do if we were both out in the field.’

  Nerys looked away from him. She closed her mouth, knowing that it made a tight line in her white face. ‘You would prefer it if I stayed here alone?’

  Evan was surprised. ‘You won’t be alone. You will have the schoolchildren, the congregation, the Gomperts, Henry Buller and our other neighbours. And the servants will look after you.’

  Very slowly Nerys folded up her napkin and replaced it in the wooden ring. She stood up, supporting herself briefly with her hand on the back of her chair. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  She went across the passage to the kitchen door. Diskit was sluicing plates and cutlery in a tin basin, her pomaded hair wound up in a cloth because Nerys had told her it must always be covered when she was working. The red of the material matched her cheeks. Two men were sitting on a bench against the wall, their yak-skin boots discarded beside the door leading to the yard. Diskit dropped a fistful of forks on to a metal tray and Nerys inwardly winced at the noise. ‘Diskit, what’s this?’

  ‘Mem, Leh very busy. My cousin brother,’ she nodded to one of the two men, ‘come from Alchi.’

  ‘Julley,’ the men murmured.

  The girl had learnt a smattering of English from Evan’s predecessor, and Nerys had picked up a basic level of Ladakhi. They communicated well, these days, only rarely having to resort to sign language.

  Leh was busy. It was trading season and the caravans were in town, from Lhasa, Yarkand and Kashgar in the east and from Punjab in the west. The merchants from Tibet and Turkestan brought carpets, gold and silver to trade with their Indian counterparts for cotton and tea. The local people had wool and woollen goods for sale, every quality from coarse yak fibre to finest pashm, and the bazaar seethed all day with different faces and national dresses, and a clamour of languages. The British joint commissioner was also in residence. He was responsible for traffic and trade, and every trader had to apply to him for a passport to enable him to retreat in whichever direction he had come before the winter snows cut off the ancient routes.

  The next day the commissioner was holding his annual tea party and entertainment at the Residency, to which Evan and Nerys had been invited along with everyone else of any standing in Leh. They had arrived just too late last year, and Nerys was looking forward to this great event as a rare break from their dutiful and monotonous routine. She had few decent clothes to choose from, but the dhobi man had laundered her best blouse and she had ironed it herself, to avoid the creases he invariably pressed into the collar along with a liberal sprinkling of ashes from the iron. She had just finished knitting herself a cardigan. It was soft cream wool, locally spun and the best available, and her job this evening was to add the finishing touch of a dozen pearl buttons.

  ‘Mem, I tell you,’ Diskit’s cheeks turned even redder, ‘my cousin, on road. Sahib and memsahib, English people. Leh tomorrow. Next week Srinagar.’

  The two men nodded vigorously. The cousin did some voluble explaining, from which Nerys was able to decipher that a shooting party was returning from the Nubra valley. There were bearers and cooks, a shikari, or huntsman, camp-boys, a great bag of game heads, ponies, guns, tents and mounds of luggage, all the trappings of a serious expedition. The shooting party consisted of an English gentleman and lady.

  This was real news.

  English travellers passing through Leh were a focus of attention whoever they might be, but it was most unusual to hear of any Western woman undertaking the journey out to the remote east. Nerys wondered what she could be like. Curiosity, the prospect of the party, and the hope of some fresh conversation and unusual entertainment revived her to the point that she felt almost herself again. She forgot all about Evan, sitting over his book at the dining-table.

  ‘Mem, I tell you,’ Diskit was insisting. There was still more news to impart.

  Nerys gathered that the travellers on the way out had stayed in the dak bungalow between Leh and Thikse, which was why she had not met them before. This was a small house provided for British government or other officials who were in the area and needed temporary accommodation. She knew that it was a comfortless place with mildewed walls, and drifts of dead flies on the windowsills, and she was not at all surprised to hear that the visitors were looking for alternative accommodation this time. Because of the party tomorrow, the Residency was unfortunately already overcrowded.

  She said at once, ‘They must stay here.’

  The Watkinses had welcomed very few visitors to the mission, because most of the Europeans passing directly through Leh either went to the Residency or stayed with the Gomperts. Henry Buller’s house was generally better avoided. She was already running through in her head what needed to be done. Air the sheets, light the fire under the boiler so there would be enough hot water. Jugs and basins. Towels, a posy of flowers for the bedroom table. How to add some elegant touch to their sparse menus for the n
ext few days?

  ‘Diskit, first thing tomorrow you will clean bedroom. Wash floor, all dusting, inside cupboard, everywhere.’

  Diskit nodded, serious at the importance of this charge. ‘My cousin, tell sahib on road?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Nerys turned to one of the men on the bench. ‘Go back to the camp, say they are welcome here. Can you remember that? Welcome.’

  When she had finally gone to tell him the latest, Evan had still been sitting at the table with the remains of dinner at his elbow. ‘Where is Diskit? What do we pay her for? Am I to do the washing up, or might she find the time?’

  ‘Evan, we’re going to have guests tomorrow.’

  He had listened with a frown. Nerys’s reaction had been curiosity followed by anticipation, but his was defensive. The arrival of strangers in their home meant disruption and threatened worse: exposure, or some unnamed humiliation. His expression had made Nerys want to draw his head against her breasts and stroke his greying hair, telling him that he shouldn’t worry or fear so much, but there was no longer any protocol between them for such a move. The weariness that she had felt earlier had descended on her again.

  ‘Diskit will come in a moment. Her cousin brought a message from the road, and I gave her a list of things to do before the morning. I’m going to bed now, Evan. Tomorrow will be a busy day.’

  ‘I won’t be more than half an hour,’ he had called after her.

  Now sleep was a long way off. Nerys battled her rising resentment that Evan had slid so easily into unconsciousness while she lay wide awake and lonely, and increasingly disturbed by the latest disagreement between them.

  She wondered if her husband was even aware that they had fallen so far out of sympathy with each other. It was quite possible, she reflected, that she didn’t come high enough on his list of considerations to have made any recent impression at all.

  Stop it, Nerys warned herself. You will only cause more destruction if you think like that.

  Sleep. Just try to sleep.

  Her bones ached with the effort of not touching her husband’s oblivious body. She was too tired to let herself relax. The hours crawled by until the cocks started crowing.

  It was a little past the usual time for lunch when the travellers arrived. Nerys had taught the youngest children’s class, and she had told the older ones that they could go home once they had eaten their rice and lentils. The stragglers were still playing and chasing each other in the mission courtyard when laden horses picked their way to the street gate. Nerys and Evan heard the usual confused shouting and barking dogs that meant something out of the usual was happening. The schoolchildren crowded at the stone gateway and Nerys hurried across the cobbles to greet the guests.

  She saw a trim man in well-cut riding clothes and a wide-brimmed hat, and a woman holding the bridle of her pony and affectionately rubbing its nose. She was wearing puttees and breeches, and a long muslin veil was tied over her sola topi. A string of bearers and pony men were bringing up mud-and dust-caked bags. The woman looked up and saw Nerys. At once she passed the bridle to a pony man and with one gloved hand she rolled up her veil. She smiled a broad, frank smile, held out both hands and grasped Nerys’s. ‘Mrs Watkins, thank you so much for rescuing us like this,’ she said, in a warm, husky voice. ‘I can’t tell you what it means to Archie and me. One more night in a tent would have killed me off.’

  She was about Nerys’s height. Her eyes were the colour of peat, framed by arched black eyebrows. When she took off her sola topi it was a surprise to see that her dark hair was cropped short, like a man’s, but even in her riding clothes there was nothing else that was mannish about her. She had a luscious figure, with a narrow waist and long legs that were elegant even in breeches under a rough tweed coat.

  ‘Welcome to the mission.’ Nerys smiled back at her. ‘It’s not the Savoy, but it’s better than the dak bungalow.’

  The man had issued crisp instructions to his servants and now he came to introduce himself. ‘Mrs Watkins? How d’you do? I’m Archie McMinn. We’re in your debt.’ He was sandy-haired, tanned from the sun, with good-humoured blue eyes and a growth of wiry beard. He spoke with a slight Scots accent.

  ‘Myrtle. I’m Myrtle.’ His wife laughed.

  ‘Nerys.’ As they shook hands Nerys had an odd sense of recognition, as if she knew this woman already. She looked at Myrtle McMinn and she thought distinctly, I knew you must be somewhere. Here you are at last.

  She only said, ‘Come inside. You’ll want hot water, food on china plates, and clean sheets. I remember what it feels like, camping for weeks on end.’

  Evan came out into the courtyard, standing like a dark pillar in the sun. He shook hands with the newcomers, telling them that the Presbyterian mission was their home for as long as they needed it. Nerys gave him a quick smile of gratitude. Mission children slid between the four of them, gaping at the McMinns. Myrtle peeled off her gloves and rummaged in the pockets of her coat, bringing out sweets and distributing them between a thicket of hands.

  ‘Julley, all of you.’ She held the bag upside-down and shook it to show that it was empty. The children fell in behind her and followed her to the door of the house. Nerys firmly told them that it was time to go home, and shooed them away. She led the McMinns to their room.

  ‘You’ve made it so pretty,’ Myrtle cried. ‘Look, Archie. What luxury.’

  Nerys told them that Diskit would come with hot water and they were to ask her if there was anything else that they needed. Archie McMinn said that all they required was the pair of canvas holdalls that their bearer would carry in, once the worst of the dust and mud had been brushed off them. Everything else, including his game heads, would be taken with the ponies to camp near the polo ground at the southern edge of town.

  ‘His game bag is really all that matters, you see,’ Myrtle teased. ‘Two heads of giant mountain sheep with curly horns, two pairs of magnificent antler tops attached to their stags, and every other beast that was included in Archie’s permit as well. Otherwise we’d still be out there, you know.’

  ‘It was a shooting expedition, dearest girl,’ Archie said calmly. ‘What else did you expect?’

  The McMinns gave a relaxed impression. They were easy with each other, Nerys thought, happy to have reached civilisation and company after their demanding excursion into the mountains. But she thought they would have been just as happy to find themselves alone together. Diskit brought in the first of a series of hot-water jugs, and Nerys left the guests to change.

  Their arrival had lightened the tense atmosphere in the mission house. Diskit was singing as she crossed the passage, and Evan didn’t ask how much longer it was going to be before he could have his lunch. Nerys adjusted the spoons and forks on the table, then went across into the kitchen to check on the thukpa, the local vegetable stew that was Diskit’s most reliable dish.

  The guests soon reappeared. Archie had shaved off his beard, exposing a paler crescent of jaw and cheek. Myrtle was still in trousers but they were loose flannels now, worn with a pale shirt and a single strand of pearls. ‘I would have put on a frock,’ she said apologetically to Nerys, ‘but I haven’t got one with me. Do you mind?’

  Nerys smoothed the front panel of her old tweed skirt. ‘Of course not. You look … very pretty.’

  ‘No, I look like my brother.’

  Even as she ran her fingers through her short shingle with a dismissive shrug, no one would ever have mistaken Myrtle for a boy.

  Evan drew out Myrtle’s chair for her. Both the McMinns bowed their heads while he said a lengthy grace and the thukpa steamed in its bowl. Sun poured in through the small-paned window opposite Nerys, and she was glad to close her eyes for a few seconds and allow its warmth to fall on her eyelids. After her sleepless night she was so tired that she felt not quite real, as if she were missing a physical dimension. When she opened her eyes again, Myrtle was looking at her. Nerys didn’t mind her scrutiny. The feeling of recognition seemed to mean that there was no
thing to conceal.

  It was a cheerful meal. Evan liked Archie McMinn, that was clear, and he almost laughed at Myrtle’s tales of their adventures. No remote nullah had been left unexplored in Archie’s relentless pursuit of game. The McMinns had waded through rivers and crawled over mountain passes, slid down scree walls on the other side, to camp on bleak plains where hailstorms and gales had battered their tent. There was no firewood, no food for sale or barter, no human life for dozens of miles. Archie was up every morning, regardless of weather, eager with his guns and the huntsmen.

  ‘Myrtle’s friends are all in Srinagar, playing tennis or drinking cocktails at the club, but she insisted on coming out here with me,’ Archie protested. ‘What is a man to do? I would sacrifice anything for my wife – except sport, of course – but I cannot make a shooting trip comfortable for her.’

  Myrtle looked delighted. ‘Do you think I would have missed almost drowning or freezing to death? How many cocktails would it take to create such excitement? I don’t mind coming second to your love of stag hunting, darling. And I know you’ll understand why I had to come.’ She turned to Nerys. ‘Because you have accompanied your husband all the way up here.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to be left behind,’ Nerys agreed. ‘That wouldn’t make a marriage, would it?’ She couldn’t have defined what did, but the McMinns seemed to have discovered the secret.

  Evan wore an old-fashioned pocket watch, and Nerys guessed that he was longing to glance at it. He would have a sermon to work on or important letters to write. She was surprised, therefore, that when Archie said he would go outside for a smoke, Evan affably said he would come with him. They strolled into the sunshine and sat in lounge chairs, Evan lighting the pipe he rarely allowed himself.