The Kashmir Shawl

by Rosie Thomas

  He kicked out hard, into the man’s legs. The figure recoiled and scrambled to his feet. Ralph caught him by the arm and punched at his head. The pain from his knuckles shot up his arm and he cursed and almost overbalanced. It wasn’t a Japanese soldier at all, just a beggar. He had seen the wretch here before. He landed another more satisfactory punch. ‘Get out, damn you. Don’t let me catch you near my house again.’

  The beggar broke free. To Ralph’s amazement the man seized his arm and twisted it up behind his back. Pressing his mouth close to Ralph’s ear he hissed two or three words that Ralph didn’t understand. Then he flung him aside and loped away up the alley, barefoot, silent as a cat.

  Drink swirled in Ralph’s head again as he hung against the fence.

  Had there really been a man or was he in a dream?

  He was gone, anyway.

  He opened the door of the bungalow and the familiar smell of brass polish and insect powder and curry spice enveloped him. He wanted a nightcap, but what he had heard on the mess lawn nagged in his mind. Ask Caroline, ask his little wife for the truth, that was the thing to do …

  Their bedroom was pitch dark, but he sensed that she was awake.

  ‘I heard a funny story at the mess tonight,’ he shouted.

  The lamp clicked on. Caroline sat up and stared at him, her eyes wide. ‘Did you have a nice dinner?’

  ‘I heard a funny story,’ he repeated. ‘I heard you had a baby. My dear wife. What do you think of that?’

  Her hand shot up to her mouth. ‘What do you mean? Who said …?’

  So it was true.

  She looked shocked and utterly terrified, but not surprised.

  Ralph was breathing hard. At first it hadn’t struck him as particularly important, whatever Caroline had done while he was fighting to stay alive in Changi and Burma. Their marriage was a sham in any case, and what did any of it matter? But now the humiliation of the night in the mess, the treatment he had just received from a bloody beggar in the street, the fog of drink and the incessant pain in his body all rolled together. He wanted to howl like a dog. He wanted to lay his head down and for everything to stop hurting. He wanted his wife to stop whispering, and being afraid whenever he glanced at her, and act like a man.

  ‘Ra-vi Singh,’ he said, drawing out each syllable.

  Fear leapt in her eyes.

  Ralph had met him only a handful of times, years ago, but he had a sudden vision of the man’s dark, sneering, dismissive face. Ravi Singh was a native, even if he was the maharajah’s relative. Anger ballooned in him. He clenched his fists and swayed towards the bed. Caroline whimpered and threw up her arms to fend him off, and as she did so, he understood that what he hated most of all in her was her lack of spirit.

  He wasn’t going to hit her. He wasn’t ever going to strike a woman.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody feeble. You can tell your lover I’m going to kill him.’

  ‘Ralph, he’s not … he’s not my lover. I was stupid and lonely. He’s a wicked man. Don’t go near him. Please, I beg you not to.’

  ‘I am going to kill him,’ Ralph repeated. The idea made him feel much better. He remembered the way the butt of his service revolver fitted his hand.

  And so, a nightcap. That was what he needed now – now the decision was made.

  He swung away from the bed and made an unsteady diagonal to the door. In the sitting room the bottle stood ready on the tray. He hoisted it in a fist and collapsed into the armchair. No bed. Sleep here.

  Caroline lay rigid under the sheet.

  She had pledged secrecy, hoped and believed that she had kept it. Yet it seemed that her infidelity was the subject of mess gossip and, far, far worse than that, somehow the whole world knew all about her child.

  After a while her heart slowed a little. Disconnected thoughts ricocheted through her head. Trying to hide her pregnancy had been utterly foolish. It was what Myrtle would have done, if she had ever been stupid enough to make such a mistake in the first place, but Myrtle would have carried it off with élan.

  Her friendship with Nerys and Myrtle, the days on the Garden of Eden, the cricket match on the frozen lake, even Kanihama, all seemed to belong to another age. Caroline felt frozen, but blades of self-hatred stabbed through the ice.

  The only thing she could do was go to Ravi, tell him the whole truth and ask for his understanding.

  If he were to kill her, that wouldn’t matter. She thought she would even be glad of it. She couldn’t let Ralph go anywhere near him, though, because it was Ralph who would be hurt, or slaughtered.

  From that, at the very least, she would try to protect him.

  And then there was Zahra.

  She rolled on to her side, drawing up her knees. Cold. Good, keep the coldness, that was protective.

  She must ask Nerys to take care of Zahra. Nerys would do it much better than she ever could.

  Tomorrow: Ravi, and then Nerys.

  She lay and waited for the hours to crawl by.

  SIXTEEN

  The launch drew closer, its bow pennant drawn taut by the wind and a fresh green wake churning behind it.

  Caroline stood at the end of the jetty not far from the Shalimar Garden. The powerful engine throttled back and the boat made a semi-circle, stirring up the reek of lake-water as it slid to the mooring post. Two liveried servants stepped ashore and made fast and she saw Ravi waiting for her under the white awning. She let the nearest servant hand her on board, and stepped down on to the scrubbed-teak deck. Immediately the engine roared and the launch curved away again, heading out into the lake.

  Ravi bowed suavely. But this was better than she could have hoped for. He couldn’t do much to her out here, in full sight of passing shikaras, with two of his servants close at hand.

  They sat down in canvas chairs at a brass-cornered table. One of the servants was at the wheel; the other retreated below to the little covered cabin. The thrum of the engine and the swish of water would make what she had to say inaudible to anyone but Ravi.

  ‘This is an unlooked-for pleasure,’ he said, glancing at his jewelled watch. ‘Unfortunately I have to meet someone at precisely eleven o’clock.’

  When at last the long, terrible night had ended, she had scrawled a note and sent it by a messenger. Once she was dressed, Ralph had lurched past her and fallen into the bed she had just vacated. She had left him there, yellow and snoring, after giving instructions to the house-boy that he was to take Sahib his coffee immediately he woke up. Ravi’s reply had reached her within the hour and she had hurried out of the house to meet the launch at the place he indicated.

  ‘I have something to tell you,’ she said.

  ‘Please go ahead.’

  She drew air into her lungs. Her mouth felt stiff, dry as paper, but she got out the plain words she had rehearsed. ‘After our time together I had a child. It was your child, Ravi. I didn’t want my husband to find out, so I concealed the whole thing.’

  ‘Mine?’ His voice cut like a knife.

  ‘Yes.’ She shifted her gaze from the tabletop, upwards to meet his. ‘You are the only man I have ever had relations with. I was a virgin, remember?’

  ‘Yes. And is this what you wanted to say to me?’

  ‘Not everything. My husband heard about the baby last night, from an officer in the mess. I thought I had kept everything secret, even from you, which was what I originally decided was for the best, but now it seems that I have failed. So naturally I have come straight to see you, to tell you everything and to ask for your understanding.’

  Ravi pondered, the corners of his mouth turning down. At last he spoke. ‘I see. Tell me, Caroline, did you really imagine that I didn’t know?’

  Caroline shrank. ‘I hoped not.’

  ‘I have had you watched, my dear. You – and your friends running about with their kangris.’

  ‘You knew about Zahra all along?’

  He gestured impatiently. ‘Your weavers’ village is not exactly beyond my reach.’
/>   So at least one of the people up there must have been in Ravi’s pay. Caroline shivered at the thought of Zahra innocently playing under the tree with eyes always upon her, ready to report her movements back to Srinagar. Yet it had somehow suited Ravi to leave her alone. Maybe all he wanted was to keep her at a safe distance from his family.

  She lifted her head. ‘I am here to warn you, Ravi. My husband is very angry. He was drunk last night …’

  Again the impatient gesture. ‘I know that too.’

  It didn’t matter how. She would have to come to terms later with the extent to which she and everyone she knew had been spied upon. ‘He told me that he is going to kill you.’

  Ravi threw back his head and laughed, as if this were the most comical thing he had ever heard. ‘Is that all you’ve come to say?’

  She said, ‘I don’t want Ralph to be hurt. I know he won’t come off best if he does try to injure you.’

  Ravi’s amusement vanished. In a voice so low that it hardly reached her, he murmured, ‘And I thought you might have come to explain why you stole my ruby.’

  The launch passed between the wooden pillars that marked the beginning of the river channel. Over to their right Caroline saw a line of houseboats, the Garden of Eden at the end of the row. The flower-seller’s shikara was making its way towards his customers, the packed blooms a dash of brilliant colour against the rippled water.

  Her voice almost failed her, but there was nothing she could do except try to brazen this out. ‘As you seem to know everything else, you probably also know that I sold the stone to a dealer. I had to have money to take care of the child.’

  Ravi nodded, as if this satisfied him. They slid past the Lake Bar of the Srinagar Club, its tables and sunshades newly set out for the approach of summer. A white-coated waiter stood ready to take cocktail orders and a little clutch of shikaras for hire bobbed at the side.

  ‘I shall have to leave you here.’ He pointed to the steps that led towards the Bund. Sunlight glinted on a car making its way over the first Jhelum bridge. ‘By the way, my wife expects to be confined later this summer. I shall have a son.’

  ‘How wonderful for you,’ Caroline said. ‘I do hope it will be a boy. I hope all will go well.’

  Ravi laughed again, plump and handsome under the awning. Her hopes were utterly meaningless to him and her good wishes meant nothing. Over his shoulder he gave a curt order to the boatman and the prow swung towards the steps. The boat was briefly secured and Ravi stood up to help her ashore. Caroline had achieved nothing at all by seeing him.

  She stepped out on to dry land.

  Unable to stop herself she asked, ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘About?’

  ‘About my child.’

  ‘I am going to protect my family’s interests, of course.’

  Another command to the boatman, the ropes were unlooped, and the launch sped away.

  Nerys listened in horror as Caroline spilt out the story.

  Outside in the mission yard, half a dozen children played with a ball and a set of wooden crates. Their noise floated in through the open windows, Zahra’s happy voice audible among them.

  ‘What did he mean, do you think, about protecting his family’s interests?’

  Helplessly, Caroline shook her head. ‘He’s ruthless. He does what he wants, gets what he wants. What can we do?’

  Nerys was at a loss, and a sense of deep foreboding took hold of her. ‘I don’t know. But somehow we’ll have to hide Zahra so Ravi Singh can’t find her.’

  Evan was out, but Ianto Jones was in the chapel room laying out service sheets for a prayer meeting. Nerys made a rapid decision. ‘Ianto? Please stay and watch the children until three o’clock. Then lock the yard gate when they’ve all gone.’

  He blinked behind his thick glasses, Adam’s apple bobbing. ‘But—’

  ‘Please.’

  With Caroline at her heels, Nerys ran down the stairs and scooped Zahra out of the little group of infants. Farida threw the ball aside and attached herself to Nerys’s heels. At the gate they stopped and scanned the alley. The beggar wasn’t there. Nerys asked Farida if she had seen the hands-out man today and the child nodded. He had been there earlier, but she had seen him going away again.

  They dashed along the canal bank to the river, past smoky food stalls and chai-vendors and gossiping boatmen. Nerys clasped Zahra in her arms and the little girl laughed and wriggled in pleasure at this new game. They were gasping for breath by the time they reached Rainer’s door. Nerys thumped on it, even in the heat of this moment remembering the night when Farida had come to fetch them out of Rainer’s bed, only to find her mother dead.

  Rainer opened the door. ‘Is the city on fire?’

  Nerys and Caroline ducked inside. Farida plumped herself down on the step, refusing to come in with them. She gathered up her skirt and pulled her shawl over her head, apparently settling down to watch the street.

  In the upstairs room, cooled by the breeze off the water, Prita was sitting sewing amid the last of Rainer’s myriad boxes. She put her work aside and stood up, wordlessly greeting them with a bow over her folded hands.

  Zahra was heavy. Gratefully, Nerys let her slide to the floor. The child’s attention was caught by the bright silks in Prita’s work basket and she ran straight to them. Then she saw a pair of small pointed scissors and made a grab for those too. Prita caught her hand and told her in Kashmiri, ‘No, those are too sharp. You will cut your fingers.’ She put the scissors out of reach on top of one of the boxes.

  ‘What has happened?’ Rainer asked.

  Caroline stammered out her story again. Taken by a stranger’s attention, especially one who spoke the village language so well, Zahra started chattering to Prita. Nerys was watching Caroline and then looking for Rainer’s reaction, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Prita reach out and awkwardly, longingly, stroke Zahra’s hair.

  Without quite knowing why she did it, Nerys took up the embroidery scissors, stooped down to separate out a single thick lock of the same brown-gilt hair, and snipped it off.

  Rainer frowned. ‘Yes. We must take her away from here.’

  Zahra broke away from Prita and Nerys, heading now for the white wicker cage where Rainer’s stage doves shared a perch.

  ‘Birds,’ the child cried in delight. ‘Zahra birds.’

  Rainer opened a painted box and took out his tailcoat. He slipped it on, covered the cage with the red silk handkerchief from the top pocket, and invited Zahra to search the others. As soon as she had made sure that one was empty he produced the four interlinked metal rings from it, and spun the chain round her throat, like a huge necklace. She tugged at it, puzzled but smiling, before he whipped it away and threw four separate rings in the air. While she was still captivated by the juggling, he lifted a corner of the red handkerchief to show her that the cage was empty.

  Zahra’s eyes rounded. ‘Gone,’ she breathed, staring at the perch and then the empty air.

  The three women looked on. Prita was fondly smiling and even Caroline’s pale, tense face had briefly softened and coloured.

  Rainer beckoned to Zahra and she went straight to him. He touched his finger to his lips before blindfolding her with the red handkerchief.

  Nerys remembered afterwards how Zahra had laughed, showing no fear, and stretched out her hands to try to grab Rainer as he gently turned her three times in a circle.

  Off came the blindfold again. The cage was still empty. Rainer mimed perplexity, but then his hand shot into the same pocket of the tailcoat and, with a flourish, he tossed into the air first one white dove and then the other. The birds flew up over Zahra’s head and settled on an open shutter.

  Nerys clapped, and Caroline and Prita joined in.

  Zahra was too delighted to move. She gazed at Rainer in awe. He held out his arm and the birds obligingly came back to roost.

  ‘More,’ Zahra whispered.

  ‘Rainer …’ Nerys began, intending to say tha
t there were important things to discuss. He was rummaging through the box. Out came his magician’s cape, embroidered with occult symbols. ‘Rainer…’

  They all heard the slap of bare feet on the stairs. Farida burst into the room. ‘Hands-out man.’ She held up four fingers. Four men.

  Nerys ran to the window that looked away from the river. Through a crack in the shutters she saw them, and recognised one of the faces. It was the beggar who frequented the alley behind the mission, only he didn’t look like a beggar any more. And at the end of the narrow street she could just see the polished silver radiator grille and shiny black bonnet of an opulent motor-car.

  ‘Ravi Singh’s here.’

  There was a thunderous knocking at the door. Caroline backed up against the wall, hands to her mouth. ‘Oh, God. Don’t let them in.’

  Rainer didn’t hesitate. Smiling, he held up the red blindfold. Ready for another trick, Zahra jumped into his arms. He signalled her to silence, wrapping the blindfold again. The knocking at the door grew more insistent. Rainer enveloped himself and Zahra in the swirling cape. Prita was at his side too, hanging on his arm. He muttered one sentence to her and she slid behind his back.

  Downstairs there was a crash as the door burst inwards. Shadowed by Prita, Rainer picked up the box of tricks with his free hand and calmly walked to the head of the stairs. Ravi Singh’s men clattered up to him and he waved them on into the room overlooking the river. Caroline stood frozen, but Nerys had crossed to Prita’s chair and taken up her discarded sewing. As the four men tipped into the room she put in a careful stitch and glanced up at them in surprise.

  ‘Good day,’ she said in Kashmiri. And in English, ‘This is a private house, you know. How can we help you?’

  Ravi Singh stood framed in sunlight in the street doorway, his dark shadow thrown on the old wooden floorboards. He wore dazzling white kurta pyjama and a high-buttoned coat of pale buff linen, every inch the haughty Kashmiri aristocrat.