Of Marriageable Age

by Sharon Maas

  But Nat was one of them; their own, their tamby, now (as they believed) a daktah, and, even though he was much younger than many of those under his authority, they accepted him because of his gentle and respectful and tactful tone coupled with no-nonsense efficiency that demanded, and received, compliance. They called him the tamby daktah, little brother doctor, an apt merging of respect with fondness.

  Nat had moreover won for himself the title of Bringer of Sunshine and Dispeller of Rain, for it was he whom they had seen that first morning, entering the gate bathed in a ray of sunshine with Gauri Ma in his arms, resplendent as a young god, and when they heard the story of how he had saved Gauri Ma from certain death (for surely she would not have been found for weeks, had Nat not appeared the way he had), how he had gone out in the night through the dark water world and found her in the impenetrable blackness, they slapped their cheeks in awe and marvelled at this miracle, and Nat was credited with being a true Son of God. And even Gauri Ma, for a few days at least, was accorded a respect she had not in her whole life received, (though this respect did not amount to letting her share their quarters, indeed, some of the women had at first objected to sleeping under the same roof as Gauri Ma, but Doctor said it was either she or them), for surely God held his hand over her, and had showered his Grace upon her, through the form of Nat.

  Nat accepted their admiration, which sometimes amounted to adulation, with the appropriate humility, knowing it to be an obligation to bow his head and serve. And if he had a Golden Hand it was not his doing, he told them, but God's gift to be used in God's service.

  The receding floods left a coating of filth on the earth which had to be cleared away before anything else could be done, for this filth contained night-soil, faeces, since the villagers had had no other choice but to relieve themselves into the water. The removal of night-soil could, of course, not be delegated to any but members of the night-soil-carrier caste, and so squabbling again broke out because the night-soil was all over and nobody wanted to walk on it, and the night-soil-carriers could not work fast enough to remove the filth. So Nat, fed up with the squabbling, joined the night-soil-carriers and helped them clear away the night-soil, the sight of which silenced the squabblers. And it was Nat again who helped dig a ditch deep enough to contain the night-soil polluted topsoil, and Nat who stood up to his knees in another ditch containing night-soil-polluted drainage water, and Nat who emerged from the ditch splattered with night-soil and stinking. And far from this lowering their estimation the villagers bowed before him because never, in all of history, had they seen anything like this, that the son of a sahib should enter a night-soil drain and pollute himself with night-soil, and surely this must be a sign of great holiness, because only a saint regards night-soil the same as gold, and is equally dispassionate to both, neither repulsed by the one nor attached to the other.

  As soon as conditions permitted it the village was buzzing with activity, women carrying the pans of red mud that served as mortar in relays while the men built up the huts with baked red bricks so that the huts they now received were much more solid than the ones that had been destroyed — the difference in cost having been made up by Doctor — and when they were finished and the thatched roofs mounted they plastered the walls with cow-dung paste and whitewashed them, and the village was new and fresh and sparkling as never before.

  All this work took several weeks; the day of his return to England loomed nearer. Nat would have delayed speaking up until the very end, but then the letter came; from the Bannerjis. Nat had completely forgotten about the Bannerjis, and his plan to visit them. He hadn’t even noticed they hadn’t replied to his letter; not till now.

  The letter, the arrival of which had been delayed by the rains, welcomed him with open arms, as expected; but it also contained a proposal, a request:

  Several years ago, there had been an air crash on a domestic Indian flight involving members of the Bannerji family as passengers, one of those members being Arun, the youngest son. As a result of this crash Arun (who had been only fourteen at the time, an impressionable age) had suffered an irreparable trauma and refused to enter another aeroplane. Since Arun was the next of the Bannerji sons to be sent to the West to complete his education, this trauma dictated that he should travel not by air but by sea. This in itself was no problem but, as the boy was only eighteen years old, and generally of a rather shy and sensitive temperament, the very thought of such a voyage all by himself was considerably upsetting to the entire family. And, since Nat himself would be returning to England around the same time, the Bannerji family implored him with all their combined prayers not to use his return plane ticket but to travel by sea, sharing Arun's cabin and generally acting as companion and guardian, all expenses paid. The Bannerji family did not think this alternative would be altogether unpleasant since a first class cabin had been booked for Arun on September 1st, in which there was an empty berth, and altogether they believed the trip would be quite enjoyable to both young men, who not only would have a pleasurable journey with all the amenities, delicious meals etcetera, of first class passengers, but would also have the opportunity of strengthening their acquaintance which of course could be maintained once both were settled in England. Nat's responsibility would end when the ship docked at Southampton, since Arun's elder sister and her husband would be meeting Arun and driving him to their home in Birmingham. Nat should kindly reply by telegram so that the appropriate arrangements could be made.

  Nat read this letter aloud to Doctor and Henry after lunch, while they all sat on the verandah sipping their coffee and eating their Milk Bikis. He folded the letter and looked up to gauge their reactions. He himself was in two minds. The thought of a sea voyage, albeit in the company of a shy and sensitive youth who would no doubt demand much of his attention, had its temptations. Nat had always loved the sea but seen little of it, too little, in his lifetime, and there was still a residue of longing for the calming, healing effects of a seaside holiday that the monsoon had snatched from him.

  On the other hand, he was at last at home. Ever since the village had more or less restored itself to normal Nat had been helping his father again in the surgery and knew now that he was a doctor, that life had called him to task and endowed him with the gift of healing, given him a Golden Hand, and that his place was here.

  Here, in the midst of catastrophe and distress, giving all he could to ease the pain of those people who looked up to him for succour, he had found inner peace. This was his place, where he belonged. He knew it now. The thought of leaving even a day earlier than planned seemed a sacrifice he could not make. The very thought of London caused a tweak of panic that sullied that peace; he feared losing again all that he had found, all that he had learned, in the chaos of city life.

  With a jolt Nat realised something extraordinary: he was happy. Not just contented but truly, deeply happy with a quiet and pure joy that had settled into his bones, into his being, and seemed so natural, so real, so really, truly him, the way he should be, his very nature, he hadn’t even noticed it.

  What’s more: he had not been happy in London. He had had lots of fun, lots of pleasure, but fun and pleasure do not necessarily equate to happiness; they are of a different substance, a different constitution; a short buzz, a quick thrill, again and again before the dissatisfaction settled in that needed to be removed. A constant wanting and needing, a nagging sense of emptiness that had to be relentlessly served. Never satisfied, but requiring constant feeding with ever-new stimuli.

  Whereas this — it required no stimuli. It simply was. It might be a cliché, but happiness really did come from within. It was a part of him. Inherent, innate, independent of anything external to his being. A scintillating, serene sense of completion and fulfilment, free of all want and need. This was home.

  But now, the letter. The letter was an appeal, and, he had to admit it, a temptation. The Bannerjis had always been generous to him, taken him in for weekends, offered him friendship and a slice of life he c
ould never have otherwise known, and, yes, that slice of life, though the opposite of what he knew to be his own lot in life, had been essential, for he had grown and matured and made mistakes but learned from those very mistakes. Now they were dangling another slice of that life before him, a first-class ticket on an ocean liner, luxury and pleasure and ease.

  Doctor and Henry sat smiling at him, positively grinning, as if they could both witness his innermost thoughts, were privy to his private struggle. What struggle? There was, in fact, no question. He had a return air-ticket to London but in his mind he'd already cancelled the flight, so there was no reason for this letter to change anything at all. As far as Doctor and Henry knew, he would be returning in three weeks, to his job in London and his room in Notting Hill Gate.

  'Well?' said Doctor. 'Will you accept?'

  'I don't know, really,' hedged Nat. 'I suppose I should accept, seeing as how they've always been so kind, but, Dad, I don't want to leave you here with all the work, I mean . ..'

  'Whether you go a week earlier or not won't make much difference to me,' said Doctor. 'So if that's what's bothering you . . .'

  'It's not just that,' he said, hesitantly. 'But still, you see, Dad, I don't want to run away from things here, I mean, no, it won't be running away. Because how can you run away from a place you love, and a work you love? The thing is, I've decided to stay here, go on helping in the surgery. When I think of London, when I think of what's waiting for me there, my job, I'd rather say to hell with it and stay here, never leave again…'

  Doctor smiled and leaned back against the whitewashed wall of the house.

  'You know, Nat, sending you over to the West was a big, big risk. I could have lost you, and I almost did, and I let you go knowing the world would stretch out its tentacles to you and try its best to suck you in. But I took the risk. Because the work we do here is not for weaklings, not for escapists. You've got to be proven by fire before you can take it up, you've got to know your weaknesses before you can know your strengths, and that's why I let you go. I wanted you to be proven, I wanted you to know all there is to know, and see what the world can offer you, and then make your choice, of your own free will, and not because you never had a choice.'

  'It all seems so far away, Dad, unreal. Like another person, in disguise, a clown or some ridiculous parody of myself, tripping around in circles and not even aware he's playing the fool. And now, I've grown so much. I can't go back to that. Dad, let me stay!'

  'No. I told you, the first day you came back. We need you, but we need you qualified. When I first sent you away it was for just that: to get qualified. All right, so you had other ideas and went your own way for a time. But Nat, if you're serious there's no other way. No Indian doctor in his right mind will want to come and work here for practically nothing, much less a European one. And I can't do all the work alone. I've managed so far and if I have to I'll go on managing. Go back to university and finish what you began. Go back, Nat. Go back and become a doctor. Take the Bannerji offer.'

  42

  Chapter Forty-two

  Saroj

  Georgetown, 1969

  Ma. Dead. The two words just didn't fit together. They nullified each other. If there was Ma there could not be death because Ma was life.

  How could someone who was alive, just be dead? Just not exist any more? Just not be? How can anyone just stop existing?

  But Ma was dead. Gone.

  Saroj turned into stone. She registered the outside world. She saw Trixie, desperately trying to get the stone to react. Trixie crying, and begging Saroj to cry, but she couldn't because stones don't cry. She saw Lucy Quentin, sensible and kind and trying to make life go on as before and saying all the sensible, kind things one says at a time like this.

  Baba came. Distraught and dishevelled, trying to comfort a daughter beyond comfort. Saroj heard him quarrel with Lucy Quentin.

  She even knew what they were quarrelling about. She heard every word. Baba wanted her to go with him to Indrani's; Lucy Quentin wanted her to stay put. Lucy Quentin won. Baba couldn't very well carry Saroj in his arms from the house.

  She was a pretty heavy stone.

  So she stayed where she was. She didn't even go to the wake. She felt nothing. Stones have no feeling. Stones are impervious to grief.

  And yet, the human spirit has an extraordinary power of recuperation: even a human spirit disguised as stone. At the end of the week Saroj felt the first vague stirring inside the stone of her heart, like the very light touch of a feather, like Ma stroking a healing balm into the dense clod of nothingness, and from that balm came healing, and life, and movement. And after that the awakening was swift.

  Saroj cried. She cried in great heaving sobs. She wailed with grief; she pummelled her pillow in anguish, and raised her arms to the sky. Why? Why? Oh Why?

  And then she stopped crying and started thinking again. For the first time she took in the details of what had happened. By that time the cause of the fire was clear: arson.

  A witness had seen a bunch of drunk black hooligans on Waterloo Street that night, shortly before the fire, one of them carrying what looked like a bottle of kerosene, but it could just as easily have been a bottle of rum. The Persauds next door had heard rowdy singing coming from the house at around midnight; Mr Persaud had looked out the window and seen people on the bridge and shouted at them to leave, and they had gone. But the gate had not yet been locked for Ganesh and Baba were not yet home, and the hooligans must have returned, entered the property, and thrown a Molotov cocktail into the kitchen, because that's where the fire started. It spread to the living room, and fire was first seen leaping from the downstairs windows at the back of the house. By the time the fire engines arrived the house was an inferno.

  Ma's charred remains were found near the door to the tower. Her sword was still in her hands. She had tried to prise open the door, even as Saroj had done the day of her suicide attempt, but the smoke had overcome her, smoke billowing up the internal staircase from the bottom to the top storey and over the walls into the bedrooms. The one blessing is that she had died of smoke poisoning, and not in the agony of being burnt alive.

  Questions upon questions, and answers that in retrospect made a farce of Ma's death, a senseless, avoidable tragedy of errors. Why didn't this wooden house have a fire escape? Why, a fire escape had been ordered only recently, but unfortunately… and anyway, the tower under normal circumstances was a perfectly adequate fire escape, as long as it did not burn first. In fact, the tower was the only part of the house left standing. Then why hadn't Mrs Roy escaped down the tower staircase? Why, because the door to the tower was bolted from inside the stairwell.

  And why was the door bolted? Because the daughter of the family had bolted it a few days earlier in a fit of pique. And why hadn't the trapped woman circled the upstairs bedrooms to reach the tower from the other direction? Why, because the father of the house had, two years earlier, bolted the bathroom from the connecting door to the next room, that of the elder brother, in an effort to imprison the aforementioned daughter, and no-one had ever thought to unbolt that never-needed door.

  And why wasn't the son of the house at home, who could have opened the door to the bathroom from his side? Why, because he was busy courting an African girl, the daughter of that black big-mouthed Minister of Health. And why was the father of the house not at home, who might have been of some use in breaking down the doors, or tying sheets together, or in some other way? Why, because he was at a political meeting ranting about African violence. The circle was complete.

  The Chronicle tore the Roys' story apart, laid bare all the lurid details, gloated over their mistakes, dispensed guilt in all directions. The only one who escaped their wrath was Ma, the victim of all their petty bickerings and selfish shenanigans.

  'Telephone, Saroj.'

  'Mmmh?' Saroj looked up from the Chronicle, from the middle-page spread dissecting the fire. Even the editorial was about the Roy family. Deodat Roy had a big mout
h, the editor said; he had been cultivating racial hatred for years and this was the predictable and tragic result.

  'It's for you,' Lucy Quentin called. Saroj hadn't even heard it ringing but got up now and walked over to take the receiver.

  'Hi.' It was Ganesh's voice, but a different Ganesh. A stricken Ganesh, the ruins of the brother Saroj had known. Just as she was the ruins of his sister. They were all guilty, Baba, Ganesh and Saroj. Everyone said so. It was public. All three of them, working in unconscious collaboration, had killed Ma. They would live the rest of their lives burdened with this terrible knowledge. But this was the first time Ganesh had spoken to Saroj since the fire.

  'How are you, Gan?'

  'Holding up, I suppose. Look, Saroj, I can't stay in this country a day longer. I just wanted to tell you. I've booked a flight to London for next week. Maybe we could meet before then?'

  'Oh, Gan!' Now this — shock, grief, guilt, and now Ganesh leaving so suddenly.

  'We've got to move on, Saroj, it's what Ma would have wanted. That's what I wanted to tell you. That's why I'm leaving, just a bit sooner than planned. But Baba told me you're not talking or anything. You're better now?'

  'Yes, but, Gan…'

  And then it came: all the grief, all the guilt, all the darkness, poured out to Ganesh in a one a passionate, pleading, soul-wrenching gush.

  ‘Gan, I can’t stay here without you! Don’t go! Don’t leave me!’

  Finally, Ganesh put an end to it.

  'Saroj, calm down. It's over and we have to get on with our lives. You've got your O Levels in less than four weeks and you've missed two weeks of school already. I want you to go back to school on Monday and work as hard as you can and get brilliant results the way you would have if all this hadn't happened.'

  'Gan! I couldn't! I can't even think of school at a time like this, O Levels or not!'