by M G Vassanji
The world is different, Mother, he said, but she didn’t reply, simply stared at him with her large grief-stricken eyes.
I have a lot of opportunities in this country, Mrs. Lall…Mother…a lot of exciting times ahead that will help to heal my hurt. But Deepa—she’s a girl—you’ll break her heart, Mother. You’ll never be able to give her happiness your way.
I said I forbid you, but no, I go down on my knees and beg you. Please. Let her go!
Her voice ending in a whisper, there was nothing he could reply to that. He drew a deep breath. They embraced, and he left.
Outside the temple, the same one where Njoroge and Deepa had made their secret vows before the gods, Mother gave five shillings to every beggar who sat there. She thanked the deities, especially Rama and Ganesh, her favourites. The priest who had previously blessed the couple now received a bonus for his gods’ intercession against them.
How to orchestrate the break? That was Njoroge’s problem. Their commitment had been complete. All their doubts and fears they had left behind, now they were only looking forward to the future. Deepa knew him too well, there was no lie he could tell her about his change of heart that would convince her. He picked one, however, against which she was quite helpless.
He met her at the Rendezvous, then they walked to Uhuru Park by the artificial lake, and there in relative quietude he told her that he had happened to consult a Kikuyu elder, a famous mundumugo, about his affairs. It was customary to do this before embarking on a special venture—an important job or a marriage, for example. This mundumugo—Bwana Daktari—had divined the presence of a stranger in Njoroge’s life and had commanded him to forgo marriage to this stranger, or he would bring disaster to his entire clan. Njoroge could not spurn that advice—it was an order, really, for the elder was a consultant of his own minister and also of Mzee Kenyatta himself. Let’s cool it for now, Deepa, he said.
For how long? she asked, wild-eyed and utterly shocked.
For a while, he said, but she knew from his face, his manner, that it was over. No hug, just a gentle, almost neutral squeeze of the hand. No look in the eye. Could this be real, what was happening?
I betrayed her, he would tell me later, I betrayed Deepa in the worst way…having extracted sacrifices from her…but I couldn’t deny your mother’s plea, I couldn’t watch her suffer. Her suffering loomed so large and inhuman, it frightened me.
You can’t do this, Njo, Deepa whispered. We were ordained for each other, you know it, ever since Nakuru…and the vows we took—you did take one, didn’t you, in the temple, and…and…
She said she would go to see Bwana Daktari, the mundumugo, herself, and let him convince her. Njoroge said no, Bwana Daktari would not sit down with a woman, which was a lie.
Is it my parents, she asked softly, eyeing him intently, did they make you do this?
Don’t you have faith in me? They don’t know. But it’s for the best, my dear, take their blessings. We will always be friends—more—we were first with each other, no one can take that away. In a way you will always be mine, and I’ll be yours.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll always be yours, Njo. I have given myself to you and I will always be yours.
What exactly she meant by that last statement I never dared to ask. She never told me.
He drove her home. On the way she asked him if he was certain of what he had told her, couldn’t they consult another mundumugo, who might contradict this one; if she was willing to defy her parents, why couldn’t he defy this witch doctor; and so on, pointlessly, for she knew too well that she had lost. Her dream, her plans, had collapsed suddenly and completely like a child’s fantasy world when confronted with reality.
At home she sat down at the table where Mother and Papa were having afternoon tea. Mahesh Uncle had sent a telegram, Papa told her, he was now on his way to a place called Haridwar to deposit Grandfather Verma’s ashes into the Ganges. It was a place Uncle had always wanted to visit, Papa said. My mother and father appeared calm, and Deepa staring at them with her big black eyes divined their adult victory. Her hands shook when she picked up her cup of tea; she attempted a few sips, put down the cup. Then she silently went to her room, closed and bolted the door; and from behind it, thus sequestered, she gave out a long, piteous howl.
Yes, Joseph, she did know happiness in later years, but that happiness would always be laced with bitterness, regret, sorrow; there would be memories, filled with sadness and the occasional tear; and there would be above all the abiding knowledge of having loved once, but passionately. What a chance was lost there: a romance as pure and natural and spontaneous as a starburst, smothered by a fear of the unknown, of what-is-not-done. My mother was a kind woman, a sensitive, gentle soul; but in this matter she was immovable and cold as stone. And Papa, who had hurt Mother in other ways, dared not cross her; all he could say was, My poor daughter, little Deepa-Deepika, what has happened to her?
But there would be a chance to reignite that passion, if only for a momentary, illicit flare. All was not lost, isn’t that why we talk, you and I?
TWENTY.
On the third day after her painfully conclusive meeting with Njoroge, Deepa disappeared from our home.
She had shut herself up in her room previously, coming out rarely to go to the bathroom across the hallway; she picked up a few crumbs from the full tray our servant Pedro lovingly placed three times a day for her outside her door. The first night and day had been the most terrible for our parents; Deepa would wail and sob, she beat herself, tore at her hair. Mother or Papa would go to her door to plead with her to eat, to come out and talk: Béti, please, my darling hear me out, I am your mother not your enemy; but mostly they needed to reassure themselves that she was still whole, behind that door. Deepa had scissors and a penknife in her room, a bottle of Aspro, a school compass box with hideously sharp objects inside. On the second day she was quiet, seemed finally to have fallen asleep; but Mother couldn’t be sure, so she had a ladder put up against the wall outside, among the roses, and she climbed up and peeped inside the room. Deepa seemed safe in her bed, but at that moment she looked up at the disturbance outside to see Mother’s gaping face at the window and she let out a scream. Mother lost her balance and fell on the flower bed, spraining her wrist and skinning her arms with thorns. Perhaps that was her way of sharing my sister’s pain. Papa came and took Mother to the Aga Khan Hospital nearby. And late that evening, as if a spell had lifted from our home, Deepa came out of her room and took something from the fridge to eat. Both my parents came rushing out of their room. Mother wept. Papa rushed over and took Deepa clumsily in his arms, getting butter and jam over his pyjama shirt.
The next morning Mother took off for the city market in the safe assumption that all was well at home. When she returned, Deepa had disappeared. She had left a note: Don’t look for me. My feelings didn’t matter to you. You have changed the course of my life without my consent and I want to go away from you for ever.
I flew home that same evening.
Mother was in a state. What could I have done, Vikram, tell me, what was a mother to do?
It’s all right, Mother. We’ll find her. She’s not said she’s going to do something to herself. So she’s only gone away somewhere.
Papa had already made scores of discreet phone calls to people’s homes inquiring if his daughter happened to be dropping by at that moment. Publicizing the disappearance was of course out of the question, at least for the time being. So it fell upon me and my father to look for Deepa.
Njoroge was back in Kampala.
Of course she’s not here, Vic!
If only she were, Njo, then I’d know she was safe and bring her home.
I’m taking my finals, Vic, but if you need me, Vic—
It’s all right, Njo.
I’m here, Vic. Just tell me, I’ll do my best. And Vic—
Yes?
If you need help with police, or just manpower, I know a few people there in Nairobi.
Vic…I couldn’t take the pressure, it was just too much for me…all the secrecy and going against the wishes of your family, and…and the thought of later, people staring at you…and raising half-breeds…I just chickened out.
I couldn’t help thinking how easily he had given up. Deepa’s reaction, her flagrant and absolute passion, shamed him. It was impossible to believe how he’d suddenly re-entered our lives and now just as abruptly had left it, though we promised to continue to see each other.
My parents and I could not imagine where she would have gone off to. How long could she remain safe by herself? She had taken no money or clothes. Had we read the note wrong, had she simply gone and drowned herself in the river? I found myself paying heed to every word on the news. Papa seemed to be doing the same. We had no one to turn to but ourselves, and the three of us would be each lost in our private broodings.
See how much she loved him, Papa muttered once. Is sé ishq kehete hai. Heer ki tarah nikli, hamari béti.
Heer, the Punjabi Juliet who also died for her love. And Anarkali, who would be buried alive but not deny her love for the emperor’s son. There were enough legends to draw depression from.
Papa would have relented, I thought, for his darling Deepa. He would have accepted Njoroge as son-in-law; he had hardly been strong on tradition anyway. But it was Mother who still said, We have to think of the samaj, the community, don’t we; the world watches us…
But she sobbed; she loved her daughter no less.
Five days passed, of utmost horror. Mother spent day and night on the sofa, in a stupor: every phone ring a jangle of frayed nerves and renewed stabs of anxiety. Papa would call from the office: Any news? Not yet, Papa. Twice everyday, morning and afternoon I roamed the downtown streets desperately hoping that she might decide to show herself there, amidst all the bustle. I would drive round the Indian areas of Parklands, Ngara, and Eastleigh, where boys and girls wandered about in happy, clamorous droves after school. There was no Deepa anywhere. One day discreetly—or so I thought—I interviewed some of her school friends, and the next day Meena Auntie the prospective in-law appeared at the doorstep: Is everything all right? Arré, what has happened to you Sheila, you look like a very corpse! Mother said she was sick, and that Deepa was at her grandparents’ in Nakuru, her dadi also being sick. That saved the day, but it was becoming impossible to keep the disappearance a secret, even servants talked, and it was perhaps illegal not to report a missing person. Pedro had been instructed to keep his ears peeled in case he heard something over the grapevine in his neighbourhood.
On the fourth day, while Mother and I were at the table with our morning tea, Pedro reported rather tactlessly that a girl had been found under Ngara Bridge the previous evening; she looked like a Muhindi. At this last word, Mother closed her eyes and collapsed, falling sideways with her chair. The family doctor arrived and gave her an injection and prescribed glucose. Broken and dazed, she was explained that the dead girl, according to the radio, was an Arab from Mombasa, not an Indian. But Mother, who had not eaten a meal in three days, remained close to a coma, prepared for the worst.
As a last resort, I called up Njoroge.
You’ve not found her yet, Vic? You should have rung me earlier—
I wasn’t sure what you could do from there. I thought she’d turn up, we’d find her. But it’s four days now, Njo…You said there were people you knew who could help—
Actually Vic, there’s someone in the police you could contact there—someone you know well, from Nakuru.
He didn’t look older, but then I couldn’t have observed him so closely as a child.
Ours is a small country, it was much smaller in population then. Hardly a momentous coincidence to be seeing Lieutenant—now Chief Inspector of Special Branch—Soames again, this time in Nairobi. Yet it was uncanny. To get the appointment I had identified myself as a scion of Lall’s European Grocery of Nakuru and said the matter was urgent. The CI had sent word in reply, telling me to come back early the next morning, and here I was standing nervously at his door. He was in khaki uniform and looked up from his desk as I entered his office, a cheerful smile on his familiar, handsome face, and he bade me sit.
The office was large and drab, in size more like a lecture room; two tables at the walls on either side of it were strewn with folders; dust motes danced in the morning light streaming in through the window over one of the tables. The floor was cement, the ceiling high and suspended with tube lights.
Ah, you must have been quite young then, when you were in Nakuru, he said as I sat down. How is your father?
He is well, I said.
What are you doing here in Kenya—have hopes of going to U.K. or perhaps returning to Bombay?
I said I was a Kenya citizen and currently studying in Dar es Salaam.
Well, well; it’s an African country now, you know.
I wished it had been anyone else but him in front of me, this man with that superior smile whose every presence, every visitation upon our housing estate in Nakuru had filled me with so much dread. This was the man from whom Njoroge hid under Deepa’s bed once; who took away Amani, having scolded Papa for losing his gun; in whose custody Mwangi had been tortured on one occasion and had died on another. I was here because I didn’t know where else to go to locate my sister. Behind him on the wall a picture of the President, Jomo Kenyatta, in black frame; next to it a gold-framed letter of commendation from the Queen. There was also a faded map of Kenya, and another one of Nairobi and Central Province with little white squares of paper tacked on, to mark points of interest. The Special Branch, of course, was in hot pursuit of recalcitrant Mau Mau who refused to put down their weapons; oathing ceremonies had been reported in the papers, mostly occurring around Nyeri but some even on the coast, and the government had issued strict warnings against such rebellious practices.
He saw me staring at the wall and said, So tell me how I can help you.
I told him about my sister’s disappearance, without mentioning that the boyfriend in question was a Kikuyu named Njoroge whom he might also know from Nakuru, so as not to complicate the situation. He said he would ask his askaris to keep a lookout for her and would phone me as soon as he heard anything. He sounded confident; he smiled and waved as he dismissed me, saying not to worry, he understood the need for discretion. Whatever else he reminded me of, I thought it was kind of him to have listened to me and promised to help.
This was Saturday morning. There was now only the wait. Mother was surviving on glucose, Papa on Scotch. We hardly spoke. On Sunday Dada and Dadi came from Nakuru to help alleviate our suffering; Papa had told them what had happened, and it seemed now the news would spread, through his brothers and their wives. But Dada and Dadi were essential to us that weekend, without them we might not have survived it intact.
Early Monday morning CI Soames called, asked for me.
Mr. Lall, an Asian girl has been seen in a house in the Kariakor area, she could well be your sister. He gave me the address and told me a constable from the Pumwani police station would be waiting for me on River Road later that morning to accompany me. It’s not a nice area, Mr. Lall, he warned. I thanked him.
I took Pedro along with me.
River Road is one of the oldest streets of Nairobi and the earliest Indian shopping area. We walked past the thronging discount shoppers and idling layabouts, ratty pickpockets, and desperate Tanzanian youths looking to buy Kenya shillings or pounds sterling on the black market, all this a hallmark of this street. There were the rows of chappal stores, hawkers selling fruit and vegetables, sidewalk vendors of newspapers or roasted corn or cheap toiletries. Some of the stores now had African owners, who had replaced Asians who were denied licenses, for one reason or another, by the new regime. Indian women chatted boisterously across balconies strung with washed clothes flapping like banners. At a mithaiwallah, where a halwai outside the doorway was removing whorls of dripping orange jelebi from hot ghee, we met ou
r copper, as promised by Soames. I bought him jelebi in a gesture of friendship, which he quite expected, and Pedro and I too had some of the sticky delicacy. I couldn’t help wondering what Mother would say if she saw me eating celebratory sweets at such a time. I also bought grateful Pedro some Gujarati chevda and gathia from the fragrant pyramids on display at the counter, after which we set off in the direction of the river.
In spite of the sweets the mood was grim, we hardly spoke. We descended the valley first onto Grogan Road with its rows of motor spare parts shops and parked trucks, some of them with their guts spilled out on the ground. According to local legend, you could come and buy a tire rim or headlight on this street, to replace your stolen article, only to find yourself inspecting your own property in the first place. If you were fool enough you would also lose your second headlight while you waited. This was Grogan Road, air reeking of oil and dust, unknown to tree or plant, the sun now beating down on broken pavement and street. At the end of the street was a Hindu temple; a low-caste was sweeping the sidewalk, the priest in singlet and dhoti sitting at the door threshold, expectant. His stare, and Pedro’s, trapped me in a moment of guilt and I had no choice but to go inside and pay my respects to Rama and Krishna and Ganesh.
Further down from Grogan Road we came to the Dhobi Ghat at the river, full and burbling now, where not many years ago Indian washermen in the scores came to wash clients’ delicate cotton clothes. Now two women were washing sheets and saris, beating them upon rocks, hanging them out on a line, as a long, frothy trail of suds drifted slowly downstream. We had to cross the river. Why didn’t you tell me we were coming so far, I grumbled, isn’t there a bus? It’s not far, Bwana, reassured the constable; even if you take the bus you have to walk afterwards. We are taking a short cut, he said, this is where the workers from Pumwani, Kariakor and Bondeni walk everyday, across the field, to go to the city. They do? I said, but I knew I had no right to complain, I would have gone anywhere on earth this guide took me. This is what I had entreated the gods: Take me to my sister, please…and I will put up a temple for you. I don’t know in what spirit I meant that promise then, but I have been able to keep it.
