by Mary Finn
I spread the cushions and arranged the rugs that Carlen had thrown into a corner. It was quite cool now, cooler than it had been any of the nights I had spent in my little iron house. I supposed that the city, with all its palaces and houses and people, drew lots of heat away from the sun and kept it for later, like gold in a bank. Here we had just the river and the flat fields stretching away for ever. No wonder then that every night the sun would roll itself away underneath, as fast as a billiard ball.
“Are you warm enough, Anila? Have you enough of the rugs from the boat? The city is a warmer place you know. It’s the same the world over.”
Mr Walker must have been reading my mind. I heard him clear his throat outside the tent and then he beat on the canvas softly. I untied the ropes that bound my tent closed and there he was, hunkered down to speak with me. He looked anxious.
“I’m very fine, truly. I have my shawl too. Only one thing would be better and that would be for Anoush to be here with us.”
“Ah,” he said. “Well, that would be splendid indeed. But now, you must have no fears about wolves or tigers or such. There is none of them here. And any jackals that you might expect to find, well they’ll get an unfriendly welcome if they dare stick a snout too close.”
He patted his belt and I saw he had a pistol. This time even I, who could not tell a firearm from an optical instrument, was certain of that.
“Good night, Anila.”
He started up but I called him back.
“Mr Walker. What Madan said about my grandfather and the village. I know we are travelling upriver as fast as we can. But do you think that on our way back, perhaps…”
I stopped. For what could be done?
“Of course, Anila. As for what may be the best plan when that time comes, let us leave it to Madan to be the judge. I have more confidence in him after a day’s travel than I have in many of my more tested acquaintances. I wish you a fine sleep now, and no fears.”
Perhaps I might have thought more about those jackals, or about which charms we might use to flush out a bird with no name for Mr Walker’s sister, or indeed how I might teach Carlen civil manners or else avoid him. But after I lay down on the soft cushions and began to hear some of the familiar rushes and dashes of small water creatures close by, I forgot it all.
THE PALANQUIN
WE HAD BEEN ALMOST a whole season – winter – in Mr Bristol’s house when our life began to change again. This time, it was no event, no sudden decision, that overturned everything. It was simply feelings that boiled up and over like water in a pot. They began with me and my worries.
“Ma, if my father comes back as he promised, how will he find us here? Please, can we go back to the lane and tell Hemavati and Malati about this house so that he will know where we are?”
I had been asking my mother the same thing, over and over, for weeks, though I was smart enough to say it in different ways at different times.
I was becoming a pest. But truly I felt that we had been dropped into a hole and been covered over so that my father would never find us. He had only stepped out of our lives, I thought, and one day, whenever he could, he would step back in again. All that was required was that he know where to come.
At first my mother would say very little in reply, except sensible things. She said, “Your father told us his ship spent more than half a year coming from England to Calcutta. It’s not much longer than that since he left, is it? He will still be on the ship.”
“But they can send letters, Ma, from wherever they stop. He probably has sent us one already, from Africa.”
My mother had no place in her heart for letters from Africa or Spain or Ireland or any of the places my father had told us about. She closed her face like a shutter and she shushed me, saying she was tired. Or another time she might say that she was doing her best for both of us and that it was for my sake that she had chosen to come here and live with Mr Bristol.
I knew this was true. But I would come back again the next day with another argument.
Finally she told me that Mr Bristol believed my father was dead. Long since dead, she had told him. So I should watch my tongue in this house and remember which paddy field my rice came from.
I was shocked. She wanted to forget him, I knew that. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. On the lane I could have lived without conjuring him because he was part of that place. His feet had walked down our lane, across our earth floor, across our roof. His hands had touched everything we had and he had breathed our air. But not here, not in this shuttered house and locked garden, this place of half-elephants. Here he was not even a ghost.
Perhaps it was because I was pestering her that my mother in her turn became more of a trouble to Mr Bristol. Some nights she would plead to him that she was ill and not able to go to his room. She told him that making paan was not good for her skin. She confessed to him that some of his friends had said unpleasant things to her. He promised that they would not come to the house again.
What changed our lives most of all was that one day she asked him if we might have the use of his beautiful midnight-blue palanquin when he was not taking a ride in it himself.
“My dear Anna, why of course,” he said. “I would be glad to see you out and about and have the roses back in your cheeks again.”
We travelled out then on many an afternoon, the two of us, with four sturdy palki bearers to carry us wherever we wished, though we understood that on Mr Bristol’s orders our journeys had to lie in the English part of the city.
“Let’s go past the Writers’ Building first,” I would say, and my mother did not mind. We had never been there in my father’s company so it was not a poisoned place for her, as the shipping ghats were.
The Building was quite close to Old Court House Street, where Mr Bristol’s house was, and it faced Tank Square and its orange trees. It ran the length of the square and with its brooding size and its stout pillars it looked as strong as Fort William itself. Except, of course, it had more entrances than a pigeon-house. My father had once drawn me a picture of the Writers’ Building so that I could see where he worked. He told me that the door he had left open in his drawing was the door he went through every morning to reach his working chamber. It was in front of that particular door that I liked the bearers to stop, so that I might see the young men, the Writers, go in and come out. Some of them must know my father, I thought. Perhaps they could be told our new address? But my mother refused to let me step outside the palanquin.
“I promised him that we would not do anything noticeable,” she said. “The bearers would tell him if you do that.”
For her part, she loved to visit the Esplanade area and look down at the great stretch of the maidan.
“It’s so airy, Anila. I can breathe here. Look at the kites soaring!”
She told the bearers to put the palanquin down so that they could rest, and then we would pull the curtains fully back, to watch the horsemen and the carriages go by, or the neat rows of soldiers marching past on their way to the Fort.
“They’re like ants,” I said, and she laughed.
In Tank Square there were sometimes elephants in the water with their mahouts. I loved to watch them play, blowing water at each other or showering themselves, turning from dusty brown to a full glossy black-grey. At Holi time, which was when we first ventured out, the elephants were bright with pink and red and yellow splashes, the colours rubbed into their thick skin by their mahouts. They were the only creatures in the English part of the city who knew how to enjoy Holi and its carnival games.
When the durwan opened his green gates to allow us back in after our trips, we would wait to be put down and then stumble out of the dusty palki and come inside the house to wash and change our clothes. Often our legs were unsteady and inclined to wobble after lying straight out for hours and this made us giggle. We were full of tales for Mr Bristol. My mother had begun to recover her gift for telling a story and she knew the kind of details he enjoyed.
&nbs
p; “We saw a fine sofa running into the house down the road with the feather palms in front,” she told him.
I liked her notion of the sofa running. It had made us laugh so much to see the great yellow thing moving on four human legs, the men’s heads hidden underneath the frame. But though Mr Bristol didn’t quite see the fun, he saw other things.
“That’s Jellicoe the surveyor’s house,” he said. “Come from China, that sofa, I’d wager. All his good stuff does.”
Another day she told him that we had seen a shop being born. My mother had been so captivated by all the activity on the little street off the Esplanade that she had asked the bearers to stop there so that we could watch the carpenters and the glassmen at work and the crates and boxes being trundled inside.
My eyes were all for the painter of signs who was perched on a rickety ladder propped against the shopfront. His letters, in gold paint, took him a long time because he drew shadows behind each one, making each letter stand out fat and firm. He had written ANOSS with his paintbrush by the time we left, but there was space left on the placard for more.
“I don’t think it’s to be a dressmaker’s shop,” my mother said. “They were making up too many shelves for that.”
Mr Bristol looked pleased. He had a piece of information for us.
“No, my dears, it is not a dressmaker’s shop. I have overseen the contracts myself. It is to be a food emporium importing and selling fine English goods. Marmalade! You must taste that, Anila. There’s nothing so good in all of India. And, you know, of all strange things, the shop is an Armenian enterprise. Now what do you think of that?”
We had no thoughts at all so Mr Bristol gave us his.
“The Armenians are trading people from the east. Well, I correct myself, Armenia is actually west of here of course, but east of England, if you follow me. And my client, Mrs Panossian, is taking us on at our own game. Well, good luck to her, I say, if I can get my marmalade for breakfast.”
He got up to leave us and then leant over and gave my mother’s cheek a little pinch.
“You look very lovely today, Anna. So lovely indeed that I must tell you about the plan I have in mind, when I come back from dinner. I think you’ll be pleased.”
PINK DUCKS
ON MY FIRST MORNING on the riverbank I discovered the finest thing about a tent. You do not have to rise to look out at the day. You can lie there, snug, and when you wish it you can reach out and part the canvas to take your view. No maharani lying on furs or silken covers could be better off than I was, I thought, for I could see the sun peeking back at me from his own tent of orange and rose.
Nobody else was stirring.
The birds had been quiet since I woke. But now they started over, loud with the light and all the food that lay around them. I decided then that it was a good time for me to take my first bathe in the true wild Ganga waters, with no one to call me strange or foolish. Mr Walker, I knew, would worry about chills if he saw me, and indeed it was a true winter air that I felt on my skin when I slipped out of the tent and took to the path. I was in time to see a rat scuttle away from the leavings of our fire. Perhaps it was keeping warm too.
Then I heard a splash behind me, where the boat was, and I crouched down. The last creature I wanted to meet was Carlen. If he was a true countryman, as Mr Walker had said, then he was surely an early riser. And unlike us, he would probably take off his fine clothes to bathe.
But it was Benu in the water, striking out for the centre of the river, something I would never dare to do. He had strong arm strokes and he kept his head down in the water like an animal, so that he seemed to belong there.
I watched him swim but did not want to bother him, as I guessed I might if I made conversation. Instead I went further up, round a small bend where the river opened into the bank, making a shallow place where I dipped myself all over but did not swim. It was cool water and I felt fresh when I came out, though I had to pick off the waterweeds that clung to my trousers.
I sat on a log to drip off, and fixed my hair into a braid while it was still wet. Already I could see men and women coming into the fields across the river, and, farther away, smoke rising above groups of palms and tal trees. Two small fishing boats passed downstream, the men shouting to each other like brothers. The world was awake at last.
All these activities must have stirred the large awkward duck who chose that moment to step out from a clump of tall ulu grass and begin to waddle towards the river. His head and beak were pink, a pink like the brightest sari in the world, and the rest of him was dark and silky brown, the very colour of Mrs Panossian’s most expensive chocolate.
I had never seen such a bird and my fingers were itching to paint him. But I had nothing with me, not even a pencil, and this showy fellow was a nervous bird. If I moved suddenly I would lose him. As I waited, trying to picture every feather in my mind, his mate came out to join him. She was not so brilliant as he, but she was bolder. He was still fussing about in the mud but she stepped into the water like a lady into a palki and straightaway began to reach her long neck out for food.
“Pss, pss.”
It was Benu. He had made no sound to disturb the birds but he was on the path now, holding out to me the page I’d given him last night, and the crayon. Without the head wrap he looked younger, and I saw that, unlike his father, he had lots of hair, long, dripping wet hair, and his dhoti was dark with water.
“That’s so smart, Benu,” I whispered back.
He watched while I drew the two ducks with the smooth crayon. That was not so easy, but it was my fault for not giving Benu a proper pencil. I wrote “Mago’s sari from Papa” beside the male’s head and “Malati’s lips” beside the female. Chocolate did not need any words.
“Will you fill in their big black feet for me while I go for Mr Walker?” I asked Benu.
He had a smile almost as wide as Anoush’s.
Mr Walker was out of his tent now, dressed in shirt and breeches. When he saw me he stretched his arms towards the sun and then started raising his knees up and down, pretending he was a soldier. Carlen was bent over the fire, frying fish. He did not look up.
“I found some new ducks. Come quickly.”
I grabbed my bag from the tent and then he followed me back to the little place of shallows. Benu was standing by the log, as still as my heron. He put his finger to his lips as we came near, and then he pointed.
There were six of the pink-headed ducks now, four new ones sitting on their bellies in the clearing, while my first pair were finally together in the water. The new birds must have believed Benu to be a tree to have settled themselves so comfortably. They took no notice of us, and again I began to sketch.
“If they were humans they’d be fat-bellied men passing round a hookah,” Mr Walker whispered to me.
“My mother never told me about any pink duck and she knew almost every bird on the river,” I said. “So I think they must be very rare. Do you think this might be one to name for your sister?”
He shook his head slowly but his eyes were dancing.
“Alas, I think not, Anila. I’ve heard of the pink duck before, you see, though I never saw one until now. Last year when I was up-country beyond Murshidabad someone promised me a carcase but it never turned up. We can check the records but I cannot imagine that the glorious pink duck doesn’t already have his name written into Mr Linnaeus’s book.”
I must have looked disappointed because Mr Walker put his hands together and made me a namashkar. Nor was he making mock, not at all.
“Anila, don’t fret. Seeing the live creature is the very best reason for our adventure in the first place. I thank you for my pink ducks.”
We left them then and came back for our breakfast. Carlen was still not speaking to Madan or to me, but nobody could find fault with his fish. Or with his speed at dismantling the two tents and packing them on board in neat parcels. We were sailing so soon that my two pink ducks were still in the water when we passed the little bathing
place.
“Ah,” said Madan. “The gulab-sir. The bird whose eggs are as round and white as pearls.”
He told us he’d never seen pink ducks so far down the holy river, that they liked to live on the flatlands just before the great mountains began.
“Perhaps they’ve run away from home,” said Mr Walker. “Like so many of us do.”
He did not look sad when he said this. But I wondered what he meant.
It was green everywhere, lovely, with many fruit trees planted, some even near to the river. The villages seemed closer together as we passed, and there were many small boats. I moved to the cabin where I could do a finished drawing of the ducks. I wanted to use the chalks in my box, to find the right pinks and browns.
Towards noon, Mr Walker came into the cabin.
“Anila,” he said. “Madan tells me that your grandfather’s village is coming up over the next length of the river.”
We came out onto the deck and Madan pointed away to the left bank.
“See there?” he said, with his great arm pointing across like a signpost. “Arjun’s house is halfway between the village and the river, along by those palms, where the path runs.”
I squinted and I thought I could make out the lines of a simple thatch and bamboo house where the trees stood. I saw a group of children leading buffaloes along the path from the village. Perhaps my mother had done this too when she was little, when she was not working the boats with her father.
There were a couple of fishing boats tied up at the small ghat and some of the hollowed tree boats too, but when I looked at Madan he shook his head.
“Arjun has a bigger boat,” he said.
He called out a greeting to some young men on the jetty who were shaking out their nets. Then we were past.
For the first time, I wondered how my mother had come to the city to join my father. I knew she had worn her red sari and I knew that he had lifted her up and over the doorway of the house in the lane, just like a bride back home, he said. She had told me that. But how had they come there? In whose boat?
