Anila's Journey

by Mary Finn

  Mr Bristol made a noise. When he answered the doctor his voice was hoarse.

  “No medicine for this? No surgery? Would pay, you know… if you recommend…”

  But whatever was said to those questions must have been with a headshake only because all I heard was another groan or whatever it was. And then, “An exquisite companion… All I could ask for…”

  I heard their steps forward and was by the bed in a thrice. My mother had heard nothing or if she had she had closed her eyes against all the words in this house.

  Mr Bristol’s fleshy face was white and grey like ashes and he would not meet my glance. He went instead to the window where the shutters lay open to the little garden below. I believed he was weeping in his own fashion.

  So it was the doctor who told me what must be told to a girl whose mother is dying.

  But most of what he told me was not necessary because Annapurna, my dear mother, was wise enough to die in just a very few days after that. She had never troubled anyone in her life and I am sure that was part of the reason her death was speedy. She did not want me to suffer for the reasons the doctor had described. Very near to her end, she closed her fingers round mine and I looked down at our hands that were joined as if someone had carved them in one piece. I knew that in part she would be with me all the days of my life ahead.

  Mr Bristol wanted to bury my mother in the big cemetery in Burial Ground Road and he told the doctor he would call for the black-coated funeral men and their dark carriage horses. But I cried out at that. No, I believe I screamed, until the doctor stood by me and said that my mother’s body must be brought to the river instead.

  “Do as the Gentoos wish it, or you will be cursed, Bristol, for doing the wrong thing.”

  For so stiff a man, he was understanding enough, though I thought he was rude and forward when he put a hand on my forehead and felt under my jaw with his pale fingers.

  “Poor orphan,” he said. “but at least you are in good health.”

  The durwan arranged everything in the end, and Mr Bristol told him to spare no expense in what he ordered, or what fee he must pay the priest. Rupa and I dressed my mother in a plain cotton sari. We rubbed sandalwood paste onto her feet. Then we bound her loosely so that she was ready for the bier of palms. She would travel by boat up to the private burning ghats. The durwan had seen to it all.

  I do not remember much of what happened that day. Mr Bristol did not come with us but he permitted Rupa and me to leave the house with the bearers and travel with my mother so that I could light the pyre. There was no son, no father, no brother to do this, just me, the only family mourner. I found the place so terrible that I did not lift my eyes to right or left but just followed the bearers and the small white shape that they carried. I remember that an old priest sang hymns in a voice that quavered. My mother would have giggled at that, I knew, but I hoped he was saying the right words. Rupa was murmuring her own prayers but I had none to offer. Not then.

  A fog was settling in from the river when I touched my mother’s body for the last time and lit the fire. Kind old Rupa held me as the shawls of fog and smoke mixed together and we felt both the heat and the damp on our arms and feet and faces. She held me as we made the return journey, something I cannot recall at all. I do remember that the durwan opened the gates faster than he had ever done in all the time I had spent in the house. This man who never wasted a word now looked at me with swimming eyes and I realized that he had probably cared for my mother’s presence in his own brooding way.

  Mr Bristol himself was at the door to greet us. He asked if everything was done according to our rites, as he put it, and then he went into his study and closed the door. I do not think he meant to be unkind. I think he feared his own emotions and, possibly even more, he feared the effort he must now make to decide my future.

  He was spared that anyway. News travelled fast in the English city, as fast as in any bazaar. The next morning the durwan was busy again with his gate locks long before Mr Bristol left for the court. I was upstairs in our room then but all the sounds of the house and garden came in those windows and, above the songs of the sparrows and bulbuls, I could hear the clipped voice of Miss Hickey though her words were not clear.

  I did not move from the bed where I had spent the night lying on top of the covers. But if I was playing durwan to my own self, Miss Hickey was having none of that. She was knocking on the door and calling my name and then entering and pulling me up into her arms.

  “Oh, my dear, my dear,” she whispered. “What a terrible loss. The angel.” And then, “She thought you were the most wonderful child she could ever have wished to have. She was so proud of you, Anila. And I can feel free to tell you now that she exacted my promise, as if that was necessary, to take you into our care, if anything should happen to her. That is why I came here at first notice. My father heard the news only last night and I spent the night waiting for a decent hour to come knocking on Mr Bristol’s door.”

  She looked at me, my swollen face and my eyes that must have looked as they felt, full of grit, and red as clay.

  “I came to your room first thing but now I will go downstairs and talk to him. There will be no problem, none, you may have my word for it.”

  She left me, with a final hug that smelt of sweet lavender water, and went downstairs to find Mr Bristol. I lay back and closed my eyes. Perhaps I slept then because it seemed to be late afternoon when Mr Bristol himself knocked and came into the room. He looked nervous.

  “Anila, my dear,” he said. “You know that the Hickeys have become fond of you and it is an extraordinary circumstance but they have very kindly offered you a home in the aftermath of all this…”

  He waved his hands around, and looked down at the floor for a moment.

  “To tell you the truth, I did not know what to suggest to you. I would have consulted your mother but it was too late, by then. And I would not have my reputation sullied by idle gossip. I would perhaps have suggested the church, but now Miss Hickey has made this offer and she believes that you are agreeable. Is that the case?”

  I just nodded, lying head down on my pillow, not looking at him.

  “All her clothes and jewels, all her money, these are yours my dear.”

  There! My mother had her answer now.

  I sat up.

  “Thank you,” I said to him. “But I will just take my clothes and if you would give me her green sari, the one from the painting, I would take that. I don’t want the painting, you can keep that.”

  His mouth was opening and closing like a fish landed on a bank.

  “But there is quite an amount of money, child, and I would not cheat you of it, you know that. You are all alone now. The painting was not in my offer, by the way.”

  “You could give the money to Rupa then, or the church, or whomsoever,” I said back to him as fast as I could get the words out. “But I don’t need it. My father will be coming back some day, and he would not like me to have such money.”

  I felt badly immediately those words were out, but it was said. He probably thought I was made mad enough by my mother’s passing to bring my father to life again.

  That evening Miss Hickey came again in the carriage and by then my bag was packed. Rupa cried when I said goodbye to her and left her one of my mother’s silk saris. Mr Bristol shook my hand on the porch and then bade me wait a moment. He went into his study and came back with the red-covered Robinson Crusoe.

  “Remember me and your time in this house whenever you read this,” he said. “You are a clever girl with all your reading. If you apply yourself there must be a position for you somewhere in the city when you are older and you will have my recommendation.”

  Miss Hickey bowed to him and took my arm. We stepped out into the garden and I looked round it for the last time. Night was falling and the fountain had stopped running but in my mind I could still hear that liquid sound. It had reminded my mother of her river. On summer days when monsoon did not drown it, it had
told me something about freedom, even though I knew its poor noise was false and that the fountain water was as trapped as we two had been in this place.

  The durwan raised his hand in salute and we travelled away in the darkness to Garden Reach, where I have stayed ever since.

  The greatest kindness of the Hickeys was that they did not try to erase my mother’s memory but spoke of her always so that she hung there like a fixed star in my sky. Beyond that everything they did on my behalf was to offer encouragement and the greatest affection.

  Mr Hickey taught me how to prepare a canvas and use paint and schooled me in perspective and shading and other tricks of drawing. Always his joke was that he is protected from bankruptcy by the fact that birds attract me to paint them while humans do not. To that end he even bought for his library some of the famous Persian bookplates that are filled with animals and birds, picked out in gold and colours like jewels. They are not what I paint but they are beautiful.

  It was Miss Hickey who taught me the English names of birds as far as she could, and improved my language and my knowledge in every other way. In return I taught her Bengali but she says that I am a better student and she a better teacher.

  I am full of my own cares towards the two of them and glad of that, above all things, for it would be lonely beyond measure to be set under the skies on your own. The darkness in my life is the one that grows as an unpaid account does. The years that now separate my father and me are yawning and mysterious.

  Miss Hickey kept her word and went to the Company on my behalf, to search for any news of my father. I was young then, and stayed at home, and was not present for the meeting she had with the person in charge of the Writers’ affairs. I know that she returned full of fury that her errand had been thrown out by a man she called “an arrant bully”. Afterwards she engaged the legal gentleman whose bibi had been painted by Mr Hickey to visit the Company on her behalf but he had no luck either. She intends to make more enquiries in Madras, where all ships to and from England must stop.

  That is why I have stayed in Calcutta while my dear friends have gone south. I believe the answer to my father’s absence lies here already and I must work harder to find it. Or else it will come one day from abroad, perhaps in a letter or a parcel. Or, best of all outcomes, he will step off a ship one day and when we have found one another we will begin a new life together.

  THE STORM

  TO MISS ANILA TANDY in the happenstance I do not return from my mission.

  If you are reading these words likely ill not be returned though you can find this paper sooner if you are smart and early about your drawing. Its no matter for I have made a mind to tell you these things any case since you saved our little boy Manik from his suffering and death. They tried to crucify him like the lord.

  I cant be other than I am now. I am made twisted though Edward Walker did his best for me and the right ways were easier to find around him always. Then you were there and taking all his best care. i could not have it. i grant i did you wrong. Another thing was that you had parents once for all that you are orphan now. i had none myself but thought i did well enough until you came along. it is hard for the poor to look at the rich.

  But you have a father as I told you so you are not really orphan stock anyway. Take heed now lest you lose this paper so learn what I say. you are clever as I am myself. your father is in Madras living near the place they call the Island. People know his name but he hardly knows it himself. He hears them call him Patrick Tandy but he has no memory of what Patrick Tandy has been or done in his life.

  What he did to be like this is something that made me find out his company when I was in that city twice. Though it was not him who told me for he cannot remember it. His story is known in that place and you must have poor friends who could not find it out for you all this time.

  When he was in ship from the Cape to Saint Helen he tried to stir the other passengers to speak in anger against the cargo they took on at the Cape. And what was that but a holdful of black slaves fastened down crueller than a butcher would tether an ox for killing. So the captain put him off on a boat at the island for jail but a storm recked that and only two of four men came clear alive on the rocks. Patrick Tandy and another man who had it that poor Tandy cracked his headfirst and then nearly drowned. From that day he was told his name but who knew the rest of it to tell him? No wife or child in the record. When the bucks on the island saw he could do things with a pencil for he did not lose that gift from God they rid themselves of him and parcelled him back to india to be useful. They feared the spirit that set him going for the slaves. Now he goes out and draws ships and such things and for sailors sometimes pictures for their girls. Any seafarer in that quarter will find him out for you. He is happy mostwhiles in what he does though he has less of the roopees than i have myself.

  it was the name itself Tandy that gave me the nod when you turned up first like a bad dose but you have a strong look of the man too most when you have the pencil going. you are not what i called you a hinny but i was called plenty worse names myself in my life. you did the same for the boy as your father was trying to do for the black slaves. Blood is a strange thing isnt it and you are lucky to have it.

  There you have it Miss Tandy and I wish you well after my poor dealings to you. look after the boy whatever else you do and pray for my soul after your fashion.

  Carlen of Horkstow, county of Lincoln, England

  I have not written to Edward Walker for that is too hard on me at this time. Tell him he is a good man and a special case and if only there were more of his kind. I am sorry for the pistol too.

  THE RETURN JOURNEY

  WE MADE GOOD SAIL downriver for the current was with us and the winds too. Mr Walker took care of the sail when he was needed, which was often now that we were a man short. He wouldn’t let Madan take on any new hands, not even the two who had brought us the murderous news, nor anybody from the ghats we were passing.

  “I could not stomach that,” he said.

  He ignored the way Madan rolled his eyes then and blew his breath out. But for all that he allowed the boatman to shout orders and lose temper with him just as he did with Benu and Hari. He simply bent his head down and pulled harder on the ropes.

  I did what I could to ease Hari’s cleaning tasks but he would not let me help with the meals. On that matter he was closed and I did not know if it was because of my history or because he could best show his devotion to Mr Walker by frying his fish just the way Carlen had done. I told him he had a great talent for fish and so I should cook the rice but he shook his head.

  “Lord Dakshin Rai, his is the hand who moves us all.”

  That was Hari’s Lord of the Swamps and Tigers, I had learned, his own home god. But I was left no wiser.

  Our quicker motion meant that the nights we spent on the water would be fewer, which felt a mercy to me now. Nevertheless, I worried that each time we moored it seemed Mr Walker was thinner than the night previous. After darkness fell and we had eaten whatever Hari prepared he would make himself busy by lamplight too, in the cabin, writing letters that he filed away in a tin-lined case like my own. He would not say what they were.

  “A return journey is always different,” he said to me when he caught my eyes following his pen. “But none more than this one, I believe.”

  Those nights Carlen hung between us like a dark moon.

  When I had burst out of the cabin to show Mr Walker my letter, the letter that had brought me such joy and promise, I thought he would surely be glad that the story of Jupiter and his messengers had proved as true on earth as it was in the heavens. Why, Carlen himself must surely be counted such a messenger, I thought. What he said did not speak of gladness, however.

  “So, a foul deed has borne good fruit despite all. Perhaps the man is not altogether damned. You will find your father in Madras soon enough then, Anila, and in my company. I guarantee that.”

  He nodded briskly as if to say, look, we are halfway to the city
in the south already, and there is little remarkable about such an outcome. Then he folded the letter and returned it to me. He said nothing of Carlen’s words about himself, an opinion that I thought was truly well expressed. Of course he did not mean to wound me or cast me down, I knew that. But it was evident that that was the way he was left himself.

  What Mr Walker did not forgive in Carlen I found I could now pass over. On the other hand, while I could not mourn the man as he must do, I could honour him, or at least the struggle he had made to put his good news on a page for me. To me his words were fire and warmth but for all their wonder I could see they did nothing to heal poor Mr Walker’s hurt. And so I felt it would be unkind of me to be very light-hearted around him. I set my face as carefully as a priest that morning, and that is how I continued.

  But inside how different it was! In the mornings I watched the swallows swoop over the water and felt my heart lift into the air with them. Everything made sense in my life, everything fell into order, everything flowed along, even the sadnesses. My father was alive and well and although he had forgotten us he had never betrayed us. It truly was an enchantment of a kind that had fallen on him. How well my mother would have understood that.

  The only person who made Mr Walker smile as we made our journey downriver was little Manik, who liked to sit up front, watching the river traffic through hooped fingers, as if through a spyglass. Now that we were safely away from his village he was as happy as any young creature. His eyes were clear and he sang, both Benu’s songs and others he made up himself. He was still a little in awe of Mr Walker but he liked to chop his tobacco for him or find him a good walking stick along the banks when we moored.

  Once he brought back some clean bamboo and Mr Walker surprised us all. With his sharp knife he took a slice of the smooth wood and cut some neat round holes in it.

  “This is a Scottish whistle now, young man, and so you must learn a Scottish tune. Watch my fingers and copy what I do.”