Anila's Journey

by Mary Finn

  “Oh, Mr Walker,” I said. But I could say nothing else. There were so many things I wanted to say to him and none that I could. I would have to write them later in a letter, a letter as thick as the one he now bore in his trunk with his promise to hand it to Miss Hickey in person.

  There was no end to his kindness. For instance, he had insisted I keep the clothes he had bought for my voyage to Madras though I begged him to send them back.

  “And upset Anoush, who helped me choose them?” he said. “Bad enough that I will lose your company going south, Anila.”

  Anoush had done me proud. There were two new saris, a golden one and another in a shimmering colour that was between pink and purple. There were long tunics, one of green silk, one of blue cotton. There was an English gown, a beautiful blue like Dutch delph. Best of all she had known to order two pairs of men’s breeches in soft white cord.

  As well as bearing that expense, Mr Walker had declared that I could stay in his house under Chandra’s care for as long as it might be. Balor would be doubly glad to have two slaves to serve him, he said.

  But now the word had come that answered that invitation.

  “You must sleep well tonight, Anila,” Mr Walker said after our supper. He had made me consent not to rise at the same hour as he must, before dawn, for, he said, he hated partings above all things. I was glad to agree.

  “Tomorrow will such be a strange occasion, no matter how happy, so you must have a proper care for yourself. I will be thinking of you all the time I am rolling around the deck, trying to find my sea legs. You cannot imagine how keenly I will await your news in Madras. Good night, my dear.”

  He made to leave the room, Chandra ahead of him with a night-light, having left one for me on the table. But at the door he stopped.

  “You know,” he said, “I was thinking all along that when the time came that I must urge you most particularly to be guided by the doctor, for he seems a fine interpreter of maladies as well as a good man. But on reflection, no. I say now that you should listen to your own heart’s prompts first of all, Anila, for they are what have brought you all this way.”

  Hearrrt’s prrrompts. Then he was gone.

  I sat up late in my little room, fingering the few precious items I would show my father. As well as Durga, I had Mr Hickey’s drawing of my mother. There was my tiny peacock locket, his saddest gift, and there was my own bulbul drawing. That had been made after Papa had left us, but he had known the bulbul itself for it was a long-lived bird, fed in plenty by the people on our lane.

  We had a jackdaw at home as bold as that fellow when I was your age, Anila. My sister Cecilia fed him best bits of bacon rashers when my mother wasn’t around.

  These were all I had to nudge Papa’s mind back to his life with us in Calcutta. I regretted now that I had left my mother’s purple scarf for Jonaki. She was welcome to have it, but its beautiful bright colour might have been the very thing to best challenge my father’s memory, as it had come from him.

  Finally I laid out my mother’s green silk sari. Though he had never seen it, I would wear it to meet him. I would tell him how his Annapurna had been painted in it and that people spoke of how lovely a sitter she was. Like a lady by Raphael, they said.

  After that, there was only my own face he might stare at for clues. There was a little glass in a frame standing on the washstand in my room. I held it close and examined my each feature just as I thought he might need to do.

  My watchful eyes stared back at me from the glass, brown like most people’s, not the dark black zest of my mother’s eyes. My mouth however was set well enough, like hers, and yet it had a determined line, like his. He could not miss that – how often had he remarked it himself? I combed my hair out and fingered it into the childish way he had always liked, in two braids down my back.

  When I did sleep that last night in Mr Walker’s house I dreamt of a boy on a horse. The horse was black, the boy was fair and he crouched low over the horse’s neck, steering it faster and faster over a land flat as a chessboard, jumping over creeks and narrow tanks that stretched out as far ahead as the sky, with not a tree in sight. He did not show his face.

  A PASSAGE TO JUPITER

  I HEARD PAPA BEFORE I saw him. He was singing.

  If to France or far-off Spain

  She crossed the watery main

  To see her face again the seas I’d brave

  That sad sad song about the pearly girl! How he loved those kinds of songs and he would sing them all the louder if Malati or Hemavati were in the house so that he might drive them away even if only for a little while.

  I rounded the back porch of the Herberts’ house, which gave onto a lawn, the same lawn that was visible from the doctor’s surgery. There was the open gazebo on the grass, its iron latticework painted white. A man sat at a sloping desk inside it, staring off into the trees at the end of the park, singing.

  And if it’s heaven’s decree

  That mine she’ll never be

  May the Son of Mary me in mercy save

  I could not remember the words that came next. But I could hum the melody and I did, making an equal music with his voice, loud enough for him to hear. He stopped singing, twisted round in his seat and stared at me where I stood, just outside his little station. A moon to his Jupiter.

  He was thinner, darker in skin than I remembered, and his sweet fine hair was cut very short. In one terrible place it did not seem to grow at all. But I would have picked him out from a shipful of men, at any distance, even though I was not close enough yet to distinguish his eyes.

  He leapt up and beamed at me.

  “Who are you, beautiful girl in green, that you know my song which nobody else seems to know? Is this a dream and if I blink will that polite little boy appear in your place, bringing more instruments for me to draw? I hope not.”

  He stood up and gently took my bag and set it down on the floor of the gazebo.

  “Please take my seat and talk to me for a moment, for the day is long, you know. Tell me who you are.”

  I bit my lip hard.

  “My name is Anila. Anila Tandy.”

  He looked confused, uneasy. Then, as if remembering his manners, he bowed his head in a way that called attention to the deep gouge above his temple. I forced my eyes to remain steady.

  “I was going to sail to Madras to find you. But then you came back to Calcutta instead. Just like you promised.”

  My voice shook a little on those last words. I wondered if I’d been too sudden, said too much. But his face cleared.

  “This is Calcutta, that much I was told yesterday morning. I am to live here now. It seems a fine place. Perhaps the air is a little clammy. Madras is somewhere else again. Like the island with the houses clinging to the mountainside. They’re all somewhere else but it’s best to stay put in one place and put some memories down the way I’ve been doing.”

  “You are Patrick Tandy.”

  How peculiar it was to say those words to my father. But the doctor had advised me to speak like this. Be very clear, he had said. State simple truths even if they seem obvious to you. Be prepared to say them again and again.

  Papa was staring at me, as children do, with no shyness or embarrassment

  “And Patrick Tandy has a daughter. You have a daughter.”

  He smiled at this information, with none of the discomfort he had shown when I said my name. Then he shook his head, slowly, even politely.

  “Well, now. I wasn’t expecting you to say that, you know, such an odd thing. They tell me all the time that I forget what happened before I came here, no, not here, the other place. But I remember some things, not only songs. You’ll call me foolish but I think it used to be cold enough for four, five blankets, imagine the weight of that, and then a big white cat would come and sit on top of the pile.”

  I could not hear that without letting him know he was right.

  “Oh, Papa, that was when you were a boy in Ireland. You told me about the cold that ma
kes the leaves fall from the trees, and about the cat white as snow. Papa, I’m your Anila. And you’re not foolish, not one bit.”

  There – I had said the wrong things and now I could say no more. My throat was full. He reached out and took my hands in his, staring first at them and then at my face.

  “I remember a lot of girls I played with in a garden. I don’t think you were one of them even though I see the ring you’re wearing and I know it. But I’d surely remember such a lovely face.”

  I looked down at Miss Hickey’s little ring, with its golden handclasp. That one I hadn’t counted upon to work on my father’s memory. But it gave me courage again.

  “Papa, the song you were singing. How do you think I knew it?”

  Again, he looked baffled. He let my hands go and rubbed the side of his head where the wicked scar lay.

  “You look like a clever girl. I suppose that’s how. Do you know these lines?”

  O long expected to my dear embrace!

  Once more’t is giv’n me to behold your face!

  The love and pious duty which you pay

  Have pass’d the perils of so hard a way.

  He spoke the strange words with his eyes closed and his head tilted back until he finished. I had seen Mr Hickey recite verses in just the same way.

  I shook my head when he looked at me for my answer.

  “I don’t recognize the words, Papa. But I like the sound and they make good sense.”

  He seemed disappointed.

  “Of course you don’t know them, they don’t belong to the song at all. But they came into my mind just now, somehow. I thought you might be familiar. See, I’ll write them down in my notebook.”

  He reached under his drawing papers and found a small black notebook and a pencil. I stood up to watch him write his lines down on a page that was crammed with jottings and small drawings. His script was still the same, neat, with small, well-formed letters.

  He snapped the book shut before I could distinguish any of the other entries.

  “The doctor who lives here said I should write down anything that came to mind that I couldn’t explain. He said it might all make up a pattern one day, like knots in a carpet.”

  He laughed.

  “I had a meeting with a rock in the sea. That’s what took my sense away, they tell me that every day so I can remember it.”

  “Papa, I heard that you had an accident, that you were very brave.”

  “Oh, they say this and that. Some people even come to see me for the novelty. But I don’t think anybody has ever said to me what you did. Now, isn’t that a strange business that you call me Papa and I don’t mind it? And yet I have forgotten the name you gave, my dear, though I do know you said it.”

  “Anila. It means blue like the skies, Papa.”

  “You see,” he said, holding his open palms out towards me. “I would not deserve a daughter. But what in the world is it anyway, do you think, that has conspired to set us two people down here this beautiful morning, like birds in a cage?”

  He stretched his arms out to touch the latticework of the gazebo and he was smiling at me, even though I saw tears washing out of his eyes. One blue eye and one green, the green with speckles of gold in it, dancing like atoms in sunshine.

  I wanted to sing my own sad song, a song that had no rhymes.

  Oh, my dear papa. You are not become foolish. For that has been my chief fear. No, you are full of a life that begins every day afresh, as birds do, or brave beasts, that have little care for what has happened to them or what may yet befall. But your Annapurna and I, we are your pearls, mired in that watery main of yours, down deep, farther than anyone knows.

  Sad, but I could make it into a song nonetheless. For somehow at that moment I knew that it would be all right, that I would find the courage to face my father as a friendly stranger, day after day, for as long as it would take. It might take wisdom or patience, or perhaps it might only take a lucky chance, to find the right words, the right pictures, the right knots, that might mend his broken life together in some fashion.

  Now I could see how clever my mother was, all along.

  To be the teller of a story you must begin and end it, yes, and if you decide to leave for another day what comes before or next, that is your choice. I was right about that.

  But my mother, the queen of storytellers, had the real truth in her hand when she drew that never-ending line on the stone she picked from the fountain. She knew that every story, every life, is as round and complete as a moon that lights up the sky with its own perfect face. But just as a moon turns dark and mysterious half the while, so a story cannot tell you everything you wish to hear, nor can a person. You must discover the rest with your wits and your senses and, most of all, with your heart.

  To be alive, and to see that, what could be better or braver or more wonderful?

  Glossary

  Bengali words whose meaning may not be clear in the text.

  anna – one-sixteenth of a rupee

  Asarh – the fourth month of the Hindu year, divided between June and July

  bibi – a lady, but also used to mean mistress

  bombazine – fabric of cotton and worsted wool

  brinjal – aubergine

  charpoy – a light bed

  chikan – embroidery, especially from Lucknow

  coolie – labourer

  dacoit – armed gang robber

  dadamoshay – maternal grandfather

  dhoti – length of fabric tied at the waist, worn by Hindu men

  East India Company – The English East India Company (there were also French, Dutch, Swedish, Danish and Portuguese EICs) was chartered to trade by Elizabeth I in 1600. By the late eighteenth century, the Company ruled a considerable part of India in governmental style, with presidencies in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. The British crown took over after the widespread rebellion of 1857.

  Ganga – the Ganges river which divides itself to flow into the Bay of Bengal. One of its delta rivers is the Hooghly, the river of Calcutta.

  Gentoo – a term for Hindu, used only by foreigners

  ghol – a yogurt-type drink

  godown – warehouse

  gur – unrefined sugar solid made from sugar cane or date palm juice

  Holi – Hindu spring carnival in honour of Krishna

  Ikri-mikri-cham-chikri – a finger game played with children

  jheel – floodwater pond

  kash – tall grass with white flowers, grown for weaving

  kerseymere – fine wool twill

  maidan – park-like open space; parade ground

  mohur – gold coin, worth, at this time, sixteen rupees

  Mussulman – Muslim

  paan – a popular concoction not unlike chewing gum, made of betel leaves, lime and areca nut paste

  palki – short for palanquin, a box-like personal transport carried on the shoulders of bearers

  panchali – Bengali folk songs

  payesh – a sweet rice pudding

  puja – Hindu religious ceremony; also prayers

  pukka – well-made, proper, reliable

  pukka mix – mortar made with molasses, brickdust and lime

  rupee – standard unit of currency

  sindur – red powder that married Hindu women apply to their hair parting

  syce – groom or stableman

  tiffin – light meal, lunch

  veena – stringed instrument like a lyre, used in Indian classical music

  Gods and Others

  Annapurna – the celestial benefactress who fills the rice pot

  Dakshin Rai – god revered in the Sunderbans mangrove delta; friend to tigers and to man

  Durga – mother goddess and consort of Shiva, often depicted with eighteen arms and riding a tiger

  Ganesha – elephant-headed god of wisdom, son of Shiva

  Hanuman – the monkey god who helps King Rama find his wife Sita

  Jatayu – the vulture that witnesses Sita�
��s kidnapping and dies attempting to rescue her

  Kali – another, fiercer, manifestation of the mother goddess, much celebrated in Calcutta

  Kalidasa – India’s classical poet and playwright of the first millennium, who wrote in Sanskrit

  Krishna – a human incarnation of the god Vishnu, whose adventures are told in the Mahabharata story cycle

  Lakshmi – goddess of fortune and wealth, and consort of Vishnu

  Radha – a gopi or cowherd beloved by Krishna

  Rama – King Rama and Queen Sita are lovers separated by evil and magic, whose story is told in the Ramayana epic poem

  Ravana – the king of the island Lanka, who captures and imprisons Sita

  Saraswati – goddess of learning, music and poetry, and consort of Brahma

  Surya – the sun god

  Songs and Poems

  The song Anila’s father sings is “The Snowy Breasted Pearl”, an eighteenth-century Irish love song.

  The lines he speaks are from Aeneid Book VI by Virgil, in John Dryden’s verse translation. After many difficulties, Aeneas (who is alive) has found his father Anchises (who is dead) in Hades, the Underworld.

  Birds

  All the birds that Anila draws are real except one. Mr Walker’s bittern, the “veena bird”, is a fictional bird. Sadly, the beautiful pink-headed duck is today almost definitely extinct: no sighting has been recorded since 1935.

  The Painter and the Paintings

  Thomas Hickey (1741–1824) was a prize-winning art student at the Dublin Society Drawing School. Being adventurous, he travelled widely and worked as a portrait painter in Dublin, London, Rome, Lisbon, Calcutta and Madras. He was also chief expedition artist on a diplomatic mission to China. His two daughters came with him on his second tour to India. He died in Madras after spending a total of thirty-four years in India. These are facts. But all the events described in Anila’s Journey are entirely fictional.