‘Not exactly, but you know how these things are . . .’
He thought he knew what she was getting at. She had been angry with Manickam ever since Lily’s stay in Pulimed. But that was no reason to get rid of him.
‘What are you trying to say, Hen?’ he said patiently. He didn’t feel patient at all, but it was better this way, otherwise he knew exactly how the sequence of events would go – minor skirmishing would lead to bigger issues and then there would be an outright fight. He had begun to hate the time they spent together. You never knew when a furious argument would break out, angry thoughts and words creeping like dirty little animals from her angelic mouth.
Often when they fought, he would simply walk out into the rain, preferring the leeches and the wet to his cantankerous wife. He would have to sort out Helen’s unhappiness somehow, he realized, and quickly, otherwise they should go their separate ways. That wasn’t an option he was prepared to consider lightly, especially because admission of defeat in his marriage would be a massive blow to his pride, and Kannan was a proud man, but more and more it seemed the only way out . . . She could leave when the weather improved, in September or in December. A few months in the plains would settle her, give him the space he needed to get over his father’s death. And then perhaps they could start again.
Helen was screeching at him now, ‘Kannan, hullooo, are you listening to me? Here I am, trying to bring something to your notice, and you seem to have gone wool-gathering! As usual! If only you’d take a look at how things really are, what we have to put up with here, then we wouldn’t be leading such miserable lives.’
He tried hard to maintain his composure, to no avail. He reacted angrily. ‘Now look here, nothing is as dire as you make it out to be. Just because some people are against you, just because you haven’t been able to get the planters to swoon at your feet, then that is no reason to be hard on me. You’re not one of them, and never will be, no matter how much you try.’
Helen’s response was instant and splenetic.
‘How dare you talk to me like that, you no-good beggar. Don’t you see how they treat you? Every time I see you smiling and fawning on them, running around to do their every little errand, it makes me want to vomit. Don’t you have any self-respect?’
‘What are you saying, you pathetic woman? Don’t forget that if it wasn’t for me you would still be hanging around in your awful little colony . . .’
‘You miserable worm, if you had the guts you would stand up to these white buggers, instead of taking your resentment out on me. You Indians are all cowards, no wonder you bootlick so much.’
‘Are you English? Is that why you are so miserable when the white man spits on you?’ he said quietly.
Helen’s face grew angrier. It’s amazing how even the most perfect features take on a simian cast when angry, Kannan thought. At times like this we resemble nothing so much as the apes that preceded us.
Helen, who had been struggling to get the words out, began to scream at him. ‘I hate you, I hate the day I let you into my life, I hate the day I married you, I hate you, I hate you, you miserable pariah.’
‘If I am a pariah, what do you think that makes you?’
‘Someone who’ll always be a thousand times better than you . . .’
‘Oh really, and how’s that, you stupid little fool?’
‘Simple. Does anyone know the great Kannan Dorai’s ancestry? Do you know how much your white colleagues would despise you if they knew?’
He didn’t know where this was going, but it felt bad . . .
‘Who are you to look down on me, you bastard, when your own mother, the great lady who can’t even speak English, is nothing but a head clerk’s daughter?’
The words dropped like thunder. Even in their most bitter fights, they’d refrained from attacking each other’s parents but Helen’s rage was all-consuming. An image bloomed in Kannan’s mind of his mother, the calm centre in the midst of the frenzy that had attended Daniel’s death. How noble she’d seemed. And to have her spat on!
Helen’s face looked almost comical when she realized what she’d done. She jumped up from the sofa, but Kannan was quicker. He got up from his chair, propelled by a fury so great that he barely registered his physical actions. He caught her, his fist raised to smash down into her face, to erase from his sight something that had suddenly grown hateful. At the last moment, diverted by the terror in her eyes, he pushed her from him and slammed his fist into the wooden mantelpiece. The hard unyielding teak absorbed the blow, the lone Wedgwood vase on it barely stirring. Weeping, Helen fled the room and Kannan slumped into a sofa, the future pitilessly clear. They were finished.
He moved into the spare bedroom that night and Helen didn’t try to stop him.
All through that monsoon, they kept as far away from each other as they could manage, speaking to each other only when absolutely necessary, waiting for the moment when they could escape each other. When the rains thinned in September, land-slips blocked the road to the plains. Finally, towards the middle of December, the rains gone, he drove her down to the station to catch her train. Their parting was perfunctory. He promised to send her things on as quickly as he could and they made polite talk about getting back together in a while, although they were careful to keep their plans vague.
Soon afterwards he wrote to Murthy, asking his friend to fulfil a long-standing promise to visit.
93
The decisive victory of the Fourteenth Army at the siege of Imphal was the worst defeat the Japanese had suffered since the Battle of Midway in 1942. It was Britain’s greatest triumph in the region. The war began to recede from India. By the winter of 1944, enormous fleets of American Super-Fortress bombers took the war to Japan itself, a country that had believed itself under divine protection ever since the thirteenth century when the savage Mongol armies of Kubla Khan were scattered by great winds when they threatened the islands; this time, however, kamikaze, the divine wind, failed to protect Japan. Hundreds of B-29s under the command of Curtis Le May began to pound the country. The attacks generated firestorms that raised temperatures in the city to 1800ºF and above.
As news of Allied victories filtered through, a mood of exultation grew in the estates. An invasion of little yellow men was no longer feared and the planters celebrated. In this corner of the planet, the war was over.
Even the weather gave cause for cheer. December was usually cold and gloomy, but this year the bright blade of the sun sliced through the mists, the temperature rose, and the high tea country became a place of enchantment. Everywhere you looked, the landscape was so green it hurt the eye. The sky was blue and unclouded, and the air so clear that every feature of the land stood out in sharp relief. After six months of rain, the world breathed again. It was a time of parties and picnics and serious bouts of drinking before roaring fires of eucalyptus wood.
Murthy arrived in Pulimed in December and Kannan swept his friend into a whirl of partying and clubbing. After three days, Murthy had had enough. On Sunday morning he asked whether they might not stay home for the day.
‘It’s been over two years since I last saw you, do you mind very much if we spend today catching up?’ he asked.
‘Of course not,’ Kannan said. ‘I hope you’re enjoying the parties.’
‘They’re not what I’m used to but I’m having quite a good time.’
‘If they get a bit too much, you’ll tell me, won’t you? I don’t want to be accused of dragging my best friend all the way to Pulimed just to torture him,’ Kannan said with a laugh.
‘You know me better than that. If I have a problem you’ll know immediately,’ Murthy said, breaking off a piece of his dosai and dipping it into the sambhar on his plate.
They ate in silence for a while, Murthy with his fingers, Kannan manipulating a knife and fork. Determined not to repeat the mistakes that had attended his mother’s visit, he had instructed Manickam to serve dosais, idlis and uppuma instead of his regular breakfast of eggs, toast
and marmalade.
‘If you think it’s none of my business I know you’ll tell me, but why did Helen leave?’ Murthy asked after a while.
‘There’s not a great deal to say. We weren’t right for each other, but you don’t see that when you’re in love.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I think so. I go out as much as I can. Can’t stand the empty house. It’ll get better.’
‘These things always do,’ Murthy said wisely.
‘What do you know about these things?’ Kannan said with a laugh. ‘You’re not even married.’
Murthy looked nonplussed for a moment, then he smiled. The talk grew lighter, the years dropped away and they laughed and joked as they had in college. Finally Murthy asked, ‘Why are you eating your dosai with a knife and fork?’
‘Oh, just got used to it,’ Kannan replied.
His friend said nothing and went back to eating his dosai. Just then, Manickam came in with a fresh supply. Kannan waited till he left, then asked, ‘What did you mean by that question?’
‘Nothing, nothing. I just found it a bit odd, that’s all.’
‘Come on, Murthy. Tell me what’s on your mind.’
‘No, really, I just found it unusual. I’ve never seen anyone do it before.’
‘It keeps the fingers clean,’ Kannan said as he raised a forkful of dosai and sambhar to his mouth.
Abruptly Murthy said, ‘You’ve changed. You’re not the Kannan I used to know.’
Kannan put his knife and fork down on his plate. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Well, you know. Small things, like eating dosais with a knife and fork. Big things, like the way you behave around your English colleagues. You’re not the Kannan I used to know.’
‘We all change, don’t we? You’ve changed. Why, you’ve even grown a beard!’
Murthy laughed and Kannan said, ‘Enough about me. Tell me what’s going on down in the plains.’
‘A lot of action. Now that the war is almost over, I think it’ll be only a matter of time before the Mahatma, Nehru, Patel and everyone else goes on the attack once again. I think the British are finished, Kannan. Three years, five years. That’s all it’s going to take before we’re free.’
‘Will that be a good thing?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Won’t there be chaos when the British leave?’
‘It’s easy to see why the British would think that. Things won’t be easy. Jinnah is adamant about a separate nation for the Muslims. And the others are dead against it. Their positions are hardening. I fear it will delay independence, you know, give the British reasons to stay on.’
‘What’s the solution?’ Kannan asked.
‘I don’t know. Rajaji fell out with the Mahatma and Nehru for suggesting that they accept Jinnah’s demand in the larger interest of achieving independence, so that’s a real stalemate. It’s getting very messy. Every second day, some new party is formed, with neither accountability nor agenda, solely in order to take advantage of the uncertainty . . . Sometimes politics makes you sick, all the cynical manoeuvring and opportunistic alliances and . . .’
‘So why do we want to get rid of the British? At least they keep it all in check!’
Murthy looked aghast. ‘What are you talking about?’ he said. ‘I can’t believe you just said that.’
‘What’s wrong with what I said?’
‘Let me spell it out for you. If I sound dramatic, so be it. I don’t know about you but I would rather die in poverty as a free man than be a prosperous slave.’
‘That is rather a dramatic view, you know.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Murthy said excitedly. ‘Do you know how disparaging Churchill is about the Mahatma? After the Quit India movement, he called him a miserable old man who had always been the enemy. Deep down, they despise us, all of us.’
‘Political talk, Murthy. I’m sure our leaders have said bad things about them. I’m sure Churchill isn’t racist.’
‘He’s certainly an old-style imperialist who believes he was created superior to all the subject races. It’s no surprise his attitude rubbed off on people like Linlithgow, the worst Viceroy we’ve ever had! Think of the way he handled the Bengal famine! And do you know what he said about Gandhiji’s fast? He said that if the Mahatma died, all that would happen would be six months of unpleasantness that would steadily decline in intensity after which things would go on as before. And Wavell is worse. He calls himself a simple soldier but he hasn’t won a battle in years. And if he’s a great general, tell me what he’s doing here instead of fighting somewhere? And this man has the nerve to poke fun at the Mahatma. I read a poem he wrote about Gandhiji. It made me so angry I can still remember it word for word. It’s a version of “Jabberwocky”. Do you know the poem?’
‘You know I was never much of a reader.’
‘Well, it’s from Alice in Wonderland and Wavell spoofed it like this:
“Beware the Gandhiji, my son
The satyagrahah, the bogey fast,
Beware the Djinnarit, and shun
The frustrious scheduled caste.”’
Kannan laughed.
‘You find that funny?’
‘Steady, Murthy, I’m not the enemy,’ Kannan said with a smile.
‘Sorry,’ Murthy said a little sheepishly, ‘I do tend to get carried away. But their attitude makes me really angry. Do you know that Britain fought a hundred and eleven wars in the last century and they were all funded by India? They are who they are because of us. Do you still think they’re doing us a favour by giving us the crumbs from their table? They’re bleeding us dry, and we’re expected to take it? Sorry, Kannan. I’m no friend of the white man. I was surprised at how much you seemed to want to emulate them.’
‘Michael Fraser is a good man, and Freddie is a friend.’
‘Yes, he’s a nice man,’ Murthy admitted.
‘And Major Stevenson and the others are not bad sorts. There are bastards, like Martin and Patrick, but you find them everywhere.’
‘It’s not that I hate the whites. Think of all our profs at MCC. What I cannot accept is imperialism.’
For a while they ate without speaking, then Murthy began again. ‘You know, I find it a bit hard to accept that someone like you is not participating in the most exciting time of our lives.’
‘There you go again. Flogging your pet peeve,’ Kannan said with a smile.
‘But can’t you see it?’ Murthy said passionately. ‘We are living at this great moment in our history, offered an opportunity to transcend ourselves, be part of something that’s bigger than us. The independence movement, Kannan, the greatest mobilization of people in recorded history, it’s reaching its climax and you’re not part of it!’
‘I grant you it’s very exciting. But do you think your own part in it makes any difference? The big decisions, the things that have an impact, are being made by people like Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Rajaji . . . How are we part of it?’
‘Every one of us has a stake in what’s going on. If the Viceroy takes a decision, if the Mahatma announces a programme, they are because of the actions of all of us. It’s exciting to be an Indian, Kannan, more now than at any other time in the past or in the future . . .’
‘Am I less of an Indian for not being part of the struggle?’ Kannan asked.
‘You do seem proud to be a brown-skinned Englishman.’
‘Because my boss said I spoke English as well as an Englishman?’
‘I wasn’t thinking of that, it was . . .’
‘I’m just trying to be good at my job, Murthy. Your father didn’t throw you out of the house,’ Kannan said, a trace of irritation in his voice.
‘I wasn’t trying to annoy you. It’s just that I’m so caught up with the idea of the independence struggle that I’m a bit oblivious to everything else.’
Kannan accepted the apology. They sat for a while longer at the breakfast table finishing their coffee. Then Kannan said, ‘Fan
cy a walk? It’s a lovely day.’
‘Excellent idea,’ Murthy said and they got up to go. As they were leaving the dining room, Kannan said, ‘I don’t measure up?’
‘It’s hateful to be a subject race, Kannan. And that’s what we are right now. It’s something no one with a hint of pride in themselves could accept.’
‘Are you telling me that I’m without pride, a toady of the British?’
Murthy hesitated, then said, ‘No, that’s not what I’m saying. When I first got to Pulimed I was amazed how little you or anyone else thought about the independence struggle. All the talk was of war, war, war. It was as though India never existed. Or if it did, only as an adjunct to the British cause . . .’ He broke off suddenly. ‘I’m sorry, I’m haranguing you. Let’s just go for that walk.’
Kannan smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll go far in politics.’
‘No more politics today. Okay. Not while I’m in Pulimed.’ They walked as far as the fork in the road that led from the bungalow to the factory. And then, because the day was so beautiful, they walked some more. Everything the sun touched shone like polished glass: the blazing emerald of the tea, the water-wet hills and distant waterfalls, the silver-backed leaves of the grevillea trees as they turned in the breeze. Murthy said with a laugh, ‘Long may you prosper in this place, Kannan. I know I’d want to come here whenever I needed to rest.’
They walked a while longer, letting the peace and enchantment of the place seep into them, then Murthy said, ‘I’m sorry I never met your father, Kannan.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry too, he was a great man. I regret now that I didn’t get to know him better.’ He smiled as a memory surfaced. ‘He could be quite delightful, you know. Remember the Blue Mango Festival? I’m sure I told you about it in college. I was seven or eight and I was determined to win the children’s competition. I’d eaten about ten mangoes and I desperately had to go to the lavatory, you know how it is when you eat too many mangoes. My father who was watching got so alarmed that he rushed up to me, caught me up and almost ran with me all the way to the house so that my mother and grandmother wouldn’t find out . . . That was the last one. There were no more festivals after my grandmother died.’ Kannan was quiet for a while, then he said, ‘I have so few memories of him.’
The House of Blue Mangoes Page 46
