The Linnet Bird: A Novel

by Linda Holeman

  But it didn’t come. He must have sensed defeat, felt my lethargy, and knew I would accept his cruelty without a fight. And in this there was no pleasure. His hand returned to his side, and I to my chair.

  “It does go to show, though,” he said, not quite finished with me, “that you can never be trusted. I should have realized I’ll have to watch you all the time. You go off to Simla, and because of you, an English girl is dead. When you’re here you fraternize with the Indians. You really think I wasn’t aware of all your sneaking around since we married? I have people who tell me everything, Linny, who have seen you in the most unsavory places.”

  I looked down at Neel.

  “From now on only supervised activities, the ones I approve of. You obviously need discipline and boundaries at all times. I’ve allowed you to go quite tropo, and there’ll be no more of that. As it is, I’m sure many of the women will probably avoid you after what’s happened.” And then he left.

  I went back into my bedroom, opened my trunk, and unrolled one of my flowery cotton dresses. Inside the folded skirt was the chapan. I took it out and briefly pressed it to my face. The smell of it brought me comfort, but also grief, grief so overwhelming that it made me rise and hurry back out to the balcony, my feet stumbling as if in one of the malarial fevers that plagued Somers. I bent over the wide stone railing and retched dryly. And then I fell to my knees, allowing myself to feel what I had held back since that last morning in Mahayna’s tent.

  I lay on the stone floor for some time, unable to move, sobbing, curled around the chapan. I was filled with grief for that which had been found, and for that which was now lost. And for all the years I hadn’t cried, it seemed that since my time with Daoud, I couldn’t stop.

  A WEEK AFTER arriving home, I awoke from an afternoon nap feeling particularly heavy-headed. I had fallen asleep on the wicker settee on the verandah, the hot wind overwhelming. All of Calcutta awaited the rain, watching the sky hopefully. I was slow moving, my skin sticky. I thought of the coolness of Simla and then, naturally, of Kashmir.

  I was unable to bear the thoughts that came then, so I rose and walked through our back garden, although the lacy shade of the neem trees could not stop the driving arrows of the sun. Under the trees were tended beds of nicotiana and portulaca, hardy enough to bloom even in this weather. I glanced at the servant’s godown, the simple building almost obscured by the luxuriant growth of the jasmine hedges I had instructed the mali to leave wild.

  I wondered how Malti’s sister was faring; I had given her a job pressing our clothes. Her daughter Lalita was responsible for the flat household linens—the bedsheets and pillowcases and tablecloths and napkins.

  Restless, prickly, I wandered to the godown. It was a well-built wooden structure separated into a few rooms, its open windows covered with freshly watered tatties. There was a small ivory statue of Ganesh on a cedar shelf over the doorway. I reached up to touch its smooth surface for good luck and heard a low groan from inside.

  Looking through the open doorway, I saw Lalita curled on her side on a string charpoy, her forehead beaded with perspiration.

  “Lalita?” I said, addressing her in Hindi. “Are you ill?”

  The girl struggled to sit up. “No, memsahib,” she said. She pressed her hands against her abdomen.

  “Shall I fetch your mother?”

  “No, no. My mother sent me here.” Her face was miserable. She fidgeted, nervous or embarrassed. “I will return to work now, memsahib. It will pass soon.”

  I realized then that it was her courses. “No, no Lalita, stay and rest.”

  “Thank you for your understanding, memsahib. Please be assured, mistress, that my mother does my job while I rest.” Her round brown eyes widened suddenly. “But you will not tell Sahib Ingram?”

  “Of course not. Stay until you feel well enough to work.”

  I headed back to the house, but halfway up the slope I stopped, thinking of Lalita. I looked back at the godown, then toward the house. I picked up my skirt and hurried through the steamy air, going straight to my escritoire and fumbling in the top drawer, pulling out my social engagement calendar bound in soft calfskin. I opened it to the current month, then flipped back one month, and then another.

  The book slipped from my fingers as I lowered myself into the padded chintz chair in front of the desk. I realized my hands were shaking as I pressed them against my flat stomach as Lalita had done moments earlier.

  I was carrying Daoud’s child.

  THE RAINS STARTED that night. I sat on my verandah looking out at the fine mesh of moisture, rain, coming so softly at first that it was almost invisible, almost inaudible. And yet as darkness descended, its intensity grew slowly, steadily, until it was a drumming presence, making channels in the hard, baked earth. I walked out into it, still in shock. What would I do? How would it be possible to keep this child? I fell to my knees in a widening puddle, its surface shaking with the fury of the rain. I looked skyward, letting the stinging drops beat against my eyes, my lips, my neck. I thought of Faith, killing herself and her unwanted baby. I thought of Meg, and her embrace of life. I thought of who I had been—not Miss Linny Smallpiece, or Mrs. Somers Ingram, but Linny Gow, back on Paradise—and the fierce determination to create my own destiny.

  I stayed on my knees for a long time, until the lashing rain slackened, became finer, and then was only a steady drip from the leaves. The air was washed and pure, and a moon came sailing through the dark ruffled monsoon clouds. It shone on the tiny pools caught in the little pockets of hollowed earth, and it was as if precious stones glittered around me.

  Malti came looking for me and stood in front of me holding a candle. The slight breeze made the flame dip and sway. “Mem Linny?” she said, almost a whisper, and put out her hand to help me up.

  I put my hand into hers and lifted my chin. I would find a way to have this baby, and to keep it. It was my connection to my awakening. In the few short hours since I had learned of its existence, I knew that I could and would love it, and that it would somehow be my salvation.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I CLOSED THE WIDE DOUBLE DOORS OF THE HOUSE AND STEPPED into the noon blaze of Calcutta in late July. I wore a wide solar topee wreathed with thick tulle and pulled low on my forehead so that the upper part of my face was shadowed. I carried a sun parasol. Malti followed.

  We stepped into the palanquin that now waited outside our house every day. Somers had hired the palanquin and four boyees; whether Malti and I went out or not they waited, hour after hour, day after day, in our front garden. They were only allowed to take me to the locations Somers instructed them—the Maidan, Taylor’s Emporium, or any of the English homes. I could also attend ladies’ activities put on at the Club, and still withdraw books from the library. Today I instructed the boyees to take me to the Club for a scheduled meeting of the Ladies’ Botanical Society. I told Somers I was thinking of joining the society, but this wasn’t true.

  Since I had returned from Simla I had attended one meeting, but was unnerved by what I knew to be the curious stares of many of the other women. A few girls I had known from the Fishing Fleet smiled hesitantly at me, asking politely if I had recovered—nobody would give a name to what had happened in Simla. I was startled to see what appeared to be genuine concern in the eyes of one woman as I responded that I was quite fine now. And that made me wonder if perhaps some of the smiles, the attempts at small conversations, and the invitations I’d received since since I’d arrived in Calcutta had, indeed, been earnest endeavors toward acceptance and friendship. Perhaps there was a woman here—or maybe more than one—who would have been my friend, but it was I who pushed her away.

  It seemed everything I looked at now appeared different, and I knew it was because something had fallen away from me, some fear that hadn’t allowed me to look at the English here with anything but suspicion. I realized that much of the barrier I felt between them and me could have possibly been built by me, protecting myself, sure my
every move was being watched and judged.

  But now was not the time to wonder about the English ladies. I had a much more serious matter to consider.

  When we arrived at the Club, Malti settled down to wait for me in the palanquin. “The meeting should last an hour, and then with the refreshments, another hour,” I told her.

  Malti nodded, and I went through the doors, hurrying along the main hall and then through a long passage, finally emerging at the back door. I had searched for and found the door a week earlier when I went to the library. Opening my parasol and keeping my head down, I went out onto the street behind the building and signaled a passing rickshaw. The jhampani was a skinny little man glistening with sweat, his face as wizened and brown as a walnut shell. When he trotted over, I spoke a single Hindi sentence, then stepped into the rickety box and sat on the hard board nailed between the sides. The bearer picked up the shafts and ran, carrying me down narrower and narrower roads, avoiding the buffalo carts and sacred bulls, kumkum on their broad foreheads, garlands of jasmine around their bloated necks. The ancient streets twisted and turned, their paths constructed as an intended labyrinth to confuse evil spirits that might wander into Calcutta’s center.

  The old man ran through reeking alleyways, nimbly dodging other rickshaws, goats, dogs, and hens. Babies screamed, children laughed and cried, women shrieked, and men called in a barrage of languages and noise. Beggars and cripples jammed the narrow passages; some tried to grab at my skirt as the rickshaw rolled past. The gutters ran with food slops and animal and human excrement. I saw a naked child of no more than three tenderly cradling a dead, stiffened kitten, alive with maggots. My whole body bounced with the rhythm of the man’s short steps.

  You will not be sick, you will not, I commanded myself. The rickshaw had no cover, and the scorching wind stirred up choking clouds of red-brown dust whenever we emerged from an alley into a cross-section of street, making it impossible to keep my parasol open. The sun beat down on my solar topee, and my stomach roiled and churned. I wished I had eaten one of the fresh pappadams Malti had brought me on a tray with my cup of camomile tea before we left. But at the time I couldn’t face anything, not even a sip of the cool tea.

  Finally the man’s veiny pumping legs slowed, and I saw that we had emerged from the squalor and were in a quieter area. Small wooden houses with tiny individual gardens in front looked refreshingly clean after the filthy confines we had passed through.

  I looked at each house carefully, and when I saw one covered in a tangle of Japanese honeysuckle, I called to the jhampani. He slowed to a stop, panting heavily, and I slipped out of the rickshaw, but had to steady myself by clutching the splintered side of the rickety cart.

  When the ringing in my ears abated, I looked at the jhampani standing between the shafts of his rickshaw, and he hesitantly quoted a price. I saw how tightly the flesh was pulled over the bones of his face, the yellowed whites of his eyes. I paid him without bargaining, and he stared down at the extra coins I put in his palm, then back to me, confusion on his face.

  I approached the house and quietly called through the mat covering the doorway. “Nani Meera?” There was a soft reply, and I pulled aside the mat and entered. The room was shuttered, dark and almost cool after the heat. For a moment I was unable to see anything but detected a slight movement on one side of the room. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw a beautiful young woman in a sari of brilliant orchid and turquoise sitting cross-legged on the clean matted floor. In her lap rested a chubby baby girl, naked except for the charm string around her waist. Her huge brown eyes were ringed with kohl, making them enormous in the round little face. She lay quietly as her mother rubbed her body with gleaming oil in lazy, circular motions. The woman looked quizzically at me.

  “I’m hoping to find Nani Meera,” I said in Hindi. “I was given directions to a house covered in honeysuckle on this street.”

  “You are in the right place,” the woman answered in English. “Nani will return in a moment. Please sit down and wait.” She turned her gaze back to the baby.

  “Thank you,” I said, sitting on one of the two huge wicker chairs filled with soft cushions, wondering how this Indian woman spoke English so flawlessly.

  I smelled the faint odor of sandalwood, and a chime made of long, thin rectangles of brass and blue oval beads hung beside one of the many narrow windows. Whenever a slight current of air whispered through a half-opened louver the chimes emitted a fragile tinkle.

  A low teak chest carved with birds and flowers sat in front of the two chairs. On its ornate lid was a simple white clay bowl filled with smooth gray pebbles, and from the pebbles narcissi bloomed in orange splendor. A doorway hung with rows of amber glass beads led into another room. Beside the doorway stood a tall, spare cupboard, also of teak, but devoid of any ornamentation except for the two ivory handles carved in the shape of tiny, long-tailed monkeys.

  The baby was growing heavy-lidded with pleasure, and as the woman looked at me I could now see that her eyes were a remarkable lilac, with the same milky opalescence as the panicles of blossoms that hung from the chinaberry tree in her garden. I smiled wanly, still fighting nausea, and was about to ask for a glass of water when the doorway beads swayed softly, creating a cascade of melody. A very tall and slender woman, wearing a blinding white sari with a thin gold thread running through it, came through the beads. Although she was not young, she carried herself regally, her chin high and her back straight. Her black hair had one single thick wave of pure white over her forehead, and her large brown eyes were soft.

  I stood, pressing my hands together perpendicular to my chest, and bowed. The woman responded to the ritual namaste, and I saw that the palms of her hands were dyed with henna.

  “I am Linny Ingram,” I said in Hindi. “You are Nani Meera?”

  The woman nodded. “I am,” she answered, like the younger woman, in English.

  “Charles told me of you,” I said, reverting to English.

  Her face lit. “Ah.” She smiled, but it was a sad smile. “He has had so little happiness. And Faith. His poor little red nestling. I saw the sickness of the spirit in her. I tried to speak to Charles of it, but he would not listen.” Her voice carried the soft whisper of wind as it stirs long grass.

  I closed my eyes for a moment. Hearing this woman say that she, too, knew Faith was ill comforted me.

  We stood in silence for a few seconds, as if paying tribute to her memory. Then I spoke again. “I saw Charles only yesterday.”

  “He suffers greatly. He comes often, although there is little I can do to console him.”

  I had found it difficult to see Charles without Somers knowing, but through elaborate planning, with many chits back and forth, we did manage. Charles met me at the door of a near-deserted tearoom used specificially by the uncovenanted civil servants. We simply looked at each other, tears running from our eyes.

  Charles had grown thin, and his rumpled clothes hung loosely on him. His hair looked as if it had not felt a comb that day, nor his face a razor. Once we had composed ourselves Charles steered me to a table near a window, and we made small and trivial comments for the first few moments. But there was no use for pretense. He took my hands in his and asked me to recount every moment of my time with Faith in Simla, every detail of what she’d said, how she’d looked. I tried to cheer him with happy memories, but realized, very quickly, that in actuality my presence only brought him pain. I did tell him that she’d spoken of him daily with great adoration, planning their lives, which she said would be forever together. I had to say it, to tell that half-truth, for Charles’s sake. I knew I must not divulge the secret Faith had kept from him—that she had carried his child—for I knew that would only add to his terrible distress. He pressed me for the details of her death, saying he couldn’t rest until he knew, and I fabricated more, saying Faith would not have suffered, that the fall was quick and her death instant, that she had been singing happily, enjoying the pony ride, only moments befo
re the accident.

  When finally Charles had no more questions, and I had no more to say, I asked him how to find Nani Meera. He didn’t ask how I knew of her, or inquire as to my reason for wanting to visit her.

  And then we parted, and Charles looked into my face with glimmering eyes. I knew—and saw that he did, as well—that it would be better for both of us if this were our one and only meeting.

  Now Nani Meera turned to the other woman. “Yali, could you prepare some melon for Mrs. Ingram, please?”

  The woman rose wordlessly, lifting the child, who was on the verge of sleep, and disappeared through the amber beads. Immediately there was soft humming and the chink of crockery.

  “Will you tell me the reason for your visit, Mrs. Ingram?” Nani Meera asked, sitting in the other wicker chair and motioning for me to sit again.

  “Please, call me Linny,” I said, as I perched on the edge of the chair and played with the black silk fringe that bordered the cushion. “It is difficult for me to speak of this,” I said finally. “I have told no one of—” I stopped as Yali returned, carrying a white plate of thick, crimson watermelon slices, another of sugar-coated flat biscuits.