‘I know.’
She turned sharply, but he had disappeared.
‘What do you know?’ she asked, following him into the kitchen.
‘Did you ever hear the one…’ It sounded like the start of a joke, but his face was solemn as death. ‘About the American missionaries and their Muslim cook?’ He turned the tap over the stone sink. There was an empty hiss.
SIXTEEN
Two nights after Aziz and Salima had moved into the refugee camp at Rampur House, James sat on the floor of his bedroom at Askival. He lifted the Westley Richards to his shoulder and squinted down the sights at the head on the wall. ‘Gotcha!’ he breathed and grinned, remembering the thrill of shooting the thing last June. Out on the back hills with Stanley, they’d spent a whole day without getting anything. Then just before heading home, James spotted the black buck in a gully, drinking from a stream. As he crept closer, the creature lifted its head, eyes bright, listening. James got it right in the heart.
‘You’re a man, now, son,’ Stanley had said, hand heavy on his shoulder.
The buck was stuffed and mounted by the taxidermist in the bazaar and now hung in James’ bedroom above the fireplace, flanked by his framed collections of beetles and butterflies. James lowered the gun and stared into the beast’s glassy eyes. It stared back, nostrils flared, antlers bristling, its unblinking gaze one of imperious outrage. There had been no opportunity to show it to Colonel Bunce yet, what with the partition troubles and all, but James hoped for one soon. He was confident of a military clap on the back and a ‘Jolly good show!’
Outside, the September night clung about the house like a washerwoman’s skirts. The dripping from the trees was gradually giving way to the scratching of cicadas, while far off in the forest a barbet struck three pure notes. Askival, on its promontory at the western end of the ridge, floated like a lamp on a dark and hushed sea.
The quiet was broken by a sudden beating of footsteps on the path outside, a cry and a crash as a body flung itself against the front door.
‘Memsahib! Memsahib!’ a voice screamed, fists pounding.
James dropped his gun and ran for the door, meeting Leota half way down the hall.
‘Who in heaven’s—?!’ she cried.
‘Let me in Memsahib!’ The voice was possessed. ‘Aziz, Memsahib! Aziz!’
Leota pushed back the heavy bolts on the door – top, middle, bottom – and pulled it open. A man fell into her arms.
‘Aziz!’ she cried, but he whirled around and slammed the door shut again.
‘Lock all the doors, lock all the doors!’ he begged, pushing at the bolts with shaking hands.
‘Aziz, Aziz!’ Leota raised her voice over his panic. ‘James will do that. Now you just come in and tell what’s happened!’ She tried to lead him towards the living room, but he ran to the store cupboard at the end of the hall, yanked open the door and pushed his way in, shoving aside boxes, tennis rackets and hiking boots.
‘They will find me!’ he sobbed. ‘Lock the doors, lock the doors!’
‘Go James,’ said Leota, with a swift wave of her hand as she went after Aziz.
James took off through the house, knowing full well that it was tightly locked. Stanley had left Mussoorie with strict instructions that Leota lock every door and window at dusk and check them again before she went to bed. His instructions to James were to be the man of the house, to look after his mother and to read three chapters of the Bible each morning. ‘No Bible, no breakfast,’ was his fond maxim.
Now rushing from door to door, James strained to understand Aziz’ crazed outpouring. ‘The Punjabis! The Sikhs!’ he heard, then a tumble of words punctuated by sobs and an anguished wringing like an engine under strain.
Leota’s voice was low and firm. ‘Which Sikhs? Where?’
More garbled words in a high-pitched crescendo. ‘They tried to kill me!’ he squealed. James felt his guts go cold and a sudden prickling in his eyes. He was checking the bolts in the last room when he heard his mother call out.
‘James! Get some warm water and clean rags!’
‘Ok!’
‘And some Dettol!’
He ran to the kitchen and grabbed at things, scalding his fingers as he poured hot water from the Thermos flask, then struggling through to the hall, rags and Dettol under his arm, water slopping over the sides of the basin. Aziz was sitting half inside the store cupboard with his legs outstretched to Leota, feet covered in blood.
‘Take that through to your room, then help me with him,’ Leota said.
When they got Aziz onto the bed, he huddled into a corner of it, whimpering, his feet tucked under him. James saw a smear of blood across his razai.
‘Now, you just put your feet in here, ji, and I’ll clean you up,’ said Leota, on her knees beside the bed, swilling a capful of Dettol into the water. It smelled of washed floors in hospitals.
Aziz shook his head. ‘No, Memsahib. I will do.’
‘Oh nonsense, now,’ she replied, in her firmest tones. ‘I was a farm girl before I became a Memsahib, remember? I’ve cleaned up a lot worse than this.’ But both she and James knew his distress was not about her hands in all that blood and dirt but the taboo of her touching his feet.
‘Shall I do it?’ offered James, trying to hide the shaking of his voice and hands.
‘No, you get some sweet tea and cake. Come now, Aziz-ji, your feet in here.’ Leota’s voice now could not be disobeyed. James watched as Aziz, face messed with dirt and tears, miserably lowered his feet into the cloudy white swirl. He winced at the sting of Dettol, fresh tears squeezing from his eyes.
‘You just hush now, ji, everything’s all right,’ Leota murmured as she gently washed his feet. ‘Hush now, hush now.’
When James returned with the tea and one of Aziz’ own home-baked chocolate chip muffins, the man had stopped crying, though he still trembled. Leota was pressing his feet dry with a towel, clucking and shaking her head.
‘What happened?’ mumbled James to his mother.
‘The Sikhs! The Sikhs, babu!’ Aziz replied, pointing at the window, where the curtains were drawn. ‘They tried to kill me! Hai-a! Just like that, they tried to hack me to bits!’
Leota spoke quietly. ‘It seems Aziz stumbled upon a group of Punjabi refugees and got a fright.’
‘A hunting party!’ Aziz cut in. ‘Just above Mullingar they jumped out with knives! Aaaaiiii babu, they tried to kill me – but I ran faster and I got away! My chappals fell off and my feet got cut.’
‘Did they follow you?’ asked James, kneeling beside him.
‘Yes, yes! Some way they followed, but I ran so fast, babu, I ran so fast, I could not hear anymore. I don’t know where they are.’
‘Well I’m sure they won’t find you here, Aziz,’ Leota said, resting his feet on the towel. ‘We’re much too far away from the bazaar and too high up. And anyway, it’s pitch black out there. Don’t you worry, you’re perfectly safe.’
Aziz’ face crumpled again and he dropped his face into his hands, great sobs welling up through his body.
‘Now, now,’ Leota said, reaching up to pat his arm with her chunky hand. James awkwardly stroked Aziz’ other arm.
‘Why did you leave Rampur House, anyhow?’ Leota asked.
‘My glasses, Memsahib,’ Aziz cried, gesturing to his wet face. ‘I broke them and I must be leaving spares here.’
‘Arè, Aziz!’ Leota scolded. ‘Such foolishness for a pair of glasses!’
‘But Memsahib, I am lost without them.’
‘And you nearly lost your life for them,’ she retorted, standing up with the bowl of bloodied water. ‘Now, I’ll clean up this stuff and then we’ll look for your spares. I could have sworn we packed those, but we’ll look anyhow.’
‘I am doing, Memsahib!’ he cried, pointing to the basin and trying to stand up, but buckling under the pain of his feet.
‘No, no,’ she said, briskly. ‘You just sit there and have some tea and cake. James, you get him some
TP so he can blow his nose. And wrap him up good, he’s still shaking.’
‘Yes, Mom,’ he replied and passed the roll of toilet paper from his bedside table to Aziz. The sniffling man mopped his eyes and nose as James draped a musty blanket around his shoulders. Then he took Aziz’ wet wad of toilet paper, tossed it into the bin and pressed the mug of tea into his hands.
‘Come, eat something, ji,’ he murmured, remembering the many times Aziz had said those same words to him when James had fussed over his food as a child. The cook had sung silly songs and made the brinjal dance on the end of a fork, or the alu do battle with the gobi until James had creased with laughter and found himself eating just to please the man. But this was not the time for dancing muffins, far less ones that fought, so James merely perched the plate on Aziz’ lap and whispered again, ‘Eat, eat.’
But in the pause that followed, they heard a sound that made eating impossible.
The sound of running feet on the path outside. Many feet. And shouting. James jumped to the window and peered out between the curtains.
SEVENTEEN
Ruth leaned against the door and folded her arms. Iqbal still had a hand on the tap, face half hidden.
‘Dad’s family and their cook, you mean?’
‘Yes.’ He turned the tap off.
‘Dad wouldn’t talk about it, but Grandma did. It was her best story. Used to tell it in a half whisper with these wild eyes and her head shaking. But said we mustn’t mention it to Dad, cause it made him upset. He adored that guy.’
‘What did she tell?’
‘Seemingly the cook got caught up in the troubles after independence and was chased by a mob of Sikhs all the way up here.’
‘Accha.’
‘The cook ended up shooting one of them, here on the front veranda. Grandma saw the whole thing.’
Iqbal was silent. Behind him, the rain was softening, trickling down a beam that hung like a broken bone from the veranda roof.
‘And then?’ he asked.
‘They killed him.’
Iqbal’s mouth puckered slowly. He nodded, then looked out the window, searching the horizon.
‘Has stopped raining,’ he said at last and pushed open the door onto the veranda. The screen mesh was long gone. Ruth followed him and, squatting with her back to the house, lit up a cigarette and drew deeply. Iqbal leaned against a pillar, polished his glasses on his shalwar and held them up to the light.
‘He was my father,’ he said and put the glasses back on.
She froze. He turned to her with a bitter-sweet smile.
‘Oh god,’ she whispered, smoke curling out on her breath. Her throat felt dry. ‘I never knew.’
He gave the slightest nod.
‘Dad never talked about it. He’s never even explained who you are.’
‘Is painful for him.’
‘My god! It’s much worse for you. Don’t you feel angry?’
‘For what?’
‘Well – goddam all of it! Angry at the thugs who killed your father? Angry at religion for causing all this violence? Angry at Dad’s family that they didn’t protect yours?’
He lifted his hands in submission. ‘The thugs, well they sinned, but they were also having sin against them. They lost everything, refugees, you know, such violence to their people. God be their judge.’
‘God’s the problem. None of the violence would have happened if it wasn’t for religion.’
‘No, I’m not thinking this. God and religion is not the same. Sometimes opposite. And religion is not making people good or bad. People are making good or bad religion.’
Ruth sucked on her cigarette and blew out hard. ‘And good people can make very bad religion, believe you me.’
‘How can good people make such mistakes?’
Ruth paused. ‘Hell if I know.’ She stubbed her cigarette fiercely on the concrete floor and stood up. ‘What about Dad’s family? Surely they could have done better to protect your father?’
‘They tried. Sheltered him that night placing themselves in danger. Your grandmother tried to make peace – so brave! And your father… he tried to help, also. A brave boy. And then they helped my mother and me flee to Pakistan. They arranged work with the missionaries that side and gave pension till death. They are also paying my education – more than my father could have dreamed – and your father is now giving me home. I am blessed.’
Ruth gazed at him. ‘God, you sound like the Dalai Lama,’ she snorted and turned towards her daypack against the wall. ‘Wish I could be that chilled.’
‘Is not chilling you need, Rani Ruthie, is warming.’
She felt a sudden crawling of her flesh and shot him a narrow look. Was he hitting on her, the sleazy bastard? No. His face was sincere, hands folded together. It startled her. She had spent most of her life stirring male desire, usually on purpose. From as early as kindergarten, boys had giggled around her, left notes on her chair and teased each other in her presence. She soon learned the effect she had on them and loved the power of it. She could change things, make things happen, turn heads and hearts. The older she got the more she employed it, until it became something not of her own bidding but a force quite out of her control, that she was powerless to stop. Perversely, it had begun to control her, to change her, to turn her head and heart till she no longer knew what dark god she served.
But it had no effect on Iqbal. He looked at her with frank interest, but as though he saw right through her body to the being within; like the tired sexual aura that hung about her was invisible to him. In his gaze she was a child, and Ruth was surprised at the relief it brought. After years of fighting off anyone’s attempts to look after her, she found herself suddenly grateful for the sense of shelter in this man’s presence. She was not expecting it – this being disarmed – and felt strangely vulnerable and safe at the same time.
Warming, he had said. You need warming.
‘Yeah, well good luck,’ she grunted.
‘No luck, no fate,’ he replied, smiling. ‘Just the mercy of God.’
Part way down the road towards the bazaar, Iqbal stopped and placed his hand over his breast.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Ruth.
He nodded, pressed his hands together and touched his fingertips to his forehead.
‘This is the spot where my father gave his life, may he rest in peace.’
Ruth stared. There was nothing but the rough-cast concrete road, a stone wall and the steep drop beyond. Rhododendron trees grew up from the khud, their hairy trunks heavy with moss and fern.
‘He is buried in the Muslim graveyard down by the stream, below the school servants,’ Iqbal said.
‘Do you visit?’
‘Once. But he is not there.’
At the top of Mullingar Hill Ruth paused outside Farooqi Tailors and ran her fingers over an embroidered shalwar kameez hanging at the front.
‘I had so many clothes made by these guys.’
‘Then I am following your steps,’ beamed Iqbal. ‘I too patronise this darzi. They are good at flattering one large paunch.’ He seized his stomach with both hands and wobbled it up and down.
Inside the tiny shop, a young man was bent over a treadle machine in the corner, as an older man sat cross-legged on a platform, marking fabric with blue chalk. They nodded and gave salaam to Iqbal, but their eyes slid to Ruth. Suddenly the older man’s face creased into a wide, gap-toothed smile and he stood up, pressing his chalky hands together and shaking his head in wonder.
‘Welcome home, Ruth,’ he said, his voice thin and cracked as his skin.
She gave a salaam and a smile.
‘I make you something? ’ He waved his hand to the shop as if to a vast emporium. ‘Jacket? Pant? Ball gown?’
‘No thank you,’ Ruth said. ‘Nahi chahiye.’ More Hindi. That phrase with which she had fended off hordes of market traders and railway vendors. Not needed. Not needed.
Dancing costume?’ And he grinned again, performing a small, grotesque car
icature of a dance move.
‘Nahi, nahi, nahi,’ she said, struggling to keep up her smile. ‘I have plenty. Salaam!’ And she turned quickly and kept walking down the hill. She could hear Iqbal say something and the men chuckling, then he caught her at the bend.
‘Doctor-ji says you are dancing with top company in Scotland.’
‘Was,’ said Ruth, and stopped at a churiwalli squeezed into a corner of a crumbling building. She ran her fingers over the tightly packed bangles, their bright colours and gilt trim brazen in the shabby street. ‘It’s not a top company. It’s an experimental dance theatre group with a reputation for breaking boundaries. But I don’t dance anymore.’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, I got tired of it and left.’ She didn’t tell him she had become pregnant and this time chosen to keep the child, even though the father did not want it. She’d had a scan and seen the baby’s moon head and his waving fists and her life opening. But at six months, when her belly and her heart were swelling around him like ripening fruit, he had died.
The funeral was small and desolate and she had named him David. Beloved.
She had not told James or Hannah.
The bangle seller was a thin woman with a toddler at her breast. She pushed him off and leaned forward to Ruth, her wet nipple pointing like a finger.
‘You like?’
The toddler squealed and clutched at the breast. Ruth withdrew her hand.
‘Come now!’ cried Iqbal. ‘The Rani Ruthie must have bangles! I will purchase for you.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she muttered, but saw his disappointment. ‘Look, I’ll get them myself, but you can help me choose.’
‘To match your eyes,’ he said, tapping a set that were parrot green and speckled with gold.
‘Shit, they’re not that colour!’ she laughed but stuck out her arm, already circled by a steel band. The churiwalli took hold of her wrist and tried pushing on a set of bangles, but they jammed just above the knuckles. The woman clicked her tongue and began kneading and crushing Ruth’s hand as she squeezed the bangles forward. The flesh on either side bulged white and red and three bangles snapped. More bone-bending, more bangles, more breaks. The child started screaming and kicking his mother; Ruth yanked her hand back, pulled money from her bag and thrust it at the woman.
A House Called Askival Page 11