by M A Bennett
‘No,’ his mother said in answer to his question. ‘I haven’t been to the church. I’m not talking to Jesus at the moment.’ She spoke of JC as if she’d fallen out with a friend. ‘I’ve been talking to Durga.’
I looked at Shafeen, my explainer-in-chief.
‘Durga is a sort of protective mother goddess,’ he said. ‘Very warlike. She’s no pushover. She’s got ten arms, sort of like a human Swiss army knife.’
‘Handy,’ I said.
‘She fights the battle of good over evil,’ said the princess.
‘She defeated a buffalo-headed demon called Mahishasura,’ supplied Shafeen.
‘OK then.’
He smiled at me. ‘You sound sceptical.’
‘No,’ I said at once. ‘I was actually thinking it’s no stranger than St Aidan turning a white stag invisible.’
‘I’ve been going to the Shila Devi temple at the Amber Fort,’ confessed the princess, ‘where I used to go as a girl.’ She looked almost warily at Shafeen. ‘Do you disapprove?
He spread his hands wide. ‘Why on earth would I disapprove?’
‘Because you were raised a Christian. You’re at a Church of England school.’
‘It sounds eminently sensible to me,’ he said. ‘Talk to Durga, talk to Vishnu, talk to Shiva. Talk to Lord Krishna himself. Whatever helps you. Whatever helps him.’
‘I’m glad you said that. Because while you still approve of me, I must tell you something else.’ She patted his hand with hers. ‘Don’t tell your father, but I’ve been going to an astrologer.’
Shafeen pressed his lips together so they disappeared into a line.
‘He’s a well-respected Vedic practitioner called Guru Kalyan.’
‘Guru Kalyan.’ Shafeen’s voice dripped with scorn.
‘And he did your father’s astrological charts. So now what do you say?’
I could see Shafeen was struggling with this one. He shrugged. ‘Like I said, if it helps …’
‘But …?’ she probed, her voice rising in a question.
He cracked. ‘But I think it’s all a crock of shit.’
She laughed fondly and stroked his cheek. ‘There! Sometimes, priy, you are the image of your father. You play the Indian, but sometimes you are British to the core. You know, here in your homeland astrology is a respected science. They teach it at the university.’
‘The second part of that statement may be true,’ said Shafeen. ‘The first is most certainly not. And I bet you didn’t find this crackpot at the university, did you?’
She didn’t quite meet his eyes.
‘Mother?’
‘He lives in Jhalana kacchi basti.’
‘For God’s sake.’ Shafeen didn’t specify which god. ‘That’s hardly safe.’
‘What’s a kacchi basti?’ I chimed in.
‘A slum,’ he said briefly, to get me off the line before returning to his mother. ‘Did you go on your own?’
‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘Hari drove me.’
‘Hari should know better.’ Curiosity fought with disapproval; curiosity won. ‘So, what was it like?’
‘Interesting. Guru Kalyan looked a hundred years old. His beard reached down to his feet. He practises in a sort of cave in the rocks there, where there is a hole in the ceiling so he can read the moon. He has stars and signs painted all over the inside of the cave. It was really quite striking.’
‘Everything you’re saying points to a respected man of science,’ said Shafeen drily. ‘Go on then. What did this great guru say?’
‘He studied your father’s nakshatras – his lunar mansions. Apparently those are the divisions of the night sky, dictated by the moon, in which we may read the fate of the subject.’
‘And?’ asked Shafeen.
The princess looked about her and lowered her voice dramatically. Night had fallen outside and the moon, hearing its name, eavesdropped beyond the arches of this golden cavern of a room – as if we were in a cave ourselves. ‘He said your father had seen a ghost. And it was the ghost who gave him a heart attack.’
This statement gave me a real shiver – just like they say, the feeling of a chill travelling down my spine. I pictured the guru in his painted cave, reading Aadhish’s fate in the face of the moon.
But Shafeen looked at his mother, then at me, his gaze loaded with scepticism. ‘What else?’
‘He said that I shouldn’t worry. He said your father will recover because he has unfinished business. And the key to his recovery is to find out what that business is.’
Shafeen put his head in his hands in mock despair. His mother reached across and lifted his chin, waggling her son’s head from side to side.
‘Shafeen feels the push and pull,’ she said to me. ‘His mother and his father are like two magnets. He’s an Indian boy with an English education. He has an Indian mother who is Indian at heart, and an Indian father who is British to the core. If that makes any sense.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘You’re Merchant. He’s Ivory.’
I didn’t have to explain. ‘Precisely, my dear.’ She caressed her son. ‘Poor priy. Poor darling.’
Shafeen kissed the hand that stroked his cheek and smiled resignedly. I sensed this was not the first time he’d heard this speech. He lifted his head and sat back on his cushion.
‘So, my mother. So, my maan. What do we do now?’
‘I will keep on praying,’ she replied. ‘And you know what, priy? You could pray too.’
11
I couldn’t sleep that night.
At about midnight I went out onto my balcony. The air was still warm and I looked out over the garden, feeling the cool night breeze and listening to the alien sounds of India’s insect population. Then I heard another sound and looked across to the balcony next to mine. There was Shafeen, doing the same thing.
‘Hi.’
I moved to the side of the balcony so I faced him and not the garden. He did the same.
‘Can’t sleep?’
‘No.’
‘Like Romeo and Juliet,’ I said.
‘Juliet and Juliet more like,’ he quipped. ‘We’re both on a balcony.’
We joined hands across the divide.
‘I know something we could do,’ he said.
And suddenly I was cool with it. Suddenly I felt that this was the right time. Here there were no ghosts of Henry de Warlencourt. He’d never set foot in this place. Nor was I troubled by the ghosts of my younger self as I had been at home – by my toy tiger staring at me from the bedside table. Shafeen needed this. To sleep with someone for the first time for comfort was a terrible reason, but if he was ready, I was too.
‘Get dressed then,’ he said.
That surprised me – it was kind of the opposite of what I’d expected him to say. As I went back into my room to find some clothes I reflected that I was, in fact, an idiot. This wasn’t about me. I might be ready, but now he wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t in the right headspace to do anything with me right now, with his dad in a hospital bed. He clearly had something else in mind.
When he answered his door he was already dressed. He slipped out of his room, closing the door behind him, and we crept downstairs, through the front door and into the midnight streets. We walked away from the house into places that were narrower and darker and busier.
‘Is it safe?’ I said, going all Marathon Man.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Perfectly. And also no, not at all. Isn’t that wonderful?’
I took his hand and we walked for a while, taking in every strange sight and sound. Then, among all the unfamiliarity, something that was familiar; something I would have recognised anywhere in the world.
A neon sign, a white hoarding with lettering on it and a snaking queue of people.
A cinema.
I whistled. ‘That’s a pretty long queue.’
‘Cinema is another one of the religions here,’ he said. ‘You can pretty much watch films 24/7.’
I read the title on t
he hoarding out loud. ‘JUNOON,’ I said. ‘What’s it about?’
‘You’ll see,’ he said.
The film was amazing. It was about this guy who is bitten by a cursed tiger and turns into a tiger on every full-moon night. It was like An American Werewolf in London on steroids, or Ladyhawke on crack. It must have been made in the eighties or nineties because of the big hair and the shoulder pads, and the tiger effects didn’t exactly hold up to today’s standards, but it was a fabulous slice of schlocky horror, perfect for a late-night screening.
We walked back through the warm streets, drunk with the ridiculous brilliance of the film. It happened to be a full moon and we amused ourselves by jumping out and roaring at each other as though we were in Junoon. Shafeen looked happier than he had since the phone call in the Abbot’s office. And, of course, by the time I got back to my room I was shattered and slept immediately, untroubled by any stripy faces in my dreams.
12
‘What are we going to do today?’
It was just Shafeen and me at breakfast. The dining table was back in place, with chairs set around it. We were back in our Western clothes and the breakfast was as English as it could be. There was no sign of Princess Himani. As she’d mentioned, she liked a lie-in. But her perfume, the Guerlain L’Heure Bleue, lingered deliciously in the air.
As if he sensed her presence too, Shafeen said, ‘For possibly the first time ever, I’m going to take my mother’s advice.’ But he smiled. ‘She told me to pray, and I’m going to pray. So, if you don’t mind, we’re going to visit a temple.’
‘Are you kidding? I’d love that.’
‘It’s a pretty good one, as temples go. It’s the one Mother went to – the Shila Devi Mandir at the Amber Fort.’
Hari drove us. It was a beautiful day, and the whole of Jaipur seemed to be out on the roads in various vehicles. Hari had to nose the big car carefully through the traffic, visibly enjoying himself more once we were on the open road out of the city.
The Amber Fort was more like a palace – a huge sandstone structure on top of a hill. Although it was still quite early, the fort was packed. It looked like an interesting place, but Shafeen wasn’t stopping to sightsee. He led me unerringly to a distant courtyard to join a crowd of people waiting at some silver doors.
We had to wait for a little while, shuffling forward until it was our turn to stand at the doors. They were beautifully wrought, each panel featuring a different deity. ‘Where’s Durga?’ I asked.
He pointed. ‘There she is.’
I looked closely. There was the goddess, with an ornate headdress, her ten arms fanned out about her body. She was riding what looked like a small bear or an enormous cat. ‘Is that a lion?’
‘Did I not say?’ said Shafeen. ‘She’s always depicted riding a tiger.’
‘Lions and tigers and bears, oh my,’ I quoted softly, and followed him into the temple.
When we went forward to the shrine itself I hung back a bit. In the fragrant dimness I could see the shrine of the goddess, draped with jewel-coloured fabrics, her dark face and almond eyes gazing on her faithful. Shafeen bowed to the idol. As he prayed I could see how much he loved his father. He was critical of him, sure, but he absolutely adored him. I closed my eyes and prayed too. I’m not proud of my prayer, but it went like this: ‘Durga,’ I said, ‘please wake up Aadhish Jadeja. Please ride your tiger to the hospital and wake him up. Please put all of your ten arms around him. Amen. I mean, thank you.’
When we came out of the shrine, Shafeen looked more downcast than uplifted.
‘Did it help?’
‘Not really. I just feel so … helpless.’
I put my arm around him, wishing that I had ten to hold him with. ‘You won’t always feel like that.’
‘Won’t I?’ he said listlessly.
‘Well, put it this way,’ I said. ‘Why do you want to be a doctor?’
‘It was that or open a corner shop.’
‘Ha ha.’ I gave him a stern look. ‘Seriously. It’s so you can help people like your dad, right?’
‘Something like that.’ He didn’t seem to want to discuss it further. ‘Come on. Hari’s waiting.’
13
We drove back into the city, and as we neared the centre I saw a series of strange white structures that I’d never seen before, set high on a hill.
I pointed. ‘What’s that?’
‘Jantar Mantar,’ said Shafeen. ‘It’s an observatory, built in the eighteenth century by Maharajah Jai Singh. D’you want to see?’
‘Aren’t we going to see your father?’
‘He won’t notice if we’re a little late,’ he said with black humour. ‘Besides, it’s to do with him.’
We got out of the car and Hari, after a short exchange in Hindi with Shafeen, drove away.
‘Where’s he going?’ I said, a bit nervously.
‘He’s going to pick up Mother and take her to the hospital.’
We walked among the white structures in the baking heat. Close up, I could see that they were not standing stones, like Stonehenge, but steps and platforms that led nowhere – staircases to the sky. There was a huge triangular structure and a vast sundial, like an ornament from a giant’s garden. ‘What’s this place got to do with your dad?’ I asked.
‘He watched the moon landing here,’ he replied. ‘In 1969.’
It seemed a world away – and it was. ‘The same year he was at Longcross?’
‘Yes. It would have been … well, let’s see: the moon landing was in July, and he was at Longcross for Michaelmas Justitium. So about three months after.’ He squinted up at the steps. ‘Come on.’
He climbed the stairway to heaven and I followed him. At the top we sat down together in the fierce sun. It was so still – there was no wind to topple us, and the traffic in the city had diminished to a bee’s hum.
‘The moon landing wasn’t broadcast live on TV in India,’ said Shafeen. ‘So they came up here. Someone had a radio tuned to an American station, and as the landing was happening they just looked at the moon from here.’
I looked up, just as the young Aadhish must have. There was a slight ghost of a noonday moon hanging high in the blue sky. Had Aadhish tried to see, among all those seas and craters, the fly-speck of a man?
I peered at it until my eyes watered, so I had to look down. The city was just as awe-inspiring as the sky. All those dwellings, the rosy-pink palaces, the jammed traffic. Earth under the heavens I’d been gazing at. The work of man under the work of God. Or, in India, gods. Everything was so … different. We sat and looked at the view in silence for a long, long time. Then I articulated what I’d been feeling all morning. ‘I don’t know anything about this country,’ I said, almost desperately.
Shafeen said, ‘Neither do I.’ He whipped a stone down the hillside in frustration and the view swallowed it. ‘It’s ultimately unknowable.’
I looked at him with admiration. That was kind of what I’d been meaning to say; he just said it much better than I did. ‘That sounds really wise,’ I said.
He stood. ‘No, it’s not. It’s one of those things that sounds profound, but it isn’t really.’ He turned his back to me and talked to the city. ‘I mean it. Sometimes I feel like a stranger here. They sent me to STAGS when I was eight. Eight, Greer. Same as Henry. Sure, I came home every holiday, and sure, I have some pretty strong childhood memories, but really STAGS was my home. I think that’s why I got so drawn into their world. STAGS colonised me. Ultimately I only ever wanted to be part of it. I really don’t know where I belong.’
I didn’t know what to say to this. I thought he would sit back down, but he didn’t – there was something restless about him, like a pacing tiger. He turned and hauled me to my feet.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To the hospital.’
‘Is Hari back?’
‘No. I told him we’d walk. It’s really close. Come on.’
It was pretty hot, but I’m glad we did walk. Bec
ause that’s when I got to know Jaipur. Not all of it, of course; as Shafeen had suggested, I’m not sure anyone ever could. It was a place of millions of little bits of light, hundreds of facets, like a diamond.
A kid sitting in a gutter, under the shade of a tree. Another kid selling mango juice from a barrow, in reused bottles whose faded labels boasted familiar globalised names like Fanta and Coke. Jaipur was selling cubes of bamboo from a stainless-steel bowl. Jaipur was a rose-pink palace, big as a cathedral. But Jaipur was also a crammed side street, with hundreds of hollow-cheeked people just sitting on their thresholds, hands outstretched to beg.
Shafeen said, ‘You asked me why I wanted to be a doctor.’ He nodded to the crowded alley. ‘That’s why. These people have nothing. Not even the bare necessities of life.’
‘Is there a health service in India?’
He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There are some terrific hospitals. But you can only stay if you can pay.’
Soon we were at the shining hospital where none of those people in the side street would ever go. We walked the spotless corridors to Aadhish’s private room, and this time the princess was at her husband’s side. She’d got hold of a recent Times from London and was reading it to him as we entered. It was very odd hearing her talk about the stock market or the royal family to her sleeping husband. Shafeen stooped to kiss her and she stopped reading to greet us. I looked at Shafeen’s father as closely as I could from the distance I’d kept. He wore his hair long like Shafeen did, but since it was pulled back by a surgical cap, I noticed for the first time that one of his earlobes was curiously ragged, as if part of it had been bitten off. Despite the tubes, he looked like he was sleeping, but not entirely peacefully. There was a pair of little wrinkles between his eyebrows, as if he was troubled by something. I couldn’t help thinking that, despite Shafeen’s scepticism, the guru the princess had visited might have had it right – Aadhish did look like he had unfinished business.
After a moment or two Shafeen got up to go. I could tell he was uncomfortable seeing his father this way. ‘Will you come?’ he said to his mother. She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘My place is here with him. You children go home and have your lunch.’ And she took up the newspaper again.