Up in the nameless tree, the rooks bounced from branch to branch. If only she could believe what Beverley had said: that those birds had once been people, that this was not the end. Deep in her heart she had never believed the Christian thing; she had realized this in recent years. Nobody calling himself God could let what happened happen. Maybe Indians, to whom tragedies happened on an incomprehensible scale, had the sense to hold nobody responsible. For lives so desperate, so pitifully short, there must be a comfort in knowing that theirs was just a journey through the animal kingdom. No wonder they looked so resigned—serene, even. Maybe the limbless beggar, to whom she had timidly given a rupee the day before, believed that next time around he would return as a rook, hopping across the lawn on strong, springy legs.
Evelyn stood on the path, trying to work this out. She should have listened to her daughter, who had gone on about her holy man. The trouble was, Theresa was inclined to lecture and Evelyn had drifted off. She also had an uncomfortable feeling that Theresa was seeking some emotional nourishment she had been denied at home. Evelyn herself had never really spoken to an Indian. Until recently, the only ones she had met had been behind the counter at the post office or punching her ticket on the train to London. They were in a position of servitude. Once, the British had ruled this place. The Raj, however, like her certainties, had long since crumbled. Now it was she herself who was the ethnic minority. In this sprawling city there were millions of Indians and she hadn’t the faintest idea what went on in their heads. Maybe they possessed a spiritual belief that made sense of the senseless; that was the only way they managed to survive. It was all most confusing.
Hugh’s laugh boomed in her head. Brace up, old girl! How she envied the Ainslies, striding off hand in hand to explore the unknown! Evelyn had to make her own journey, with no companions except these near-strangers who sat on the veranda reading paperback novels with magnifying glasses. Some of them were already dozing. Creepers snaked up the wooden pillars of the hotel and smothered the roof tiles. It was like a scene from The Sleeping Beauty. The old building was crumbling; soon nature would engulf it and in years to come there would just be a pile of rubble. No, even this would have been scavenged; nothing lay around for long. It would be as if she and her fellow residents had never existed at all.
Norman, too, was asleep. He had returned from his mission; the newspaper lay on his lap. Evelyn crossed the lawn. Outside in the street, cars hooted. From the servants’ quarters came the sound of a radio—warbling Indian singing, eerily high.
Evelyn approached Norman. A fly, attracted by a ketchup stain on his jacket, buzzed around his chest. His tie, scattered with ash, was askew.
Evelyn stepped nearer. Norman’s purple hands lay on the Daily Telegraph. It was open at the Deaths page. He seemed to have underlined some of the words. Evelyn put on her spectacles. “Peacefully,” she read, “after a long illness.”
Evelyn looked around; nobody was watching. With great care, she eased the paper out from under the weight of his hands. He stirred; a phlegmy sound came from his throat. She waited.
He flung his head back and started snoring—loud snores that made his body shudder. She knew the sound only too well from her nights next door. His mouth hung open, revealing the plastic gums of his dentures.
Evelyn’s heart beat faster; this was the most lawless thing she had done in years. Grabbing the newspaper, she hurried away. It was not until she reached the lobby that she burst into giggles.
It wasn’t what she had expected, the nurse’s room. Muriel had imagined a clinical place smelling of Dettol. Hospitals, for obvious reasons, filled her with dread.
This wasn’t like that at all. Mrs. Cowasjee lived with her husband in the annex, a brick extension built onto the side of the hotel. She ushered Muriel into a room that smelled like church. A joss stick smoked in a brass holder. The shelving unit was filled with ornaments—china animals, plastic flowers—and a booklet lay on the table: Foresight Horoscopes: Only God Knows Better. A fountain tinkled into a shell-shaped bowl, complete with cherub. In a funny way it reminded Muriel of her own front room. There was even a shrine, like her husband’s to the Virgin Mary. This one, illuminated by fairy lights, held a figurine of a fat little man with an elephant’s head. A candle flickered in front of it.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“He is Ganesh, the god of prosperity and success,” said Mrs. Cowasjee.
“Why’s he got an elephant’s head?”
She shrugged. “He’s the son of Shiva and Parvati.”
That seemed to explain it. “Do you say prayers to him?”
Mrs. Cowasjee nodded. Muriel stifled a giggle. Fancy worshipping an elephant!
“We have many gods,” said Mrs. Cowasjee. “Millions. In my country anything can be holy. You see, God is everywhere.”
Mrs. Cowasjee was a handsome, middle-aged woman wrapped in a mauve sari. No nurse’s uniform, nothing like that. Muriel had thought that all Indians were the same color, but Mrs. Cowasjee’s skin was paler than her husband’s, like milkier coffee. There was a smudge of crimson in the parting of her hair. It reminded Muriel of her own wounds and the chain of events that had brought her across the world to this exotic boudoir.
“I got a pain in my stomach,” she said. “And diarrhea.”
“Sit down, dear, and take off your shoes.”
Muriel, mildly surprised, sat down in an armchair. She removed her shoes and peeled off her stockings.
Mrs. Cowasjee seated herself opposite. She stared at Muriel’s feet. There was a silence. “Hai Raba!” she said. “Your feet are in a terrible state.”
Muriel nodded. “It’s the bunions.”
Mrs. Cowasjee drew her chair nearer. She lifted Muriel’s right foot and rested it on her lap.
“See the bones here, and here? They are quite deformed. And the corns here, where your shoes have rubbed. Really, Mrs. Donnelly, you should have looked after yourself better. Have you never visited a chiropodist?”
Muriel shook her head.
“If you take care of your feet,” said Mrs. Cowasjee, “they will take care of you.”
“Used to be a cleaner,” said Muriel. “On my feet all day. That’s when I got my varicose veins. My husband had beautiful feet. So did his brother Lenny. That’s because they were so poor, see, they didn’t have any shoes when they were little.”
“Indians have beautiful feet for the same reason,” said Mrs. Cowasjee.
Her own peeped out from her hem—slim and brown, in bejeweled flip-flops. Next to them Muriel’s feet looked swollen and blotchy—deformed, even. Muriel had never compared herself to an Indian before.
“I, too, come from a poor family,” said Mrs. Cowasjee. “When I met my husband, it was love at first sight.” She sighed. In the corner, the fountain tinkled. “My family are Hindus, and not high caste. The law forbids the caste system, but of course it still continues as strongly as ever.”
“Same where I come from,” said Muriel, with feeling. “Same in this place. I’m a fish out of bloody water.”
“His family, it is very prosperous. They’re Parsees. They are like your Jews; they do very well for themselves.” Mrs. Cowasjee sighed again. In the corner was a lava lamp; its orange blob rose to the top. “I was looking forward to a peaceful old age, but it hasn’t happened like that.”
“Not with me either,” said Muriel. She had had to organize this all by herself, with the help of her neighbor Winnie. Tickets, packing, the renting of her flat to Winnie’s niece, who had promised to move out if Muriel decided to return to Peckham. Not a word from her son, her light-of-her-life, her Keith. But she had done it. After all, she had her own pressing need for coming here.
Muriel’s foot, like a lump of uncooked meat, still lay in Mrs. Cowasjee’s lap. It looked as if it belonged to somebody else. They both gazed at it.
“Oh yes, it was a love match,” said Mrs. Cowasjee. “Then.”
In the lamp, the blob slowly descended. Watching it mad
e Muriel’s stomach sink.
“You see, my husband is a weak man,” said Mrs. Cowasjee.
“So was mine. People took advantage of him. Then he lost his job and sat about all day watching telly.” Muriel stopped. She shouldn’t be saying all this to a foreigner. “About my tummy—”
“The main problem, in this country, is burning soles.”
Souls? “What? In the bonfires?” Muriel knew that widows flung themselves on their husbands’ funeral pyres. She had seen it on the TV. It seemed a daft idea to her.
“No, dear, I’m talking about feet,” said Mrs. Cowasjee. “In the temples you have to take off your shoes, as a mark of respect, and the floor can be very hot. It damages the skin.”
Muriel gazed at the shelf of knickknacks. Among them she spotted a Charles-and-Diana mug. It was the same one that she had, with the wedding photograph printed on it. In my country anything can be holy. Prince Charles … an elephant … She thought of her cat, buried in her son’s garden in Chigwell. Maybe she could put a candle in front of Lenny’s photograph, like Mrs. Cowasjee had done. For a moment, Muriel felt at home. Just now it was that woman at breakfast, Evelyn with her posh voice, who seemed the foreigner.
“Shall I scrape those corns now?” asked Mrs. Cowasjee.
“What about my tummy?”
Mrs. Cowasjee lowered Muriel’s foot to the floor. “Drink plenty of plain tea,” she said abruptly. “With cardamom and ginger. I’ll tell the cook.”
“That all?”
“If it continues I’ll call for Dr. Rama.”
Mrs. Cowasjee had lost interest. She seemed to be a moody woman; during breakfast Muriel had heard her shouting at her husband.
Muriel pulled on her knee-highs, easing them over the barely healed wound on her shin. Mrs. Cowasjee seemed not to have noticed it. A funny sort of nurse, Muriel thought. And how could she do her job properly when she was swaddled in chiffon?
Muriel eased her feet into her shoes. They were beige loafers, made of imitation leather that made her feet sweat. They were also too tight; her bunions throbbed.
From his niche, the elephant god watched her labors. He had a potbelly and a startled expression, as if somebody had goosed him. Maybe I should ask him to make my tummy better, thought Muriel. She felt a giggle rising, like a burp.
Mrs. Cowasjee followed her gaze. “We pray to Ganesh before an important undertaking. We are needing his blessing, you see, to remove any obstacles in our path.”
“You really believe all that?”
“If it happens, it happens.” She shrugged. “It’s our karma.”
Well, if it makes you feel calmer, good luck to you, thought Muriel. She got to her feet, steadying herself on the arm of the chair. Taking a last look at the elephant, she thought: I know what I would pray for.
I would pray to find my son.
Evelyn stood in the lobby, clutching the Daily Telegraph. She waited for her heartbeat to return to normal. There was nobody around; no sound except the sweeper’s broom and the tick-tock of the grandfather clock. It was an hour slow, but nobody seemed to have noticed. It didn’t really matter, she supposed. At Delhi Airport the Ainslies had pointed out a man squatting behind the clock, moving its hands. People scraped a living for themselves in whatever way they could. Somebody at dinner—Madge, the most risqué—said that eunuchs got paid to not lift up their saris and display their private parts. Even this, disgusting though it undoubtedly was, seemed touching in its desperation. At least they weren’t layabouts living off benefits as their British counterparts would be doing, according to the Daily Mail, which Evelyn used to borrow from her cleaner.
Half past ten. England would still be slumbering. Only postmen would be stirring, and those who had woken up early to catch a flight. People moved around the world as if they were popping down to the corner shop. Evelyn’s own grandchildren, who lived in New York, were more familiar with Bali than the byways of Sussex. How different it was from her own youth, with its once-a-year trip to Marshall & Snelgrove! The Technicolor present had outshone these timid treats, dimming them into monochrome. Evelyn thought of Gatwick Airport. Somewhere beneath its tarmac lay her own lost childhood.
“Madam would like some coffee?”
Evelyn jumped. Jimmy stood there, grave in his turban.
“No thank you, Jimmy.” Nobody could pronounce his real name. “I’m looking for a photocopier. Does Mr. Cowasjee have one in his office?”
Jimmy waggled his head. If you want him to have one, he does. He was trying to be helpful. Evelyn was fond of the old head bearer. He seemed to be permanently on duty, existing solely for the guests in a way that would be inconceivable in England. He anticipated their needs, fetching balls of wool or a cushion almost before they had thought of such a thing themselves. His advanced age made Evelyn feel like a spring chicken. In England, no doubt, he would long since have been put out to grass. In India, however, people seemed to carry on until they dropped.
Jimmy crossed the lobby to the lounge. With an effort, he wedged the door open. In this climate, woodwork warped. It was the humidity. In their bedroom drawer, Evelyn’s own underthings had become mildewed.
She went behind the counter, knocked on the office door and went in. Mr. Cowasjee was on the phone, jabbering away in his own language. Hindi? Something else? Just for a moment the hotel proprietor, in his khaki bush suit, looked impenetrably foreign. He was a plump, middle-aged man; a natty dresser. His hair was slicked back with pomade; she could smell it from where she stood.
He replaced the receiver and sprang to his feet. “How may I help you, madam?” he asked.
“I’m so sorry to disturb you. I wondered if I could photocopy the crossword.” Evelyn wanted to add: It’s my only way of feeling useful. This country makes me feel so helpless. Mr. Cowasjee wouldn’t understand this. Despite his affability he was still an Indian.
He clapped his hands. “A splendid idea!”
Evelyn relaxed. “Norman—Mr. Purse—he does rather monopolize the paper.”
“How many copies would you require?”
She made a swift calculation. “Fifteen, say. I’ll pay you, of course.”
“Out of the question, madam.”
Mr. Cowasjee lifted the lid of the machine and positioned the Daily Telegraph, which she had folded to the appropriate page. As he did so, she remembered Muriel.
“Mrs. Donnelly was taken poorly. I do hope she’s all right. I took her to your wife.”
“You are a kind and thoughtful lady, Mrs. Greenslade. You shall earn your place in heaven.”
“You don’t believe in that, do you?” Evelyn stopped. This sounded impudent. “I thought that—well—you believe you never die, you just come back as something else.” She didn’t add: a woodpecker or something.
“That is the Hindu belief, madam. The soul migrates through a series of bodies.”
“Even animals?”
He nodded. “Only by good deeds can they break the cycle of death and rebirth, and attain nirvana.”
“Goodness,” said Evelyn.
“However, I am a Parsee. We follow the teachings of Zarathustra. Like yourself we believe in a day of judgment. Either we will find solace in heaven or suffer the torments of hell.”
“To be perfectly honest,” said Evelyn, “I’m not sure what I believe anymore.”
Mr. Cowasjee didn’t reply. The machine hummed and a piece of paper slid out.
“Too faint.” He picked it up and passed it to her.
“My eyesight’s rather poor.” Evelyn fumbled for her glasses, which had become caught in her blouse. “Even distances are getting blurry now.”
He adjusted a dial on the machine and pressed the button again. “The problem is, we are dying out.”
“Don’t say that. I am, but you’re still in the prime of life.”
“I mean us Parsees, Mrs. Evelyn. There is too much intermarriage.”
“I thought people listened to their parents here,” she said.
�
��Not always, madam.”
There was a silence. Evelyn thought of her son, at the age of forty, announcing his engagement to an American woman Evelyn had never met. It hadn’t crossed his mind to ask his mother’s opinion.
“I think parents know best,” she said. “Their minds aren’t muddled up by—” She was going to say sex. “By an impulse that might soon burn itself out. My son became ensnared by a most unsuitable woman. When we finally met her, my husband and I, she terrified the life out of us.”
Mr. Cowasjee didn’t reply. Evelyn wondered if she had gone too far. One by one, the pages slid out of the machine and fell soundlessly into a plastic tray.
Suddenly Mr. Cowasjee swung away, squatted on his haunches and pulled something out from under the cupboard.
“Madam, I’m going to show you something I have shown to very few people in my life. You, however, are a woman of understanding …” Pushing aside some papers, he laid the bundle on the desk. It was an object wrapped in embroidered fabric. Mr. Cowasjee broke the string—feeble Indian string that snapped like cotton—and opened the cloth. A pair of shoes was revealed. “These are the shoes I was wearing when I met my wife.”
Evelyn touched the leather with her forefinger. “They’re very nice.”
“Exactly. Bata, 550 rupees.”
“Very smart.” She didn’t know what to say. “Did you meet her at a party?”
He shook his head. Good Lord, he was blushing! She didn’t think Indians could blush. “Tell me, Mrs. Evelyn, what are your seven deadly sins?”
“Heavens, I can’t remember them all. Murder, of course, and worshipping graven images.”
“You have committed none of them, I’m sure. That is why your memory fails you.” Mr. Cowasjee wrapped up the shoes again in the cloth. Tiny mirrors were sewn into the fabric; they winked in the light. “Vanity and lust, I’m sure they are two of them.”
“Oh yes, there’s covetousness. Thy neighbor’s ox and his wife. And … well, adultery, of course—” She stopped.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: A Novel Page 11