The Pool of Pink Lilies

by Joyce Dingwell

  `No' they called him Ayub,' said the Senhor. 'One of those little boys is Ayub. The other names were only given them until identity was established. But where is the identity? And which one?'

  As she sat waiting, he went on, 'India can be a place of drought and a place of flood. This time it was flood. The little village in which Yaqub, on behalf of his Government, was introducing some modern innovation as a trial for similar development in other villages was to receive the terrible impact of a river that could no longer be confined to its banks. It was all swift and too sudden. Everything ... and everyone ... was swept away that awful time, senhorita. It was a dreadful disaster. Then when it was all over .. .' The Portuguese spread excessive hands

  `Two little boys survived,' murmured Greer.

  `Two male minors so alike they could be your English peas in a pod. Right?'

  `Yes,' she nodded.

  `Since then,' he went on, 'they have developed just as identically. Doctors, consulted, judged them physically as the same age. Unfortunately either from shock or immaturity they could not tell for themselves. And so it has gone on.' —That Continental spread of long slender hands.—`Same characteristics. Same features. Same depth of colouring. In fact—'

  `Two peas in a pod.'

  `Yes.' It was his turn to nod. A moment while he tended his cheroot. 'But one of them is Yaqub's son and one a companion Lalil used to bring along so the two could play together.'

  `And his parents, the other child's, couldn't they say?'

  `He had none. I must explain to you that there are many of these children that India looks after. If a kind person like Yaqub's Lalil wished one for company for her son it was agreed eagerly.'

  `But wouldn't the authorities know about him?' `Many children,' he reminded her sadly.

  She sat silent.

  `So,' he went on, 'that is the question. One Yaqub's son, one a playmate. But which?'

  Words rushed to Greer's lips, rather indignant words, but she heard the Senhor out.

  The family of Yaqub is a very highly placed one. I need not tell you the details. After their initial distress was exhausted they were naturally eager to establish their grandson.'

  Now Greer felt the indignation in her growing to a hard, tight, angry ball.

  `Naturally, senhor?'

  `Of course. Their own flesh. Their own blood. Oh, but you are thinking of the mother. In India, senhorita, it is always the male and the male side who is considered.'

  `I wasn't thinking that at all.'

  He looked across at her. 'No?'

  `No. I was thinking it was not natural, not at all. I mean wishing to be assured like that. Two children! Two little boys! What difference could it make?'

  He was smiling at her. 'I see your trend, and it is very worthy of you. The answer is: No difference at all. The grandparents are, and have always been, most anxious to embrace both children. Whatever is revealed, if it is revealed, will never make any difference. It is just that for personal reasons, reasons for the handing over of intimate family things, not necessarily things of any value, that they would like to know. Now do you understand?'

  `Less than ever. A child is a child. A child is — is love. It simply doesn't matter. It mustn't matter.'

  He frowned at her. 'It is not as you seem determined to think. Both these boys will be treated identically. They will be similarly educated. They will both eventually attend the English place of learning that Yaqub ... and Terry and I ... attended. It was because of that establishment' — a little movement of his shoulders — 'that I came in. The grandparents begged of me to have the children with me for a term, to observe them, to see if I could find in one of them what I once found in Yaqub.'

  `And you actually agreed to do such a thing?'

  `I did.'

  'You saw nothing – nothing abominable and repugnant in it?'

  'What, senhorita?'

  'Oh' – angrily – 'it's no good explaining if you can't see it, if you can't – can't—'

  'Admit that a child is love?' he asked quickly. 'But I told you that you have the wrong idea. It is only to know for themselves that the grandparents yearn for enlightenment. Do you think that even if they did not honour what they said they would do, and such a thought is impossible with the Guptas, that I would stand by and forsake the child?'

  'I don't know what you would do, senhor,' Greer said coldly, 'but I know that I would have nothing to do with it.' She paused. 'Anyway, how could I help? Not knowing the children properly, not having known the parents, indeed not knowing anything about it at all. Not even knowing India.'

  'But you might still help,' he said quietly. 'You see there is more to the anxiety than a human regard of flesh and blood. Yaqub was a poet. Perhaps he has passed his gift to his boy. It was a very wonderful gift, senhorita.' For a moment Senhor Martinez was silent in memory. 'I believe that you, with your alliterations, with your Pool of Pink Lilies, will like the sonnets of Yaqub Gupta that I will lend to you. Now do you understand, even a little?' He looked appealingly at her. 'The parents of Yaqub wish to hand over their son's poems to their son's son. Yaqub Gupta's poems written in delicate charm when he was actually little bigger than these boys are now, for, the parents tell me, he was always a poet. For this tender reason they have asked me to observe, but you, a woman, with a woman's intuition, could observe far better.'

  As she did not speak he took out two photographs. `Senhorite He laid them before her. 'These are the grandparents' photographs of their son and their son's wife. They were taken on their wedding day. As Yaqub travelled a great deal they saw little of them after that.

  They had only seen the boy as an infant, and infants .. Again that shrug. `Senhorita Greer, will you take these photos with you .to observe?'

  She did not pick them up from where he had placed them. She still had a feeling of repulsion. Children were children. Children were love. Did it matter, should it matter, which child?

  She looked down at last and saw a handsome young Indian, slim, rather thin-faced, finely-featured, eyes as well as the jewel eyes of his race the eyes of a dreamer, a poet. The girl beside him in both photographs was extremely beautiful. She cradled some flowers.

  The Senhor was watching Greer.

  `How often have I looked at the boys and then looked at the likenesses,' he mused.

  `I hope you didn't let the boys see you,' Greer said coldly.

  `How wrong you are. They quite enjoy the puzzle. They look at the photos, too.'

  But that's terrible! They shouldn't know.'

  `Everyone knew. It was a bad disaster and received country-wide publicity. You cannot hide such things.'

  Another silence fell between them. Greer knew what was coming next from the Senhor. A formal offer to her to be a companion to the boys, to 'observe' for him so he could report to the grandparents of one of them. To use her woman's intuition.

  The idea still irked her, yet expressed in poetic terms she found it more acceptable. Also, she told herself, at least she could be present to shelter that boy, and by shelter she meant love, who was found not to be Yaqub's son, if such a discovery could be made, even though she had been assured that nothing of this sort would be needed, that the Senhor himself, if the grandparents failed, would take over.

  `Everything I have said and promised is true.' The Senhor spoke firmly. 'These boys are as one to all concerned —except for that little wish. Well, Senhorita Greer?'

  She stirred uneasily. A child was love, whatever he was. Yet refusing would not help anyone. Nor would it help her with Holly. She heard the Senhor telling her what would be expected of her, and it was little more than being present with the boys upon occasion. For this service, he said, there would be a salary.

  She heard herself finally agree.

  `You would like to choose your room, then?' he asked next.

  `You mean a room either near Holly or upstairs?' `Yes.'

  She was silent. She was wondering what the doctor had had in mind when he had said what he h
ad about the arrangements. The Senhor settled the question for her.

  The red and white drawing room would suit you,' he observed, 'and the view is fine. No, it is not really a drawing room, it is actually a small suite. Yes, I will have it prepared.' He put his hand on a bell.

  `Where is your luggage?' he asked while he waited for his summons to be answered. 'And your sister's?'

  The bags are still at the flat.'

  `Then I will send for them.'

  `Thank you, no, I feel at least I should speak with Uncle Randall's wife.'

  `You said she dismissed you rather cursorily.'

  But it still would be a discourtesy not to speak with her.'

  `In that case I will take you.'

  `Please, no,' she refused, 'I would sooner speak with her myself.'

  `Then I will send you in my car.'

  To that she felt she had to agree. She got up, was told that the car would be waiting her, that it would remain, after the bags had been removed from the flat, until she came down again, that it would then bring her back here. A key was handed to her from a large bunch of keys. Possibly she would never need it, as the staff were seldom

  away, but it would be there should she ever require it. She put the key in her bag and murmured her thanks.

  On her way down she peeped in at Holly. The girl was sleeping peacefully. She had a more relaxed look than Greer could remember on her little pale face for over a, year.

  Vastly cheered, though still uncertain because she was certainly unconvinced about the rightness of purpose of the post she had just accepted, Greer descended the lordly steps to the waiting limousine.

  The big car went smoothly down the avenue of flamboyant trees, past the leisurely bungalows behind their hedges of bougainvillea and wisteria.

  They passed the Gateway to India again, and then the route became narrower and poorer, and, because of the traffic, with its endless cycles, goats and cows, because of the sleeping people and street barbers, the pace became slower. Sometimes they had to stop altogether, and then the children raced up to beg for coins, flower-sellers to ask two annas a bunch, pedlars of food and pedlars of crafts . . . and pedlars of dreams.

  The lady's fortune,' enticed a sand-diviner, and Greer thought of Vasco Martinez and his 'Destiny'. The word did not fit that Portuguese business-man, and yet he had said it in all seriousness. 'Fate. Destiny. Something at your elbow guiding you.' He had said that it was because of India that it had crept into his make-up, but had it really been because he had looked at a fair fragile girl and known a sudden tenderness?

  `The apartment, memsahib.' In her absorption Greer had not noticed that they had , reached the block of flats.

  `I am to come with you,' the driver said, 'to bring down the bags.' He opened the door, then followed Greer up the front steps . . . very different steps from that other lordly flight, Greer thought. She knocked on the door and a woman, the same sulky woman as earlier today, let her in.

  Greer asked for Mrs. Perry, but either the woman did not understand, or chose not to understand. She stepped back, however, to allow Greer to go to the room she and Holly had been given and for Greer to give the driver the bags.

  Greer did not like leaving in such a way, and after the driver had gone ahead she made signs to the woman for pencil and paper. Once more the woman did not respond, and had Greer not seen her glance to the door leading to another bedroom she might have left the flat without any more fuss. But the glance was inquiring, and she turned to see whom it inquired from.

  Arlene Perry stood there.

  `All right,' her uncle's wife said irritably to the woman. `You can go.' As the servant went out rather insolently, she said to Greer, 'I see you are already going.'

  `Well, you did say not to settle,' Geer reminded her, `you did say—'

  `All right, I said it.' Arlene Perry lit a cigarette, and when the little noise of the ignition of the match stopped an uncomfortable silence took over.

  `I'm glad I've seen you, though,' Greer proffered, 'I didn't want to walk out like this.'

  `Why not?' Bold, hostile eyes challenged Greer.

  `It would be impolite, and you are my uncle's wife.' The laugh that greeted this was unfriendly and sour.

  `Well, you've been polite now, so you can leave.'

  `Will Uncle Randall—'

  `Be back? You tell me and I'll tell you.' As Greer still hesitated, the woman said, 'Cabs cost money in Bombay, I wouldn't keep the driver waiting. Also luggage can disappear.'

  `Thank you, but I haven't a cab, it's a private car.'

  `You've done yourself well in a very short time,' Arlene Perry said, 'or did you have contacts before you got here? If you're your uncle's niece you would certainly see to that.'

  `I had no contacts.'

  `Then you've done yourself well.' Again the unamused laugh.

  Greer walked to the door. 'Goodbye, Mrs. Perry. Thank you for—' She could not think what to thank her for, so left it at that.

  `Are you going straight back to Australia?' the woman asked idly.

  `No. My sister was taken ill, so we must remain for a while.'

  `She looked seedy,' the woman shrugged. 'Lucky for you that you have enough by you to wait over a while.' She regarded Greer rather speculatively.

  `Fortunately I've found a job,' Greer told her.

  `So soon?'

  `Holly collapsed in the street and this man—' Greer stopped at the sneer on Arlene Perry's face.

  Now,' the woman drawled, 'that's what I call real fast!'

  Flushed, not far from tears, Greer said, 'Had we not met him previously I would never have agreed, of course, but when the Senhor—'

  There was a sudden silence in the room. It was a sharp sort of silence. Then Arlene Perry ashed her cigarette and said quietly, `Senhor?'

  `Senhor Martinez.'

  `You are – there? At his place?'

  `Yes.' Miserably, wretchedly, Greer waited for another distasteful parry.

  But instead her uncle's wife crossed to the window and looked down on the street below, looked at the big car, looked a long hard moment, had Greer been able to see the look. Then she left the window and came back again. As Greer continued now to the door, the little sound stopped her, made her turn.

  She saw Arlene's heavily ringed hand at her mouth as her uncle's wife tried to choke back a sob.

  Greer was at her side in an instant, touching her shoulder tentatively, then as she received no rebuff, putting her

  arms around the distressed woman.

  `Please ... please ...' she soothed. She helped her to one of the chairs, put cushions at her back, sat on the arm still supporting her uncle's wife.

  Her uncle's wife. Greer's lips tightened. Undoubtedly this was why Arlene Perry was crying. Uncle Randall had—

  'I'm terribly sorry to delay you like this.' Arlene was trying to compose herself. 'I did hope to keep it all to myself until you got safely away. After all, it's nothing to do with you.'

  `You mean – Uncle Randall?' Greer's voice was grim. `Yes,' Arlene barely whispered.

  `Has he— Did he—'

  `Yes. He's gone.'

  `Then it has a lot to do with me,' Greer said.

  Arlene Perry was mopping up now. 'You mustn't let it,' she said bravely. 'It's enough that I have to face it. I am his wife, so—'

  `I am his relative. As a matter of fact, Arlene, his only relative. He was my mother's younger brother, her only brother. That's why I know about Randall Perry.'

  `You must have thought I was awful earlier today, you must have despised me for the way I went on.'

  `I did think,' admitted Greer wryly, 'that you would suit Uncle Randall.'

  `I had to be like that, I had to discourage you girls. It was bad enough for me, let alone drag you two into it.'

  Greer remembered their first hostile greeting, recalled Arlene's unfriendliness up to several minutes ago, and her heart went out to this woman. She certainly had made a valiant effort to keep them away
from this ugly situation. But she shouldn't have done it. After all, thought Greer, Arlene was now her relative, too, her troubles should be Greer's troubles. And they were going to be. She was determined about that.

  `You're going to tell me everything,' she said. 'I'm go-

  ing to ask your maid for some tea and we're going to talk.'

  Arlene recovered enough to insist that she would ask for the tea. She did not ring, she went across to the kitchen door, and Greer heard her raised voice, a sullen voice in answer, then an angry wrangle which she could not understand because it was in dialect.

  Uncomfortably she waited for Arlene to return. When she did, her aunt-by-marriage said, 'She's unfriendly. I – I suppose I can't expect anything else.'

  Shrewdly Greer said, 'I presume by that that she hasn't been paid?'

  Again Arlene put her hands over her face. 'I – I had nothing to pay her with.'

  `You mean my uncle has left you with nothing at all?'

  `Nothing. Oh, I didn't mean to involve you . . . I won't have you involved.'

  `Well, I am involved, Arlene. How could I stand around and see you left in a position like this? How long has it been going on?'

  `So long this time I doubt if he's coming back at all.' `He has done it before?'

  `Yes.' Again the hands to the face.

  `Oh, my dear!' This time Greer put her arms right round her and kept them there, even when the Indian woman brought in the tea and dumped it down she did not take the arms away. She looked steadily back at the unfriendly face.

  She poured the tea and pressed some on Arlene.

  `You mustn't stop,' Arlene Perry whispered brokenly. The driver will be anxious to take you back.'

  `I'm not going back, not yet. Oh, I know that sounds awful, I mean for Holly, but after all Holly has care all round her, but you—'

  `You said you had a position with Senhor Martinez?' `Yes.' Greer explained it briefly.

  `He is a rich man,' Arlene said. A very rich man.'