`Know about us?' asked Chandra, squirting fistfuls of water at Subhas. 'Which one of us is the grandson of that grandfather and grandmother, you mean?'
`You know too much,' scolded Greer lovingly, for she had become extremely fond of the pair.
`We really do know a lot,' Chandra boasted. 'Shall we tell her, Subhas?'
`No,' said the other boy, 'remember what we were told.'
`Told what?' asked Greer idly, her attention more on herself and her cares. Then, all at once, for no possible reason she could have given, could have put a finger on, she knew she must know what these funny little atoms were being secret about. But to find out with this cunning pair one had to be as cunning. `Not that it matters,' she yawned elaborately, 'for I am going away very soon.'
As she had guessed that apparent lack of interest disappointed them. 'Wouldn't you like to know before you go?' They stood before her very importantly.
`No,' she shrugged, hoping her assumed boredom would urge them on.
Piqued at that reply, they said together, as they always did things together and how it had puzzled her: 'It is this,
Gr – eer, we are brothers.'
Greer still pretended disinterest and yawned again. `How do you arrive at that?' she smiled.
`We pricked our fingers with a pin and we have the same blood,' they said.
`Silly little boys!' What a fool she was listening to their prattle, for a moment just now she had felt—
`Also because Brother Mahsia said so.'
Now Greer's ears pricked, not those little brown fingers. She had never heard of Brother Mahsia before. A figment of their imagination? She stopped herself in time from saying 'Who is Brother Mahsia?' and said instead `How would he know?'
`He would!' indignantly. 'He had us for many months. He did not want us. So many mouths and too little food, he said.' They sighed . . . in unison, of course.
`But he was left with us,' picked up Subhas . . . or Chandra? . . . 'our parents were very poor with many others to look after and twins were too many. That's what we were – twins.'
`When the flood came down that valley,' said the first boy, all secrecy forgotten now, 'and there were two children who were not found, Brother Mahsia said to the important men who were looking: "Here they are, they wandered up to my mission." '
`A mission?'
`Yes. For children whose parents are poor and have others to look after.'
`Go on,' breathed Greer.
`Brother Mahsia told us not to say anything, then you will be looked after and loved, he said. Later you can tell, he said, for it is not good to live always in a lie.'
`Now is later,' Chandra announced, satisfied. Subhas nodded.
It was nothing but fiction. Greer kept telling herself this. But somewhere, she also told herself, there is a possible ring of authenticity. For one thing these children are not imaginative children, they could never dream up a
tale like this. For another thing, I have always believed they must be brothers.
`Did you ever hear of the other two boys?' she asked idly. 'The ones in the valley where the flood came through?'
`One boy,' they said together.
`No, two.'
`No, one,' they persisted, 'because we used to watch them play down there from our high hill, and that time of the water there was only one to play, the other didn't come.'
`And he, that one, was lost in the flood.'
Chandra looked at Subhas and Subhas looked back at him.
`It was bad,' they said together, 'but not bad for him, for that boy, for his ayah had taken him away, she must have seen the flood coming and taken him, but Brother Mahsia did not know where she took him, so he said as there are so many mouths to feed you can both be that boy, because they think there were two, and it is better to feed two than one.'
`He did not mean bad,' defended Chandra.
`And later he said we must tell,' said Subhas.
`Now is later,' they agreed.
`But why . . . why didn't you tell the Senhor? Tell the grandfather? Tell—'
They had started to play again. They were after all only little boys. Were they lying? Were they very shrewd? Were they gifted story-tellers? Or had it all happened, or something even remotely like it happened? Even very remotely was enough for Greer. Her mind running in a dozen directions at once, she called Ayah to take over their supervision and hunted for the Senhor.
He was not there.
She tried the doctor and he was away.
Jim. Gone.
No use to try Holly.
She sat at the window in her room and thought . . . and
thought ...
For all its fantastic properties, somewhere in this story there was an essence of truth. A mission could have stood on the top of an overlooking hill, for look at the number of small villages clinging to the shoulders of all those hills. Two small boys could have been in the habit of looking down, that is if two small boys had previously been left in a mission run by a Brother Mahsia. There could have been such a mission, there could have been such a brother . . . Could ! If ! Oh, it was quite impossible.
But one thing Greer did know for certain, for wasn't the evidence out there in the turquoise pool?
There were two boys.
And — a third?
`No, one,' they had corrected her. 'That time there was only one. His ayah took him away.'
Took him where? Where? Odd to think that that village, so close, so — so impossible, also had a small `unbelonging' boy. And a boy who `. . does not always want to play.'
It was all too much, Greer thought. She got up. She went down to the garages. All the cars were gone. She did not know if a train went near the village, she only knew that a road and then a track went there. It was not such a formidable distance from Bombay if you left out Stuyva and cut in instead from the motor road. She knew approximately where, for she had seen it on the Guptas' and the Senhor's maps. It was a longish way, yes, but not impossible. It could ... and it would . . . be done.
She checked her money. Enough, she thought. She remembered that hiring garage she had seen at the bottom of the hill.
Throwing a few things into a little bag in case she was delayed and had to stay, Greer hurried out, not waiting even to leave a note.
As she had expected, the garage proprietor spoke and understood English. Yes, he would hire Memsahib a car. He told Greer the price, and she opened her purse and
withdrew the notes.
It was all a little too quick for the Indian. He wanted to bargain over it. Failing that he wanted to talk about it, bow and smile over it. In her anxiety to be gone, Greer withdrew more notes and pressed them on him. He protested, but she insisted. . . even a little sharply.
In ten minutes she was on the road. There was no worry about the right route, once you left the city you took the northern track and that was unmistakable because it was the only one. Besides, she found herself remembering it quite clearly.
She drove as swiftly as safety permitted, and she was fairly lucky, there were few obstacles today. She stopped several times for tea, sipping abstractedly as she asked herself what she intended to do. See Yaqub's parents first? Tell them what she had returned for? No, that would entail going into Stuyva, which was a long way round; also it could build up a hope that could be dashed down. Best to keep her plans to herself until she knew.
At mid-afternoon she arrived at the nearest turn-off to the hill village, and within half an hour was back in that small town, nodding to the people, who remembered her at once, smiling back at them as they greeted her, but going directly to the cottage where the small boy had taken her for tea.
The same woman met her, and did not seem at all surprised when she asked at once about the child.
`You liked him, then? Perhaps you would like to take him,' she said eagerly.
`I don't know,' answered Greer cautiously.
`Oh, he is a good boy, please know that, but it is hard, so hard. He is not my boy, remembe
r I told you, and our food is not enough. We are poor.'
`Whose boy, then?' Greer asked.
The woman looked away.
`Whose?' insisted Greer. 'If I take him I must know.' `My husband's aunt brought him. I told you that, too. We never asked why she came with the boy.'
`When did she come?'
`When she grew sick. She said that she must find the one who should look after him now that she was ill, but she died before she could do that, so we had the boy.'
`Do you think he was her boy?'
`Oh, no, she was not young. But when she was young, my husband told me, she was married and had a baby, but it died. I think that was why she did not give the boy to where he should have gone. I think she loved him very much. Have you come to take him, memsahib? Are you the one to whom he should go?'
`No, I am not the one.'
`But you will still take him?'
`Where is he?' Greer asked.
`He walks across to the old shrine. You will find him sitting there. A good boy, but he does not always want to play. Books, that is that boy. And looking at things. Yes, he will be at the shrine.'
`Shrine? Would — would that be the Pool of the Pink Lilies?'
`It was, memsahib. Now . . .' The Indian woman spread her hands. She went to the door, nodding for Greer to follow, and she indicated a track. 'It meets up with the road,' she said.
Greer stood silent beside her. She had known all these hill places were close to each other, Mr. Gupta had demonstrated on a map, Vasco had shown her with pen and paper, but only the woman pointing out the little path really brought it close.
She answered huskily when the woman asked, 'Shall I call a child to take you?' a choked 'No.'
`No,' she repeated more distinctly, `no, thank you.' She fumbled in her purse and took out all she could find. It occurred to her, but without any impact, that she would have no money should she require petrol to get back tonight, no money should she stay on.
She went across to the little track. It was not very worn. Indeed, from the sparse imprint she would say it
was only used by one pair of small feet. It was well defined, though, and presently, just as Vasco had drawn these close-knit hills and their winding ways, the path met a dusty, bumpy road for the final quarter mile.
Now that at last she was coming to it, coming to the Pool of the Pink Lilies, Greer felt a trembling in her she had never known before. Ever since she had read that book those many years ago she had thought of India not in the terms of the Taj Mahal, Madura, other lovely shrines, but what she had seen when she had turned that page that day. The carved gods, goddesses and peacocks would be ruins now, she knew that, but the Golden Stairs? the Temple? the Pool? the lilies?
She turned a corner. Stopped. Felt a sharp sweet pain.
For the weathered old shrine standing a little crookedly before her was mirrored in a pool, yet not mirrored fully, for it could only be glimpsed in the water between a thousand lily pads, and those pads also could scarcely be seen, for the lilies, great, plate-wide, rose-pink lilies, were out. Their bloom covered everything, save here and there a water-mirrored corner of tower, cupola, aged gold stairs.
She stood enchanted. She stood breathlessly satisfied. She had always yearned to see this, and now...
`The memsahib likes?' She heard the little voice before she saw the little boy. He was sitting on a tuft of grass and staring, too, up at the old shrine, but he turned for a while to look eagerly at Greer.
`Oh, yes,' she whispered. Do you?'
`I like it very much.'
`And do you know why?' she came across to ask him. `Do you remember?' No, of course he wouldn't remember; he was even younger, she could see now, than their own pair.
`I like it,' he said without any hesitation, 'because of all the things it wears.'
The things it wears. She looked at him incredulously. Then she said :
The raiment Bwali wears are these .. . Saris of hills with folds of trees—'
She went on to the end, and he listened to every word. He did not understand, not fully, but he smiled and told her, 'I like that, memsahib.'
`Then you and I both like it,' she smiled back.
`And,' included Yaqub's son, for he was his son, Greer felt sure of it, 'the sahib likes it, too?'
`Sahib?'
The little boy got up and salaamed politely to the other side of the pink pond.
Senhor Vasco Martinez stood there.
Afterwards Greer could not have said how one moment she was on one side of the Pool and the next moment, with the child, standing with the Senhor.
But later Vasco said that he had run, too.
`We met,' he told her.
He told her then how he was not here this time because he had read her mind, guessed what she was going to do. No, he was not that much in tune. Not yet.
. . . Not yet?
He was my garageman, that man from whom you hired the car. You did an unwise thing when you overpaid him, he knew you belonged to my household, and because of that it was very important not to accept overpayment. He came up to the house at once and told me, for I had arrived home soon afterwards, how you had hired the car.'
`He wouldn't know where I was going.'
`No, but the small tongues having been loosened refused to stop babbling. The boys sought me out and told me what they had told you.'
'So you followed?'
`No, I took a much shorter track. Not only can I find short ways in Bombay, Senhorita Greer, I can find shorter country tracks, too.'
`But why would you come here? The Pool of the Pink
Lilies was never mentioned.'
`No,' he agreed, 'but I knew you must come.'
`Because of the boy?'
Vasco made a little gesture. He was looking deeply at her. 'You had to come – as I had to come. Because' . . . a pause . . . 'we were to meet here.'
And slowly, inevitably, with infinite tenderness, he took her in his arms.
She could have stopped there for ever, but it wasn't right, it mustn't be right – with Holly.
`Yes? Yes, Greer?' he asked. 'Your sister Holly?' `You love her.'
`Very much. She will be my sister, too.'
`But you love her. Love her, Vasco.'
`Love her?' He looked a long moment at Greer. 'Oh, no.'
`No?'
`Then – then Terry does?'
`No.'
`Jim?'
`No.'
`But—'
`You do not know,' he said. 'I see you know nothing, Senhorita Greer, nothing at all. Often I wondered . . . often I pondered over that . .
`Holly and Jim,' came in Greer stubbornly, eliminating the teacher first, 'spent long hours together.'
`Yes. Holly informed me she had to catch up so as to pass that exam.'
`Exam?'
`What else?' he smiled at her.
The doctor,' said Greer next, 'he held her hand.'
`He was checking her pulse. He did it regularly. More
than regularly when she had declared what she wished to
be, for it was essential that she pass the health test.' `Vasco – Vasco, what is this?'
He looked down on her. 'No,' he confirmed again, 'in-
deed you do not know. Then I will tell you, pe quena, though it is a bore, for I have so many other . . . tender ... things to do.'
`Tell me, please,' she insisted. She would not, must not, think of that 'tender' she thought he had said.
He did.
`Your little sister has never been as delicate as you feared. Not robust perhaps, but definitely not so needful as you and your old family doctor believed always to be handled with care.
`Terry recognized the case at once. You see although I spoke of three of us in England, Yaqub, Terry, myself, there was a fourth – Yvonne. She was frail, too. Or so we thought.'
`I believe,' put in Greer, remembering the doctor on her first night in Bombay, 'that Terry especially thought.'
`Oh, yes,
he liked Yvonne. He liked her very much. But he treated her like a flower. Then another man came and treated her like a woman, and . . .' Vasco shrugged.
`Poor Terry,' Greer said.
`Yes, poor Terry. But it was only beginning, and there will be others. Even someone we both know?' A little smile. 'Oh, no, I do not think that it was the end for him. Not like it would be with—' He stopped and looked soberly at her, and she yearned for him to go on.
But when he did it was on Terry again, and how the doctor had found in Holly a yardstick to Yvonne.
`So he knew how to work on her,' the Portuguese said.
`She had lessons from Jim,' Greer said next.
`Yes. I do not think that your sister had formal schooling as you did, Greer.'
`No.'
`Then she had much to catch up.'
`But – but for what?'
`For the entrance exam that hospitals demand. Maybe a hospital back in Australia. Maybe in England. Perhaps
since our own nurse is seeing a lot of Holly, Holly will even begin her training here.'
`Training? Hospital training? Holly interested in nursing?'
`Yes, Greer. Surely you saw her delight in tending me when I was ill.'
`I – I thought her delight was in you,' murmured Greer.
`Did you? Did you, my love?' the Senhor said softly.
My love. My love. It couldn't be true. She wanted to take the words and imprison them in case she never heard them again.
And then she was hearing other words, sweet, wild, abandoned words, so it didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered, nothing. Nothing with Vasco's lips on hers.
`I knew the moment I saw you that this was why my father's father's father had come to India,' Vasco was saying, 'I knew why I had seen this shrine as a boy and had known that one lovely, lovely day . . . Oh, Greer, little watch-girl, I think I have been watching for you ever since then – no, longer than that, I have been waiting for you from the day I was born.'
The Pool of Pink Lilies Page 18