“All right,” her father said. “All right.” He heaved a long sigh. “I of all people should know what you’re like when your mind is made up. I admire you for it.”
Sophie looked at him. “I wonder who I get that from.”
“Give your father a hug,” he said. “I am feeling old today.”
• • •
Sophie and her father sat in silence, waiting for the doctor to arrive and give her the all-clear. More than two months had passed since she had been brought to the hospital unconscious. At first the doctors had thought she had been involved in a car accident, such were her injuries. Then the police had arrived and two men from the British Embassy shortly thereafter. A junior envoy had been sent via special flight down to Coimbatore, to fetch Dr. Schofield. It was mid-morning, and he had been at the clinic, attending to his general practice and thinking about cutting down the eucalyptus tree that had grown too close to the house.
He remembered it so clearly, the way he had been thinking about something so banal while his daughter lay battered and broken in a hospital bed over a thousand miles away. He had been taken to the airport and flown up in a matter of hours, the official dispatched to escort him saying precious little on the way. The doctors were waiting for him at the hospital, two of them, primed to prepare him for what he was about to see. She had a broken cheekbone, a fractured jaw, and a ruptured spleen that had taken seven pints of blood. And she had lost the baby. Had they realized that she was pregnant when she had been brought in, they might have stood a better chance, but she had hemorrhaged badly, and they had had no choice other than to take it all away.
Dr. Schofield folded his hands in his lap and dipped his head.
“I saw him, you know,” he said.
“Who?”
“The guard. I thought I recognized him, but I couldn’t place it.”
Sophie stared at her father, her breath becoming still. “What did he say?”
“Nothing. He ran into me one evening, literally, after the Christmas party. I had gone outside to smoke a cigarette and I wandered over to the guardhouse. The other guard in there gave me a cup of chai in a dirty cup, and I drank it, then went outside and bumped straight into him. And that was it.” Dr. Schofield shook his head, as though he still couldn’t quite believe it. “He didn’t say a word and I only caught a glimpse of him, but there was something about him, something I just knew. I was never able to place it. It was as though I recognized him, although I know that can’t be so. Such a strange thing.”
The doctor walked in through the open door, smiling broadly. “Ah!” he said. “I see that you are all ready to go.”
“Yes.” Sophie smiled back at him.
“I expect you’ll be glad to get out of here.”
“A little,” she said. “Although I have never felt so well looked after in all my life.”
“And you are feeling all right today?”
“Perfectly fine,” she said.
“Good.” He handed her a small paper bag. “No headaches?”
“No.”
“And your abdomen? Is it very tender still?”
“A bit, but it’s fine. Really. Getting better every day.”
“Good. There are some extra painkillers in here for you should you need them.”
“Thank you, Doctor. You’ve all been wonderful.”
“And thank you for being a model patient. We’ll miss you.”
Dr. Schofield stood up. “I owe you a great debt of gratitude.” He shook the doctor’s hand. “And remember what I said, now. If ever you feel like a change of scenery, we’d love to see you down in Ooty. The door will always be open to you.”
“I may very well do that,” the doctor said, then, to Sophie, “Send us a postcard when you get there.”
“I will.” Sophie picked up her case. “Although you may have to wait a little while.”
• • •
The night train crawled slowly northward through the slumbering landscape. Sophie lay in her bunk, drifting in and out of a half-sleep, her body cradled by the rocking motion of the carriage, its wheels shunting rhythmically from track to track. She pulled the sheet up around her shoulders, her hand wandering to her cheek, fingers gently massaging the skin. She hoped it wouldn’t frighten him. It looked much better now, and the scar would fade, given time.
She quieted her thoughts and tried to sleep. She must not be tired when she got there. She must be strong and clear-minded. But what if he was not there? Even worse, what if he was not her son? She pushed the thought out of her mind. It was him. She was sure of it. She had never felt more sure of anything. It was as though she could hear him calling to her. But what if she were to get there and be turned away? For all she knew, his family might never have been told about her, and even if they had, they could deny everything. They could call the police, and then what would she do? She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and turned over in her bunk.
Whatever happened, she would have to be prepared for it, and she was right to arrive unannounced. If they knew she was coming, they might take him away or hide him somewhere. Would she not do the same thing if she were in their position? They had raised him, her son, and she could be anybody. She was just a girl who had let herself get into trouble, then given her baby away, and what kind of woman was that? Was she poor? No. Would the child have starved to death or been beaten by its mother? No. Was it a girl child that nobody wanted? No. There could be no excuse for what she had done, no words that might present her in a more flattering light. There would be nothing she could say, except to tell them that she wanted her son, and that if she had to fight for him, then so be it. She must think about these things now and prepare herself for the worst. Whatever fate might await her, it would be nothing compared to what she had already gone through.
She pulled the sheet tightly around herself and tried to sleep, to preserve her strength. By morning, the train would be on the outskirts of Amritsar.
41
An untidy line of black and yellow auto rickshaws spurted into life outside the station, belching fumes from thin-pitched engines, scrambling toward the curb, toward the red-shirted porters and weary travelers. Sophie passed a pair of coins to the porter and allowed herself to be ushered into a fume-filled cabin, her case thrust in with her.
“Namaste,” the driver called over his shoulder.
“Namaste,” said Sophie. “Mein Kim Street do dhoonh rahai hoo?”
“Kim Street?” The driver gave a bemused frown and pulled out into the traffic. “Kim Street kahaan hai?”
“I was rather hoping you’d know,” Sophie said.
“You English?” He smiled into the cracked rear-view mirror.
“Yes.”
“First time Amritsar?”
“Yes.”
“You want I show you Amritsar? It very beautiful city. Most beautiful Golden Temple in whole of India. You come Amritsar, you must see Golden Temple. I take you all around and I show you…”
Sophie barely heard a word, his voice chattering on as she sat back in her juddering seat, looking out of the window. She breathed deeply, the air ripe, and found herself searching the figures on the crowded streets. Men, women, children, babies. Every age, every generation, scattered all around, living their lives. A boy, of a similar age perhaps, in white pajamas, wearing a cap, steadying a broad wooden crate on his head, piled high with flat loaves of bread. She craned through the open window, trying to see his face. He turned a corner suddenly and was gone. Not him, she thought. Her son would be taller, like his father, and fairer-skinned. A group of children dashed out from a narrow alleyway, one clutching a ball, the others running wildly behind him, shouting and laughing. She twisted in her seat and watched after them out of the small, scratched window behind her. Run and play, she thought. I hope my son runs and plays all day long and laughs like a happy child. She sat forward and sta
red into the traffic.
Does he know his father is dead? Do they know what happened? They must do. Surely the other guard, the man called Bhavat Singh, would have written to the place where he had been sending his money, every transaction neatly recorded in the flimsy notebook they had found in with Jag’s things. Bhavat Singh. A name she had come to know so well for a man she had never met. More than once she had started to write to him from the nursing home to thank him, but the words would not come. John had said that he had been Jag’s friend, and Sophie had held on to that thought, that perhaps he had not been so terribly alone in his vigil.
It was a few moments before Sophie realized the tuk-tuk had stopped, the spluttering engine sending pungent fumes into the cabin again.
“Kim Street,” the driver said.
“Here?” Sophie peered out.
“Yes, memsahib.”
She paid the fare and stepped into the glaring sunshine, case in hand, standing at the mouth of the street as the tuk-tuk lurched away, spitting blue smoke.
A mishmash of tightly packed open-fronted shops, their stalls spilling out into the street, lined the way set out before her, the road between them an untidy traffic of people and bullock carts, a man pulling at a bad-tempered camel. Sophie walked the street slowly, picking her way through the shouting tradesmen and haggling customers, unaware of the eyes that picked her out in the crowds, watching her, a stranger in their midst. There were no outward signs to help her. None that she could read anyway. No numbers, no names.
She wandered past a tatty café, pans bubbling on a smoking stove set on the edge of the pavement, moving on past the next three stalls selling piles of cottons and brightly colored phulkaari shawls with intricately embroidered flowers. She stopped outside a hardware stall, looking absentmindedly at the teetering stacks of pots and pans. A man appeared.
“Very good quality, memsahib.” He gestured proudly at his wares. “Very good price. You tell me what you want. I give you very good price.”
“Sorry,” Sophie said. “I was only…excuse me.” She pulled her scarf over her head and walked away.
A little further along, a tailor sat at his sewing machine, a middle-aged Sikh with a red turban and experienced fingers that worked quickly beneath the dull, beating needle. She stood and watched him for a little while as he finished his seam and pulled the cuff away, testing the thread. He looked up at her, nodding briefly in deference.
“Namaste,” she said, bowing back to him. “Mein sath number seven Kim Street dhoondh rahai hoon?” He looked at her curiously. “I am looking for the family who lives there,” she said. “They have a boy, of about ten years.” She measured a height with her hand, a vague guess, as most people seemed not to know how old they were, and she was not sure of the size of a ten-year-old anyway. He put down the unfinished shirt and got up, gesturing her to sit. “No, thank you,” she said. “I did not mean to disturb your work. I just wondered if you might…”
“Please,” he said, scraping the wooden stool toward her. “You sit.” Reluctantly Sophie gave in to his insistence. “You sit. I come.” And with that, the tailor went off, disappearing behind a slow, ambling cow as he crossed the street.
Sophie sat and waited, a few minutes at first, stretching to almost half an hour. If he didn’t come back soon, she would have to move on, but then there would be nobody to watch over his stall, and what if someone were to walk in and help themselves? She sighed and looked at her wristwatch.
• • •
From behind the pillar outside his shop, Deepak Kapoor remained concealed while he took a good look at the woman sitting in the shade of the tailor’s green canopy.
“She is asking about Parvesh Gupta’s family?”
“Yes,” said Navinder. “That’s the address she had, and she asked about the boy.” He looked over his shoulder in irritation. “Where is that fellow?”
“English?”
“I think so.” Navinder joined Deepak in the shadows and looked out across the street again. “She has good-quality clothes.”
“She is very skinny.”
“She has a scar on her face too. She tried to hide it behind her scarf, but I saw it.”
“A scar?”
“Yes. It looks like a knife scar.”
“Hmm.” Deepak hummed to himself curiously. “I wonder what she has in that little suitcase?”
“Maybe she is a tourist.”
“Maybe it is full of valuables.”
“He’s here!” shouted the boy, out of breath, full of smiles. Deepak patted his son roughly on the head.
“Good. Now go and unpack some more onions and tidy up those brinjals at the front.” The boy returned to the stall and set back to work.
“What’s going on?” asked the barber. “I have a queue of customers waiting for me.”
“Look.” Deepak pointed across the street. “You see that woman sitting in Navinder’s stall? She is asking about Parvesh Gupta’s family. She asked about the boy too.” The barber slid behind the pillar and craned his head. “What do you think?” The barber stared at the woman. “You think maybe it is someone come to make trouble?”
“Why would anyone want to come and make trouble?” said the barber.
“No,” said Navinder. “I think she is a nice respectable person. She was very polite.”
“But what does she want with Parvesh Gupta?”
“Perhaps she has come to ask him to make her a nice pair of shoes!”
“Hey, boy!” Deepak shouted to his son. “Run over to Gupta shoemaker and tell him there is a visitor looking for him. Tell him to hurry.” The men looked back across the street while the boy dashed away.
“Why not just take her there?” said the barber. “I could walk her across to him.”
“Are you not in your right thinking?” Deepak stabbed his finger in admonishment. “What if she is somebody that Parvesh Gupta doesn’t want Mrs. Gupta to know about? Huh? Did you even think of that?” He looked back over to the woman and felt a twinge of admiration for the respectable family shoemaker who so diligently kept himself to himself, the sly fox.
• • •
Sophie looked at her watch again. It was no good. She would have to abandon the tailor’s shop and hope that nobody robbed him blind. She stood up and replaced the stool in its rightful position beside the sewing machine. Picking up her case, she turned to leave, and came face to face with two men. For a moment she felt panicked, and took a protective step backward into the street.
“Please.” The barber offered her a small bow, palms pressed together. “You are looking for the family at number seven Kim Street?” The other man was just staring at her, as though looking straight through her, his face showing no sign of greeting.
“Yes,” she said tentatively, looking from one man to the other.
“This is Parvesh Gupta,” said the barber. “He is head of the family at number seven.”
“Oh!” Sophie’s eyes darted back to the man. She felt her face tightening, her heart pounding. The way he was staring at her, just staring. It emptied her. “I…” she started, then faltered. “I…I would…”
Parvesh Gupta took a step toward her and said quietly, “I know who you are.”
• • •
In the stillness of the room, Mrs. Gupta stood before Sophie, her hands coming over her mouth as she folded in two and wept. Parvesh Gupta helped her to sit and comforted her, whispering to her gently, holding her hand.
No words had passed between them and Sophie. Parvesh Gupta had walked in silence as he led her to their home at the far end of the street, the ground floor occupied by his business, making and selling shoes, the deep scent of the raw materials perfuming the air richly. At the back of the workshop, a kitchen, and beyond that a narrow flight of stairs leading up and into two rooms above. The first, cool and dim, was furnished with two web-str
ung charpoys, protected from the high temperatures of the hot season by the small windows cut thickly into the walls. The second room, brighter, contained two more beds, scattered with mirror-work cushions, with patterned rugs on the floor, threadbare in places. This was where Mrs. Gupta had stood, so still, as though she had been waiting there since the beginning of time, standing there in her yellow sari.
Sophie did as she was bid and sat on the floor, covering her legs with her shawl, curling them up beside her hips. There they remained, the three of them, sitting in silence. No food was offered. No water. It was as though they hardly dared to breathe. Sophie concentrated on the hands folded into her lap, her skin a little tanned, a few lines appearing here and there that would no doubt deepen as the years caught up with her. She stole a glance at Mrs. Gupta and saw that she was looking directly back at her, unblinking. Sophie tried to smile, but couldn’t. She looked back into her lap. Why didn’t he say something? Were they just going to sit here like this for ever, in this abominable silence? Sophie kept quiet. It would not be her place to speak first. It was not her house. She would just have to wait until he chose to break the silence.
Another hour passed. Parvesh Gupta said something to his wife, then pulled himself up from the floor. He went to the window, looking out on to the street below for a while before leaving the room, his footsteps creaking on the wooden stairs.
Sophie heard herself sigh. She picked up her head, easing the tension in her neck, and noticed for the first time the shallow shelves set into the wall above her. A few books lay stacked on their faces, three red clay oil pots with clean, unlit tapers. A glass jar containing pale grains of raw incense. A small wooden box, a photograph propped against it. Sophie straightened, hands against the floor as she lifted herself toward it. Her breath halted. She turned quickly to Mrs. Gupta and found her to be staring at her again, watching closely her every move.
Under the Jeweled Sky Page 34