The Kashmir Shawl

by Rosie Thomas

  As much as she could, Nerys helped Myrtle to nurse Archie. It was hard work for Myrtle and it left her little time for anything else. But they agreed together that the McMinns would stay on the Garden of Eden until Myrtle could find a buyer for the old houseboat. Archie spent these days out on the veranda with his pipe and the newspapers. He claimed to be the happiest man in Srinagar.

  ‘What about Zahra?’ Myrtle privately fretted to Nerys.

  ‘Do you think you could look after her now, as well as Archie?’ she asked.

  Myrtle sighed.

  Nerys said firmly, ‘Don’t worry about Zahra. She’s well and happy.’

  Up in the village Faisal and his little brother had been fully absorbed into the tribe who played under the big tree or went out into the fields with the sheep. They were wiry, dirty, exuberant children, and therefore indistinguishable from most of the others, but Farida still held herself apart. That same spring, Evan had decided he must move back to Srinagar. A new missionary had arrived to help him, and the young man needed a home, as well as training in a setting less stark and – although Evan would never have said so – more rewarding than Kanihama. Nerys divided her time between the village and helping Myrtle to look after Archie. Whenever she left Kanihama, she paid the village women as much as she could afford to take care of Zahra in her absence. She would have been anxious even about this had she not known that Farida would be the baby’s faithful guardian.

  Just once, after Archie had come back to Srinagar and it was becoming clear that caring for his physical needs was going to be all that Myrtle could cope with, Nerys tried to talk to Evan about adopting a child themselves. She thought she managed to keep the edge of longing out of her voice, but her husband looked curiously at her. ‘What child?’

  ‘Zahra, perhaps.’

  ‘Which one is that? There are so many infants, Nerys, and the Lord has called us to care for all, not to single one out. As for a child of our own, we must accept His will.’

  He spoke in his most aloof and implacable tone, and Nerys turned away in silence.

  Zahra was still carried everywhere in the sling on Farida’s back, and at night the two children shared the same mattress and blanket. Farida never ate a mouthful herself until Zahra had been fed, and she preferred sitting with her in her lap to running about with the children of her own age. The headscarf she wore covered her mouth as well as her hair, but her black eyes were always solemn and watchful. The only time a smile seemed to glimmer in them was when Zahra did something new and clever.

  Farida was old beyond her years, but Nerys had to accept that there was nothing she could do to change this. She watched the two children together with a sharp mixture of pleasure and sorrow.

  In Srinagar Nerys had acquired a sort of schoolroom on a street that led down to a reedy canal because she and Evan were living in the rooms above it. Evan’s recently arrived assistant missionary was called Ianto Jones, a myopic young man with an Adam’s apple that bobbed up and down whenever he spoke. Together they rode their bicycles into the city or took a bus up to the villages on the Kanihama road.

  In the schoolroom, once she had cleared out the lumber and put down rat poison, Nerys gathered some of the bazaar children. Just as she had done in Leh and Kanihama, she played games and sang songs with them, and afterwards fed them a simple meal. The numbers grew. And as soon as their living rooms were habitable, she asked Evan if he would mind if the two little orphan girls from Kanihama came down to stay with them.

  ‘Those village orphans again? Why?’ He frowned. ‘Haven’t you got enough to do?’

  ‘I miss them,’ she said.

  It was more than a year, but Nerys was still not pregnant. Evan was more considerate of her feelings than he had been at the beginning of their life together, and he squeezed her hand now with an air of resigned indulgence.

  ‘All right, my dear. If that’s what you want, by all means bring them down here for a visit.’

  Farida enjoyed a truck ride and then a bus journey to the city. She sat upright at the back of the bus with the handful of shawled women and their babies, just as if she were the same age as them.

  Zahra was walking now, even though Farida still preferred to carry her. When she was put down she tottered through the unfamiliar spaces, starfish hands outstretched, on plump bare legs that were as smooth as pale brown hens’ eggs. Her eyes were the colour of dark jade, and there were threads of gilt in her toffee-brown hair.

  ‘She is an unusual-looking baby,’ Evan said, before he stuffed a pile of pamphlets into his knapsack and bicycled off with Ianto. He was too busy and too preoccupied to be curious about anything beyond what directly concerned him.

  Archie was different. He was much more broadminded, and by the first time the three women gathered on the Garden of Eden with the two little girls he already knew the full story. He had hooted with laughter at the account of the kangri winter, and listened in amazement as Caroline shyly mentioned the winter birth up in Kanihama.

  ‘My good girl, how very brave you were,’ he said.

  ‘I had the two best friends in the world – you can do a lot with friends to help you. Nerys took good care of me when the baby was born.’

  ‘And you had a cup or two of herbal potion,’ Nerys put in. ‘We never found out what was in it.’

  Archie gestured with the stem of his pipe. ‘We were both lucky. And just think, I’ve got the two of them to nurse me now.’ He caught his wife’s arm as she passed, and she kissed the top of his head where a bald patch had appeared in his sandy hair.

  Shadowed by Farida, Zahra toddled from the Garden of Eden’s veranda to the saloon and back again. She pulled silver-framed pictures off low shelves, smeared glass doors and polished tables with her tiny hands, and everyone beamed as they watched her.

  ‘She’s certainly going to be a beauty,’ Archie said. No one spoke of it, but there was still a pronounced look of Ravi Singh about her.

  Caroline’s eyes followed every move she made. Tentatively, as if she hardly trusted herself, she had begun to hold her daughter, curling her hair around her fingers and stroking her cheek with a fingertip. Zahra impartially beamed at her, showing a row of tiny white teeth as Farida looked on, waiting until Zahra would be hers again.

  Nerys and Myrtle observed this growing tenderness.

  ‘Maybe, some day, there’ll be a way after all,’ Myrtle whispered.

  Neither of them tried to speculate further. Nerys kept her own longings to herself. For now, the baby belonged to all of them and it was enough to see her growing and flourishing. Zahra represented hope in a dark time.

  Evan regularly came to smoke a pipe with Archie and discuss the war news. One midsummer afternoon, leaving the two men in the veranda’s shade, the three women took a shikara ride across to the Shalimar Garden. Zahra was firmly held by Farida but she wriggled and laughed, stretching her hands out to birds overhead and the droplets of water scattered by the boatman’s paddle.

  The garden was busy with families picnicking in the shade of the huge trees, with strolling soldiers on leave, and vendors of fruit and drinks. Zahra’s eyes and mouth widened when she saw the glitter of fountains and the glaring brilliance of the flowerbeds. She fought to be put down and as soon as her feet touched the grass she swayed ahead, in and out of pools of shade, her head rotating as her attention was caught by dancing yellow butterflies, a waddling lapdog, a child’s pram being wheeled by an ayah.

  ‘She looks so happy, doesn’t she?’ Caroline said. She couldn’t quite let herself be proud, but relief and gratitude for this afternoon were clear in her eyes.

  Nerys bought an ice-cream from the vendor on the first terrace and gave it to Farida. The girl let a fold of her headscarf fall in her eagerness to lick it, but then hesitated and looked to Zahra as if she ought to give her the first taste. ‘No, it’s all for you,’ Nerys assured her. ‘Zahra is too little.’

  Farida closed her eyes to concentrate on this treat. They climbed a broad flight of st
eps, at Zahra’s slow pace, with Zahra just deigning to hold on to Caroline’s finger for balance. At the top of the steps they all turned to look back at the mirror of the lake, shimmering with heat at the centre of its ring of mountains. Srinagar seemed more beautiful today than it had ever been.

  ‘This is almost like old times,’ Myrtle said. Nerys slipped her arm around her friend’s thin frame as they turned to climb higher, with Caroline a few paces ahead. To their left an elaborate picnic was taking place under the stateliest chinar tree. There were ladies in folding chairs, some holding parasols, several men sitting on the grass, and servants standing at a discreet distance.

  Zahra chased after a butterfly. Moving too fast she overbalanced and fell, hitting the grass and knocking off her sunhat. Farida was busy with her ice-cream and it was Caroline who dashed to pick her up. In the two seconds of silence while Zahra sucked in her breath and prepared a scream of shock and outrage, Caroline swept her into her arms and kissed her bare forehead.

  A man stood up and slowly strolled towards her from the picnic group. He was immaculate in a white kurta under a sleeveless coat of pale cream linen.

  ‘I hope the child is not hurt?’ Ravi Singh said.

  Zahra howled and Farida threw aside her ice-cream.

  Caroline’s eyes met Ravi’s. ‘It was only a little tumble.’

  She let Farida take the baby out of her arms. Farida whispered and soothed, and the crying quickly stopped. Ravi’s gaze didn’t move from Caroline’s face.

  She looked much older than the girl who had married Ralph Bowen. The two years she had lived through had faded the pink English rose, but the more pronounced cheekbones and the shadowed eyes gave her a sombre kind of beauty.

  ‘Who are these children?’ Ravi Singh asked. His voice was like ripples in silk.

  ‘You remember my friends, Mrs McMinn and Mrs Watkins?’

  Ravi’s manners were formally perfect as always. He bowed to both of them. ‘Of course. Good afternoon. A beautiful day for the Shalimar Garden.’

  ‘Hello, Ravi,’ Myrtle nodded. She placed a cigarette between her crimson lips.

  Nerys said, ‘I teach some children in one of the districts of the old town. These two are staying with my husband and me at the mission. They are both orphans, unfortunately. We do what we can to help them.’

  Ravi did shift his gaze now. Zahra’s long black eyelashes made a damp curl against her honey-gold cheek. One plump foot dangled in a tiny kidskin shoe. Farida glared at him. ‘I see,’ he said.

  ‘Please don’t let us keep you from your party,’ Myrtle drawled.

  ‘I am grateful for the reminder, Mrs McMinn.’ He bowed lower, his handsome face taut. ‘Good afternoon.’

  He turned, but at the same time he put his hand to Caroline’s elbow and drew her aside. She couldn’t do anything but follow him. His mouth softened at once into a smile and he lowered his head to murmur into her ear. ‘I have missed you, dear Caroline.’

  ‘Have you? Why is that?’ A pink flush spread up her throat and coloured her cheeks.

  ‘I would like very much to see you again. You can tell me what has happened to you since we last met. Whatever it is …’ he paused and examined her again ‘… it has changed you from a girl into a beautiful woman.’

  Caroline pulled herself upright. She detached her arm from his grasp and took a step away from him. The colour in her face was darkened by outrage. ‘That would be impossible. My husband is a prisoner of the Japanese in Burma. Like many other army wives, I am waiting, praying, for him to come home.’

  ‘Your husband’s absence was never an obstacle in the past.’ He smiled.

  ‘That was my mistake.’

  Ravi was displeased. His mouth set in a line and he lifted one black eyebrow. ‘Then I am sorry to have reminded you. I hope the memories of that other time don’t trouble you too much.’ A cold glance flicked over Zahra, now happily stumbling towards the flowers.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Caroline said. Ravi was already striding back to his friends.

  Myrtle and Nerys swept up the girls and all three women hurried back down the steps towards the lake.

  ‘He – he asked to see me,’ Caroline managed to stammer, once they were out of sight.

  ‘That man certainly has sexual confidence,’ Myrtle said.

  ‘I’m afraid of him.’ Caroline’s heart was thudding in her chest, and she was horrified to realise that half of her discomfort was caused by a physical longing to see Ravi again. Wanting to glide through the marble corridors to his private rooms, where the pale silk hangings fluttered in the breeze and rose petals floated in silver water basins.

  ‘Don’t be afraid.’ Nerys was beside her, and Farida, with Zahra’s tired head lolling on her small shoulder. ‘You’re safe with us.’

  ‘What if he guessed?’ Caroline breathed.

  ‘He didn’t. And he won’t,’ Myrtle insisted.

  Nerys was not so sure, but she didn’t say anything. She thought of Rainer and how all her instincts, whenever there was a threat, were to turn to him for help. But Rainer had disappeared from Srinagar and there was no word of him. She had heard one rumour that he had gone back to Switzerland for good, another that he was involved in a secret mission somewhere in the south Pacific, and yet another that he was with a magic show, touring the Allied troops’ rearguard posts. But she had no way of knowing if any of these had a grain of truth in them.

  Myrtle led the way. ‘Let’s go back home, to the Garden.’

  Their shikara was waiting for them at the landing stage.

  FOURTEEN

  August 1944

  ‘Do you know for certain?’ Myrtle asked. A plume of cigarette smoke drifted over her head, offering her a small degree of protection from the flies that troubled Nerys and Caroline. There was a dung-heap on the other side of the garden wall. The afternoon was stiflingly hot, and a thick haze blotted out the sky.

  Caroline’s eyes were so wide that the whites were visible all the way round the blue irises. Her fingers knotted in her lap as she twisted her wedding and engagement rings. ‘Oh, yes, I think so. I mean, it’s not official yet. Mrs Dunkeley says that as soon as there is definite confirmation of names and ranks, Division HQ will formally notify wives and families. But I think it must be true.’

  Nerys leant back on a wobbly bench seat, her ankle brushing a bed of coriander that loaded the air with its scent. She had been watching Caroline with deepening concern.

  Archie took his pipe out of his mouth. ‘Good show. Brave fellows,’ he said. His wheelchair was drawn up in its usual spot under the shade of an almond tree.

  The bungalow in the outer sprawl of Srinagar’s new town had a small fenced garden. With the help of a bent old man, who laboured in the sun with a battered straw hat perched on top of his red skullcap, Myrtle had been growing squash and spinach and a bed of fist-sized kohlrabi. ‘Look at this one, I’d win first prize with it in any village show in England,’ she had claimed, as she brandished the dirt-coated object. ‘The question is, why would anyone want to eat such a thing?’

  The McMinns had retreated to Delhi for the previous winter, leaving the Garden of Eden locked and empty because Myrtle had been unable to find anyone who wanted to buy it. But just as the heat of the summer had begun to build yet again, an American civilian couple had taken it for the season, with a vague promise that they might consider a purchase if all went well. Bob Flanner was in import-export, Myrtle reported, and seemed to have plenty of dollars to throw around. Mrs Flanner had employed Majid and the rest of the staff, which Myrtle said was a great relief because even paying them a much-reduced retainer wage was more than she and Archie could afford. As a short-term solution, the McMinns had made the difficult journey back up from Delhi and had had their furniture moved into the little rented place. It was a long way from the lake and there was no view of water or mountains, or of anything much, except a brick wall and the tops of trees in the nearby gardens, but Archie had insisted that it was ideal. ‘So quiet. Our
neighbours are all charming people. And I love to sit in a garden in the cool breeze.’

  ‘After this summer, I just don’t know,’ Myrtle confided to Nerys.

  There was nothing Nerys could suggest, no prediction she might make that would carry any more weight than a hundred others, let alone offer Myrtle grounds for optimism. Uncertainty was still the daily reality, not just for themselves but for the war and what the end of it might bring.

  At the end of March the Japanese had marched from occupied Burma into India via the remote Naga hills. Their commanding general’s intention was to cut the road between Imphal, the capital of the Indian state of Manipur, which lay just seventy miles from the Burmese border, and the sleepy garrison town of Kohima. They failed to take Imphal but Kohima was besieged. The fighting in and around the town continued into April as a scratch force of mixed British and Indian regiments struggled to defend it.

  The Allied forces grimly battled on as casualties mounted. Reinforcements slowly trickled up the road from the Allied supply base at Dimapur and the siege was finally lifted. On 22 June, twenty miles outside Imphal, British troops from Kohima met men from the 5th Indian Division who were moving up to meet them. The Japanese advance into India was halted. Their troops were increasingly short of ammunition, air cover and food supplies, and the Allied forces began slowly to clear them from the hills, driving them back the way they had come into Burma.

  Through all this time only Evan and Ianto Jones had carried on as normal. Against all the odds, a big shipment of Bibles had arrived from Wales, and the two men cycled every day to hand them out to their tiny congregation and whoever else seemed inclined to accept the Word. But to Nerys it seemed that they had all been holding their breath for weeks and were now able to let out a gasp of relief. One evening she came back unexpectedly to the little whitewashed room that served for a chapel at the mission to find Evan on his knees in prayer. She whispered an apology for disturbing him and prepared to tiptoe away but Evan caught her hand. ‘Stay here with me, Nerys.’