Of Marriageable Age

by Sharon Maas

  'He's changed, Saroj! Why don't you just come and see how he's changed! He's just a broken old man now. He's got heart problems, and he knows nobody wants him. If you came it would lighten up his life. He's always talking about you and why you don't come to visit.'

  'Is he? Well, I'm glad to hear that. And no, I won't come. If you choose to invite him then that's fine with me. But you won't see me there. It doesn't matter all that much, Gan. Don’t take it personally; I don't go to parties anyway, and I hate these gatherings of relatives.'

  Nat went to Ganesh's party and with the trained eye of a waiter noticed an old man sitting on an armchair in a corner, all by himself, with nothing to eat. He approached the old man, sat down next to him, and introduced himself.

  'Can I get you some food?' he offered, smiling the heartiest of smiles. The old man looked up and said:

  'Thank you, thank you, very kind. The young people have no manners these days. No respect for their elders. Please. I would like to take food. But that Evelyn isn't a good cook. My departed wife was an excellent cook. What did you say your name was? Are you a relative? Are you married? Where do you come from?'

  Nat brought the old man a plate of cold food and settled in for a long conversation, which he could see the old man was yearning for. The old man's eyes lit up when he heard Nat was from India.

  'From Tamil Nad? What? My departed wife was from there too! Tell me, do you speak any Hindi?'

  The rest of the conversation, which continued all evening, was in Hindi.

  Nat grew strong and silent. He gave his full attention to medicine, cutting off almost all other activities. He no longer worked for Bharat Catering, for he had no time at this stage of his education. However, he did find time to visit the old man he had met at Ganesh's birthday party. That old man — it turned out that he was actually Ganesh's father — delighted in his company, for kindness and attention were qualities he sorely missed, and which came naturally to Nat. Nobody listened to Deodat these days; nobody cared, except that young man whose warmth and consideration could melt icebergs.

  The old man spoke of the loved ones he had lost: the wife to death, the daughter to hatred. He spoke of the grave mistakes he had made in his life, and of the burning guilt that ate at his innards day after day, of the vengeful God who granted no relief.

  'I am a cruel man, a wicked man,' the old man wailed. 'I pray daily to God for forgiveness but there is none. He has taken my loved ones from me in punishment. I only long for death to release me from this vale of sorrow. He granted me a saint for a wife but I sinned against her gravely. A woman pure as a lily whom I sullied with my harshness and thus God removed her from me and took her to Himself. Oh, if only He would take me to Himself ! But I have an unmarried daughter. The duty of a father is to see his daughters married. If I die before my daughter marries I will not have done my duty. But she will not marry a man of my choice. She hates me, and it is through my own doing, my own harshness. How can I tell her I was only harsh through an abundance of love?'

  And Nat held the old man's hand and soothed him and told him of India, spoke to him in Hindi, and now and then made the old man laugh, and healing flowed into the old man's heart.

  'You and the old man get on famously,' Ganesh commented. 'What on earth do the two of you talk about?'

  'Oh, just things,' said Nat.

  'You are a good boy, a very good boy,' Deodat Roy told Nat. He took Nat's young brown hand in his own old shrivelled one and squeezed it. 'Your mother must be very proud of you. She has raised you well. You are like my son Ganesh. The only son of my second wife. He is a good boy, too. A well-raised boy. He comes to see me and cares for me like a dutiful son. All my other sons are indifferent and cruel to an old man, they and their wives. My unmarried daughter too has no sense of duty. She has left me in the lurch. But I deserve it, oh I deserve it. I am a wicked, evil man and I pray that God will forgive me at the moment I leave this world. That is my only prayer.'

  So Deodat Roy rambled on, and Nat came to listen to him rambling, and the old man found some measure of peace.

  54

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Savitri

  Singapore, 1942

  On Friday the thirteenth February 1942, Savitri left Singapore on the Dutch ship Vreed-en-Hoop. David was working at the Alexandra, and could not accompany her to the dock.

  Late that very night, after they had sailed, Savitri ran into an English nurse on the deck, a colleague of hers at the General, Molly, married to another Alexandra doctor. Molly was in a state of shock.

  'Oh, Savitri, it was terrible, just terrible. You know, I wanted so much to pay a last visit to the hospital this morning, to say a last goodbye to William. I was there, Sav, and ... and the Japanese came... a group of them..'

  Savitri's eyes opened wide. 'They came? To the hospital?'

  'Yes! I — I was able to hide... William hid me in a closet and I stayed there until it was all over. But oh, Sav...'

  Tears budded in her eyes, and her shoulders heaved. Savitri laid her hands on them, to steady her.

  'Go on, Molly. Tell me the rest. What did the Japs do? Did they capture everyone? Was — was there any violence?' Yet she knew, she knew from Molly's face and her tears and the shaking shoulders that her words were wishful thinking. There was more.

  'Oh, Say! They massacred everyone! Everyone!'

  Molly burst into tears now. Savitri drew her close and held her.

  Oh Lord. Oh Lord, don't let it be. Please don't let it be. She'll tell me he's safe, in a moment. He must be. She slid behind the cloud of thoughts into the still silent core of her being, slipping into a stronghold of spirit that held her and Molly. Coolness and detachment permeated her. Molly stopped sobbing, then began again, the words stuttered out between the sobs.

  'There were curtains, no door to the closet. I was able to look between them, Sav. They were grinning! They were actually grinning; they enjoyed it! Oh, the screams! And blood and gore. And they were laughing, those Japs, and they killed all our people... they bayoneted them. Every last one. William's dead. I saw him being killed. Bayoneted through the heart.'

  Savitri felt the coolness slipping out again, seeping away, down her body, down into the boards of the deck, leaving her alone, and unprotected, before the truth of Molly's words.

  'And David? Dr Lindsay? Was he there? Did he escape?'

  Molly looked at her with deep pity spilling from her eyes. 'You were lovers, weren't you? I always thought so. Savitri!' She took hold of Savitri's arms. The tables had turned; now Molly was the comforter, Savitri slowly dissolving.

  'David is dead. I saw him. I saw them kill him. They herded some of the staff into a corridor, David was among them. Their hands were up, Sav! They had surrendered! And David... I saw a Jap drive a bayonet into his heart, laughing! And when he fell, another one into his arm, and into his foot. They kicked him, and he didn't move because he was dead. They killed him, Savitri. They killed every single patient, doctor, nurse, orderly. They raped some nurses before killing them. They slashed the matron's neck. They're all dead. Every single one of them. The Japanese killed them. I was lucky to get out alive.'

  She wanted to say she was sorry, to comfort Savitri, to hold her. But Savitri had slipped to the deck in a dead faint.

  The Vreed-en-Hoop was routed to pass through the Bangka Strait. The Japanese were waiting for them, with their torpedoes. Savitri's ship went down. She was rescued in a lifeboat, arrived safely on a small island where the islanders took her to Java. From there she sailed safely to Colombo, and on to Madras. She collapsed on Henry and June's doorstep.

  'David is dead,' she said.

  55

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Saroj

  London, 1970

  Trixie frowned from behind her easel, stood back and cocked her head. It was the final touch to her latest and best painting, which she wanted to have finished before the wedding, as her gift for Ganesh; and he was not allowed to see it, just as he had not se
en any of those paintings lined up facing the wall, like naughty children in detention.

  But five minutes later, standing back and squinting and deciding that was enough for the day, Trixie carefully placed a cloth over the easel and began to clean her brushes. Only then she looked up at Ganesh and smiled. Sometimes, she thought, I can't believe it. I can't believe he's back, he's here, and he's mine. She had Saroj to thank for that. Saroj had played an excellent cupid, working over time to bring them together again ever since Ganesh's return from India. Then Trixie's birthday: dinner for three at an Indian restaurant.

  The next day, Ganesh had stood on Trixie's threshold with a bunch of seven red roses in his hand. Three years earlier disaster had torn him away from her; Ma’s death had fallen like an axe into the fledgling love she had borne for him. But three years ago she had been a little girl, and he had never even noticed her as anything but his sister’s madcap friend. In those three years she had grown into a woman; her zaniness had morphed into creativity, a gift that had matured and rounded her into a young woman of substance. Meeting again in London, their shared background had drawn them together with a swiftness and sureness that surprised them both. And now Trixie painted, Ganesh cooked, and both loved. The doorbell rang.

  'Saroj!'

  'Trixie! I haven't seen you in an age! My goodness, you've changed, let me have a look at you!'

  Saroj stood back and took in the young lady standing before her, whom she hadn't seen for half a year. Saroj and Trixie had made the disappointing discovery that though they still lived in the same country, and for the last few weeks in the same city, they might just as well have lived at two opposite ends of the world, for they hardly ever saw each other. The last time had been at Christmas, when Trixie had visited her father and stepmother for a few days before shooting off for a skiing holiday in Austria. Over Easter she had visited a school friend in Scotland; in the summer she had been with her family to the South of France and then joined another group of school-friends for a camping trip in Ireland. In between times she attended art school in Paris. Trixie had matured: gone, the awkward coltishness of an unhappy schoolgirl searching for herself. She had turned into a svelte, relaxed, confident young woman, at home in her own skin and wherever she happened to be.

  Like Saroj she had gone through the painful steps of shedding one culture to take on another, and yet never quite shedding the one, and never quite adopting the other. Both had learned the essential lesson: there is a me that exists beyond the boundaries of being English, or African, or Indian, or Guyanese; and both, in their separate ways, were struggling forward on the road to becoming that one-and-only me, more than the sum of all that had gone before, more than the sum of the parts given them by where they had lived, and among whom, and what they had done, and what they had felt till now.

  Not without help, of course.

  Trixie's father had spared no costs in remodelling the attic into a studio for his daughter, an open, light-flooded space. One corner was partitioned off for her work area, another for a bedroom, and yet another for a kitchen from which Ganesh now emerged, bending his head so as not to hit it against a thick black beam, a smudgy dishcloth slung around his hips and tucked into his waistband.

  'Hello, little sister!' he said, folding Saroj into his arms. 'Just like old times, huh, the three of us together?'

  Ganesh had also changed visibly. Having a steady girlfriend had not only brought order into his life: it had neatened him up so that his hair, though still long, looked clean and combed, and his clothes — though still no more respectable than jeans and a T-shirt with some silly slogan on it Saroj didn't even bother to read — were clean. Surprisingly so, since Ganesh himself was responsible for laundry as well as cooking, whereas Trixie looked after order, because she wouldn't allow anyone else to touch her paints and utensils, all of which took up the greater part of the room. All around the low wall at the foot of the eaves were her naughty children facing the wall. The one painting on an easel was covered with a cloth. Saroj walked over to it.

  'Can I see your latest masterpiece?' she said casually and was just about to remove the cloth when Trixie sprang before her with outstretched arms which she waved violently in Saroj's face, and cried out anxiously, 'No, no, no!'

  Ganesh grabbed his sister back into his arms and laid a protective, excusing arm around her. 'Nobody gets to see Trixie's masterpieces until the day of the Great Unveiling,' he said proudly. 'And when she's ready she'll have the whole world staggering, wondering what hit it!'

  'She's that good, is she? Who'd have guessed it of our little clown?' Saroj laughed and looked fondly at Trixie. Trixie grinned in embarrassment at her, but then frowned critically, took her by the shoulder and turned her around.

  'You're looking pale, Saroj, as if you haven't seen the sun for ages. You study too much, you know. The world won't fall apart if you don't win the Nobel Prize. Ganesh, we have to take this girl in hand, she's getting so dreary… All work and no play…' She glanced at Ganesh, who had laid his arm across Saroj's shoulder again, and gave him her unforgettably tender grin, 'We've got to see more of each other. We didn't come to England together only to drift apart. How's your love-life, girl? Any heart-broken prospects kneeling at your door? Oh, and talking about heartbroken, Ganesh's got news for you . . .'

  Saroj turned questioning eyes up at Ganesh. He squeezed her and a grave shadow passed over his face.

  'Yes, well, it's about Baba,' he began, and Saroj pulled away.

  'Don't tell me about Baba,' she said, 'or you'll spoil my whole evening.'

  'No, Saroj, really, listen to what he has to say,' said Trixie.

  'What, then?' Saroj grudgingly turned back to Ganesh, but she had visibly stiffened and did her best to look bored.

  'Saroj, you shouldn't hate him like that,’ said Ganesh. 'He's your father, after all, and…’

  'No, he's not!'

  'What d'you mean, he's not? Of course he is! Even if you hate him he's still your father and you can't change that!’

  'You mean, you haven't told him?' Saroj looked accusingly at Trixie.

  'Told him what, for goodness' sakes? Oh… Oh, that.’ Trixie tossed her head. 'You know, it never occurred to me to tell him; in fact I'd even forgotten! Believe me, Ganesh and I had better things to do than to talk about your mother's love affairs. That whole business is just like a storm in a teacup now. And anyway, it's your business to tell him, not mine. Me, I never get mixed up in family politics.'

  'What business?' said Ganesh. ‘What’s going on?'

  He looked at Saroj for an answer, whose face was at least serious, whereas Trixie, not understanding the family honour that was about to be shattered, was grinning wickedly as if the whole matter was just another snippet of market gossip.

  Saroj bit her lip. Of course, Trixie had not told Ganesh, and of course, she shouldn't have told him, and of course, Ganesh shouldn't know. Ganesh had worshipped his mother; and now there was no way out of telling him the truth. Saroj herself had needed tragedy, mourning, guilt, grief, in order to deal with the fact of her mother's infidelity and of Deodat's false paternity; and though Ganesh wasn't affected by the latter certainly the former would appal him, crush him… and for no reason. There was no need for Ganesh to know; why shouldn't he retain his memory of Ma, the perfect wife and mother? It made no sense to tell him.

  'So?' said Ganesh, waiting.

  'It's true,' Saroj's voice was small, subdued. 'Baba isn't really my father. Ma had an affair and that's how she got me. I wasn't going to tell you but somehow it slipped out.'

  She looked up at him with pleading eyes. 'But it doesn't matter at all, Ganesh, truly it doesn't! I found out years ago and at first I was dismayed and I hated Ma for doing that, most of all for lying to me about it; well, not lying exactly but for letting me believe Baba was really my father, for letting a stranger control my life. But now I know she had no choice but to hide it from us all and it doesn't matter. In fact, I'm glad if she had someone she could reall
y truly love. I'm sure she must have loved that man with all her heart, and good for her!'

  It was the first time Saroj had put it into words and she was surprised at herself; but it was true. If Ma had loved someone, if she had known true love, then good for her! If she'd had a child with that someone, then good for her! And if that someone was Balwant — Ma had made a good choice. Saroj wondered if she should let Ganesh in on that little secret but before she could come to any conclusion Ganesh's wild laugh broke it up.

  'Ma, with a secret lover?' He cried out through his laughter. Ganesh threw himself onto the couch.

  'Ma with a secret lover!' And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the laughter stopped, and Ganesh turned steely eyes first to Saroj, then Trixie, and said with a voice as brittle and cold as that of a Mafia boss, 'Now, would you kindly tell me how you hit upon that particular fantasy? I mean, I know you girls are hopelessly romantic but that's taking it just a step too far.'

  'But it's true, Ganesh; really it's true,' cried Saroj, violently upset by Ganesh's disbelief. 'Listen, I'll tell you how I found out. It happened when I was in hospital…’

  Saroj haltingly, interrupted many times by Ganesh who proved himself such a marvel at cross-examination that Saroj came to the conclusion that he really should have finished his law studies, told him the story as she knew it, omitting only the most important part — the supposed identity of her biological father.

  This wildly erratic conversation had several side-effects. Ganesh's adamant defence of his mother and his romantic veneration of the ideal of female chastity, which Ma represented for him, hurt Trixie deeply, for Trixie had certainly not been faithful to Ganesh's memory in the interval between first falling in love with him in Georgetown and finding him again in London. She had had a handful of passing lovers in this time, and the realisation that Ganesh was still Indian enough to live by the double standard of male libertinage—female chastity enraged her, and they had their first quarrel.