“No. What?”
“She died. At 3.30 today. They telephoned Surekha, there was no response, they said. Then they rang up Asha. Champa, you need a good dose of Napoleon brandy. So do I. Let’s go . . .”
Champa was struck dumb. Her legs trembled. The train arrived, and the two women got into it. Champa was feeling dizzy. She sat down and put the Assamese jhola on the seat next to her. After a few stations June nudged her, “Let’s get off over here.”
Champa stood up in a daze, leaving the bag behind on the compartment seat. She followed June blindly on the escalator, like a cocker spaniel. They emerged in the street and went into their favourite pub which they had nicknamed “The Duchess and the Bandits” in honour of the Duchess of Kent’s recent visit to troublesome Malaya.
61. ‘The Laurels’
‘The Laurels’ stood at the end of a quiet avenue, with a rock garden and duck pond in front. The gallery was full of finished and unfinished canvases, including an incomplete sketch of Nirmala. It looked eerie.
There was still no central heating in many houses in England. During the winter Zarina Hussain could be seen, clad in jeans, a scarf around her blonde head, going into the shed in the backyard to fetch wood for the fireplace. Once the drawing-room glowed with a log fire, the world suddenly seemed cosy and safe. Zarina and her younger brothers had come to England for higher studies immediately after Partition. Their father bought a house, named it ‘The Laurels’ (his English wife was called Laura) and returned to Allahabad. Every six months he visited his family in England.
The world was covered with a shroud of snow. Nirmala had been dead a week. One dark and dreary evening as Zarina sat in the kitchen reading, the door bell rang. Her brothers were away on the Continent with their school friends, Mrs. Hussain was upstairs watching TV. The bell rang persistently. Zarina got up and peeped out of a bay window. Gautam Nilambar hovered on the porch steps, his face half hidden in the upturned collar of his raincoat. His snow-boots were covered with slush; he’d obviously walked to the house. He looked a bit odd and mysterious. For some reason Zarina felt scared. Timidly, she opened the front door, and he stepped in.
“Hello, Gautam Mashter,” she said, trying to sound casual. He put down his baggage and saluted her gravely.
“Take off your boots, Gautam,” Zarina suggested politely.
“Shan’t. I’m the Eternal Traveller. I am not going to enter your drawing-room—houses have no meaning for me.” He swayed a little, picked up his attache case and declaimed, “I am the Eternal Travelling Salesman, carrying samples of ruined lives. Would you care to have a dekko?”
“Please, Gautam, close the door . . .”
“I have a lot of people with me. They’re standing outside in the snow,” he said anxiously.
“Call them in.”
“How can I? You wouldn’t be able to see their faces in the glare of your spotlight.”
“Who are they, Gautam?”
“Ghosts. Corpses. Their procession follows me faithfully wherever I go.”
“Never mind, call them in. I won’t be frightened.”
“You ought to be. Because we ourselves are turning into corpses all the time.”
“Gautam,” she said gently. “You have returned, haven’t you, from wherever you had gone. Your sudden disappearance was so baffling. We were all terribly worried about you.”
“That was very kind of you. I’m grateful.”
“I mean, welcome home, dear Gautam. Wherever home is . . . that is . . . the transit camp after every journey . . . etc.”
“That’s all right,” he made a grandiose gesture of dispassion. “I accept your welcome.” He looked around and added, “This is not the same house in which you used to live . . . Aunt Laura’s house?”
“It is, Gautam Mashter.”
“All right . . .” he said uncertainly, “it must be if you say so . . . Zarina . . . have I gone round the bend?”
“Of course not,” she replied. “You’re looking just a wee bit tired, that’s all.”
Mrs. Hussain appeared on the staircase landing. She wore a pink housecoat and bedroom slippers. To him she looked like a tall and stately Roman goddess with flowing ginger hair. He saluted her.
“One does get tired after running continuously. Do you know how many millions of miles I have covered?”
“Where have you been, Gautam?”
“Why should I tell you?” he replied childishly. “I spent many nights in the forests, slept in desolate barns, hid myself in lonely boats and sat crouching in railway waiting-rooms.”
“I’m sure you are exaggerating as usual, Gautam—you imagined all this in your stupor . . .”
“No. I was trying to dodge the police . . . Today I decided to come back and confess—”
“Police? Mummy!” Zarina called out in sudden panic.
“I have been roaming around seeking refuge. Knocked on all my friends’ doors, peeped in through their windows and found them sitting around cozy stoves, talking, while I stood outside in the Bog with a fierce searchlight beating down upon me.”
He was unconsciously repeating his conversation with Champa when he had spent that tragic, improbable day with her in Surekha’s garden room.
Laura Hussain came downstairs.
“Gautam! He’s roaring drunk. Throw a jug of water on his mug . . . Quick!”
Zarina obeyed her mother. He shook his head like a wet, shaggy dog and wiped his face. “Good evening, Ma’am,” he said and did a quick pirouette.
“Come off it, sonny,” Mrs. Hussain said sternly. “We all like to take a holiday from our normal selves once in a while, but don’t overdo it.” She had grasped the situation immediately. Nirmala had died and he was drowning his sorrow in drink. She led him firmly to the kitchen.
“Now. Have a cuppa and tell me all about your metaphysical travels, but stop fancying yourself the hero of some Spanish tragedy.”
“Why Spanish? Tragedy is universal, Aunt Laura, it has no frontiers,” he declared, lifting his forefinger. He looked out of the window, turned round and declaimed:
“I hereby confess . . .” then he became incoherent again.
After piecing together his ‘confession’, Zarina rushed to the corridor and called her friends at St. John’s Wood. Luckily Kamal, Talat and Hari were all at home, and Kamal answered at the other end. She spoke to him in an undertone. “Gautam has turned up, vastly disoriented. He is actually being very funny, but he’s acquired an exaggerated sense of his own importance—a hero in some kind of melodrama . . .”
“All drunken people sometimes indulge in melodrama,” Kamal replied sullenly. “You know, he just vanished from Lidhurst, leaving Hari and myself to cope with Nirmala’s funeral arrangements—the cad.”
“Now he’s talking about ruined lives and stuff. Says he let Nirmal die and Champa turn into an alcoholic, and he lost the envelope with your interview call. Now the date has passed and he is entirely responsible for the possible loss of your career. So he ran away from Lidhurst—because when he was spouting high falutin’ philosophy with Champa Baji in Surekha’s garden room, there was a phone call from Lidhurst and when he reached he found four white screens around poor Nirmal’s bed . . . He felt he had killed her, and ran back to town to get drunk. Then he realised that he had killed Champa Baji too, metaphorically speaking. Because while he was getting drunk at The Duchess and the Bandits he found Champa there and she was also smashed. That’s like killing two birds with one stone, I said to myself. Ha-ha-” she laughed hollowly. “Black humour.”
“He’s talking bloody nonsense, trying to cover up his shameful disappearance from Lidhurst. Throw him in the duck pond.”
“The duck pond is frozen.”
“Oh well, we’ll be there right away, and straighten him out. See you.”
Kamal rang off. By the time Zarina went back to the kitchen Gautam had passed out blissfully.
62. The Fugitive
“Now Talat Reza and her Cats Club will float th
e rumour that I’ve hit the bottle.”
“Have you?” asked Neil. He was busy making toast.
“No,” Champa replied, painting her nails. It was an utterly depressing Monday morning. They were sitting in the dilapidated kitchen of June Carter’s mews. “Although Talat Reza rang up just now, sounding very concerned. Even hinted darkly that I should not be drinking alone.”
“Have you been drinking alone?” Neil asked her, like a physician.
“No. Yes . . . only after I heard that . . . that poor Nirmala had died . . . and when I realised that I had lost Kamal’s interview letter. He missed the date because of that.”
“Step out and face the world! Meet those very people you are trying to avoid, you have been ‘underground’ here for more than a week now. Go.”
“Shunila Mukerji telephoned last evening to say that she had arranged a sort of requiem for poor Nirmala. Today at the Geeta Centre, eleven o’clock. They’re bound to be there, all of them. Should I go, Neil?” she asked timidly.
“Go,” he repeated. “Tell the whole world that you are Champa Ahmed, not a mole nor a cipher, that you are a good girl. And remember, no one is entirely alone. There must be many people who care for you and need you.”
Neil’s self-confidence reassured her slightly. She finished her tea and rose from the broken horsehair sofa, put on her favourite old rose silk sari and went downstairs.
“Nobody has turned up after all,” Sujata Debi complained as she opened the front door. “Nirmala’s brother and friends must be atheists. Loma Devikanand-ji had made all the arrangements, but these people do not wish to see the Path of Mukti. And do you know what they are doing at the moment? I’m told they get together and play rummy.”
“Who do you wish to seek?” An American lady from California addressed her, leaning out of the window. “He is here . . . He is calling you, calling all of us unto Himself.” She pointed to the large picture of Lord Krishna which adorned the hall of the Geeta Centre. “You need that Third Eye to see him which, alas, you Indians have lost . . .”
Champa rushed out and, reaching the kerb, slowly stroked her forehead with her fingers. She felt as if all the passers-by had the Third Eye on their foreheads which stared at her, relentlessly. Panting, she boarded a passing bus and got off near the Indian Students’ Centre in Exeter Street.
A new contingent of students sat in the little hall, chatting brightly.
“I am Champa Ahmed . . .” she announced in the doorway.
“Yes?” a young South Indian came up to her, looking askance.
Her heart sank. Her name was so unimportant. Neil was wrong—nobody knew her, nobody needed her.
“Nothing . . . nothing . . . It’s all right,” she muttered and was seized by sudden fright. “I just dropped in to see your social centre . . .”
The crowd eyed her suspiciously.
Back on the Strand she entered the elephant-flanked portals of India House.
“I am Champa Ahmed,” she announced solemnly at the counter in the canteen. She wasn’t one bit surprised by her persistent idiocy.
“Yes, dear?” the middle-aged Malayali woman at the adding machine asked her in a Lion’s Corner House accent. “Lunch is over, but you can have a snack if you like.”
“No, thanks. Thank you,” she said, becoming more flustered. In the far corner, Surekha’s cynical husband Gulshan sat drinking his coffee, absorbed in The Economist. She fled India House, too.
Now she made for Chicken Inn where she ran into Kamal who was telephoning the Thomas Cook office. He said a few casual, polite words to her, then left hurriedly. She remained standing near the glass door watching him vanish down Oxford Street. Next, she peeped into the BBC canteen down the road. Everyone was sitting around untidy tables, arguing fiercely as usual. “I am Champa Ahmed,” she felt like saying to all of them, but backed out quickly.
She spent some time window-shopping mindlessly, then had some sandwiches at a drab Lion’s Corner House. Exhausted by the sheer emptiness of it all, she walked to the Underground station and mechanically bought a ticket for Warwick Avenue. She emerged in Maida Vale and rested against a leafless tree. Surekha and Asha lived in the neighbourhood, so did Talat and Kamal. Lights had come on inside tall, elegant houses. It was almost like a peaceful street scene painted on a Christmas card.
Surekha came out of a corner shop carrying her bag of groceries. “Hello, Champa . . .” she cried. “Why on earth are you standing there? Come along home . . .”
She followed the dancer meekly. Surekha entered her flat and went down to the garden room. A little bit of daylight still lingered outside the glass door. A handful of flaming leaves came sailing down and settled on the steps. The last rays of the setting sun formed a golden circle on the grass.
What is it one really wants in life?
“Make yourself comfortable, Champa,” said Surekha amiably.
“The room would not be the same as it was that day, even if I sit on this sofa,” Champa said half to herself, without realising that she was thinking aloud.
“That day . . . ? Which day, Champa? What was the room like?” asked her hostess, going towards the fireplace.
“Don’t know.”
Dusk fell over clean, pure, almost holy snow; one’s entire existence seemed light and sheer. Surekha wrapped a white-and-gold Kashmir shawl around herself and lit the fire.
“A lot of people are going home soon,” she said.
“Who?” Champa asked, indifferently. Suddenly she felt she had nothing to do with anyone any more. Sanctified like this weather, she was spread all over. What need did she have of particular stations and personalities? She was not related to anything or anybody.
Surekha sat down on the carpet and began peeling potatoes. “Everyone,” she answered. “Hari is leaving by Air India, taking poor Nirmal’s ashes with him. Kamal is sailing, Gautam is leaving for New York. He has recovered from his massive hangover, or maybe it was a nervous breakdown.”
Big Ben chimed over the BBC. Darkness settled rapidly on the garden, the darkness of winter nights which pounces upon the world all at once. Champa went into the kitchen to help Surekha. The effect of evening whiteness had gone, replaced by night. Champa returned to the room. It was empty. Everything was different. The shadows, the balalaika, the Hungarian dolls. The bronze Nataraja. Books. Time had fled for evermore.
Back in June Carter’s lane she reached the stable door and stretched out her hand to switch on the light. Suddenly, darkness leapt forward and greeted her. Till now, she thought, night was against me, now perhaps it may be my ally. The wind came rushing, wave after wave, across sooty house tops. She heard the distant rustling of the grass, the snow on oak leaves. The waters of the night are gushing by over the earth and the currents have become separate. She laughed. Underneath, the earth is hard and real, and I must continue treading it till the hour of my death. Where else will my feet carry me? I shall reach daylight holding fast to the rope of darkness. Night, from this moment on, you are my friend. I have known you for ages. During the monsoons, in the time of flowers, under full moons, in the long hours studying for the exams, travelling by train through strange countries, I have known you in all your aspects and moods. You and I have spent our time together. One day you shall win.
Then she addressed someone else: ‘I leave you now in the company of your dreams. I was reality, and you will never give up dreaming.’ The night deepened and it became very cold. The waves of silence continued dashing against the walls of the mews. Time said: Recognise me. I’ll never stop hounding you. You thought that the moments shall remain at their stations. You were mistaken. Look at me and know me. I am going, second by second, disappearing behind the folds of heavy curtains, sinking under layers of darkness. I am Darkness upon Darkness, I am the dividing line. You cannot go beyond me. Turn back—you have reached the frontier. The gate stands before you, a new country begins now. You will have to get new travel documents, fill new forms and write your signatures all over agai
n. I have broken many a spell—yours was very insignificant. Recognise me, I’ll keep walking along with you, you can’t run away from me. People will leave you, I won’t. See how quickly you reached the check-post? You were finding it so difficult to decide, I solve all problems. All decisions are made, all intentions become actions because of me, and through me.
You shall face more trouble but I’ll teach you how to deal with it. Make peace with me. I am still here.
The window curtain fluttered in a strong gale. The stable was filled with frost and she realised that she was shivering with cold. She closed the window quickly and ran upstairs to her room.
63. The Urn
Talat was writing an article for The Eastern World, Surekha was reading a book on choreography, Zarina was sketching. The world went about its business as usual, peaceful and indifferent. As a matter of fact, ever since Nirmala’s death, the world had gone about its business more peacefully than ever.
“Shouldn’t we do something about Nirmala’s Rites of Passage?” Hari Shankar asked Kamal, just as he used to earlier ask: “Shouldn’t we do something about Nirmala’s marriage?” They also had to do something about her belongings. Get up, put on your armour. Left, right, forward march. Pick up your tried and trusted weapons, go and bring back Nirmala’s old armour and weapons which she no longer needs.
After this pantomime they drove up to Lidhurst, and on the way back stopped at the roadhouse marked ‘Teas’ where they always had their tea under the apple tree. Back in his flat in St. John’s Wood Kamal put Nirmala’s luggage in his room, which Hari Shankar was sharing, after which they both went out again. Talat entered Kamal’s room and cast her eye around. The sideboard was cluttered with useless things. The landscape on the wall she had once bought for a few shillings in Camden Town, old magazines and newspapers, bric-a-brac surrounded by Nirmala’s suitcases and bags. Talat felt as though all of life was a junk shop, death its price-tag.
On the sideboard stood a little urn containing the ashes of Kumari Nirmala Raizada. Hari Shankar Raizada, next-of-kin, was going home to submerge the said ashes in the sacred Ganga at Kashi. Mr. Raizada had gone out with Kamal Reza to finalise the arrangements. Death certificate. Religious service. Etcetera.
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