The End of Innocence

by Moni Mohsin

  Eagerly the nun craned her neck to examine the riches nestling within – glistening pink balls of chamcham frosted with shavings of coconut; big yellow globes of luddoo studded with pumpkin seeds; sticky orange coils of jalebi; and creamy, silvered bricks of barfi. She hummed as her thick fingers hovered with exquisite indecision over the box. She swooped down on a chamcham and popped the egg-sized delicacy whole into her mouth. Biting down into its juicy, syrupy centre, she shut her eyes to savour the moment. Babu Jacob watched with satisfaction. He offered the box to Laila, but she shook her head and tugged hard on the nun’s hand, as if it was a bell chord.

  ‘Sister, I want you to tell me about Rani.’

  ‘Rani? What about her?’ Sister Clementine licked the syrup from her fingers and looked about keenly for the box. Babu Jacob opened it quickly and offered it to the nun again.

  ‘Hmm, now let me see. What do you think I should have, Babu? Barfi or luddoo? I’m thinking barfi is being better after chamcham. Oh, only top ones have silver paper? Shame. Never mind, I’ll have one from top then.’ She pinched a cube of barfi delicately between thumb and forefinger. She tilted her head back and, lifting the sweet aloft, lowered it leisurely into her mouth.

  ‘Why did Rani come here that day?’ repeated Laila, now irritated with the nun. Her voice was loud, peremptory. ‘I want an answer.’

  Sister Clementine glared at Laila. She continued to chew, deliberately, ponderously, all the while watching Laila through slitted eyes.

  ‘You want to know, huh?’ she asked. ‘And I am, what, your servant, that I have to answer? Everybody wanting, wanting from me all the time. Sister, teach my daughter.’ She looked pointedly at Mr Jacob, who flushed. ‘Sister, answer my question. Sister, tell me this, tell me that. Well, what is anyone going to do for Sister, huh?’ But then she paused, recollecting her last encounter with Fareeda. Her manner mellowed.

  ‘Rani, that girl who came here?’ She patted Laila on the head. ‘Oh, she’ll turn up soon enough. These sorts always do after they’ve had their fun and games, you know, and brought shame on everyone. She’ll slink back home like a kicked cat, just wait and see. But when she comes, I won’t be here to tell you that I told you, because I’ll be far away home in Kerala having Christmas and wedding with my family.’

  ‘When are you going, Sister?’ enquired Jacob.

  ‘As soon as Mother Superior returns,’ the nun chirped. ‘Next Friday she’s coming back.’

  ‘But, Sister, I’m hearing borders are closed, and guarded night and day. No one’s coming and going over them.’ Jacob buttoned his jacket, as if preparing to leave.

  ‘No one, except those who are knowing big, big people in high-up posts. For them, borders are unsealing, gates are swinging wide, cars are being waved through, soldiers are saluting, everything is happening,’ the nun twinkled. ‘Now this nice little girl here, her mother has promised me that she will make sure, personally, that I get through the border in time for Christmas with my family.’

  ‘She hasn’t promised,’ corrected Laila dully, stepping away from Sister Clementine’s side. ‘She just said, “We’ll see.” Which usually means no. Except that she can’t be bothered to say it right then.

  ‘And Rani hasn’t brought shame on anyone,’ Laila continued. ‘It’s mean of you to say that. Mean and nasty.’ She stamped her foot, and the noise, though small, echoed in the empty church. ‘She’s not a kicked cat. She’s my friend, she’s good, and kind, and we’re p-p-partners. You don’t even know that she’s not coming back. And it’s all my f-fault.’ Tears slid down her cheeks.

  A loud silence greeted Laila’s outburst. Mr Jacob cleared his throat and took a hesitant step towards Laila. He had heard about Rani’s disappearance but did not know yet that she was dead.

  ‘Laila. Come here, child,’ he said.

  But Sister Clementine pushed him aside. She pulled the girl to her and, pinching her chin between a thumb and forefinger, forced her to look up.

  ‘What do you mean, your mother hasn’t promised?’ she hissed.

  Laila gaped at the nun. Sister Clementine’s eyes bulged like hard-boiled eggs. Her lips were curled back over her beige teeth. Laila had never seen her so enraged.

  ‘Well?’ she barked. Her fingers bit into Laila’s chin.

  Laila flinched. Her eyes wide with alarm, she mumbled, ‘Ammi does it with us too. She says, “We’ll see,” when she doesn’t want to say no.’

  ‘But she promised right here in this convent,’ Sister Clementine muttered thickly. ‘She said she’d send me. Home. To my family. After fourteen years. Fourteen! You know how long that is? Longer than you’ve been alive.’ Sister Clementine flung Laila away from her and, tottering blindly to a bench, sank down on it.

  ‘So it was all a joke, was it?’ she muttered to herself. She replayed the scene of Fareeda’s last visit to the church in her mind’s eye. She saw Fareeda’s pale hand resting lightly on her own plump arm. She heard again her murmured request for prayers, her gracious invitation to tea. It had never crossed her mind to question Fareeda’s sincerity. How they must have chuckled on their way back, the girls and their mother. The gullible nun had taken them seriously. They’d probably gone home and told the father also. She could picture them sitting around their polished table, in front of that funny painting in the coffee-scented room, having a good laugh at her expense.

  That room in which Fareeda hadn’t even asked her to sit down. And Jacob had refused to meet her eye. And Fazal had smirked pityingly as she had slunk out, dismissed. And Bua, who had thrust her in knowing, fully, how much her mistress loathed the nuns. They were all in it together. Had been from the start. They’d plotted to humiliate and belittle her. As had her family, really. Cowpat, to whom they hadn’t written more than half a dozen times in fourteen years. Cowpat, who was now being summoned home with a little request ‘of whatever, be it big, be it little, you can spare for the new couple’. Sister Clementine pressed a hand to her aching, bloated stomach. Now there was going to be no respite from chappatis and the pain.

  ‘Sister,’ Laila approached the nun nervously. ‘Sister, please don’t be angry, but I must know. Why did Rani come here?’

  Sister Clementine’s head swivelled around. She stared at Laila as if seeing her for the first time. Then she laughed – a high, brittle, unfunny laugh.

  ‘Rani? You want to know about Rani?’ She lumbered to her feet and shuffled up to Laila. ‘Let me tell you about your friend then. She is no rani. She’s a shameless, dirty, lying little bitch. That’s your friend.’ She prodded Laila’s chest with her stubby finger. ‘She’s unclean. Unclean and defiled and disgraced, and she’ll burn in hell for her sins. She came here wailing, begging me to waste the rotten fruit of her shameless doings.’

  Confused and frightened, Laila shrank away, but Sister Clementine bore down on her, swaying like a top-heavy cupboard. Laila took another step backwards and came up against Mr Jacob. Turning her head, Laila looked up at him. He seemed troubled. His brow was creased and his lips were pressed together. He placed his hands protectively on her shoulders.

  ‘Sister,’ he protested quietly. ‘Sister, please! Take care …’

  Sister Clementine ignored him. Her eyes were fixed on Laila. ‘You think she’s pretty, no?’ she panted. Her face was inches from Laila’s. Beads of sweat glistened on her upper lip. ‘Pretty with her big, big eyes, long hair and delicate body. Well, let me tell you, she’s a slut.’ Laila flinched as tiny specks of Sister Clementine’s spittle landed on her cheeks. ‘Yes, she’s a slut. That’s what she is, your precious friend.’

  Mr Jacob’s grip tightened on Laila’s shoulders. ‘Sister,’ he warned, drawing himself erect. ‘Sister, I’ve told you to be careful.’

  Sister Clementine glowered at Mr Jacob. ‘I’m sick of being careful,’ she spat. ‘I’ll say what I want.’

  ‘No you will not, Sister.’ Speaking softly, he addressed himself to a spot above the nun’s head. ‘Laila is a child. You must not speak to her lik
e this.’ He paused and swallowed, as if summoning up the courage to whisper, ‘I won’t let you.’

  ‘You won’t let me?’ she sniggered. ‘Well, stop me then. Try. Go on. Because I will have my say. Rani is a whore,’ she announced, her contemptuous gaze on Mr Jacob now. ‘Rani is a whore, a whore, a whore,’ she repeated in a voice loud enough to be heard outside the church.

  ‘Enough!’ thundered Babu Jacob. Laila jumped. His shouted command bounced off the floor, crashed into the walls, ricocheted off the ceiling fans and skittered round and round the benches, till its echo faded gradually into silence. Sister Clementine froze. She stared, fish-mouthed, at Mr Jacob. The huge swaying cupboard that had been about to crush Laila a moment ago shrank in an instant to a tiny, rickety bureau.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Mr Jacob whispered. He took Laila’s limp hand in his. ‘Come, child. I’d better take you home.’

  He nodded at Sister Clementine, who stood moist-eyed and shaking, stranded in the middle of the church. Babu Jacob led Laila out into the sunshine to where his bicycle was parked under the mango tree. Laila felt as if she had leapt off a manic merry-go-round. She was dizzy and queasy.

  ‘Go on, child.’ Mr Jacob’s lips lifted in the ghost of a smile. ‘Climb up.’ But when Laila continued to stand there, motionless, he lifted her up and carefully placed her side-saddle on the crossbar. Then, reaching down to pin bicycle clips on to his trouser cuffs, he climbed up behind her and sailed out on to the canal road.

  ‘You came alone, didn’t you?’ When she didn’t reply, he asked, ‘Did you tell anyone where you were going?’ Again, Laila was silent. ‘I thought as much,’ he muttered to himself.

  Mr Jacob pedalled his ancient black Raleigh at a stately pace. They glided past the thick clumps of elephant grass growing low on the canal bank. A milky chocolate colour today, the canal glittered beguilingly in the sun’s oblique rays. Laila imagined Rani floating on her back in the canal. Feet together, hands clasped over her bosom and loose hair rippling out in a dark halo around her head, her sightless eyes were open, reflecting the deep, disturbing blue of the sky. Laila squeezed her eyes shut to banish the image.

  She opened her eyes and saw Mr Jacob’s hands gripping the handlebars. His tobacco-brown skin reminded Laila of her father’s battered old wallet. Mr Jacob cycled smoothly, avoiding the ruts in the road. She had never imagined him capable of the fury he had shown in the church.

  ‘Babu Jacob, may I ask you a question?’ she whispered.

  ‘Surely, Lailu,’ he murmured, above her head.

  ‘What is a whore?’

  The bicycle wobbled for a moment and then righted itself. Suddenly nervous, Laila clutched at Mr Jacob’s forearms in mute appeal.

  ‘It’s all right, I won’t get angry.’ He was silent for a long while, and then he drew a deep breath and said, ‘A whore, Lailu, is a person who is forced to do difficult things.’

  ‘What difficult things?’

  ‘Things a person wouldn’t normally want to do.’

  ‘What was Rani forced to do that she didn’t want to?’ Laila frowned. She was confused by all these oblique comments. Why wouldn’t anyone speak to her plainly? What had Sister Clementine meant when she’d shouted about Rani’s filth that she had come to get wasted? Rani wasn’t filthy. She was one of the cleanest people Laila knew. She bathed every day, even though she didn’t have a nice bathroom with tiles and a tub. Her hair was always glossy, and she never, ever got nits. And her breath was fragrant, scented with aniseed, unlike Sister Clementine’s own sour exhalations. Sister Clementine had a nerve to call Rani dirty.

  ‘I’m not saying Rani is a, er, you know a, er, whore,’ denied Mr Jacob, clearing his throat. ‘It is not a nice word, and I don’t think we should use it for Rani. In fact, it’s not a word we should use at all.’

  ‘Then why did Sister Clementine use it?’

  ‘Because she was angry. I don’t think she meant it either. She must be regretting it even now.’

  Laila wasn’t about to grant Sister Clementine the tiniest shred of concession after her performance at the church. Unlike her mother, Laila had always had a soft spot for Sister Clementine. Bua had told her often how holy the nun was, how much she prayed, how closely God listened to her. Charmed by the appurtenances of the church, Laila had not only accepted but endorsed her ayah’s opinion wholeheartedly. Laila had defended her to Fareeda. (‘She’s not a busybody, she’s kind and good and … and she plays the piano and admires my dresses.’)

  But Sister Clementine had squandered that goodwill today. Never again would Laila plead the nuns’ cause with her mother, never would she visit them at Christmas with flowers and cakes, never ever would she step inside that horrid church. Poor Rani, who’d had to throw herself at the nun’s mercy.

  She sat bolt upright on the crossbar, the unexpected movement causing Babu Jacob to swerve. That was it! That was why Rani had come to the church. She wanted a particular kind of help only the nuns could give. The nuns had refused her. But why?

  ‘What did Rani want from Sister Clementine when she came to the church? She wanted something that Sister Clementine wouldn’t give? What was it?’

  Mr Jacob shifted uncomfortably on his bicycle seat. ‘That is something you should ask Rani when you next see her.’

  ‘No, you must tell me,’ insisted Laila.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s not something I can talk to you about. Ask Rani, she’d be able to explain to you much better than I.’

  ‘But I can’t,’ wailed Laila.

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘Because she’s dead, you see,’ mumbled Laila. ‘They found her yesterday. In the c-c-canal. The soldiers called Aba and he went to see her in Colewalla c-cantt.’

  Mr Jacob pressed hard on the brakes. He planted a big sandalled, socked foot on the ground on either side of the bike and gathered Laila to him. At first she stiffened, but then she let go of the cycle bars and turned her face into the scratchy wool of his jacket.

  ‘Oh, my poor child,’ he murmured, stroking her head. ‘I am sorry, so, so sorry. May God have mercy on the soul of that poor deceased child.’

  Laila clutched his lapels and sobbed into his chest. Mr Jacob held her gently.

  ‘She is not lost,’ he said softly. ‘She is still with you. Those we love never leave us. They stay with us in our hearts. They become part of us. They never die.’

  Laila lifted a tear-stained face to his.

  ‘Does that mean Rani is a shaheed?’ she hicupped.

  Mr Jacob smiled a sad, wise smile and tucked a damp lock of her hair behind her ear. ‘It means that as long as you hold on to her memory, she will not die.’

  ‘Rehmat said that shaheeds go straight to heaven. No questions asked. Is Rani in heaven now?’

  ‘Of course she is.’ Mr Jacob wiped her tears with a large handkerchief. ‘Now, remember this,’ he said in a low, serious voice. ‘I know Rani was older than you, but she was still a child, and when children die they go straight to heaven, because children’s souls are like puffy white clouds. They are not stained with any sins, nor are they black with dark deeds. They are light, pure and clean. God receives them with open arms and a tender heart. “Come, my child,” He says, “come to me.”’

  ‘But you don’t understand,’ cried Laila. ‘I was supposed to look after her.’ And then she told him all about their secret partnership, her role as Rani’s spy, Rani’s strange pendulum moods, the tantalizing mystery of her fiancé’s identity, her own desperation to solve it, Mashooq’s surprise visit to Sabzbagh, Kaneez’s terrifying grief and then that last trip to the convent with Fareeda and Sara when she had broken her promise and betrayed Rani. Once she had started she couldn’t stop. Laila rambled on about the delicious excitement of forming the Terrific Two, her desire to please Rani, her fear of annoying Fareeda and exposing Bua, her frustrated rage at her own impotence and confusion about what lay at the core of the mystery and, finally, h
er awful guilt at betraying Rani.

  Mr Jacob listened in attentive silence, starting only once when she mentioned Mashooq and their chat over the hedge. But swept away on the tide of her own narrative, Laila did not notice Mr Jacob’s reaction. When she lapsed into silence, Mr Jacob tilted back her chin with a crooked forefinger and looked her full in the face.

  ‘Now listen to me. It was not your fault. You have not betrayed Rani. You are not to blame. Sad, awful things happen in life. They happen to everyone. But remember what I said about children. They are pure. You are pure. You are innocent, and so was Rani. No matter what people say, God knows that, and He is the only true judge.’

  ‘Are you sure? Are you sure it’s not my fault?’

  Mr Jacob grasped her by the upper arms and said, ‘Look at me as I say this. You. Are. Blameless. Of that I am sure. As sure as I am of night being night and day being day.’

  Despite Laila’s protestations, Mr Jacob insisted on cycling Laila all the way home. He wanted to come in and have a word with Fareeda, but Laila begged him not to. She didn’t want to get into trouble for going to the church again. And she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to talk to Fareeda just yet. By dissolving into another flood of tears, she prevailed upon Mr Jacob to drop her off in the back yard. That way, with some luck, she could sneak into the house without being seen, although she did not tell him that.

  As she crossed the yard, she saw a stranger on the bench. He was dressed in a grey shirt and khaki trousers, and a narrow black belt was slung diagonally across his chest. He twirled a black beret in his hands and looked restless, as if waiting for someone.

  ‘It’s Feroze,’ Tariq said. ‘The police inspector.’ He had come to the sitting room to tell Fareeda about his brief conversation with the visitor in the yard. ‘I’m going with him to the station.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘He says he found a man lying face down in the bazaar this morning. He was dead drunk, but when he tried to lift him, he came to. When Feroze heard him mutter “Rani”, he threw him into the lock-up and came over.’