Ashish nodded, blurry-eyed. ‘Maybe at Diwali,’ he said, and a scrap of a smile flew from his face to his aunt’s, where it broke out brightly. He stood and watched them go.
He was then excited and desperately lonely after he walked past the immigration counters and towards the darkness that was so close to the windows in the boarding lounge. Here the other passengers’ faces had lost their sheen, somewhere in the duty-free shop and the long corridors and stairways between the accessible parts of the terminal and this, the front line of departure.
Another darkness was close. As the time drew nearer, Ashish became choked with tears; his usual, familiar fear returned. It was the one about being alone and abandoned. It was wordless and strong; it pulled him irresistibly. He went to a payphone, put in some change and dialled Narayan’s number – he had a powerful urge to tell Narayan that he still loved him – or that he was sorry – something, he couldn’t express it. After a few rings he put down the receiver and the coins clinked into the metal tray. Then, again, he looked at the coins in his left palm and put them into the phone. He redialled the number. Nearby, the two girls and a boy he’d seen carrying laptops were sitting together and talking.
‘Hello?’ That well-known voice, and the soft greeting, slightly bored but inquisitive, that Ashish had so loved. He hesitated.
‘Hello?’ repeated Narayan, a little less patient.
‘H-hello.’
‘Yes, hello?’
‘It’s Ashish.’
‘Ashish!’ and his heart leapt at the catlike pleasure in Narayan’s voice.
‘I’m at the airport – I’m leaving a little later. Did I wake you? I’m sorry,’ he said with specious formality.
There was an announcement and people began to shove towards the boarding gate now, clutching their passes and their hand luggage and murmuring as though reawakened.
‘Is that your flight?’ Narayan’s voice was sleepy. ‘I’m glad you called, Ashish, it’s good to hear your voice,’ he said.
‘It’s good to hear yours too,’ Ashish whispered. Finally he felt tears running down his face in an unstoppable stream. ‘It’s just that I’m leaving,’ he said nonsensically, and his voice cracked.
There was a small silence. ‘I know,’ Narayan said.
‘I miss you sometimes.’
‘I miss you too, Ashish, very often.’
The phone beeped. The money had run out; the line was disconnected. Ashish wiped his face with his hands and joined the boarding queue, which moved through the doors that opened onto the runways. Released once again into the warm, black Bombay night, he smelled the city, its humidity, the scent of rotting flowers, fish, and laundry drying in the breeze; its intimacy.
The little bus took them into the unfamiliar territory of the runway, and he followed the others up the rickety metal staircase to the door of the plane. Inside, the cabin smelled of something minty that caught the back of his throat. He found his seat, stowed his hand luggage in the locker, took out his book, and sat down. When the plane took off half an hour later he was still crying, and remembering the timbre of Narayan’s voice.
But he had never taken a flight before, and by the time the ‘fasten seat belts’ sign was no longer lit, and slender air hostesses handed out small plastic glasses of lemonade, he felt not only better, but like a different person. He hugged the window with his cheek and watched the city, its myriad lights and its pointy sweep into the Arabian Sea. Bombay disappeared behind the plane and they went right into the warm black night; then he relaxed, for everything now was unknown.
Chapter Twenty-two
In the rickshaw, Mohan rested his arm across the back of the seat. His wife was crying openly. Now she smiled. ‘Anyway, it’ll be good for him,’ she said. Then she continued to cry, wiping her face with her dupatta. ‘Don’t forget to call Vimla when we get home,’ she told him. ‘You said you’d let her know after we got back from the airport.’
The rickshaw bolted in its unstable way through the quiet roads, the night dark blue and the street lamps sulphur yellow as they left behind the highway, a flyover, a roundabout, buildings under construction. They went first towards Bandra and then in the direction of Sion; it was late, and there was little traffic. Mohan put his hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘Less than two months,’ he reminded her, ‘before the children come for Diwali.’ He leaned back, as Bombay passed, and looked forward to the holiday, when the whole family would be together. There was another story he’d been thinking of; he’d meant to discuss it with Ashish, but there hadn’t been time. But he’d write, and tell him.
Acknowledgements
Thank you: Christie, Tamsin, Janani, Anna, Jimmy, Claire, Natalie, Ambika and Kannan for reading; Ravi and Velu Palsokar and Mr Shakeel Ahmed for conversations; Stephen Foster for heroism (working-class); Amit Chaudhuri for characteristic kindness; Andrew, Trezza and Giles; Mark Richards at Fourth Estate and V K Karthika at HarperCollins India; Richard Collins for copyediting; Kartikeya, Gargie, and Baba; Nonita; Siddharth; Durva, Kumar; Seema, Sree; Monica, Radha, Nina; Alex, Olivia, Calder, Susannah; Statira, Farrokh, Shirin.
Particular thanks to my agent Peter Straus.
Most of all, my parents and Vivan.
Read On …
If you enjoyed Saraswati Park, why not read Another Country, an evocative novel about growing up, moving on and discovering that what you really want is very different from what you thought it would be?
Buy Another Country eBook
About the Author
ANJALI JOSEPH was born in Bombay in 1978. She read English at Trinity College, Cambridge, and has taught at the Sorbonne, written for the Times of India in Bombay and been a Commissioning Editor for ELLE (India). Saraswati Park is her first novel.
Copyright
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Copyright © Anjali Joseph 2010
Anjali Joseph asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Ebook Edition © JUNE 2010 ISBN: 9780007360796
Version: 2013–07–26
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