by Threes Anna
The flower in his hand is tiny, insignificant. And yet the sight of it is accompanied by an unexpected wave of sadness that takes possession of his adolescent body. Most of his memories are painful, and yet the rose awakened thoughts of the past that did not make him feel lonely. But now, with the tiny flowers in his hand, all those feelings have been turned upside down, and he remembers how he wandered barefoot among the legs of a whooping, ecstatic mob of men. The fear and the loneliness. The pain and the blood. The hunger and the thirst. He sniffs the flowers, which seem to be saying, “We haven’t forgotten.” He doesn’t know whether it’s the scents that overpower him or the memories, but Madan feels the strength draining from his body. He hears Mister Chandran’s words fade away, as the carousel of scents impose themselves and he can no longer distinguish between them. He sees Mister Chandran’s hand coming in his direction, and then everything begins to revolve before his eyes.
Then he is lying alone on his mat. He hears the hum of the looms, and the forget-me-nots are lying next to his head.
1967 Himalayan Queen Express ~~~
THEY ARE SITTING opposite each other, but not a word has been spoken since the train left the station. Charlotte stares at the landscape racing by without seeing the farmers bringing in the harvest, the women doing the laundry, or the mountains that rise in the distance. Sita stares at the marbled wall of their carriage, where she keeps discovering new shapes: a face without eyes, a groping hand, a woman with long, flowing hair . . .
Everything has gone differently from what had been agreed. During Charlotte’s first conversation in the hospital, the nun told her that the baby would be taken away immediately after birth, as there were enough young parents who wanted to adopt a child. Charlotte did not look at the baby because she was afraid she might want to keep it.
While Charlotte lay on the bed with her legs wide apart and her eyes shut tightly, Sita took the dark-skinned baby from the arms of the nun. The former ayah didn’t understand how the fair-skinned woman whom she had more or less raised could have given birth to such a dark child. After the umbilical cord was cut, Sita left the room, carrying the damp little creature in her arms. She was followed by the nun, who told her to take the baby to Ward 4. In the corridor the baby began to cry and Sita felt her breasts contract violently in a frantic attempt to produce milk. She walked past the door with the number four on it, straight to the simple room that Charlotte had rented for her. The nun asked where she was going, and Sita replied that she and she alone was going to adopt the boy. She went into the bathroom, washed the baby with warm water from a flask, and laid him in her own bed. She used the spencer and the scarf that Charlotte had knitted for her as blankets. Then she returned to Ward 4 and announced that she had come to sign the adoption papers. Twice the nun asked her whether the mother had given her consent, and twice Sita nodded her head. She didn’t understand what the form in front of her said, and it was only after the nun pointed to the line where she was supposed to put her signature that she wrote her name, in an unsteady hand. These were the only words she knew how to write. When the nun asked her what the boy’s name was, she replied “Parvat,” or “mountain.” She asked for a bottle of milk and then returned to her room.
Not until two weeks later, when the taxi arrived to take them back to Simla, did Charlotte discover that Sita had the baby with her. The tiny Indian woman, who had been her confidante for as long as she could remember, did not reply to her questions. The baby was tightly wrapped in a cloth, barely visible within the folds of her clothes. If it hadn’t cried for a few minutes as they were getting into the car, Charlotte would probably not have discovered the child until much later. Her attempts to catch a glimpse of the infant were unsuccessful, as Sita had covered the child with a cloth.
The train gently rocks and sways. The baby is still asleep, hidden among the folds of Sita’s clothes. The two women avoid each other’s eyes. Charlotte is angry and Sita is afraid. Then the baby starts to cry. Sita conjures up a bottle of milk, which she has warmed up between her thighs, from under the folds of her clothes. The hungry baby lets out a protracted howl, and Charlotte, whose breasts are still tightly bound, feels a rush of milk that she has not experienced before, not even when she heard the cries of one of the babies in Ward 4, waiting for their future parents.
There is no trace of accusation or reproach in Charlotte’s voice, rather something akin to surprise. “It’s my child,” she says.
Sita looks nervously at the woman across from her. She sees that her previous anger has given way to curiosity, evoking a faint smile. She nods timorously. The earrings that Sita has worn since her wedding night sway slightly. Then, without further hesitation, she brings the baby out from under her shawl.
Charlotte stares in amazement at the dark-skinned child. “Is that my child?”
“Yes, a boy.”
Charlotte watches breathlessly as the woman who was her surrogate mother for so long routinely pushes the pacifier into the mouth of the baby, who immediately begins to suck. His black eyelashes, his black hair, his dark eyes, his brown skin: nowhere does she recognize herself. Until she looks at his tiny hands, which aimlessly clench and unclench to the rhythm of his feeding. The hands are just like her own, with the overly long thumb and the short middle finger. She studies the face: the chubby cheeks, the sucking lips, the swallowing motion, the sighs, the tiny hairs on the forehead, the skin so unmarked and flawless . . . And to think she carried this child inside her all those months! Although she knows that the baby’s father is Indian, she never stopped to think during all those long months that the child might be dark-skinned. He looks nothing like the Eurasians she knows who — depending on their background — either loathe or love their fair skin, their eyes, their nose, their hair, and their name. What will Father say when he hears? And her brother? And the members of the New Rampur Club? Her personnel? Reverend Das? The tennis ladies? The man she buys her apples from? People are reluctant to deal with someone of mixed blood. Like the timid woman at the library who bears the name Johnson, after the soldier who impregnated her mother. And the owner of the garage, who pretends he’s British but is ridiculed because he’s only a half-caste. The headmistress of the domestic science school, who wants her children to study in England, which she regards as their native country, but cannot get a visa for them. The pedicurist who spent years trying to change her name and now suddenly wants her own name back. The tears that have waited for this moment are waved aside. What will happen to this child when she is no longer able to protect him, when he is old enough to make his way in the world? Will they taunt him because he’s a bastard, dark instead of blond, fatherless, and without rights? Will people at cocktail parties call her a whore, like the railroad director’s daughter, who had a relationship with a man from Kerala? Will she be disinherited, like the woman who ran away with a famous poet from Calcutta? Or poisoned, like the girl who planned to marry a teacher from Orissa? Should she move to England? To America? To Africa? Where could they be happy, without having every move they make censured?
The suitcase she packed that morning to take back to the big house on the hill is lying next to her. If the journey goes as planned, they will be back in Rampur in two days’ time. She breaks out in a sweat. She wants to snatch the child from Sita’s arms, tear the bindings from her breasts, and suckle him. She wants to comfort him, tuck him in, protect him, and never let him go. She’d like to put him back inside her, to undo everything that had happened, to go back in time, to obliterate her shame. No one must ever know that he is her child. It’s as if she has forgotten that she gave her baby up for adoption two weeks ago. Suddenly she realizes that her son can be happy only if she is not his mother.
“When did you and your husband last make love?”
Sita looked up, shocked by such a direct question.
“Did you and Deepak make love the last time he was home on leave?” Charlotte persisted.
&nb
sp; Sita remembers how dry she was when he climbed on top of her. She had forgotten his smell, and his hands had become rough. Not until he lay beside her, snoring, did she feel his sperm streaming out of her. She hadn’t told him that she’d had no periods that entire year. What little intimacy they used to share had completely disappeared after he went to work in New Delhi. She was even surprised when he entered her. Although she had never shared the thought with anyone, she was convinced that he had found a replacement for her, and that it was out of a sense of duty that he returned to Rampur one week per year.
Charlotte can tell by the confusion on Sita’s face that she had indeed been intimate with her husband. “From now on, this is your child.”
Sita, who has the adoption papers in her purse, nods her head.
“Don’t ever tell anyone that you’ve adopted the child. Introduce him to your daughters as their little brother. And call Deepak to tell him that at long last he has a son. He will be proud and learn to love you again. As long as I live, I will support you financially. This boy must go to college, have a chance to become a doctor or an engineer if he wants to, but you must never tell him that I’m his mother. Never! Will you promise me that?” Charlotte was panting.
Sita doesn’t understand why Charlotte is making a fuss all of a sudden. It is clear for all to see that he’s her child. She nods, bends over him, and begins to sing softly: the nasal sound full of unintelligible words, which Charlotte knows so well. The baby falls asleep with his mouth open.
1967 Rampur ~~~
THE TEARS HAD dried by the time the heat in Rampur took them by surprise. The chauffeur was waiting for her near the station. He had looked confused when not only the daughter of the house got into the car, but also the former ayah, carrying a baby. And he was further taken aback when the general’s daughter told him to take the ayah and the baby home first, and to drive to the big house after they had been dropped off.
The fan is revolving above her head, and the windows are open. She longs for the cool of the mountains as she opens the suitcase, which Hema has placed on the bed. On top of her own things lies the little angora baby cape she knitted. Her fingers stroke the soft wool. She feels like jumping into the car and driving straight to Sita’s house, but she knows that she has to control herself, that he is no longer her child, that she will never be a mother, and that the cape is much too warm for Rampur. She wraps the scarf in plastic, along with the angora cape, and shoves it onto the top shelf of the cabinet, so that it is out of sight. No one will ever wear them. Outside she hears the hum of the Lloyds and the panting of the mali as he pushes the machine forward across the lawn. She must ask him to pick some flowers for the dining room. The house is too quiet, too empty. She takes her pen and a sheet of paper and begins a letter to her brother.
Dear Donald,
I’m back home. I’ll never forget the months I spent in the Himalayas. I have one of Father’s paintings hanging over my bed, the one with Mount Everest. That way I’ll never forget the beautiful mountains. The green grass in the pastures, the cool wind, and the snow. The power the mountain radiates is overwhelming. There is nothing in the world as beautiful, or exceptional, or gigantic. When I think about them, I almost feel like crying. Do you remember how Father never allowed us to cry? Not even when we were really young. Thinking back, I realize just how strange that was. All babies cry, because they’re hungry or have cramps in their tummy. You probably don’t remember when we were little and he put us outside in the baby carriage, in the pouring rain. One time when you were out there, it started to thunder and you kept on crying. Sita wasn’t allowed to stay with you. I hid behind a bush so I could get as close as possible to you, without Father seeing me. Did you hear that she has a son? I would like to give her a present. In a magazine I saw at the station in New Delhi there was an article about a new kind of baby carriage that someone in England has designed. It’s called a “buggy.” Do you think you could order one for me in London? It’s made of lightweight aluminium tubing, and you can fold it up until it’s quite small. The patent number is 1.154.362. I think Sita will be very pleased with it. If possible, would you try to have it sent by airmail, since the boat takes such a long time, and I want her to have it as soon as possible? Do you think you can find the time? Is everything all right with you? Father is happy that I’m back. I think his nurses are happy, too. He’s able to do a lot more than he could before I left. His left hip joint bends now, and he can almost sit up by himself. He won’t ever be able to walk again, but you knew that, didn’t you? I thought he might be angry because I stayed away longer than I had planned, but he hasn’t said anything about that. He’s been in the hospital for a year, and he says that now that I’m back, he wants to come home. Are you planning to come to Rampur? I can’t very well leave here for the time being, and I’d really like to see you again.
Regards from your sister,
Charlotte
P.S. You won’t forget the baby carriage?
1995 Rampur ~~~
THE CHANDELIER HADN’T been taken down in years, but now it lay in the middle of the hall like a phantom ship, stranded and draped in cobwebs. Hema was on his knees, prying the hundreds of candle stumps out of their holders, one by one, with a small knife. He had closed the door to the music room because he didn’t want the tailor to see him doing the work of an errand boy. With the tip of the knife, he carefully loosened each candle, trying to lift it out of its holder in one piece. Some of the candles were long enough to give a few more hours of light, while others would have to be melted down. Although he considered it menial work, he was happy to be sitting down for a while. Beads of sweat dripped from his eyebrows, and his shirt clung to his back. There was still some water left in the bath adjoining the guestroom, and he had managed to get a good price on drinking water, so he had lugged twelve full buckets up the hill. Tomorrow he’d ask memsahib if the tailor couldn’t give him a hand. The man paid rent, but when the price was agreed, no account was taken of the possibility that they would run out of water.
The river that ran through Rampur had fallen dry. Only that morning Hema had seen dozens of women digging holes. They hoped to find water to wash themselves and their clothes, since the water that was sold at the roadside was too expensive for that purpose. The newsreader on Radio Rampur, unlike the BBC, was now saying that the monsoon was about to break, although the cloudless sky told a different story.
THE ELECTRICITY HAD gone off for the fifth time that day and Charlotte was trying to generate a bit of cool air with a fan. In the suffocating heat of midday, the mere movement of her arm was more of an effort than was warranted by the faint breeze that it produced. One shutter was slightly ajar, but she was too listless to get up to close it. A narrow strip of sunlight bored itself into her bedroom and shone on the pile of fabrics. Her father had not mentioned the fabrics again. Since it was too hot to move about, he had been quite subdued the last few days, even when his yogurt and his tea didn’t arrive precisely on time. She had yet to choose a piece of fabric for her own dress, and she did not look forward to taking it to the music room. She had pushed the cork back into the hole so firmly that she could only remove it with a corkscrew. She mustn’t allow herself to think of him, for fear those same thoughts would come into her mind when he was nearby. She tried to shake her head in order to dislodge her worries, but the heat had taken such total possession of her that she was even incapable of moving her neck.
In the background she heard the zoom of the sewing machine. Apparently he was impervious to the heat.
The topmost piece of fabric was a gleaming length of pale pink silk: just the colour she would have chosen for a dress when she was a girl. But back then it had been decided that it would be nonsense for her to wear anything but her homely grey school uniform during those few weeks a year when there was no school. Now that colour — as well as the deep pink fabric underneath — weren’t options, because the wife of Nikhil
Nair always wore pink. Next came the purple, the colour of the cloth on the pulpit during funeral services, followed by yellow, which she immediately associated with the sun, heat, fear, sweat, and suffocation. She wondered how he managed to work in temperatures like this. The gold fabric was too shiny and the one with the silver embroidery was old-fashioned; the blue was ordinary and the white too virginal. She didn’t consider black appropriate for a party, she already wore a lot of green, beige was uninteresting, red was common, and brown was dull.
The brilliance of the colours faded with the setting of the sun. Getting up from her bed, she walked over to the window and pushed open the shutters, in the hope of finding some relief from the heat. The moon had not yet appeared. Below, the sewing machine whirred busily. It took no effort to conjure up his profile: the straight forehead, the aristocratic nose, his lips and his chin . . . He had a noble quality, something quite patrician, she mused. Her thoughts turned to Parvat. She wondered if there were those who looked at him and had doubts about his origins. She picked up a pile of fabrics and walked out to the landing. The clock struck eight o’clock. If it weren’t for the fact that her father refused to go to sleep before the stroke of ten, she would have sold the thing long ago. She put the other piles of fabric down on the landing. Since she couldn’t come to a decision, it might be better if he made the choice for her. She paused at the door of the nursery, as she always did. She was about to turn away when she thought she heard something. Pressing her ear to the door, she listened. It was a muffled sound, one she couldn’t bring home. She took the key down from the nail and opened the door. Her father was sitting in his wheelchair in the middle of the room. He was wearing nothing but his white underpants and his diaper, and his scars were clearly visible. There were wads of cotton wool under the bands on his arms and legs. His body was drenched in sweat. His face was also wet. Not with sweat, but with tears.