A House Called Askival (12 page)

He spoke again, quietly, urgently. ‘And there is still time.'

They stopped at Mrs Chatterji's Antique Shop under the Clock Tower, where a satellite dish jutted from the wall and a goat bleated at the door. Inside, the gloomy cavern was crammed to the ceiling with the debris of the raj: china plates, snuff boxes and umbrella stands slumbering together under layers of dust. The first time Ruth had been here she must have been about seven and remembered playing with a prayer mat while her father stared at a mounted buck's head on the wall.

Today, the light was a jaundiced yellow, the air heavy with incense. The stock had not changed – most of it barely moved – and the woman with a gaunt face and stringy hair sitting hunched in the corner was unmistakeably the daughter of the first proprietor. She had a hairball dog in her lap and a nasty cough.

‘That is antique,' she said about everything Ruth touched. ‘Very expensive.'

The buck's head was gone and in its place hung a Mogul-style painting. Three be-jewelled men rode on camels across the desert, a domed city in the distance, a star above.

‘Looks like a Christmas card,' said Ruth, a little scornfully.

‘Journey of the Magi,' wheezed Miss Chatterji, pronouncing it
“Maggie” like the packet noodles. ‘This is silk, Madame, not card. Very famous painting. Everyone is wanting.'

‘I am thinking the Maggis were Sufi,' said Iqbal.

‘Really?'

‘Yes. Muslim mystics – like the dervishes,
na?
Whirling.' He circled a finger in the air, hips swishing.

‘Yes, but the Magi who visited Jesus were around before the Muslims.'

‘Ah, but the roots of Sufi are also before the Muslims.'

‘Muslims with a small “m”, eh?'

A rolling, drumbeat laugh. ‘Yes, yes!'

‘Cool,' she smiled wryly and looked back at the painting. ‘I love the camels best. All that high-stepping, haughty stuff. Wonderful.'

‘Very expensive,' came Miss Chatterji's thin voice, through a phlegmy spasm of coughs. The dog shook itself, an animated wig with a tinkling bell. ‘But I can give discount.'

‘No thanks,' said Ruth.

‘Are you knowing why the camel is proud?' asked Iqbal, a dimple forming in his cheek.

‘No.'

‘Because of the Beautiful Names of God.'

‘Oh?'

‘There are one hundred divine names and Allah – may His Name be praised – revealed 99 to his prophet Mohammed – may peace be upon him. But the last one he is telling only to the camel.'

Ruth grinned. ‘I like that.'

‘True story,' said Iqbal, with a tilt of his head.

She laughed.

In the afternoon the rain returned and they took shelter in Baba's Sweet Shop, settling onto benches at opposite sides of a laminate table, their bags and parcels pressed around their feet. Ruth had bought a stiff broom, a basin and a bottle of Dettol at Godiwala Plastics, whilst Iqbal's prize purchase was a glow-in-the-dark crucifix from Miss Chatterji's. He thought the Doctor-ji might like it. Ruth did not tell him otherwise or
that she'd known the original owner.

When a dark-skinned waiter with a withered foot had taken their order, Ruth picked up a newspaper on the table and scanned a feature on staying healthy and happy through Ramadan.

‘Hey, aren't you supposed to be fasting?' she asked.

Iqbal smiled sheepishly. ‘I'm not a very good Muslim.'

‘Doesn't bother me,' she shrugged. ‘I'm not a very good anything.'

‘This is not true, Rani! You are good at many things.'

‘Nothing that matters, Iqbal.'

‘What matters?'

She folded the newspaper and pushed it away. ‘I wish I knew.'

They were quiet for a moment.

‘You are coming here,' he said. ‘It matters very much.'

She wondered if Iqbal believed she'd come simply to provide comfort at James' final hour, or if he knew more?

‘So,' he asked, when their sweets arrived. ‘You will go back to Glasgow?'

‘I don't know.' She picked up a jalebi.

‘Doctor-ji thought you were at last happy.'

She laughed softly and took a bite, a squirt of sugar syrup hitting her chin. ‘Whatever that means,' she murmured.

Iqbal raised an eyebrow.

‘There's nothing to keep me there,' she said.

‘Where will you go?'

‘I have no idea.' She looked over his shoulder to the street outside. A giant bull was standing in the road on a diagonal, blocking traffic. As the rain poured over him, bleeding the puja powder on his forehead, the driver of a stuck car started honking his horn and shouting. The bull didn't budge but flicked his tail and let out a golden stream of piss.

At the top of Mullingar Hill they paused for breath. The rain was spent, clouds snagged on the slopes like fluffs of cotton from a beaten
razai
. Ruth pointed across to the tumble of Mullingar Hotel.

‘Is the Lhasa Café still there?'

‘I am not hearing, no,' said Iqbal. ‘You were frequenting?'

‘Ah… yeah,' she said. ‘Great momos.' She didn't mention the illegal fare that the sallow-faced owner had sold quietly alongside his steamed dumplings and chow-chow. She'd been introduced to it by the Australian boyfriend who took her into the back room on Saturdays for a joint, where they'd blown the smoke out the windows and giggled throatily as they ran their hands over each other's thighs. She'd returned many times and always had a little supply tucked into her sock drawer or the inner pocket of her handbag.

‘Many Tibetans are still abiding,' Iqbal said, ‘but not running café, I think.'

‘Right.'

She and Iqbal stood looking at Mullingar: school children straggling home in navy uniforms and ribbons, a motorbike careening past, three old men squatting with
bidis
. There was the sound of hammering on metal and the burning scream of an angle-grinder.

‘That is Malik's blacksmith,' said Iqbal. ‘On the very site of Captain Young's original stable.'

‘Who?'

‘You are not knowing? This man was first resident in Mussoorie and Mullingar is first house. His hunting lodge, only. Maybe he was friends with your Scotland Sahib from Askival.'

‘Yeah maybe.'

‘Captain Young is very
bara
Sahib. He is starting the Gurkhas, even. These Nepali wallas gave him such a thrashing he signed them up!' Iqbal clapped his hands together and laughed.

‘Huh. I never knew that. So the old bit at the back was his house?'

‘Yes, yes. And courtyard was potato garden. He is hailing from Ireland, you see.'

‘Oh, right. I always wondered where the name was from. But why the Hotel bit?'

‘Mullingar has been many things. Hunting lodge, orphanage, hotel. In war time it was hospital also.'

‘What a history. Somebody needs to look after that place.'

She turned and started walking up the path. Oaklands lay on the opposite ridge, laced with mist.

‘Are you looking round the school yet?' Iqbal asked, following her.

‘No.'

‘Why not?' He sounded astonished.

‘Haven't got round to it.'

‘You must see! So much is changed! Really fancy now.'

There was a pause. The path was narrow and covered with litter, the entire slope serving as a rubbish dump for the houses above.

‘Yeah, I will. Sometime.'

‘And you might be bumping with old school friends.'

‘Oh?'

‘There is one fine boy – Kashi Narayan. He is excellent artist and coming time to time for projects.'

‘Yeah, I remember him. Kinda sad, strange kid.'

‘No, no. Is very happy fellow. Always laughing.'

‘God, that's a change.'

‘Oh yes. I was working with him on big dance and music show one time. He is full of the joys.'

EIGHTEEN

Ruth hadn't known Kashi very well until
The Gospel of Jyoti
in their senior year. It was the kind of production that brought strangers together and tore friends apart. It was how she fell in love with Manveer and how she lost him.

Manveer had started at Oaklands in the seventh grade, but she'd paid him no attention at the time and he'd done nothing to gain it. They occupied different territory. Whilst he dwelt quietly on the social margins, she was firmly centre stage, talkative, pretty and colourful as the fringed scarves she wore. That was in the days when her bright plumage still hid her wounds and she could fool everyone that she was doing just fine. She had fooled herself.

Indeed, it was a bravura performance, gaining applause from parents, teachers and the missionary community at large. And an essential one, though at the beginning she didn't know it. She let the side down by weeping openly when she was first left in the dorm, aged six, and went on to cry every night till mouldy stains mushroomed on her pillow and her room-mates hissed at her to shut up. And she bubbled more at meal times, and when teachers rebuked her, and when the other girls were mean, which seemed like every day.

True, it was not all bad. She hurled herself into the skipping and
hopscotch, could rattle off the hand-clapping rhymes at high velocity and was a whiz at jacks. Tea in the afternoon was always accompanied by a square of cake or a handful of
namkin
and some teachers were kind and some girls friendly, at least some of the time. But none of it compensated for the ceaseless ache of homesickness that ran like a cold stream through her life, sometimes low and quiet, but easily rising and too often flooding.

In the second grade she tried to run away. She had rehearsed the route in her mind countless times: walk all the way through the bazaar to Paramount Picture House, get a bus to Dehra Dun, get a train to Kanpur, get a rickshaw home. Her pulse quickened as she imagined herself rounding the corner at the hospital gates and being swept into her mother's arms. But in the event she only got as far as the turning beyond the school when a truck sprayed her with filthy brown water. She ran back to the dorm, a mess of mud and tears, and was scolded, stripped, dressed in her pyjamas and made to sit alone through supper.

That night in bed she cried again and prayed for her mother to come. She was a passionate believer, though her faith was a potent cocktail of love and fear – a thing her elders would have deemed entirely appropriate.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
. But it was not making her wise. Just anxious. On the one hand, she loved the Lord Jesus when he appeared in soft blue robes with children on his lap and sheep across his shoulders. She pictured herself nestled against him when he told his stories, or helping him hand out the multiplying loaves, or dancing and whooping like a mad thing when he raised the centurion's daughter.

But several of the Oaklands teachers were at pains to remind her that He was Coming Back to Judge and she had better Be Ready. No More Mr Nice Guy. Worse still, He would deliberately time his arrival for the moment everyone was least expecting Him, just to catch them all out. Ruth's mind boggled. The chances of Him turning up while she was singing a hymn or reading the Bible where hopelessly slim. She sweated at the thought of all the other things she might be up to when He swept in. It put her in mind of the times she lifted rocks and watched the tiny critters beneath scrambling about in panic. Justifiable panic, as
it happened, because she usually stomped on them. What would Jesus the Judge do?

When Mrs Cornfoot took evening Devotions, she was clear: He would decide who went to Heaven or Hell. Though she had a few misty-eyed things to say about Heaven, it was her descriptions of Hell that were especially vivid and Ruth would sit with arms clenched around her nightie-clad knees, eyes watering with fear. The vital thing, it seemed, was to make sure you had said The Sinner's Prayer and asked Jesus into your heart. Then you were Saved and everything would be ok. This was a momentous and life-changing act and one should record it in the front of one's Bible and notify one's parents. (Perhaps for evidence, should there be any dispute on The Last Day.) Desperate that there be no doubt whatsoever, Ruth said the prayer fervently, wrote it down (in
CAPITAL LETTERS, UNDERLINED
) and wrote to her parents immediately, who duly rejoiced.

But she was plagued with doubts. Mrs Cornfoot had also said, in another Devotions, that God's ears are closed to the prayers of sinners. Then he can't have heard Ruth's prayer. And it can't have worked. She was too ashamed to admit this to any of the adults (who had somehow got around this logical impossibility) so she huddled under her covers at night and said it again, and again as quickly as possible, and again and again and again, desperately hoping that somehow, for even the slightest moment, she might no longer be classed a sinner or that God might experience a temporary reprieve in his deafness. She was never sure if it worked.

But she still believed. In God and his Providence; in her parents; in faith itself. After the initial devastation of boarding school, she came to accept that it was the necessary sacrifice for the Lord's work because without it, Mom and Dad couldn't run the hospital in Kanpur and preach the Gospel in its wards and corridors. This service to God was the purpose of life and nothing – not even family – should be placed above it. She sincerely believed this, and by enduring the homesickness she and Hannah were doing their part, taking up their own crosses. And she wanted to do that. She loved the Lord Jesus and wanted to obey him and give her life for him as he had given his for her. It made her
feel significant, gave meaning to the pain. Hers was not vain suffering, but purposeful, and Ruth could not help casting herself amongst the martyrs, the drama of her life helping her to bear it.

For a time, anyway. Until the drama became a sham to her and she could no longer stand her role in it nor have any faith in the script.

But back in the seventh grade (when Manveer first slipped quietly onto the scene, stage left, as it were, and Ruth barely noticed), she still believed and was still behaving herself. More or less. Trying, at any rate. She spoke politely to the staff, never swore (out loud) and followed Hannah up the hill on Sunday mornings to Morrison Church, still wearing a dress for the occasion.

But the strain was beginning to show. She was caught messing about in Study Hall once too often and made to sit alone. Her jumbled wardrobe, crammed with clothes and a mish-mash of possessions, always failed Cupboard Check, so she was confined to the dorm on Friday afternoons to tidy it. Worst of all, Hannah spotted her holding hands with a boy on Film Night and wrote home about it. In a reply from Ellen, which was neatly carbon-copied to Mrs Cornfoot, Ruth was banned from films for the rest of the semester and warned that if she could not keep her hands to herself then no doubt the dorm mother could find useful employment for them.

Indeed she could. Mrs Cornfoot thrust a square of sandpaper into the offending hands and sent Ruth to scrub off the graffiti in the Upper Dorm toilets. As Ruth worked, she cursed Oaklands and her parents with equal measure, not realising that with the scouring away of crudities on the cubicle walls there was an equal and opposite erasing of an inner text.

It was one she had never consciously questioned, instilled as it was from the cradle and reinforced by daily repetition. A text that was not just The Word, but also all the other words that rode along with it, like bus passengers clinging to the roof. A text by which all things were understood and measured, all things bound and loosed, all things named and known. It was also a text by which Ruth found herself increasingly accused and rarely acquitted.

Her parents claimed to take their Bible literally, but were selective in application. Although the Scriptures didn't mention boyfriends and dating, these were forbidden. And though the text did permit drinking and dancing, the Connors did not. This latter was particularly painful for Ruth. As a baby she'd started bouncing whenever she heard music, as a toddler she'd skipped and spun round till she was dizzy, and as a little girl had pinned scarves over her hair and performed the dances from weddings and festivals. Her parents had watched all of this with tender amusement and not refused the folk dancing in PE. Nor had they minded the early years of her Indian dance when it was just village lasses in full skirts chasing their goats. But it was disco that was definitely out. And jazz, and tap, and aerobics, and creative movement, and anything involving hip swinging or tight clothes. For Ruth, however, who longed to attend the discos that were the new privilege of seventh grade and to choreograph splashy items for the High School Talent Show, these bans were a great trial. And a test of faith. She was starting to see the discrepancies in her parents' Biblical code and it was eroding her own.

Along with dancing, for example, there was the scorn of jewellery, that had some basis in the Apostle Paul, but the Connors chose to ignore the prohibition, from the same pen, of women braiding their hair. Hannah's braids, in fact, were so long she could sit on them. They hung like glossy twists of treacle down her straight back, tasselled ends bouncing off her buttocks as she walked. Ruth's hair, on the other hand, was too curly and only got to her shoulder blades before growing out, like tumbleweed, so in the eighth grade she cut it into a layered cascade of curls and stretched a sparkly headband across her forehead like Jane Fonda. It was the envy of the dorm and the wounding of her parents.

But she had not cut off all her ties. She still believed and in this she was not alone. Oaklands was brimming with Belief. At least a third of the students were the children of missionaries like her – Mish Kids, they were called – though having Christian parents from Overseas was about all they had in common. Ruth certainly had little to share with Dorcas Fishbacker whose folks were Canadian Mennonite and even stricter than the Connors. Dorcas wasn't allowed to wear trousers or go to
any
social activities, in fact, wasn't even allowed to stay in boarding because of the potentially corrupting influences (like Ruth). Mrs Fishbacker, whose greying braids were always neatly pinned under a headscarf, stayed on the hillside year round while Mr Fishbacker came and went from whatever it was he did in the plains. Ruth wasn't sure, but it seemed to involve large trunk loads of Bible tracts. Dorcas called it Full Time Ministry, which distinguished it from what the Connors did, which was Ministry on the Side, as if it was a garnish or a blob of sauce, the main dish of their medical work clearly not counting.

Ruth met Dorcas' superiority with her own barbed pity. ‘You mean, you can't even go to the Valentine's Party?'

But she couldn't help noticing that, despite all her restrictions, Dorcas was happy. Smugly so. After all, she had the trump card: her parents. Sacrificing jeans and films was nothing to the loss of home. While Ruth and the others insisted on regaling her with tales of midnight feasts and shared wardrobes, Ruth knew whose lot she preferred.

At the opposite end of the missionary spectrum lurked Ben Lacey from the World Alight Mission. He wore a skull necklace, listened to the Doors and filled the margins of his notebooks with violent cartoons. Ruth couldn't wait to see his parents, but when they arrived at the end of the semester they were disappointing. Mr Lacey wore polyester trousers and Mrs Lacey was fat. But it made Ben's deviance all the more fascinating, so when his sweaty hand crept towards hers through the first reel of
Fiddler on the Roof
she did not ram her hand into a pocket but let it rest – available, delectable – on her knee, welcoming him with fingers wide. She never found out what Ben believed.

Oaklands was also roost to a sizeable flock of Asian Christians, although many kept their heads down and their wings folded. It was years, for instance, before Ruth realised that Matthew Sugitharaja from Sri Lanka was Methodist and knew more hymns by heart than her. Or that Lydia Lalvunga from Mizoram came from a whole tribe of Baptists. Frankincense from Calcutta, on the other hand, nailed her colours to the dorm wall on the first day of grade three in the form of a glow-in-the-dark crucifix. It terrified everyone except for Sita, who stirred it into
her dark and bubbling pot of horror stories. And then there was Thomas Verghese, Syrian Orthodox and claiming a religious heritage back to the first century. Thin and possessed of an electric energy, he cherished the prophecy – delivered at his christening – that he would one day be India's answer to Billy Graham. It proved not to be the answer anyone was expecting, but at that time, at least, they all still believed.

In various things. Though nominally a Christian school, well over half the students were not. “Non-Christians” they were called, though the likes of Thomas and the Fishbackers preferred the term “the lost.” To themselves they were Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, a handful of Jains and Zoroastrians, some Jews and one Ba'hai. Plus, of course, the “nothings” who apparently didn't believe in anything.

‘How can you believe in
nothing?
' Ruth asked Aulis Nikulainen after a Religious Education class where the Finnish boy had confessed to his parlous state. They were in the echoing racket of the school dining room eating a lunch of stale white rolls and runny mince.

‘It's better than believing in something that's not there!' he retorted and stalked off to the disposal hatch with his half-finished tray.

And then there was Kashi Narayan. With an Austrian hippy-turned-Buddhist nun for a mother and an Indian guru-turned-tour operator for a father – now divorced – he had been brought up in profound religious confusion. He did seem lost. Not so much that he'd gone astray, but more that he'd been abandoned: dropped in the wilderness of boarding school without map or compass while his mother turned prayer beads in a monastery in Dharamshala and his father ushered wealthy foreigners around temples. For Kashi, the fact that anything was possible meant that nothing was sure.