A House Called Askival (6 page)

Then she saw a picture of Hannah & Derek and her stomach clenched. There they were, in the back garden of their Tennessee home, arms bursting with their seven children, mostly red-heads like Derek, all clean-scrubbed and looking so happy and healthy and home-schooled that Ruth wanted to spit. And was at once ashamed. It was not their fault and, in truth, she loved them. And yet hated that smug Blessed-by-the-Lord! look stamped all over the picture, and the fact that not one of them was hers.

But when had Iqbal met them? She realised again how little she knew. How little she'd wanted to know. Or at least, that had been the message she'd given off, all these years, like a skunk's fierce smell.

She searched for a picture of herself, but when she couldn't find one, felt a pang of hurt and then scorn. Why would Iqbal have her picture? She'd never even acknowledged his existence. Hannah probably sent birthday cards and knitted socks.

Snorting, she started to undress, but felt suddenly exposed. She was an impostor in this man's den, humming with his presence and the spirits of all he had gathered here. It made her skin shrivel, the missionaries, the actresses and the man with the leprous mitts all watching as she tugged her t-shirt off and unclipped her bra, craning to see her pull down her jeans. Hannah and Derek, of all people! She turned her back on the faces, only to see herself in the mirror on the wardrobe door, naked now but for her underpants and her jewellery. She allowed herself a long, cruel stare. It was a map of loss. Her breasts hung tired and uneven on a torso that was too scrawny for the swell of hips and thighs. The once-taut stomach was slackened, having not pulled itself together after grief. She hadn't shaved for weeks and the growth on shins and armpits was a ragged black. Everywhere the slight coarsening of texture, the tide marks of age, the scars.

She leaned close to read a card that was sticky-taped onto one corner of the mirror. It was handwritten in a curly script:

Manveer had been Sikh. Though when his poor parents had come for his body, there would have been little sign of it. She shivered, her skin risen in bumps, feet like ice, and yanked on a fresh t-shirt. Dumping the bed cushions onto the floor – satin, frilly, embroidered – she was determined that all this would have to change tomorrow. There was something unbearably intimate about sleeping here surrounded by every expression of Iqbal's taste and affections, as if she was curling up in his mind. Tossing aside a small, ancient teddy bear, she peeled back the
razai
and saw the one thing that was not his.

Pink polka-dot sheets.

Did he know their heritage? How they'd gone with her into boarding, age six, and remained till she left. On that last day, her mother had ripped them off her bed, as if the sheets themselves had been the scene of desecration. They must have been left in India when their family stumbled back to America that bitter November of ‘84. Ellen had first bought those sheets from a Sears catalogue on furlough, persuading James that it wasn't luxury but frugality to buy things that would last.

They had outlasted Ellen.

Might outlast us all at this rate, thought Ruth, as she crawled in. Turning in the cool sheets, she suspected the sofa would have been more comfortable; the bed had a thin mattress on a hard base and a pillow that did not give under her head. And the sheets smelled of mothballs.

It was the smell of boarding school. The smell of everything she owned at the beginning of every semester, when she unpacked her things from the tin trunk that had been left in the attic at school. Crushed flannelette nighties, corduroys with patched knees, old sweaters and polka-dot sheets. In the early years, kneeling on the cold floor, she'd
tried to fold her clothes properly but ended up with messy bundles and a rising panic. What if she was scolded and made to do it again and not given any cake at Tea?

The trunk she'd brought from Kanpur was always better. Things lifted from it still smelled of life, of home: clothes washed in Surf and dried in the sun, peanut butter cookies, Mom's soft scent, Dad's coffee. Ruth would press her face into the Kanpur things and inhale, the ache in her chest tightening like a metal band. But the home smells soon died under the weight of the naphthalene that invaded her cupboard like a bad spirit and lingered over it for weeks. It was also the smell of the boys' toilets if you were walking past when a door swung open, and the smell that sunk like a rock in your stomach as you pulled on your missionary barrel clothes and the other girls snickered, and the smell of the night when you lay in bed and felt cracks forming inside you and the seeping of tears.

In her dream, the bell was ringing and Ruth was supposed to line up for school, but was far away on a narrow path of the hillside. Dad was in front, carrying her bag, and Mom was behind and they were all going to Kanpur. But then Ruth realised she was alone and knew she had done something wrong but didn't know what and wanted to say sorry, but couldn't go fast enough with her bumping, dragging bag. She had to get to the road before they got on the bus! The faster she ran, the more her things fell out and that was another wrong thing so she had to keep finding them – jeans, a teddy bear, baby clothes – but some tumbled down the
khud
and were out of reach and Iqbal came by singing. Then she was at school with everyone standing in line but she was naked and Hannah was the teacher and Ruth had forgotten her bag and forgotten Mom and Dad. So she ran again, and finally, she was on the
chakkar
walking to the house. The house at the end of the longest walk in the world, round so many twists and bends in the mountain that you thought you would never reach it. But it was always there, reeking with grief. And she knew Manveer was there and tried to run but her legs would not move at all, like the air had turned to
gur
, and she tried to call,
but the sound would not come till she pushed so hard it was like a groan from the grave but it was too late. He had gone.

She woke up drenched in sweat and tears, her chest heaving with sobs, hands gripping the
razai
that was pulled up around her head. Then she realised that her bed was completely soaked, her nightie clinging to her, the wetness still warm on her legs. She lay in the dark for the longest time. The dorm was quiet, except for the breathing from the bunk nearest her. Then someone rolled over and made lip-smacking noises. It was Sita. Somewhere else a snort, a cough. Way off, she could hear the faint ticking of the Kozy Korner clock that hung just outside Miss Joshi's door.

She could try to change the sheets in the dark, but then she remembered that her clean ones weren't back from the dhobi yet and the mattress was wet. Perhaps she could lay her towel over the wet spot? But then it would still soak through and she'd have to dry her face with a sour towel in the morning. She wished for Hannah, but Hannah was in the Dispensary with a tummy bug. Even more, she wished for Mom, but Mom was in Kanpur, asleep in the dusty house in the corner of the hospital compound, far, far away.

Carefully, quietly, Ruth peeled back the
razai
and climbed down the bunk, her wet nightie clinging to her legs. In the dark she couldn't find her slippers, so walked barefoot on the cold concrete floor, out of the Grade 1-2 cubicle and down the dorm to Kozy Korner. She stood for a while outside Miss Joshi's door, once again going over her options, but there didn't seem to be any.

She knocked,
very
softly. There was no sound from within. Her feet were going numb on the floor, her legs stinging and itchy now where the urine was drying. She knocked again, a little louder. Still nothing. Finally, taking a big breath, she rapped firmly, several times.

At last, a sound from within. A rustling.

‘Who's there?' Miss Joshi's voice was muffled by sleep and doors.

‘Ruth.' She was trying not to be too loud as the Grade 1-2 cubicle was just feet away and like all the cubes, only had cupboards for walls.
The whole dorm was one long room and you could hear everything from Kozy Korner at one end to the Grade 6 cube at the other.

‘What is it?' The voice was irritated now and no longer muffled.

‘I… um,' Ruth imagined the whole dorm awake now and lying with their ears pricked. ‘I've got a problem.'

There was a huff, a creaking of the bed and a rummaging around. Ruth heard the inner door of Miss Joshi's apartment opening and a switch snapping on. Light shot under the main door and over Ruth's icy toes. She heard Miss Joshi's footsteps across the room, the jingling of keys turning in the lock and the door yanking open. Silhouetted in the light, Miss Joshi's hair rose around her head in a frazzled mane, as if she had spent the night tearing at it. Her face was dark.

‘What?' she demanded.

‘I had an accident,' whispered Ruth.

‘What sort of accident?' Miss Joshi snorted, as if she couldn't possibly imagine.

Ruth dropped her head, gripping one hand in the other. ‘I wet my bed,' she mumbled.

‘Good God! Do you think I want to know about that in the middle of the night?'

Ruth was stumped.

‘Do you?!' Miss Joshi demanded.

‘No,' breathed Ruth, feeling her chest caving in.

‘And what do you think I'm supposed to do about it, hm? Turn all the lights on and wake everybody up so we can change your sheets?' Miss Joshi was reaching the pitch she employed for the dinner queue. She did not sound very worried about waking everybody up. ‘Is that what you think, huh?'

Ruth shook her head, tears turning the light at Miss Joshi's feet to a blur. Though she bit hard on her lip she couldn't stop the stinging in her nose or the wobbling of her breath.

‘Now go back to bed and we'll fix it in the morning,' Miss Joshi said, beginning to turn away.

‘But, my bed…' and Ruth broke, clutching her arms around herself as
she crumpled into sobs.

‘Oh God,' Miss Joshi hissed. She wavered, then leaned over and put a hand on Ruth's shoulder. Her voice was softer. ‘
Cha, cha, cha
now darling. Stop that now.'

But Ruth's crying had engulfed her and she could no more stop it than turn the tide. Miss Joshi bent awkwardly over her, a great bird in her fringed shawl, and wrapped her arms around Ruth's heaving shoulders. Ruth could feel her long nails as she patted her head and back.

‘Shush now,
beti
, shush now,' she clucked.

‘We'll think of something.' What Miss Joshi thought of was to rinse Ruth down with a couple of mugs of cold water – there was no hot at this time of night, but the icky-icky had to be removed – and to put her back to bed lying on top of her
razai
with another one as a cover, a spare she'd found in a cupboard.

‘Don't forget to strip your bed in the morning,' Miss Joshi whispered, pointing a dark talon at the polka dot sheets. Then she clutched Ruth's head in her hands and planted a wet smacking kiss on her forehead.

‘Sleep well now, darling.' Her breath was a curdling of stale tea and garlic.

Ruth listened to the sound of her rubber chappals slip-slapping back to her apartment, then rubbed her forehead and curled into a tight ball. She was naked and still cold from the dousing. The top
razai
was scratchy in places as though things had been spilled on it and dried like scabs. It smelled of mothballs.

NINE

James watched from his window at Askival as the Colonel and his wife came up the path, their labelled black umbrellas – BUNCE 1 and BUNCE 2 – bobbing above their ponchos. It was September 1947, monsoon and nearly dark. Mrs Bunce carried a torch, while the Colonel strode in front, striking and swinging his walking stick like a parade master's baton.

He propped it against a pillar on the veranda and stood billowing his umbrella in and out, gusting raindrops before him. James heard the squeal of the screen door and saw his mother stepping forward with out-flung arms.

‘Welcome, welcome!' Leota cried and helped Mrs Bunce with her poncho. ‘My, but if the heavens haven't opened today and spilled themselves! Come on in and get dry.'

James moved to his bedroom door and peered through a slit to the hallway where Mrs Bunce was pressing her powdered cheek to his mother's rough one.

‘Lovely to see you, Leota, dear,' she gushed, all scent and tinkling pearls.

‘Indeed!' said the Colonel as he snapped his heels and bent to kiss her hand. Leota cackled and led them through to the living room,
James slipping in behind. On a clear day, the French windows offered views across the Dehra Dun valley to the Siwalik Hills and sometimes a glimpse of the plains beyond. But tonight there was just cloud and rain. A leak in the roof pinged drops into a
dekchi
on the floor and a small puddle was forming on a windowsill. James felt the dampness of the air and remembered the Colonel's tales of the good old Rawley's roaring fires and hot chocolates shot with whisky. Now an iron
chula
squatted in front of the fireplace, rumbling and spitting and giving off an acrid smell as its wet wood struggled to burn.

Stanley appeared in the archway from his office and gave both guests a solemn nod and a handshake. James had never seen him kiss any woman – not even Leota – and was glad of it. He attempted to take the same approach, but found himself crushed against Mrs Bunce's bosom as she planted a lipsticky peck. Fighting the urge to wipe his cheek, he took the Colonel's out-thrust hand and was relieved to see no sign of the stick. After supper, he would show Bunce the newly mounted buck's head on his bedroom wall.

‘Evening, James!' Bunce barked. ‘Good day at school?'

‘Yes, sir.' He tried to find a place for his hands. At fifteen, he had become less and less at home in his own body as it kept outgrowing his clothes and his control. He was like a creature trapped, struggling not so much to get out of the cage as to master it. At last the adults settled into the fraying armchairs and he could sit down, hunkering back into his seat, hands tucked round his sides, feet sticking out like boats.

‘How are things, Colonel?' asked Leota as she moved amongst them with a tray of orange squash.

‘Bloody awful.' He knocked back his drink like a vodka and banged the glass down.

James shot a look at his father.

‘Just terrible,' murmured Mrs Bunce, looking into her squash and shaking her head.

‘Why ever?' asked Leota. ‘What's happened?'

‘I'm afraid the whole country's gone mad,' said Bunce. ‘Well, both countries, to be precise. It's a bloody disaster.'

Stanley cleared his throat. ‘Things are getting worse?'

‘Well, all the Mohammedans are trying to get into their Promised Land and all the Hindus and Sikhs are trying to come the other way, and they're rather colliding in the middle. Not a pretty sight, I can assure you.'

He took peanuts from a bowl near him and tossed them one by one into his mouth.

Mrs Bunce sighed. ‘We knew partition was never going to work,' she said, as if she herself had reluctantly allowed it. ‘Just like independence, really.'

‘They've only had it for three weeks.' Stanley looked at her across his massive hands, fingertips pressed together. ‘It's a little early to judge, don't you think?'

James slid his gaze from his father to the Bunces and back. Stanley never moderated his words for the sake of diplomacy. To the contrary, he seemed to regard it his God-given calling to wield the Sword of Truth whenever he caught a whiff of falsehood, half-truth or lame argument. James had felt its cut many times and had learnt extreme caution in the choosing of words. It had made him slow of speech, stuttering, strangled. Most often he sheltered in silence.

‘Supper ready, Memsahib,' announced Aziz, appearing in the archway between dining and living rooms, his apron a well-scrubbed white and tied neatly in a bow. It was his custom, whenever there was company, to discard the grease-splattered apron he'd worn for cooking, and to don a clean one for serving the meal. It matched his pearly teeth and the starched cap that sat at a jaunty angle on his black curls. The apron had also been used to wipe his glasses just prior to his entrance so that they, like everything else about him, shone. He smiled broadly as he stepped to one side with a small bow and a sweeping gesture towards the table. He had done his best with the few resources available. A slightly greying bed sheet served as table cloth, the cutlery was miss-matched but vigorously polished and he'd folded an assortment of napkins in the Delhi-restaurant style, though he had never been to Delhi. In the middle he'd set a vase of dahlias from the garden and on either side, a pair of candles flickered cheerfully in brass holders.

The Memsahib herself was uninterested in such ceremony, but Aziz had persuaded her to indulge his passion for it on special occasions. He also knew it would be every bit the expectation of Colonel Sahib and his wife, and although Memsahib Leota never did anything to impress anyone – least of all snooty Britishers – she let Aziz have his fancy table so long as no-one expected
her
to fuss with airs and graces.

As the party moved through to the dining room, Aziz stopped James with an arm around his shoulders.

‘Hungry, babu?' he asked, eyes twinkling.

‘
Bahot
hungry, ji!' James flushed and returned a lopsided smile.

‘
Accha, accha, bahot accha!
' Aziz slapped him on the belly. ‘I have yum yum
khana
for you. Sit, sit!' This had been their pre-supper exchange since James was a child but tonight Aziz sensed his discomfort. He saw the smirk on the Colonel's face and the frown on Stanley's and slipped back into the kitchen.

Behind the door he listened through the rain as the scraping of chairs fell silent and the blessing began. It used to be an unbearable moment as his perfectly timed dishes cooled in the long minutes of Stanley's prayer, but he had learnt to allow for the delay and to detect in the Sahib's cadences the final canter to the end. He had also learnt to adapt his planning when Stanley was away and Leota gave the blessing. Hers was always the same and always short:

‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.'

On such occasions, Aziz was indeed thankful. However, he did admire the Sahib's religious fervour and believed that rising to the demands of the situation was – along with artful table dressing – one of the many skills a good
khansamma
must possess.

As everyone murmured the Amen he lifted his tray of soup and after an appropriate pause for the party to drape Delhi-folded napkins across laps, he pushed through the swinging door.

‘Tomato Chowder!' he announced, lowering the tray to the sideboard. ‘Recipe of Mrs Wilhemina Klinkingbeard.'

‘Who?' asked Bunce. ‘Do we know her?'

‘No,' said Leota.

‘American Ladies Club of Lahore,' said Aziz, setting bowls of soup before each diner.

‘Eh?'

‘Somebody knew her and put her recipe in the book,' explained Leota

‘What book?' asked Bunce.

‘The Landour Community Cookbook, darling,' said Mrs Bunce, resting a hand on his arm. ‘It's what our
khansamma
uses all the time. Everybody up here does. Leota was the editor, weren't you, dear?'

‘I guess,' said Leota with a tip of her head.

The Book, as Aziz knew well, was the culinary bible of all hillside memsahibs and their cooks, providing tips on everything from baking at altitude to substitutes for cornstarch. His Memsahib had put it together fifteen years before with a bevy of missionary ladies who all spent their summers on the hillside and congregated at the Landour Community Centre to swap paperbacks, children's clothes and recipes. Aziz was steadily working his way through The Book with Leota, memorising each dish, as he could not read. His dream was to have one of his own creations included in the next edition, and to this end he committed many hours of diligent practice.

‘Boston Brown Bread!' he fluted, moving behind the diners, offering slabs of the thick loaf. ‘By Mrs Marjorie Humphwell.'

‘Thank-you, Aziz-ji,' said Leota. ‘It smells great.' She gave him a toothy smile, her face creasing into a map of contours and ridges in which the blue of her eyes almost vanished. Aziz bobbed his head, patted James on the back and disappeared through the door.

The boy took up a large spoonful of soup and slurped. He felt his mother's kick. Opposite him, Mrs Bunce was making delicate scoops into the outer side of her bowl and slipping the soup through her lips without a sound. The Colonel matched her. James watched his father, who being out of range of Leota's foot and authority, tore his bread in half and dipped. Mrs Bunce's eyebrows shot up. James suppressed a smile as Stanley pushed the soggy wad into his mouth.

‘So, Dick' he said, chewing. He had always refused to use the
Colonel's rank. ‘We've heard rumours. Give us the facts.'

The Colonel dabbed at his moustache with his napkin.

‘Well there are thousands – millions I shouldn't think – trailing across the desert to get to the other side. Jinnah's told the Mohammedans that they haven't got a future in India and likewise, the Hindus and Sikhs on his patch are trying to get out.'

‘But what about their homes, their farms?' asked Leota. ‘Are they leaving everything?'

‘They can't take the land with them, can they?' Bunce buttered his Boston Brown Bread with vigorous strokes and cut it into triangles.

‘But do they all wanna leave, or are they being forced off?' asked Stanley.

‘No edicts from on high, if that's what you mean,' replied Bunce. ‘But, seemingly, as soon as they got wind of partition, people thought the farms and businesses in Pakistan should automatically belong to the Mohammedans and the ones in India to Hindus and Sikhs, so they started attacking the owners if they were the wrong lot. So, forced off, yes, but by their neighbours.' He took a bite of bread, chewed with a snapping action of the jaw and swallowed. ‘And I'm sorry to say, it's all got rather bloody.'

James felt his bread stick in his throat. He looked at his mother. Her spoon was suspended half way between her bowl and her open mouth. Stanley's bread, wedged in his calloused fingers, was dripping tomato red onto the cloth.

‘What do you mean?' he asked.

‘Oh, everything you could imagine and worse. Setting fire to homes with families still inside, hacking people to death with knives, clubs, sticks – their own blighted fingernails, if they have to.'

There was silence. Outside, a low growl of thunder, like the beginnings of a rock-slide. The kitchen door swung open and Aziz appeared, his smile dimming at the sight of the unfinished soup.

‘Enough, Memsahib, or I come back?'

Leota looked questioningly around the table but no one wanted more.

‘Ah – yeah. No. We've had enough, thank you, ji,' she said.

‘That was
lovely
soup, Leota,' Mrs Bunce cooed. ‘
You
must have taught him that.'

‘Well… aha,' Leota replied, and wiped her mouth. Aziz cleared the bowls and swept out.

A scurry of wind rattled the windows and the rain thrummed. A candle sputtered. James felt the hardness of the chair against his bones.

Stanley spoke first. ‘There had already been so much trouble but we hoped independence might–'

‘Sadly, not. The violence is worse than ever and it's swept across the country. Mainly in the north, of course, and the Punjab is undoubtedly the most desperate. I've just come up from Amritsar, and I kid you not—'

‘Chicken Fried Walnut!' declared Aziz, entering with a steaming tray. ‘Leonard Peterson. First Prize!' He laid it in the centre of the table.

‘First Prize?' asked Bunce, peering down at the dish of crumbed joints garnished with tomato rosettes and fronds of carrot.

‘The school hobby show,' said Leota, distractedly.

‘1931,' confirmed Aziz, holding up a finger. ‘Every hobby show prize winner making in Book.'

‘Oh, I see,' said Bunce.

‘Beside with Oven Roast Potato and Spinach Greens!' Aziz set the vegetables on the table and beamed at everyone, confident that whatever had gone wrong with his Tomato Chowder would not be repeated with the main course. This one was Never Fail.

‘
Shukriya
, Aziz-ji,' Leota said, as he backed out with an incline of the head. ‘Margaret, please help yourself to some chicken.'

For a few blessed moments they managed to keep the conversation to exclamations over the food and complaints about the weather, but not for long. Stanley was impatient.

‘So what are you all doing about it?' he asked.

‘Not a great deal we can do, really.' Bunce sawed into his chicken. ‘It's got terribly out of control. Never seen anything like it. I tell you, I served in both the wars and nothing I witnessed there was as bad as this. Nothing.'

‘Really?' asked Leota, her sun-damaged face puckered, brows like
bunched knitting. She hadn't managed much of her chicken. ‘Do you mean …?' Her voice trailed off.

‘I mean everything,' said the Colonel, putting down his knife and fork. ‘Everything. Do you know, that on the day they celebrated independence, hordes of Sikh thugs went mad in a Mohammedan ghetto in Amritsar? Slaughtered every male and stripped the women. Raped them, dragged them to the courts of the Golden Temple, then cut their throats.'