Of Marriageable Age (56 page)

'Cross-cousin marriages are highly auspicious!' cried Gopal. 'Most auspicious. And moreover, this girl is…'

Ganesh interrupted, 'Don't worry, Nat. Apart from all your objections, Nat, Saroj herself has no intention whatsoever of marrying. I saw her myself yesterday; why don't you admit it, Gopal, she sent you packing! I could have warned you! You know what they used to call her at school? The Ice Queen. And she hasn't changed one bit since then. If anything she's worse.'

'Yes, she is rather uppity,' added Gopal, wrinkling his forehead in vague concern.

'Sounds really delightful,' chuckled Nat. 'I must say, Ganesh, as a go-between you're not much use!'

'Oh well, I tried my best,' sighed Ganesh. 'But I must say, Nat, compared to some of the prospective bridegrooms she's had, I wouldn't mind you as brother-in-law.'

'You'll have to make do with me as cousin.'

T
WO DAYS LATER
G
OPAL
, deeply disappointed at the failure of his mission, returned to India and faded into the past. Nat was not sorry to see him go.

As for Saroj, she applied herself to her studies with doubled zeal. But Ganesh and Nat remained the best of friends.

52

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

SAVITRI

Singapore, 1941-1942

S
EVERAL MONTHS PASSED BEFORE
, like a gift presented to them on a silver platter, David and Savitri had a free weekend — together.

Friends of David's, an English family in the rubber trade, owned a beach bungalow near Changi. The women and children of the family had been evacuated to America, and the man had no interest in going to the beach alone — especially not at a time like this. He gave David the key.

One Friday afternoon David picked up Savitri in an old Morris borrowed from a doctor friend, and drove her out to the beach. They had no need of speech. David laid a hand on her knee, which she covered with her own slim, long-fingered hand, and their fingers played together gently as David drove. Now and again they glanced at each other, their heads turning towards each other as if at a signal only heard by them, their eyes meeting and smiling for a moment of accord, and turning away again, David's to the road ahead, Savitri's to the roadside, where fleeting scenes of Singaporean life slipped past her window.

Arriving at the bungalow, David slung their two overnight bags across his shoulder, took her hand, and led her up the wooden steps on to the verandah. A slight breeze, cooling and fresh, played with the hem of Savitri's sari, and she laughed out loud in a spontaneous outburst of unalloyed joy, throwing her arms up above her head and flinging them around David.

'Oh, David, David! This is paradise! I can't believe it — alone at last, in this heaven, just the sea, and the sky, and us!'

David laughed too, clasped her around her waist, and lifted her as if she were a feather: he swung her around, faster and faster, till he stumbled against the verandah's railing and they collapsed in a helpless heap of laughter on the floor. Then, again as if to a secret signal, they both, in unison, stopped laughing. Savitri lay still on the floor, her hair, shaken out of its chaste knot, fanned out around her face. She looked up at him, propped on his arms above her, flooding her with a silent love so profound, so brimful of joy, she could not bear it and closed her eyes. She felt him kiss her eyelids, gently, like the brush of a butterfly's wing. And then her lips, her forehead, her cheeks and chin.

'Two days, two nights. Just us, the sea, and the sky,' David murmured. 'I can't believe it.'

Eyes still closed, Savitri smiled.

'But it's true.'

T
HE MORNING
they left the beach hut David told Savitri: 'I've made my decision, Sav. I've written to Marjorie. I told her about you, that you're here, that I love you and always have, and want to marry you. I asked her for a divorce. When this war's over, Sav, we'll marry, and that's why I want you to leave Singapore. For me.'

Tears gathered in Savitri's eyes. She said nothing, only shook her head. 'I can't go, David. I’ve only just found you—how can I leave you again, just to save my own hide? Leave you in a war zone? What else have I to live for? And it's not just about you. My patients… how can I leave them? My whole life is here, now.'

They drove back to the city without speaking another word. When they got back they heard the news: Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, and the war was upon them.

A
ROUND THEM THE
world was falling apart. Japanese air raids left devastation in their wake. Both General Hospital and the Alexandra were full to overflowing with the wounded, either from the raids or with injured soldiers brought in by the trainload from Malaya; the ambulances lined up at the railway station, waiting to rush the wounded to the various hospitals.

Savitri became an expert at changing dressings. Night after night she walked the wards, lighting her way with a torch, stopping at each wounded man, bending over him, speaking words of comfort, and with a pair of forceps carefully removed the maggots from his open wounds, laying them in a kidney basin, maggots hatched from the eggs laid by the ever-present flies. She lost count of the patients dying in her hands. Their bodies too destroyed for those hands to heal, all she could do was bring them peace in their last moments. No miracles of healing occurred. But Savitri's presence alone alleviated pain and suffering. The warmth of her voice, the compassion in her eyes, the gentleness of her touch — it was what her patients waited for day after day, and that was the true miracle.

Women and children were being evacuated from Singapore. Mrs Rabindranath, at the insistence of her husband, left. David again begged Savitri to leave. She refused.

Her eyes brimmed with tears. 'I can't, David. Don't ask me to go. How can I leave you! My patients!'

'Sav, listen: you must go. Really. It's our only chance! Look, don't worry about me. When the Japs take Singapore — not
if,
but
when
— I'll be interned. I'll be safe — but you, as a woman, a civilian, a foreigner! Foreign women will be raped and killed. Our only chance at a future is for you to leave, Sav.'

She would not answer, but only shook her head.

'Think of our future, Sav. When the war's over we'll marry and have children. Go back to Henry and June, wait for me in Madras. Please. I beg you! I'll come when this madness is over. I'll be safe as a prisoner of war — but your only chance is in leaving.'

But again, she only shook her head, wordlessly. He wept then, and so did she. They wept for they both knew that the end was near, and both knew that for all their planning and all their hoping there was nothing they could do, no trump could cancel the evil that was round about them, in the very air they breathed, and waiting around the corner.

R
OOMS AND CORRIDORS
of the General Hospital were packed to overflowing. By the end of January 1942 over ten thousand sick and wounded had been evacuated from the Malayan mainland. Savage air-raids, round the clock, played havoc with Singapore city: the menacing screech of sirens followed by a never-ending, sinister silence and then the blast of a bomb, somewhere, near, nearer. Screams and cries, the whimpering of the dying, feet running, the cry of a lost child among the ruins. Noise, fire, blood, dying, dead. Pandemonium. The noose tightened around Singapore.

Amidst it all, war's silent soldiers fought on: the nurses, military, civilian, and volunteers. Husbands sent their wives out on the last ships leaving. Many refused to leave.

'I beg you, Sav. Go!'

'No.'

O
N THE EVENING
of the twelfth Savitri was waiting outside the Alexandra as a weary David left the hospital. She collapsed against him; he folded his arms around her.

'Oh David, David!' she sobbed. 'They've gone! All the army nurses and sisters have gone! They've been taken away secretly, leaving us volunteers to do all the work ... but we can't! So many of us are untrained, we just can't cope! They promised they'd let them stay and that's why we stayed and now they're all gone!'

'And you go too! Tomorrow!' David knew he had won. Savitri had broken.

'Yes. Yes. You're right. I have to go. I would have stayed even now but — oh David, I'm going to have a baby!'

David's cry of relief made her look up at him, and she couldn't help smiling at his joy. 'Thank goodness! Oh, thank God! I've been hoping, praying you'd be pregnant. I knew there'd be no other reason on earth for you to leave Singapore! Why didn't you tell me before? Are you certain?'

'I'm certain, I know the signs. I didn't want to tell you before — I knew you'd force me to go and I had to make the decision myself. I'd have stayed, David; I couldn't choose to flee, not even for the baby's sake. But when I heard how the Army deceived us, I just broke down. And I want this child. I do want this child, so much! So I'll go.'

'What a cockup!' said David. 'What a betrayal. But if that's what it takes to get you out then I can only say, in all selfishness, Sav, thank goodness.'

53

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

NAT

London, 1970

G
ANESH BECAME
the first male friend Nat made in all his years in London, and though they were quite different in their goals and their outlook, there was an unspoken understanding between them, a bond, the comfortable feeling of being able to be oneself in the presence of the other, almost as if they were brothers. After all, they were cousins— and that explained it.

They had a similar sense of humour, a similar lightness of being. They sat for hours on the patch of grass behind Ganesh's Richmond home and philosophised about the nature of God, the universe, man, woman, the human soul, and the English, sipping rum-and-coke and nibbling the samosas Ganesh had conjured in Walter's kitchen. Nat told Ganesh about his father, the village, the work, his studies, his dream. Ganesh told Nat about his father, his mother, his sisters, his home, but did not show him any photographs, which might have explained much, and concluded more. Hearing that Ganesh was out of work, and destitute, Nat got him a job as a cook at Bharat Catering. However, they lived too far apart, Nat in Notting Hill Gate and Ganesh in Richmond, to see each other often.

Ganesh invited Nat to his birthday party. Saroj refused to attend because Deodat would also be present. Ganesh must choose between her and Deodat, she said petulantly, yet was peeved when he chose their father.

'He's changed, Saroj! Why don't you just come and see how he's changed! He's just a broken old man now. He's got heart problems, and he knows nobody wants him. If you came it would lighten up his life. He's always talking about you and why you don't come to visit.'

'Is he? Well, I'm glad to hear that. And no, I won't come. If you choose to invite him then that's fine with me. But you won't see me there. It doesn't matter all that much, Gan. Don’t take it personally; I don't go to parties anyway, and I hate these gatherings of relatives.'

Nat went to Ganesh's party and with the trained eye of a waiter noticed an old man sitting on an armchair in a corner, all by himself, with nothing to eat. He approached the old man, sat down next to him, and introduced himself.

'Can I get you some food?' he offered, smiling the heartiest of smiles. The old man looked up and said:

'Thank you, thank you, very kind. The young people have no manners these days. No respect for their elders. Please. I would like to take food. But that Evelyn isn't a good cook. My departed wife was an excellent cook. What did you say your name was? Are you a relative? Are you married? Where do you come from?'

Nat brought the old man a plate of cold food and settled in for a long conversation, which he could see the old man was yearning for. The old man's eyes lit up when he heard Nat was from India.

'From Tamil Nad? What? My departed wife was from there too! Tell me, do you speak any Hindi?'

The rest of the conversation, which continued all evening, was in Hindi.

N
AT GREW STRONG AND SILENT
. He gave his full attention to medicine, cutting off almost all other activities. He no longer worked for Bharat Catering, for he had no time at this stage of his education. However, he did find time to visit the old man he had met at Ganesh's birthday party. That old man — it turned out that he was actually Ganesh's father — delighted in his company, for kindness and attention were qualities he sorely missed, and which came naturally to Nat. Nobody listened to Deodat these days; nobody cared, except that young man whose warmth and consideration could melt icebergs.

The old man spoke of the loved ones he had lost: the wife to death, the daughter to hatred. He spoke of the grave mistakes he had made in his life, and of the burning guilt that ate at his innards day after day, of the vengeful God who granted no relief.

'I am a cruel man, a wicked man,' the old man wailed. 'I pray daily to God for forgiveness but there is none. He has taken my loved ones from me in punishment. I only long for death to release me from this vale of sorrow. He granted me a saint for a wife but I sinned against her gravely. A woman pure as a lily whom I sullied with my harshness and thus God removed her from me and took her to Himself. Oh, if only He would take me to Himself ! But I have an unmarried daughter. The duty of a father is to see his daughters married. If I die before my daughter marries I will not have done my duty. But she will not marry a man of my choice. She hates me, and it is through my own doing, my own harshness. How can I tell her I was only harsh through an abundance of love?'

And Nat held the old man's hand and soothed him and told him of India, spoke to him in Hindi, and now and then made the old man laugh, and healing flowed into the old man's heart.

'You and the old man get on famously,' Ganesh commented. 'What on earth do the two of you talk about?'

'Oh, just things,' said Nat.