Of Marriageable Age (67 page)

'This is India,' said Nat, and his eyes were serious. 'The real India, the India of the streets. I've often eaten here. Shall we go in?'

Saroj couldn't help it; disgust shuddered across her features, though she tried to hold it back. Nat chuckled and placed a protective arm around her.

'But I see it's too much to begin with. Come on, before you throw up.'

They walked for ten minutes down Mount Road, in silence. The pavement was packed with people jostling, pushing, scrambling, edging and even crawling past each other, humanity in rags and in riches, in grimy shirts and silk ones, bare-backed and half-naked, swathed in saris, in pristine white flowing kurtas or in ill-fitting buttonless pants and shirts, torn and patched or richly ornamented — humanity, swarming from the Wellington Talkies and from Ashoka Hot Meals and from Parvati Men's Suitings and from Ramlal's Electrical Supplies; buying combs and bras and soap-dishes and lottery tickets from roadside vendors; waiting at bus stops, descending from and mounting rickshaws…

Above the chaos of the streets enormous hoardings loomed over them, etched against the night sky and illuminated by floodlights, displaying, as if in another, serene, divine world far above the real one, pink-faced chubby-cheeked heroes, gazing languorously at voluptuous doe-eyed creamy-skinned belles in bosom-clinging, seam- splitting saris.

They passed beggars and cripples and a little boy with a fortune-telling bird, piles of refuse and a mother holding out a crippled baby, and Saroj felt India, Madras, a microcosm of all of India, reaching out to enfold her, and struggled against it, lost the struggle, struggled again. This is India... Nat had said. It is a part of you... do not reject it...'

But that's enough
, she thought,
I can't take any more
... just as they reached a hidden staircase between two shops, and Nat drew her in and up into the sanctuary of Buhari's restaurant, and quietude closed once more around them.

'How're you getting on?' He smiled at her across the white-clothed table, from behind his menu, and she thought he was laughing at her and her fickleness of mind. But he wasn't.

'I know, it's a shock, and I've thrown you right in at the deep end. But I know you'll swim, because I know you're strong enough to take it. I can't protect you, Saroj, not from anything, you have to see it all and know the worst, for this is India. There is no time capsule.'

She was silent. He continued.

'I highly recommend their Tandoori chicken. And they have the best sweet lassi in town.'

68

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

DAVID

Singapore; Madras, 1942-1945

F
RIDAY
, thirteenth February began inauspiciously, with the water supply to the Alexandra hospital cut off. David and the rest of the staff carried on as best they could, trying to ignore the pandemonium outside, the screech of air raids, the bursting of shells, the boom of mortar bombs.

The attack came out of the blue. All of a sudden the Alexandra swarmed with Japanese, waving their bayonets, running through the corridors and into the wards. Lt. Weston rushed to the rear entrance of the hospital waving the white flag of surrender and was rewarded with a bayonet plunged into his heart by the first Japanese to enter.

David was preparing for an operation in the theatre block when they kicked open the door and surrounded the group gathered round the operation table, shouting unintelligible orders. David, with all the others, immediately raised his hands. The Japanese continued to shout, waving their bayonets towards the door, shooing them out. The patient, unable to move, was disposed of with a bayonet through the heart.

The staff was herded into the corridor, pushed backwards, all with their hands up. Captain Smiley edged himself to the front and pointed to the Red Cross brassards on their arms and shouting the words 'Hospital, doctor,' but he might as well have shouted 'walkies' at a mad dog tearing a rabbit to pieces.

To David's horror Lieutenant Rogers, a friend of his, was bayoneted through the throat. Before his eyes his friends and colleagues fell bleeding to the ground as the Japanese, drunk with bloodlust, attacked again and again, indiscriminately plunging their bayonets into hearts, throats, heads.

Then it was David's turn. He saw the raised bayonet and the teeth of the grinning Japanese behind it, he saw the blood-stained blade descend as in slow motion, aimed straight at his heart. He saw his end coming and spoke a prayer; he felt the blade enter and fell on to the heap of bleeding bodies.

I am alive,
he thought, and wondered how this could be so. And then he realised the pain was in his arm.

How can that be,
thought David, and then he remembered the metal cigarette case in his left shirt-pocket. It had saved his life, deflecting the bayonet at the very last moment. By now his attacker had gone on to the next victim; through half-closed eyes David watched the massacre, listened to the bloodthirsty shouts of the Japanese and the cries of the dying. One soldier was checking to see that all were dead, kicking the bodies to see if they moved and finishing them off with a quick thrust of a bayonet. So David kept still. He felt a searing agony as the bayonet entered his foot and bit his teeth together so as not to scream.

He thought of Savitri.
There is a way of going beyond pain,
Savitri had said, and he tried to recall her method, but before he could do so he passed mercifully into unconsciousness.

The next party of Japanese was less bloodthirsty. Finding David alive, they took him prisoner. He was a doctor, and of value, so they amputated his foot and carted him off to Changi, where he became prison doctor. He survived that hell. At the end of the war David, more dead than alive, returned to Madras to pick up the pieces of his life.

T
HE FIRST PIECE
of information he picked up was devastating: in London a bomb had destroyed the house where his parents lived with Marjorie. All three were dead. David wept for the people whose lives he had ruined — for had he not run away with Savitri his parents would have spent the war in Madras, and been safe. He would never have met Marjorie, that innocent, sweet girl with dreams of romance with a man who could never love her as she deserved.

S
AVITRI HAD DISAPPEARED
off the face of the earth. David's enquiries revealed that almost all the women and children in her convoy had been killed, that her ship had been torpedoed, and had sunk. Desperately, he searched for news that she had been one of the lucky few to be rescued — but nobody had seen her. Surely she would have come back to Madras, to wait for him, if she were alive? And what about the child?

Through his British contacts he found out that Henry and June had emigrated to Australia just a few months previously.

Gopal. Where was Gopal? Gopal and Fiona? Nowhere to be found. It was as if everyone David had ever known in Madras had been wiped out. He went back to Fairwinds, just to remember.

'Fiona!'

The woman in the rocking chair glanced up and looked at him vaguely. 'Fiona, it's me!' he repeated, and ran up the steps to the verandah, expecting her to leap up and embrace him. But she remained seated, rocking back and forth in the ancient rattan rocking chair that had once been his mother's.

'Fiona! Speak to me! What's the matter?' He stood before her now and saw that she clasped something to her breast, something wrapped in rags.

'What's the matter, Fiona? Why won't you speak? It's me, David! I'm back!'

Something seemed to click then and she looked up and their eyes met and David saw that hers were vacant.

'David?' her voice was small and piping, almost like a child's.

'David.' She tried to stand up but slipped. David stretched out a hand for her and she took it and he helped her to her feet. The dirty bundle she kept hugged tightly to her chest, never loosening her grip.

'David,' she said for the third time. 'David. David. Have you met Paul? This is Paul. My baby.'

She held out the bundle then and David tried to take it but she pulled it back, but David had seen enough. It was a doll, a grubby-faced doll.

'Fiona,' he said gently. 'What has happened to you? Where's Gopal? Where's Savitri?'

'Gopal? Savitri?' She paused, as if thinking. And then she shook her head, slowly, sadly. 'All gone,' she said. 'All gone. Gopal. Savitri. Nataraj. All gone. Mani has won. I am scum. Dirty scum. He has left me with Paul. Paul is all I have.'

David took hold of her shoulders, shook her gently. 'Fiona, please, please talk to me, try to remember. Where is Gopal? Where is Savitri! Tell me! Who is here with you? Are you alone? Does Gopal live here too? Who looks after you?'

Fiona shook her head again. 'No Gopal. No Savitri. No Nataraj. Only Paul is left. My dear Paul.' She looked down at the doll and smiled lovingly and crooned, and David knew he would get no sensible answers from her.

He looked around. Fairwinds was overgrown, true, but this side of the verandah appeared clean and well-kept, the area before it had been freshly swept. Fiona's clothes were old, but clean, her hair was neat, she appeared to be well-fed. Somebody must live here with her, to take care of her. He went in search of that somebody. In the kitchen he found a woman, lying on a mat in the corner, sleeping. He woke her and she stood up, rubbing her eyes. A short exchange in Tamil, and he knew that Gopal had arranged for Fiona to live here and be cared for, but that he himself was, most probably, in Bombay. And that Mani was responsible for everything. For stealing Paul, and another baby, Fiona's nephew. Nataraj.

D
AVID FOUND
M
ANI
. Mani sneered for a while, coughed, and told David that Savitri was safely married on the other side of the world.

'And what of her baby? She was pregnant when she left me. What became of her child?'

He kept his voice low, calm, respectful. He needed information that only Mani could give. And though he trembled with rage inside, he maintained a façade of composed

pleasantness. He needed Mani to talk.

Mani, enjoying his power over David, sneered again and mocked while David begged. And when it became clear that David would do anything to find Nataraj a certain gleam entered Mani's eye and he said: 'What will you give me for Nataraj's address?'

'I will give you money! A
lakh
of rupees!'

'A
lakh!'
Mani laughed but his laughter turned into a violent cough that racked his body. When he came to himself he said, 'A
lakh
is a joke. Is your bastard son worth no more than a
lakh
to you?'

'Five
lakhs!'

Mani shook his head. 'I need more than that. I need a fortune. I am sick and I need a doctor. I need money to pay for the best doctor money can buy. I will go to England, to America, in search of a doctor and for that I need money. Ten
lakhs
of rupees, in British pounds. I know that is nothing to you.'

M
ANI WROTE
down an address for David. David fetched the little boy to Fairwinds.

A week later Gopal turned up, out of the blue. He saw the child Nat and cried, 'But Nataraj is dead! Mani showed Savitri the cremation papers, before she left India! This is Paul, my son!'

David shook his head. 'He was only making sure she'd never return to Madras. This is Nataraj, my son. It is your son who is dead. Paul.' But he said it with guilt. There was the note; the scribbled one Mother Immaculata had given him.
Paul,
it had said; and
“Mother insane.”
He had tried to argue with Mother Immaculate, but it wasn’t her fault of course. It was Mani’s. A mix-up. The child was his, and Savitri’s. He knew it.

But Gopal looked at the creamy-coloured little boy and saw another truth. 'I know that this is my son. What a trick of fate! For I cannot keep him; at the moment I am without job, without wife, I have no-one to take care of him. But, David, you are rich. You can provide a good education for my boy. You keep him. I will let you have him. I will even let you call him Nataraj. But in my heart I know he is Paul. My heart tells me the truth.'

69

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

SAROJ

Madras State, 1971

'
I
N
S
OUTH
I
NDIA
you order coffee by the yard, not the cup!' Nat pointed to the man at the next table, who expertly whipped his coffee back and forth between two stainless steel mugs. The coffee was merely a long brown streak plunging from vessel to vessel, a steaming ribbon of liquid, trapping the cooler air into crests of froth before being flung out again and into free fall, caught and flung and caught again.

A grinning youth in torn khaki shorts and a grubby singlet walked over with their own coffee, ready milked and sugared. Both stainless-steel mugs stood upside down in wider, shorter stainless steel vessels. Saroj looked into hers. There was no coffee in it. She looked up at Nat questioningly.

Nat raised his upside-down mug and coffee plopped out into the lower, wider vessel. He poured coffee into the mug, lifted it half a yard above his tilted head, opened his mouth and poured. Saroj tried to do the same but missed and coffee rolled down the sides of her chin. She spluttered and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

'Why can't they just do things the normal way here?'

'This is normal, dear! Didn't your mother raise you properly? One of the rules for drinking in public is never touch a vessel with your lips. You
pour.
That way the cups stay germ-free. Ingenious, isn't it?'

'Yes, well. Considering that they're all washed in the same dirty water afterwards.' She glanced with distaste at the plastic basin where the boy was now busy washing the mugs, dipping them in and standing them on the counter to be reused.