Under the Jeweled Sky (28 page)

A terrible silence filled the hallway. Lucien pulled his coat on and glared at her, cold as a winter wind, biting into her like she had lost her mind. Perhaps she had, she thought. She couldn't even remember what they were arguing about. Her head emptied and she stood there, heat running through her veins.

Lucien threw his scarf around his neck, not once taking his eyes from her.

“I'm going out,” he said. “And I suggest you go to bed and sleep off whatever it is that you've been drinking today.”

• • •

The shouting had stopped. Jagaan stood rigid, his blood rising as he watched the silhouettes behind the vented shutters. If only he had got to her earlier. If only he had not lost sight of the doctor, he might have found her sooner.

The door to number four opened. Jagaan stepped back into the shadows and watched the man as he walked around the side of the house, calling for his driver. A light went on upstairs and he saw her at the window, wearing a yellow dress with white flowers and a blue sash that went up from her waist around her shoulder. She was pulling a pin from her hair. Her head was bowed, her hands coming to her face, and she stood there like that for a moment before turning away, the lights going on in the room beyond.

An engine started, the car sliding slowly to the front of number four, where the husband got in and rode away, leaving Jagaan standing there, looking up at the light spilling softly from the bedroom window. Be strong, he said to her, for I am close by and I will find a way to make this right. Through the cold evening mist, he saw her come back to the window and close the shutters.

It was the nighttime that Sophie found hard to bear, the sorrow that crept through the cool walls as the moon rose. Some wailed unashamedly, others shed silent tears beneath their covers when no one was looking. Sophie's own eyes remained dry, like the dust that circled the upper rooms, blowing in through the open windows with each hot gust thrown in from the desert plains. With March had come the change in season, the heat beginning to climb. Sometimes she would wander through the house, running her fingers across the walls, tracing the outline of the shelves, every surface yielding the same fine patina, leaving her fingertips tinged rust red. She would lift her hands to her nose, taking in the aroma of ancient winds that moved the soil from one parched land to another. It grounded her, the scent of the earth, and she told herself that this too would pass.

It was as though she had become someone else, someone different. She didn't feel like herself at all, even when she lay down to rest and the thoughts came flooding in: thoughts of her childhood, her years at school, the war, the palace, the water garden. She thought of Jag too, missing him so badly that it caused her heart to contract painfully. But the memories did not belong to her, they belonged to someone else, someone she had once known before she went away. That girl had gone now and would never return. Sophie had only to look in the mirror to know.

The saris had proved a godsend from the moment Mrs. Chowduray in the dak bungalow offered up one of her own that morning two months ago when Sophie had struggled hopelessly to fasten her dress, crying her frustration. She had spent her last few weeks at the palace held together with threads and pins, her mother refusing to acknowledge the issue of her growing figure, leaving her to weep over her daily wardrobe agonies alone. Sophie had been reduced to conjuring whatever outfit she could squeeze into, regardless of its ugliness, her mother as good as gloating when she appeared looking like a heap of rags. On that morning in the dak bungalow when nothing could be cajoled into submission, Sophie had finally broken down, throwing her useless dress aside before shutting herself in the washroom.

Mrs. Chowduray had been swift in her rescue. Wife of the local postmaster, she knew about the mission. Everybody around here did. Sophie was not the first of her boarding guests to have passed through hiding a secret child. After coaxing Sophie out of the washroom, Mrs. Chowduray had gathered her into comforting arms, hushing her not to worry, and had dressed her with gentle hands, speaking softly, smiling as she pulled her into a short white
choli
, settling the sky-blue cotton of the sari around her middle and over her shoulder. The fabric had held the faint perfume of cloves, enveloping Sophie in its scent as the woman lifted the final fold over her head.

At first Sophie had felt naked, unused to the absence of tailoring, the air touching her skin where it should not. She felt the unfamiliar garment around her uncertainly, a piece of cloth wrapped about her with nothing beneath it but a brief cotton blouse and a loosely tied slip. It had felt wrong, giving her the sensation that the whole arrangement could slide from her body and settle at the floor around her feet at any moment. When she finally dared to step out of the washroom and saw her reflection in the window by the door, covered from head to toe in folds of white and blue, nothing visible of her remained.

Sophie had become used to her new clothes. They forced a certain serenity in her movement as she walked barefooted through the house, venturing into the courtyard now and then to scatter crumbs to the squabbling sparrows. She kept her head veiled always. It gave her a sense of protection. Beneath its canopy, nothing could touch her. Nobody could hear her thoughts.

If only she had known that she loved him. If only. But she hadn't understood what it was, not then. She had been young and confused and unaware of what she was feeling and what it meant, and now it was too late. It had come out of nowhere and she hadn't expected it. Nobody had told her. Nobody. Not even in the great love stories of the books she had read. You were supposed to know when you were in love. You were supposed to recognize the signs and feel the unmistakable feelings she had heard about. But she hadn't known. She hadn't known anything. For God's sake, why did nobody tell her that love creeps in when you are not looking? Perhaps it could have been so different, if only she had known.

The baby moved inside her, content in her womb, her swollen belly uncomfortable for a brief moment. Sophie straightened herself, leaning one hand to the wall, arching the ache from her back. She was hungry, with a yen for mashed banana and coconut milk. She would eat now, then rest through the heat of the afternoon and wake as the sun sank away to the west, releasing the pressure cooker.

“Sophie!” The girl called Lotus waved a coconut from the kitchen door. Lotus wasn't her real name. It was a courtesy extended to all the girls who came there, to preserve their anonymity if they so wished; they were encouraged to choose a new name to go by before entering the household. They didn't have to, but the advice was always dispensed with a sense of gravitas in protection of their futures. For those who couldn't think of a name to call themselves, Miss Pinto would suggest they pick their favorite flower, hence all the Roses and Irises and Violets who had passed through these walls. Sophie had refused the offer. She felt so unlike herself anyway, so alien, that she feared she would disappear entirely if she relinquished her name. One girl had decided to call herself Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpel, as she became known, wasn't one of the criers. She was hard, like stone. Lotus, on the other hand, was soft as butter. It was as though she had more love inside her than she knew what to do with.

They were not supposed to ask each other what had brought them there, but everybody did, so word got around just the same. It was as though this place did not exist, their time here a temporary suspension of the ordinary world, a layer between heaven and earth that nobody else could ever know or understand. Once the heavy door of St. Bride's had closed behind them, everything beyond its sunburnt cracks simply evaporated in the heat. There was no world other than this. Within these walls they remained, babies growing, wanted or unwanted. There was nothing else, just the unborn, making their way into this world. And while they waited to be birthed and given away, their mothers talked.

Rumpel was due any day now. She was huge, the distortion of her belly frightening the other girls who still had some way to go. She didn't say much, but when Lotus asked her if she too would get that big, Rumpel had smiled kindly. “No,” she had said. “You won't get this big, petal. It's just me, you see. I've got two of them in here.”

No one was regarded as staff, not even the ones who lived there only to serve. Jinty, the cook, had been at the mission for nearly fifteen years, having had nowhere else to go after her baby came. She had consoled herself in the kitchen ever since, nurturing every dish with a mother's love.

Ruth, a sturdy widow now well into her sixties, had arrived out of nowhere just before the war broke out. She had heard about the mission from a friend of hers in Calcutta. Ruth had been dreading the prospect of a long, lonely retirement without her husband and had spontaneously packed her things one day and got on a boat before her children could get wind of what she was up to. She had heard them talking about her like some kind of unwanted parcel, too old to be of any use except to watch over her three beastly grandsons. There were plans afoot to ship her back to England and move her into a granny flat beside her son's house in Hove, and she had absolutely no intention of ever subjecting herself to an English winter again.

To run away had seemed like the perfect solution. Ruth had only intended to stay for a while, just to teach her children a lesson and to make herself useful while she decided what to do about her future, but one thing had led to another, and she kept forgetting to leave. There was always somebody wanting for something, and it was nice to feel needed.

The housemaid, Roopa, a quiet girl who was not entirely sure of her age, had not been there for long. Her baby had been born the previous spring and promised to a childless couple from Talcher. They had been overjoyed to receive news of such a gift, a perfect baby boy with ten fingers and ten toes and a soft cry, and had pledged a generous gift of money to the infant's mother to help her to make a new beginning somewhere. They had arrived the night before the handover, staying at the dak bungalow with Mrs. Chowduray, and had given a solemn promise to love the child and raise him well. Roopa had heard none of this first hand. The mother was never permitted to meet outsiders or to be present when a baby was given away. Not only was it too painful for her, it was also uncomfortable for the adopters, their minds usually set on the convenient provision of a child to call their own. The mother did not exist, as far as they were concerned. She did not want the child, therefore she had no right of claim over it.

There was a special room in the house on the first floor with a door that opened out on to a small balcony overlooking the courtyard, flanked by windows on either side. The mother and baby room was painted powder blue. It had a carved wooden bed with a large, comfortable mattress dressed with crisp white sheets and plenty of big soft cushions. Pictures of gods and goddesses and mythical animals adorned the pastel walls; pieces of colored glass were threaded through and hung from the ceiling, catching the sunlight as it passed through them, throwing brightly colored reflections around the room. There was a side table against one wall with an enamel basin for bathing the infant and a small chest for clean linens. It was in this room that each baby spent its short time with its mother, a place to whisper secrets and promises. Nobody was allowed to enter the room except Miss Pinto and her daughter. They cleaned it every day, opening the door to the balcony to invite the day's air, allowing the girls in the courtyard to look up and catch a glimpse of the colored glass baubles glinting, knowing the time would come when they too could lie for a few days, perhaps daring to dream. It was the only room in the house where they would be acknowledged as mother and child and given as much privacy or comfort as they wanted. Behind its door, they would have to make their peace with their baby's destiny.

• • •

Sophie had found a rare companionship in the unlikely mixture of girls in the mission. One way or another, they were all in the same boat, and it was a relief to shake off the overcoat of shame she had worn so heavily. They had nothing to be ashamed of, because they all were God's children, even the unborn. Miss Pinto reminded them of this every day and took care to point out that Adam and Eve had not been married. She had a habit of dipping in and out of the teachings of various religions, occasionally choosing to amend or reinterpret the ancient scriptures to better suit the purpose of her lessons.

The mission ran to a loosely held daily routine. Breakfast at eight, consisting of porridge or
dosas
, thin rice pancakes filled with whatever was left of the previous night's supper. Before then, anyone who got up in time would be expected to join Miss Pinto in the courtyard for yoga. At first, Sophie had felt too self-conscious to join in, watching instead from the window of the shared bedroom on the first floor. Miss Pinto could fold herself into any position at will, exerting no effort at all as she bent to the ground or stood on one leg with her eyes closed, hands raised to the sky while her charges laughed and wobbled before giving up. Miss Pinto would open one eye and smile a little before releasing her pose.

Sophie had never known a household like this, where everyone rubbed along together just fine. There were no eggshells to walk over, no angry silences. She had held the same feeling in the pit of her stomach ever since she could remember, like a gutful of sand churning constantly down a cold riverbed. It followed her every day, every night, the shadow of a sinister malevolence, knowing that the blade could fall at any moment. She had become used to it, living in a permanent state of readiness to bear whatever onslaught might be about to come. It was as though she had been carrying a sword and shield her whole life, dragging them around with her, heavy in her hands. She ached to put them down. Perhaps here, in this strange place, she could finally feel safe. She had expected there to be hardship and punishment, angry words and stern, unsmiling faces. Instead, she had found tenderness in a way she had never known. It unnerved her.

• • •

“How are you feeling?” Ruth took Sophie's pulse, checking the silver fob watch she kept pinned to her pocket.

“Fine.”

“Let's have a little feel of that baby, shall we?” Sophie lay back on the couch and allowed Ruth to palpate her swollen abdomen.

“Ruth?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Will it hurt an awful lot?”

“I'm afraid it will rather.” Ruth smiled at her. “But it'll soon be forgotten. Women have babies every day. It's what we're designed to do.”

“I'm scared.”

“Of course you are, dear, but there really is nothing to worry about. I've delivered more babies than I care to count and, dare I say it, you youngsters are better equipped for it than some of the older ladies I have attended. Your body is fit and healthy, with nice young bones. It'll be a breeze. Just you wait and see. There.” She rearranged Sophie's sari, having finished her examination. “Everything feels perfectly normal. There's no need for you to fret about anything.”

“Will it be obvious, afterward I mean?”

“In what way?”

Sophie blushed. “Will I look the same as I did before?”

“Of course you will, dear. Just do your exercises and no one will be any the wiser.”

• • •

Sophie lay in her bed, pretending to sleep, listening to the other girls talking. She had not spoken to any of them about her child. They had tried to wheedle it out of her at first, but she had avoided their questions until they stopped asking.