A House Called Askival (14 page)

TWENTY

When James was fourteen (over a year before the troubles of partition), he joined the choir for a better view of Miss Lawrence's bosom. She'd arrived at the school in February and the effect in the boys' hostel was like a match to kerosene. Things were bad enough with fifty males in a confined space bristling with testosterone and tall tales, but the arrival of a woman who looked and walked and spoke like a film star was too much. She was Anglo-Indian and had dark wavy hair that swung around her face and brushed her neck. Astonishingly, she wore lipstick and perfume and high heels – the very things James had learnt marked a woman as a non-Christian! – and her dresses, though simple enough in post-war austerity, somehow slid alluringly over her generous curves. It was these curves that were the focus of much fantasy and fevered critique in the dorm. Perhaps it was the tilt of the heels, or that intoxicating mixture of naive and knowing sensuousness, or just Nature's abundant gifts, but Miss Lawrence had a way of moving that made her hips and thighs and breasts
roll
. Especially when she directed the choir. All that swinging and sweeping and swishing. It was glorious and though James' singing voice was decidedly below average, his vision had never been better.

But it was under serious threat if he believed the Hostel Housemaster on the subject of ‘self-abuse'. At this rate he would be blind, mad
and deaf by the time he graduated. It was hard for James to believe that something so intensely pleasurable could be abuse, but it was undoubtedly sinful. Why else would he lie there, a sticky towel pressed between his legs, feeling a wave of shame wash over him as the waves of pleasure receded. And yet he could not help it. Every day his body flared when Miss Lawrence bounced up from the piano, or when he noticed the tightening of a girl's blouse, or when he just lay in bed at night trying desperately to think of anything else.

But his mortification was complete when the magazine was found. It was 1946, and through most of the war British soldiers had been stationed in Mussoorie for furloughs, bringing their tins of luncheon meat, their cigarettes and whisky and their reading material. Most of this did not require much vocabulary or, indeed, much imagination. Though the Tommies had moved on, some of their literature had found its way into the Oaklands senior boys' hostel where it fuelled a vigorous black market, with such valuables as Swiss chocolate and toilet paper being feverishly swapped for the increasingly tatty magazines. James had long fought the temptation, but when Verghese secured a copy of
Private Patsy
(in exchange for two essays and a week of math homework) he was undone.

The Housemaster found it under James' mattress and embarked upon a swift and decisive raid of the dorm. All illicit material was publicly burned and all guilty parties publicly shamed. Their punishment included daily cleaning of the toilets, a month of cold showers and complete loss of pocket money. James was also stripped of his posts as Class President, National Honour Society Treasurer and Bible Club hander-outer-of-hymn books. He was humiliated and crushed. But all of this he could have borne and recovered from, in time.

What was unbearable was Stanley's letter.

James read and re-read it, hunched over on his bunk with his face burning, and wondered if there was anything he could ever do to redeem himself.

TWENTY-ONE

Ruth went back to Oaklands alone. She did not take the quickest route, straight down the mountain on the path below Shanti Niwas, for that way was still impossible for her. Instead, she took the long way round, walking east on the
chakkar
road past Sisters Bazaar, through the quiet forest at the back of the hill to the eastern end of the ridge. From there she could see Flag Hill, with its tangle of Tibetan prayer flags on the summit, and the steep slope down to the Aglar valley. Beyond was a vast landscape of bulky hills like slumbering giants with shaggy heads of forest and small villages tucked in the curves of hip and arm. Ruth felt an intense longing to rise out of herself and soar across that world to where the invisible snows touched the sky.

There was a rushing in the trees that made her jump. A troop of langurs were springing through the branches, their long limbs a silvery grey, faces black. One turned his eyes on her, bright and fierce, and she caught a hiss through teeth before he swung away. She remembered those monkeys, but had forgotten their name.

Turning back she took the path that curved around the southern side of the hill, weaving through the trees till she came out at Lookout Rock and paused. Below her, the dorm buildings were encircled by cloud and the top of Witches Hill floated like a dark island. The air was
a cool breath on her cheek, heavy with the smells of earth, leaf and rain. It brought a dull ache and the memory of the Bible Club hike when the high school kids took the elementary ones for a picnic to the Hill. She'd been nine and revelled in the games of Capture the Flag and Kick the Can and the hand-clapping choruses. But they'd got back to the dorm late and she'd dumped her little backpack and run to supper. She only found it again a week later, but by then her water bottle had leaked and a banana was squashed and the cheese powder from her sandwich had slithered everywhere. This mess was all over her Bible. A white leather-bound King James edition with gold edges and a red ribbon marker, it had a name plate inscribed to her in Grandma Leota's strong hand. It was now ruined. Distraught and frightened, Ruth hid it in a rubbish bin and cried herself to sleep.

But Mrs Cornfoot found it the next day and held it up at Devotions demanding to know who had done such a terrible thing to God's Word and how dare they put it in the trash? Ruth felt panic flood her as the dorm mother turned to the nameplate, but the words were obliterated by mouldy banana and Mrs Cornfoot hissed and shook her head and said no-one would get Candy Cupboard until the perpetrator owned up. Sita knew it was Ruth's and impaled her with fierce eyes. Trembling, Ruth raised her hand and confessed, but before she could explain how it had happened, Mrs Cornfoot hauled her up the front and said how sad and angry God must be that His Word was treated with such contempt and how ashamed her Mom and Dad would be. Ruth was crying, with one hand over her snotty face, the other arm still caught in Mrs Cornfoot's painful grip. Her letter home that week was a torrent of apology and despair

Please don't be angry and ashamed with me. I didn't mean it and I'm so sad I spoiled Grandma's special Bible and Mrs Cornfoot said I can't love Grandma or my Bible or God very much if that's how I treat the Word and I'm crying every night and I can't even read Psalms or Jesus Promises to comfort me. Please can't you visit this semester, Mommy? It's too long to wait till Christmas and if this goes on your daughter will be dead of sorrow
.

Ellen's reply had been gentle and reassuring. They understood it was
an accident and Ruth could have another Bible and she was not to worry about sorrow. It did not cause death, but built character. Mommy couldn't come now but they were looking forward to a special time at Christmas.

Ruth took out a cigarette and lit up.

Last night, Iqbal had wagged his finger at her.

‘You should stop this smoking,' he'd said. ‘It is ruining your tongue. You cannot taste properly and see how good is the food.'

‘Tastes fine to me.'

‘Because that is all you are knowing! Is like black and white to colour, bird in the book to singing in the tree!'

She sucked on her cigarette and blew a series of smoke rings. Everyone else warned her about lung disease and early death. Only Iqbal seemed more worried about the sensitivity of her palate.

Iqbal.

She still did not understand why he had come. By all accounts, his life in Pakistan had been full and content, his job there teaching Urdu to missionaries better than a couple of days with the brats at Oaklands. He claimed it was to give condolences to James on Ellen's death. Ruth was suspicious. It was a long way for a man you didn't remember. And why stay?

And what was this strange business of Friday prayers? Iqbal had invited her to join them a week after her arrival, but she'd sat stiff and wary in the corner. Then James had read from the Bible:
I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me
. She had felt bitterness rise in her like bile; her face stony, arms tight across her ribs, eyes burning. Iqbal had glanced at her and the shock on his face made her snap. She'd leapt from her chair like a cat – right in the middle of the passage – and shot up the stairs. He'd jumped to his feet and flung out his hands.
Ruthie! Are you sick?!
Upstairs she had thrown herself on the bed and pressed her hands over her ears. She'd never tried to explain, let alone apologise.

There was a long history of that.

She let out a long, noisy breath. Cigarette half finished, she crushed it into a small tin she now carried and pushed it into the back pocket of
her jeans. Her mouth was gritty, smoke lingering in her nose. She waited for the smells of the earth to return.

In the stillness there was a tiny movement at her side, a beetle on the rock. Its back glinted blue-green like an oil slick as it lumbered over the crevices. There had been one like that along with dozens of others in the glass case in the bio lab, with pins through their guts and long Latin names. At the bottom of the case, another name: James Adoniram Connor.

He had shown them to her when she was about seven, on one of his rare visits from Kanpur. Lifting her onto a lab bench so she could see, his fingertip had scrolled along the glass as the beautiful, strange words rose from his tongue like an ancient prayer.

Dorcas anteus, batocera rubus, hemisodorcus nepalensis, hoplosternus shillongensis…

Such beautiful names. So much better than the English ones she could read herself: Chinese Cow, Dumpy Stag, Rhino Dung Roller.

‘I got them all when I was at school here,' he said. ‘Started when I was four. Anybody can get fifty beetles, but a hundred is a real challenge.'

‘How many did you get?' She tugged on a stray curl above her ear as she pondered the glossy backs, the articulated legs, the pincers.

‘Ninety-nine.' He grinned. ‘Can you believe it?'

‘Are you still hunting?'

He shrugged. ‘Oh, just keeping an eye out, you know. But I think maybe that last one'll find me.'

She pictured a beetle with walking stick and binoculars, scanning the horizon, searching for him, taking a swig from a metal canteen, pressing on. She wished they would meet and she might witness it. But then – her father would suffocate that last beetle and impale him on a board! She burst into tears and James swept her off the bench in confusion.

‘
Piyari! Piyari!
What's wrong? What happened?'

She never could explain.

Squatting on Lookout Rock, she reached out a finger and laid it in front of the beetle, holding her breath as it crawled on. Slowly, she lifted it to
her face.

‘What's your name, little one? Mmmm?'

Its feelers waved, tiny feet clung, wing cases opening and closing.

‘Might you be the 100
^th
beetle?'

A flash of wings and it was gone.

She chose a Sunday afternoon to return to Oaklands because it would be empty and that was what she needed. Beside the gate was a long flight of steps that led to a terrace beside the high school building and another higher up from where you entered Benson Hall. Had she walked up those steps to Chapel twenty-four years ago with Manveer, instead of steering him to the Haunted House, how different everything would be. For a start, he would be alive. Did that mean she was to blame after all?

The steps were steep and slippery with moss and she walked slowly, her hand on the cold metal rail, still wet from rain. On the lower terrace she peered into classroom windows. The library was bigger, brighter; lots of computers. There was a room filled with maps of the world and posters of people in national costume, dancing, eating, laughing. Social Studies? she wondered. RE?

Her most memorable Religious Education course had been taught by Chaplain Park in a multi-purpose room with no posters and a persistent smell of musty jute matting. It was called
Search for a Meaningful Existence
but rather than arriving at one, it was a survey of humanity's many and varied attempts. It had given Ruth her first taste of that uneasy feeling she later recognised as doubt: the possibility that the rock beneath you was sand, or simply not there at all; that sand shifts and rocks can be thrown; that many are the gods and many the godless.

She remembered that awful day when Kashi was giving his presentation on Eastern Pantheistic Monism and his hair fell over his eyes and his warty hands shook as he held his sheet of notes. And then he unveiled a painting he'd done, pulling an old towel off a canvas which he propped on the front desk. The picture was a red orb pulsing in a limitless blue sky and he began explaining how it depicted Brahman – the cosmos – and Atman – the soul – being One.

‘One… giant tomato,' whispered Abishek. There was a sputtering of laughter around him; Mr Park scowled. Kashi's face darkened and he licked his lips, but kept going.

‘God is everything,' he said, his dirty finger waving in a circle around the centre of his painting. ‘God is the cosmos. God is all that exists and nothing exists that is not God.'

Another voice hissed from the back: ‘No, I think it's a blob of ketchup. He's just spilled his lunch.' More giggles – from Ruth, also – and Mr Park stood up, his chair scraping, and strode to the back of the room. He laid heavy hands on the shoulders of two boys.

‘Go on, Kashi,' he said, voice weighted with warning.

‘All is One,' whispered Kashi. ‘There is no you, or me.' His hand fell to his side; he took a breath. ‘No good. No evil.' Draping the towel back over the painting, he returned to his seat, tears in his eyes.

Ruth felt her skin go cold and turned away from the window. She looked across to the garden at the far end of the terrace. It always used to be a little overgrown, unkempt: grass pushing up through the gravel and a few clumps of straggling marigolds. You could sometimes persuade teachers to take you there for a class in the sunshine and then everyone would loll about chewing on grass stalks and not listening.

Now it had been restored. Small shrubs grew from paving that included broken china and hundreds of fragments of smashed bangles, bright shards of colour and light like peacock feathers and rainbows. There were also tiles of fired clay with children's hand prints and words like
love, freedom
and
hope
. At the centre rose a small tree with bright green leaves and hundreds of tight buds waiting to open, a strange thing, Ruth thought for September. A slate at the threshold read:
Oaklands Peace Garden, Celebrating 60 Years of Independence, Aug 2007
. A year ago. Underneath, a signature like a rune: KN.