A House Called Askival (25 page)

Lakshman hesitated. ‘Well… that's got nothing to do with it—'

Verghese roared with laughter.

‘Oh no!' cried Mrs Puri, pressing a be-ringed hand on Lakshman's arm. ‘It makes all the difference,
beta
, really. I'm sure your parents are looking for a girl with good assets also, because life is so much easier that way. Really, I'm telling you.'

‘Mrs Puri! My parents know very well I will make that decision for myself.' A fleeting glance at Ruth. ‘And I won't make it for money.'

‘Well don't make it for love, sweetie,' Mrs Puri sighed. ‘It doesn't last.'

‘Then is not love,' said Iqbal.

For a moment all was quiet except for thoughtful chewing and the scrape of cutlery. James, who had said nothing since the unveiling of the Tennessee Tandoori, was struggling to eat. He had always delighted in this dish of Ellen's – which she'd reserved for special occasions like the girls' first night home from boarding – but tonight he could not stomach anything. Nor did he have the heart for sparring with Verghese.

Ruth broke the silence. ‘Would you marry a non-Hindu, Lakshman?' Her bracelets tinkled as she cut through her kebabs.

‘Oh yes!' he said, swinging his eager gaze to her, mouth full. ‘Certainly, absolutely, definitely! If it is the right person, religion is irrelevant!'

‘Poppycock,' said Verghese.

‘Pauly, darling,' appealed Mrs Puri, scooping up a swathe of sari that was slipping from her shoulder. ‘He's still young and idealistic. Let him have his dreams.'

‘Fantasies, I'm afraid,' said Verghese, wiping his moustache with two measured sweeps.

‘Are you saying there's no way people of different religions can get along?' asked Ruth.

‘Of course I'm not! We're all here round this table getting on famously! But what I'm saying is it won't happen by pretending religion is irrelevant or that they're all the same or that all ways lead to God and other such bunkum. Buddhists aren't even trying to get to God, for pity's sake!'

‘But they're trying to attain salvation,' Ruth said.

‘Yes, but their concept of it is entirely different to a theocentric view—'

‘A what?' asked Mrs Puri.

‘They are simply
not
trying to go to the same place.' He stabbed a finger on the tablecloth.

‘Maybe not…' Ruth said.

‘Absolutely not! What did they teach you here?'

‘I guess I flunked O'level RE.'

‘Never mind, darling,' soothed Mrs Puri. ‘You can always re-sit.'

‘But my child,' said Verghese. ‘Surely you had fellow students here at Oaklands who were Buddhist?'

‘Yeah, there were a few, but that was a long time ago.' She scrunched her forehead and tugged on a curl. ‘There was a girl, Pema, in my class… from Tibet, though we weren't that close and, to be honest, I don't think I ever asked her what she believed or where she was trying to go.' She grinned. ‘But, I think it was America.'

They all laughed, from Iqbal's swelling drumbeat to Mrs Puri's birdy hoot. All except James, who managed only to curl a lip.

‘Ah, the Promised Land,' Verghese chuckled, spearing a cucumber.

‘And then there was Kashi,' said Ruth, thoughtfully. ‘He was half-Buddhist, half-Hindu, half-I-don't-know-what.'

‘Three halves?' asked Verghese.

‘As many halves as you like. He seemed to believe it was all One, anyway.'

‘He is Christian now, also,' nodded Iqbal.

‘No way,' said Ruth.

‘
Also?'
sneered Verghese. ‘He might think you can collect religions like stamps but that is categorically
not
Christian.'

‘Not collecting, I think,' said Iqbal. ‘He is wanting to seek the face of God only. His path is art.' He pointed to the picture above the sofa. They all turned to look at the image of the blue-grey woman in her secret joy.

‘Oh! That is a Kashi original?' cried Mrs Puri. ‘We have one in the hospital foyer. So beautiful.'

‘Yes,' murmured Ruth. ‘I saw it.'

‘And he is doing such good thing with
Kala Sangam
,' said Iqbal.

‘What's that?' asked Lakshman.

‘He is bringing the artists together from different religions to build the bridges. They are doing exhibitions and productions and what nots.'

‘So sweet,' said Mrs Puri.

‘Amazing.' Ruth said. ‘What's it mean?'

Verghese lifted a finger. ‘
Kala
means art and
sangam
means coming together, or confluence – like rivers.'

‘Yes,' chimed Iqbal. ‘He is gathering everyone: painters, musicians, dancers, poets. Even wobbly old singers like me.'

‘And all different beliefs?' asked Ruth.

‘Right. But he is telling to me he does not believe in religion, he believes in… what is he saying…? Oh yes! In the One and Only whose Name is Love.'

Ruth stared and there was a quiet around the table.

Then Mrs Puri sighed, beaming, and set her fork on her empty plate.

‘Food for the gods!' she declared.

‘Please be having seconds!' Iqbal cried, gesturing to the food.

They indulged in the customary ritual of offers and refusals before she tilted her head coquettishly and relented.

‘Just the smallest morsel, Iqbal-ji,' she said happily as he heaped food onto her plate.

‘So, Reverend,' Ruth asked, passing the cornmeal naans to Mrs Puri. ‘If pretending we're all the same isn't the answer… what is?'

‘It depends on the question.'

‘Ok then: how do we make peace?'

‘Ah, but what is peace? Is it truth and freedom and the right of each individual to choose their own path, or is it everyone staying in their
boxes and not upsetting the apple cart, as Dr Lakshman here would recommend?'

‘I never—!'

‘You did. Everything's fine so long as no-one converts.'

‘No, it's the trying to convert
others
that is the problem. Going into a place where everybody's perfectly happy and messing it up – pulling families apart, spoiling culture, breaking down the whole way of life.
That
is what causes the backlash.'

‘Yes, yes,' said Mrs Puri.

‘Do you think India's 250 million Dalits are perfectly happy? Hmm? Untouchable, outcaste, oppressed? Do you think the young bride forced into marriage then tortured for the sake of more dowry is perfectly happy? What about the beggar whose karma renders him responsible for his own despair? Hey? And the savage violence in Orissa just now! Burning, raping, killing! Is this all part of your precious way of life, Lakshman? To be preserved at any cost?'

There was a terrible silence. No more chewing or tick-tack of cutlery. Lakshman and Verghese were locked eye-to-eye across the table, both motionless except for the twitching of a muscle in the doctor's jaw. Mrs Puri looked from one to the other, hand at her breast. Iqbal's face was a map of misery, James' lowered, masked. At last Ruth spoke softly, slowly.

‘Sounds like… there are no easy answers. I'm sorry I asked.'

A slight breathing out of the tight air. A tilting of Iqbal's head.

‘No, no,' Lakshman muttered. ‘It's not you.'

James spoke, the sound of his long-absent voice a shock.

‘You have to.'

All eyes turned; his remained on his hands, knobbled, gripping his knife and fork.

‘Keep asking.' The voice was low, cracked. ‘Keep… seeking.'

He looked up at Ruth, expecting at worst a face twisting with scorn, at best, a joke. Instead she was gazing at him, eyes bright, lips slightly apart, in a kind of alert wonder. It was the look on a wild animal's face when it has smelled something. That moment of waiting, of sensing, before the hunt closes in.

‘I think we are needing dessert,' said Iqbal, leaping to his feet.

‘Yes, yes,' agreed Mrs Puri, with a nervous giggle. ‘When in doubt, eat dessert.'

Everyone started bustling. Scraping plates, passing plates, stacking plates. The relief of chores. Ruth laid a hand on Lakshman's arm as they passed, to-ing and fro-ing from the kitchen area. His face flooded with gratitude but she moved on before he could speak. Then she landed a soft pat on Verghese's shoulder as she took his plate, and he looked up, startled, then busily folded his napkin. Leaning over James to pick up the jug of juice she hesitated for a moment, then rested her hand on his back. He did not move.

Iqbal was like a dervish, spinning from table to kitchen, tossing forks into the sink, scooping rice grains from the cloth. He kept running his hands down his apron, turning on the spot, humming frantic little snatches of song. Ruth smiled at him and winked. The smile he returned was shaky, quivering on the brim of joy and fear. At last, when the table was clean, she nodded at him and stood by the wall as he disappeared through the door to the store-room. There was scuffling and the striking of matches.

‘Ready?' she called out.

‘Ooh, what's happening?' said Mrs Puri, clasping her hands together.

‘Ready!' yelled Iqbal.

Ruth snapped off the lights. Cries of
oh-my-god! what's this? hey?
and the store-room door banged open. A halo of candle-light wavered through the dark, casting a glow on Iqbal's chest and face.

‘
Happy Birthday to you!'
Ruth sang, with cheerleading spirit. The others joined. ‘
Happy Birthday to you!'
Iqbal's voice was resonant, Verghese's a monotone, Lakshman's uncertain and Mrs Puri's like Bollywood's best.
‘Happy Birthday dear Ja-ames.'
As the candles flickered closer, James could see they rose not from a conventional cake, but a strange white confection with lumps and pinnacles. It loomed from the shadows like an apparition. ‘
Happy Birthday to Yoooooooou!'
The singers were enjoying themselves now, hanging on to that last note like a herald's blast, ushering in an awesome personage. They burst into cheering and
applause.

The ghost was upon him.

‘Mogul Mango Meringue Pie!' cried Iqbal setting the sugared Taj Mahal at his place. More cheers. Iqbal held up his finger for silence, then with a voice brimming with emotion, cried out, ‘From The Book, recipe of Mr Aziz Mohammed Hashim!'

James twisted, tried to push back the chair, but caught it on the rug and swung over. With a cry and a shooting pain up his side, he fell.

THIRTY-EIGHT

The last time James had been served Mogul Mango Meringue Pie was at Askival. Barely a week after, the pie's creator had sat huddled on his bed smelling of Dettol, with a tear-stained face, a mug of tea and a chocolate-chip muffin crumbling in his hands.

Outside, a mob of Sikhs.

At the sound of their arrival, Aziz leapt up, knocking cup and muffin plate to the floor and squeezed under the bed, shoving a guitar case and a tin trunk out of the way. James saw his legs sticking out, bleeding feet scrabbling against the floor, and it was absurdly funny and terrifying at the same time.

He turned to look again through the slit in the curtains and his stomach clenched. About half a dozen men were gathered at the foot of the veranda steps, burning torches in their hands and madness on their lips. They were shouting in a language James did not understand, but thought must be Punjabi. The light from the torches flickered over the high folds of their turbans and across their faces, sweating and contorted with passion. One of them came up to the door and pounded on it. His body bristled with a physical power James had never seen before and his eyes held the wild desperation of the hunted leopard, the charging boar. There was more banging and shouting and James felt his heart
thumping as his head swarmed with images from Bunce's report and his father's letter: the burning and butchering in the Punjab, the hacking apart of two nations, the death trains.

It was then that he saw the
kirpans
. At each man's waist, tucked into a cummerbund, there rested a curved blade, glinting in the torchlight.

Fear possessed him. A vision of his father rose in his mind like a towering spirit, and he turned and picked up the gun that he'd dropped on the floor. Aziz had managed to tuck his legs under his body by then, though the trunk and the guitar case still jutted out at absurd angles, as if cruelly sign-posting his whereabouts. For the first time that evening, he was absolutely silent.

James returned to the window just in time to hear his mother unbolting the front door. ‘No, no,' he breathed and heard a strangled gasp from under the bed. He watched in disbelief as Leota stepped out from the door and addressed the Sikhs.

‘Brothers,' she began, in Hindi. She was trying to adopt the warm tones she used for leading Bible studies, but James could hear the tremor in her voice. There was a torrent of speech from the Sikhs, a fierce gesturing of hands, a raising of torches. Fighting the trembling in his fingers, James drew back the latch on the window. His mother was spreading her hands and tilting her head towards the men, trying to understand. He pulled gently on the window, opening it a crack, every hair on his body raised, heart racing. A man at the back of the group was screaming.

Leota tried again. ‘Do you speak Hindi? I don't understand Punjabi.' The Bible Study voice was failing, though she still clung to a note of good will. James cocked the gun and lifted it to his shoulder, clenching his jaw to stop his shaking. The Sikh who had banged on the door took a step towards Leota, gesturing, repeating the same urgent phrase. James could not see his mother's expression, but he had the Sikh right in his sights. The man's face was jewelled with sweat, black with the beard that began high on his cheeks and curved into a roll under his chin. His brows were thickets, his eyes fierce, mouth trembling. Then the group surged forward and James fired.

The bullet hit the Sikh right in his heart, hurling him backwards
down the steps onto the others. There was howling and a collision of bodies and a jet of blood.

James pulled back from the window and leaned against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut against the demonic din. The tremor in his hands spread through his body till he was shaking uncontrollably. He let the gun fall and pressed his hands over his ears, barely aware of someone next to him and a touch on his arm. Outside, the shouting and shrieking were borne away on the sound of pounding feet, leaving only a choked cry on the veranda.

He tore back the curtain and pushed the window wide, half falling out.

‘Mom!'

She stood at the bottom of the steps, back to him, arms thrown out into the dark. As James stumbled towards her she whirled around, dress spattered with blood.

‘What have you done?' she cried. ‘
What have you done?!
'

James stared at her, caught mid-stride, legs failing him. His mother was crying now and clutching herself with shaking arms.

‘James!' she sobbed, her face crumpling. ‘What in God's name—?'

‘It was not James, Memsahib.'

They turned.

Silhouetted in the light of the window, stood Aziz, the gun in his hands.

In that moment, the world held its breath. They stared at him, the clear outline of his figure, the darkness of his face; how strange the gun looked held against him.

And then the world breathed out on a great rush and burst its veins. James sank to his knees and Leota flew to the window, bellowing at Aziz. It looked like she was going to hit him, but the cook took a step back, and her hands flayed the air.

Aziz shook his head, tears running into the creases round his eyes as he accepted her charges. Yes, he had been a terrible fool. No, he had not thought, Memsahib, not considered the consequences. Yes, unforgivable violence. And yes, Memsahib, worst of all, perhaps these Sikhs were not
his attackers. Perhaps innocent men.

Yes! Leota cried. They had not come for harm but for help! One of their men was wounded and they were bringing him forward when the shot was fired.

James felt these words split him like an axe, the black night spilling into his head, his eyes, his heart. Huddled on the veranda, arms gripping himself, he watched his mother in horror. She was hoarse with ranting, hair pulled in tufts from her grey bun, face twisting as spit flew from her mouth. Under the beating of her anger, Aziz was bowed, head bobbing softly.

James wanted to speak, to tell the truth, but he could not say a word, or move, or stop the sirens in his head, nor the great rift opening up beneath him.

As Leota finally ran out of words, Aziz spoke, low and urgent.

‘They will come back, Memsahib, with others, for revenge.' He was sniffing and slapping the tears off his cheeks. ‘I will go raise the Gurkhas to guard the house. You go to Colonel Sahib. Go, go. I will fix everything.'

James saw Leota giving Aziz a pair of socks and his red basketball high-tops. They looked like clown's boots on the little man.

And then he was gone. Running down the path into the darkness, the shoes slap, slap, slapping.

He did not speak to James, and the boy said nothing to him.

He did not even see his face.