My Daughter, My Mother (50 page)

‘Yes,’ she was saying, trying to quell her fizzing, beaming exaltation when a key turned in the latch and Karen came in, back from her counselling course.

‘All right?’ she called from the hall, taking her coat off. ‘I thought you might be in bed. We went for a drink after.’

‘So did we,’ Margaret said. ‘I’ve only just got in. D’you want a cuppa tea?’

‘Ooh, yes, ta. It’s cold out.’ Karen came in, looking pleased. ‘That group of yours seems very friendly,’ she said, taking in her mother’s pink cheeks and eyes, which suddenly seemed full of life.

‘Yes,’ Margaret said, turning away. ‘It is. I’ll brew up the tea.’

Sixty-Two

They were days of horror, of helpless watching and waiting for news.

Indira Gandhi had been dead for less than twenty-four hours when the news began about revenge killings, angry mobs on the streets of Delhi, attacking and burning Sikh homes and businesses.

Meena felt as if her eyes wanted to burn through the images on television, for her to be transported into the picture so that she could go to Nirmal and Bhoji, help them and their family and get them to safety. And she cursed her lack of English.

‘What are they saying?’ she kept crying, desperate for words that would contradict the reports of flames and screams and death.

Everyone went to the
gurdwara
, needing to wait together, to exchange news and share their fears. Meena and Khushwant barely even discussed going – they just headed there automatically, and Sooky, Pav and Harpreet went with them, taking the children.

Meena moved among the other women, who were talking and praying. She met Banita, who instead of her usual jolly, ebullient self was drawn and pale, her
chunni
pulled tightly round her head as if to warm her. She saw Meena and they embraced.

‘My sister,’ Banita wept. ‘She is in Delhi with all her family – in Trilokpuri. And my mother in Amritsar . . . May God protect them! What can we do? That is what I am asking, every moment, what can we do to help them?’

‘I know,’ Meena said, her tears flowing. ‘My uncle also and all his family. And Khushwant’s brothers.’

Nearly everyone had someone in India. None had telephones in their homes. How were they to know what was happening?

Still weeping, Meena told Banita about Roopinder, that she had had to give birth to a dead baby boy.

‘A double misfortune!’ Banita cried. She asked after Roopinder. Meena shook her head.

‘She is very sick, with a fever. Raj is staying with her at the hospital and we are all going back and forth to visit.’

‘Poor Raj,’ Banita said. ‘To lose a son – and in the middle of all this as well.’

The two women sat together, comforting each other. Later they all went home and kept the television on, hour after hour. Meena thought constantly of Nirmal and Bhoji. Harpreet kept making cups of tea, offering snacks and biscuits, but Meena could not eat. Her heart was heavier than she could ever remember.

The stairs in the hospital felt so steep and endless as she and Sooky climbed them. Meena clutched onto Sooky’s arm, feeling as if, overnight, she had become an old woman.

‘Are you okay,
Ma-ji
?’ Sooky asked, eyes full of concern as Meena stopped at the top, leaning against the wall to catch her breath.

‘Yes – just give me one minute. I’m tired, that’s all.’ She was glad her eldest daughter was with her. Pav had said he could mind the little children that morning.

She saw that Sukhdeep was looking pale as well, darker rings than usual under her eyes. With a grunt of effort she pushed away from the wall and took her daughter’s hand. Together they walked along to the ward, passing a blaring TV set.

Raj was sitting beside the bed with his head in his hands. He wasn’t facing the TV, and even if he had been, it was only showing adverts, then someone having their hair styled. Roopinder lay on her back with her eyes closed. Meena saw that she looked younger, rain-washed somehow, without make-up – prettier in fact, not frowning, and with her hair a dark frame against the pillow.

‘Rajdev?’ she said softly.

Raj stirred and lifted his head. He looked dazed and rubbed his eyes. ‘Oh, it’s you,
Mata-ji
. I think I was asleep.’

‘How is she?’ Sooky whispered.

‘They said she had a bad night,’ Raj said. ‘Very high fever. I think the antibiotics are kicking in now. But every time she wakes she just keeps crying. She just seems so broken . . .’

His voice cracked and he put his face in his hands again. Meena felt her own distress rise. She laid her hand on Raj’s heaving shoulder.

‘Look, son – I’ve brought her some fruit.’ She laid the little bag of grapes and bananas on the bedside cabinet. ‘Sukhdeep and I will sit here for a while. She will be better when the fever passes. You go home and sleep.’

Raj struggled to his feet. His wiped his eyes, his cheeks and beard. He was like someone punch-drunk from too many emotions all at once. Meena wanted to hold him close and protect him, like she had when he was a tiny boy.

‘India,’ he said. ‘What is happening? What is the news? This TV shows nothing but garbage. Have you heard from
Mama-ji
Nirmal?’

Meena shook her head. ‘I have not heard. The news is bad, very bad. But there is nothing we can do, only wait and trust in God. Go home now – sleep. Your wife will need you.’

When she turned to the bed, Sooky was sitting holding Roopinder’s hand.

There was no call from Nirmal.

As the days passed, Roopinder’s health improved and she and Raj had to face their grief.

The news from India was horrifying. By the time Mrs Gandhi was on her funeral pyre on 3rd November, more and more news was getting out. The number of Sikhs massacred in Delhi alone was reckoned to be in the thousands. Many had been butchered in the street, their homes set alight; trains arriving in Delhi and Amritsar contained the corpses of Sikhs, beaten and burned. In one suburb alone, to the east of Delhi, there was an area where the streets ran with blood and could hardly be passed, so choked were they with bodies. The area was called Trilokpuri.

Where were the police?
everyone was asking. The bitter, enraging answer came: They had turned a blind eye, joining in the slaughter. As the facts sunk in, it started to be called a massacre, a genocide of the Sikh people.

Banita never heard from any of her relatives in Trilokpuri again. And as soon as Meena heard the name of the suburb mentioned, she knew Nirmal was dead. They knew Khushwant’s brothers were alive; they had telephoned. Nirmal would have called by now to reassure her. Somehow he would have been in touch.

The call came very early one morning. Meena heard it ringing from the hall below and she knew instantly it was from India; their timing was five hours ahead. No one in Britain rang you at this hour. She was out of bed and down the stairs almost before she was aware of it.

‘Meena?’

It was her aunt Bhoji’s voice, sounding close, so close.

‘
Mami-ji?
Oh, my God, yes – it’s me. Oh, at last! Tell me everything – Nirmal?’

But she knew. She knew. Why would Bhoji be calling; Bhoji who until now had never touched a telephone?

Bhoji was almost incoherent, she was weeping so much.

‘I am all alone – they killed him! My husband, my Nirmal! And they killed Manjit . . . They dragged Nirmal out of his car, and they put a tyre round his neck and petrol and they set it alight . . .’

A howl of anguish came down the line, which made Meena double over herself, feeling as if she had been kicked.

‘You are sure?’ she managed to find the breath to say. Could it have been someone else, some other taxi driver – could it?

‘Yes, yes,’ Bhoji sobbed. ‘And Manjit, they murdered my Manjit – just killed him in the street. Everything is gone: fires, everything destroyed, only me left and the girls. What are we to do? How can we live?’

‘Your house is gone, your apartment?’

‘No, the house is not gone. Many are burned, not ours – but we have no father, no brother . . .’

‘We will help you,’ Meena gasped. She became dimly aware of people around her, others coming down the stairs. Suddenly Khushwant was beside her, making signs to her:
What is it?
Sukhdeep and Harpreet were there in their nightclothes, their arms round each other.

‘We will . . .’ Meena was shaking now, couldn’t think what to say. ‘We will help you,
Mami-ji
– don’t despair . . .’

She put the phone down and turned, and her legs gave way.

Sixty-Three

‘But surely you don’t want us round – not with all that on your plate?’ Joanne said. ‘You must all be really upset.’

‘Yeah, it’s been horrible,’ Sooky said. ‘But it’s okay, honestly. Mom said she doesn’t mind. We have to look after the kids whatever happens, don’t we?’

‘Well, if you’re sure.’ Joanne sounded doubtful. ‘I’m sorry, I’d invite you round to ours, only it’s just not a very good time here, either.’

‘No, come,’ Sooky assured her. ‘It’ll be really nice to see you – and it’ll take our minds off it.’

It was good to hear someone else’s voice, someone outside the situation, Sooky thought as she put the phone down that morning. It had been a desperately sad week. For all those days, her heart had felt like a stone.

They’d kept Roopinder in for observation, but she was now recuperating upstairs. She was very low and weepy, and while Sooky did her best to keep her company, she could only stand so much of it. Her mother had been curled into herself with grief ever since Bhoji’s call. Sooky was upset – for all of them; for the horrific way Nirmal and his son had died, and for his daughters and Bhoji. She knew how much Nirmal had meant to her mother. She’d loved him like no other relative – and he had been her connection with home. Now Meena seemed so lost and sad. On top of that, no one could stop thinking about the situation in India and all the anguish and rage that the events had caused.

Sooky had been to college on Tuesday this week and it had been a relief to get away from the grief-stricken atmosphere of the house. She realized most people weren’t taking too much notice of what was going on with the Sikhs in India, and this both angered her – such a bloodbath! Imagine if it happened in England, the uproar there would be! – and was an escape from thinking about it all, just for a while. One thing she did do, which was unusual, was to go to college dressed in Punjabi clothes. Putting on jeans, fashion clothes, and leaving her head bare had felt wrong that day. She couldn’t work all of it out emotionally, but she just felt she had to be a Sikh and show she was a Sikh: Sukhdeep Kaur Baidwan. She wasn’t the most religious of people, but it was part of where she belonged.

She went to find Priya, who was with her cousins by the TV in the front room. Everyone was taking it in turns to look after them all this week – even Dad. To her surprise she’d come down on Tuesday, ready for college, to find him on his hands and knees on the rug, one arm swinging merrily in front of his face as he pretended to be an elephant. Smiling, she had stood and watched for a moment.

Khushwant had looked up at her, his hair all rumpled. He wasn’t dressed for work and she knew he was doing this to allow her to go out.

‘How the elephant got its trunk,’ he said rather bashfully.

‘Go on,’ Sooky said, leaning on the doorframe. ‘I don’t want to interrupt.’ It was a relief to laugh about something.

‘This is much harder than going to work,’ he grinned up at her. He took in, suddenly, what she was wearing. She had toyed with wearing a bright orange-and-yellow suit, but that felt wrong too. She had put on one in a sober green.

‘You’re going to college?’

She nodded.

‘Dressed like that?’

Again, she inclined her head.

‘Okay.’ He had smiled suddenly, with understanding. ‘I see. You look nice.’

Tears sprang into her eyes.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

This morning the three children were glued to a cartoon. Too much TV, she thought. They watch too much.

‘Priya, Amardeep, Jasmeet – shall I read you a story? Some rhymes?’

Jasmeet, who was standing quite close to the TV, shook her head, bewitched by what was on the screen. Amardeep shouted ‘No!’ very decisively. Priya, looking torn, came across and settled on Sooky’s lap, sliding around on the silky material. She picked out her favourite book of nursery rhymes.

Sooky read ‘I do not like thee, Doctor Fell’ and ‘Sing a Song o’ Sixpence’ . . . Her mind wandered as she did so. The image of Nirmal’s burning necklace wouldn’t leave her mind. She knew it wouldn’t leave her mother’s, either. Meena didn’t weep a great deal; she just seemed winded, wordless, as if whatever was going on inside her had to be worked out in silence.

For want of a nail, a shoe was lost . . .
Priya was rocking to the rhythms on her lap, pointing at the pictures.

For want of Khalistan . . .
Off toddled her mind again, then stalled. What was it all for – Khalistan? For safety, for a place we Sikhs can call our own.

For want of Khalistan, a temple was occupied.

For want of government control, a temple was desecrated . . .

For that desecration, a Prime Minister was gunned down.

For the murder of a Prime Minister . . .

For that murder, thousands more . . . And angry demonstrations and hatred and more anger . . .

And even before that, death upon death in the spiral of violence leading up to it: Hindus killing Sikhs, Sikhs killing Hindus . . . Horror upon horror,
for want of, for want of
. . . what? Her mind looped and bucked, could not cope with more.

‘Come on.’ She stood up decisively. ‘We’re all going to the park. Turn off the TV.’

To her amazement they obeyed. Auntie obviously sounded as if she knew what she was talking about. ‘We’ll get some fresh air, and then this afternoon,’ she told Priya, ‘your friend Amy is coming round!’

Joanne expected Sooky to answer the door, but instead it was opened by her mom. In that instant she realized that she had no idea what to call her. She had forgotten Sooky’s actual surname, apart from the Kaur bit.