Of Marriageable Age (14 page)

'What does your father mean by this?' she asked. She heard Savitri take a deep breath as if gathering the strength and the courage to interpret one world to the other.

'My father says that I may not take lessons with two male persons, as this would stain my character and my reputation. I may only take lessons with male persons if one of my brothers accompanies me for protection.'

'You mean, chaperone you?' Mrs Lindsay wasn't sure at first if Savitri would understand this long word but she needn't have worried, for Savitri, eyes soft and liquid as if she were on the verge of tears, nodded vigorously. Perhaps she reads the dictionary, Mrs Lindsay suddenly thought, and remembered she had been searching for the dictionary only last week to look up a word she'd found in one of her books, and it had been missing. Remember to ask David, she told herself, but afterwards, not now. Because now she needed all her concentration to hold back the laughter, and laughter, she knew, would completely spoil the atmosphere of great dignity needed to bring this conversation to a satisfying end.

And now, now that she'd arrived at the crux of the problem, she knew that the answer was, in fact, easy. Ridiculously easy.

'So your father wants your brother to chaperone you? Then he shall.' She said it with a great finality, stamping her foot for emphasis, but Savitri was just as vigorous, stepping forward and shaking her long plaits so that the flowers fell to the ground.

David bent over to pick them up and handed them back to Savitri, who said, 'No, no, ma'am. My brother must go to school and to university, so he cannot guard me.' She spoke the word 'guard' very naturally, though it must be clear to her and to her father that she would need no guarding from anyone on this property, least of all from dear Mr Baldwin. Mrs Lindsay sighed in frustration. It was all a matter a form, of rules that must be adhered to, so that there could never be any doubt as to the purity of the girl when the time came for her to marry. Marriage — that rang a bell . . . Oh yes, there was still the question of the dowry, but that could be dealt with at another time, surely it would be just as complicated to deal with as this matter of schooling, and Mrs Lindsay was now exhausted.

She wished she could reach out and take Iyer's hand to convince him of her goodwill, and to shake him out of that stubborn pride that had him standing there before her as stiff as a poker.

'No, child, no. You don't understand. I don't mean your brother should just come and stand guard over you. I mean he should come and
attend lessons.
When we come back from Ooty he shall have private tuition with Mr Baldwin, just like you, and I shall pay for it, and he shall go to university just as planned, so tell your father that and please stop worrying, and stop looking as if you're going to cry. Go on, tell your father!'

But Savitri could do nothing but stand there with her hands folded, for right now Mrs Lindsay's thought-body had dispersed entirely, it just wasn't
there
. . . and the simple gesture of folded hands was, in the absence of thought-bodies, all the thanks that were needed; for the thanks she gave were to God, who sees in silence.

'
I
T IS NOT RIGHT
, that a girl should have an education. And much worse, with these sahibs.' Mani, though only seventeen, often felt the need to voice truths his father would not. Appa was too much under the sway of his English lords. It was therefore up to Mani to speak up, for, though a son must obey his father, when a father is under bad influences then an eldest son must warn him.

'But it is a chance for Gopal.'

'She will be polluted, mixing with the
sahibs.
Already she has broken caste.'

'As long as she does not take meals with them.'

'But she is mixing with them. It will ruin her reputation. Already people are talking.'

'But Gopal will be with her. She will come to no harm.'

'It is best she is married right away. Let us send a message to Bombay, to Uncle Madanlal; let him make arrangements for a match there. She could then be sent to Bombay to her father-in-law and we would be rid of the problem.'

'That is a good idea. But let us consult with
Thatha
. After all, Gopal's education is at stake. It is a fine opportunity for him.'

CHAPTER NINE

NAT

A Village in Madras State, 1949

W
HEN
N
AT CAME
home from school that afternoon his father was still busy in the clinic, but only one more person was waiting outside the gate, a woman with a girl whose spindly legs were bent forwards at the knee. Nat knew what was wrong with the girl: she had polio, and he knew his father could not help her. He could only advise her mother to take her to Vellore or Madras to a specialist who would give her braces or crutches or a wheelchair, but most likely the mother would do nothing; she would not have the time or the money to go to Madras or Vellore. And even if his father gave her the bus fare, she would not have the time. The girl would stay the way she was, walking by using her hands to shuffle forward on her bottom. Nat had seen lots of children with polio, who could not walk but only shuffle, crawl or hobble. He knew they broke his father's heart, and that one of Doctor's main crusades was to see that every child for miles around was vaccinated, just as he himself had been.

Nat hung up his satchel on its nail inside the house, then went to the clinic and stood in the doorway, watching. His father was speaking to another patient, a very old woman whose breasts hung against her chest in two thin wrinkled flaps, uncovered except for a torn and threadbare length of sari across one shoulder. Anand stood at the table at the back of the room, carefully pouring a measured amount of powder onto a small sheet of brown paper, which he then folded into a little sachet and placed in a paper bag, on which he wrote a few words. He didn't really have to write anything, Nat knew, because the woman surely could not read. But perhaps one of her children or grandchildren could.

His father sensed his presence in the doorway and looked up, smiling.

'So there you are, Nat. Why don't you go and look for Gopal Uncle, he went for a walk in the village. Bring him home and make some tea for all of us.'

So Nat ran out into the village, past the groups of children who, their day's work done, called out to him, inviting him to join them; but today Nat had no time.

Nat met Gopal Uncle returning from the village, and the two walked home together. Gopal Uncle had lots of questions. He wanted to know how Nat's day at school had been, what he had learned, what his favourite subjects were, and when Nat answered promptly and knew all the answers he looked down and said,

'Nat, you are a very lucky boy going to this English school in town. Do you know, I was talking to some children of your age in the school and they said Teacher did not come back to school this afternoon and all they did was play; most of them went home to work in the fields. They don't know half as much as you! I am very happy that you are having a good education, because when you grow up you can be a doctor like your father, which is a very fine profession. You must thank God for your good fortune.'

'Every day when I get up I thank God, Gopal Uncle!'

'Very good, very good, excellent!' Gopal Uncle stopped to pat Nat on his back. But then he looked around him to see if they were alone and bent down very low and whispered, 'But, Nat, how would you like to live in Madras? In a very big city, where you will wear shoes to go to school, and you will have toys to play with like the one I brought… Oh! You have not seen that yet! We have a radio in our home and you will have your very own bicycle, and you will go to school in a big black car, and you will have a mother…’

Nat could vaguely remember Madras, where his father had taken him after they left the place with all the children. He remembered hundreds and hundreds of cars weaving in and out of each other and honking their horns, all kinds of other sounds and strange smells, nice ones and nasty ones, black mounds of dirt on the pavements and everywhere people hurrying, hurrying, hurrying. And then the cool quiet garden with lots of mango trees and lovely flowers, and a big, big stone house, all dark and cool inside with round things on the ceilings, like the wheels of a bullock cart but small and of metal, with wide spokes, whirling around and making a breeze. There had been a
memsahib
in the garden. A
memsahib
in a sari walking around with a baby in her arms but it wasn't a baby, it was a doll. That's what Doctor had said. A doll. After that his father had brought him here on the motorbike, and they had never returned to Madras.

'Daddy took me to Madras once,' Nat said to Gopal Uncle now. He didn't know what else to say; it would not be polite to say he didn't like Madras, when Gopal Uncle was smiling so kindly. He rubbed the spot behind his right ear, which he always did when nervous.

'I would like to take you there too,' Gopal Uncle said. 'I would take you there to live with me in a wonderful big house. You would not have to work with all these poor sick people any more.'

'I'm going to be a doctor like Daddy!' said Nat.

'Yes, yes, that is a very fine profession, very fine. But you know, all doctors do not work so hard like your Daddy does and they do not live in such a place. They have nice patients who lie on lovely white beds in a hospital, who pay lots of money to get healthy again, and the doctors drive in big cars and their wives and children have very fine pleasant lives! You can be such a doctor, Nataraj, when you grow up!'

Nat did not understand what Gopal Uncle was talking about. He didn't know about the people who could pay lots and lots of money for a doctor. He didn't know of any other life than the one he was leading, and he didn't want to go to that horrid noisy place Madras. All of a sudden Nat felt completely stupid, and very, very frightened. He pulled his hand out of Gopal Uncle's grasp and turned and ran, all the way home, to his father, to safety.

Nat tore through the gate but left it swinging open for Gopal Uncle. His father was still in the clinic, so he immediately busied himself so as not to have to talk to Gopal Uncle when he arrived. He made a pot of tea and opened a new packet of Milk Bikis, laying them all out on a plate. He took a tin of Amul Spray powdered milk and the tin of sugar from the shelf over the kitchen sink, and brought everything out on a tray to the verandah, where he unrolled a mat. Then he stood at the clinic door watching his father and Anand clean up after the last patient, the girl with polio, and when they were finished he took his father's hand and the two of them walked over to have tea with Gopal Uncle.

He listened to Doctor and Gopal Uncle chatting. Gopal Uncle told Doctor about a man called Henry, who was 'back in Madras'. Henry's wife had run off to Sydney with somebody and his father sounded shocked to hear that. 'Poor fellow, I'll go and see him,' Doctor said.

While his father poured out the tea Gopal Uncle turned to Nat again and gave him a little box wrapped in coloured paper and tied with ribbons.

'This is my present, Nat. Go on, open it up!'

Nat carefully untied the bow and removed the paper, which was very pretty. He thought he would take the paper to school, to show the other children. Perhaps they would hang it on the classroom wall. Inside was a box as long as a new pencil, and as high as Nat's hand. On the box was a picture of a very strange car, long and red with many wheels and things sticking out of it. Nat had never seen a car like this before; not even in Madras had he seen such a strange thing… but yes, of course! He had; last year there had been a picture of such a thing in his English reader, a picture of a very big house on fire with flames leaping out of the window, and a car like this outside, shooting water into the windows. It was a… Nat tried to think of the word but he'd forgotten.

Gopal Uncle was watching him, and now his father also. 'Go on, Nat, open it up, open it up,' said Gopal Uncle, impatiently, because Nat was turning the box around and looking at it from all sides, and shaking it. It rattled. Nat didn't know what Gopal Uncle meant with 'Open it,' so he handed the box to his father; maybe his father had already seen cars like this, but maybe he hadn't. His father took the box, smiling gently, and pulled at one side of it, and to Nat's amazement it flapped open and a real car came out, just like in the picture, small and long and red and with all kinds of things sticking out of it, a long vine-like thing, and a ladder that his father was actually moving back and forth. Nat could hardly believe his eyes, he held out his hands and his father laid the car in them and Nat saw that the wheels turned and he could roll it on the ground.

'Aren't you going to say thank you to Gopal Uncle?' said his father. 'For the nice fire-engine?'

A fire-engine. That was it. This was a fire-engine, and it was used for putting out fires in the city, because the houses were so big that when they burned you couldn't use buckets. There would be things like this in Madras. You didn't need them in the village because mud houses don't burn. And when Govinda's roof had caught fire last year the whole village had helped to put it out, passing along buckets of water from the well, but the roof was ruined anyway. His father had bought a new one for Govinda.

Nat turned his eyes to Gopal Uncle at last, then looked away again and stammered in a weak, thin voice, 'Thank you, Gopal Uncle, it's very nice.' Then he put the fire engine carefully back into the box and placed it on the ground and picked up a Milk Biki and ate it.

'Don't mention it,' said Gopal Uncle, who didn't look so happy any more. 'Aren't you going to play with it?'

'Later,' said Nat, taking another Milk Biki and not looking at Gopal Uncle. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gopal Uncle and his father exchange a look and he had a bad feeling inside his tummy, as if something horrid was going on that he couldn't understand. He rubbed behind his ear. His father looked at his watch.

'Nat, it's time to go and get the milk,' he said, and Nat got to his feet reluctantly. He didn't want to fetch the milk today; somehow he felt he ought to stay to protect his father. But his father had to be obeyed, so he went inside and took the metal milk container from the shelf and left the house, running along the road to the other side of the village where Kanairam lived with his wife and his cow.