The Book of Secrets (32 page)

His own marriage remained childless; there had never been much love in it. But he had acquired by it a status and a livelihood; he provided in exchange a stable marriage, and, though attractive, he had never strayed from the marriage bed. What he was risking now, in middle age, was much.

The whole of the Shamsi community was on a picnic at the ancient port town of Bagamoyo, having arrived in open lorries with cauldrons of pilau and channa and a gang of servants, the young people singing, “
ai-yai yuppie yuppie yai yai
,” all the way there, as usual. On the beach: games of hutu-tutu and pita-piti, soccer and cricket with coconut branches for bats; boys teasing girls with film songs; tea and Coca-Cola, more tea and snacks. A batch of new teachers from England and India had arrived, and some of them were on hand.

Rita had walked away after lunch, away from the youthful games and elderly card-playing and tea-guzzling. Her dress fluttered in the breeze and she was barefoot. She picked her way among protruding tree roots and shrubs until she reached the sandy portion of the beach. The tide was in, and there were a few swimmers struggling with the waves, fishermen beside nets spread out on the ground, vendors of coconut. She sat modestly on a tree stump, legs tucked in, looking far away to the horizon. They say, when you first see a ship, she thought, you see only the funnel.

She could not say why she had walked away so. Only that she felt miserable, depressed, in the way of youth. To her right was an old cemetery. Souls lying exposed to the sea, she thought, and began to feel nervous, recalling stories of possessed women. At the head of the graveyard was an ancient mission house. Somewhere nearby, she knew, was a slave market, even more ancient.
Soon the picnic-goers, before the final long tea and after the games, would venture out for the mandatory stroll and a look at the sights. There was a remnant of the community here, one or two old homes left over from times of slavery and ivory and the explorer safaris. They would go to the old mosque and visit the church, point out the haunted sites for which the town was notorious.

A rustle behind her, from the shrubbery on the right, and she started, her heart racing. He emerged, large and splendid, pushing back branches from his face. He wore a knitted jersey, his grey cashmere trouser legs were rolled up part way, and he, too, was barefoot.

This was a scene reminiscent of many films of that period. Hollywood and Bollywood; this was Dollywood, Dar and derivative.

He entreated, begged, went down on his knees. He would divorce his wife, he said. He was going to London. “What for?” she asked. “What’s here?” he answered. Indeed, she thought. What is here? The prospect of London, of going away, of escaping to the bigger, more sophisticated world … she had never thought of that before. She eyed him without a word. During the “happiness” they had exchanged friendly antagonistic barbs. Now words seemed difficult, awkward between them, demanded too much meaning and nuance. He was glamorous, so unlike anyone she knew — the family men of his age, shopkeepers mostly and government clerks at best, or the adolescent loud-talking and immature youths of her own age.

They walked back separately, without one more word. The friendly game of hutu-tutu between boys and girls was about to break up; now they would do a few skits. In one of them, a boy and girl would perform the nursery song “Where Are You Going to, My Pretty Maid?” It was the kind of thing they asked her to do, their Rita. And so she did, played the coy pretty milkmaid this time.

“Nobody asked you to marry me, sir, she said,

Sir, she said …”

Ali’s proposal was, of course, unthinkable. She was a girl in the prime of life; what family would give her away to a “oncemarried,” to scandal and shame? Rita became quieter in my class, and would have been inconspicuous had she not already made her impact on me. She was prone to blushing, an indication that among the girls much was said that escaped me.

My own relations with my Saturday girls became formal; the girls lost their sparkle, their laughter, were more respectful. It was depressing to be the object of pity of those who looked up to me; more so as it was about something undeclared, out of reach. By their understanding, their respect, these beautiful pig-tailed, pony-tailed, and “boy-cutted” girls were telling me they understood my pain.
Stop it
, I wanted to shout.
Be your normal selves
— but that was impossible, they had grown up. Meanwhile, I went on with the Tudors, the Stuarts, and the Mughals.

Ali and Rita used an “interpinter,” an intermediary, someone who would pass messages between them. It was typical of his arrogance that he used the most public figure, the town crier, to carry his love notes to Rita.

Karim Langdo — Karim the Lame — went around the streets of Dar’s Indian quarter proclaiming funerals and other special events. Block to block he would go, dragging his lame foot. He would stop at a crossroads, spit, and then with a flourish bring out a chit and read his message: Come to the funeral! So-and-so Bhai, formerly of Panipat, India, has passed awaaay! Funeral time Thursday at four, location Kichweleee! Which cry the street
idlers would carry on in a long derisive echo. Karim Bhai, who passed away? a woman might emerge from a shop to inquire. So-and-so Bhai of Panipat, he would say sharply as he limped off. He did not like to repeat, but was frequently called upon to do so.

Karim Langdo and Ali had grown up in the same streets. And Ali, regardless of his status in the community, never failed to acknowledge the lame man, to exchange pleasantries and news when they met. Karim, therefore, worshipped the prince. He willingly, gratefully, agreed to be the interpinter, to carry a note whenever he had an announcement to make. And so one afternoon, after Karim had announced a funeral, he limped up to Rita’s courtyard, asked for water, and told the mother: “A letter for Rita from a girlfriend.” Rita, unsuspecting, breezed in and took the letter, opened it right there, and put a hand to her mouth in shock.

“What does she write, this friend — who is she?” her mother asked.

“Oh,” she said, recovering just enough to appear normal, “It’s Guli Sharif — the crazy girl!”

Having answered her mother she walked away, beaming with happiness, heart beating wildly.

“Aré, no reply?” Karim called after her.

“No, not today.”

Another time, straight from a film song:

Even Gregory’s Palgrave contributed to their brief epistolary exchange.

The messenger himself was unmarried, unmarriageable, and the sight of these modern girls as bright as sunshine must have tormented him. What better way to have one of them for himself than through his hero, Ali?

Rita would get impatient for the missives, not having replied to any. “Hasn’t anyone died, today?” she found herself asking, to which her mother said sharply, “Be thankful, girl, don’t tempt fate.”

It took a couple of funerals and a few special services in mosque before Rita could pick up courage and say, “Karim Bhai, this — give it to —” And off went the happy messenger.

“Sir … I would like to borrow a book from you.” She had come up to the table to make this request when, just after class, I was ready to leave. The other girls crowded behind her, sniggering. They were almost their old selves, the pack — but she, Rita, had only a shy smile on her face. She was close and I felt angry.

“Yes? What book? I might not have it.”

“I mean, if you have it, sir.”

“So? What book?”

“
Romeo and Juliet
,” she said in a low voice.

“
Romeo and Juliet
?” I forgot discretion, my voice rose. Giggles rippled through the room in happy mockery and I looked up to show consternation.

“Laila and Majnun, sir!”

“Heer-Ranjha.”

“Nala-Damayanti.”

And so I got all of the many variations of Romeo and Juliet; the girls were unstoppable.

Thus Rita’s next message to Ali:

Karim Langdo, after replying testily to the familiar query — Sunderbai Patel, Bagamoyo Road, funeral tomorrow at four, aré pay attention will you — cheerfully went hobbling along, when he heard a sound just behind him: “
pssst
,” and some sniggers. He looked around and saw a gang of boys following him, imitating his limp. Then the leader of the pack went further, spoke an obscenity, then touched his bottom. This time Karim Langdo lost control and raced after them, dragging his bad foot. He stumbled on it, fell, and the boys ran away. Several men came running to pick up the lame messenger, who was wheezing, moaning, swearing, his foot a gory mess of red and black, the bloody flesh stinging, pricked with pebbles and sand. A crowd gathered to look.

Karim sat, leg up, on a store bench, pitifully examining his tattered foot. Ramzani the dresser came racing on his bicycle, saying, “Tch, tch, Karim Bhai, now what did you do?” And Karim replying, “Those bhenchod with bitches for mothers —”

In the street were two pieces of paper the messenger had dropped — one the announcement of Sunderbai Patel’s death, the other a note from Romeo — which lay tenderly on the road like butterfly wings waiting for just the right breeze to lift them up. Two young men did so.

“Call me but love and I’ll be new baptized,” said the note from Romeo. What could it mean? Something illicit, no doubt. Sinful and secretive, so doubly sinful.

Youthful zealot minds got to work. The street where the note was found was not a clue to the sinners’ whereabouts; Karim the Lame had a large territory. He said yes to the resulting inquiries without supplying names (“I have sworn on my mother’s grave”
was enough) and the scent grew stronger. Gregory was consulted, and he obliged by giving chapter and verse, more quotations, a literary evaluation, the story, and the meaning of the lines under scrutiny. (“Young love knows no barriers, no strictures.”) All that remained was to keep a close watch on the girls. Already all this boy-cut hair and lipstick-lali and sleeveless dresses; now one of them had overstepped the bounds.

And Karim, passing by Rita’s house, after saying “Today a special majlis — prayer time: six-thirty,” followed with a muttered sing-song warning: “Do be careful, you two.”

But the young zealots, a school failure, Habib Haji, and his cohorts, got their victims. The couple they caught in their net and demolished, however, was another one, and Ali and Rita took the warning.

There had come to town a young Hindu bookkeeper called Patani, who lived in a flat on Market Street in the vast G. R. Moolji Building, which had just risen up. He had a wife and a child in the suburbs of Ahmedabad, and was waiting for his immigration papers before he called them. His cause was in the able hands of the lawyers of the Hindu Association. In the eighteen months or so since his arrival in Dar, he had come to be well regarded and liked, as a clever and reliable bookkeeper and as a quiet and decent man, although somewhat lonely. Some of the older women in the building would tease him about his pining away in the absence of his pretty young wife. Patani, though, had in recent months found another source of comfort. He had fallen in love with a Shamsi girl who lived in the building, and was carrying on a secret liaison with her.