Of Marriageable Age (63 page)

Two hours later he woke up. The bus was trundling along a deserted country lane in unbroken darkness. Not even the headlamps were on; it was being driven, apparently, by the silvery half-light shed by the full moon. All the passengers were asleep, except himself. Something had woken him up, had penetrated the curtain of sleep and called his jangled nerves to attention. There it was again — a mewing sound, very quiet, but loud enough to strike fear into his heart. Fear, not of the bundle itself, which was, of course, harmless, but fear of discovery.

He reached behind his head, removed the balled-up cloth that served as a pillow, leaned forward and pressed it against the bundle to stifle the sound. The bundle wriggled, the man pressed harder. Harder and harder, until it was quite still. And quite silent.

62

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

SAROJ

London, 1971

I
T CAME
to Saroj in the middle of that night, in sleep. It came as an ocean, swelling up from the deepest depths of her being and bursting the dam of reason, sweeping away the carefully constructed house of logic, engulfing her entire identity, flooding her very sense of being and transforming, so that there was only that ocean, light and warm and of a scintillating, everlasting bliss, so real, so true, so palpably present that all that had ever been before, all that she had ever known or thought, or thought she had known, or known through thought, was nothing, void and vain and insubstantial as mist; and yet it contained all that ever had been and ever was and ever would be for ever, and all life was contained in
that,
and that was
love
. Pure beauty.

She was asleep, but
that
was awake, and it woke her up, and it was still there, not a dream but a living experience. Her cheeks were bathed in tears.

Saroj went to see Baba every day and each time she thought
he
would be there, but he wasn't. Everyone else was. Walter and Richie and James and sometimes even their wives, but never him. She wanted to ask Gan, but the words stuck in her throat. She was frantic. Had he left England? She racked her memory — what had Trixie said about his return? Had she given a date, a day? Had Gopal Uncle ever mentioned where he lived? She pictured herself stalking him, waiting on the pavement outside his flat, on the street where he lived. Just a glimpse of him. Just a word with him. She'd overdone it, she knew it now. She should have said something, looked at him at least, smiled, the day she'd met him at Baba's bedside. Instead she'd ignored him. Turned away. She couldn't expect… he wouldn't… she'd ruined everything. She couldn't work, she couldn't read, her tennis racquet swiped past balls. She could neither eat, nor sleep.

Baba was recovering. He was out of danger. He was doing well. Seeing Saroj, her daily visits, her forgiveness, had worked the miracle.

But Nat was missing. Three days passed. She'd have to ask Trixie. She couldn't ask Trixie. She'd have to. Trixie would know. Gan would know.

But finally it was Gan who called her. 'Can you come over? We have to talk.'

'About what?'

'About Baba, of course.'

'Oh.' A sinking sense of disappointment. She'd thought, about Nat. But Nat was gone. She knew it now. He'd left for India, for ever. He'd given up. And she, personally, had chased him away.

'Sooner or later Baba'll have to leave hospital,' said Ganesh, scraping back a chair and plonking himself down next to her at the round white table beneath the gable window. 'The question is: where next?'

Saroj poured herself a cup of tea, added milk and sugar, and sipped. It was too hot, so she reached out for a potato ball.

'Do you have any ideas?'

'I telephoned Indrani, and she says Baba should go back to Guyana and stay with her. I think it's the best solution. She's got the time to look after him and she's never had trouble getting on with him.'

'Baba's in no condition to travel,' said Saroj.

'I mean as soon as he's fit enough to travel. In a few weeks, or months. Whenever.'

'I suppose so, but Baba never trusted planes. He might get so scared at take-off that he'd have his third heart attack and just pop off there and then.'

'He needn't fly. He could go by ship, the way he came…'

'You're crazy, Gan! He can't travel alone, just as he can't live alone. He'd need someone to share his cabin and look after him.'

'Yes, well. Trix and I are planning on going home soon anyway,' said Ganesh. 'We could take him. We'll just bring forward the date, and take a ship.'

'You want to go home?'

'Yes,' said Ganesh. 'Trixie's homesick and wants to spend time with her mother, and have a honeymoon in Tobago; we could take him. The trouble is…’

'I'm the trouble,' said Trixie. She pouted. 'Me and my black skin and fuzzy hair. Deodat Roy hates my hide. Quite literally. And I don't see why I should…’

Ganesh scratched his temple.

'Well, you know. Time will help. If we gradually get him used to the thought of us being married. If he gets to know you better. Baba's changed a lot; he just had a shock, finding out the way he did.'

'As long as he hates me I'm not going chasing after him, thank you very much.'

'Anyway, I don't like the idea,' said Saroj. 'What about medical care over there? If he's got a bad heart he'll be better off staying here for treatment.'

'We're not going to live in the bush! Baba's best friend was Dr Jaikaran, and he's a heart specialist He'd be in good hands. And I could travel with him alone, and Trix could come later.'

'No, I bloody well won't! Either we go together, or not at all! You won't find me hiding from Deodat Roy, heart attack or no heart attack. I've a good mind to jump out on him just to…’

Gan stretched out a loving arm, wrapped it around Trixie, laid his hand on her mouth. 'Ssssh. You won't do a thing.'

'But Baba wouldn't want to live in Georgetown,' objected Saroj. 'He has too many bad memories, too many enemies there. He'd hate it.'

'Well, why don't you make a suggestion? One thing is for sure, he can't go back to Norwood. No way. Not alone. If he stays in England he'd have to stay with family,' replied Ganesh. He turned to Saroj. 'And the only ones who'd take him, that's us, Saroj. Either Trix and me, or you. And since Trixie's out of the question .. .'

'You're suggesting he lives with me? That I go and live with him in Norwood?'

They were all three silent. Gan and Trixie lowered their eyes, not looking at Saroj; A tide of refusal surged inside Saroj. It was one thing to reconcile with Baba, to pray for his recovery, to want him to live, to be up and about. It was quite another thing, she discovered now, with guilt clawing at her conscience, to take him in and care for him to the end of his days.

'I can't,' she said, and her voice was almost a squeak.

'Well, then,' Ganesh shrugged his shoulders, then stood up with an air of finality. He removed the empty teapot and disappeared into the kitchen. 'That settles it. Baba goes to India.' He raised his voice so Saroj could hear him from the kitchen.

'India?'

Saroj stared at Trixie, who only looked away, biting her thumb. Ganesh was back with a pot of fresh tea.

'Yes. India.'

'Gan, you've lost your senses. You can't be thinking of sending Baba back to his Bengali relatives! He doesn't know a single soul over there!'

'Yes he does. He's got a sister and two brothers, and their children,' said Ganesh. 'I met them all when I was over there. And as far back as I can remember India's been the one constant in Baba's life. The Promised Land. Baba's been in exile most of his life. He'd give anything to live out his last years there. But I wasn't thinking of Bengal.'

'Well, where then? Where?' Saroj looked first at Trixie, who still wouldn't meet her eyes, and then at Ganesh, who gazed back steadily, smiling slightly, mockingly, it seemed to her, the teapot still in his hands.

'Tamil Nadu. Nat offered to take him in.'

Saroj's heart took a running start and raced off at breakneck speed.

'Nat?'

'Don't look so shocked, Saroj. It's your own fault. You won't burden yourself with Baba, Trixie and I can't take him in, and you yourself rule out Guyana. Nat's all there is.'

'But . . . Why? How will . . .'

'Nat's a doctor, and so's his father. There's a hospital in the town near where they live, in case of emergency, and in Madras…'

'Is Nat still here, then? In London?'

'Yes, of course. But…'

Saroj jumped to her feet, almost ran to the telephone, grabbed the receiver and cried, 'What's his number?'

T
HE DOORBELL RANG
. Trixie flew to open it. Saroj felt as shy and awkward as a veiled teenage bride at a Hindu wedding. Her heart cavorted like a hoof-flinging colt, her stomach turned somersaults and her tongue clove to the floor of her mouth. Nat walked in, a bunch of red roses in his hand. Was he glowing, or was it her imagination, or was it she herself who glowed? Or both of them?

She could not tell. She only knew that his arms had closed around her, that her face was pressed against his shoulder, that he smelled good and felt good and that in some indefinable way she had finally come home.

63

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

SAVITRI

Madras, 1942-1944

S
AVITRI
, with Henry's help, searched for Nataraj. She discovered she had, without knowing it, signed over the custody of her son to Mani. She had signed the paper during labour without knowing what she was signing, for it had been in Tamil, and Savitri had never learned to read or write Tamil; she had simply trusted, and not bothered to ask, for the mind of a woman in labour naturally reaches out in trust to those who would help her through that labour.

Sister Carmelita had discovered through years of experience that it spared a lot of nerves this way. Heaven knew what became of the babies so removed by fathers and mothers and elder brothers! True, the girls got hysterical when they discovered what they had done but there was no denying it: however painful for the mother, it was most definitely best for the child. This child, this Nataraj, would be taken to a good Christian orphanage, and from there he would certainly find a good Christian home, light-skinned as he was. A pity, though, about his name. She had just given the baby's uncle the baby's birth certificate and the other papers when the mother had screamed like a virago at the window, and before she could say another word the uncle had made good his escape. So the child was cursed with the name Nataraj. A pity. Well, they'd surely find a suitable name at the Good Shepherd Orphanage, which she had recommended.

A good Catholic orphanage.

H
ENRY ENGAGED
a lawyer who tried to prove that the signing over of the child was illegal. Savitri was euphoric with hope — at the beginning. But then they found themselves up against a wall of bureaucracy. A signature was easily made but impossible to undo. Documents were signed and passed around, flying between Madras and Pondicherry and getting lost on the way, buried under heaps of other documents. Officials gave their own version of the legal situation, opened and closed ledgers, slipped bribes into pockets, sipped coffee, went out for lunch, gave their profuse apologies, let their eyes glaze over, and forgot the matter. She applied to the court; received a polite letter from the Principal Sub Judge. Another from the Under-Secretary to Government Home Department. And nobody could help. The bureaucracy dragged on. Over weeks. Over months. Over years.

Savitri went to see Mani. She begged and pleaded with him to reveal Nataraj's whereabouts. Mani smiled nastily and treated her as what she was, a woman of sin.

'Remember, Savitri, India is a country of millions, hundreds of millions. Your son could be in Bombay, Calcutta, or Delhi. He could be in Kanpur or Amritsar or Bihar. He could even be in a village quite nearby. One of a thousand villages all over India. He could be dead. How will you ever find out?' he taunted and teased. 'You won't. Never.'

He would have continued to mock but a spasm of coughs overtook him and Savitri walked out.

Her eyes devoured every male baby she saw. He could be Nataraj. Everywhere she saw him: riding on the hips of strange women on the street, looking down at her from the window of a passing bus, on the streets, the sidewalks, in rickshaws, on the carriers and crossbars of bicycles, in the bazaar, in the shops, everywhere. She found herself grabbing strange little boys, boys of the right age. Turning them around, walking around them, touching their necks. She knew she would never find peace again — not as long as she lived in a world or a country where Nataraj also lived, and where every child she met might be him, and she would not know it.

'In this country one needs to pull strings,' Henry said. 'If only we knew of someone of influence, anyone…'

'Maybe Colonel Hurst? He used to be so fond of Savitri…' June mused.

'No, no-one English! Not in today's political atmosphere! An Englishman trying to throw his weight around, to use his influence in an Indian affair would be fatal. And anyway, the Colonel isn't likely to help us find
David's
child!'

'But who would help us, then?' Savitri's voice was ragged with desperation.

But then… She gasped aloud. A sudden light of inspiration had flashed a name across her mind. She knew to whom she would turn. A man who would certainly help, for his heart was of gold. A man who would listen. A man, an Indian, whose influence in India was without limit. She would go right to the top, to a man second only to God in this country where God is all.

She took out her writing pad and wrote a letter, ten pages long, telling her story and begging for help, for the use of influence to move the wheels of officialdom. She reread it, folded it, placed it in an envelope, and addressed it to Mahatma Gandhi. She almost heard the loud thumping of her heart as she licked the stamp and pressed it into place. She walked, almost ran, to the post office. Her hand trembled as she slipped the envelope through the slot. He will help. I know it.
Oh Bapu, Bapu, please, please help.