The Glass Palace (47 page)

From under the hood of her sari, Manju had been peering about the room, looking everywhere for Arjun. When she finally saw him walking in, dressed in his grease-blackened clothes, her head snapped up, throwing off the hood. Everyone in the room froze, astonished by the sight of an unveiled bride. Just then, a moment before Manju had pulled her sari back in place, Dinu's flash went off. Later, everyone was to agree that this was by far the best picture of the wedding.

The night was unbearably hot. Bela's bed was drenched with sweat, despite the whirring of the electric fan overhead. She couldn't sleep; she kept smelling the scent of flowers—the heady fragrances of the last, hottest nights before the breaking of the rains. She thought of Manju, in her flower-strewn bed downstairs, with Neel. It was strange how heat had the effect of heightening the scent of flowers.

Her throat was dry, as parched as sand. She got out of bed and went into the hall outside. The house was dark and for the first time in weeks, there was no one about. The silence seemed almost unnatural, especially after the tumult of the last few days. She tiptoed through the hall to the veranda at the back of the house. There was a full moon, and its light lay on the floor glinting like silver foil. She glanced at the door of the room where Kishan Singh slept. It was, as always, slightly ajar. She wondered if she should shut the door. Stepping across the veranda, she went up to the door and looked in. She could see him lying on his mat, with his longyi tucked between his legs. A gust of wind blew the door a little further open. It seemed cooler inside. She slipped through and seated herself in a corner, with her chin on her knees.

Suddenly he stirred and sat up. ‘Who is it?'

‘It's me—Bela.'

‘Bela?'

She heard a note of apprehension in his voice and she understood that it had more to do with Arjun than with herself; that he was afraid of what might happen if she was found in his room—an officer's sister, a girl who'd just turned fifteen and was still unmarried. She didn't want him to be afraid. She pushed herself across the floor and touched his hand. ‘It's all right, Kishan Singh.'

‘And what if . . . ?'

‘Everyone's asleep.'

‘But still . . .'

She saw that he was still afraid, so she stretched out her legs and lay down beside him. ‘Tell me Kishan Singh,' she said, ‘when you were married—what was it like, your first night with your wife?'

He laughed softly. ‘It was strange,' he said. ‘I knew that my friends and relatives were at the door listening and laughing.'

‘And your wife? Was she scared?'

‘Yes, but I was too—even more than her in some ways. Later, when we talked of it with others, we learnt that that is how it always is . . .'

He could have made love to her then and she would have let him, but she understood that he wouldn't, not because he was afraid, but because of some kind of innate decency, and she was glad of this because it meant that it was all right to be there. She was happy just to be lying beside him, aware of his body, knowing that he was aware of hers. ‘And when your son was born,' she said, ‘were you there?'

‘No. She was in the village and I was at the base.'

‘What did you do when you heard the news?'

‘I bought sweets from a
halwai
and I went to your brother and said: Sah'b, here is some
mithai.
He looked at me and asked: Why? So I said, Sah'b, I have a son.'

She tried to think of Arjun, in his uniform, talking to Kishan Singh. The picture wouldn't come to life. ‘My brother— what is he like? As a soldier, I mean?'

‘He's a good officer. The men, we like him.'

‘Is he hard on you?'

‘Sometimes. Of all the Indians in our battalion, he's the one who's the most English. We call him the “Angrez”.'

She laughed: ‘I must tell him.'

Suddenly he clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Shh.' There was a sound, of someone stirring downstairs. He sat up in alarm. ‘They're flying to Rangoon today,' he said. ‘They'll all be up early. You must go.'

‘Just a little longer,' she pleaded. ‘It's still night.'

‘No.'

He pulled her to her feet and led her to the door. Just as she was about to slip out, he stopped her. ‘Wait.' With a hand under her chin, he kissed her, very briefly, but full on the lips.

When Neel shook her awake, Manju could not believe that it was already time.

‘Just a little longer,' she pleaded. ‘Just a few more minutes.'

He put his chin against her cheek and tickled her with his beard. ‘Manju, the plane leaves at 4 a.m.,' he said. ‘We haven't got time . . .'

It was still dark when the chaos of departure got fully under way. Keyrings were found and forgotten; suitcases were sat upon and strapped with buckled belts; doors and windows were locked and checked and locked once again. A final round of tea was served and then, with the neighbourhood fast asleep, their luggage was loaded into a car. The family stood around the courtyard, waving: Uma, Bela, Arjun, their parents. Kishan Singh looked on from upstairs. Manju cried a little but there was no time for long goodbyes. Neel hurried her into the car and shut the door.

‘We'll be back next year . . .'

It was so early that the roads were empty and it took just half an hour to drive to the Willingdon Air Base, on the banks of the Hooghly river. A few minutes later, Dolly, Rajkumar
and Dinu arrived. At exactly 4 a.m. they were led to a jetty, where a sleek, grey motor-launch was waiting. The launch's engine started with a roar and they went shooting upriver, with the decks tilted backwards at a rakish angle. It was very dark, and all Manju could see of her surroundings was the muddy circle of water that was illuminated by the launch's powerful spotlight.

The launch slowed and the roar of its engine dwindled to a gentle whine. Its bows dropped back into the water and its spotlight roamed the waters ahead. Suddenly two immense white pontoons loomed out of the water and then the light climbed higher, illuminating the aircraft that was to take them to Rangoon. The plane was enormous, an eighteen-and-a-half-ton flying boat. The logo of the airline was painted on the plane's tail and a name was written in large letters across its nose—
Centaurus.

‘It's a Martin C-130 seaplane,' Neel whispered into Manju's ear. ‘It's the kind that does the Pacific run for PanAm.'

‘Like Humphrey Bogart's plane, in
China Clipper
?'

‘Yes.' He laughed. ‘And there was one in
Flying Down to Rio
too, remember, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers?'

It was when she stepped through the hatch that the full extent of the plane's size became evident to Manju. The interior was as spacious as a ship's lounge, with deep, well-padded seats and glowing brass light fixtures. Manju pressed her nose to the window and saw the propellers starting to spin. Flecks of white froth appeared on the churning brown water below and then the shuddering fuselage began to advance, and the wake of its bow wave fanned out towards the invisible shore, rocking the little islands of water hyacinth that were floating downriver. A gurgling, sucking sound issued from the pontoons as the plane fought the water's grip, gathering speed. Suddenly the
Centaurus
shot forward, as though catapulted by the beat of wind upon water. Manju saw the wind-drummed waters of the Hooghly falling away as the aircraft rose slowly above the river's steep embankments. Soon the lights of the city were gone and there was only darkness below: they were now flying
over the mangrove swamps of the Sunderbans, heading towards the Bay of Bengal.

Shortly afterwards a steward took Manju and Neel on a tour of the plane. They went straight through to the navigating bridge, where the captain and the first officer sat side by side, behind identical controls. The first officer explained that the Calcutta–Rangoon flight was only one leg of a fortnightly, eleven-thousand-mile round trip that took the
Centaurus
from Southampton to Sydney and back.

Behind the bridge lay the cabins of the main deck. There was an area for the stewards, a midship cabin, a smoking cabin and a promenade deck—an area that was kept free of seats, so that passengers could stretch their legs in mid-flight. Well appointed as everything was, it was the ingenious design of the kitchen and pantry that took Manju's breath away. In an area that was no larger than the average closet, space had somehow been found for all the amenities of a first-rate restaurant—crockery, linen, silverware and even fresh flowers.

With dawn approaching the steward advised Manju and Neel to go to the promenade deck to watch the sunrise. They stepped through the arched entrance just in time to see the dark expanse of the Sunderbans yielding to the metallic glint of the Bay of Bengal. In the distance a sliver of colour had appeared on the horizon, like light leaking through a doorway. The dark skies turned quickly mauve and then a shimmering translucent green, shot with streaks of crimson and yellow.

While Dinu was attempting to photograph the sunrise, Manju and Neel crossed the aisle to look in the other direction. Manju cried out loud: to the west lay a stupefying view. The horizon was obscured by a mass of darkness, a bank of cloud that was as vast as a mountain range. It was as though the Himalayas had been magically transported across the sea. So heavy were the cloudbanks that their flat bottoms seemed almost to touch the waves while their peaks towered far, far above the plane—great Everests of cloud reaching tens of thousands of feet into the sky.

‘The monsoons,' Neel said incredulously. ‘We've run straight into the incoming rains.'

‘Is it going to be dangerous?' Manju asked.

‘In some other aircraft perhaps,' Neel said confidently. ‘But not in this one.'

They went back to their seats and soon sheets of rain were whiplashing against the windows with a force that made Manju flinch from the glass. Yet, the starkly visible violence of the weather had almost no effect upon the plane—the speedometer in the cabin showed the
Centaurus
to be flying at a steady 200 miles per hour. But a while later the captain announced that the
Centaurus
would make a change of altitude to ride out the storm. It would descend from its present cruising height of 3,000 feet to a few hundred feet above sea level.

Manju fell into a doze and was jolted awake only when a ripple of excitement ran through the plane. Land had been spotted on the starboard side: a picture-book island ringed with beaches. Huge waves were disintegrating into sheets of white foam on the sand. At the centre of the island there stood a striped black and white tower.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,' the captain announced, ‘what we have here is the lighthouse of Oyster Reef. You should have your first glimpse of Burma very shortly. Watch out for the Arakan coast . . .'

Then there it was—close enough to touch—a densely clotted carpet of mangrove, veined with thin creeks and silver rivulets. As Manju sat looking through the window, Neel whispered into her ear, telling her the story of how his grandmother— Rajkumar's mother—had died somewhere below, on a sampan that was moored in one of those branching inlets.

The town of Akyab, the capital of the Arakan, was their first stop. ‘This,' said Neel proudly, ‘was where my father was born.' The airline's base lay in a natural sea-lane, a good distance from the town. All they saw of Akyab as the
Centaurus
came down was a clock-tower in the far distance. After a quick refuelling the plane was in the air again. The rain stopped and in the bright daylight the waters of the coast were revealed to be lined with miles of reef and great floating forests of seaweed—all clearly visible from above, as stains on the
sparkling sea. Rangoon now lay due east, and the
Centaurus
soon turned inland, flying over a stretch of uninhabited countryside. The steward came by, handing out voluminous leather-bound menus.

At the end of her breakfast, Manju found herself looking down on a vista of square paddy fields. Some were already green and others were in the process of becoming so, with lines of workers advancing through the mud, transplanting seedlings. The workers stood up as the plane flew over, throwing their heads back and waving huge conical hats.