Anila's Journey (26 page)

Carlen of Horkstow, county of Lincoln, England

I have not written to Edward Walker for that is too hard on me at this time. Tell him he is a good man and a special case and if only there were more of his kind. I am sorry for the pistol too
.

WE MADE GOOD SAIL
downriver for the current was with us and the winds too. Mr Walker took care of the sail when he was needed, which was often now that we were a man short. He wouldn't let Madan take on any new hands, not even the two who had brought us the murderous news, nor anybody from the ghats we were passing.

“I could not stomach that,” he said.

He ignored the way Madan rolled his eyes then and blew his breath out. But for all that he allowed the boatman to shout orders and lose temper with him just as he did with Benu and Hari. He simply bent his head down and pulled harder on the ropes.

I did what I could to ease Hari's cleaning tasks but he would not let me help with the meals. On that matter he was closed and I did not know if it was because of my history or because he could best show his devotion to Mr Walker by frying his fish just the way Carlen had done. I told him he had a great talent for fish and so I should cook the rice but he shook his head.

“Lord Dakshin Rai, his is the hand who moves us all.”

That was Hari's Lord of the Swamps and Tigers, I had learned, his own home god. But I was left no wiser.

Our quicker motion meant that the nights we spent on the water would be fewer, which felt a mercy to me now. Nevertheless, I worried that each time we moored it seemed Mr Walker was thinner than the night previous. After darkness fell and we had eaten whatever Hari prepared he would make himself busy by lamplight too, in the cabin, writing letters that he filed away in a tin-lined case like my own. He would not say what they were.

“A return journey is always different,” he said to me when he caught my eyes following his pen. “But none more than this one, I believe.”

Those nights Carlen hung between us like a dark moon.

When I had burst out of the cabin to show Mr Walker my letter, the letter that had brought me such joy and promise, I thought he would surely be glad that the story of Jupiter and his messengers had proved as true on earth as it was in the heavens. Why, Carlen himself must surely be counted such a messenger, I thought. What he said did not speak of gladness, however.

“So, a foul deed has borne good fruit despite all. Perhaps the man is not altogether damned. You will find your father in Madras soon enough then, Anila, and in my company. I guarantee that.”

He nodded briskly as if to say, look, we are halfway to the city in the south already, and there is little remarkable about such an outcome. Then he folded the letter and returned it to me. He said nothing of Carlen's words about himself, an opinion that I thought was truly well expressed. Of course he did not mean to wound me or cast me down, I knew that. But it was evident that that was the way he was left himself.

What Mr Walker did not forgive in Carlen I found I could now pass over. On the other hand, while I could not mourn the man as he must do, I could honour him, or at least the struggle he had made to put his good news on a page for me. To me his words were fire and warmth but for all their wonder I could see they did nothing to heal poor Mr Walker's hurt. And so I felt it would be unkind of me to be very light-hearted around him. I set my face as carefully as a priest that morning, and that is how I continued.

But inside how different it was! In the mornings I watched the swallows swoop over the water and felt my heart lift into the air with them. Everything made sense in my life, everything fell into order, everything flowed along, even the sadnesses. My father was alive and well and although he had forgotten us he had never betrayed us. It truly was an enchantment of a kind that had fallen on him. How well my mother would have understood that.

The only person who made Mr Walker smile as we made our journey downriver was little Manik, who liked to sit up front, watching the river traffic through hooped fingers, as if through a spyglass. Now that we were safely away from his village he was as happy as any young creature. His eyes were clear and he sang, both Benu's songs and others he made up himself. He was still a little in awe of Mr Walker but he liked to chop his tobacco for him or find him a good walking stick along the banks when we moored.

Once he brought back some clean bamboo and Mr Walker surprised us all. With his sharp knife he took a slice of the smooth wood and cut some neat round holes in it.

“This is a Scottish whistle now, young man, and so you must learn a Scottish tune. Watch my fingers and copy what I do.”

Mr Walker spoke such fine Bangla. But when he put the bamboo to his mouth he blew a tune that a monkey might have done better. No matter. Manik was entranced with this addition to his musical powers and in a day or so he was making his own compositions. Fishermen blew a conch or gave a
wah wah
cheer when they saw the tiny boy piping away at the prow of our boat.

Whenever this happened Benu's eyes would find mine and each time I found myself smiling back so that we surely looked, both of us, as if we were fond new parents preening over their clever little one.

“What do you think will happen to Manik when we arrive back in the city?” I asked Benu one morning. I kept my voice low though Madan and Mr Walker were huddled together up forward, in conversation. “Will he stay with your family?”

“Unless the sahib has a plan my father will decide,” he said. “I already have three brothers younger than me. But Manik is…”

Benu paused. He tilted his head back and squeezed his eyes tightly shut and then finished his words in a rush. “He is the sweetest to me.”

There was no time to spare while Benu was at the tiller, which was most of the time our boat was under sail. But I wanted to help him draw and make his letters. I had pages left over now in my notebooks, and very little reason to draw any more myself, as all my sketching was done and the finished work, with paints, required to be worked at a desk. So I tore some blank leaves from my notebook and spent a day making an alphabet in English and Bangla for Benu. For each sound I drew a beast or a bird, just as long ago my father had done for me. Except for one. My “B” was a picture of Benu himself, swimming, with his long hair loose in the water. I left the pages and some pencils underneath his red head wrap while he swam.

I had another matter on my mind too as we travelled, and Madan, who had a hawk's eye for all that he was a boatman, must have spotted the way I kept looking to the riverbanks on our right-hand side.

One morning he asked me to sit with him and mind the sail as it swung.

“Two nights ago I sent word ahead to my brother to go to Arjun's house,” he said. “Arjun knows that you are coming back downriver. He wept when he heard that his daughter is dead. Then he asked questions, so many questions about you, but all my poor brother could say was that perhaps he should meet you. So it is arranged. We will be there tomorrow.”

I hadn't guessed we were so close. I joined my hands in gratitude to Madan. But he looked at me so hard then that I felt he required something else from me. His voice was changed when he continued.

“Perhaps you fear he will not have any place in his heart for you. Don't begin a tale in your head that hasn't been told yet. That is women's way, always.”

I bit my lip. Madan, of all the world, to say such a rough thing!

“You should wear a sari for this meeting with the grandfather, not those.”

He jerked a huge thumb at the trousers that had so taken his fancy before, though it was true they had looked more respectable on that first occasion. Now they had all the stains of the riverbank on them, stains that would never wash out. I had no intention of wearing them when I met Arjun. I nodded my assent, my obedience, to Madan but my stomach was biting me. Why was he suddenly unkind?

He cleared his throat.

“I worry about my boy.”

He looked away for a moment while I stared at him. Did he mean Benu or Manik? I could not quite judge so I said nothing.

Madan tensed his great shoulders then and I could see the channels of his throat stand out, as thick as his own boat ropes.

“He has a tender heart, you know.”

I nodded. At last we were agreed on something.

“He likes to write and draw, as I do, Madan. He has a talent for it and an interest. I could help him, if you would permit me. The skill might bring him…”

Madan brought down his fist on the gunwale so hard that I feared something must have broken, his bone or the polished wood. I flinched.

“I see him following your movements, girl, every one of them, whatever the skill is in that. It is obvious that you are not for him. That is not your fault. But everything you do is dust for him. So.”

He gestured with his great arms, a beggar's gesture, with the palms up. Madan was pleading with me to leave his son alone.

I did not know where to look. I felt more stupid than I had ever felt in my life. I recognized the truth in what Madan said. Perhaps I had always known it. Perhaps that was indeed women's way, to seek a brother whenever the boy has a heart as big as the world. But what else might have been done? Should I have run away from that evil orchard and said nothing? Should I have been cold or distant ever after to gentle Benu, my helpmate?

“If we offend, it is with our good will.”

For the first time in an age, I thought of Miss Hickey, and missed her quick and open mind. Those were her words. Well, no, they were Shakespeare's, but she had made them hers. She always spoke them with a laugh, to excuse me, or anyone else, who had made a genuine mistake in conduct. Later she showed me how the words themselves were full of mischief.

If there was an answer with no deceit in it for Madan, she would have given it to me. But perhaps there was none.

Nor was he finished.

“And let me tell you another thing,” he said. “Because of the child and the dead man I don't know how far upriver I can travel again in safety. The sahib and you, you need never see us again. But a cast stone sends ripples for all time.”

All of us are borne along on the great river, Anila. Even the birds that fly above it and never touch it
.

I had touched it. I had cast a stone.

I thanked Madan for his words and his advice and moved away to sit in the cabin. I did not look to the tiller once, not even when I heard Manik begin to pick out a new tune on his flute.

That night I went to my tent immediately after I had bathed. I had no appetite. I was sure Madan had not intended it, but now I found I was looking forward more with eagerness than with apprehension to meeting my mother's people. They might judge me, and judge me harshly, for not better resembling my mother. But they would be different company and they would not know all the dark things that we on board knew.

WHEN THE DAY CAME
I chose to wear my blue sari. What saddened me as I smoothed down its folds and patted the embroidery into place was that I had not brought my mother's beautiful mulberry-green sari. That would have been a proper splendour to show to her father.

Mr Walker stepped out first when our boat swung alongside the little ghat and he handed me down as if I were a lady arriving on the steps of Chandpal itself. Manik leant from the jetty and plucked a sweet-smelling yellow water flower. To put in my braid, he said. Then he set to running up and down the timbers, laughing as they shook.

“They are coming,” Madan said. He pointed.

Along the path from the village a little procession of people was approaching, men and women, with some children dancing along in front and around them. One man was ahead of the others, a short man, lean, very upright.

Mr Walker gave a soft squeeze to my elbow and went to stand some feet away. He reached out for Manik and held him lightly by the shoulders. Hari and Benu stood by, rooted like sentries. Suddenly Madan was beaming.

“Arjun!” he said.

I thought my head would burst. I walked forward because they were close to us now though I could hardly see one face from another. My eyes were full, ready to spill.

I knelt down to honour my grandfather, touching his feet that were long and thin, touching the soil that he stood on, my mother's own earth.

His hands raised me and I truly did feel the course of our common blood, like a shock along my arms, making gooseflesh in the morning's warmth. He put his hand on my lowered head to bless me and tipped my chin up. We stared at each other, both of us looking for the person who had linked us, who stood there as surely as we did. I could feel her all about, in the soft air from the river, in the breaths we shared as we stood.

I saw a man who was not old, though his hair was white and short-cropped, even spiky. His face was smooth, with fine web lines round his eyes. He was darker than my mother but his face had the same oval shape, the same straight nose and small and perfect ears. His eyes were black like hers and they were full of wonder.

“Anila,” he said at last. “You are welcome home, daughter.”

Then the group broke and people surged forward to touch me and tell me who they were.

First to speak was Arjun's grandniece, my cousin Meenakshi, who told me that a feast was waiting for all our party in his house. She was older than me, quite a bit older, and some of the children were hers. She pointed them out, laughing at each one's name. She had my mother's even teeth.

She pushed forward her own grandfather, Arjun's brother, my old uncle. He had tears in his eyes when he reached to touch my head.

“Annapurna was the light of the river,” he said. “As her mother was before her. And you too, tall like a swan.”

I was tall here, I realized. I was even a little taller than Arjun.

The small boys had discovered Manik and they all ran away like rabbits towards the house and the food. Meenakshi called warnings after them. The girls followed them, giddy with the outrage. Only the littlest one stayed, a tiny girl with a covering of wispy curls, shorter than a boy's. I handed her my flower, which she held in front of her as if it were made of china.