Miss Timmins' School for Girls (19 page)

“Tell me everything,” she said, “in detail. I do not care to know what you think. I just want to know everything you saw on table-land that night.”

In fact, it was her very own words I wanted to say back to her: “Tell me everything, in detail,” I wanted to say to her. “I do not care to know what you think. I want to know every word you heard from your room that night.”

But I was at her mercy. If I could not be direct, I must be devious.

And so I told her. I told her how we saw the Prince leaning against the witch's needle, and then how we saw Nelson sitting on the rocks with her head in her hands, and how she did not see us, and how we ran. I left out the other players. I left out the Apt, the boys, and our brush with Merch the night after. I did not want to muddy the waters.

“And then we hear that Prince was pushed over the edge from that very spot soon after. What are we to think, Miss?” I asked her in a frightened voice.

She shook her head and stared at the dripping trees. “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” she said finally. She sounded confused, not shocked.

Maybe she was there as well, I thought. Hadn't I seen her in my vision? Maybe she had heard Nelson leave and had followed her up, so that Nelson followed Prince and Raswani followed Nelson. Like a chain of fish each eating the other on the geography sea chart.

She knew the secret. I was sure of it now, seeing her pale, scared face. She knows the secret, and it is big and terrible enough to kill. But she will take it to the grave with her unless I make her tell, today.

“We do not know what to do,” I said. “Should we go to the police now, or should we wait for Shobha's father?” Everyone knew Shobha's smooth, capable father. “Shobha says we should wait till he comes this afternoon, and then go to the police with him,” I said. Even Raswani must have known that it would be all out of the box once we told Shobha's father.

Then she started to speak. She spoke in a low, even voice. In the distance I could hear the shrill voices and laughter of schoolgirls.

“That night,” she said, “I heard her taunting Miss Nelson. I prayed to the Lord, I prayed that I might take her sorrow away from her. Why should she suffer so much? Hadn't she suffered enough? Hadn't we all suffered enough? Exposing these young girls to her wicked ways. Flaunting herself.” A dash of her old anger crept into her voice again. “Now she is free of her. Now we are all free of her.”

Maybe they murdered her together, Raswani and Nelson, I thought, wildly. They murdered her because she was a lesbian, a serpent in their beloved Timmins. Ideas began to twirl around in my head a mile a minute. Raswani could well have been wandering around on table-land that night. It was a haunted night, and perhaps we were all drawn up to table-land by some ghostly force, like the moon pulls the tides to it.

“She was a saint,” Raswani continued in a measured voice devoid of any emotion, as though she were not speaking to me but confessing to a judge and jury. “I prayed always to the Lord to let me be worthy of her, to let me be like her. It was she who made me turn to the Lord for mercy when I came to this blessed place. She would pray with me every night after dinner. But sometimes, when I prayed to the Almighty, it was her face in front of me. That was my only sin.

“But she was hiding a bigger sin. Hiding it in front of all our eyes. The child turned into a monster. A depraved, wicked monster. She became a burden to us all, carrying on with her wicked ways for all to see. She was like a boil upon the earth.”

Maybe they were having an affair. That's it, I thought. That explained everything. Nelson and Prince were having an affair. That was the terrible secret between them. And Raswani heard about it that night. I wanted to run and tell the girls. My heart was banging up a storm.

I dared not breathe, I dared not gasp, I dared not make her stop.

Finally she stood up—slowly, using the table for support, as if she had aged ten years while she sat in front of me. She adjusted her housecoat, and, still holding my Hindi textbook in her hand, walked into her room and closed the door. I waited outside, growing more nervous by the minute. I wanted to leave, but I could not because she had my book. I heard her opening drawers and rummaging through her drawers.

When I heard her muttering “Into Thy hands I commend you” or something of that sort, I realized she was praying. I thought she had forgotten about me, and so I raised my voice and said, “Miss Raswani, can I please have my textbook back?”

She came out with the book in her hand and looked at me. Her eyes were dim, like those of very old women. It was the anger that kept her going all these years, I realized. Now that she is sad, the mad Saturn ring around her eyes will melt and she will die, I thought. This was the first time I felt compassion for an adult human being. I was fifteen.

“Show it to that silly child, your friend Akhila,” she said, handing me the book. “Tell her to revise her favorite chapter.”

She's daft, I thought, because I knew Akhila did not have enough interest in Hindi to possibly have a favorite chapter.

I held the book tight to my chest and ran breathless to the steps. They were still there, the three of them, sitting in a tight formation on the hospital steps. Although it seemed a lifetime had passed, it was hardly half past nine in the morning, and I must have been gone less than half an hour.

“They were having an affair,” I announced triumphantly. “Nelson and Prince were having an affair. That was the fight. And that was the reason for the murder.”

“You mean the monster actually told you that?” asked Shobha, shocked.

“Well, not exactly. She said that Nelson was hiding a big sin in front of all our eyes. Those were her words. Raswani told me that her only sin was loving Nelson, of seeing her face instead of the Lord's when she prayed. But Nelson, she said, was hiding a bigger sin.”

“She actually said all these things to you?” asked Shobha, giving me the quizzical eye.

“Nandita would not make such a thing up,” said Ramona, my stout defender, and Akhila nodded her head in agreement.

I could not blame Shobha for doubting me. It would never have happened, even yesterday. Raswani never talked to students. She shouted one-line commands, and we obeyed. Now she was a broken woman, and I was the strong one.

The news was shocking. But it was possible. After all, as Shobha said, they must be so frustrated here, these spinsters, never even seeing a man of their own kind except the pastor, and how they all blushed and flirted with Pastor Reese, though he had a wife and three young children. An affair between Nelson and the Prince was quite plausible, and entirely possible, we all agreed. That was why Nelson kept the Prince in school, in spite of all the scandals. That was the meaning of the accusation Shobha had heard with her ear pressed to Nelson's bathroom wall.
You bloody hypocrite,
Prince had screamed on the night of her death.
You bloody bitch. Keeping me here like your pet monkey. So saintly.
Because the Prince was performing for the principal. Kept there to satisfy the devious principal's unnatural desires. While letting Nelson appear to be the saint, the Prince the sinner. I, who had looked up to Miss Nelson all these years, changed my mind about her that day. I saw how she had wronged the Prince.

“No wonder she rubs her hands all the time like Lady Macbeth,” said Ramona.

Nineteen

MariOrPiriKuri

M
iss Raswani disappeared the same day. When she did not come to dinner, the Willoughby ayah took her a meal tray, only to find her room clean and empty except for a pile of brown-paper-covered textbooks on the desk. We were told the next morning.

But by then, Nelson had already been taken into custody. Because of us.

That morning, after I left Raswani's room we garnished the liaison between Nelson and Prince, on the hospital steps.

Nelson liked nymphets, said Shobha, and she should know, since she was reading
Lolita
with a torch under the blankets. That is what she kept in her purse, we agreed. Pictures of young girls, perhaps even of us. Maybe she took pictures of us through bathroom chinks. “Does anyone remember hearing a click while changing in Upper Willoughby?” asked Shobha with an excited shudder.

It must have begun while Prince was growing up with those ghastly saintly parents. They came to our school raising a storm of Christian dust, telling us stories with pictures painted on a felt board. They had an irritating pious air about them, and sang soulful duets. We had no idea they had a daughter until she came to teach abruptly in the middle of the winter term two months after their sudden deaths. There had been a memorial service in the church after they died, when we were in standard eight. I remember Miss Nelson sitting in her usual seat—up front, with the church choir—and blowing her red nose during the one minute of silence.

Nelson, who was supposed to have been their trusted family friend, had ravished their daughter. “Come sit on my lap, dear,” she must have said, reading to Prince from the Bible in the evenings. And who would suspect an
aunt
?

Our mothers had warned us about the uncles. No arms around shoulders, no sitting on laps, and if they pat you on the back too often, you just come and tell me. But even the most paranoid of mothers had never thought to warn us against an aunt.

Brilliant. Lesbian aunt ravishes young girl who turns into a lesbian herself. Lesbian aunt pretends to be a saint. After murdering her ravishee, she donates a plaque in the church to the poor parents and their wayward daughter. “Twisted, man, truly twisted,” said Akhila with glee.

“You have to admit Prince is the most interesting teacher in this place,” said Shobha.

“You mean she was,” I said, and felt a shiver down my spine. Actually, I had never liked Miss Prince. I found her self-absorbed and erratic. I blamed her for getting poor Apt involved in all this. I felt Prince had deliberately preyed on Apt because she was insecure and innocent. But now I felt sorry for Prince too.

“Remember the time she brought those balloons to the hockey pitch last term, on that hot day, and instead of playing hockey we filled the balloons with water, split into two teams, and had a water fight?” Prince had kept a stack of balloons beside her and thrown them at us randomly.

“She kept throwing balloons at me. I told her it wasn't fair,” said Shobha. “And she said, ‘Come here, you little rascal,' and pricked one of the balloons and emptied it out down my front.”

All our navy-blue divided skirts and white blouses and navy-blue bloomers had to be put out to dry the next day, and the matrons were all in an uproar.

I was not a sports person myself. I kept a book with me and tried as often as possible to sit out and read. Miss Prince left me alone; I thought she did not notice. But on my last report card, she wrote in the comments section for sports, “Nandita finds it beneath her dignity to run.”

We realized how brave she had been. She had the courage to flout their God and their ways. She did not hide herself. This is what I am, she said, love me or leave me.

Even her bad moods, now, we felt we understood.

She was never one of the mean ones. We all knew the mean teachers, the mean ayahs, the mean prefects. She was just unpredictable and had outbursts of random cruelty.

We saw how she must have been buffeted. What with those holier-than-thou parents, and then a saintly aunt who starts pawing her. She had sobbed that night, our poor Prince, laying bare her soul to her evil lover, begging her to show some sign that she cared for her. And instead, Nelly had said,
Let us pray.
Our Lord will show you His mercy, my child, as He did to me
.

It was from that day on that we began to love the Prince. Even after the story twisted and turned like a scooter rickshaw in a crowded bazaar in Kandivili, we kept on loving her. Even though she was a lesbian.

Or maybe also because she was a lesbian.

“It adds glamour,” I said.

“Why glamour? I think it adds intrigue,” Shobha said with a naughty smile.

“What happened that day during detention? Wasn't it totally humiliating when she kept you standing for two hours?” I asked Shobha, wondering if she harbored a grudge, knowing I would have.

“First, I kept standing there, and she kept giving me this cold, sharp glare. It was almost as if I was expected to do something. I couldn't figure out what. So when the lunch bell rang, I started walking out. ‘Did anyone give you the permission to leave?' she asked, and so I went back to my place and stood again for another hour.”

I could see Shobha, tossing her head, slouching to her spot with a look of contempt on her face.

“Did she ever say anything to you about it?” asked Akhila.

“You know, we never even spoke after that. She would not address me by name. But I was always so aware that she was looking at me, and that day at the Scottish Dancing Competition, I swear to you, man, I knew she was looking at me the whole time. Her eyes were boring into me. I was quite flustered.”

“You didn't look flustered to me. I was right next to you, and my kilt was so loose and flappy. But you looked great. And you were strutting away,” I said.

“Turned you on, did she?” said Akhila.

“Idiot,” said Shobha, and blushed.

I realized with a start that all those times on the netball field when they tossed their heads and stomped past each other, when we had thought they hated each other from that Saturday detention, they were actually flirting.

“And then when Nelly came up that day to send you down to the dorm, did you see anything between them?” we asked.

“Nelly walked in grave as a graveyard,” said Shobha. “She did not look at Prince, she walked to me, she raised her eyebrows in sorrow, and she said, ‘You can go now, Shobha.' Prince did not look up from her book. Her legs were still on the table. She was leaning back on her chair, absorbed, not noticing Nelson. Nelson stood at the door of the classroom and watched me till I turned the corner.”

“That's all? You didn't hear anything more?” asked Akhila.

“You think I would walk away from that? Not a chance. I turned the corner and ducked into the art room. I saw Nelson walk to Prince, take the book away from her, and put it in her purse. Then she put Prince's head to her bosom.”

“You mean you actually saw them making out? As if. And all this time you did not even let out a peep about it?” we asked, scoffing.

“Not exactly making out, of course,” said Shobha condescendingly. “Prince did not bury her head in Nelson's bosom and start kissing or anything. In fact, she shook her head free. I mean, they could have kissed or something after that. I don't know because I had to leave. Nelson came walking down the corridor, I thought she might have seen me, and so I ran.”

“How could you leave the art room without being seen?” I asked her.

“I jumped out of the window at the back. It's quite easy. I did it once before with Raksha, when we went to steal the school bell for April Fool's Day. It was quite easy, really,” insisted Shobha.

I did not believe a word of it. She was making it up as she went. Surely she would have told us about it earlier, had it been true. I suddenly saw Shobha's clay feet—I realized that she was a fibber. She would do or say anything just to get the spotlight back on her.

The Prince had said,
You bloody hypocrite
, stalked out into the night, and gone to table-land to get drugs from Shankar. Nelly followed her and pushed her over the edge because she knew that Prince would not keep her secret anymore, and her perfect reputation would be tarnished forevermore.

This was the logical story. It made sense. We had it all wrapped up. By the time the envelope fell out of my Hindi textbook, I had even put aside my quest for the letter from England that had made the Prince rush out into the raining night.

I see it as my fault. I, who had been trained to concentrate on the details that other people missed. I had suppressed the thought of the letter. Luckily, it slipped out of my textbook onto the red stone step at my feet.

I had the Hindi textbook, fresh from the hands of Miss Raswani, still on my lap. I must have been fiddling with it in an absentminded way—for of course Hindi revisions were the furthest thing from my mind—when it opened to the MariOrPiriKuri chapter and the letter fell out, still in its blue- and red-edged airmail envelope.

We went to the plastic-covered table outside the dining room, and I copied the entire letter word for word into our murder notebook. I still have those pages today. I remember how I wrote that morning in blue ink with the smooth-nibbed Pilot pen that I loved, and the smell of Mallu the bearer's stinky dishcloth on the plastic.

The envelope was addressed to “Miss Moira Prince, Miss Timmins' School, Panchgani, India” from “Jonathan Birkett, 17 Balfour Road, London, England.” The postmark was from August 2, 1974. And it was written exactly like this:

Dear Moira,

Forgive me for not being in touch sooner. You must think I had forgotten about the promise I made to you at Christmas. Let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. I too am eager to complete the picture of our family history, though of course I know that your quest is more essential.

I meant to go during the Easter Holidays. But Camilla has been rather unwell, and the care of the children fell solely onto me, and that prevented me from going. That should not have prevented me from writing to you, I know, but I confess I felt guilty—I knew, after all, what it meant to you, and how anxious you must be—and so I kept telling myself that I would write after I had accomplished my task. Or at least when I could tell you with confidence when I would actually go to Norfolk.

Now that the school is finally closed for the summer holidays, and Camilla is much better—she sends you her love, and hopes that you will come for the holidays again this year so we can get to meet our newly discovered cousin, and our children can have an aunt, for we are both only children, you and I—I had the opportunity at last to drive up to Little Snoring. I spent three days there, digging into records and talking to people. I must tell you it is a wonderfully picturesque little village a few miles off the coast. I am sending you a photograph of St. Andrew Chapel, which is a wonderful medieval church.

I am surprised that you had never even heard Little Snoring mentioned once in your home, since that is where your parents lived for many years before they went off on their mission to India. But of course, once they decided to keep your adoption secret from you, they must have had to bury that whole part of their lives.

But why do I rant on like this, when you must be so eager for the results of my search.

According to the village records, there were three girls born on November 20, 1946. If you do have the correct date of your birth, then we have struck gold, since there is an unwed mother on the list:

Amanda, born to Charles and Mary Linn

Margaret, born to Innis and Martha Naar

Charlotte, born to Shirley Nelson

As you see, there is no mention of a father for Charlotte. I did try to do some digging around, you know. I spoke to the pastor of the Presbyterian church, told him about my aunt and uncle who became missionaries, but he was a young man, and was either unwilling to talk or unknowing of the adoption, which is very possible, because these things were done very informally in those days, as you know. He said none of the names were familiar to him. So I am sending you a copy of the birth certificate, in case it might help you in your search.

I discovered that there was an air force base near the village during the war, which might go a long way towards explaining the circumstances of your birth. The war, the handsome boys in uniform, might have driven the village girls to distraction; I hope you do not mind me saying so.

And though I have taken so long to get this far, let me assure you that I am most willing to help you locate Shirley Nelson—although it is possible that she may be married and have a different name.

We are all still in a state of pleasant shock, but so glad that you tracked us through the card. The sisters exchanged cards on a regular basis. Your mother—adoptive mother, I suppose I should say—used to visit us every four years or so, when she came on furlough. She always came alone by train for the day, we had tea together, and then the two sisters used to lock themselves into the room and murmur.

We sent your parents Christmas cards with our family photo every year. They always sent a card too. I waited for the envelopes and stuck the stamps in my book and looked at them often, the maps of India in different colors. Your parents never sent photographs of themselves. My mother said because it must be hard to take photos in those primitive places. But now I can see that you were their secret.

We are all eager to find out where this journey leads you. And once again, please do call upon me if you need my help. I hope that we can continue to be in touch. Camilla and I have begun to harbour fantasies of visiting you in India.