An Unrestored Woman (6 page)

*   *   *

The question of self-control—it
had
been a question of self-control, hadn't it—recalled to him the piano lessons his mother insisted that he take well into his adolescence. So that while all the other boys were out playing cricket and looking at pictures in laddie magazines, Jenkins was stuck at home practicing piano. He'd been miserable at first—especially since his best friend, Toddy, was captain of the cricket team. But then Mrs. Bunting had retired and his mother had hired the new director of the church choir, Mr. Templeton, to give him lessons on the side. Before the first lesson Mr. Templeton, who'd read classics at Oxford, had knocked on the door and when Jenkins had opened it the sight of him had nearly knocked him off his feet. He'd never laid eyes on a man so perfectly formed: gray eyes as gloomy as the sea, hands and neck wiry yet formidable, thick dark hair that needed a cut fell over his ears and tickled his neck. He stood so erect, so blissfully unaware of his own handsomeness that Jenkins actually blushed. After that Jenkins didn't once complain or miss his piano lessons. In fact it got so that he was downright promising at it.

Of course, then came the incident in the church vestiary, when he and Mr. Templeton were found in what the vicar had called “an unfortunate position.” Within a week Mr. Templeton was transferred to a parish in Wales and Jenkins, as his mother wept and his father looked away shamefacedly, boarded a train for Warwick. When the train pulled out of the station Jenkins stuck his head out of the window. He wanted to wave but he couldn't. His mother was still crying, but now she'd laid her head against his father's shoulder, while his arm held her to him. They stood like that—leaning against each other—for as long as Jenkins watched them. And it was
that
, that simplicity of feeling that Jenkins knew he'd somehow lost.

Even Mr. Templeton, after being found in the vestiary, when they were waiting for the vicar in his office, had said, “Deny it. Deny everything.”

“But
how
,” Jenkins said. “He saw us.”

Mr. Templeton leaned toward him. “Make him doubt what he saw.”

“That'd be lying.”

“No,” he said. “It'd be concealing the truth.”

Jenkins looked at him. It seemed hard to believe that this had been the same person who'd held him to his beating chest, who'd kissed him only moments ago. The vicar, in the end, made it clear he wanted only for them to be out of his parish. “The empire's vast,” he said, showing them to the door. “Try, if you could, not to come back.”

And so Jenkins had been sent off to boarding school. Though, even at the age of sixteen, it seemed absurd to Jenkins that he should be sent to a boarding school for
boys
. The two years he remained at Warwick—along with the two or three tousles he had while there—did nothing more than solidify his sense that he was different, and that what he did must always be kept concealed, and that for him, in spite of the ache that had settled into his chest, clogged the passageways to his heart, there was no greater peace than the peace of another's arms. And so what, he thought, bracing against the cold of the long West Midland winters, if the arms happened to be those of another boy?

*   *   *

There had, of course, been no need for Jenkins to summon Abheet Singh; he'd been waiting for him in his office early that Monday morning. Once he'd brought the jeep around they'd headed into the village. They didn't return to the station for another twelve hours.

The looting had spread. Stores in the mainly Sikh and Hindu populated city center were locked as of midday. Jenkins imposed a curfew from noon till the next morning. They'd patrolled the streets for hours, chasing after small itinerant fires and skirmishes, crumbs thrown along their path just to taunt them. Jenkins, with Abheet Singh driving, rounded corner after corner only to see the marauding gangs vanish into a narrow alley or a nondescript doorway. They'd race to the end of the street, or the alleyway, and find a silence so deep it was as if the gang had simply vanished into thin air, as if it'd never existed.

They'd reached one such alley when Jenkins jumped out of the jeep and yelled, “Where the devil did they go?”

“It's easy to outrun the English, sir,” Abheet Singh said calmly. “You never go anywhere without your jeeps.”

So they abandoned it under a peepal tree and set out on foot. By then the sky burned white with heat, the last of the sun's rage before it began its descent, and the sand blew straight into their eyes. After half an hour of this Jenkins knew it was of no use. They headed back toward the jeep. As they neared the peepal tree Abheet Singh was the first to notice. “Sir, the tires,” he gasped. All four had been slashed. They ran to it as if they could staunch its wounds but the air had let out long ago and the jeep rested, sleepy and bemused, on its axles. They looked around them; the street and the market were deserted.

“At least the curfew's working, sir,” Abheet Singh said.

“Yes, well,” Jenkins said. “That's the only time things work in this country: when you don't want them to.”

They left the jeep under the peepal tree and began walking. Jenkins looked back at the jeep ruefully, as if it might be following them like a stray dog.

By now the sun was beginning to set. The sky glowed with streaks of burnt orange and a pale and luminous green. Jenkins felt a thin breeze from the west though it was still hot. He wiped his face with a handkerchief; he was exhausted, the heat was dizzying. He felt strangely broken by it, and by the day, and by Delhi. He looked around him—at the endless desert sands and the houses made of earth and the thin dusty grasses wheezing in the wind and Abheet Singh walking beside him, his face alert and beautiful against the barren land—and it occurred to him that the vicar was right: he could never return to England. That just the thought of Warwick and the Midlands and his mother and his father and even the pubs and the cricket matches and the afternoon teas had become unbearable for him, that it was this barren land, in the end, that seemed to him the promised one.

Maybe it was because of this thought that Jenkins shuddered, or maybe it was the one that followed: that he would soon
have
to leave, Pakistan would be born in a month's time, and what need would they have for him, for any of the British? He thought of the days ahead, and the days upon days that awaited him, and all the concealment of these many long years and he thought in that moment that he could not take another step, that really, there were no steps left to be taken.

Abheet Singh stopped in midstride. “Sir,” he said, “you're trembling.”

Jenkins looked down at his hands. His baton shook like a divining rod over water. His palms were clammy, cold, and yet his body burned and shook with sorrow; he gripped one arm with the other. “It's nothing,” he said quickly. “Feeling a bit off, is all.”

Abheet Singh looked from his hands into his eyes. They were within sight of the police station, tucked behind a high gate. The road in front led off toward the marketplace in one direction and the emptiness of the desert in another. The country all around was quiet. But for the two of them it hardly seemed inhabited. Only the sparrows had ventured into the treetops, chirping as the sun set. Abheet Singh looked a long while into Jenkins's eyes then slowly, almost tenderly, he reached toward him, wrapped his hand around his trembling wrist, and stilled it. The motion was so delicate, so utterly benevolent and sexless, that Jenkins could hardly breathe, and in that moment he thought he might've come to know, for the briefest moment, the thing for which he'd always yearned, the thing that was the opposite of his many, many lonely years, the opposite—at this, he closed his eyes—of his concealment.

*   *   *

When he thought back over the incident he could never decide what had come first: had Abheet Singh released his wrist first or had Jenkins looked away first. Though what he did recall with great clarity was that afterward he'd rushed through the station gates, straight past Iqbal, and disappeared into his office. He'd closed the door—something he'd never before done—and splashed water on his face from the bowl on the washstand. The water was nearly as hot as his skin. He'd then thrown himself into his chair, rose, paced then slumped back into the chair. He could still feel Abheet Singh's hand on his wrist. The touch had seared, branded itself into his skin. In his recollections, even moments later as he sat at his desk, he felt their pulses pounding against each other's like the sea against rock. How terrifying and how beautiful. Jenkins took a deep breath. But he must focus, he had no time to waste: he had to write the day's report, submit it to the head office in the morning. He picked up his pen and was just beginning to write on his decision to impose the curfew when there was a knock on the door.

Jenkins held his voice steady. “Come in.”

Subinspector Iqbal stepped in and smiled mischievously. Did he know about the touch? He saluted Jenkins, with the proper knifelike motion, and waited for him to speak.

“What is it, Subinspector?”

“More trouble, sir. More of the shops have been looted.”

“Who is it this time?” Jenkins sighed.

“The Hindus, of course.” Iqbal said this with lavish seriousness, but Jenkins thought he saw the faintest smile drift across his face. He grimaced; he couldn't withstand another scandal.

“Don't just stand there,” Jenkins shouted. “Get Singh and get out there!” Just saying his name sent a shiver through him.

“But sir, the jeep.”

“Forget the jeep. You can't catch them in a jeep.”

Iqbal hung his head and scooted out miserably. Jenkins sent a telegram to the head office: LOOTING SPREADING. NEED VEHICLE, PERSONNEL. NO CASUALTIES. Then he too headed to the marketplace on foot. It took him twenty minutes to reach it, even half-jogging part of the way. He broke into a full sprint when the smell of fire reached him.

Still it was useless, and far worse than he'd imagined; the curfew had been pointless. The market was razed. The five or six shops around the main square had been torched. Most of the wares had been carried off but the shelves were dragged into the square and burned. Charred bits of wood stuck out of the earth like scarecrows. The stalls too lay collapsed in a heap, no better than rags. Aside from a mangy dog poking around the stalls—sniffing for the fragrant sweetmeats that had tumbled from their displays—the entire square was empty. Where the hell were Iqbal and Abheet Singh? Jenkins heard shouts in the distance, coming from the north side of the market. He rushed toward the clamor of voices, the roar of footsteps. He ran through the maze of streets, turned left at the peepal tree and there, at the end of an alley, was a crowd of villagers, ten deep, gathered around something Jenkins couldn't see.

“
Chal!
” he yelled, pushing through the crowd, “
Chal!
”

They only pressed closer. A hand reached for his baton, another—thick and vehement—gripped his arm. He shook free of it, grabbed his baton, and clubbed his way toward the center.

He saw Iqbal first, at the head of the mob, and then he saw Abheet Singh, on the ground. Blood had already begun seeping into the dirt. His turban had been ripped from his head and lay some distance away, unmoving, as if it too had been wounded. Abheet Singh's hair had come loose. Jenkins looked at it until his eyes blurred then he slid to the ground. He reached out his hand—it
was
the earth trembling, wasn't it—and stroked Abheet Singh's hair. It was silken, as he'd known it would be, and so dark that he could well imagine diving into its pool at midnight. He knelt lower, gathered fistfuls of it and lifted them to his face, his mouth, swallowing back tears. It was then, as he bent his head into Abheet Singh's hair, that the smell of sweat and rust and desert sage and all those bodies pressed together made him swoon. He could hardly rise, and only then with Iqbal's help.

*   *   *

The day after Abheet Singh's death Jenkins had filed a full report with the head office. They'd responded two days later by sending additional inspectors to assist in what they had termed a “shoddy and obtuse” investigation. While Jenkins waited for Abheet Singh's wife the new inspectors and Iqbal were in the field interrogating every villager and shop owner in Rawalpindi. The straw-filled holding cell was now crowded with suspects. The district superintendent, along with the inspectors, had sent a further brittle message to Jenkins: “The circumstances leading to Subinspector Abheet Singh's death are under review, as is your service with the Imperial Police.”

He read the note again then threw it into the dustbin. He could already see the gray, grimy shores of England.

He took another sip of his tea; he waited. Yes, she'd be easy enough to deal with, he considered, if only she wouldn't ask too many questions. Well, that was hardly a concern; he'd never heard an Indian woman
speak
, let alone ask a question. It occurred to him that she might be pretty. That was disconcerting, yes, though improbable. But she
had
been touched by him, they both had, and there was a fineness to that: being touched by a beautiful man.

He heard footsteps. After a slight shuffling two figures, a young woman and an old man, appeared just outside his door. So she's brought someone with her, Jenkins sniffed, I might've guessed. He nodded for them to enter but the woman gestured to the old man to wait on the bench. It was only after he was seated that she stepped into Jenkins's office. She stood for a moment, slim, wearing a lavender shalwar with a thin white veil pulled over her shoulders and hair. Her skin was pale, shimmering in the yellow light that pushed through the window, and from what Jenkins could see of her downturned face she had a rounded chin and plain features, almost crude, so unlike the rarefied features of her husband.