Anila's Journey (17 page)

There were a couple of fishing boats tied up at the small ghat and some of the hollowed tree boats too, but when I looked at Madan he shook his head.

“Arjun has a bigger boat,” he said.

He called out a greeting to some young men on the jetty who were shaking out their nets. Then we were past.

For the first time, I wondered how my mother had come to the city to join my father. I knew she had worn her red sari and I knew that he had lifted her up and over the doorway of the house in the lane, just like a bride back home, he said. She had told me that. But how had they come there? In whose boat?

And how had he come to be here at all on that first afternoon when they met, he so far from his work and his lodgings with the Company?

Because only now, when I could see how great the distance was, did I understand what it had meant when she had given up her life as a daughter in this green place. Madan had made it clear that Annapurna was treasured here. Yet she had left it all behind to make a strange new life, and in just a short time that life included me.

I thought how brave she was and how much I missed her and I had to look away then from everybody and stare hard into the sky. But all that was up there were the kites, doing what they always did, drawing black lines over the sun.

MY MOTHER SAID SHE
could not understand Mr Bristol's new proposal at all, but I was thrilled to hear about it. After our palanquin trips, it was the first interesting thing to come our way in this house
.

We were in our room when she told me about it. My mother was standing in front of the long mirror. I was sitting on the window ledge watching her. She was wearing a pale blue silk sari with chikan embroidery, just recently delivered by our lively little tailor from Kashi, and she had a new gold chain that I had not seen before. She was trying it different ways, round her neck, across her forehead, even dangling it over her nose like a bazaar monkey
.

“Why does he want to have a picture made of me?” she asked me, over and over. “He can see me whenever he wants to. It was different with your father. He had a feeling about making a picture for himself even if he couldn't actually do it…”

But then she would break off that particular thought. She would return to Mr Bristol and his reasons
.

“He says this Mr Hickey is one of the very best painters who have come to Calcutta to paint all the famous English people. But I am not one of those. Why does he not paint Mr Bristol himself, then? He's famous enough, or so he tells us.”

I laughed at that thought
.

“Mr Bristol is plump and pink like a plucked chicken. No one would want to look at his picture, Ma!”

She glared at me
.

“He is kind to you. Don't you be unkind in return.”

“I know, Ma, I know. But you will make a beautiful portrait lady. He knows that.”

My mother was going to have her portrait painted by one of the best painters in our city. Why was she not excited? It was a better way, surely, to spend her time than filling hookahs or passing around paan or running round a table picking up billiard balls
.

When I said that I got another angry look
.

“Perhaps I don't want to be stared at. Perhaps I think it is wrong for people I do not know to be looking at me when I am not there. English people, too. You could never know what they might be thinking. Besides, I know the real reason is that it is just a kind of competition. This Mr Hickey has already painted another Englishman's Indian bibi and Mr Bristol wants my picture to outshine hers. They are so childish, men. They are worse than fighting cocks.”

But she settled the chain over her forehead and fixed her glossy hair to suit it. If it truly was a competition my mother knew she would have to play her part
.

“He has promised me gold drop earrings, Anila, though what I would really like is just to run out on the street and buy a simple bangle with my own money. I wish I knew too whether all this jewellery will be yours one day or not. That's not written into his famous contract, you know.”

I thought again of the beautiful crimson ring that my father had given her on that last day we were together. I would have cared to have that. I touched my peacock locket for luck. Inside it was a button, a small bone button that had come from one of my father's shirts. I had found it in our house one day when my mother was ill. It was the only thing of his I had. The storybooks he had made were ruined long ago
.

Days went by and it was getting to be high summer and very clammy. The bhistis who were charged with sprinkling water could not keep the dust from rising in the streets and we choked if we did not pull the shades over inside our palanquin. Going out was unpleasant. Everyone said the rains would be late
.

I found another good book in Mr Bristol's library, a book about a sailor left shipwrecked alone on an island. When she was with me in the evenings, and not doing duty with Mr Bristol and his friends, I read some of Mr Robinson Crusoe's adventures to my mother. She felt he was lost for love more than anything else. Perhaps she was right. But I could find no fairy tales or romances on Mr Bristol's shelves
.

Then on the first day of Asarh the monsoon arrived with a black scowl that made everyone smile and the rains started, as heavy as any I had ever seen. They fell into our fountain like hammers beating on metal. But that was not all. Something else was making a thundering noise, and it was not in the sky but much closer to hand, at our gate. I was standing in the porch, dry as a baby bird, watching the rains because I could not go out, and I saw everything. The durwan opened the gate, which took him a long time, perhaps because of the damp in the lock, perhaps because he was slowed by the rain which could take your breath away with its force. When the gate finally creaked open, four bearers heaved a square plain palanquin through it and staggered over the wet stones up to the porch and set it down
.

A bulky man pulled himself out of the palanquin. He was dressed all in grey-green cloth, in cutaway jacket and breeches, with a straw hat that he kept one hand to as he took large steps to reach the porch. The other hand held a packet. He did not run though, unlike the bearers who raced for the poor shelter of the pomegranate tree. Perhaps he could not run because he was quite elderly, or so he seemed to me. He had large English features, especially his nose, but eyes that were soft and sharp at the same time. They were blue. It was no trouble for me to discover this because they were fixed on me in a very direct way
.

I was the first person to greet the famous painter Mr Hickey, therefore, though I did not know who he was. He handed me his damp hat
.

“Child,” he said. “Pretty child. Is Mr Bristol at home? Not expecting me, but I've come anyway. Being in the area, and his my next undertaking.”

I set the hat down on a small table and did a namashkar for him, as my mother had trained me to do. But what startled me was his voice. He spoke in the same accent as my father though his way of talking was gruff
.

“Sahib, I will find him. Please step into the hall.”

But Mr Bristol had already arrived though no servant had gone to fetch him. He must have been looking out of his window at the traffic that was braving the sudden rains
.

“Mr Hickey. What an unexpected pleasure.” Then, to me, “Anila, run and tell your mother to join us in the salon. At once.”

Upstairs, my mother paced our room, furious
.

“I am wearing rags,” she said, “and no jewels except this bangle. How does he expect me to present myself at once?”

She was wearing a kurta pyjama of dove-grey silk, with a white scarf that seemed to be made entirely of cobwebs, so fine was its lace
.

“Ma, you look beautiful,” I said. “Come now, please.”

I didn't believe this Mr Hickey would be impressed by fineries. His eyes were too clever for that
.

She freed her braid from its fastening and let it hang, woven through with a white silk thread. Then she took a sweet-smelling bela flower from the bloom vase she kept on our bedside trunk, and clipped it into place just in front of her ear. She draped her scarf over her loosened hair, drawing its fine ends over her shoulders. Then she followed me down to the salon
.

Mr Hickey stood up from the winged chair when she came in
.

“Afternoon, my dear lady,” he said
.

All at once there were so many busy eyes in that room! Mr Hickey's did what they must. Mr Bristol's kept count like a Company policeman. Mine were a spy's
.

What I saw was this
.

Mr Hickey was looking at my mother just as any proper gentleman would, not at all like Mr Bristol's usual friends with their furtive habits. He did not offer to kiss her hand – I was sure he knew better. But he bowed to her
.

“Be so good as to step towards the window,” he said to her. “How are you named, good lady?”

She smiled at him, a warm smile, such as Mr Bristol himself rarely received from her. I wondered if he noticed this, but sneaking a look at him, I could see that he was pleased with the event so far. He was hugging himself like a child offered sweet things
.

“My name is Annapurna,” she said
.

She stood in the window where the green light of the creeper and the grey of the clouds and rain threw soft dark shadows on her face. He asked her to turn this way and that, and, finally, to let down the scarf, “Hope you don't terribly mind, dear. My work.”

There was his accent again. To hear my father's tones unsettled me. I wondered if my mother had noticed those echoes too
.

He asked me then to fetch the packet he had left in the hall, and when I brought it to him he took from it some pencils and sheets of paper. He motioned to my mother to stay as he had placed her, and then, while we all watched as if this were a puppet show, he made swift marks on his pages. I could not see what he was drawing and I thought it rude to move closer, but I was struck by the speed of his hand
.

When he had finished his observations, Mr Hickey asked my mother to sit down, but she remained standing. Then he asked Mr Bristol if he might tour the downstairs apartments of the house. The two of them left us there for some moments. I did not dare move. I felt we were all under some kind of spell that I did not wish to break. Besides, he had taken his drawings with him
.

They returned. Mr Bristol was looking a little cross, I thought. But he was the one who spoke
.

“My dear Anna,” he said. “Mr Hickey feels that he will do a very fine portrait of you but the lighting in our house is not sufficient. At least it is not properly to the north, he says. He has a room set apart in his own house where he would like you to repair for sittings. Mr Hickey's daughter has done the service of chaperone in this situation several times before without objection. So I think, though it is regrettable to put you to the trouble of travelling, that you will oblige us both by consenting to this arrangement. I have looked upon Mr Hickey's first drawings and I am confident that we will all be happy with the outcome.”

My mother merely bowed her head, but I could only just prevent the huge smile I felt inside from reaching my face
.

Mr Hickey bowed again, clicked his heels and left us with a rush of the short remarks that seemed to be his personal language
.

“Good-day ladies,” he said. “Our next meeting, then. In Garden Reach. My pleasure, entirely.”

Before a word to forbid it could be uttered, I ran after him, as far as the porch. The bearers were just outside with the palanquin but Mr Hickey groaned when he saw that the monsoon had not obliged him by stopping. He put his hat on, hunched his shoulders although he was still safe inside and pushed his drawings further down into the packet he carried. He gave me a long look, sighed and removed one of the fine sheets
.

“For you, then. The best of today's work.”

He winked at me. “Conceal it,” he said
.

Then he was gone again, into the rain, to face the struggle with the durwan and his locks that accompanied every exit from our house
.

In my hand was what my father had been searching for, so long and so in vain. His Annapurna was there on the cream-coloured page, from the tip of her head to her slender waist, drawn in charcoal and a touch of red chalk, and all the beautiful lines that my father could never make, despite all his attempts. Mr Hickey had found her soul
.

THUNDERSTORMS AND TOWERS CRASHING
down, galloping hooves and groans in graveyards. In storybooks these are the kinds of noises people hear when they get news that shakes their bones. For me, oars squeaking and straining in their locks will sound for ever like the oldest door in the world.

We two have come through the oldest door in the world, Anila, the door between hope and fear. So, little one, don't look back. It's closed behind us now
.

Without sail, Benu and Hari were rowing the big boat as best they could, just the two of them. It was heavy work but Madan had told them they didn't have to take us far, just to the next stout tree on the bank side, for tying up.

“That's what has to be done. Move the boat upriver so no one can tell that the sahib and I have started our journey from this place.”

He did not explain the need for secrecy but waited until we had begun to move. Then he tied a brown cloth wrap on his head and jumped off the boat and joined Mr Walker. It seemed they were going on a walk through the rice fields. Nobody else was wanted along with them, that was clear, not Carlen to carry, nor Anila to draw. I wondered what Mr Walker would do now if he were to meet his great unknown bird tiptoeing through the mud.