Splintered Lives (33 page)

The three of them go into the kitchen and Sarah and David look at Simon in wonder.

“Shall we go to sit on the terrace, it is still warm and the mountains are lovely with sun on them.
 
Do you remember from when you worked here with Sahida?” Simon asked his mother.

“Yes, I do, I still think this is the most beautiful place on earth and David was very impressed when we flew over them as we came on the plane.”

David tells him, “I have been all over the world when I worked as a civil engineer but I have never felt this wonder at the sights.
 
I am so pleased that you have found your vocation here, amongst your birth father’s people.
 
I know you are not my birth son but I want you to know that I have loved you, and still love you, as if you are.
 
We have not come to claim you and bring you home, but those were the first feelings we had when we realized that you were alive.
 
But we can see that you are settled here and evidently love your work.
 
If we can keep in touch and when your family is older, you can come back to us for holidays or perhaps to continue your studies as a specialized doctor.”

Sarah kisses David’s cheek as she holds on to Simon’s hand and says

“Simon you have no idea how happy we are to have found you in such a good situation, a lovely wife, work that you have always wanted to do and living in this ideal area of the world, as well as, finding your other family.
 
I hope you will forgive me for not telling you of your father but David was such a good substitute that I did not want you to feel different about him.
 
You and your sister Anne had a close relationship and she is so happy that we have found you.”

Simon feels a sense of comfort, as he understands that they have no more expectations of him than he wants to give.
 
He will still live here and work here and as she says he and his family may visit them when the baby is older and able to travel on a long haul flight.

There is a rattle of teacups as the other three come out on to the terrace and tea is served.
 
Sarah and Sahida start to reminisce about the time they worked together on the mountain and about the children they taught.
 
Sahida gives Sarah an account of the children Sarah knew and the conversation opens out as Mark tells his stories of the time he and his friends came to visit Sarah and the villager who guided them on their trek.
 
Mula has a relative that was taught at that school about the time Sarah taught there so she feels part of the happy conversation.

The night comes to the terrace suddenly and they go inside where they have to take leave of each other, as Sahida and Simon have to work the following day,

Mula kisses Sarah and David as they make their farewells, they promise to meet up the following evening, when the workers have finished for the day.

Sarah feels jubilant, but deflated, she has found her son but he does not recognize any of them, Mark, David or herself.
  
She needs to get inside his forgotten memory of them, before she can feel happy, before she can let the family at home know the circumstances of his survival.
 
She will try to have some time with him alone soon before she rings Anne and Charlie as well as Joe and Mary.

 
David feels confused, this looks like his son but Simon has changed from a carefree boy who was full of enthusiasm for sport, fun and laughter into this serious man who is soon to become a father, who is already an accomplished and busy doctor.
 
Simon has no idea who the three of them are and David, for the first time in his life, does not know how to handle the situation.
 
How can he take some of the strain off Sarah’s shoulders?
 
He has always tried to be the one who makes things right, to be the mainstay for his family, and now he feels helpless.
 
He could feel a brief connection when he shook Simon’s hand, then Simon seemed to withdraw and the moment had passed.

Mark was pleased that Sarah and David are staying with Sahida because he knows that she will calm their fears and try to reassure them.
 
He knows that Simon needs some treatment for his amnesia, but he is not in a good place to get it.
 
He feels that Simon is happy here with his life in Pokhara and even with the advent of his new family, he will be unwilling to leave this place.

Chapter 47

Mula was born years after her two brothers, the eighteen -year gap being of great inconvenience to her parents.
 
They run a first class hotel in Kathmandu and her two brothers are part of the work force and are involved in running the business.

Her father is an accountant and he oversees the financial part whilst her mother attends to the reservations, of the mostly, Western visitors.
 
One son runs the bars and the other one runs the kitchen.
 
There is no time for Mula and she feels neglected by her parents and rejected by her brothers who tell to go away as they are busy.
 
Then Mula remembers Ali, her eldest brother, telling her that he did have a soft spot for the lovely baby girl.
 
He loved the feel of her soft cheek and the grip of her tiny hand encircling his thumb as he held her to him.
 
His mother ordered him away, telling him to get back to the kitchen.
 
The nurse will see to the baby.

When Mula starts to walk, she escapes from her nurse and finds her way into the hotel kitchen where she hangs on to Ali’s leg with her little arms.
 
Ali brings her highchair in to the kitchen and lifts Mula into it, giving her some dough to play with.
 
She loves the warmth, the smell and the feel of the soft dough as her small hands try to roll it out.
 
Then she eats a little of it.
 
She cries as the sticky mess is on her face and fingers and Ali has to clean and comfort her.
 
Her father finds them, his face set in a deep frown as he tells Ali to get Mula out of the kitchen.
 
Ali does as he is told.
 
Mula is not allowed to go there again.

Another time when she is about three years old, she finds her way to the large lounge bar area and follows Jamul, her other brother, around.
 
She finds a crate of bottles that she moves about, from crate to floor and back again.
 
She loves the noise, the clunk as the bottle hits the wooden floor and the clank of the bottle as it hits the metal crate.
 
Jamul lifts her gently and takes her back to her nurse.
 
He feels he is betraying his little sister, but his parents insist she be kept out of sight of the hotel guests.
 
Jamul wonders why they have to live like this, lacking in warmth when Mula has lots to give. But she is hidden away.

She becomes sad as her apparent worthless existence begins to eat into her inner thoughts, why am I pushed away by everybody?

Her parents find her a teacher when she is five years old and she finds some resourcefulness from the care Nona pours upon her and she enters a new world of friendship and, even, love.
 
Nona teaches her in the morning and takes her out and about in the late afternoons, showing her the sights of her hometown and taking her to see the temples, and the holy cows that stroll around the place that are given great respect from all the other road users.
 
She learns to skip as she holds Nona’s hand and to laugh at the antics of the monkeys.
 
Her life has improved so intensely that her parents are pleased to see the difference in their little girl.

 
When Mula is nine years old her mother takes her to see her grandfather who lives way in the hills above Kathmandu.
 
He used to guide trekkers on their walks and he has a good command of the English language.
 
Mula finds her grandfather so much more caring than her parents and asks if she can visit him more often.
  
Her mother shrugs her shoulders and says. “Perhaps, when you go to boarding school you may spend your summer holidays here with him.”

“When I go to boarding school; why do I have to go to boarding school when I have Nona to teach me?”
 
Mula cries.

“You will go when you are eleven, Mula.
 
We want you to have a decent education and then you will have a choice of careers,” her mother replies.

Mula withdraws into her head and feels again frustrated and angry, thinking I know Nona cares for me and she is the only one who gives me any time.

Mula dreads her eleventh birthday because she knows Nona will have to leave her when she goes to boarding school.

The school is in Delhi and she feels as though it is a million miles from her home.
 
Nona had given her more than the necessary education and the lessons are easy for her.
 
Nona had also given her a sense of her own worth, as well as, an enthusiasm for reading.
 
She had fed her curiosity with the classics and music.
 
Her parents had encouraged her to play the piano and she found solace in the beautiful sounds of the music she played.

When she arrived at the boarding school, she felt uneasy and when she met the other girls, who were mostly Western, she had strange feelings and she knew that she would not fit in there.
 
The parents of the other girls came to the East to start up high tech businesses or as government civil servants working in the consulates around India.

Mula felt isolated amongst these European girls, as they are more sophisticated than her and they look smarter at weekends when they can wear their own clothes.
 
The school uniforms gives them a semblance of unity, but Mula feels the odd one out, especially on weekends when Mula wears her jeans and tops and the other girls have their designer clothes.

Because she is different she becomes the butt of their jokes and although the banter may be light, she feels bullied and very unhappy.
 
However she is interested in the lessons and does extremely well in her exams because she is not distracted by, what she thinks of, “the other girls’ pathetic self interest in their looks and clothes.
 
Oh my God, I’m getting as spiteful as them.” She grins to herself.

 
When the school breaks up for the summer, she is sent to her grandfather’s house in the hills above Kathmandu.

Here she becomes herself, dressed in tops and jeans; she roams the foothills with her grandfather.
 
He takes her to his terrace where he has planted herbs and rice and she helps him each week to tend his crops and harvest the ones that are ready.
 
Her grandfather says.
 
“Its lovely having you here and I am grateful for your company and we will work together in harmony.
 
I was a trekker guide when I was a young man.
 
I loved the young people I took to the peaks.
 
Some of them still write to me and tell me how they are doing now.”
 

 
He tells her about his life as a guide and she loves his stories.
 
He remembers his wife and talks about her; he tells Mula she is very like her late grandmother but Mula does not remember her because she died when Mula was two.
 
She is free here in this small cottage in the middle of a village where the people smile shyly and call out to her and her grandfather as they pass by on their frequent walks.
 
They sometimes go down to the town to buy the few things they cannot rear or grow and Mula loves the camaraderie of the older folks who have known her grandfather all his life, and the banter they shout at each other as they congregate outside the temple, in the centre of Kathmandu.
 
Her summers are perfect and she works well at school whilst she dreams of the next summer up in the hills.
 
The two people who have shaped her into the confident girl she has become are Nona and her grandfather.

She wishes for the love of her parents but she has resigned herself that although they are buying her a good education, they still have no time to give her.
 
She understands that they are leading very busy lives and she makes excuses for them to herself and her grandfather, when he tells her that he is not happy with his daughter’s attitude towards Mula.

When she becomes eighteen and gets good grades in her exams and because of her interest in the sciences, she decides she will become a doctor.
 
The people of the villages are getting older and their children are moving to find work away, they need care and as her grandfather has encouraged her to follow her dreams, she has decided that she will try to get a place in the new medical college in
Kathmandu
.

She is eighteen and very beautiful, she is unaware of her looks and because of her life up to now, where apart from her summers with her grandfather, she has had no feedback on how people perceive her, and she is very shy in company.