The Linnet Bird: A Novel (53 page)

L
ATER, AS
M
ALTI BRUSHED
out my hair, she leaned close to my ear. “It is not as Memsahib Partridge tells it,” she whispered.

I looked at her in the mirror. She continued brushing—slow, long strokes of the silver brush. Her oval face was creased with worry. “Tell me,” I said.

“Memsahib Hathaway’s ayah knows the true story. She was witness.”

“Witness to the rape?”

Malti shook her head. “There was no such deed. Not by the Pashtun, and not by any man.”

I had heard the theories—that the thin air caused delusions in some. I reached up to stop the brush and turned around on my stool. “What do you mean, Malti? Is all of this Mrs. Hathaway’s imagination?”

Malti gracefully lowered herself to the floor at my feet. “I know you are fair, Mem Linny. I want to tell you, for Memsahib Hathaway’s ayah, Trupti, is my sister.”

“Your sister?” Malti never talked about her family, even when I asked her pointedly. She always shrugged, telling me that her life should be of no importance to me. “Does she live in Delhi? That’s where Olivia Hathaway is from.”

“Yes.”

“When did you last see your sister?”

“Five years ago. But we had imagined we would never see each other again, at least not for many, many years. So you can imagine my joy when we arrived and . . .” She stopped, swallowed, and then continued. “And now, because of what has happened, Trupti has serious trouble. So serious. I am the older sister, Mem Linny. It is my duty to help Trupti.”

“Of course. Tell me what happened.”

Malti never dropped her gaze. “Memsahib Hathaway has a business with a soldier. The man-lady business. They meet in the woods beyond the picnic grounds. Trupti always sits some distance from her memsahib, ready to warn her if anyone approaches as she lies with the soldier.” Malti fingered the silver brush, picking at the few blond strands caught in its bristles. “But today Trupti was not careful enough. Her lady and the soldier stayed together so long. She fell asleep, to awaken only as a small party of sahibs walked with their rifles, looking to shoot something, perhaps the round walking birds with the piercing cry.”

I nodded.

“They did not see Trupti, and she tried to hide herself as she hurried through the bushes to warn her lady. But she was too late; the sahibs spotted the movement in the woods, and raised their rifles, thinking perhaps a bear had come down from the forest. They fired, and at their shots, Memsahib Hathaway screamed. The cowardly soldier, covering his red jacket with the blanket he and the lady lay on, escaped on his horse, riding further into the forest and leaving Memsahib Hathaway in disarray, her clothing unfastened. Trupti stayed hidden, afraid, and watched as her lady continued to scream, partly in fear but, Trupti believes, more so in panic at her disclosure. The sahibs hurried to her, helping her to cover herself as she sobbed uncontrollably. They asked her, over and over, what had happened, who had done this terrible thing to her, and finally she told of her ayah abandoning her as they walked by the woods, and of a man riding a black horse. She said the man had grabbed her and taken her for his pleasure. She pointed out Trupti, crouching in the bushes, saying she had seen it all but had not helped. The
burra
sahib beat my sister soundly with his fists and his rifle.

“It was the great misfortune of the Pashtun to be in the bazaar today, buying cloth as he passed through on his way back to the northwest frontier.” She stopped, and pleated the fold of her sari between her fingers.

“Did Olivia specifically say it was a Pathan?” I thought of the face of the Pathan: the set of his jaw, the narrowed eyes, the way he took the blows without flinching.

“No, Mem Linny. She said that she had swooned during the misery and could not describe him.”

“So they based everything on the black horse?”

Malti nodded. “It would appear so.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes.

“Why have you told me this, Malti?” I asked. “I cannot bear to think of the Pathan being killed so unjustly.”

“Memsahib Hathaway blames Trupti for what happened. She has already dismissed her in disgrace, saying it was because Trupti did not help her in her time of need. Tomorrow she starts her return to Delhi. The Memsahib wants her away from Simla for what my sister knows, even though Trupti would never speak of what she saw—except to me. And now she will not be able to feed her children, living in Delhi with our mother.”

“What can I do, Malti?” I said gently. “I don’t believe anyone within the English community would doubt Olivia’s story. And obviously the soldier was more worried about his own reputation and future than he was of Olivia’s, Malti. Oh dear, what is to be done?”

Malti’s face closed. “I see I should not have revealed the truth to you. It was unfair of me, Mem Linny. I told my sister I would help her, but I didn’t know how.”

I picked at the raised bump of darkened skin on my third finger, caused by the constant pressure of the quill. “Let me try and think of something tonight, Malti. Maybe by tomorrow I’ll be able to see it all more clearly.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I
COULDN
’
T FALL ASLEEP.
I
THOUGHT OF
O
LIVIA, A WEAK WOMAN
looking for romance, and her soldier, a man so low he would run from the woman he had just finished jiggling, rather than risk being caught. I thought of Trupti, being sent back to Delhi in disgrace, her days as an ayah—or working for the English in any capacity—over. I thought of the look in Malti’s eyes as she told me about her sister, the way her eyebrows had risen in the hope that I could somehow intervene. But mostly I thought of the Pathan and his proud struggle with the soldiers. I thought of his death here, in this town created for our pleasure, and how his family might never know what had become of him.

As I lay there, my mind racing, there was a soft knock on my door. I sat up. “Yes?” I whispered, in case Malti was asleep, although from the sound of her tossing on her pallet I doubted it. The door opened, and Faith stood in the moonlight in her nightdress, her arms wrapped around her.

“Linny? Did I wake you?”

“No. I couldn’t sleep. Are you ill?”

“No. But I—but I need to talk to you.” She came to the edge of the bed, and I saw the glint of tears on her face.

“You’re cold. Come. Get under the covers.” I put Neel on the floor, and he padded over to Malti’s pallet and curled up there.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Faith said, her face registering shock, and I realized she had probably never shared a bed with anyone but Charles.

“It’s all right, really. There’s lots of room.” She looked tiny and frail, her red hair a tangle on her white cambric nightdress.

She sat down, her back to me. “I’ll just sit here. I don’t want to look at you when I tell you this.”

I waited.

“It’s about what Mrs. Partridge was saying this evening,” she said.

“It was very rude of her, Faith. I’m so sorry. She’s a blunt, thoughtless woman.”

“I’m frightened, Linny.”

“Frightened? Of what?” I could see her shoulders trembling through the thin nightdress.

“I’m carrying a child, Linny,” she said then.

I moved closer to her. Relief flooded through me. This, then, was the problem, was the reason for Faith’s inertia, her lack of interest, her troubling vagueness. “But that’s wonderful, isn’t it? Charles loves you, and—”

“We said we wouldn’t have any children. We agreed it would be unfair to a child. They say the next generation is always born black, Linny. And I still hoped to reunite with my family. I was sure if I took Charles home, even once, and they met him properly—my father refused any contact with him in Calcutta—they would see the same things I see in him, and would relent. But if there were a child, a dark child, Linny . . .” Faith’s head shook slowly. “No. Charles even took me to an Indian woman, Nani Meera—I believe she’s his aunt or a distant relative of some sort. He explained, and she gave me . . . things. To use—before, and after—to stop a baby from starting. She’s a midwife.”

I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me.

“But they didn’t work,” she whispered needlessly.

“Surely Charles is pleased, though, after all. And perhaps the child . . .” I wasn’t sure what to say.

“There is no perhaps, Linny. Charles doesn’t know. I hoped that I would lose it on the trip here, and he would have never known.” She put her face in her hands. “I’ve tried not to think about it, tried to pretend it isn’t happening. But tonight, when Mrs. Partridge went on about the horror of a black
baba
 . . .” She wept. “There is no point in anything anymore, Linny. No point. My life at home was meaningless, and my life here feels no better.”

I pulled her down beside me, and although she wouldn’t turn to face me, she let me put my arms around her. Her bones felt like those of a bird, and her hair smelled of jasmine. I hadn’t slept with my arms around anyone since my mother had died, although of course I had crowded with the others on the dank mattress on Jack Street. But how different it was to share a bed with Faith, here, in comparison to those other girls, with their smells of cheap powder and sweat and semen, in a room rank with damp mold and cold ashes and greasy clothes.

“Meaningless? How can you say that? You have Charles, and now—”

“Don’t speak of it, Linny. I can’t bear to think. I can’t bear to think about anything anymore.”

I stayed quiet. I breathed in the scent of Faith’s hair, comforted by her warmth and closeness, and felt myself finally spiraling toward sleep.

I
AWOKE BEFORE
F
AITH
and Mrs. Partridge in the morning. I had fabricated my own plans and lies while lying in bed in the early morning light. First of all I called Malti and told her that when we returned to Calcutta her sister could come to our house and work there, that no matter what Sahib Ingram said I would make it so. Malti kissed my hands and then my feet, much to my discomfort. “Go and find her, and tell her we’ll retrieve her on our way back, past Delhi,” I said, not wanting Malti to see where I was off to. As soon as she was gone I dressed and hurried through the quiet town, all the way to the windowless hovel on the outskirts.

As I approached I saw a soldier slouching against the wall, but as soon as he saw me he stood at attention beside the open door, which looked surprisingly heavy. Through the opening I could see a damp dirt floor and a pile of old straw. And I also saw a foot in a high black boot.

“Ma’am? M . . . May I help you?” the soldier asked, stuttering slightly, as if nervous. “This is a temporary jail, and no place for a lady.” There was a tin plate of half-eaten food on the ground beside him. I wondered if the prisoner was being fed.

“I do mean to be here,” I said. Then I told him my name, and that my conscience had been playing up all night, that it wasn’t my affair, but as a Christian I felt it my duty to tell the truth. These lies came to me easily; my whole life was a lie. It was only when I was forced to be truthful that I stumbled. I went on to tell the soldier that I had been in the market at the very time that Mrs. Hathaway was brutally defiled, and had seen the Pathan there. Then I had seen him ride off in the opposite direction of the picnic grounds. “Where was he found?” I asked.