The Linnet Bird: A Novel (63 page)

Mahayna smiled. “My head will pray to Allah for another son, but my heart wishes for a daughter, even though it would displease Bhosla.” She took the petticoat and smoothed it against her chest. “I will make a special ceremonial dress with it.”

The horse pawed impatiently.

“Now you must leave,” Mahayna said. “Nahim will take the shortest route, and you will be back to your home in perhaps three days, maybe four. He is a good boy; you can trust him,” she said. Then turning to Nahim, who was not much younger, she made a menacing face and instructed him with a few sharp-sounding sentences. “May Allah go with you,” she said finally to me.

“And may He be with you,” I said, then followed Nahim out of the camp, looking back once to wave to the girl who was now surrounded by a small knot of women. I slapped the reins lightly to catch up with the trotting pony ahead of me.

F
OR THE NEXT
three days I followed the
syce.
When he dismounted to eat or water the animals or relieve himself I did the same. When he tilted his head to the sky, watching a golden eagle swooping overhead in lazy circles, I watched, too. Turning to follow his gaze when I saw his face break into a sudden smile, I spotted a pair of little red-brown marmots, sitting on their hind legs on the sun-baked earth in the mouth of their burrow, reminding me of arrogant landowners. Nahim whooped and they immediately responded with a whistling reprimand.

He stopped his pony when the small animal’s ears pricked forward longingly and its skin dimpled and shivered, and I reined in the responsive gray mare. Nahim pointed to a cloud of dust on the far side of the immense meadow we were crossing. As the cloud came nearer, I saw a herd of long-maned wild ponies, mostly mares, with their knobby-legged foals prancing beside them.

In the evening, Nahim cooked tough slabs of goat in a smoky fire, and I methodically chewed the sinewy meat, although I had no desire for food and could hardly taste what I swallowed. As we lay under the stars, wrapped in quilts, I held the
chapan
and fell into a deep dreamless sleep. It seemed I felt little; everything was reduced into a smallness that had nothing to do with the hills and forests and meadows I traveled through with unseeing eyes. I was still living in that other world of flesh and heat, of anticipation and release. The panic and loneliness had not yet begun to surface. I did not, in those first few days after Daoud left, fully understand that I was changed, and did not understand that I would never be the same. That I was richer, and yet for that richness, would feel pain in a new and terrible way. What I had left behind was still large; I clung to its broad surface as a child to the wide and comforting skirt of its mother. That which lay ahead was unreal, far off and blurred as the waves of heat that rose from the plains under the Indian sun.

F
OR THE SECOND
and third days we ambled through shadowed forests of cedars, concealed by the damp, dense trees, breathing in the honey fragrance of the tiny yellow flowers that bloomed in the spongy moss. We would wind upward for hours, the plodding of the horse and pony steady in unbroken rhythm over the pathways Nahim seemed to find instinctively. Some of the paths were dry and covered with twisting, protruding roots, others slippery with the damp overflow from shallow, serpentine streams. We would emerge from the darkness of the forests with unexpected suddenness into dipping, sunlit valleys.

By late morning of the fourth day we stopped at the base of a rocky hill with only a narrow stony path through dense thornbushes, and Nahim climbed off his pony and took the horse’s reins. He motioned for me to climb down as well, then, slapping the pony’s rear, urged it up the path ahead of him, carefully leading the nervous horse. I scrambled behind, sometimes grabbing hold of the mare’s coarse tail when my feet slipped on the steep incline.

After an arduous climb, we emerged onto a grassy knoll, and Nahim untied the embroidered saddlebag from the horse. He opened it and pulled out the clean, wrinkled periwinkle dress. Shaking it once, he handed it to me.

I was panting from the uphill struggle, and looked at the dress, puzzled, then back to Nahim. He pushed it into my arms, dug into the bag again, and held up my high boots and dropped them and the bag in the dust at my feet, then pointed down the hill.

I followed his dirty finger, and saw the familiar church spire and thatched roofs of Simla. Nahim was already leading the tall horse and the pony toward the bushes we had just come through. “Wait,” I called, and he stopped at the sound of my voice. I ran to the horse and pulled the colorful
chapan
from its strap on the horse’s saddle. Within a second he had moved on, and the bushes closed behind him, leaving me alone on the hill.

I pushed the dress and boots back into the saddlebag, and clutching it and the
chapan,
slowly made my way down the winding spine of the hill toward Simla.

Chapter Thirty-One

H
ALF AN HOUR LATER
I
STUMBLED INTO THE OUTSKIRTS OF
town. The streets and gardens were quiet; it came to me, from the height of the sun, that most families would be at tiffin. As I passed through the almost empty Mall, a few women standing outside the shops stopped their conversations to turn and look at me, and although I recognized them, and knew they knew me, my sudden appearance after all this time obviously shocked them into silence. One did say, “Mrs. Ingram?” her hand to her throat, and took a few steps in my direction. But I didn’t respond, and she remained where she was. I felt dull surprise at what I’d forgotten in these weeks—how pale they looked, how tightly they were held in by their armor of clothes. And their reactions to me—the expressions of disbelief, the murmurs to one another, began the first tiny tear. It was a rip of only a few stitches that would, all too soon, widen into a gaping hole of reality where I could see that I was more alive than I had ever been. In their faces I saw my own, and this was the jolt that brought me back not only to Simla, but to my life as Mrs. Ingram, and all it represented.

I tried to plan what I would say when I reached the bungalow, but I seemed incapable of forming logical thought. Would Mrs. Partridge still be there? As I turned into the side street that would lead me to Constancia Cottage, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Ma’am?”

It was a soldier in a spotless red uniform. “Do you need help, ma’am? I saw you walking through the Mall, and you looked . . . I thought you might be in trouble.”

I looked down at my dusty Kashmiri clothes and turned-up sandals, realized my hair hung in a tangle to my waist. “I . . . no, not really. I’m just . . .” I gestured at the bungalow.

The soldier said, slowly, “May I assume you’re the other young lady who . . .” He stopped, and I nodded.

“Well then, let’s get you home, shall we? I imagine there will be a number of people very pleased to learn you’re safe.” He tried to take the saddlebag and
chapan,
but I held them tightly against me, shaking my head.

We entered the quiet house. I thought perhaps it was empty, but Malti suddenly appeared out of Mrs. Partridge’s bedroom carrying a flowered china basin. At the sight of me, she stood motionless for a fraction of a second, then screamed loudly and dropped the bowl. It smashed into a few large pieces, and Malti drew her head scarf over her face and ran shrieking from the room, out the back door.

“I expect she thought you a spirit, ma’am,” the soldier said. “They’re so superstitious.” He turned at the sound of a whimper.

I looked to see Neel sitting in the doorway of my bedroom. “Neel,” I said, crouching and holding out one arm, the other still cradling the saddlebag and
chapan.

Neel’s mouth relaxed into a wet grin, and he dashed across the slippery floor, his toenails clattering and his whole rear end wiggling in delirious joy. He had almost reached my outstretched hand when he slid to a halt, whined, and backed up a few steps.

“What’s wrong, Neel?” I asked. He came toward me again, crouching low, his stubby tail now still and curving toward his hind legs. As he drew near enough for me to touch him, he suddenly drew back his lips and bared his teeth, then let out a short, nervous bark.

“Don’t you know me, Neel?” I asked.

The soldier cleared his throat. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but it would be the smell of the things you’re wearing and carrying. Those dogs can detect nomad blood; they’re bred for it. They’ll tear a gypsy to pieces, given the chance.”

I looked down at the saddlebag and
chapan.

“Once you burn those gypsy clothes and bathe he’ll be back to normal, I guarantee it.” He looked away from Neel, who still rumbled, deep in his throat, as loud voices came from the back door.

I stood as Mrs. Partridge stormed in, followed by Malti and the other servants, hanging back and peering nervously. Mrs. Partridge slowly looked me over from head to foot.

“Where have you come from?” she asked. No joy, no relief, just a matter-of-fact question. Actually, a suspicous matter-of-fact question.

“I was . . . in the hills . . . I don’t know. Really, Mrs. Partridge. I don’t know.” I was suddenly so exhausted that it hurt to speak.

“It doesn’t appear you’ve come to any real harm,” she finally said, her voice uncertain now, as if she didn’t know whether to be relieved or dismayed by this fact.

I felt as if a cord were being drawn around my throat. The silence stretched, and I saw Mrs. Partridge’s flat brown eyes filling with tears, her lower jaw trembling, although I knew her sympathy wasn’t for me. I envisioned soldiers bringing Faith’s broken body back to the cottage. A sudden rush of words tumbled from my mouth.

“We just went for a picnic, Mrs. Partridge. A picnic. I didn’t know she would—”

“Stop it,” Mrs. Partridge said, all traces of distress put firmly in check now. Her low voice was far more deadly than all the loud blustering and ranting of the past. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. We all know Faith would never have gone off like that without your urging. That poor girl,” she said again. “And now she’s dead, dead and buried.”

Even in my state, I realized the falseness of Mrs. Partridge’s put-on grief. She had cared little for Faith, and had been just as horrifed as Somers at having her join us. I knew with certainty then that whatever matters of skin color she referred to in front of Faith had been done spitefully, to hurt her.

Now she pressed a handkerchief against her nose. “She didn’t stand a chance, apparently.” She took away the handkerchief and stared at me. “After they retrieved her body, the soldiers, joined by all the men in Simla, spent the next week searching for you, Linny, but finally gave up. None of us ever expected to see you alive again, I can assure you.” Her eyes were hard and dry as they traveled down my body. “Well, here you are, looking none the worse for wear. Except for that heathen getup.”