The Linnet Bird: A Novel (65 page)

Now Somers’s silence was making it more difficult; I felt his eyes boring into my brain, seeing the images of Daoud and me on the quilt under the deodar tree.

“What did you do, all that time, in the camp?”

“I stayed with a girl, in her tent, and helped her prepare food and wash clothes and look after her baby. After a while one of the gypsy boys led me back to Simla.” My voice sounded unnaturally loud.

“And what of this particular Pathan who captured you? And of all the other gypsy men?”

“What of them?”

“They must have been highly excited to have you in their midst. You, with your light hair, your skin soft and white.” Now he came close to me. “Did you like it, Linny? Did they pass you around, night after night?” He put his hand on the back of my head and closed his fingers in my hair. “Tell me about it. Were they as well endowed as their horses? Do they like it rough?” His fingers pulled back on my hair, so my face was tilted up, forcing me to look into his eyes. His voice was husky, his breath in my face smelled of tobacco and whisky. He pressed against me, and I felt him harden.

I twisted away from him. “Stop it, Somers. Nobody hurt me. Nobody touched me.”

“Are you sure, Linny? Once a whore, always a whore. Surely you had to do something to persuade them to let you live.”

“No,”
I shouted, and he raised his hand, open palmed. “No,” I said then, immediately dropping my voice and lowering my head. “Nothing happened, Somers. Nothing,” I whispered.

I knew what he wanted. He was building up to beating me; he was already provoked, excited. Or perhaps he wanted me to live up to his expectations of what I was, so he might find a way to be rid of me. It would be easy to convince a few people of what he imagined me to have done in that camp, with as many men as he chose to count, and carry out his long-ago threat to throw me out in disgrace. I knew that nobody would have sympathy for me if Somers could find a way to convince them that I was a fallen woman. Surely the gossip about me had already started; I had seen a few white women at the docks when I arrived. I would imagine the story of Faith’s death and my disappearance was already common knowledge throughout the community. It was sure to be a topic of conversation at dinner parties for at least a month. And if Somers were to add fuel to the fire . . . Oh, yes. Somers had his ways, and his friends. And I . . . I had no one, now that Faith was gone. I readied myself for the crushing slap.

But it didn’t come. He must have sensed defeat, felt my lethargy, and knew I would accept his cruelty without a fight. And in this there was no pleasure. His hand returned to his side, and I to my chair.

“It does go to show, though,” he said, not quite finished with me, “that you can never be trusted. I should have realized I’ll have to watch you all the time. You go off to Simla, and because of you, an English girl is dead. When you’re here you fraternize with the Indians. You really think I wasn’t aware of all your sneaking around since we married? I have people who tell me everything, Linny, who have seen you in the most unsavory places.”

I looked down at Neel.

“From now on only supervised activities, the ones I approve of. You obviously need discipline and boundaries at all times. I’ve allowed you to go quite tropo, and there’ll be no more of that. As it is, I’m sure many of the women will probably avoid you after what’s happened.” And then he left.

I went back into my bedroom, opened my trunk, and unrolled one of my flowery cotton dresses. Inside the folded skirt was the
chapan.
I took it out and briefly pressed it to my face. The smell of it brought me comfort, but also grief, grief so overwhelming that it made me rise and hurry back out to the balcony, my feet stumbling as if in one of the malarial fevers that plagued Somers. I bent over the wide stone railing and retched dryly. And then I fell to my knees, allowing myself to feel what I had held back since that last morning in Mahayna’s tent.

I lay on the stone floor for some time, unable to move, sobbing, curled around the
chapan
. I was filled with grief for that which had been found, and for that which was now lost. And for all the years I hadn’t cried, it seemed that since my time with Daoud, I couldn’t stop.

A
WEEK AFTER
arriving home, I awoke from an afternoon nap feeling particularly heavy-headed. I had fallen asleep on the wicker settee on the verandah, the hot wind overwhelming. All of Calcutta awaited the rain, watching the sky hopefully. I was slow moving, my skin sticky. I thought of the coolness of Simla and then, naturally, of Kashmir.

I was unable to bear the thoughts that came then, so I rose and walked through our back garden, although the lacy shade of the neem trees could not stop the driving arrows of the sun. Under the trees were tended beds of nicotiana and portulaca, hardy enough to bloom even in this weather. I glanced at the servant’s godown, the simple building almost obscured by the luxuriant growth of the jasmine hedges I had instructed the
mali
to leave wild.

I wondered how Malti’s sister was faring; I had given her a job pressing our clothes. Her daughter Lalita was responsible for the flat household linens—the bedsheets and pillowcases and tablecloths and napkins.

Restless, prickly, I wandered to the godown. It was a well-built wooden structure separated into a few rooms, its open windows covered with freshly watered
tatties.
There was a small ivory statue of Ganesh on a cedar shelf over the doorway. I reached up to touch its smooth surface for good luck and heard a low groan from inside.

Looking through the open doorway, I saw Lalita curled on her side on a string charpoy, her forehead beaded with perspiration.

“Lalita?” I said, addressing her in Hindi. “Are you ill?”

The girl struggled to sit up. “No, memsahib,” she said. She pressed her hands against her abdomen.

“Shall I fetch your mother?”

“No, no. My mother sent me here.” Her face was miserable. She fidgeted, nervous or embarrassed. “I will return to work now, memsahib. It will pass soon.”

I realized then that it was her courses. “No, no Lalita, stay and rest.”

“Thank you for your understanding, memsahib. Please be assured, mistress, that my mother does my job while I rest.” Her round brown eyes widened suddenly. “But you will not tell Sahib Ingram?”

“Of course not. Stay until you feel well enough to work.”

I headed back to the house, but halfway up the slope I stopped, thinking of Lalita. I looked back at the godown, then toward the house. I picked up my skirt and hurried through the steamy air, going straight to my escritoire and fumbling in the top drawer, pulling out my social engagement calendar bound in soft calfskin. I opened it to the current month, then flipped back one month, and then another.

The book slipped from my fingers as I lowered myself into the padded chintz chair in front of the desk. I realized my hands were shaking as I pressed them against my flat stomach as Lalita had done moments earlier.

I was carrying Daoud’s child.

T
HE RAINS STARTED
that night. I sat on my verandah looking out at the fine mesh of moisture, rain, coming so softly at first that it was almost invisible, almost inaudible. And yet as darkness descended, its intensity grew slowly, steadily, until it was a drumming presence, making channels in the hard, baked earth. I walked out into it, still in shock. What would I do? How would it be possible to keep this child? I fell to my knees in a widening puddle, its surface shaking with the fury of the rain. I looked skyward, letting the stinging drops beat against my eyes, my lips, my neck. I thought of Faith, killing herself and her unwanted baby. I thought of Meg, and her embrace of life. I thought of who I had been—not Miss Linny Smallpiece, or Mrs. Somers Ingram, but Linny Gow, back on Paradise—and the fierce determination to create my own destiny.

I stayed on my knees for a long time, until the lashing rain slackened, became finer, and then was only a steady drip from the leaves. The air was washed and pure, and a moon came sailing through the dark ruffled monsoon clouds. It shone on the tiny pools caught in the little pockets of hollowed earth, and it was as if precious stones glittered around me.

Malti came looking for me and stood in front of me holding a candle. The slight breeze made the flame dip and sway. “Mem Linny?” she said, almost a whisper, and put out her hand to help me up.

I put my hand into hers and lifted my chin. I would find a way to have this baby, and to keep it. It was my connection to my awakening. In the few short hours since I had learned of its existence, I knew that I could and would love it, and that it would somehow be my salvation.

Chapter Thirty-Two

I
CLOSED THE WIDE DOUBLE DOORS OF THE HOUSE AND STEPPED
into the noon blaze of Calcutta in late July. I wore a wide solar topee wreathed with thick tulle and pulled low on my forehead so that the upper part of my face was shadowed. I carried a sun parasol. Malti followed.

We stepped into the palanquin that now waited outside our house every day. Somers had hired the palanquin and four
boyees
; whether Malti and I went out or not they waited, hour after hour, day after day, in our front garden. They were only allowed to take me to the locations Somers instructed them—the Maidan, Taylor’s Emporium, or any of the English homes. I could also attend ladies’ activities put on at the Club, and still withdraw books from the library. Today I instructed the
boyees
to take me to the Club for a scheduled meeting of the Ladies’ Botanical Society. I told Somers I was thinking of joining the society, but this wasn’t true.

Since I had returned from Simla I had attended one meeting, but was unnerved by what I knew to be the curious stares of many of the other women. A few girls I had known from the Fishing Fleet smiled hesitantly at me, asking politely if I had recovered—nobody would give a name to what had happened in Simla. I was startled to see what appeared to be genuine concern in the eyes of one woman as I responded that I was quite fine now. And that made me wonder if perhaps some of the smiles, the attempts at small conversations, and the invitations I’d received since since I’d arrived in Calcutta had, indeed, been earnest endeavors toward acceptance and friendship. Perhaps there was a woman here—or maybe more than one—who would have been my friend, but it was I who pushed her away.

It seemed everything I looked at now appeared different, and I knew it was because something had fallen away from me, some fear that hadn’t allowed me to look at the English here with anything but suspicion. I realized that much of the barrier I felt between them and me could have possibly been built by me, protecting myself, sure my every move was being watched and judged.