The Linnet Bird: A Novel (66 page)

But now was not the time to wonder about the English ladies. I had a much more serious matter to consider.

When we arrived at the Club, Malti settled down to wait for me in the palanquin. “The meeting should last an hour, and then with the refreshments, another hour,” I told her.

Malti nodded, and I went through the doors, hurrying along the main hall and then through a long passage, finally emerging at the back door. I had searched for and found the door a week earlier when I went to the library. Opening my parasol and keeping my head down, I went out onto the street behind the building and signaled a passing rickshaw. The
jhampani
was a skinny little man glistening with sweat, his face as wizened and brown as a walnut shell. When he trotted over, I spoke a single Hindi sentence, then stepped into the rickety box and sat on the hard board nailed between the sides. The bearer picked up the shafts and ran, carrying me down narrower and narrower roads, avoiding the buffalo carts and sacred bulls,
kumkum
on their broad foreheads, garlands of jasmine around their bloated necks. The ancient streets twisted and turned, their paths constructed as an intended labyrinth to confuse evil spirits that might wander into Calcutta’s center.

The old man ran through reeking alleyways, nimbly dodging other rickshaws, goats, dogs, and hens. Babies screamed, children laughed and cried, women shrieked, and men called in a barrage of languages and noise. Beggars and cripples jammed the narrow passages; some tried to grab at my skirt as the rickshaw rolled past. The gutters ran with food slops and animal and human excrement. I saw a naked child of no more than three tenderly cradling a dead, stiffened kitten, alive with maggots. My whole body bounced with the rhythm of the man’s short steps.

You will not be sick, you will not,
I commanded myself. The rickshaw had no cover, and the scorching wind stirred up choking clouds of red-brown dust whenever we emerged from an alley into a cross-section of street, making it impossible to keep my parasol open. The sun beat down on my solar topee, and my stomach roiled and churned. I wished I had eaten one of the fresh pappadams Malti had brought me on a tray with my cup of camomile tea before we left. But at the time I couldn’t face anything, not even a sip of the cool tea.

Finally the man’s veiny pumping legs slowed, and I saw that we had emerged from the squalor and were in a quieter area. Small wooden houses with tiny individual gardens in front looked refreshingly clean after the filthy confines we had passed through.

I looked at each house carefully, and when I saw one covered in a tangle of Japanese honeysuckle, I called to the
jhampani.
He slowed to a stop, panting heavily, and I slipped out of the rickshaw, but had to steady myself by clutching the splintered side of the rickety cart.

When the ringing in my ears abated, I looked at the
jhampani
standing between the shafts of his rickshaw, and he hesitantly quoted a price. I saw how tightly the flesh was pulled over the bones of his face, the yellowed whites of his eyes. I paid him without bargaining, and he stared down at the extra coins I put in his palm, then back to me, confusion on his face.

I approached the house and quietly called through the mat covering the doorway. “Nani Meera?” There was a soft reply, and I pulled aside the mat and entered. The room was shuttered, dark and almost cool after the heat. For a moment I was unable to see anything but detected a slight movement on one side of the room. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw a beautiful young woman in a sari of brilliant orchid and turquoise sitting cross-legged on the clean matted floor. In her lap rested a chubby baby girl, naked except for the charm string around her waist. Her huge brown eyes were ringed with kohl, making them enormous in the round little face. She lay quietly as her mother rubbed her body with gleaming oil in lazy, circular motions. The woman looked quizzically at me.

“I’m hoping to find Nani Meera,” I said in Hindi. “I was given directions to a house covered in honeysuckle on this street.”

“You are in the right place,” the woman answered in English. “Nani will return in a moment. Please sit down and wait.” She turned her gaze back to the baby.

“Thank you,” I said, sitting on one of the two huge wicker chairs filled with soft cushions, wondering how this Indian woman spoke English so flawlessly.

I smelled the faint odor of sandalwood, and a chime made of long, thin rectangles of brass and blue oval beads hung beside one of the many narrow windows. Whenever a slight current of air whispered through a half-opened louver the chimes emitted a fragile tinkle.

A low teak chest carved with birds and flowers sat in front of the two chairs. On its ornate lid was a simple white clay bowl filled with smooth gray pebbles, and from the pebbles narcissi bloomed in orange splendor. A doorway hung with rows of amber glass beads led into another room. Beside the doorway stood a tall, spare cupboard, also of teak, but devoid of any ornamentation except for the two ivory handles carved in the shape of tiny, long-tailed monkeys.

The baby was growing heavy-lidded with pleasure, and as the woman looked at me I could now see that her eyes were a remarkable lilac, with the same milky opalescence as the panicles of blossoms that hung from the chinaberry tree in her garden. I smiled wanly, still fighting nausea, and was about to ask for a glass of water when the doorway beads swayed softly, creating a cascade of melody. A very tall and slender woman, wearing a blinding white sari with a thin gold thread running through it, came through the beads. Although she was not young, she carried herself regally, her chin high and her back straight. Her black hair had one single thick wave of pure white over her forehead, and her large brown eyes were soft.

I stood, pressing my hands together perpendicular to my chest, and bowed. The woman responded to the ritual
namaste,
and I saw that the palms of her hands were dyed with henna.

“I am Linny Ingram,” I said in Hindi. “You are Nani Meera?”

The woman nodded. “I am,” she answered, like the younger woman, in English.

“Charles told me of you,” I said, reverting to English.

Her face lit. “Ah.” She smiled, but it was a sad smile. “He has had so little happiness. And Faith. His poor little red nestling. I saw the sickness of the spirit in her. I tried to speak to Charles of it, but he would not listen.” Her voice carried the soft whisper of wind as it stirs long grass.

I closed my eyes for a moment. Hearing this woman say that she, too, knew Faith was ill comforted me.

We stood in silence for a few seconds, as if paying tribute to her memory. Then I spoke again. “I saw Charles only yesterday.”

“He suffers greatly. He comes often, although there is little I can do to console him.”

I had found it difficult to see Charles without Somers knowing, but through elaborate planning, with many chits back and forth, we did manage. Charles met me at the door of a near-deserted tearoom used specificially by the uncovenanted civil servants. We simply looked at each other, tears running from our eyes.

Charles had grown thin, and his rumpled clothes hung loosely on him. His hair looked as if it had not felt a comb that day, nor his face a razor. Once we had composed ourselves Charles steered me to a table near a window, and we made small and trivial comments for the first few moments. But there was no use for pretense. He took my hands in his and asked me to recount every moment of my time with Faith in Simla, every detail of what she’d said, how she’d looked. I tried to cheer him with happy memories, but realized, very quickly, that in actuality my presence only brought him pain. I did tell him that she’d spoken of him daily with great adoration, planning their lives, which she said would be forever together. I had to say it, to tell that half-truth, for Charles’s sake. I knew I must not divulge the secret Faith had kept from him—that she had carried his child—for I knew that would only add to his terrible distress. He pressed me for the details of her death, saying he couldn’t rest until he knew, and I fabricated more, saying Faith would not have suffered, that the fall was quick and her death instant, that she had been singing happily, enjoying the pony ride, only moments before the accident.

When finally Charles had no more questions, and I had no more to say, I asked him how to find Nani Meera. He didn’t ask how I knew of her, or inquire as to my reason for wanting to visit her.

And then we parted, and Charles looked into my face with glimmering eyes. I knew—and saw that he did, as well—that it would be better for both of us if this were our one and only meeting.

Now Nani Meera turned to the other woman. “Yali, could you prepare some melon for Mrs. Ingram, please?”

The woman rose wordlessly, lifting the child, who was on the verge of sleep, and disappeared through the amber beads. Immediately there was soft humming and the chink of crockery.

“Will you tell me the reason for your visit, Mrs. Ingram?” Nani Meera asked, sitting in the other wicker chair and motioning for me to sit again.

“Please, call me Linny,” I said, as I perched on the edge of the chair and played with the black silk fringe that bordered the cushion. “It is difficult for me to speak of this,” I said finally. “I have told no one of—” I stopped as Yali returned, carrying a white plate of thick, crimson watermelon slices, another of sugar-coated flat biscuits.

“You may continue. Yali is my assistant. And my daughter,” Nani Meera said with a smile. The woman returned the smile and set the tray on the teak chest and left. The quiet humming on the other side of the beads began again.

“Please be assured, Linny, that I have heard every story, and I make no judgment.” She studied me. “Is it that you wish to be rid of the child growing under your heart?”

My mouth opened, my hands flying to my stomach. “No.” I looked down, then back at the woman. “But it doesn’t show. It can’t. Not yet.”

“Calm yourself. It is my life’s work; I see what others do not. So. The child is wanted?”

“Yes.” Instinctively I trusted her. “But it is not my husband’s child.”

“Can you be certain of this?”

“Yes.”

“Your husband knows of the child?”

“No. No, he mustn’t. Not yet.”

“Then how may I help you?”

“I want my husband to think the baby is his. It’s the only way.”

“And the father of the child? Will he not present a problem?”

I took a deep breath. “He is of . . . another world than mine. We will never be together again. My husband doesn’t have any knowledge of his existence.”

“If your husband knows nothing of this other man, what is the difficulty? Why will he not assume the child is his?”

I stared at the ivory monkeys on the cupboard door.

“My husband doesn’t touch me. He turns to other men for his pleasure. Our marriage has never even been consummated.” Something about Nani Meera made the truth slide out much easier than I had thought would be possible.

Nani Meera looked at my hair, at my face, then at my hands. I realized they were twisting in my lap. I held them still.

“His
lingam
is powerless with you?”

“Yes. Except . . .”

She waited.

“When he hurts me. When he beats me, only then does he want to take me in a brutal way, but he can never . . . achieve it.”

She nodded, tapping her chin with her forefinger. “I believe I can help in one way. But the rest will be up to you.” She crossed to the high cupboard and opened the doors, then ran her finger down the rows of small drawers, each labeled with indecipherable markings. “There are many common herbs and sacred plants in India. Some can be used for either benefit or detriment.” She stopped at one drawer, pulled it out, and removed a long flat tin, and then took a white linen square from the top of the cupboard. She slid open the lid of the tin and put a large pinch of fine brown powder into the middle of the material.

“What is that?”

“This one is
bhang,
a mild aphrodisiac made from hemp, which also promotes endurance.” She opened another drawer and repeated the process. “Crushed seeds from the banyan tree, also an aphrodisiac. And one other.” As she added a third fine powder to the mixture, she said, “Only a minute quantity of the powdered leaves of the
dhatura,
for it is a powerful intoxicant with deep sedative powers, to be used with extreme care.” She gathered up the cloth, tied it in a small tight knot, and handed it to me.

I stared at the tiny cloth bag.

“You must make sure your husband consumes all of this at one time. I assume, as an Englishman, that he drinks alcohol?”

I nodded.

“Sprinkle the powder into his drink and stir it well. He won’t detect it, and the alcohol will intensify the effect. Shortly after he has finished it, you must do what you have to do to bring him to the level you have spoken of. He may act slightly confused, but he will not weary at his task, and may even perform successfully more than once.”

I nodded.

“You are in the very early stages of your pregnancy, are you not? Six to seven weeks?”

“Yes.”

“You must be careful not to exert yourself and bring it on early, as so often happens to British women. You can fool your husband by a month or slightly more, but if this little one makes a healthy arrival too much ahead of schedule, even the most unquestioning male brain may start to wonder.” She looked into my eyes. “One other question. You said the child’s father is of another world. Will there be the issue of color? For if he is an Indian, you must be prepared that the child may bear the appearance of—”