Page 13 of Six Days in Bombay

At nine in the evening, I wheeled Dr. Stoddard toward the Music Room. It was an elegant drawing room with Persian rugs, chairs, even a fireplace. There was a piano next to the fireplace, a harp at the far end of the room and a windup gramophone near the door. As far as I knew, Dr. Stoddard didn’t play a musical instrument. So what were we doing here? I asked him.

“Oh, stop fussing, girl!” he said.

I wheeled him into the Music Room. The club chairs, which were clustered around small tables whenever I’d walked by this room, had been rearranged around a mahogany table. At the head sat the captain. The other gentlemen—prosperous-looking men with vests and watch chains and jowls—were ones I’d seen at his dinner table most nights. Each held a hand of cards. Cigar smoke swirled upward toward the ornamental plaster ceiling. A pile of pound notes was scattered in the middle of the table.

“Doctor!”

greeted the captain. “Never seen you here before. Welcome, welcome. I believe you know everyone.”

Not once did the captain look at me. I was invisible the way the Indian deckhands were invisible, the way the Indian chambermaids were invisible. He’d tolerated my presence at his dinner table, but only because it would have been impolitic not to.

I drew the wheelchair up to the table. Dr. Stoddard patted the club chair next to him. I looked at him in panic. It was one thing to sit at the captain’s dinner table but quite another to play cards with men of industry.

Dr. Stoddard addressed the group with a charming smile. “Bloody eyes aren’t what they used to be. Nurse here—”

he leaned into the table confidentially “—not too clever, mind you, but does her best.”

He sat back in the wheelchair. “Don’t mind, chaps, do you? I’ll be her bank. Oh—”

he signaled to the server in the room. “A glass of port. There’s a good man.”

The men eyed one another and mumbled their assent. I was appalled and more than a little hurt at his remark about me not being up to snuff. The last time the doctor and I played I’d won every game. He’d even congratulated me on how quickly and how far I’d come. “Are you sure you haven’t picked up my bad habits, Nurse?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mean cheating? And so obviously, Doctor? Even a child could have sussed you out.”

I’d become bolder with him ever since I learned he enjoyed the occasional sparring.

The corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Touché, my girl. Touché.”

His eyes lingered on mine a second longer, and I felt the gentleness of it—the love a father might give his daughter. Something I’d been missing in my life. I felt heat behind my eyes and looked away.

Now here he was telling everyone they may as well steal money from him as long as I was at the table. I felt my chest constrict in anger even as I kept my expression bland.

The doctor leaned toward me and lowered his voice while the captain dealt a new hand. His blue eyes bore into mine. “Just as I’ve taught you. There’s a good girl.”

Dr. Stoddard placed a wager. My fingers trembled. My hands were moist. I rubbed them against my apron, worried the cards would slip out of my hands. I could feel beads of sweat on my brow. The men could see I was nervous. I caught their smug expressions, their sly looks at one another.

The captain threw money in the center of the table. “Won’t be long now before we learn what happened to the Hindenburg.”

“My wife says her cousin was lucky to have survived.”

This from a gentleman with a scar on this left cheek. “What a disaster!”

He lay a shilling on the table.

“Even King George’s coronation couldn’t overshadow it.”

The one with the biggest paunch threw his money into the pile.

“Sorry to have missed the folderol. Seems as if the whole of England turned out for the ceremony,”

Dr. Stoddard said.

I lost the first hand. And the second. I kept glancing at the doctor to see if he was as nervous as I was. Oh, how I wish he had told me I would be playing in his stead tonight. These men knew what they were doing. They were practiced at winning. I was a novice. Thoughts of how I’d failed Mira, how I’d failed my mother, how I’d failed to keep my post—everything I’d ever done that amounted to failure—consumed me. Sweat ran down the back of my neck.

“Nurse, would you please get me a glass of water?”

The doctor’s voice broke through my private hysteria.

The captain cocked a finger at the steward. “He’ll get it.”

The doctor laughed lightly. “Only Nurse Falstaff knows how I like it. Not too cold. Not too warm.”

“Of course,”

I said, rising from the table. I pressed my hand over the wrinkles of my uniform. The men chatted about the recent provincial elections in India and how Nehru would fare as leader of the Indian National Congress while I went to the sideboard to pour water from the pitcher into a glass.

“India will never be able to govern her people without us,”

the captain said, puffing on his cigar.

Dr. Stoddard looked amused. “Isn’t that what India was doing before we came on the scene?”

The captain frowned at him. “Doctor, in case you’ve forgotten, ‘the sun will never set on the British Empire.’ I think every man here knows that.”

He looked to the others for confirmation. A few nodded. Others pretended to study their cards.

The doctor let out a small laugh. “It would’ve set a lot sooner if England hadn’t used Indian soldiers to get us through our wars.”

The captain, whose cheeks had turned red, glared at Dr. Stoddard, who smiled at him good-naturedly. “But we’re not here for politics. We’re here to play cards. Isn’t that right, old bean?”

I braced myself against the sideboard. My stomach felt queasy. When I felt able to breathe again, I walked back with the water. I offered the glass to Dr. Stoddard. He placed his hands around mine, startling me.

I looked at him. He held my gaze with his unblinking owl eyes.

“As I taught you,”

he said softly.

Once again, I felt it. The encouragement of a father teaching his cricket-playing son how to bat. Or coaching his daughter about the perfect tennis serve.

I pulled my chair up to the table. I put the doctor’s money in the kitty and concentrated on the game instead of how inadequate I felt. I looked at my cards. I counted which cards were left. I calculated what each player was holding.

I won that hand. And the next. And every subsequent hand after that. The scattered pile of silver and pound notes now sat in a stack in front of me. I was so absorbed in the game that I didn’t hear the doctor telling the men he was tired and needed to lie down. I thought I felt, rather than heard, a collective sigh of relief.

Dr. Stoddard began scooping up my winnings onto his lap blanket. That’s when I realized the game was over. Or at least my part in it was over.

Dazed, I pulled on his wheelchair and took him out of the smoky room.

“What just happened?”

I asked from behind his chair.

“How do you feel?”

His voice hid a smile.

“Bloody wonderful, you wanker.”

He laughed. So did I.

It was wonderful watching the egos of those men deflate one by one. At some point during the game, I’d stopped being petrified of losing the doctor’s money and started being—what?—reckless? Courageous? Impudent? Who cared? I loved it! Was this the kind of chance my mother wanted me to take? Was this how giddy she’d felt the day she met my father and decided to take the risk? Was this the way Mira felt every single day of her life? She would have thought it weak to be fearful of life, hiding in the shadows as I’d done. If she wanted to paint what no one else was painting, she wouldn’t think twice about it. If she wanted to sleep with someone, she didn’t need anyone’s permission.

The doctor pointed to his lap blanket. “This should get you as far as you need to go, my dear.”

I looked at the winnings. It was more money than I’d ever seen! I bit my lip. If only Mum were here to see it! And if she were here, she would tell me it wasn’t fair to lay claim to it all. I felt the same way. “It’s as much your money as mine, Doctor.”

He grinned, wagging a crooked finger at me. “My girl, do not be contrary. You were the champion tonight. Revel in it!”

“Fifty-fifty?”

He shook his head. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He paused. “Now about your father…”

My heart sped up. Had I said something unseemly after a night of too much port and scotch? I was pushing his chair from behind, and I couldn’t see the expression on his face.

“My dear, we Brits have done a lot of damage to your country. I can see you’re paying the price.”

He reached behind the chair to pat my hand. Tears sprang to my eyes.

Dearest Mum,

Dr. Stoddard thinks I should find Father. Well, he didn’t say so, but I know that’s what he’s thinking. But why should I, Mum? He left us in Calcutta with nothing. How could he do that to us?

I’m going to tell you something I saw when I was five that I’ve never told anybody.

That was when we lived in a house with another family and their four children.

You and I had a tiny room big enough for a charpoy and a chest of drawers.

The family lived in the rest of the house.

We kept to ourselves even though their daughter was the same age as me.

She spit on me the first time we met (remember you kept asking why I didn’t play with her?).

One night, I had a bad dream about a dog running after me.

I woke up and reached for you.

You weren’t there, so I got out of bed to look for you.

The house was quiet because the family was away at a wedding for a few days.

All at once, I realized I could go anywhere in the house I wanted.

I went from room to room, bad dream forgotten.

I touched the girl’s marionette dolls.

I moved pieces on the chessboard even though I didn’t know how to play.

I rifled through their clothing.

I was about to step into their kitchen to see if they had any biscuits lying about when I saw you at their dining table.

I almost called for you but something told me not to.

You were bent from the waist over the table.

Your sari was bunched around your hips.

I could only see his silhouette, but I knew from his beard that it was the landlord leaning over you, groaning.

You weren’t making a sound.

My heart was pounding so hard I thought you could hear it.

I snuck back quietly to our room and pulled the covers over my face.

But I could still see it.

And I knew it was bad.

That’s what my father’s desertion did to you, to us.

It robbed you of your pride and it made me a witness to your shame.

If I were to tell the good doctor this, would he still want me to find my father?

The RMS Viceroy was scheduled to make a stop along the Suez Canal so passengers en route to Cairo could disembark.

Then the steamship would continue to the Mediterranean Sea and Istanbul.

I missed Amit too.

I wrote letters to him every day in my notebook.

I couldn’t send them to the hospital.

What would the staff think of him, receiving letters from a disgraced, unmarried nurse? I didn’t know where he lived either.

Sometimes, as I strolled the deck, I pretended we were walking arm in arm, talking, as we’d talked on that tonga ride to Dev Singh’s house.

Dear Amit,

I’ve never seen so much water or so much desert! Calcutta and Bombay and everything in between that Mum and I had ever seen was simply green fields and forests.

Along the Suez Canal, there is only one color: sand.

Every now and then, we see camel riders, men unloading small cargo ships and ferries, mosques, a little patch of green.

Some distance away there are tiny villages and small cities.

Along the railing, I often stand behind Dr.

Stoddard’s wheelchair as he points out the enormous griffon vultures crossing the skies overhead.

He tells me that the hot air rising from the desert allows them to fly without moving a muscle.

The doctor has me playing cards with the gamblers, and I fear I’m turning into one myself. He’s also got me drinking scotch in the evening. All the things I’ve been missing out on all these years! Why did no one tell me?

Speaking of things I’ve been missing out on, do you know what I was imagining the night of the Singh party? I only dared to kiss you, but I would have done so much more had we been alone. I wanted to feel your hands on my body, my hands on yours, the pressure of you against me. I would have liked to—

I felt my cheeks burning as these thoughts raged through my mind. Of course, I couldn’t imagine actually saying these things out loud. I wouldn’t have had the nerve.

I wish you were here, Amit, and that we were standing on the railing taking in this great big adventure. I’m keeping hopeful thoughts for you and your aunt in Shimla.

Cairo was the destination for many on the ship. Businessmen, traders, tourists and archeologists were taken by buses to Cairo upon disembarking. Several of the men we’d played gin rummy with were climbing into taxicabs waiting at the port. I would have liked to see Cairo, to explore the open-air markets, the busy narrow lanes, drink the thick Egyptian coffee I’d heard the deckhands talking about. But Dr. Stoddard and I were going straight through to Istanbul. I would have to be satisfied with what I could glean of Egypt from the railing of the Viceroy.

As we watched the passengers leaving the port, Dr. Stoddard sucked his teeth. “Do you know…there’s a large Dewar’s Whisky sign on the rooftop of an apartment building in Cairo. In the square below, Muslim men and women mill about in their long robes. Imagine the contrast.”

He sighed. “More collateral damage. That’s what we English create.”

We disembarked at the busy Istanbul port. Dr. Stoddard’s son, as wiry as his father, was solicitous to us both but in a hurry to get back to his office. Like his father and his cousin Timothy, he wore glasses too. His tweed suit and white shirt were worse for wear in the Turkish heat.

“Nurse Falstaff, this is my son, Edward. Edward, this is my very capable Nurse Falstaff.”

He leaned forward toward his son. “She’s a card shark. Watch out.”

I laughed. Edward smiled, a dimple appearing on his left cheek. He had the same long nose as his father and the high forehead, but the features were softer, blunted. His skin was just a mite darker than mine—I assumed from working under the Turkish sun. I tried not to compare him to Amit, but it was impossible since Amit was so much on my mind. Was Amit’s smile more appealing? Was Amit’s voice raspier?

“Now, I know you’d like to get back to the office, Edward, but we owe our nurse a little rest and relaxation. After all, she’s had to look after me for an age. Poor soul.”

My train wouldn’t be leaving for Prague for another four hours. Dr. Stoddard had been kind enough to arrange my ticket from the steamship. I couldn’t impose on him further. And truth be told, I didn’t want to owe him any more than I already did. My trunk was heavy with coins, pound notes and gratitude.

“Doctor, you’ve already been so generous. I couldn’t possibly—”

His son turned his gaze in my direction and lifted a brow. “Brought out the port, did he? And cheated? Had you playing gin rummy?”

The laugh lines around his mouth meant he didn’t take life as seriously as I did. He winked. “Did the same to me on my maiden voyage.”

His father grinned.

Edward took the reins of the wheelchair. “We owe you, Nurse Falstaff. Right then, Father. The office can wait. To the Grand Bazaar it is.”

The indoor market smelled like India. There were mounds of spicy turmeric, mustard powder, cumin powder and barrels of pistachios. Many shops sold only essential oils—rose attar, jasmine attar, sandalwood oil, oud. Others sold carpets, fezzes, brass lanterns and furniture. The sharp aroma of leather sandals and shoes permeated the hallways. And the monied smell of glittering gold chains in the jeweler’s row was the same as at the Zaveri Bazaar in Bombay. However, Istanbul didn’t feel like India. Here the female shoppers wore European skirt suits and hats. There was not a dhoti in sight. I missed the humble cows and bullock carts of Bombay. I even missed the wily women behind the stalls trying to get me to buy a woven basket I didn’t need.

My uniform drew plenty of stares. In Istanbul, I supposed nurses weren’t in the habit of shopping at the souks. I felt self-conscious, not knowing where to look. It was similar to the discomfort I felt when Indian rickshaw drivers stared at me on the streets of Bombay. I tried leveling a bold glare in their direction, but usually ended up lowering my eyes in embarrassment.

The doctor stopped to chat with a vendor about his sweet offerings. Cubes of Turkish delights in cheerful shades of rose, lemon, violet. Some were covered in pistachio, others in coconut. “My guilty pleasure,”

Dr. Stoddard said.

While he quizzed the vendor about the flavor of each one, Edward and I waited in the aisle, watching him indulgently like parents with their child.

“Pater is extremely fond of you, you know. He’s written to me at length about how capable you are. How charming. How good-looking. I was almost jealous.”

I turned to see him smiling at me, his eyes twinkling. “And I must say, he was absolutely off the mark there. I would have called you beautiful.”

I couldn’t help but blush.

“Tell me. How is Pater doing? I thought he’d be out of the wheelchair by now. Should I be concerned?”

I laughed. “Oh, he doesn’t need it anymore. We’ve got him walking by himself. He just loves the attention. It’s a new device, and he means to make the most of it. Your cousin Timothy would take him on joyrides around the hospital.”

Edward laughed, a joyous thing that seemed to travel all the way from his lips to his toes. Happiness filled him. I took a second look at him then. His delight was different from Dev Singh’s. There was nothing roguish about Edward.

“Timothy isn’t my blood cousin. We grew up together. Our mothers were friends. We’re more like brothers. He’s a few years younger. You should have seen what we got up to when we were younger. Father would take us to Pushkar for the camel fair and pay one of the herders to let us ride the smaller camels. Timmy and I would race each other. We’d be flying across the desert, nary a care about whether we might fall off and hurt ourselves. And Pater would be in bits, watching us bouncing along on those magnificent creatures.”

The image of that got me laughing as well.

“Did your mother accompany you on those trips?”

Edward’s laugh trickled to a small smile. “She died when I was eight.”

“Oh, I am sorry, Mr. Stoddard.”

“Please. Call me Edward. She was lovely. Father more than made up for it though. He became both father and mother. Taught me about corsages and how to dance properly. I can do both parts, you know. Here, I’ll show you.”

Before I knew it, he’d placed his arm around my back and lifted one of my arms and we were gliding down the aisle. He was so confident in his steps that he easily steered us around the other shoppers. Vendors came out from their stalls to watch us. I’d never been a graceful dancer, but Edward made me feel as if I were. I caught a reflection of the two of us in a tall mirror outside one of the stalls as he twirled me. Was that really me? Mira would have whooped and clapped if she’d been here. Edward wound us back to the Turkish delight stall where Dr. Stoddard was waiting for us in his wheelchair.

“You’re a natural,”

Edward said. He seemed reluctant to let go of my hand. And I found myself not wanting to let go either.

“I was hoping you’d come back sometime today,”

Dr. Stoddard said. His smile was full of mischief.

Edward bowed to me as if we’d been dancing at a cotillion. As reticent as I’d always been, I couldn’t hide my pleasure at being courted like that. I reached up and kissed Edward on the cheek. It was his turn to blush.

“You must try this, my dear. It’s like inhaling a rose.”

The doctor handed me a pink delight, and I took a bite. It was too sweet and sticky for me, but he was right. It was like inhaling a rose.

The doctor and Edward treated me to lunch at a café just outside the bazaar, a place Edward frequented. He ordered for us. Steaming platters of lamb kofte arrived, bringing with them the aroma of sautéed garlic, onions, cumin and cinnamon. A salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, olives and green peppers seasoned with lemon and vinegar and a platter of tomato and lentil pilaf accompanied the meal. We ate as Indians, sharing food from the platters. Edward laughed when I swooned after tasting the lamb. Perfectly seasoned, it was a little like Indian kofta.

Two men at the next table were playing what looked like backgammon on a rosewood board inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

Edward noticed me watching them. “It’s called tavla . The player who loses must tuck the board under his arm to show everyone that he’s taking it home because he needs the practice.”

The doctor leaned toward me. “You, my dear, would never need to take it home.”

That was high praise coming from him.

Taking a bite of his kofte , Edward said to me, “He’s never said that to me. You must have won a tidy sum off Pater.”

Edward’s mahogany eyes lingered on mine a moment longer than necessary, and I had to look away. I’d never been a tease. I wouldn’t have known how, not having had much practice. It made me long for a different personality, like Mira’s. She and Dev Singh had traded witty quips with ease. I loved Amit’s dry humor too but couldn’t match it. I’d lived in a world that included my mother, nurses at the hospital and the occasional encounter with neighbors, like Fatima across the landing from our old flat. Sheltered. Wasn’t that why my mother had wanted me to go abroad?

I tried hard to think of something to say to Edward. Suddenly, I remembered the sweater the doctor had been knitting. “How old is your daughter?”

Edward frowned. “Daughter? I’m not married.”

My cheeks felt warm. I looked at the doctor. “The sweater—you said—was for a granddaughter—”

Dr. Stoddard laughed lightly. From under his lap blanket, he brought out a pale blue mohair sweater. “You must have misheard me, my dear. This is for you. You’re going to colder places than you’ve ever been, and I think you’ll need it.”

“Oh,”

was all I could say. He’d been knitting the sweater for me? The only other person who had ever made things for me was my mother. I unfolded it. It was a long-sleeved cardigan with ivory buttons. I ran my hand over the silky mohair.

When I looked at the doctor, he said, “You’re welcome.”

I was at a loss for words. I rose from my chair to kiss his cheek.

He chuckled. “Goodness. A simple thank you will do.”

“Well done, Father,”

Edward said. “Where’s mine?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Edward. Now, tell me…don’t you do something with diplomats?”

The waiter brought our Turkish coffees. The coffee was thicker and more bitter than anything I’d ever tasted. I decided one sip was enough.

Edward dropped two sugar cubes in his tiny cup and took a sip. He arched an eyebrow. “You know very well I work for the British Embassy, Pater.”

“Ah, yes. Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind giving Nurse Falstaff a hand with an inquiry or two she needs for Europe?”

“Where do you go from here?”

Edward asked me.

I was caught off guard. I hadn’t known where Edward worked, and I hadn’t expected the doctor to ask for help on my behalf. I’d given a lot of thought to tracing Mira’s journey from Prague to Paris and Florence, but now that it was before me, I was seized with fear. Perhaps it was the coffee or the idea of going into the unknown, alone. All of a sudden, I wasn’t sure I was capable of making this trip by myself. With Dr. Stoddard, I’d been in safe and sure hands; he’d traveled around the world and could guide me around the ship and on to Istanbul. In an hour, I was about to continue the journey by myself on a train to cities I’d only imagined visiting. I could feel my courage dwindling. The lamb I’d just devoured sat heavy in my stomach.

I swallowed the bile in my throat. “Um. Prague. Paris. Florence.”

I choked on the last word and reached for my water glass. My hand was shaking. The look between the doctor and his son didn’t escape my notice.

Edward picked up my coffee cup and emptied it into his own. He poured the dregs left in my cup onto my saucer. “Ahmed will foretell your journey. I’m sure it will be a happy one.”

He waved to our waiter, whom he knew from previous visits to this café.

Ahmed came to our table with a smile to inspect my saucer. In halting English, he said, “Journey—away, away.”

His smile disappeared and his dark eyebrows met in the middle of his forehead. “Family. Not good.”

He looked sideways at Edward to see if he should continue.

The hair on my arms stood up as if it was a cold day even though it was warm outside. My journey was doomed? What had I taken on? Did I really want to do this? But where else could I go? My panic spiraled. I had no home. My mother wasn’t waiting for me. I had no nursing post to return to.

The doctor laughed off Ahmed’s coffee reading. He patted me on the shoulder and said, “Poppycock! Like those magicians at the Bombay docks. Edward, one man claimed to lift a stone with his eyes! Pure tosh I tell you! Let’s get you to your train, shall we, my girl, so you can continue your grand adventure?”

***

When I relinquished Dr. Stoddard’s care to his son at the Sirkeci Terminal, he looked at me through those thick glasses, his owl eyes dancing with mischief. “A little something to remember me by, my dear,”

he said, putting a smooth piece of glass the size of a three pence coin in my palm. In the center was what looked like a blue eye with a black pupil. “To ward off evil.”

He shrugged. “I don’t believe in fortune-telling, but it never hurts to hedge your bets, does it?”

He took my hand in his warm one as if he wanted to lend me his courage. Oh, how I wanted to never let go. How I wanted to cling to his gentle presence and have him reassure me that all would be well always. Wasn’t that what fathers did? Fathers who loved you?

Edward paid one of the porters on the Arlberg Orient Express to take my trunk to my compartment. Then he helped me onto the train, which would take me directly to Prague. Before stepping back, he handed me a copy of the Baedeker’s guidebook. “Father thought you might need it, so I brought it with me today. Anywhere you go, your first stop should be the British Embassy. Whatever you need, you only have to mention my name at any British Embassy. I’ll make sure you get it.”

His eyes held mine. The lovely tingling I’d felt in my body when he’d twirled me around the Grand Bazaar returned.

The doctor waved from the platform. “Godspeed. And mind the uniform. It’s very fetching on you, my girl.”

Long after he and Edward left, I found myself blushing.