Page 14 of Six Days in Bombay

With the money I’d earned from the gin rummy games on the Viceroy, I splurged on a sleeper car on the Arlberg Orient Express. Still, I needed to make my funds last, so instead of private accommodation, I was sharing the compartment with another passenger. The uniformed porter with the immaculate white gloves had placed my trunk on the overhead rack.

My fellow passenger was already settled in her seat by the time I arrived at my compartment. She was perhaps ten years older than me. Her pale green skirt suit and matching turban hat with a delicate veil were far more in keeping with the elegance of our car: the gleaming walnut veneer, the velvet curtains, the mohair upholstery.

“That is quite the handsome young man you have,” she said, pulling her cigarettes out of her clutch purse and pointing with her free hand toward the window.

“Oh, he—he’s not. He’s the son of my patient—well, former patient.” I was blubbering. The idea of Edward being mine was…preposterous. I heard Mira’s voice in my head: No, it’s not, Sona. He could be.

My fellow passenger laughed lightly and extended her gloved hand. “Agnes Kelmendi.”

I wasn’t used to shaking hands with women. It flustered me so much that I forgot to introduce myself. Instead, I did what I usually do with patients—ask questions. Where was she from? What was taking her to Belgrade? Would she go on to Prague from there, as I was doing?

“I’m coming from Albania to work in Belgrade on the new trade fair.” She lit her cigarette and shook the match until the flame disappeared. “I’m an interior designer.”

Here was another woman like Mira doing things I thought women only did in books or films! “How exciting that sounds. Do you often travel for work?”

She nodded. “Germany. France. My favorite is Italy. The food. Fashion. Art.” She took a drag of the cigarette, her face shrouded in smoke. “Have you been?”

I could only shake my head, embarrassed at my lack of sophistication. Would I ever be as comfortable as she seemed to be, traveling alone, undaunted by different customs, different languages?

She reached across and tapped my knee. “You must go.”

The porter brought the afternoon tea. I felt a sharp pang when I saw the silver tray with the tea things, petit fours and delicate sandwiches with the crusts trimmed off. For my birthdays, my mother had indulged me with a formal tea. When I was little, the tea had been nothing more than sugar water heated up, tiny cucumber sandwiches and scones with apricot jam. When I reached my teens, Mum began serving real Ceylon tea with sponge cakes and lemon tarts. I’d loved the care my mother took to make the day special. But on the night of my birthdays, on our shared bed, I would hear her trying to muffle her sobs. Without being told, I knew the date was a yearly reminder of what she and my father had brought into being and all that we had missed out on as a family.

Agnes broke into my reverie. She set her teacup down on the little table and waved a hand at my uniform. “Are you going somewhere to take care of another patient?”

“I’m actually on my way to deliver some paintings.” I suddenly wanted to show this worldly European woman Mira’s work. Surely, she would appreciate the paintings! I took a last bite of my watercress sandwich and pulled my trunk down from the overhead rack. A client of my mother’s had given that trunk to her. Battered tweed with two latching clasps and straps. It wasn’t heavy, just large and cumbersome. The train lurched slightly, and I lost my balance so that by the time I opened the trunk, my belongings were a tumbled mess. I had kept the brown wrapping paper around the rolled paintings so as not to damage them. I unwound the paper carefully and held up The Acceptance . I looked to Agnes for her reaction. But she was looking instead at my luggage. My underthings, blouses, the pouch with my money—everything was in a jumble. My beat up trunk and its disorganized contents on such display was mortifying. I quickly shut the suitcase.

“You see the focus on the young woman being prepared for marriage?” I asked. “What Miss Novak noticed was that while the bride seems accepting of her fate, there is a quiet joy in serenity of the scene.”

“Yes, I see,” Agnes said. She took the painting from me and studied it. “Lovely brushwork too. You said Mira Novak is her name?”

“Was. Was her name.” I looked out the window. “She died recently.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, handing me back the painting. “I can see that this painter meant a lot to you.” Her voice was sympathetic.

I needed a moment, and I was grateful that she didn’t fill the pause with conversation.

The porter came to take the tea things and make our dining car reservations. Agnes asked if eight o’clock would suit me. For a moment, I couldn’t speak. I was flattered a woman as cultivated as Agnes would want to dine with me. I nodded.

When the porter left, she said, “Of course, you have something to wear?” She looked pointedly at my uniform.

I looked down at my white uniform with its even whiter apron.

In a softer voice, she said, “You’re expected to dine in formal wear.”

I suddenly remembered the green gown my mother had made. “Yes! I do have something!” I felt my way to the bottom of the trunk, opening it more discreetly this time.

Agnes parted her pink painted lips and smiled. “That will do nicely indeed.”

***

Cherrywood tables. Tulip-shaped sconces. Plush armchairs. The dining car of the Arlberg Orient Express was far more glamorous than the one on the Viceroy. Agnes was wearing an evening gown the color of an Indian blue robin. Her only jewelry was a wide rhinestone collar. When I walked behind Agnes to our seats, men in their black tie and tuxedos followed us with their eyes. As I had at the Singh party, I felt self-conscious exposing so much of my cleavage, but at the same time, I enjoyed a peculiar thrill from the attention. I thought of Amit and how he’d wanted to protect me from the lusty stares of men. It made me smile.

After a four-course meal of lobster bisque, roasted capon with dauphine potatoes, endive salad and crushed strawberries with cream, I was as full as I’d ever been. By the time we returned, the porter had converted our car into a sleeping compartment. I took the top bunk. I quickly fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of men in black tie selling brass lamps and oud from a stall in the Grand Bazaar.

The next morning, I went to the dining car for a simple breakfast of boiled egg and plain toast with tea. Agnes told me she never ate breakfast and was sipping a cup of coffee when I returned. Again, the porter had transformed our cabin back to sitting quarters—no evidence of the beds they’d been just an hour before. The morning newspaper lay on each of our seats. Agnes was reading hers. I picked up mine.

At last count, the bodies of thirteen passengers and twenty crew members had been found at the site of the Hindenberg disaster. The dirigible is dead.

The American film Shall We Dance with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was a hit at the box office.

A date had been set for the wedding of the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson.

The Republican Party was losing the Spanish Civil War and Franco was winning.

I stopped reading to gaze out the window at the green hills and small villages rolling by. I tried to picture Mira sitting opposite my seat instead of my Albanian cabinmate, and I felt as intense a longing for her friendship as I had felt for my mother’s love.

Mira had often talked about traveling on trains just like this one. She’d described it right down to the mirror above the corner sink. She told me she always left a tiny drawing tucked behind the mirror of every compartment she had slept in. “One time, I drew the face of the porter who was assigned to my compartment. I was tucking it behind the mirror when he caught me doing it. He just winked at me.” She’d giggled, and I’d laughed with her. She said she wore the most outrageous outfits to the dining car—peacock feathers in a sequin headband or layers of chiffon so voluminous that diners would have to make room for her along the aisle.

I stood and went to the corner sink. I felt along the edges of the mirror to see if I could feel a gap where something could be hidden. There was no gap. It would have been impossible to slip anything between the mirror and the veneer wall. Puzzling. Perhaps Mira was having me on.

“What are you doing?” Agnes set her paper aside. She was once again in her pale green skirt suit and hat, looking—perfect. Her empty coffee cup lay on the table. She fished around for her cigarettes and lit one.

“Well—” I came to sit down in my seat again “—I think I was told something that turns out not to be true.” Now I felt horrible. It was as if I were calling Mira a liar. “But perhaps I simply misunderstood.”

Agnes looked thoughtful. She tapped cigarette ash in the glass ashtray that was imbedded into the table. “Things are never as they seem, you know.” Odd. It sounded similar to what Dr. Stoddard had said to me. Agnes rolled her cigarette on the ashtray rim. “Take a look at my trunk. What do you see?”

I looked up at the luggage rack and cringed. My tweed trunk, sagging in places, with its tarnished latches, and her smart one—a waxed cotton canvas in warm brown, outlined in leather with brass tacks, and three gold initials: C. R. S.

“It’s a beautiful trunk. I’m not sure I could ever afford it.”

“Is that what you see?”

I raised my eyebrows. What more was there to see? But I took another look. And then it dawned on me. “The initials are different from yours?”

She released a cloud of nicotine, letting the smoke swirl around her, as if she were a genie from One Thousand and One Nights. “If my name were Agnes Kelmendi.”

I frowned. “But you told me…”

“Or perhaps Agnes is my name, and I stole that trunk.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Or could I have bought the trunk from someone with the initials C. R. S.? It could also be that I was married to a wretched man with those initials and I claimed the trunk in the divorce.” Her white teeth gleamed between pink lips. “Any one of those could be true. How are you to know?”

The train was slowing down. We were nearing Belgrade, where our sleeper car would be uncoupled and added to the train headed for Prague.

“I don’t understand,” I said. I felt as if I’d missed a part of the conversation and was having a hard time catching up.

“You will.” Agnes crushed her cigarette in the ashtray. She pulled on her gloves and gathered her clutch. The porter appeared at our cabin to take her luggage off the train. She cupped my chin in her hand and smiled. She seemed sad. I caught a whiff of her jasmine and sweet cigarette scent when she said, “You’re a sweet girl. The world is a big place. You’ll learn.”

I crossed our threshold and stood in the passageway to watch her walk away, high heels clacking, from the train to the platform, past the other passengers, until she was out of sight. What had she meant?

I was alone in the compartment and found myself missing Agnes’s company. Thoughts of what I’d left behind in India flooded my mind. The way the coconut trees swayed in the wind, making the sound of waves lapping against Juhu Beach. A mango so ripe I could squeeze the pulp through a hole at the top and let the sweetness explode in my mouth. Women with bindis on their foreheads, chatting on a doorstep, shelling peas. To stave off the nostalgia, I took out my notebook and wrote to my mother about the doctor, dancing with Edward (which had me tapping my feet), the Turkish delights at the Grand Bazaar, the emerald gown I wore to dinner. I put the notebook away when the porter arrived with afternoon tea.

I took my time over my cream tea, imagining Amit sitting by my side. I told him what I loved about being on the train, how we had to dress for dinner and my fellow passenger Agnes and our strange conversation about her trunk.

When the tray was removed, I spoke to Mira. “Mira,” I whispered, “I am here. In Europe. Can you believe it? I can hardly believe it myself. I’ll find your friends. I promise.”

At some point, I fell asleep and missed dinner altogether. Perhaps the porter didn’t want to wake me.

Sometime in the night, I’d pulled on the sweater Dr. Stoddard had made for me because I’d been cold and—although I hated to admit it—because it made me feel less lonely, as if the doctor were by my side. In the morning, I decided to leave it on over my nurse’s uniform. It was time to reorganize my trunk before getting off the train. I refolded my blouses and rewrapped Mira’s paintings. I realized I would need to change money to tip the porter, pay for a taxi and my lodging. The Baedeker’s Edward Stoddard had bought for me in Istanbul told me where to change money in Prague.

I picked up my cloth pouch where I kept my money. With my winnings from the gin rummy games, it had become bulkier and harder to snap closed. Now, it was thinner, lighter.

My hands trembled. I couldn’t get my shaking fingers to undo the snap. I took a moment to breathe slowly and calm my pounding heart. I tried the pouch again. This time it snapped open. I shook all the money out on my seat. I began counting. Oh, no! No, no, no, no. It was half of what I’d brought with me. I searched my trunk. Could the snap have opened inside and the money spilled out? I upended the trunk, letting everything I’d just folded and organized tumble onto the seat. I set the paintings aside—thank goodness they were still there! But even as I rummaged through my belongings, I knew the money wouldn’t be there. It wasn’t. I sank into the seat. Brought my head between my knees. I’d been careless. But…where would I have lost it? The trunk had been with me at all times since I left Istanbul. Except for the times I went to the dining car. That was when the porter entered our compartment to convert it into a sleeper every night. Surely, it couldn’t have been him? Porters were beyond reproach. Their integrity and discretion had to be carefully vetted by the train service. If porters stole from passengers, no one would take the train. No, it couldn’t have been my porter.

The only other person who had access to my trunk was Agnes. When was she alone with it? Yesterday, she begged off breakfast. I’d gone by myself. But…how could it be her? Surely, she had enough of her own money. What with her smart suit and expensive evening gown and that handsome luggage—something that would have taken a year’s salary for me to afford, provided I skipped eating altogether. What was all that about how she’d come by the luggage? That maybe it wasn’t hers? Or that she wasn’t who she appeared to be? Was she really an interior designer? Was she really going to Belgrade to work on the fair?

The truth hit me like a punch to my stomach. I didn’t want to believe it. What a fool I’d been! So naive! Here I was pretending to be an adult when I was no more than a silly girl! All the while, she’d been sitting there with my money, laughing at me.

What could I do now? Tell the porter? What could he do? The train service wasn’t going to reimburse me. Tell the police? Belgrade was a big city, and Agnes could have easily disappeared into its bowels. Besides, that was probably not her name. I couldn’t go to the British Embassy. They had no responsibility in the matter and were under no obligation to give me my money back.

Slowly, I counted the remaining money. Agnes could have taken all of it, but she hadn’t. Had she only taken half because she pitied me? Pitied me for my wide-eyed ignorance? Anger coursed through me. Worse than losing the money was the image of her rifling through my trunk, feeling sorry for my meager belongings. Dr. Stoddard had warned me to be careful. As had Agnes. The world is a big place. You’ll learn. How embarrassing to be told in advance by a thief that she intended to rob you!

I blinked back my tears. I resisted the urge to quit. What did it matter if I never delivered these paintings? Jo and Paolo and Petra would never know that Mira had left something for them. Nothing said I had to do as Mira instructed. I could run back to Bombay and wait for Amit to find me another job. Then I heard Mira’s voice. How silly of us to have taken our eyes off the money, Sona! So what? It was a major setback, but what was done was done. We’re not going to let it ruin our adventure. She would have laughed it off. The loss was too raw for me to dismiss altogether, but I breathed a little easier. I needed to think about how to proceed. I had enough money to take the trains, but I would have to be careful about how much to spend on food and lodging. I could skip the taxis and take trams instead. Or walk. Miss a few meals.

I braced my arms on my thighs and pulled myself to standing. Mira had written, I know you will take care of these. As will Jo and Petra and Po , which meant the paintings needed to be given to their rightful inheritors. I couldn’t imagine what else she was trying to say. Here in Prague, I needed to find Petra and deliver Mira’s gift to her. I emptied my lungs of stale breath and shrugged off the self-pity.

Before getting off the train, I felt inside the pocket of my uniform for the amulet—the evil eye—Dr. Stoddard had given me. I took it out and left it on the table under the window.

***

I alighted from the Arlberg Orient Express at Praha hlavní nádra?í in Prague. I was tired. My eyes were dry. And I was smarting from my foolishness, trusting a perfect stranger with my belongings and losing my money in the bargain. For the first time, I was far from my mother’s touch, far from our flat, far from India. What if I couldn’t find my way around Prague? What if I never found Petra? What if I ran out of money? It had been easy enough to win at cards on the Viceroy under Dr. Stoddard’s protective guidance, but there was no way I could conjure a card game here where I knew no one. I scolded myself. Was I planning to spend the rest of the journey obsessing about things I couldn’t undo? I squared my shoulders and walked toward the station exit.

Outside the station, I stood for a moment, taking in my surroundings. It made me a little dizzy to think how far I’d come. I had toyed with the idea of following in Mira’s footsteps, and here I was actually doing it. Was I perhaps standing on the very spot where Mira and her mother had stood, waiting for the chauffer to unload their trunks? This was the station where they would have started their journeys to Florence and Paris. I closed my eyes and took in a lungful, inhaling strong coffee, something akin to vinegar, smoky fumes from the trains, cigarettes and—cabbage? I opened my eyes. There was a man standing a few feet from me playing the accordion, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He nodded. I nodded back.

I used my schoolgirl French—grateful to have won a place at the convent school in Calcutta—and pointed to the map in my Baedeker’s. He indicated which tram to take for the British Embassy. On the tram, I didn’t have the proper currency (hellers and koruna), but seeing my nurse’s uniform, the conductor forgave my ticket. It was Dr. Stoddard’s idea to wear my uniform throughout my journey; I would be visible when it mattered and invisible when it didn’t.

Mira had described her birth city perfectly. Preserved bridges, centuries old, gold-tipped spires adorning churches and cathedrals, majestic stone buildings where kings and their ministers had strategized about how to rule Bohemia. Sleek automobiles and trams moved along the same roads as the occasional horse-drawn carriage. Men and women in their tailored coats and Parisian shoes moved with ease around the history that surrounded them.

***

The British Embassy was as majestic a building as the ones I’d passed through Prague’s Old and New Towns. At reception—which was even grander, with enormous oil paintings, silk settees and gilded candle sconces—an Englishwoman with lovely clear skin called upstairs for a Mr. Peabody, a jolly civil servant with eyes that faced in different directions. He came down to the foyer to accompany me upstairs to his office. As we climbed the stairs, he said, “Mr. Stoddard was most insistent we help you with your first visit here.” He ushered me into his neat office. “Good chap, Stoddard. Runs that embassy in Istanbul. Rising star.”

This was news to me. Edward was so humble that I’d assumed he was merely one of the diplomatic staff.

“Mind you, they all want the Paris post. Currently, however, all eyes are on Spain and Germany. Franco. Hitler. Mussolini. Beastly business. And just north of us, there’s unrest with the Sudeten Germans.” He folded his hands across his desk. “But you’re not here for that, are you? Now then, is it a nursing position you’re after?”

“What?” Confused, I frowned. Then I realized he was referring to my pinafore and cap. “No, sir. I need help on two other fronts.”

I could tell by the set of his shoulders that my accent had thrown him. Given my last name and ochre eyes, he’d assumed I’d sound properly British. But I’d been raised by English--speaking nuns in India, and while I didn’t have the heavily accented English most Indians did, I certainly didn’t have the public-school accent he must have been expecting.

A lithe young woman of twenty came in with a tray of tea and biscuits. I realized I was still clutching my trunk, afraid to let it go after the fiasco with my savings. I set it on the floor, against the legs of my chair. I took a steaming cup of tea from the tray and poured a little milk into it. The assistant set Mr. Peabody’s cup on his desk, glancing at me quizzically as she left the room. I’m sure she was wondering why Mr. Peabody was talking to a nurse.

“Mr. Peabody, I was in charge of a patient in Bombay who died at the hospital there. Perhaps you’ve heard of her. Mira Novak. She was a painter.” I’d rehearsed this on the train to downplay my alleged involvement in her death.

His eyebrows rose. “I have. From here. Prague. Oh, dear, oh, dear. I am sorry to hear it. Must send condolences.” He took a biscuit from the tray. “How can I help?”

“She wanted me to inform her closest friend from Prague. Miss Petra…” I didn’t have a last name for her. But if the Novaks were known to Mr. Peabody, he might know their acquaintances. I was hoping they ran in the same social circles. “The Novaks lived next door to her family.”

“That might be Miss Hitzig? Of the Hitzig family? If it’s the same, we’re in luck. Her father is the owner of one of the largest glass companies. Brilliant dinnerware they make. Known all over Europe. Quite forward thinking. Petra Hitzig is the one you’re after?”

I didn’t know if it was the same Petra, but I knew Mira’s family was well-connected, and the Hitzig family sounded like someone they would know. With all the confidence I could muster, I said, “Yes.”

Peabody drained his tea and set it aside. “I’ll tell Regina to give you their address. Other side of the Charles Bridge, I believe. Family will be devastated. The Novaks left quite a few years ago. Since the first war, Jews have been wary. Understandably. Don’t blame the Novaks at all. Hitzig isn’t worried. Quite cozy with the Germans he is. Besides, he has a company to run.” Peabody clasped his hands on his desk. “Do you need accommodations?”

He changed topics as quickly as Mira used to. It took me a moment to realize he’d asked me a question. “Yes, please.”

“I’ll have Regina give you a list of those as well. Travel documents tickety-boo?”

“Dr. Stoddard—Mr. Stoddard’s father—took care of all that in Bombay.” As loathe as I was to admit it, my father’s British citizenship—and Dr. Stoddard’s connections—had helped me get a British passport.

“Never been there myself. Bombay. Can’t take the heat. Break out in hives. Those Indian soldiers. Solid stuff. They’ll come in handy should we go to war again. Well, that’s me done.” He stood and extended his hand. “You’re not, you know—but your name—”

I waited for him to finish. I knew he was asking why I looked in-between . Now that I’d had practice with the duplicitous Agnes, I felt it was better not to be so forthcoming.

“Not my business. Apologies, miss.”

I shook his outstretched hand and thanked him.

“Oh, hang on, Miss Falstaff. There’s a letter for you.”

My dear Nurse Falstaff,

Did you enjoy that lovely sojourn on the Orient Express? I always say if you’re going to travel, do it in style. Food not too bad, is it? I rather favor their Duck a l’Orange.

Now do let me know how you’re faring on your own. You know you can always trade that sweater for good money if you run out. Mohair is in style, I hear. My wife used to love my sweaters except she told everyone she knit them herself. Drove me mad, that.

I stay busy with old friends who seem to have ended up in Istanbul as well. We play bridge. Some gin rummy. Bezique. I quite like pinochle myself but Germany has taken all the fun out of it. Of course, I cheat because you’re not here to monitor me. Hard to break bad habits when no one is watching you. Quite useful for pocket money though. Edward looks the other way, of course. He sends his love, by the way. I think he was rather taken with you. But I’m an old fool when it comes to love, so ignore me, my dear.

In Prague, try the Beef Tenderloin with Cream Sauce (don’t let them skimp on the sauce!). And there’s always the Pork Knee if you’re feeling adventurous.

I hope to have some good news by the time you get to Paris. Stay well, dear girl.

Yours fondly,

Ralph Stoddard

I had waited until I was back in the embassy’s foyer to read the letter. When I finished, my legs were shaking. I slumped in a chair. How could I tell Dr. Stoddard I had managed to lose half my funds on my first train trip in Europe? He would think me careless and, at worst, a fool. Would he shake his head in disappointment? Or would he laugh in his easy, offhand manner? Nurse Falstaff, I wouldn’t have taken you for such an easy mark!

The female receptionist at the desk was eyeing me. “Bad news?”

I just shook my head and walked out of the building. What would my mother have said about my misfortune? The same thing she would say when I’d come home crying, The girls at school called me yellow eyes or they refused to play with a Blackie-White . “You’ll need to build up your courage to survive them, beti .” I should have realized then how much courage it had taken her to manage a life without the man who was supposed to love her forever. How much courage it had taken to raise a reminder of that disappointment on her own.

I took a deep breath. I would write to the doctor but leave out the part about the money. He may have been joking about the sweater, but I would never sell something so precious, made especially for me.

Half an hour later, I arrived on foot at the least expensive hostel on the embassy’s list. A frazzled mother balancing a toddler on one hip and a clean set of nappies on the other answered the door. I showed her the note Mr. Peabody had written in Czech for her. She nodded and showed me to my room. It was clean even if the apartment smelled of wet diaper and boiled cabbage. She went to see to her dinner and feed the baby.

I set the trunk on the bed (the springs groaned). To set my mind at ease, I made sure the pouch with my money was still inside. Mr. Peabody had personally exchanged enough pounds to koruny for me to last a few days. I had the Czech bills in my pocket. How would I protect the rest of my savings without taking all the money with me wherever I went?

I unrolled the painting marked for Petra from the trunk and went to find my hostess. She was in the kitchen-cum-dining room, sitting on a chair at the dining table with the child in her lap, spooning what looked like porridge into his mouth. I mimed putting the painting in a bag that could hang over my shoulder. She pointed to a net bag hanging from the doorknob. I shook my head and looked around. I pointed to the canvas bag sitting on the butcher block, which must have been her market carrier.

“Ah,” she said. She waved her hand for me to bring it to her. She pulled a loaf of bread out of it and offered the bag to me.

“This is perfect.” I grinned. She did too even though I don’t think she knew what the words meant. We were making each other understood without sound, and it made me happy.

***