Page 24 of Six Days in Bombay

Chapter 12

Owen Falstaff’s house sat in a row of identical two-story houses, neat and compact, each with a glossy black front door, a brass door knocker and a gleaming black iron fence. They stood shoulder to shoulder like matchsticks in a matchbook. There were three steps from the sidewalk to the front door, sixteen from the sidewalk across the street, where I was standing. Yet, I couldn’t seem to make the journey.

Before leaving Florence, I had sent a telegraph to Edward at the Bombay Embassy to ask for my father’s address. He’d sent me the reply immediately, asking if I was in need of funds. I had bristled at the suggestion. I wasn’t a charity case. I’d been frugal. I’d worked out with the woman at the travel agency that I could make it to England with the money I’d set aside for the trip back to Bombay. After that, my future was vague. I didn’t have enough to get back home. I didn’t know how I would manage, but I would figure that out as I went. I’d managed so far, hadn’t I?

I may have hated my father, but I’d been curious about London as long as I could remember. Some things were the same as Bombay. Double-decker buses. Trams. Cyclists weaving in and out of traffic. Policemen in helmets and white gloves directing traffic in the middle of the street. Ice-cream vendors pushing their carts. Buildings with pediments, gothic turrets and columns similar to Victoria Terminus. But the skies were overcast, gray, and the absence of color made London grim. Instead of women in lime-green saris bent over long-whiskered jharus , here men in hats and jackets swept the streets. In London people didn’t meander. They walked with purpose, as if they were each on a mission of great importance. No time to exchange pleasantries.

I wondered how long I’d been staring at my father’s house. There was an intimidating quality, a blinding whiteness, to the Falstaff house that differed from the warmth and welcome of Indian homes—even the estate of the Singhs. A simple movement of my left foot, then right, then left would put me at the small landing in front of the door. I’d rehearsed the motion in my head. I watched a phantom version of myself mounting those steps, putting my hand on the knocker, lifting the ring and striking the brass plate. Knock, knock, knock .

From the corner of my eye, I spied a movement of the curtains in the window to my right. Without thinking, I turned in the opposite direction and walked as fast as I could to the end of the block. Out of breath, I stopped, bent forward and vomited into the gutter. My nose was running. I removed a handkerchief from my pocket and wiped my mouth and nose. Why couldn’t I make myself knock on that door? I’d been so brave, braver than I could have imagined, to leave my home, my mother, my country. I’d crossed boundary after boundary to end up here, at the home of my father. And now I couldn’t summon an iota of courage to come face-to-face with him?

The voice in my head said, You’ve come this far. Go back and finish what you came to do. Stop being a milksop!

I swallowed, cleared my throat. I turned around, startled by a small boy in muddy wool knickers who was staring at me. He carried a soccer ball in his arms. Had he seen me hurl my morning tea into the sewer grate? Shame made me avert my eyes.

This time, I crossed to the other side of the narrow street and walked back to the house. 1059 Pinkney Lane. I can do this. I deserve to do this. I’ve come so far. What will I say when I finally see my father after twenty years? Will I spit in his face? Will I slap his cheek? Will I cry and tell him how much I missed him and wanted him to come back home to us, to me?

The front door of 1059 Pinkney Lane opened. I froze. A woman stood at the door, regarding me. She wore a navy dress patterned with white flowers and cinched at the waist with a white belt. Her high-heeled shoes matched her dress.

“Won’t you come inside?” she said timidly.

I opened my mouth, then closed it shut. Was she talking to me? I felt as if I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t have. Like when Matron scolded a nurse for sneaking a cigarette on her break.

The woman at the door had kind eyes. She said, “Please.”

I made myself walk toward her. Left leg up the first stair. Then the right. Then the left. Now I was standing three feet from her. My father’s first wife.

Up close, I could see the wrinkles around the corners of her mouth and the grooves lining her forehead. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were pink. She looked to be in her late forties, although I knew from my nursing experience that the fair skin of Englishwomen aged faster than that of Indian women.

For a moment, we stood, regarding one another. Her eyes studied my face. Perhaps she was looking for signs of her husband in my features. I didn’t know. I thought I saw the slightest nod of her head, but I might have been imagining it.

She opened the door wider and smoothed her dress with her free hand. “I’ve made tea.” She said it as if we had an arranged meeting.

Directly in front of me was a set of stairs that I assumed went to the second floor. To my right was a small drawing room. A sofa and two armchairs flanked a stone hearth. She closed the front door and indicated with a gesture that I might take a seat. Then she ducked her chin and excused herself to get the tea.

On the fireplace mantel were photographs in silver frames. One was of a man in a British army uniform, his beret at an angle over his right ear. He sported a small mustache. His high forehead and the hollows of his cheeks were so much like my own. It was a formal photo, the kind the military took. It must have been taken years after the one my mother kept, when he was a younger version of the man on the mantel. I could see the toll the years had taken on him.

I moved to the next photo. The same man, a little younger, stretched out on a sandy beach on his side, one arm supporting his head. He was wearing a T-shirt and knickers, smiling at the little girl in front of him. Her back was to the camera. She couldn’t have been more than three years old, the same age I was when he left India. I could have been that girl. I felt a longing for him so intense my chest hurt. The girl had a bonnet on her head. A shirtless boy of five or six, his head resting on the man’s legs, squinted at the photographer, whom I imagined was the woman who greeted me at the door. A clock on the mantel trilled the half hour.

“Brighton Beach.”

I whirled around. She was setting the tea tray on the sofa table. “The children loved it there.” She tucked her dress under her before sitting down. “So did Owen,” she said as she poured a cup of tea for me. She held the cup and saucer up for me to take from her hands.

Was I dreaming all this? This woman, her invitation to take tea, the clock. It seemed like something I’d conjured.

I took the offering and perched on the edge of an armchair.

“I was afraid you would come someday.” Her eyes avoided mine as she poured a cup for herself. “And half hoped you wouldn’t.” When she looked at me again, her eyes were shining with tears. “I didn’t know about you and your mother.” She looked away again. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I knew there was something. His letters gradually grew more distant after he’d been in India awhile. I had to do something to bring him home again. I made up an excuse. I told him our son was out of control and needed his father. If Owen didn’t come home, we’d have to send Alistair to military school. So Owen came home. To his family.” She took a sip of her tea.

His family? What about my family? How dare he leave us with nothing when he seemed to be doing quite well here in London. The house, the neighborhood, the wedding ring his wife wore. For Rajat’s birthday and mine, he could only spare a pittance? My cup rattled on the saucer. My hands were shaking with rage.

“He was different when he came back. Distant. He was happy to see the kids right enough. But with me… Well. We changed houses. Thought a new environment would help. Eventually, we got back to things. The kids’ schooling. Lucy’s dance classes. Alistair’s cricket.”

She set her cup on the tea table and smoothed her dress with her palms.

“Then one day, I found the drafts from the bank. And a photo of two children. A baby and a girl of about two, whom I imagine was you. At first, I was in denial. Then, I was consumed with hate. For him. For your mother. I burned his clothes, his books, all his military papers. I saved nothing for my children. How could he have deceived not only me but his children? Why couldn’t he love them enough to stop himself from…”

I couldn’t bear to hear her go on any longer. My tea had gone cold. I stood up and set the cup on the table. My hands curled into fists. “Where is he?”

She looked at the photo of him on the mantel, the older Owen. “He died seven years ago. Cancer.”

The dhobis in India slap wet clothes on rocks— thwak!— to loosen the dirt on them. That’s the sound I heard in my head when my father’s wife told me he was dead. Died the year of my sixteenth birthday. All those years of hating him. And for what? I wasn’t going to be able to call him a coward. Nor would I ever get an apology. “But I’ve been receiving letters from him for twenty years.”

She touched the collar of her dress. “When I found the drafts and realized he had been sending you money, I was furious. That was money my children could have used.”

My father’s wife dabbed her lips with a napkin. “Then I held you in my hands. The photo. It must have cost Owen a lot of money to pay for it. On the back were your names. Sona. Rajat. You existed. I couldn’t hide from you any longer. No baby deserves to be deserted. I thought about all the years you two had missed out on a father. I told myself your mother had probably found someone else and married. Perhaps you did have a father after all. But the more I thought about it, I knew that was another lie I was telling myself.”

Her eyes filled. Her voice trembled. “I thought about my own children. How they would feel if they’d grown up without Owen. Even if we’d divorced and I’d remarried, they would have known their father deserted them. They’re older than you. They would have remembered. And perhaps hated him and longed for him at the same time.” She played with the wedding ring on her finger. “I think I finally understood how you must have felt.” She directed a wet gaze at me. “You’re here now because you wanted to tell him what a heel he was. And also to see if he still cared about you. That’s what I wanted when he came home from India. To know if he still cared about us.” Her tears were creating a wet blotch on her dress.

Her gaze went to the framed photos on the mantel. “He should never have taken on another family. Of course, he knew that. It’s the sensible thing, the right thing. But that wouldn’t be fair to you, would it? You exist because of him. You are a part of him.” She was quiet. She fished out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes and nose.

I did understand. But that sludge of resentment sat heavy in my stomach. Now, not only did I hate him, I hated her. She kept him from us, my mother and me and my brother. She knew we existed—or at least some version of us—and she made him choose. As if it was a choice. They were his first family. He was only on loan to us.

In Dr. Stoddard’s case, there had been no first family in En-gland to claim him when he fell in love with Deva. Breaking off with his fiancée had been as easy as a handwritten letter. The obligation to return home hadn’t taken precedence. Was that how my father had made his decision? The first family, the one he’d committed to long before he met my mother, was the one he had a greater obligation to be with. In some way, he was honoring a long-standing code, same as he would have honored a military code. Did that make it easier for me to understand his leaving?

“If my father is dead, then who has been sending those letters?” Surely, it couldn’t have been my mother, trying to spare my feelings? Mum’s look of shame when she admitted keeping the letters from me suggested otherwise. She believed my father had sent them.

“I have.” She wiped her eyes again. Her mascara left a smudge under each eyelid. “The last few years, I realized you might need more. You were probably going to school or studying for a profession and would need it.”

I swallowed. I may have been angry with my father, but his wife had tried to atone for his mistake. She had no obligation to. Should I be grateful to her? Thank her? But did a few pounds a year make up for her deception in all this? The fact that she had lied to get her husband back? For her, it hadn’t been atonement but guilt. No, I would not thank her.

“My brother was a year and a half younger than me. He died after your husband left.” I wanted to see her reaction, for her to feel the pain I felt whenever I thought of Rajat.

“Oh,” she said, the tears coming faster now. “I’m so sorry.”

I turned to the photos on the mantel. A young man wearing a dark robe and a mortarboard had his arm around a young woman. Both were grinning at the camera. I could see the resemblance in their faces. It was like looking in my mirror.

“That’s Alistair’s graduation from Imperial College. Lucy was eighteen at the time. Of course, that was a few years ago. Alistair is twenty-eight now. Lucy is a year younger. She has a daughter. My granddaughter.”

I heard her voice behind me, but it sounded far away. All I could think was that these were my father’s children. Which meant they were my siblings. I had siblings . I had a half brother and a half sister. And I was their half sister. I almost laughed. Would everything be a half-half in my world for the rest of my life?

Her hand on my shoulder made me jump.

“I—I’m sorry.” She pulled her hand away. “I wondered if you might want to meet them someday. They have an aunt and an uncle but all their grandparents are gone. No cousins. It might be good to…”

Meet my half-siblings? Was that something I wanted to do? “Do they know about me?”

She walked back to the sofa and sat, her hands in a prayer pose, her fingers on her lips. “I told them when I found those things about you and your mother after Owen died.”

“How did they react?” I almost didn’t want to know. What if they hated me on principle? Someone with whom they had had to share their father’s affections. I’d been rejected by him. Could I stand to have another rejection in my life?

She sighed. “It took them some time. Alistair was angry. Lucy was confused. But that was seven years ago. I think it would be different now. You were an idea then. You’re real now.”

Had this been a wasted trip? I didn’t know yet. I hadn’t had the chance to throw my pain in my father’s face. Which had been the whole point of this journey, hadn’t it?

I realized I knew nothing about my father’s wife except her role in dividing our families. “What’s your name?”

She smiled for the first time. “It’s Marion, Sona. My name is Marion.”

“I’ll let you know, Marion.”

I walked out.

***

The Falstaff home was at the north end of Chelsea. I walked from there to St. James’s Park. I needed to think. What would be the harm in meeting a brother and sister who had been there all along? Would meeting them mean I’d forgiven my father, forgiven them for keeping him from me?

I wove my way through tourists eager to catch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. I barely noticed where I was, so engrossed was I in my thoughts. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a certain curiosity about Alistair and Lucy. Had they inherited mannerisms from their father that I’d inherited too? Was it in our gestures? Was it in our speech? What about our differences? Our English, for one. Their accent would be different from mine. Our clothes? They would certainly be better turned out than me. Would that separate us, divide us so that we couldn’t be part of the same family?

I wound around Piccadilly Circus, watching the swirl of cars, trucks and double-decker buses, Wrigleys Gum, Schweppes Tonic Water, Ryman’s Insurance advertisements on their sides. A glowing Guinness Is Good For You sign loomed over the circle. Leaflets announcing the coronation of George VI and Elizabeth pressed up against the edges of the sidewalks, wrapped themselves around the streetlights. They littered the steps of the Statue of Eros.

Staying in London to meet my half-siblings would require a few days at a hostel, which meant spending more money. I didn’t even know where Alistair and Lucy lived. Would meeting them mean a trip outside of London? Marion said she had a granddaughter. So that meant I had a niece? I’d always wanted an extended family, the kind Rebecca and Indira had. Could I handle coming out of the cocoon my mother and I had built for ourselves and allow more family into my life?

I wandered to Trafalgar Square. Two policemen escorted a drunken protester away from traffic. I knew I’d reached Covent Garden when I started seeing marquees for shows: The Tales of Hoffmann , Puccini’s Turandot . On impulse, I bought a ticket for the afternoon performance of Tristan Und Isolde . I didn’t have the right clothes nor the money to buy them. I’d never even been to an opera before, but I knew it was the kind of thing my mother or Mira or Amit would have wanted to see. Besides, it would take my mind off the endless merry-go-round of questions crowding my brain.

By the time I left the theater, I’d made up my mind.

I found the General Post Office and sent a telegraph to Dr. Stoddard via Edward.

It’s your turn , I wrote.

***

In St. James’s Park, the scorching heat had men fanning their hats in front of their faces and women waving their skirts around their knees. From my bench, I heard men and women around me complain about the record-breaking temperatures. “It’s barely June!” I smiled, wondering what they would make of Bombay temperatures—and the crushing humidity. Bees shopped hyacinths for the sweetest nectar. Bluebells crowded under the trees, giving off a fresh green scent. I let my head settle on the back of the bench, my face turned toward the sun, and listened to children imploring their parents for an ice lolly. “Mummy, I’m melting!”

I smelled Dr. Stoddard’s lavender-oakmoss-vanilla shaving cream as he approached my bench. My eyes still closed, I asked. “How did it go?”

“About as well as you would imagine. No, worse.”

I opened my eyes and squinted up at him.

Ralph Stoddard sat down heavily, leaning on his cane to steady himself. He looked as tired as I’d ever seen him. There were gray bags under his eyes. Liver spots on his forehead. Red splotches on his cheeks from the sun. His lean frame seemed to have no fat left on it at all. He rubbed his leg, the one he’d broken. “She said she’d often wondered what she’d say if I ever came back.” He turned his head to regard me. “She said what hurt her the most was that I’d married a black woman and had a black child.”

The doctor paused. He knew I’d been called Blackie-White just as his son had. And most Britishers would have referred to his Indian wife as black. It was another way of dividing people, separating those who belonged from those who didn’t.

“What did you say?”

“I bid her a good day.”

I blinked. “And?”

“And I came here.” He removed his hat to wave a fly away from my shoulder. “Who is the patron saint of lost causes, my dear?”

I frowned, thinking. “Saint Jude, I think?”

“We must go pay him a visit when we return to Bombay.”

That coaxed a smile from me. Dr. Stoddard had taken a flight from Istanbul as soon as he received my telegram. Edward was leaving for his new post in Bombay, and if I hadn’t caught his father in time, he’d be on the same flight.

“I had a postcard from Mishra a few weeks ago. From Paris.” He was looking at three young women in sleeveless blouses walking past and laughing at something one of them had said. “Wondered if you ran into him.”

I avoided his eyes. “Paris is a big city.”

The doctor took a moment. He nodded. “Quite so.”

“Do you feel better? About Elizabeth?”

“Let’s see… I feel better about leaving her all those years ago. But I do not feel better about her,” he said dryly. Then he used his cane to stand upright and offered me his arm. “Shall we go home, my dear?”