Monsoon Summer (15 page)

“Neeta is gone,” she interrupted, eyes beady and cold. “She has another job, I don't know where.”

When I said I didn't think anyone had told Miss Barker about this, she gave that most ambiguous of Indian gestures: the sideways head wag, the yes that could mean no—the one Anto confuses me with sometimes.

“So who?—forgive me—sorry, but have you taken over from Neeta Chacko?”

“I've told you,” she snapped. “My name is Dr. Annakutty. I am the acting official head of the Home, put here by the new government.” She reeled off a string of qualifications: a medical degree from Madras University, obstetrics, midwifery (Trivandrum Hospital) course, “six hundred and fifty-six deliveries”; the full deck of
cards. “Plus, am now senior lecturer to the village courses we run with the vayattattis—the local midwives.”

More muscle flexing followed from her side of the desk: she said she could be a full professor in Bombay at this point in her career were it not for political ideals, then she opened the door and yelled something in Malayalam into the darkness.

“I'm calling for a knife,” she said. “Because you are here”—she gave me a quizzical look—“we can open the boxes.”

I mumbled that the committee's rules were none of my doing,
big, fat, bully girl.
I was getting hot and bothered myself.

A boy arrived and removed the packing case lids with a knife and hammer. Dr. Annakutty lowered her considerable bulk to the floor. “I'll take things out,” she said curtly. “You write,” she added, handing me a pencil and a pad. “But only when everything is on the floor.”

We worked in silence for a while, just the rustle of paper, a man crying
pani, pani, pani
in the street outside, while Dr. A. unwrapped the petri dishes, rubber enemas, one packet of thermometers, forceps, the swabs, sanitary pads, and cord clamps we'd wrapped in back issues of
The
Spectator
.

At the end of an hour, my entire body prickled with sweat, but the job was done: the packing cases were empty, my inventory covered five pages, and Dr. A. and I sat inside a pile of nightdresses, baby clothes, medical supplies, and three copies of Comyns Berkeley's
Pictorial Midwifery
.

She signed each page of my inventory in a slashing hand, a big circle of sweat underneath her arm.

“Is this enough to last for a while?” I asked.

She gave a big sigh. “No. Not really. I was turning women away last week.”

I made murmuring sympathetic noises.

“There was so much killing up north that medical funds have been diverted, and staff, plus it's hard to get women from good
families to train with us. We had to send two away. Their families did not approve. One has promised to come back; the other I don't know.” Dr. A.'s frown made a huge V in her forehead. “Her husband won't allow it.”

“Is it dangerous to be short-staffed?”

“Of course, and I don't know yet if I can use you. I must check with our own government officials first,” she said. “British people can't just walk in now and work.”

She put some of the medical equipment back into the packing cases. “I'm taking this home tonight,” she said. “There are bandits in the streets around here, and this building is not safe. Tell your Settlement ladies this. We need better locks on our doors.”

“Look, I live here now,” I said. “I need a job.” I'd made up my mind.

“Why?” I could hear her thighs sucking as she heaved herself off the floor and sat behind the desk. “Are you married?” She was looking at me thoughtfully.

When I told her that I was married to an Indian, a Nasrani whose family lived at Mangalath, I swear it was like the sun coming out. “Thekkedens,” she said, her face visibly brightening. “A well-known family here, though not personally known to me.”

“I met my husband in England. He's a doctor. He did his training there.”

This slight thaw between us encouraged me to add, “My husband did some translations with Daisy Barker in England. Both of them felt this home could do great work.”

She gave me a hard look as if to say, What would Miss Barker know about the price of bread?

“Great work is our aim,” she said after a considering pause. “But we have two big obstacles to progress. Number one.” She stuck a large finger in the air. “In some people's minds, a nurse is like a prostitute—sorry for the word—and some doctors here do use them like that—not good information for you either, but if you
are going to join us, better you know the facts.” She adjusted her enormous bosom.

“Number two. If a girl becomes a nurse here, she has a very bad showing in the marriage market, even now after all our efforts. Even the married ones have difficulties; one of our best midwives was beaten badly by her husband last week. Even though she supports him,” she added with a dark look.

“But I thought the Christian community here felt differently.” I was anxious to prove I was not a complete tenderfoot. “And that women from South India are well educated and encouraged to work.”

“Up to this point.” Dr. A. made a small and not very encouraging mark on her desk. “And only to here.”

“Our biggest obstacle in employing Hindu girls is they do not like to handle the bodily fluids of another, they think it pollutes them, so we do prefer Christians to work here. Some fathers will hand their oldest daughters over to us for training, but the families are not always happy about it.

“We're trying to start a revolution,” she said tiredly, rubbing her eyes, “with not enough soldiers.”

In that moment, I felt I could forgive the rattiness, the inability to give anything but the unadorned facts. Charm, jokes, emollient words take it out of you when you're working the long shift.

“So,”—she smiled at me for the first time—“you're a Thekkeden. Sorry for the confusion at first. Now I can show you the work we do. If you come back on Friday, we'll take a boat out from Alleppey, to the villages where we train some midwives. You can see it firsthand,” she concluded, as if this had been decided all along.

Oh Lord, I thought, excited and startled. I had no idea what Anto would think about that, or Amma, who was now frigidly polite to me. It seemed one part of me was already thinking like an Indian wife, except the other part was promptly and eagerly replying, “Thank you: that sounds perfect. What time should I come?”

* * *

It was the tail end of dusk when we got home to Mangalath: cows munching hay on the edge of rose-colored backwaters, evening fires being lit on the edge of the village of Pookchakkal. As we turned the last corner in the road, the house rose out of the trees, a tangible welcoming presence with oil lamps glowing on the veranda.

It was then I saw a gray-haired man standing motionless on the steps as we drove up. He was staring at us. We got out of the car.

“Appan,” Anto said, rooted to the spot. I saw his face twist as his father walked towards us. When he drew closer, I saw that Mathu Thekkeden looked eerily, disconcertingly like an older, wearier version of Anto. The same springing and abundant hair, though his was gray now; the same languid, slightly aristocratic bearing; the same jutting cheekbones; the same finely shaped green eyes, though his were wrinkled and deep set.

He walked straight up to Anto, put his arms around him, and hearing the father's muffled sobs, the half words in Malayalam, I hung back not wanting to spoil things. There were more anguished-sounding words, a keening sound from Anto, and then Mathu turned his wet face to me and, after a jagged pause, said in a kind but formal voice, “Forgive me, I am forgetting all my good manners. Welcome to Mangalath. You are Kit?”

“It's lovely to be here,” I said, knowing I was an unwelcome surprise. “I've heard so much about you.”

In fact, I knew surprisingly little, except the bare bones stuff about his being one of only a handful of Indian judges in South India, a clever man, an Anglophile with a tiresome predilection for cards. He had played bridge for his Cambridge college during his four years there and later had tried to teach Anto, aged ten: a disaster.

During the rare moments Anto had talked about his father, he'd adopted a lightly ironic tone, referring to his father as “the Pater,”
as if he were some spat-wearing character out of a Wodehouse novel—the kind of man who went on tiger hunts with English toffs, who ordered his cravats from Bond Street.

It was hard to connect these fragments with this anguished man who'd just hugged my husband as if he were the last person left alive on earth. Mathu was barefoot, he had a strip of cotton wound round his waist, and he had his back to me.

-
CHAPTER 18
-

I
n the study after supper, Anto felt like someone surfacing from a long dream. It was all still there: his father's curved captain's chair, the magnificent cedar desk, the green lamp casting shadows on the teetering piles of books his mother was not allowed to touch, in French, Italian, Malayalam, English, Hindi, all languages his father was fluent in; the complete works of Shakespeare and Dickens, the ancient texts on agriculture that had been in the family for years.

And Appan: a little more stooped but still handsome, the usual cut-glass decanter of whisky beside him. Soon he'd pour his one drink per night in a special Waterford crystal glass given to him by Mr. Bateman, and smoke one of three cigarettes taken from the tin with Player's Number 3 on it. Anto used to be allowed to light them.

“Can I offer you one?” He pushed the tin towards Anto.

“No, thank you.” He'd been beaten for less once.

Appan lit up, in the old methodical way: long brown fingers placing the cut-glass ashtray just so, click with the silver Dunhill lighter—another present from Bateman—the long slow drag that made his cheekbones pop out.

The bookshelves behind him were crammed with files on the thousands of court cases his father had taken part in. When they were young, he and Mariamma would hide, and Mariamma, in a thrillingly hoarse whisper, would tell him the lurid details of the
serial killer from Bangalore, who chopped his victims in little pieces and threw them in the Ganges. The new bride strangled with her own hair. Rex versus Col. Thorn, the Hampshire-born Indian colonel who'd poisoned an Indian mistress.

The schoolroom they called the Torture Chamber was once in the next room. He and Mariamma were taught by the Scottish woman Ann McGrath; they'd privately called her Hoots Toots and imitated her. The place where Mariamma—whip thin, sarcastic in those days—effortlessly shone.

On his infrequent visits home, Appan would appear there, to check with thrilling gravity on their progress or sometimes to wind up his gramophone and play them his scratchy recordings of Shakespeare.

He was a many-headed god in those days: a pincher of cheeks, a flier of kites, but unpredictable: if you crossed the line, he'd appear with a face like thunder and a strap in his hand.

Anto was sixteen years old when his father had called him into the study and told him he was to be sent away to school. He still cringed at the memory of how he'd wept and pleaded to stay. Later he heard his mother sobbing and shouting in their bedroom, saw her red-rimmed eyes at the dinner table.

He'd stayed awake all night trying to make sense of this catastrophe: he loved the farm with its animals and tree house and warm sheds, the cricket hut where he and his friends smoked, the spangled lagoon outside, the shrine, the temple, the village where everyone knew him. The pattern of his life was fixed here, and he didn't mind.

Even at sixteen, the vague notion he might, one day, marry Vidya had not alarmed him. She was happily linked in his mind to her head-patting mother, Anu, who'd given him the cricket bat he treasured, and who brought him sweets wrapped in bright tissue paper—all things that mattered to the half-formed creature he was then.

* * *

“Sure you don't want one?” It was unusual to see his father light one cigarette from the stub of another. The second whisky was new too.

“No, thanks.” In the glow of the lamp, he saw how his father had aged: the permanent mark on his nose from his spectacles; the slump of defeat in his demeanor, or maybe he's just bone-tired, he thought. Amma said he never stopped working.

“Is it funny being back, Anto?”

“Yes.” Neither smile.

“So much to catch up on.”

“Yes.”

His father fiddled with the notebook on his desk. “How did your interview with old Kunju go?” he asked after a pause. “I haven't seen him properly for years, but I think he is quite a big nob now in the medical world.”

“He is the chief medical officer: big desk, staff of eighty, or so he told me. He hopes he can find me something.”

“Only hopes?” his father said sharply. “Did you not show him your qualifications?”

“Yes.”

“Was he impressed?”

“I don't know.” It felt too early to explain everything, so he took a cigarette instead, thinking, To hell with it, I'm a man now. His father passed him the Dunhill with trembling hands.

“We need all hands to the wheel at the moment. The estate has taken quite a dip in profits since the war.”

“I'm aware of that, Appan. I want work too.” Anto exhaled, took a piece of tobacco from his tongue. His father was looking anxiously at him through the smoke. “Dr. Kunju hasn't got a job for me. Not yet.”

Doctor Professor Kunju, he'd thought privately, was a pompous prick of a man, with his walrus mustache and his office wallpapered
with medical certificates and backslapping photos of him taking tea with Gandhi, and he'd caught the distinct whiff of old scores being settled.

“How long since you saw him?”

“Oh God.” Appan plunged his fingertips under his glasses, rubbed his eyes. “Let me see, quite a while. We used to play squash at the English Club. I don't suppose he wanted to be reminded of that.”

“No. He is a fully paid-up Indian now.” They exchanged an awkward glance. “And when I told him where I'd been, he said preference must be given to those who had stayed behind and fought the good fight here.”

“I see.” His father rubbed his forehead rapidly. “So, nothing?”

“Nothing immediate,” Anto said wearily. “A few things in this.” He handed his father a copy of the
Hindu Times
.

Appan peered at the two ringed advertisements. The first announced, “Junior doctor wanted for TB Sanitarium.”

“Look below.”

The second read, “Urgently wanted, forty doctors for service in refugee camps in East Punjab. Pay 300-400 rupees per calendar month plus camp accommodation.”

“Dr. Kunju peppered me with questions about Independence,” Anto continued. “A kind of a test: Which politicians did I personally support? How many were slaughtered? He was horrified at my ignorance, and now you know, I feel I was in a dream while all this upheaval happened. I had no idea of the extent of it.”

“It was a bloodbath,” his father gasped. “Don't you read the papers?” His eyes, huge bruised plums, shone in the lamplight.

“The English papers were not so detailed.” What did you expect? Anton thought bitterly.

Appan was holding his head in his hands like a balloon that might burst.

“Don't go away again, not now,” he said urgently. “Surely he had local jobs for you.”

“Nothing, Appan, not yet. You see, another awkward thing cropped up in our talk. Vidya. He knows her family well and told me what a wonderful girl she is: beautiful, clever, kind.” The Doctor Professor had delivered this encomium in a voice dripping with regret.

Appan drew a hairless head on his pad. He blew his nose vigorously and took a sip of whisky. “Well, he is Vidya's auntie's cousin. Look, Anto, I can't lie about this to you, it's an awkward situation, you coming back . . . you know . . . not single.”

“What did you expect, Appan?” Anto tried not to raise his voice. “After so long away.”

“That was never our intention, Anto. It nearly broke your mother's heart. But we did hope . . . we did hope.” Appan was trembling with emotion.

“Hoped what?”

“That you would have the self-discipline to wait for a wife. Would that have been so hard?”

“Kit is my wife.” He knew he should say more: about her intelligence, her kindness to him in England, her bravery in coming here, but the words wouldn't come.

His father was holding back tears, teeth bared like a dead animal's, his eyes screwed tight. “Appan.” The empty whisky bottle fell with a thud on the desk. “Is it really that bad?”

“Your mother was so excited, planned your wedding with Anu and Vidya, told all her friends, and then she became so upset and . . . it was too much.”

Anto sat and tried to breathe. “Is this really so hard for you?”

“It will be if you can't work.” His father took a deep breath. “I took out a big loan to finance your time overseas. Bateman promised to help with your fees. But you know, once he got back he had other priorities, and of course this family is top-heavy with women. That's why I'm working night and day.”

“I'll find a job, I'll do whatever I can.”

“Thank you, son.” He'd never seen his father look so blank, so obedient. “Don't tell the others what I am telling you.”

A tray rattled outside the door. Amma with their nightcap: chamomile tea for Appan, Vetiver for Anto, just as in the old days.

“Good night, Antokutty, good night, Mathukutty. I'm going to bed, son. Don't forget to say your prayers.” When her cry woke a crow, which squawked from a tree outside, his father, who was superstitious, made the sign of the cross.

“And you, Ammakutty,” Mathu replied. “Good night. God bless. Leave the tray outside the door, we're busy.”

Anto took a deep breath. “Father, could you call her in for a moment? There's something I need to say to both of you. I've been putting it off.”

Amma brought the tray in looking sleepy but pleased.

It was then he told them that Kit had to start work soon. It was work she was paid for.

“Where?” His father's voice was suddenly sharp—tears and sentiment tidied away.

“At a home for expectant women in Fort Cochin.”

“How will she get there?” Appan's face was rigid with surprise.

“We'll have to use the car, until we get our own place in Fort Cochin.”

His father's frown deepened. Amma was staring down at the tea, which lay untouched in the cups. “Who will pay for the car?” his father said after a lengthy pause.

“Kit will,” Anto improvised. “She'll be paid sixteen pounds a month.”

“Is she nursing?” A dark note had appeared in the old man's voice.

“No . . . I mean to say . . . I think her duties are mainly administrative. That was the work she was doing in Oxfordshire. They are doing an important survey on infant mortality here, and how it can be reduced.” He noticed he had swerved around the words
midwife
or even
midwife training
and was not proud of the fact. “Look, I'm sorry, I know it's not what you want, but she has to do it.”

“What do you mean, has to do it? She is your wife now. Do you let her dictate?”

“It's not a matter of dictating. I want her to do it too.” Even to himself he sounded unconvinced.

Appan sighed deeply. He shot a quick look at his wife, who was trembling and shaking her head, but he did not ask for her thoughts.

“What will happen if I say no?” His father stared into the cold tea.

“Don't ask that question,” Anto said grimly. “I've only just come home.” He heard his mother give a small groan.

“Make sure she pays for the petrol,” his father said at last. His face had taken on some of the greenish color of the lamp, and when he raised his exhausted eyes and looked at Anto, they were so full of frustration and foreboding, he might as well have added, This woman will ruin your life.