Of Marriageable Age (53 page)

Nat, relying on his Golden Hand, woke each day with the exhilarating feeling,
Today! This is the day!
Certainty swelled within him each morning, retired each night, to be born again the next dawn, not diminished but tried through patience, stronger, matured, vibrant. Those who had known him marvelled at the change; for Nat, though kind and considerate as ever, seemed to have retreated into some inner world. His eyes still locked with others' eyes, but he looked out of them as from a distant, inviolable stronghold, and where in earlier times all were invited in, now all were shut out, confined to a periphery. And Nat, watching them from the quiet depths of his stronghold, felt a stranger to them all; their words seemed superfluous, like the babbling of apes, joined as he was in a silence of perfect communication with another soul that was no other, but his own.

Occasionally he still helped out at Bharat Catering, when there was a wedding or a large function where extra helpers were needed; for having wasted so many years of his life he found it only right to help earn his keep and not be totally dependent on Doctor's allowance, for he knew Doctor needed money for important things like medicine and roofs.

But behind these weekend jobs was also strategy and calculation. The girl he sought was an Indian. He applied logic to his search. She must have come on another ship from India, for he was sure she had not been on the Eastern Princess; and she would not have travelled alone, but with her family. And Indian families are big, yet a minority in London; they celebrated much, and they liked to eat good food. Sooner or later, Nat reasoned, he might very well run into her at one of the functions where Bharat Catering served: a wedding, or Diwali, or Krishna's birthday. So Nat gravitated more and more into the company of Indians.

He returned to university, picking up where he'd left off, and this time he was all there, focused, his intellect lit up and enlivened by a purpose that now filled and directed him.

What a piece of work is man!
Nat knew his Shakespeare. The deeper he delved into the world of medicine the more it moved and inspired him. What had once been boring and tedious became a source of marvel and awe. Anatomy! The miracle of bones, blood vessels, organs, muscles, sinews, tissues, what majesty, what utter magnificence! What held it all together, what made it work? What intelligence guided the growth of a body from the very first merging of egg and sperm till the last breath, when the life that held the miracle together left it, and all that was left was decay, disintegration, dust to dust, ashes to ashes?

Nat learned with two minds. An outer mind, which absorbed and understood and classified facts, names, results; formed logical conclusions and applied them; memorised names; wrote exams and passed them with ease. This outer mind was peripheral to the inner mind, and subordinate to it. The inner mind was a vast expanse of pure knowledge. It simply had to think — no, not even think, but feel — health and wholeness, in order to understand, and the inner mind lit the outer mind and lent it power. Just as an electric bulb is lit from deep inside, and just as the mere glass of an electric bulb is nothing without the inner source of light, so also Nat knew that it was his inner mind that made him what he was, and would be: a true doctor. For in the inner mind was the gift of healing.

48

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

SAVITRI

Singapore, 1941

D
AVID WAS
on duty at the Alexandra army hospital in Singapore, leaving one ward on his way to the next, when Savitri walked in. It was her eyes he first saw. An oasis, living water in the midst of the parched desert of his life. Then she was in his arms.

Savitri waited outside the hospital till David's shift was over. He took her to a cosy little Malayan restaurant, and there they sat now, in a corner niche, heads bent towards each other, eyes locked together, their
pulau ayam
untouched and growing cold.

David had aged in the intervening eight years. There were lines of care around his eyes, yet they still crinkled with humour at the corners, and savoured Savitri as if she would disappear should he once glance away. His hand shook slightly as he took a metal cigarette case and a lighter from his left shirt pocket, opened the case, lit a cigarette, and replaced case and lighter. He relaxed visibly.

'You smoke, David?'

He nodded. 'Ever since coming here . . . starting work . . . it helps . . .'

But his mind was not on his words. It was on Savitri, on the reality of her sitting there, opposite him, near enough to touch. At first glance she seemed not to have changed. She still had the clear golden complexion and the figure of a seventeen-year-old, and the radiance of youth emanated from her as from a barely opened rose. But in her eyes David saw the change. The shine of innocence had left them, replaced by a poignant depth almost painful to behold. She wore a simple cotton dress with a floral pattern, buttoned down the front, with a gathered skirt and a thin belt at the waist. It was the first time he had seen her wearing anything but a sari, and it caused him a twinge of regret. Her hair, too, was different; she wore it tied back into a knot at the nape of her neck, a style too matronly for her face, and that, too, belied the youth and vigour of her features. She seemed poised between girlhood and womanhood; the soul of a woman wore the body of a girl.

'Savitri, why did you come? Your husband, your family… Did you run away?'

She pushed a stray strand of shiny black hair behind her ear.

'I'm a widow now, David! I'm free!'

'Before we talk... I have to tell you...’

'That you're married.'

'So you know!'

She nodded. 'June told me. Is your wife here?'

David shook his head. 'Marjorie stayed in England when I came over. Mother was hoping she'd be — she'd be pregnant ... Their eyes touched in pain and moved away. 'If so it would have been better…'

'And is she — was she — pregnant?'

'No.'

'Then she's coming? Here?'

'She's eager to come, she keeps writing, asking when. But I've been putting her off. I know it's wrong of me; she'd probably be safer here what with the war in Europe, Germany so near, but somehow, somehow... I've got a feeling about those Japanese, Sav, and maybe she's actually safer if she stays put. But that's just an excuse. Maybe I don't want her to come. Maybe I'm just putting her off for my own sake... you see... Marjorie and I were only married a few months before I left. We've never really had a life together, a home of our own, and, well, I've been putting it off. But now, now you're here and I want her to come still less, and I feel like an utter cad.'

'Do you still love me?'

'Oh Sav, why do you ask? I haven't stopped — ever — not for an instant. You've always been with me, constantly, you live in me, all the time! A living presence! I'd never have married if I'd known, but I'd given up hope and Mother was desperate. I'm the last of the Lindsays. She wants an heir… she pressured me, and… oh, Savitri, if I'd known!'

She nodded and their eyes locked. Her hands dropped, limp, to the side of her plate, fingers twitching slightly. His edged towards hers across the table, drew back.

David sighed audibly. 'Can't we change the subject? Talk about you? Because wonderful as it is to see you . . . I don't want you here, Sav. I told you, I have this feeling… How did you get here, anyway? Did you come on your own? What are you doing here?'

'I came because of you. I only wanted to see you once and then go back if you sent me away.'

'You crazy, idiotic, mad . . . darling! So naïve — there's a war on! The Japanese are unpredictable, they're swarming around South East Asia, looking to make trouble. I want you back home. Back in Madras. I don't want you here, it's too dangerous.' The look in his eyes was playful, tender, boyish, all at once.

So it startled him when she said sharply, 'David!' Her eyes had taken on a stern, accusatory expression and pulled him to attention. 'What's the matter?'

'David, I'm not crazy and I'm not idiotic. War isn't a joke, I know that. I'm not the same, David. My life means nothing to me, nothing at all. I have nothing else to live for, but you, and I can't have you. So there's nothing, David, truly nothing.'

She told him then, of her marriage that had been no marriage, of her two dead daughters, Amrita and Shanti, and two dead sons, the breathless one and the beloved. Anand and Ganesan.

'So you see, I'm not afraid of death,' she told him. 'Love and death are the closest of companions. Because I've loved I have touched death, and death has touched me. Once we love we open ourselves to death's touch. Love makes us vulnerable. That is the price we pay. This world holds no more pleasures for me, David. This body of mine — it is just an instrument. It has contained suffering so great it has almost burst apart — yet it survived. And if this body of mine can survive, David, what else is there left for it to do, but relieve the suffering of others? And where is the suffering greater than in war? That is why I came.

‘I want to work, David. Find me some kind of work, as a nurse. I've no training, no qualification, but I've got my hands.' She smiled, a little cockily, as if to relieve the pathos or any embarrassment her words might have caused him, holding out her little brown hands to him, at last.

He took them in his, clasped them, and kissed her fingertips. 'Qualifications! Asking you for nursing qualifications, Sav, would be like asking a nightingale for its licence to sing. If that's what you have to do, I'll find you a task.'

His words showed that he took her seriously. So Savitri added, 'But mostly, I came here to Singapore to be with you. To live at your side, or die at your side.'

B
EYOND THE VISIBLE
world of forms there is a parallel universe of spirit, and that is where Savitri and David lived. Though invisible it was as real, or more real, to them than the roles they played as doctor and nurse. David advised Savitri to volunteer for the Medical Auxiliary Services of the British forces, who took volunteers of all nationalities, and civilians with little or no nursing training. She was allotted to General Hospital. She would have preferred the Alexandra, for that was where David was.

David, always closer to Indians than to the English, had befriended an Indian doctor Dr Rabindranath, who worked at Tyersall Park Hospital, which housed Indian war-wounded. His wife, a lawyer's clerk, welcomed Savitri almost as a daughter in her modest home. Thus settled, Savitri's new life could begin.

The lives she and David lived were demanding, and separate, lives that claimed every last fibre of their attention, every last ounce of strength. But beyond it all was the essence, and that was where they existed, united even when apart, linked together like Siamese twins not in body, but in spirit, for one spirit held them, a thread of life to which they could only cling, which nourished them as a sapling in a wasteland is nourished and watered by an underground spring; and even though apart, yet still they grew together, their hearts inclined towards that wellspring. And they knew joy.

Three or four times a week they were able to wrest a few private hours of togetherness from their routines, and each occasion was as a precious jewel, a coming together so exquisite, so perfect, its glow continued far into the time thereafter. They were never alone; and yet they were, for they could slip for an eternal moment into a solitude of being, a capsule of love, shielded from the gathering madness of their surroundings by a membrane so fine it was transparent, yet tough as bullet-proof glass, through which they could behold the world, and the world them, yet remain untouched, unmoved, free to love, and free to give in the totality of their being. They mastered the art of perfect communication — one that needs neither touch, nor words, and sometimes even not a glance.

Singapore swarmed with British troops, yet still many refused to believe that the war would really touch the peninsula's shores. They closed their ears to the signals.

After all, Singapore was a stronghold. Fifteen-inch guns lined the coast — a sea-borne invasion was impossible. As for an attack from the north, through Malaya, preposterous: impassable rainforest covered more than four-fifths of Malaya, and a ridge of seven-thousand-foot granite mountains formed an impenetrable backbone, a shield between the city and Malaya's silver beaches. How could the puny Japs even dare to attack the mighty naval base of Singapore? And upcountry a hundred thousand crack troops waited in defence.

'The balloon's not going to go up,' the British said. 'Let the Japanese rattle their sabres, we're British! They'll never invade Singapore. They can't!'

Yet more and more British troops arrived, as if to mock that disbelief.

49

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

NAT

London, 1970

T
HE MAN
on Nat's doorstep almost twitched with delight. 'Nataraj!' he said. 'Dear Nataraj! I am so happy to see you!' He held his arms wide open as if he would embrace Nat, who took a quick step back into the safety of the lobby. The man followed him inside. Nat, unused to such familiarity from men, would have tried to push him back, but he was puzzled.

The man had called him Nataraj. Nobody called him Nataraj. Nobody even knew that was his real name, for Nat never used the name and only in his passport was it recorded, and his passport was safe in the top drawer of his desk.

'You know me?'

'Yes, yes, of course I know you, Nataraj, I am coming all this long way from India to find you. I am your Gopal Uncle, do you remember me?'

Gopal Uncle... Nat racked his brain to recall the name that seemed to stir some vague memory, buried in some dark recess he preferred not to visit.

'Gopal Uncle?'

The man grinned and stroked his moustache with forefinger and thumb, looking down at his shoes. He plunged a hand into a white cotton bag he carried slung across his shoulder, took out a packet of crisps, and began to eat in embarrassment. Crumbs and salt fell on his chest and he brushed them away. He wore a suit, the jacket slightly crumpled, a white shirt and a tie slightly awry, as if he had tried his best to dress for the occasion but had fallen asleep on the Tube on his way to Nat.