The Kashmir Shawl (40 page)

Below them rolled the flowers and geometric water courses, sparkling with fountains, and beyond that the lake with its blue islands, the haze of smoke over the old town and the two
Srinagar hills crowned with a fort and a temple. Perhaps he had brought her here to lay all this at her feet, like a Mogul emperor with his latest concubine. She turned abruptly to him but he stopped her with a finger to her mouth.

‘I have to leave Srinagar, Nerys. I would have gone already, if every hour with you didn’t make me wish for two more.’

It would be so easy to believe him.

Then he whispered, ‘Come with me. Stay with me.’

Briefly, the world contracted until it was no more than the twin points of light reflected in his barley-sugar eyes. His finger moved to rest in the notch at the base of her throat and, giddily, Nerys imagined the cities she would never see unless she followed Rainer, the journeys they might take, and the mountains he had promised to show her.

But when she tried to picture their homecomings, a home refused to materialise. There was no such place. Not even Rainer’s particular magic could frame one for the two of them.

It took the greatest effort she had ever made to clasp his warm hand and draw it away from her, but she managed to do it. His response was to move even closer so that their mouths almost touched. ‘Nerys, will you marry me? I want you to be my woman.’

She let the words run through her like Kashmiri honey. But then she straightened her back and looked into his eyes. ‘I am married already. We have been trying to pretend I’m not, that’s all.’

Rainer batted the objection away. ‘Divorce him. Or if we can’t marry, come and live with me. You are not a woman to be hedged by conventions. I know you better than that.’

And that proved he did
not
know her.

In her pocket was this morning’s letter from Evan, filled with the fussy details of the work he was obliged to leave in order to travel to Srinagar, details that he wished her to investigate in connection with the possible establishment of another mission in Kashmir, and all the silent, fretful constructions of her husband’s fear and anxiety.

She
was
a woman to be hedged by conventions, because those conventions were what she had pledged to uphold. It was only now that she was presented with the real possibility of flouting them that she understood how firmly she intended to stand.

Her stomach turned over at the thought of what lay ahead. There was a single flicker of brightness in the vista, and that was pride in making – at last – the hardest decision of her life.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Evan will arrive in Srinagar later this week. He is bringing the mission to Kashmir, and I will support his work.’

Disbelief kindled in Rainer’s eyes.

She studied the creases in his skin, the humorous twist of his mouth, and realised that of all the times she had desired him in the months since Christmas she longed for him most urgently now.

He said, ‘Don’t give away your own happiness for another person’s sake. Don’t abandon your own life.’

And in her raw state she was suddenly angry with him. The uncertainties that had swamped her in the past weeks fell away. Whatever lay in store, she would be living her life by her own principles, not Rainer Stamm’s.

‘Abandoning my life? That’s an arrogant assumption. I am doing no such thing.’

A motor launch inched its way across the lake, spinning a silver thread behind it. Perhaps it was Ravi Singh’s, she thought.

‘I love you,’ Rainer said quietly.

He had never told her this before. She tried out the response in her head.
I love you too. I’ll always love you.
But she said nothing. The afternoon was loud with birdsong and the chirp of crickets yet silence bled between them, cutting them off from each other and sealing their separation.

‘I leave Srinagar tomorrow,’ he warned her.

She lifted her head. ‘Did you believe I’d follow you?’

He met her eyes. ‘I let myself hope.’

‘I am so sorry.’

As she studied his face, his expression changed. In a single second he became a different person. He smiled at her, a performer’s smile that he might have flashed at an audience before some feat of disguise or misdirection. ‘What a shame. But why are we so serious? Life is for enjoying, and that’s what we should do. If we can’t,
pfffff
.’ He shrugged and exhaled, and his foreignness struck her as it had never done before.

Scrambling to his feet, he held out his hand. ‘Come on. Why don’t we finish our walk? It’s a beautiful evening.’

They descended the long series of steps and crossed the terraces between fountains and water channels. On the lowest level of the garden there were great beds of scarlet tulips. To Nerys’s burning eyes, they looked like pools of blood.

Outside the walls they fought their way through the insistent crowds of beggars and trinket-sellers and
chai
-vendors brought out by the promise of summer, and she felt exhausted by the sheer hourly effort it took just to exist in India.

I want to go
home
, she thought, for almost the first time since she had come to Srinagar. The longing for Wales, for her own place and people and that other green valley threaded with streams, almost overpowered her.

At the jetty, the gold-painted
shikara
was waiting for them. The boatman handed her aboard and saw to it that she was comfortable on the mattress cushions. Instead of taking the place next to her Rainer sat opposite with his back to the boat’s prow.

‘So I can look at you,’ he said. The sun was slipping down the sky and the light had changed from blue to gold. When they reached the middle of the lake, where veils of mist were beginning to lift off the water, Rainer picked up the boatman’s spare paddle that was stowed beside his feet. He studied the familiar leaf-shaped blade and then inverted it. Pressed against his chest, it formed a heart.

They reached the
Garden of Eden
. There was nobody at
home, but they heard voices from the kitchen boat. Rainer stood up, balancing against the
shikara
’s gentle rocking, and helped Nerys to the steps. Then he released her hand. ‘Goodnight,’ he said.

‘Goodnight, Rainer. I hope you have a safe journey.’

Wherever you are going
.

She stood on the veranda under the carved-wood awning and watched the
shikara
glide away. Rainer still stood upright, with the inverted paddle close to his side. This was the image of him that she would carry with her: his shadow laid over the still water, cupped in the reflections of the boat’s high stern and prow, and the leaf-heart placed over his own, a shield as well as a declaration.

‘Good evening, ma’am.’

Nerys spun round. It was Majid in his white tunic, hands pressed together.

‘Majid, where is Mrs McMinn?’

‘I think club, ma’am.’

‘And the baby?’

‘She is here, ma’am.’

When Zahra woke up, Nerys gave her a bottle, bathed and changed her. The scrawny limbs had grown rounded and dimpled. When the sudden darkness fell she stood on the veranda and rocked the baby in her arms, her lips pressed to her black hair.

When Myrtle climbed out of the
shikara
that had brought her back from the club she stumbled on the steps and almost fell into the water. ‘Damn, blast it. That’s my last pair of decent stockings in tatters,’ she cried.

Nerys took her arm and tried to steer her to a chair. Myrtle resisted, and folded into the sofa instead. She put her head into her hands and massaged her forehead. ‘My wretched, dazed brain.’

‘I’ll get you some water.’

‘Have you heard the news?’

Nerys waited, her breath catching.

‘A poor boy has been knifed to death. They found his body in one of those brick alleys in the bazaar.’

She didn’t even have to ask the question, because Myrtle was already answering it. ‘A Muslim boy.’

Set upon in the dark by Hindu youths, themselves avenging some earlier attack by Muslims: the latest episode in the religious hatred that swelled under Kashmir’s smooth skin.

‘There’s rioting,’ Myrtle said. ‘At the club, just now, they were advising everyone to go home and stay inside until the morning.
Otherwise
I’d still be there.’

Nerys listened, and in the stillness she thought she could just hear the distant sound of shouts and stone-throwing.

‘I don’t understand India any more. It’s all I know, but I can hardly recognise the country where I grew up, or understand what’s happening to beautiful Kashmir. They want us to leave, and we will do, but what will happen after that? There’ll be nothing left, nothing but blood and destruction.’

Myrtle groped in her handbag and found her cigarette case. She lit one of her gold-tipped cigarettes and exhaled a blue cloud. As Nerys watched her, she lost her poise and her powdered face crumpled. ‘Everything is ending. What’s going to happen to us all?’

Nerys had never seen Myrtle cry. She held her in her arms and smoothed the tears that chased blackened streaks down her face.

‘God, I’m
drunk
. Pie-eyed. Archie doesn’t let me do it, you know. But he’s not here, and everything is so dismal, and I’m an apology without him.’

Nerys insisted, ‘No, you’re not. You’re a brave, strong, admirable woman, and the best friend I’ve ever had. I’ve learnt so much from you and that’s the honest truth.’

They gripped each other’s hands. The clamour in the distance seemed to be subsiding, leaving only the night noises of lapping water and owls hooting.

Myrtle sniffed and blew her nose. ‘Damn. So sorry. Stupid of me. It’s the drink and the news of a senseless murder. How was the Shalimar picnic? Where’s Rainer?’

‘He wanted to tell me that he’s leaving Srinagar tomorrow. Today was a goodbye.’

‘Oh, my darling. And here’s me with
my
tale of woe. To hell with it all. Come on, let’s have a nightcap. Don’t you think so? Mmm?’

‘No, Myrtle. No more to drink. Come on, let’s get you to bed.’

‘You sound like Archie. I rather like it.’ Myrtle stood up and made her unsteady way to Zahra’s basket. She leant down and turned back an inch of coverlet. ‘
You
are the future, aren’t you, little girl? Thank God we have you here to remind us there’s some point to this wicked world.’

Then she let Nerys help her to her room, where she submitted to having her shoes removed and her dress unbuttoned. With some difficulty, Nerys settled her in her bed among the starched pillowcases, embroidered hangings and silk quilts. There was face powder scattered on the dressing-table’s glass top, a clutter of scent jars, discarded clothes piled on a carved wooden chair.

‘Stay with me,’ Myrtle begged. ‘Talk. Tell me, I don’t know … Tell me about you and Rainer.’

Nerys thought about it. ‘I shall miss him,’ she said in the end. She loved him, she might have added, but there was no sentence or suggestion that followed on from that admission. The mountaineer-magician and the missionary’s wife? She smiled. The end of their affair had been there all along, sewn up in its beginning.

‘When does Evan get to Srinagar?’

‘He said in his letter that there were two or three days’ work he wanted to finish in Kargil, then he’ll be on his way. So in a week’s time, at most.’

‘Rainer knows that, of course?’

‘Of course.’

‘Hah. He’s making a tactical exit, then.’

‘He asked me to go with him. He asked me to marry him.’

Myrtle drew in a breath and turned her head on the pillow. ‘And?’

There is no
and
.

‘I reminded him that I’m already married.’

‘And you’ll do your duty,’ Myrtle agreed. ‘All right. Tell me one thing, and please be honest. Do you feel guilty about last winter?’

Nerys looked at her. Myrtle’s eyes were growing heavy with sleep.

‘No,’ she said.

‘That’s good to hear. Because nothing corrodes a marriage like guilt, my girl.’

‘Evan and I will have to find a way to live. But I won’t be doing so as an apology, or an act of atonement for having committed adultery.’

Myrtle gave a spurt of drowsy laughter. ‘I
like
that. I’m impressed. Caroline should take a lesson from you.’

‘Caroline will find her own solution. But d’you think that’s what we’re really about, the three of us? Doing our duty?’

‘Of course. That’s what we do. We’re wives of the Raj.’

There was another faint bubble of laughter before Myrtle drifted into sleep. Nerys waited until she was breathing steadily, a puff of a snore with each exhalation, then slid off the bed. She adjusted the covers over Myrtle’s shoulders and only hesitated for a second before kissing her damp forehead. She could smell the gin in her pores.

From Kargil, Evan had taken a guide and horses over the Zoji La as far as the Hindu shrine to Shiva at Amarnath, and from there he joined the stream of religious pilgrims returning to the city. For the last nine miles of the journey the Srinagar road was passable to vehicles, so he crowded with the other travellers into a public bus.

Nerys was waiting for him at the depot on the dusty outskirts of the city. One bus had already pulled in and discharged its
passengers. There were farmers coming to market, pilgrims, labourers and several vast families running to three or four generations, but Evan hadn’t been among them. She returned to her seat on a low stone wall and watched the seething crowds. There was a din of traffic, and the thick smell of exhaust fumes and kerosene. An emaciated dog with open sores on its back nosed in rubbish scattered at the roadside. A second bus rounded the corner and stopped at the far side of the road. A throng of men burst out and began to drag their bundles from the interior. The cacophony of shouting and hooting grew even louder, and in the midst of it she caught sight of Evan. He climbed slowly down the steps of the bus and awkwardly retrieved two shabby grips from the cascade of bags being tossed off the roof by the baggage men. Then he stood stiffly in the full heat of the sun, one bag in either hand, a sombre figure in his dusty black clerical clothes.