Читать книгу India Vik - Liz Gallois - Страница 9

We escaped from Kolkata and met Romesh, our Box Wallah. It’s hard to write about Romesh, even though so much time has passed.

How crazy it seems now, a family holiday to India. There were only four of us, my adored son, my only child, Martin, his partner Ursula, my husband Gerard and me. We might have chosen India because Ursula’s always looking for ideas. She’s a screen writer. In my work I deal with fabrics but not much comes from India. I’m not sure it was Ursula’s idea but if so I most likely egged her on. You’d think Gerard, who was a painter, would have strong ideas on the subject, but he was a very non-committal kind of person.

We hadn’t travelled with Martin since our trip to Europe when he was sixteen. And now, just a year ago, Martin’s wedding. His wife Ursula walked up the aisle, and Martin waited, so proud. White flowers hung from every pew, vases on the altar and at the back of the church, the heavy scent of Oriental lilies—I had done the flowers myself, including Ursula’s bouquet, and felt satisfied with my contribution to the celebrations.

A family holiday for our slightly enlarged family, and an opportunity to get to know Ursula better.

We arrived in Kolkata, but stayed there no time at all. Terrible. We were soon exhausted.

The English ‘Madam’ of our hotel, blonde and sixty, had decorated the bedrooms with chintz and wicker armchairs, the public rooms with Raj memorabilia. The solid roasts with three veg, English curries, trifles and so forth were served by waiters wearing many-coloured Rajasthani turbans and white gloves. We rather liked it mind you, even though we hadn’t come to India to take refuge in an English seaside bed and breakfast with exotic overtones. The hotel wasn’t the problem.

The problem was leaving the jasmine scented garden. The street waited, with its beggars, young mothers with a baby wrapped in the corner of the sari, legless boys on skateboards and taxi drivers soliciting our custom, ‘Come, I take you City of Joy’—we knew these were the worst slums in Kolkata—how voyeuristic were we expected to be? We tried to do all the proper visits, Victoria Memorial, the Nehru Children’s Museum, Tagore House. Here’s not the place to recount our audience with Mother Teresa.

We didn’t take to Kolkata.

After a particularly trying day including a lunch at ‘the best’ seafood restaurant with view of the entire city from where we could see nothing because of the pollution, our ‘Madam’ said we needed a rest at a seaside resort. We needed a holiday from our holiday. She suggested we go south a short way to Puri. But really it was Gerard’s recent affliction, asthma, that drove us away from Kolkata. Gerard’s always been a sensitive soul, even without asthma.

Puri. Martin and Ursula let us know that Kolkata had been expensive for them and they were going to stay in budget accommodation. Gerard and I need comfort so we selected a rather gloomy converted palace overlooking the beach. We spent time arranging meetings with Martin and Ursula. Puri was better than Kolkata—well, Gerard nearly died at the beach, but not from the Kolkata type of pollution. Maybe he’d expected a tropical paradise, but by now, I had adopted a bottom-end approach to the whole of India, anything pleasant and easy was a bonus, the rest local colour. Local colour in the form of the stink on the beach—caused by the beach being used as a public lavatory and for the gutting of the fisherman’s catch—nearly caused Gerard to have a nervous breakdown, let alone an asthma attack.

‘You brought me here, woman!’ he shouted, exasperated, as if it were all my fault.

He and Martin later discovered that a fifteen minute walk past the fishing village led one to a cleaner less frequented part of the beach that extended miles to the east. Gerard calmed down, though sometimes he complained about the direction of the wind. He found a safe swimming area—currents on this beach could be treacherous, we were warned.

We settled into holiday mode. Reading books on India and novels to distract us from it, trying veg and non-veg eating places in the temple area, sniffing the air for all those unfamiliar spices and perfumes.

We formed the habit of meeting Martin and Ursula at their scruffy English villa where they had a nice verandah. It was here we met Romesh.

Romesh Mehta became our friend immediately. We sat on the verandah in ill-assorted chairs with sharp bits attacking our buttocks, or perched on the verandah edge with feet on the grass and backs supported by verandah posts. Gerard had bought, duty free, a two pint bottle of gin and a litre of whisky (I’m only describing what the labels said) and in the end he left the bottles in Martin’s room. We were all so comfortable passing time, chatting and drinking gin and tonic (Gerard) whisky soda (Romesh and me) on the verandah. The young ones often ordered lassis from the little restaurant next door. I did warn them that alcohol was safer in India.

We talked first with Romesh about our experience of Calcutta—Romesh never referred to his city in any other way.

‘If only I had met you earlier, I would have greeted you, settled you into a good hotel with good food. All right, your hotel looks quite fine, it has its place. But more important, I would have introduced you to my Calcutta, the parts that only its true sons can reveal.’

I own to a personal leaning towards Indians with dark skins, maybe I feel they are the true India, but I didn’t mind that Romesh had a light complexion as no one could have been more authentic than Romesh. He still had a full head of hair, now white, and his unlined face was youthful, although we judged him to be between sixty and seventy. Gerard was sixty-five. Romesh had only a slight bulge under his white Nehru shirt. His brown lace-ups were highly polished.

‘In the old days, I always wore a grey suit, when I worked for ICC. We had tailors in Calcutta equal to Saville Row tailors in London. Some of them were reputed to have done apprenticeships in Saville Row. Their names were well known within the firm. English gentlemen did not order their suits from them but they recognised these Calcutta tailors as excellent.’ Romesh smiled at me. ‘I still have a good grey suit, old but good enough. These days I wear it to Film Society first nights.’

Sometimes Romesh and I sat alone on the verandah, when Gerard and Martin were out for a walk, and Ursie was reading in her room. It was on these occasions that little by little he told me the story of his life. He never referred to himself as a box wallah, I think I learnt that term later.

He said certain British-owned companies offered advantages which were prized by Indians. Good salaries, company cars and furnished apartments. His was the ICC, known as the Imperial Cotton Company in the early days.

‘The essential was a good education at a private school, even better if it had happened in the U.K.. Then a good university degree, not too specific like a doctorate in economics or straight commerce, more a good generalist degree, a combination of history and economics like me, that went down well. But it was more dependent on the family I came from, a good Bengali family, many connections, many decades if not a century before me of cultured respectability. That’s what was looked for in the kind of job that brought those advantages. We knew we would always have a British boss, but we felt an equal member of the team.’

I imagined an impeccably suited Romesh with a young shy wife, sari-clad, invited to the British bosses’ club, a wide verandah with white-painted cane furniture, over looking a tropical garden, Indian waiters with neat white turbans, carrying trays of iced drinks, condensation already forming on the glasses. The British wives, rather tall and bony, all legs and high heels, careful hairdos. Romesh full of charm and wit, making sure the conversation never flagged, never subservient but always respectful of the views of his bosses in their white suits. My clichéd idea of the Raj.

‘I had a very lovely, happy family. My mother was well educated, relatively rare in her time. It was just me and my brother, we lacked nothing. The house was well run by the servants under the light supervision that was all that was needed from my mother. My mother’s presence filled all the big rooms in our house with calm. My father was often at home. My parents were comfortable and secure in the Calcutta of their time.’

‘A good life.’

‘And with my job for many years it continued. I didn’t have great responsibilities, facilitating the English bosses’ decisions, ensuring an agreeable life for all of us in Calcutta.’

Romesh’s voice, he spoke with that accent of educated Indians, slightly pedantic sounding to our ears, was deep. Had he sung, it would have been a baritone.

‘My marriage was a break with tradition. Some of my young friends lived the high life, dated girls, visited clubs. That wasn’t for me. But when I mentioned marriage to my father, and he made contact with a girl’s family, and the two families met, I couldn’t go ahead with it. What worried me was that I was the centre of our meeting. It was hard for me to identify the girl destined to be my bride—when I did, it was only accidentally. I could see she had no standing in the negotiation, and I couldn’t go ahead in that way.’

Romesh was still attractive and in his young days must have been really something. For the first time in years I thought back to Gerard’s and my courtship, when I had firstly arrived in Australia, for a ten pound holiday. We were at a gallery opening in Melbourne where some girlfriend had taken me. I knew nothing about art—my privileged background hadn’t included art—probably because my parents were so much in their garden. So when I met Gerard I was a raw, naïve girl, and Gerard seemed to me to be so experienced and knowledgeable. We soon loved one another—I don’t remember either of us consulting our parents about our marriage. We just passed the news on to them, in our unthinking way, and they accepted and trusted us. Parents do this.

‘I told my parents it wouldn’t work for me, this Indian system,’ Romesh went on. ‘They thought the next time would be better, one false start was nothing out of the norm. Eventually I made them understand I wouldn’t marry in the traditional way. This caused a barrier to the openness we had enjoyed before. I found my wife, but our families found it hard to accept our independent decision.’

For a tall man Romesh had small fine hands, with tapering fingers. His nails were pink, perfectly clean and manicured impeccably. When he talked he used his hands to illustrate what he was saying, with fan-like movements and then to make a point, he presented the pink palms of his hands, as if to put the information before me.

‘We were happy, especially in the early years. We had two daughters. All was fine so long as ICC was in British hands.’

A tall, extremely thin man, whose age was impossible to gauge, who wore only a dhoti, approached us across the parched ‘lawn’ as we sat on the verandah. The man held himself upright, wearing his matted dreadlocks like a crown. He extended his hand to us, ‘Baksheesh, sahib,’ he murmured. Without hesitation Romesh rose and went to his room. He put his alms in the thin man’s hand, with a gentle ‘Chalo, chalo.’ The man bowed, hands together, and went on his way.

‘When the company became the Indian Cotton Corporation,’ Romesh went on, ‘the need for generalists like me was less. No need to help the British feel good about themselves. The profit imperative and the bottom line had never been big concerns of mine. The company apartments were sold, along with the garages to house the fleet of Ambassadors, and the cars themselves. Although my salary was untouched so to speak, no adjustment was made for the house and transport that I had to find. My wife went back to work—after years away she didn’t earn much as a secretary. Without their mother’s supervision my children went a little wild, better now I believe. You have experienced Calcutta as it is now. Not easy.’

Not easy. The numbers of people competing for a life in that city, and we had lived in luxury, and found it hard.

‘My wife’s job has improved. We have a small flat she bought, still paying it off. I left ICC and now I have work from time to time, not a lot. Small jobs. I do voluntary work for the Film Society.’

Romesh and I were on our third whisky.

‘In the old days my family came here every year. Now I am the only one to keep up the tradition. At this very hotel, although it was a better place in those days, very run down now. The owners of the hotel have changed several times so no one is remembering me from the old days. Just as well.’

Martin and Gerard returned from their walk. I told them they would have to drink hard to catch up. Ursula emerged. We all walked a few blocks to have dinner together. I persuaded Romesh to join us. He was careful to give Gerard what he owed for his portion of the bill. Afterwards we played scrabble. Gerard was tired and went off to our hotel. Romesh played an excellent game, using up all seven letters three times, and the words he put down were somehow witty. He said he hadn’t played for many years, but that it had all come back to him. He won.

He and Martin both said they would walk me back to my hotel, but I thought Martin should stay with Ursie, and accepted Romesh’s offer. On our walk we spoke about Martin. I told Romesh what a perfect son he was, how we lived for one another ever since he was born.

‘We are close,’ I said.

I told Romesh how I had helped Martin with his studies, from the earliest kindergarten, right through to architecture at university. Driving him to soccer practice and tennis clinics. How I had bought him a double bed when the time came, so he could bring his girlfriends home. (I didn’t stop to think that this detail might have shocked Romesh, our cultural habits being so different.) How Martin and I loved and discussed the same books, how I’d helped him with suggestions about entering competitions with his architectural work, typing up the written parts, as I always had—and sometimes to good effect, when he was shortlisted, came close to winning. Sitting with Martin in his study, discussing details together, just with the desk light illuminating our two heads, our knees almost touching. Martin often helped me out at my shop, especially when I did stock taking, such a demanding job, made easier when we worked together. We’d stop to eat a pizza amongst the long rolls of fabrics, their many colours and textures, and the slightly chemical smell they had from dyes and the dressing used in commercial weaving, combined with the cheesy aroma of the pizza. We washed it down with a glass of beer.

‘I’m spoiled,’ I said, ‘we’ve never been separated. And with only the one, I’ve been so lucky. We’ve hardly ever been apart for so much as a day—just school camps, some holidays. Now he’s married, things will change.’

Romesh told me his girls were good girls, not so close to him as he judged Martin was to me.

We all found Romesh a delightful companion. It was wonderful to have someone who could talk as easily about Tagore as about the current political situation. He enjoyed our company. We became inseparable.

Later Gerard told me what Romesh had told him about the end of ICC, after many years of service. Actually the firm had become known as ICC at Romesh’s suggestion. But that’s by the by. The big Indian money makers had taken over. His daughters detested the new cramped flat in a suburb with long train journeys to and from Calcutta. As well as her new job, Romesh’s wife had to cook and clean and shop, most of which had been done by servants before. The girls did not much want to help their mother, tensions arose. But much worse for Romesh—he said it was like salt in the wound—was that the new Indian bosses moved him from his office to a kind of cupboard down the hall, and then forgot him. He received his pay cheque, but no work came his way. The humiliation! His long history of working for the British now tainted his reputation. Other work was next to impossible to find. He knew that but left ICC anyway, his pride and morale had taken such a beating.

We wondered why Romesh’s wife and daughters did not join him in Puri for the annual holiday. There were things we couldn’t ask. He accompanied us to restaurants only rarely. We understood his pride didn’t allow him to accept our hospitality. When he came with us, it was good, he ordered navrattan vegetable curry and palak paneer, he advised us about dishes and we learnt so much about Indian cooking—he seemed to be quite a chef—and then his presence, his voice, his charm and amusing conversation!

Romesh was most interested in Gerard’s recent retirement and his plans to paint more now that he was free of his obligations to his students.

‘Like my work with the Film Society,’ Romesh said.

Romesh was keen to take Gerard out before sunrise to watch the fishing fleet head out to sea, and after that he arranged to take Gerard and Martin out for a day with the fleet. Romesh believed Gerard would go home to paint these scenes—and Gerard didn’t try to tell him otherwise. Martin and Romesh spent hours together discussing the latest developments in I.T. and India’s increasing part in market share. And with Ursie their common interest was the cinema. He had known Satyajit Ray and loved his films, while Ursie was more conversant with Bollywood, but it didn’t stop them from long discussions and exchange of ideas.

Romesh escorted Ursula and me to the market of Raj Path. When I told him about my shop in Melbourne where I sell remaindered lengths of material to home dressmakers, he said he knew just the place where I might find something of interest. Ursula helped me choose ikat fabrics, some of smooth silk, others rough linens, and Romesh helped with the ‘negotiation’ of the price—very good from my point of view. I was sure some of my clients would be attracted by these handwoven pieces. Romesh then arranged to have a couple of calico parcels made up and with his help we lugged them to the Post Office to be sent home—every available space on the calico was covered in green stamps of a view of the Ganges.

I still have these stamp-covered calico wrappings, I kept them as a memento.

He accepted our offer of dinner after the shopping expedition.

Romesh and I had another long talk on the way home, and continued it seated on a bench outside our ‘palace’, looking over the beach. I told him about growing up in England in a big house, where if I left my shoes outside my bedroom door, I found them polished the next morning. Our acres of garden, and two men to work on it full time.

‘Now, it’s all gone. Mummy and Daddy couldn’t keep two gardeners, parts of the garden were sold off first, then eventually the house. They live very modestly now.’ I knew Romesh would sympathise, not that our experiences were exactly the same, but there were similarities. ‘Now I’m a struggling shopkeeper with an impecunious artist husband,’ I joked.

We were anticipating with some trepidation—we were so comfortable in Puri, thanks to Romesh—a voyage by train up to Varanasi and then to Agra. Romesh advised us to avoid these big cities because of Gerard’s asthma, and devised a different itinerary. He helped us with the train bookings—first class he said, could be uncomfortable, aircon was luxury. He obtained senior citizen tariffs for Gerard. Martin and Ursula booked on the same trains, but wanted to experience second class and save money. We couldn’t thank Romesh enough, the train bookings were a lengthy process even with him, we couldn’t have managed alone.

We persuaded Romesh to dine with us again—our last evening. Romesh entertained us as never before with jokes and anecdotes of the good times. The curries smelt delicious, the head of beer formed on the glasses again and again, and in the warm night we discussed and argued at our leisure.

On parting we agreed to say goodbye late morning the next day before we were to take the bus to the railway station at the next town, and so back to Calcutta and our other connections.

When we arrived to pick up Martin and Ursula the hotel was unusually quiet. Our verandah had two policemen sitting on our chairs close to Romesh’s room, and a piece of red plastic ribbon had been untidily stretched between the verandah posts as a sign to keep out.

We knocked on Martin and Ursula’s door—they ushered us in, unlike them to invite us into their bedroom of unmade beds and backpacks waiting to be stuffed.

‘What is it? What are the police doing?’ I said.

Martin motioned to us to sit down. He said, ‘I’ll just order us some tea.’

‘Don’t worry, we’ve had breakfast,’ I said.

Martin left the room anyway. When he returned with the tea we asked again what had happened?

‘It’s Romesh, he died in the night,’ Martin said. He took Ursula’s hand.

‘But it’s worse than that,’ said Ursula. ‘It seems he committed suicide. Because it’s all so sudden and everything’s up in the air, the police are saying they don’t want us to leave today. They know we were Romesh’s constant companions. They want to interview us after Romesh’s wife comes. She’s on her way.’ She turned her head into Martin’s shoulder. We listened to her quiet sobbing.

We did stay. We probably would have anyway, knowing that Romesh’s wife was coming.

Romesh hadn’t left a note, but Martin heard the police had found an empty bottle of sleeping pills near the bed.

All we could tell the police was that Romesh had been in high spirits the night before.

Mrs Mehta arrived that evening. She had taken the bus from Kolkata and understandably didn’t want to meet anyone till the next day, although the police did not leave her alone, we heard.

Mrs Mehta was overweight, she was wearing a wrinkled salwar-kameez with lotus flower motifs picked out in gold thread, and gold sandals. Her black hair was cut in a bob, which with her glasses and deep frown lines between her eyes gave her a severe expression. We had no way of knowing what she would have looked like under normal circumstances. We wondered why she was not accompanied by her daughters, but didn’t ask.

‘Every year the same, this visit to Puri. He never missed it. He said it was his duty. Duty! I have never been able to understand it, how he kept coming to this dead place—and now he’s no more.’

We told her what we had told the police, that Romesh had seemed happy in the time he’d spent with us.

She didn’t look at us when we were together, but kept her eyes on the ground. Then she put on dark glasses. She kept adjusting her shawl close to her neck, as if she felt cold. I couldn’t see any sign of the woman who had lived in a furnished apartment with car attached, living the high life with the British bosses.

‘Did he mention our daughters’ marriages? Great dowry pressures, and not even marriages arranged by the parents. When Romesh and I married we had no dowry trouble. Romesh didn’t even want a dowry. Who is caring that much about money in those days? We had enough. A different mentality today. A great worry for Romesh, these continuing demands, even though the marriages are done. We have nothing but marriage debts, yet the other families are demanding more and more. But I don’t believe that would make Romesh take his life. He was a good man.’

We didn’t talk long with her. My head was splitting and I went back to the hotel to rest. Gerard told me later about the upsetting accusations Mrs Mehta made to the police that Romesh could have been poisoned, and about the dispute she had with the hotel about Romesh’s bill. Gerard paid the bill, and he persuaded Mrs Mehta to accept a gift of money towards the dowry debts. He cashed travellers cheques—no point in writing a cheque. She accepted this gift. Gerard told her he knew nothing would really help with the loss of Romesh, it was just a gesture.

Gerard asked Mrs Mehta’s permission to say his last respects. Romesh was neatly laid out on the bed in the clothes we had always seen him in, the Nehru shirt and the light trousers, his shoes highly polished. Marigold garlands were placed around his neck and over his chest, and Mrs Mehta sat beside him, fanning him to keep the flies off. Gerard said he thought about the colours of the sunrise and the sound of the wind and waves around the fishing boats while he stood at the foot of Romesh’s bed. He offered to help Mrs Mehta transport the body back to Kolkata, but she said one of her daughters would come shortly to help with arrangements. She did not want us to stay near her.

Gerard was on the phone, trying to get us back to Australia without delay. None of us felt like continuing with our trip. He discovered we would have to forfeit our return fare, and pay for a more expensive new one.

We had no choice but to continue with Romesh’s itinerary—Bhodgaya, Orchha, Khajuraho, Bharatpur. The people we met were kind, as if they divined our bereavement. Gradually the pain and the shock receded.

I got to know Ursula better. She was a great comfort to me, we comforted one another. We had lots of chats about Romesh, remembering his love of good food, the scrabble game. I imagined that Gerard and Martin were finding manly solace together, surely recalling the fishing boat day and some of Romesh’s anecdotes.

Ursula and I made a separate trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Together we agreed that it was the most feminine of buildings, smaller and more delicate than all the images of it indicated. We felt, or I felt, it was something only women could truly appreciate, this memorial to a dead wife.

The men had told us they didn’t mind keeping one another company, bird watching at Bharatpur.

We flew out from Delhi, without booking into a hotel there.

For a while I sat next to Martin, until he went back to sit with Ursie.

‘I want to get some distance from you, Mum, I won’t be seeing that much of you when we get home.’

I looked at him in amazement.

‘Why? What’s happened?’

‘You should know,’ he said.

‘I don’t know. Tell me.’

‘I’m bloody sick at the way you monopolise Ursula. You ignore Dad and me. You took her over, like you take over everything. Me, all my life, all this trip, you made all the decisions, didn’t you? Look at the way you interfered in that poor Indian’s life—yes, I mean Romesh. I mean it, I’ve had enough. I want Ursula to myself. I want out.’

Martin, my adored son, my only child.

We didn’t see much of them at all after that. In fact, I haven’t seen Martin since we got off that plane. He saw his Dad once. They moved to Queensland, but we had to respect their, or Martin’s, decision. Gerard held me back from enlisting the police to help find them, or employing a private detective. I could see Gerard was right.

Martin didn’t attend his father’s funeral. That was four years ago. I sold the family home and live in an apartment in central Melbourne now. I’m not lonely. I still have the shop. I play bridge and do all the things women of my age do to ward off isolation.

When I moved here I framed the two calico wrappings. All the green stamps were still stuck on. I hung them on the wall near the front door, there’s no entrance hall, the door opens straight into the sitting room.