The Sandalwood Tree (17 page)

I wondered whether Martin was doing that with
Crime and Punishment
, reading meaningless words with his mind off somewhere else. Maybe that book was just a way for him to fill his spare time until he could lie down and die. I sat there with the open book on my lap, not understanding.

Around ten thirty, Martin lurched through the front door. I closed the book and stood up. I began carefully. “Please let me explain …”

I stopped when Martin stumbled on the edge of the rug and fell back against the doorjamb. He offered me a vapid smile that made my throat constrict and my ears heat up. I’d expected him to have a beer or two—it had been a rough day and I’d had my glass of wine—but I didn’t expect
oblivion
. I’d never seen him so drunk, and it disgusted me. It had been a horrible day for all of us, not only
him. I stepped up to him, and we faced off in the doorway. Martin rocked on his feet, grabbed at the doorknob for support, and missed. I said, “You’re drunk?” I felt my jaw clench.

He mumbled, “Oh, yeah.”

His breath stank of arrack, and I knew then that he’d been drinking in the native quarter, not at the Club. I thought,
You can’t quit drinking the earth’s dark drink? But how can you not drink from this other fountain?

“Where have you been?” I heard myself ask, loud and demanding.

He said, “Don’t start.”

“We needed you.”

“Oh, really?” He stared at me, bleary. A sneer stretched his mouth, and he shouted, “You need me when Spike gets stolen. You need me when Billy is hysterical. But
you
”—he put a finger in my face. “
You
don’t need
me
.”

I pushed his finger away and my voice rose to meet his. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

“Then don’t.”

“You should have been here. You know what Spike meant to him. You saw him.”

“Yeah, I saw him. But I’m not the one who took him out.”

Billy said, “Mom? Dad?” He stood behind the sofa, rubbing his eyes. “Are you guys fighting about Spike?”

“Ah, Jesus.” Martin reached for the doorknob, missed again and fell against it.

“What’s wrong with Dad?”

“Sweetie.” I went to him and picked him up.

“I’m sorry.” Martin hung his head. “Really, I’m sorry.” He looked at me with begging eyes but I didn’t understand. He needed more than forgiveness for getting drunk, for shouting, but I didn’t know what. We stared at each other for a moment—sad, just sad—then he wheeled around and staggered across the verandah and out to the road.

I picked Billy up and cupped the back of his head. “Let’s get you back in bed, Sweet Pea.”

“Is Dad sick?”

“Dad’s OK. He’s just very tired.” I carried Billy back to bed, laid him down gently, and pulled up the sheet.

His chin quivered and he said, “Dad’s mad about Spike. If we get Spike back, will you guys stop fighting?”

I had to press my lips together for control. “I’m sorry we woke you, Peach. Sometimes grown-ups argue, but this has nothing to do with you or Spike and there’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Will Dad come back home?”

“Oh, baby.” I gathered him in my arms. “Of course Dad will come home. Of course he will. You go back to sleep.”

A half hour of stroking his brow soothed him back to sleep, and then I crawled into my white bed and watched the fan. At two in the morning the front door opened, and I sat up. Martin bumped into something in the living room and muttered, “Son’va bitch,” then he stumbled into the bedroom and pitched onto the bed without taking off his clothes. He reeked of sweat and arrack, and within seconds he began snoring so loudly I wanted to smother him with a pillow. I kicked the sheet off, flung aside the mosquito netting, and stomped into the living room to sleep on the sofa.

In the morning, I heard him in the bathroom, the toilet flushing, the shower running. I caught the smell of sandalwood soap drifting out to the living room on wisps of steam. Drawers opened and closed in the bedroom, the hinge on the almirah door squeaked, and finally a hairbrush thumped onto the dresser.

I lay on the sofa as if nailed to it. When Martin came through to the living room, he walked past me and went out of the door without a word. I stared at the ceiling fan—around and around. Around and around we go.

The sound of wooden blocks being thrown at a window told me Billy was not about to launch through the air to smother me with kisses. I pulled myself off the sofa and trudged to his room. Standing in the doorway, I watched my angelic little boy pick up a block, cradle it in two hands and crook one leg like a baseball pitcher, then let it fly at the closed blue shutter. It landed with an impotent thud and fell on the pile of blocks on the floor beneath. He was getting ready to hurl the next one when I picked him up. He stiffened for a second, then wrapped his arms and legs around me.

Billy didn’t want to take off the pajamas that he hadn’t wanted to put on the night before, and I wasn’t going to force him again. I slipped a pair of moccasins on his feet and let it go. I prepared his roti, boiled his breakfast egg and put it in the chicken-shaped eggcup he liked. I cracked it with a knife and lifted the top off while reciting “Humpty Dumpty,” but Billy just stared. I offered him a spoonful of yolk, his favorite part, and he said, “I’m not hungry.” His face was blotchy, his eyes puffy.

“But you didn’t eat your dinner last night.”

“I’m not hungry.”

I put the spoon down. “I’ll get you another doll, BoBo.”

He set his scraped elbows on the table and perched his chin on pint-sized knuckles. “Spike isn’t a doll. I want Spike.” His lip quivered, but he said, “I won’t cry.”

“You can cry, Cutlet.” But he didn’t. I put my arm around him and we stared at a drizzle of yolk clotting on the shell. Then Billy started kicking the table leg. I tried to ignore it, but
thunk, thunk, thunk
. I said, “Stop kicking the table, Chicken.”

Thunk, thunk, thunk
.

“Billy, please stop that.”

Thunk, thunk, thunk
.

“OK. If you’re not going to eat, go to your room.” Billy sloped away, and I fixed a cup of tea, listening for the thud of blocks being
thrown, but no sound came from Billy’s room. No blocks, no crying, nothing. I went in and found him balled up tight on his bed, his knees jammed into his chest. I said, “Billy, are you OK?”

“Uh-huh.”

I touched the back of my hand to his forehead. No fever. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t until I tried to straighten his legs that I realized his clenched muscles were trembling. “Billy, honey …”

“I’m trying not to cry.”

Oh, God. I watched him tremble and said the one thing I shouldn’t have. “Baby, I’ll get Spike back.”

“You will?” His little face opened with hope. “Promise?”

“I’ll try.”

Billy considered that, then, “You’re not gonna get Spike back.”

“Oh, sweetie, we’ll fix it. Somehow. I promise.”

Billy sat up and wrapped his arms around my hips. He didn’t cry, just hung on with his face in my stomach. I laid him back down and he immediately curled up in a fetal position. I sat next to him and stroked his hair. After a while, his breathing slowed and he fell asleep. Emotionally exhausted, I thought, like everyone else in this whole lousy world.

I stared at his crimped little body, so like an embryo, and touched his rounded back, feeling the pitiful buttons of his spine. It had been so long since I’d seen him without Spike, it seemed as if an essential part of him—a hand or a foot—was missing. I wondered whether I could get a new toy dog shipped from the States, how long it might take, and whether Billy would accept a substitute for Spike. But even if I could pull that off, it would be the least part of mending Billy. His elbows were already scabbing over, and eventually he would get over losing Spike, but …
bloody niggers?

When Rashmi arrived with a suggestively raised eyebrow, I simply couldn’t bear it. I told her Billy hadn’t slept well and to let him nap, adding, “I might be late coming back. I have errands in Simla.” Rashmi bobbed her head cheerfully, and I left.

I cycled down the hill past the Himachali houses, noticing that the graffiti was still there, but everything else appeared normal. I thought of Walker’s remark: “This country goes from doldrums to maelstrom in the blink of an eye.” I looked around for the boy who had taken Spike, but of course he wasn’t there.

The children sat under the banyan tree, chattering in Hindi, but fell into a respectful silence when I entered. I hurried through the day’s lesson, letting sloppy pronunciation slide. I shortchanged them—they deserved better, but it seemed spectacularly unimportant that day. I wanted to get to the rectory at Christ Church to talk to Reverend Locke about Billy. I needed to speak with someone trained in the art of offering wisdom and sympathy.

Reverend Locke opened the door, but he did not display his gaptoothed smile and declare me splendid. He said, “I heard about the row with your little boy yesterday. Is he all right?”

“Minor bruises, but … no, actually, he isn’t.”

Reverend Locke showed me into his study, and we sat in the overstuffed chairs. I said, “Yesterday’s incident introduced Billy to bigotry, the exact opposite of what we wanted him to learn here. I don’t know how to make him understand how poverty twists people. Not that it justifies stealing, but … well, you see, I’m getting muddled even talking to you.”

“I understand.” The good reverend sat with his hands composed in his lap; his sympathetic expression seemed practiced and professional, a mask, and for the first time I wondered who he was.

I said, “Do you have children?”

He nodded slowly. “I had a daughter.”

“Had?”

“She died.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Yes. The war, you see.” He smiled wistfully. “But we were talking about your son.”

In light of a dead daughter, a stolen toy seemed embarrassingly trivial. I said, “I don’t want him to learn to hate. He’s terribly angry.”

“No doubt. But this won’t be the last time he’s angry. Perhaps this is an opportunity to teach him how to deal with anger.”

He was right, of course, but how could I teach Billy how to handle anger when I didn’t know how myself. I said, “How would you do that?”

He examined his hands and I had the feeling he was thinking of his lost daughter. He said, “Forgiveness is a good place to start.”

“Forgiveness?” I thought of the little band of brats who had knocked Billy down in the dirt, his tearstained face and scraped elbows, their laughter, Spike gone. I understood their want, but there was also Billy, my Billy. It was too soon for forgiveness.

Reverend Locke smiled. “I wish I could be more helpful, but that really is my best answer. People do dreadful things for all sorts of reasons—poverty, passion, power, ideologies … it’s a long list. Teach your son to forgive.” He stood as if it took a great effort. “I’m awfully sorry, but I have an appointment.”

“Certainly.” I stood, nervously gathering my purse. “You didn’t know I was coming. Thank you for your time.”

He took my hand and tried to hold his smile. “It wouldn’t matter if I had more time, Mrs. Mitchell. Forgiveness really is the only answer.” His face hung above me, long and bereaved, but he gestured at the bookshelves, saying, “I’m terribly sorry to run out like
this. Perhaps while you’re here you’d care to have another peek at the church records?” He opened his hands as if apologizing for having nothing more to offer.