Traveling with Spirits (6 page)

  “I should have invited you to my cousin’s wedding last week,” Ashok scolds himself. “Well, when you return to Delhi for a leave, we’ll find a wedding.”

  Her heart skips the presumption of, what, well, something, between them. Best to ignore that. And isn’t it amusing that Tina and Ashok are already planning her imaginary furloughs.

  At the taxi stand, she steps back under an acacia tree while Ashok haggles with the drivers about the fare. Delhi wallahs enjoy bargaining. Moorty people too?

  He holds the door as she climbs into one of the ubiquitous white Ambassador cabs. She hasn’t ridden in one since the pre-paid taxi. How many years ago? The Mission House staff use auto rickshaws. She hopes Ashok isn’t spending a fortune.

  “Will you tell me a little about the concert?”

  “You’ve heard of raga: different Indian instruments playing traditional melodic shapes and rhythms?”

  More statement than question, she notices.

  “A couple of times.” Before coming, she spent months watching Indian films, reading novels and poetry, attending music and dance. Still, she’s culturally illiterate.

  “This is idiosyncratic stuff. Indian and Western instruments. You’ll hear. I don’t want to spoil it.”

  They pull up to a lavish performance hall. Monica realizes she hasn’t been terrified once during the ride, not even when the taxi came to a screeching halt two inches from a brawny lorry. She’s getting acclimated. Or losing her mind.

  She holds out several bills.

  Ashok chivalrously waves them away.

  The contemporary hall is filled with light and the happy bustling of excited patrons in flowing fabrics. The crowd is mixed. Young couples on dates. Large family groups. Old women in pairs. Everyone chatting, shifting seats. Surely they’ll stay put during the performance. Maybe not; she recalls the commotion at Beating the Retreat.

  Ashok nods his head with pleasure at the program. “This guy,” he points to the unpronounceabley named saxophonist, “is terrific.”

  Opening her program, Monica is flooded with exhilaration and uneasiness. When she closes her eyes, she’s on a ship docking in Bombay, arriving the way people did fifty years before. Tonight she feels as if she’s finally landing in India. All vestiges of jet lag have disappeared. If she had traveled by sea the transition would have been more natural, the arrival more convincing.

  During the first set a flutist plays with a violinist, who holds his instrument upside down, the bow pointing to the floor. Their music is dynamic, startling, and she’s sorry when it ends. As the stage is prepared for the second act, a family of four in the first row makes ready to leave.

  “Is this intermission?”

  “Oh, no.” Ashok is puzzled, then instructive. “No one stays for a whole concert. Intervals are frequent and unpredictable. We’ll have to leave after a few sets if we’re going to get a proper dinner.”

  Newcomers side-shuffle in, claiming the still warm seats.

  The saxophonist is superb. Astonishing to hear him riffing with three tabla players. Half-an-hour of spirited improvisation. The drummers are so deft, yet she wonders about the stress on their thumb joints.

  Waves and waves of applause.

  A tall man presents the saxophonist with a white shawl.

  “Now?” Ashok inquires. “May we leave now? Or shall we forgo dinner?”

  “Thanks, I’m happy to eat. As long as leaving in the middle is customary.”

  “Customary.” He grins. “So many customs in India: almost everything is customary.”

  They walk through the dark, warm evening, past several attractive restaurants.

  Hungrily, she asks, “Where are we going?”

  He leads her over uneven pavement down a small side street, humming parts of the saxophonist’s last piece. “A surprise.”

  She hadn’t pictured Ashok as a music lover. What a curious man. Acerbic. Considerate. Gentle. Irascible. Sometimes he acts annoyed by her presence. Sometimes suspicious. During the past week, he’s been quite welcoming.

  The brightly lit, small café is called The Malabar Coast. A thin, elderly man greets Ashok warmly and escorts them to a corner booth.

  Already part of her dream is realized: a quiet refuge from Delhi’s crazy pulse. She imagines Moorty’s mountain tranquility.

  The owner serves two Kingfishers, compliments of the house.

  “The father of a student?”

  “Brother-in-law of my cousin in Cochin.”

  Remembering Tina’s jeweler, she considers how many people in this huge country seem capriciously linked to so many others.

  He regards her expectantly. Something new in his eyes tonight: a kind of fond, teasing familiarity.

  “I thought you grew up in Delhi.” Her stomach rumbles at the aromas of garlic and butter and heady spices.

  “I did. But I belong to Kerala. My father moved to Delhi for a government post.”

  “Your family is from Cochin?”

  “Nearby,” he allows, returning to the peacock-shaped menu.

  Then he must know about the large Catholic and Jewish communities there. All this time he’s been baiting her about Indian history. OK, maybe she’s enjoyed the sparring. Dad used to say lively opponents sharpened your wits. Mom shook her head, despairing over a quarrelling world.

  “Well, what would you like?” He pushes his glasses higher on his nose.

  Quickly, she peruses the menu. “Uthapams!”

  He smiles indulgently. “Since you enjoyed the rubbish at Nathu’s, I thought you should taste some authentic South Indian cuisine.”

  Clearly he belongs to Kerala.

  Before the first bite, from the delicious smell and vivid presentation, she knows he’s right about the food. He specializes in being right. This cooking is far more subtle.

  “Mmmm,” is all she manages.

  Still, she’ll always love Nathu’s for the atmosphere, for Sister Margaret’s hospitality. Because she ate her first dinner in India there.

  “You leave on Tuesday.” He clenches his jaw, readjusts his glasses.

  “Yes, the flight is about an hour.” She concentrates on facts, rather than on emotions. “Then I take a car to Moorty.” She sounds excited, doesn’t she?

  “That road is labyrinthine. A three hour ride at least.” A dour voice.

  “You’ve been to Moorty?”

  “On a family holiday. I don’t recall much. Moorty was much cooler than Delhi. One of the minor Raj hill stations, you know.”

  “I’ve heard.”

  “You have a postal address?”

  “Somewhere in my purse.” She digs around the black Sportsac anxiously.

  He hands her a business card. “You must have cards made. Indians love to exchange cards. Of course one throws half of them away.”

  She scribbles the address, surprised by the trembling of her hand.

  “I have a conference in Calcutta on Monday,” he takes a long breath. “Otherwise I would escort you to the airport.”

  Airport. The chaos of that first crowded, smoky night engulfs her. Maybe the domestic terminal is easier. Ridiculous to worry. How sweet of him to think about it.

  “You’ll be fine,” he reassures both of them.

  “Thanks.”

  “Email me once you get settled. Or drop a note.”

  She nods. Is he speaking out of friendship or something else? Does she want to know? Her life seems too full right now for…for what?

  “But not a post card. They don’t often survive in the mail. Use an envelope.”

  “Yes, Professor,” she smiles.

  Ashok frowns.

  “Stay in touch.” He squeezes her hand.

  As his fingers reluctantly release hers, she imagines herself in a hot air balloon ascending daringly, fretfully, expectantly.

SIX

February, 2001, New Delhi and Moorty

  Mr. Asnani carries her luggage out to the white blockish taxi.

  Gripping her briefcase and a small bag, she surveys the cool blue vestibule one last time, already nostalgic for her home of three weeks.

 
Mr. Alexander was probably enjoying a well-deserved sleep after his encounter last night with three young thugs in the chapel.

  “R.S.S.,” Mr. Asnani explained, cryptically. “Right wing Hindus. Much anti-Christian violence.”

  Father Koreth admonished him not to jump to conclusions.

  Regardless, she’ll worry about her friends here.

  Last year she read so many articles about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. About how they had collaborated with the British against Gandhi because of the Mahatma’s ecumenism. How they assassinated Gandhi one ordinary winter day. Somehow the R.S.S. seemed like history then, nothing she’d encounter herself.

  Silently Sister Margaret and Monica follow the concierge to the curb.

  Mr. Asnani steeples his palms. “
Namascar
, Dr. Murphy. God bless you.”

  She can barely hear him over the horns and sirens and shifting lorry gears. The unseasonable heat wave makes everyone anxious and louder.

  “Thank you for all your kindnesses, Mr. Asnani,” she speaks at the top of her voice. “God bless you.”

  Sister Margaret is tearing up. “Dr. Murphy, I wish you the best. I will pray for you.” 

  “Thank you, Sister. Thank you for everything.”

  She bursts into loud sobs and tugs a white handkerchief from her pocket.

  “Sister, don’t cry. We’ll see one another again.” How can she bear that heavy black habit in this heat? She probably roasts all spring and summer.

  “Yes,” Sister sniffs into her plain cotton square. “It is wrong to get attached. You see we don’t normally have extended visits at Mission House from our foreign friends.”

  She touches Sister’s thin shoulder. All too aware how long she’s stayed, Monica is startled by the nun’s attachment and by her own tender regard for these people, especially Sister Margaret.

  The nun is weeping inconsolably now.

  The taxi driver finishes loading bags. He stands within earshot, hands on his hips.

  Monica has a thought. “Do you ever get a furlough?”

  “Yes, we do.” A ragged, almost inaudible voice.

  “Perhaps you could come to Moorty for a few days of your leave. You’d be doing Mission House a service by getting more acquainted with the posting. Then we can continue our games of Scrabble and our sampling of Indian teas.”

  Clearly pleased, yet embarrassed to dwell on the invitation, she tells Monica for the twelfth time, “Remember Mr. Menon, a good Catholic, will be waiting at the airport with his limousine to drive you to Moorty. Don’t go with anyone else. Taxi drivers can be persuasive. Mr. Menon will stand with a sign bearing your name. He speaks English fluently and has worked with the Mission for many years.”

  “A pre-paid taxi?”

  “Pardon, Doctor?”

  “Silly joke, Sister. Thank you for arranging the transportation. I’m confident everything will proceed smoothly.”

  “Yes,” she says shakily.

  Hesitantly, Monica draws Sister into a hug.

  Mr. Asnani looks away.

  Sister embraces Monica tightly.

  The driver guns his engine.

  Monica steps into the car and is suddenly jolted into traffic. She waves.

  Mr. Asnani raises a hand in salute.

  Sister Margaret flutters her hankie, smiling through the tears.

  Ignoring the cabbie’s daredevil driving, Monica considers yesterday’s rush: saying good-bye to Ashok and Tina, having a farewell interview with Father Koreth, a parting tea with Sister Margaret. She was taken aback by their touching gifts. Ashok presented a small enamel Ganesh on a silver chain. Tina bought her favorite chocolate from the Embassy commissary. Sister Margaret gave her a medal depicting Sister Alphonsa, a beatified Kerala nun. Even Father Koreth offered a sandalwood rosary. She had no time to reciprocate, but resolved that on her first trip back to Delhi she’d bring everyone mementoes.

  What a morning! The farewell mass was mercifully brief. She was moved by the crusty priest’s ardent prayers for her safety and success and
happiness
. At communion, he bestowed a traveler’s blessing. Perhaps she overstated Koreth’s severity in her letters to Beata. Still, she looks forward to meeting Father Freitas, Director and Chaplain at Moorty. People say he’s youngish, pliable and energetic. Sister Margaret explained that most mission stations have fewer non-Indian doctors, but Moorty has faced unprecedented shortages. At any rate, Father Freitas is a skillful administrator, powerful spiritual director and an abiding presence.

****

  The small airport is more crowded than she expected.

  “Dr. Murray,” a tall, wiry man in a dun-colored suit clutches the sign.

  She looks around to confirm that she’s the most likely suspect, then walks forward. “Mr. Menon?”

  “Ah, Doctor Murray, welcome.” He smiles broadly and bows.

  “Murphy,” she says pleasantly.

  “Quite so. Welcome. We shall collect your luggage, then transport the bags to my cousin’s car.”

  Fast talker. New accent. His cousin’s car?

  An hour later, they pull into a tiny auto repair shop on the city outskirts.

  “One moment, Doctor, one moment,” Mr. Menon implores, slipping out before she can reply.

  Monica recalls Sister telling her the trip was in God’s hands. She summons Beata’s last letter. She hopes her friend gives James more time.

  A firm rap on the passenger window.

  “He is ready for you, Doctor.” Mr. Menon opens the door with a flourish. “Who? Ready for what?”

  “My cousin is a first-rate driver. Poor English, but a first-rate driver, never an accident on these devious hills, you know, my cousin Emmanuel will take you to Moorty in one fine piece!”

  OK, time for a little American assertiveness. “Sister Margaret informed me that you were the driver, Mr. Menon. She has a special confidence in you.”