—17—
Once the bombing began, the Germans proved relentless. Night after night, we hurried down to the cellar, making do until the all clear, which was many hours later. No one could sleep. Our tempers grew short.
Every night, the sirens. The drone of planes, circling, circling, the anti-aircraft guns, and the threatening, nerve-racking whistle of a falling bomb. Explosions, two or three at a time, close in, and farther away. Most nights, the attacks lasted nearly until morning.
It was utterly exhausting.
Such a disruption was bound to take a toll on anyone’s health, but it starkly undermined Mother’s already fragile state. After two weeks of it, she was thin as a needle, unwilling to eat much of anything.
In the meantime, cooking and the procuring of rations fell to me.
I’d never gone with Betty to various shops and had to learn, one by one, where she’d purchased fruit and meat and flour and tea, since rations could only be used at the shops where she’d registered.
We spent a lean week or so before I managed to restore the rations for all of us, a week during which I brewed vegetable broths and milky bread puddings sweetened with pears that suddenly arrived from the country.
Plums were ripe, too, and apples to give us some sweetness.
I spent one hot afternoon making apple butter from a bounty Nina shared from Greylake Cottage.
The skill made me grateful again for the time I’d spent at Herewich at the end of the last war.
I’d learned many useful skills that I’d not made much use of since, picking fruit, growing vegetables, preserving.
I’d also learned to darn, and to wear my brother’s trousers, a style I’d kept after the war.
Skirts were impractical in a world of so many chores, and I’d worn an overall in the studio for decades.
But no matter what I conjured up for her, sweet or thin or easy, Mother barely consumed enough to keep a kitten alive. She picked at everything, trying to pretend she was eating, but I wasn’t so easily dissuaded. One way or another, I’d find a way to pique her appetite.
Both of us enjoyed the curries and meats and gravies I’d grown up eating, and in anticipation of embargo and lack, I’d purchased spices in bulk a year before—cumin and coriander and curry leaves, cinnamon and nutmeg.
To that end, I cooked rice and lentils to make khichdi, sending the aroma through the house.
Peter was drawn by it when he came in from some errand, likely guzzling gin in some pub, even though it was barely noon.
“That smells marvelous,” he said, tossing a packet of mail on the table. His skin was dull and greasy.
Eyeing him, I shook my head. “Perhaps you should give your body a rest from alcohol, Peter. You’re looking a bit wan.”
“It’s the only thing getting me through.” He slumped at the table and lit a cigarette.
I coughed. “Please take that into the garden. It does my mother’s health no good.”
He mouthed the butt and flipped through the letters on the table, ignoring me. “A letter from the prince,” he said.
I didn’t bother to look at him. This was an old song, worn from many plays.
He exhaled long, the blue smoke filling the kitchen, canceling the fragrance of my dal.
“Peter,” I said sharply. “Please. I’m cooking. Leave me be.”
He tossed the letter at me, dangerously close to the open flame, and sauntered outside.
I snatched the envelope, pinching the flame on the edge.
Looking after Peter, I wondered for the thousandth time how I might have helped him avoid the bitterness that had so ruined him.
I’d gone into the marriage with the best of intentions, but in the end, we’d done each other no favors.
Which paved the road to hell for both of us.
I opened Tanveer’s letter.
September 17, 1940
Talwarpur Palace
[In Urdu]
Dear Elsie,
Every day, the radio tells us of new bombings in London. We all worry constantly for your safety. Channan prays for you daily.
Instead of asking you to carry our fears, I will instead offer you a better view than the one you currently must endure.
We are somewhat insulated from the war here, far away as we are, although many of the men in the village have volunteered to fight in Europe and elsewhere.
I argued most virulently against their sacrifice, but colonialism has planted a twisted patriotism in too many hearts, and a young man wants only to prove himself in battle.
It will be a grievous waste of our best, who will be needed to continue the fight for independence, but I can only do what is mine to do.
And once, I, too, was a young man, eager to raise my sword in battle—but in that case, I was fighting for the promise we were given, that if we traded our bodies on those battlefields, Britain would at last grant our freedom.
If I consider it for more than a moment, I am angry again, and that anger is better made a pointed tool.
The importance of politics here on this home front remain foremost in my thoughts, for there is a great deal of talk of Muslim homeland, and I fear the repercussions of that on Sikhs in the Punjab.
Channan is more frail than usual. She suffered a bout of influenza last month, and has recovered, but the onslaught of terrible news around the world dismays her deeply, to the point that I have insisted she must not listen to the radio, but instead play her recordings, the ragas and operas of which she is so fond.
It has always been her hope that she could see the opera in Paris, and I think she grieves the loss of that dream, for who knows when it will again be possible?
I fear she will not last the war, but her loss will be deeply sorrowful for Kirandeep.
He adores his mother, and he is the light in her life.
Without him, she would have left this plane long ago.
Kirandeep is becoming a vigorous athlete like my brother was.
He loves polo and games of all sorts, and he has strong leadership qualities, including an ability to listen, which my father never did.
He’s quite good with the tigers, the injured and ancient ones we care for on the estate, and I am glad to know they matter to him as much as they do to me.
I painted this watercolor not long ago, thinking of you. I hope you enjoy it. The body of cats has always been a conundrum, but I believe my mastery of human form is better.
I shall close now, but promise me you will try to stay safe. Keep writing, my friend. If I’m able, I will call again.
Your friend,
Tanveer
[Enclosed watercolor of Channan and a ginger cat by a window]
[Enclosed photo of Kirandeep in polo clothes. He has his father’s big nose.]
I read it twice, taking courage in the shape of his handwriting, the homey painting of Channan, the ease of a life still ordinary, far away from here.
I tucked it away in my pocket, and made Mother a tray.
She would like the photo and little drawings.
“Peter,” I called out the door, “I’ve left you a bowl on the table. You must eat.”
He ignored me.
When I carried the tray upstairs, I found Mother’s window open to the day. The room smelled fresh and herbal, with omnipresent undertones of smoke.
Mother sat in her bed jacket, her hair in a long braid over her shoulder. She set her small tome aside as I entered, mustering a smile. “That smells quite wonderful, Elsie. Have you made me a curry?”
“Not quite so rich as that,” I said, settling the tray over her lap. “A thin dal to tempt you. I wish there were lemons, but I tucked some mint into the water for interest.”
“Sit with me, Elsie.”
I settled in the chair I’d dragged to her bedside, finding myself in a patch of sunlight falling through the window.
It glowed yellow on the hem of my cotton trousers, and across the bare arch of my foot.
My brain offered possibilities to mix the color—chrome yellow tinted with white, naples yellow for the shadows, cinnabar and blue mixed for the darkest shades.
“How are you feeling now that you’ve slept?
” She had been unable to make it down to the basement last night, so we’d sheltered in the sitting room instead. The blitz had gone until the wee hours.
“Well enough,” she said, her standard answer. “The water is delicious.”
“I’ve had a letter from Tanveer,” I said. “They are desperately worried about us, of course.”
“No doubt. How is Channan? Has she found relief from the tinctures I sent?”
“I do not know about the tinctures, but I shall ask. She has not been well, and mourns her chance to see the Paris Opera.”
She touched her fingers to her chest. “Perhaps after the war.”
After the war. If anything was left. If any of us were left. “Shall I read to you?”
“No, let’s just talk, shall we?” She managed the tiniest bite of khichdi, dabbed her lips. “That’s lovely, Elsie. I’ve been dreaming of India so often of late.”
“Maybe it was telling the story of the tiger.”
“Mmm.” She took another infinitesimally small bite, but I was cheered. “I think it’s just rising out of some forgotten place. I always thought I would return.”
“You went to America instead.”
“Yes.” A delicate smile lit her features. “And I would choose it again.”
“Even though it ended so sadly?”
“Oh, it wasn’t that sad,” she said. “I enjoyed Lawrence’s company for ten years, and I’m quite sure the time in the desert extended my life.”
“I am grateful.” I smoothed the edge of her bedcover. “What have you been remembering about India?”
“So many things,” she said quietly. “The sound of monkeys, and how mischievous and awful they are. And elephants, the poor things. And Nihal’s coconut cake!” She closed her eyes momentarily. “Perfection.”
I wondered if I could find coconut, save enough sugar and flour for a small cake. Nina would give me the eggs. “My favorite was kaju balls.”
“I remember.” Her hands had gone idle.
“Can you manage a few more bites, Mother? You’ve barely eaten enough for a flea these past few weeks.”
She looked at me. “I’m dying, sweet girl.”
“What? No! You’re just weak with all the interrupted nights.”
Her smile was kind, and she held out a hand for mine, which I gave. “The interruptions are hastening the end, but we both know this has been coming for quite some time. My liver is failing, darling.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. “I don’t want you to die.”
“I know. But it comes to us all.”
“Not yet, though.” I shook my head. “I’ll find some things to tempt your appetite, and perhaps we should move the bed to the sitting room so the travel time to the cellar isn’t so long.”
She gazed at me for a long moment. “All right.”
I bent over and kissed her forehead. “Not yet,” I said, and pulled back to look into her blue eyes. “Please.”
Lifting my hand to kiss my knuckles, she nodded. “Why don’t you paint, my dear? I think it would be good for you.”
“Yes, all right.” I pointed to the tray. “Will you have a few more bites?”
“I’ll try.”
When she’d managed a bit more lunch, I allowed her to shoo me out, and took the tray downstairs. I saw no sign of Peter in the garden, but he’d eaten, so I washed up the dishes and headed back up the stairs.
The studio held the scent of herbs and smoke from the bombings as well, but the fresh air was good anyway.
In the breeze, I wrapped an apron around my body and went to my easel, where I was working from memory on an iteration of an Egyptian woman selling vegetables.
Her expression was hostile beneath her dull-blue hijab, one knee tucked under her skirts.
The rendition of the vegetables was too acute, I saw now, and began to smooth out details, leaving impressions of bananas and dates, the suggestion of carrots, the harsh sun burning down on her head, on the wall behind her, the cobblestone street.
Peter had been stationed in Cairo on his first diplomatic assignment. We’d only been married a short time, and had not yet become entangled in the betrayals that would unravel whatever fabric we might have woven.
The post delighted me. I loved being back in a world that while not India, struck some of the same places in my soul.
We explored the wonders of the ancients, and I painted the Pyramids, those magnificent and magical monuments.
We traveled on the Nile, and tried rather earnestly for a child.
I was not in love with Peter, but a child would have given me hope, a sense of purpose.
Perhaps it would have healed Peter as well.
The child never arrived, but I found my voice as a painter in the workaday women of the souks and bazaars, in the builders and laundresses, in the bright, hot light and flat colors of midday.
Something in my art that had been dulled by the losses of the Great War came alive, and I’d found myself painting with wild intensity.
I painted small things, domestic moments, women’s work and women’s hands and women’s point of view.
And I painted faces. Each face I encountered I found myself weighing for whether I was creating a fantasy or giving life to an actual human woman.
They proved to be quite popular works, and I traveled between London and Cairo regularly, showing in a gallery that sold a great deal of my paintings. I found, too, a gallery in Cairo. For the first time, my work was celebrated, and I reveled in it.
My sketchbooks, from those years and all the others, were stacked on shelves I’d had built for that purpose, each labeled with the year.
I left the painting and searched out the original sketches, taking down the books from the mid-1920s, all of them thick and bursting, held together with string.
I unwrapped one, and leafed through it to find the record of our trip down the Nile, the open desert with the bright blue sky.
I’d struggled deeply with finding my voice in art school, and in Cairo, I’d found some magic.
On a lower shelf were the first notebooks I’d kept when I was a girl.
I reached for them, looking this time for the endless, endless iterations of tigers we’d drawn that summer, and then to a later set, sketches of the maharaja’s palace, both the dazzlement of the tile work and courtyards and the surprise and sadness of the crumbling rooms where pale-winged griffon vultures nested.
And last, the swimming hole that had become so sacred to us.