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Part I 19 March 1955 ‘Life happens in the margins’ Not now,’ he spluttered. The breath whipped from his lungs leaving him hollow. It was happening again. He stopped walking, hunched over and covered his quivering mouth. He was starting to sweat profusely, threatening to seep through his only suit. He saw himself looking like one of the clerical workers on the sunrise trains who had crescent moons of damp cupping their flopping breasts. But he would have to worry about his appearance another time. He placed his palm on the damp wall of a shack as two passing boys in greying vests glared at him. He tried to breathe but could only wheeze out a rattling sound. They were so skinny they were probably worried he’d eat them. He was careful not to lean too hard in case the whole facade caved in. This place seemed nothing more than the sun, dust and an eternal hum of competing voices. He made sure the boys couldn’t see him touch his pocket to check that his wad of rupees was still there, along with the worn paper of his train ticket. As long as he had his cash, he would be alright, he reassured himself. His breathing loosened. Money always bestowed a protective aura – it was so much more efficient than the empty promises of prayer. He decided to start moving again; it couldn’t be too much further. There were no pavements around him, just stacks of assorted rubble people hopped over while avoiding the meandering chaos of the rickshaws. It also stank of shit, thanks to the open gutters sloshing along the side of the road. Every time he passed a waiting, solemn cow in the street he had to avoid dipping his polished brogues into the filth. He didn’t belong in a place like this. Maybe his heart was thumping and his lungs were squirming because this was supposed to be his homecoming, a return to the country of his people. But there was no fanfare waiting, only lingering looks. He felt like shouting. Didn’t they know it was rude to stare? In India, Bedi was a tourist, not a prodigal son. He had been born in a different country, into a different shade of skin from the locals and a different sense of loyalty to their rulers. It was all because his father took up the offer of moving to another colony to work on the railroads, the offer of a better life. He was worried these Indians could smell the subservience on him and he hoped the family he was coming to see wouldn’t be so perceptive. He was on his way to meet and impress their daughter – some village girl he would be expected to spend the rest of his life providing for. Some deal. It was his father’s idea. Ever since his mother had died and Bedi had started shooting out of bed to gulp the cool night air – to calm this pair of lungs he was sure was growing too fast inside his chest – his dad had begun to notice him again. As kids, he and his three brothers only experienced their dad as a soothing absence or a terrifying presence. He was often on week-long trips to Mombasa, sloshing petrol into his cap to cool his bald head as the inferno of the engine enveloped him. While he was away, the boys would become the men of the house, hurrying to the bank to withdraw their father’s weekly salary, purchasing groceries for their mother – with added luxuries – and feeling like they were giving back some of the care she so freely gave them. When their father returned, it was always a different story. Now, they stood to attention by the dinner table, ready to deliver salt or sabzi as he kept his eyes fixed on the table and ate with fastidious care. They were equally ready to receive a kick on the backside or a slap along the legs if they were too slow or spilled the goods on their way. At 25, Bedi still struggled to eat before someone told him he could do so. He felt his stomach rumble with anticipation. He didn’t have a watch so he didn’t know what time it was, but it felt like he was late. That feeling like the world was moving too fast and he was going too slowly, like the seconds were clicking offbeat, gently reminding him that he should be running. He could have taken a rickshaw from the station but Mrs Bhatia, that plump know-it-all who had set this whole thing up, had assured him it was only a short walk. He made her tell him the route twice, taking into account his terrible sense of direction, and she made sure to click her tongue as he noted down each turn, exasperated at this need for guidance. Did other men just always know where they were going? At least his breathing was getting better. He made an effort to try and place himself back within his body and to exorcise whatever spirit kept kicking him out. He felt the sun warming the brim of his hat, he noted how his left knee crunched if he extended his leg too far and he took a big breath in, ballooning his chest outwards to suck up what felt like a teaspoon of the road’s gravel. He coughed reflexively and spat a wet slick of the grit back, spraying his shoes in the process. ‘Penchod,’ he muttered. He heard a giggle and turned to notice those same two dark boys following him around the corner. He shooed them with a flick of his wrist and a kick of his leg that made his knee crack, again. They trotted off, unbothered and bored. Had he once been as carefree as they were? He couldn’t remember. All he could recall as he pushed the jangling bones of his body along the roadside was always being on the move. Always walking. Like that eternal walk to school. Two miles every day to be told by his teachers that he was of less worth than the bricks in the walls that surrounded him. That hurt – not as much as when they threw those books at his head while he was daydreaming. He might not care much for the knowledge the books contained, but he felt he must have something he could offer the world, eventually. Even if it wasn’t his brain. He still hadn’t figured out what that something was. In fact, he felt like life was just spent waiting for something to happen. And perhaps that something was bad – in both cases. Maybe those two boys felt the same? He looked back to see if they were still tailing him, but they must have disappeared into the throngs of waiting men, overstuffed carts and animals. They were probably just dazed and hungry, like he always was when he was their age: five, six, seven, eight. He remembered waking up then with a gnawing at the pit of his stomach and feeling that no matter what leftover scraps his mother fed him, he was never satisfied. It was like waking without sleep and being catapulted into an adrenalised haze, running on the need for more but not knowing where to find it. There was one promising avenue: looking through the bins on the way to school. Any bits of unrotten banana, unchewed sugar cane or unmouldy bread would soon find their way into his fist, under his nose and then eventually – after consultation with his friends – into his mouth. It all served to carry his grazed knees and dry soles to the hard chair in which he could then spend the next four hours being hungry again. One morning, he came upon an unexpected prize: a pristine, unopened packet of biscuits. He couldn’t believe his luck – his stomach practically leapt at the sight – and he gingerly swiped them from the other foul remains, before anyone saw or could find the chance to tell him off for it. He was with his friend Raj – he was always with his friend Raj, before he died at 14 of tuberculosis – and he offered to share the bounty. ‘I don’t like the look of those,’ he remembered him saying. ‘You’ll get into all sorts of trouble if you eat that, Bedi.’ Still, he had already torn back the paper package and was feeling the soft lozenge between his fingers, popping it into his waiting mouth before his brain realised what his hands were doing. He offered another to Raj but he simply shook his head and gave a quizzical smile that said, ‘You’re on your own now.’ They kept on walking – past the market stalls, shopfronts and makeshift houses, off into the large fields that surrounded the tiny school building. Raj’s smile started to play in Bedi’s mind as he realised that there was something meaty about the biscuits. Still, he continued eating them – he couldn’t waste the packet now – and with each bite he felt their grain between his teeth, a warm grease running through the pressed shape. His mouth had become worryingly dry and filled with chewy bits of biscuit debris. He tilted his head back to try and swallow, mildly panicking that he might choke otherwise. It went down, slowly, and he was reassured by the warmth of the morning sun on his face, steaming. He felt a little heavier, like he was carrying the weight of the air that was softly imprinting on his skin. It’s just one foot in front of the other, he told himself. Those feet began dragging and Raj, who was always keen to avoid a beating for being late, was pulling ahead. ‘Come on, Bedi,’ he urged, offering his hand to pull him forwards. Bedi wanted to take it but he found himself slowing as something started to come up. A cold sweat beaded on his forehead and a rush of saliva pushed its way from the back of his mouth to his lips. He tried to calm himself by thinking of when the sudden rain would fall with such force that it seemed the whole world was crashing down. Like the sky wanted to get close and touch him. The next minute he wretched a slick pool of bile – a green and brown impression – churning the dusty road into mud. He needed to get a hold of himself, Bedi thought as he carried on now, a man walking. Why was he bringing up a memory that made him want to gag? At least once he was sick it was over, unlike this spasming of his lungs that seemed like it would never go away. He had his mother’s comfort back then too, her soft voice telling him it would be ok – a counter to his dad’s bark that soon told him he had been eating biscuits made for animals. ‘If you want to be a dog so much, you should start living outside,’ he remembered him laughing. Like all men, Bedi missed his mother. He missed her voice and he missed her dependence, her need for love. He wished now that he could have shown her more, told her how much he would miss her when she was no longer here. Of course, somehow, he assumed she would live forever. The quiet ones always survive, he used to think; his father with his swagger and shout, he would be long gone, but his mother would grow old with him. Finally, they would be together. Yet, once she died, his dad decided his eldest son needed to be married off immediately. His mother would have probably liked to keep him home permanently but now her ashes were scattered, his father had given Bedi until 25 to find an acceptable wife. He responded by spending almost all of his late teens and early twenties drinking, chasing the wrong girls and trying his hand at gambling his pay packets away. That time had soon run out. Now, he needed to be married off, otherwise his other seven siblings would start to look like a bad deal, like there was something wrong with the Bedi family name. His father would retire soon and Bedi’s new wife would need to help take care of the family. Bedi’s hands became slick with sweat at the thought; he swiftly wiped them on his trousers. At least he was starting to recognise where he was now. He was where he should be – a central square with four walled compounds surrounding a water fountain. Behind the fountain he spotted the thin, leaning trunk of a sandalwood tree. Its sharp leaves were fanning out to mottle with shade the men sat smoking beneath it. He could detect a hint of its earthy musk in the air. He took a slow breath and felt his heart thrum with anticipation. His body was hiccuping back into a sense of stability. ‘Sushma, Sushma, Sushma,’ he whispered to himself, like an incantation. The name of the girl he had come all this way to meet. He had only seen a picture of her but he had been thinking about it ever since Mrs Bhatia posted it to him. She must have been in her finest sari, since its folds lent a silken softness to the otherwise heavy contrasts of the black and white image. Her eyes were turned away from the camera’s lens and her skin looked so blurred and delicate that he felt like reaching out to touch it. But there was also something in her gaze that said she wasn’t particularly interested in what he wanted. She looked past him, as if to something better just over his shoulder, and it made him want to get her attention – for once, to be seen. Her head was perfectly straight; she had the air of a schoolgirl’s obedience and the kindness of a mother in the gentle bow of her lips. She was someone who would stare straight into the sun without blinking. He was fast approaching her home now, where she apparently lived with her parents and two brothers: the Sinhas. He hoped no one was peering out of the window as he shuffled closer to their whitewashed wall to straighten his tie, smooth the damp creases of his shirt front and rub the leather tops of his shoes against the itching wool of his Oxford bags. Their trouser legs were so wide he could have fit himself in at least twice, but he was assured that these were the latest fashion back in England. He had carried them across continents and dragged them through this dusty town to make a good first impression. And it was needed, not least to justify the week he had spent on the boat crossing over here, on top of turning down that one buck-toothed girl his father had pushed on him, and the other painfully shy one who turned out to be his second cousin. He couldn’t let on that he was the son of a train driver, that he was just a motherless child playing in this plump man’s body, that he had never known how to show love, but only to receive it from the one person who was no longer here to give it. Bedi felt that as a man, pain came in many new and exciting forms. It seemed like there was a big stone now where his heart used to be, one that knocked around his chest and pummelled his organs, making them bleed as they jostled for space. Or there was his tickle-tackle, usually standing to attention and always ready for action at the least useful moments. Now it just slept like a soft worm between his legs. He wished he too could be so untroubled by life. This was no time for concentrating his thinking between his legs. That might come later, he smirked to himself. His chest fluttered at the anticipation and he pounded it with his fist, making his hat brim tilt forward. He stepped through the wooden gate in the wall and took his time walking along a surprisingly manicured pathway, bordered by a tall guard of ferns. The house was bigger than he had expected for the salary of a mere teacher, wide-fronted and holding a sturdy two floors without a crack or flake of old paint in sight. These must be fastidious people. He made sure his trousers were properly buttoned up. He must be better now, he reminded himself. He took the warm, curved iron of the knocker into his hand and gave two firm raps on the door. He heard only stillness. He waited.
