Nelycinda and Other Stories by Susan Visvanathan

Author:Susan Visvanathan [Visvanathan, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788186939666
Publisher: Roli Books

An Incomplete Travel Diary

3/5

The nuns wanted to see her, so she was to go to Freddie’s hotel, a similar colonial relic on the other side of town, near the old fort where she had visited the merchant for semi-precious stones. She called for a taxi, careful not to dislocate the crepe bandage as she limped into the sleek new car. The driver was very polished, and wore a new uniform and spoke impeccable English. He had done a language course in French, too, and was fluent in three national languages. He said he would accompany her wherever she wished to go, if it was in north India.

‘Jodhpur, you know Jodhpur?’

‘My birthplace, Madam, I know every street, every corner. My mother is a painter, and has sold her art work to many foreigners.’

‘That’s rather like a miracle, isn’t it?’ she said shyly, amazed at her good fortune.

‘Coincidences, we call them coincidences. It happens all the time in India; we never worry about the future, it is all written.’

‘Written? Written where?’

‘On our foreheads.’

‘Oh, you mean as your caste marks?’

‘Those are only external symbols, Madam! Even a grain of rice has your name written on it, if you knew!’

They relapsed into silence. He knew she had not understood what he said, or the magnitude of it’s worth. It was not fatalism; it was acceptance of divine will. His mother slapped her fingerprint on every door of their house, swearing that she would die the day her husband died. He found it annoying, graduate as he was in foreign languages—French his major, English and German subsidiaries at college, he could read poetry in all three!—yet, the ways of old people were to be treated with respect.

‘Do you have old people in your country,’ he asked, as if they were a species different from themselves.

‘In Freddie’s country, America, they hide them away. Old people go on holidays, always travelling, always seeing the world. And when they get too old, then they go to care homes. Freddie is old, but I look after him. We have that too, where old people marry young people, usually from another country. There is love, if they are both patient.’

‘But you are not from Freddie’s country?’

‘We are called boat people. We came without papers, through Canada, from Vietnam and from Thailand. My brother is in Mexico. I have not seen him for ten years now, but he phones me. I slipped into America through the kindness of some tourists who said I was their servant and had lost my passport. It was dangerous, but then they disappeared themselves and I became a servant to a very angry man till Freddie rescued me.’

‘A servant! You look like you never washed dishes, or combed someone’s hair!’

‘In America, you can be poor one day, and rich another. I dreamed of owning a house with my own garden, and I now have it.’

‘What do you have to do for Freddie?’

‘Whatever he asks!’

‘Sex?’

‘Luckily he has no interest. That would be hard, he is so repelling, like a twisted piece of metal.

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