A Person is a Prayer E-Book

Ammar Kalia

• Herausgeber: Oldcastle Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 399

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

**A 2024 literary highlight in Esquire, Vogue, GQ, i-D, and Dazed**

'Crisp narration and lyricism... Kalia's take is refreshingly nuanced and - thank God - funny' - Esquire (The Biggest Books Landing on Your Reading List in 2024)

'Soulful, funny and daring... A Person is a Prayer is a plaintive and refreshing take on a cross-generational saga... From the bursting white rapids of the Ganges, to the nail-rapping table tops of a Hounslow kitchen, Kalia proves himself a transportive and stylish novelist, sensitive to the precious, emotional tissues that bind a family unit, and just how easily these can disintegrate when put under inspection' - Vogue (Best Books of 2024)

'Equal parts funny and touching... A multigenerational story reflecting on the transient connections between generations across time and place, and the nature of home and memory' - GQ (Best Books of 2024)

'Kalia's debut is a moving and often very funny portrait of a family in transit - both physically and emotionally' - Dazed (10 exciting books to look out for in 2024)

'A moving family drama that explores migration, inheritance and loss' - i-D (Fiction to be excited for in 2024)

‘This rich debut... has poignancy and focus. Telling the story over the course of three single days spanning six decades, [Kalia] interrogates the fundamental question of what makes a life happy through characters all striving for a better future’ - Observer

An intensely moving, lyrical and often funny novel about a family whose story of migration from Kenya and India to England is told over three separate days, across six decades.

Bedi and Sushma's marriage is arranged. When they first meet, they stumble through a faltering conversation about happiness and hope and agree to go in search of these things together. But even after their children Selena, Tara and Rohan are grown up and have their own families, Bedi and Sushma are still searching.

Years later, the siblings attempt to navigate life without their parents. As they travel to the Ganges to unite their father’s ashes with the opaque water, it becomes clear that each of them has inherited the same desire to understand what makes a life happy, the same confusion about this question and the same enduring hope.

A Person is a Prayer plumbs the depths of the spaces between family members and the silence that rushes in like a flood when communication deteriorates. It is about how short a life is and how the choices we make can ripple down generations. Perfect for fans of Ali Smith, Jhumpa Lahiri and Monica Ali.

'A Person is a Prayer moved me so deeply, it's filled with so much feeling you will not be able to stop thinking about it' - Annie Lord, author of Notes on Heartbreak

'A deeply felt debut – smart, funny and impressively soulful. I read it in one sitting' - Harriet Gibsone, author of Is This OK?

'Nuanced and deeply perceptive, an honest reflection of families and how we are inescapably shaped by them. A heartbreaking yet funny and poetic story of finding home in comfort over joy' - Sarathy Korwar, award-winning musician

'An exquisitely written, incisive and evocative family saga. Kalia explores cultural complexity and human frailty with compassion, wit and generosity of spirit' - Jake Lamar, author of Viper's Dream

'A Person is a Prayer has a prismatic quality... It's a rich read, freighted with the weight of expectation, where overlapping perspectives illuminate new corners of contemporary British life' - Emma Warren, author of Dance Your Way Home

Leseprobe

Praise for A Person is a Prayer

‘A deeply felt debut – smart, funny and impressively soulful. I read it in one sitting’ – Harriet Gibsone, author of Is This OK?

‘Nuanced and deeply perceptive, an honest reflection of families and how we are inescapably shaped by them. A heartbreaking yet funny and poetic story of finding home in comfort over joy’ – Sarathy Korwar, award-winning musician

‘An exquisitely written, incisive and evocative family saga. Kalia explores cultural complexity and human frailty with compassion, wit and generosity of spirit’ – Jake Lamar, author of Viper’s Dream

‘A Person is a Prayer has a prismatic quality… It’s a rich read, freighted with the weight of expectation, where overlapping perspectives illuminate new corners of contemporary British life’ – Emma Warren, author of Dance Your Way Home

‘A person is a prayer through his or her longing.’

Jon Fosse

For my grandfather,

who thought this book was about him

Part I

19 March 1955

‘Life happens in the margins’

1

‘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.

2

‘We thought you were trying to break in, looking through the windows like that,’ Pintu laughed.

The middle brother, always a shit, Bedi thought. His own brothers ran the gamut of the painfully shy youngest to an enterprising second-eldest and an outright terror in the middle. He was likely just viewed as an unworthy leader and it was an opinion that was starting to make sense, since he couldn’t even seem to get through a front door without making a bad impression.

Sushma’s family had spent all morning preparing for their guest, making sure the floors were cleaned, the glasses were dry and that the food was simmering to a salivating intensity. They wanted their only daughter married off to the right man and that meant making the right first impression. She had been upstairs readying herself too, applying a thin line of kohl to bring out the darkness of her eyes, just as her mother had shown her, and neatly folding the pleats of her sari so that it would cascade straight to the floor without a kink disrupting the simple line of her figure. She pinned her hair back and wet the stray baby hairs that always sat on the edge of her forehead to frame her face cleanly. There were no mirrors in this house, so she had to make do with her reflection in spoons, windows, or – best of all – the glass doors of the cabinet downstairs.

That’s where she was, practising her smile and trying to make herself seem politely interested and interestingly aloof, without showing the wonky front teeth she was so embarrassed by, when she noticed a man’s image overlapping her reflection. She jumped back and let out a strained yelp. The image grew bigger for a second, then disappeared. Her brother Pintu charged in.

‘Another mouse?’ He was somehow already armed with his cricket bat, ready to dispatch one of the rodents that kept scurrying across their polished floors. He seemed to enjoy bludgeoning them and then picking up their string-like tails to toss them out for the stray cats and dogs to savour. Their mother would be left to scrub the smears of blood from the tiles and to berate him for his act of violence. Still, he would do it again, since there were never any consequences for his actions. It made Sushma grit her teeth at the thought.

She shook her head and pointed at the window. A flicker of fear kicked in his gut on seeing how wide and white his sister’s eyes were. He wasn’t sure what would greet him on the other side, but when he gingerly stepped forward to look, there was nothing there except for a pear-shaped man in an ill-fitting beige suit, pacing outside the front door. He was wearing the baggiest pair of trousers Pintu had ever seen. This was either some pervert eyeing up his sister, or it was the boy who was supposed to be coming later to meet her. He could have been a pervert too, for all Pintu knew.

He decided to sling his cricket bat over his shoulder as he flung open the door – a show of strength.

‘Um, yes, hello – sorry – I am Mr Bedi,’ he paused, clearly startled. Pintu was unsure why this man was speaking in a shaky English accent. ‘I am here to see Sushma. From Mrs Bhatia.’

So it was the boy, but was he a simpleton or something? Pintu thought. He could barely string a sentence together. He gave him a big, toothy grin and decided to have some fun.

‘I don’t know any Mrs Bhatia. Why are you here? What do you want with my sister?’ He wanted Bedi to say it out loud.

‘Well, I am visiting – stopping by – you see.’ Pintu could see Bedi sweating underneath the slant of his hat. ‘To see your sister for our marriage – our possible marriage, I mean.’ Bedi almost shouted that last part, he was so quick to rectify his assumption. Pintu couldn’t help it, he started snickering.

‘What are you doing letting all this hot air in?’ It was Pintu’s mother – he smelled the sandalwood oil in her hair before he heard her approach and swiftly caught his laughter in his throat.

‘Stand up straight, young man.’ She placed a firm hand on Pintu’s lower back. ‘And put that bat away, for God’s sake. I assume this isn’t one of your cricketing friends?’ She took a breath and looked into the visitor’s eyes. ‘You must be Mr Bedi, yes?’

He nodded solemnly. ‘You’re early but that is no problem, this is the house of a teacher, so there is nothing worse than being late!’ She let out a practised giggle to follow her usual refrain. Not better late than never; in this household, if you were late you had better not come at all.

‘So I thought you were spying on her or something.’ Pintu was still goading him now in the front room as Bedi took off his hat to reveal a damp and worryingly thin head of hair. ‘But you’re here for something else entirely, aren’t you?’

Bedi’s cheeks burned hot with shame. He was only trying to see if anyone was in; if this was indeed the right house or if he had followed his carefully annotated directions incorrectly, owing to his various fits of breathlessness, coughing and gagging. When he realised that it was the girl in the window – his girl – well, perhapshis girl, he just wanted to get a better look, to see if she matched the picture Mrs Bhatia had sent. He recognised that it was the same sari from the photograph and that she still had the same flowing thick hair neatly tied into a bun. She had her back turned to him and was doing some kind of clowning at her reflection, smiling and then dropping her cheeks into a mannered pout. He was transfixed by the rhythm, trying to catch a proper glimpse of her face or the lingering trace of that gaze she had first given the camera. He needed to know which part of her was real, or if it was all an act.

He certainly should have rehearsed his own act more, Bedi thought, faced with this petulant teenager’s insistent questioning. He decided not to respond but rather to quietly seethe instead, smoothing the pencil line of his moustache with his thumb and forefinger. The boy must have been only 16 but he was so sure of himself; he carried his beanstalk frame with the plodding arrogance of someone born to a family of a far higher caste. And what was with that cricket bat? He needed to be disciplined into having some respect for his elders, but his father was likely too lenient with him, Bedi thought. It would have been unusual, since every teacher Bedi had known as a child was a sadist – there was no kindness in their desires to control and punish children.

Where was the old man anyway? Bedi softly sighed and pondered why he had been left with the child to shift uncomfortably in a hard-backed chair while the adults busied themselves in other rooms. It was the father he would need to impress most. He crossed his legs and then uncrossed them, swiftly remembering his own father’s comment that sitting like that made him ‘look like a pansy’.

‘And what is your name, young man?’ Bedi gave the boy his haughtiest managerial tone, leaning towards him ever so slightly. They may as well make small talk if they were going to be stuck here together.

‘I’m Pintu,’ he snapped back, without meeting his gaze, instead only focusing on picking the dry skin from the edge of his gnawed thumbnail. ‘What’s your name? Your full one,’ he mumbled with his hand dropping from his mouth into his lap.

‘Well, we call him chotu, don’t we?’ It was the mother, cutting Bedi off before he could answer and serenely sweeping in with a metal tray weighed down by a teapot, cups and a leaning stack of small plates. Pintu’s cheeks reddened ever so slightly.

‘Ah, we call my youngest brother the same – little one – but you’re not the youngest are you, chotu?’ It was Bedi’s turn now to rile him. He needed to make sure he wasn’t smiling.

‘Well, no, I have a younger brother, Raj.’ The name made Bedi jump. Not its existence, it was common enough, but the fact that he had just been thinking of his friend on the way over here. Like he had willed him into being again. He made a mental note to write to Raj’s parents once he was home; it had been far too long.

‘He came along much later,’ the mother interjected as she laid out five plates around their small table. ‘We thought we had our only chotu but I always wanted more children. Life can be full of many miracles.’ She trailed off wistfully.

Bedi couldn’t remember his mother talking like this when she was alive – giving any glimpse of her hopes and desires. Nor did he ever think she had looked so young and beautiful. He noticed the curve of Mrs Sinha’s cheekbones, the kindness in the slight downward slant of her eyes, the careful grasp of her long fingers. He had no idea what to expect of the girl now, whenever she might emerge. He hoped in the meantime that her mother would pour some tea and get the snacks out – he hadn’t eaten for hours and his mouth was starting to smack from its dryness. He should stop staring at her, too.

He turned his head to the walls. There were books and pamphlets everywhere in this house – stacked between photo frames on the shelves, piled in hazardous towers in each corner of the light-filled front room, and even stuffed under one of the table legs to keep it level with the ground. Bedi assumed they were the father’s and, perhaps for the first time, he regretted not reading more at school. Was he supposed to go toe-to-toe with this intellectual for his daughter’s hand? He could feel his breathing quicken at the thought.

As Bedi’s heart thrummed, Mr Sinha padded into the silent room. He was stooped forward like the curl of a question mark, with his left hand extended and eternally gesturing to punctuate his words. His shuffling movements were so arrhythmic, they seemed on the verge of tipping him to the floor. He was wearing his favourite slippers, the ones that had poked out at the front to accommodate his lengthy big toes and were scooped at the heel from years of use. He was in a simple white kurta, sleeveless grey sweater and brown corduroys, since he always dressed for comfort and practicality, rather than the approval of the onlooker. His wife and daughter had spent their lives begging him to at least wear matching items, but it was surely too late to change now.

He adored silence – there was so much to hear in it – and he had always thought the sign of a strong relationship was the ability to sit together quietly, to simply be in each other’s company, rather than to fill it with the noise of what one thought the other wanted to hear. He had been waiting outside the doorway for a few moments, taking in the quiet ever since his wife had recounted the miraculous birth of little Raj. He remembered all of the miscarried children they had lost before him and it was like their nameless, unformed bodies were held in that silence – listed without speech to whoever might have been listening.

‘Sir, Mr Sinha, a pleasure.’ Bedi leapt out of his chair and broke that peaceful beauty almost immediately.

‘Call me Chand, please,’ he replied and met the boy’s outstretched palm to be crushed by his eager handshake. ‘I see you were all lost in thought here,’ he continued, wincing. ‘You can get the measure of a man without having to say anything at all.’

Bedi was disarmed. How long had the old man been silently waiting and listening to their awkward conversation? Had he been judging the tone he was using with his eldest son? And what was all that about knowing about a man without him saying anything? Did he know him by his smell instead? Did he smell foul? His thoughts were spiralling, not least because he was sure he might have also broken one of his fingers in response to that limp handshake.

‘Of course, quite,’ was all he could think to respond before pulling up some of the material at the knees of his trousers and gingerly sitting back down.

‘Bedi, is it?’ The boy hadn’t even introduced himself yet so Chand thought it best to take on that responsibility for him.

‘Yes, sir, Chand.’

Chand wished he would stop calling him ‘sir’ – he didn’t even have his students call him that. It was always Chand, since he believed the best learning environment was one where the students and their teachers were equals. That was the only way to build respect and from respect the foundations of knowledge could be built. ‘Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be,’ he remembered Tolstoy writing in Anna Karenina. All these decades on from reading it, he was still trying to figure out what he meant. Perhaps that respect is public and love is private, he thought, although he believed there was always some love latent in respect.

‘Well, how was your journey? You must be starving, please have some tea and I believe we have jalebis too – Pintu, beta, go fetch them from the kitchen, please.’

Bedi’s own father had never called him ‘beta’, nor had he ever asked him please, come to think of it. Politeness was like gristle in his mouth, to be spat out, never swallowed.

‘Thank you, please.’ Bedi picked up a swirl of fluorescent orange from the platter and placed it on to his saucer, next to his steaming cup of chai. He made sure not to dunk the jalebi in, as he would have done at home, but rather to take a measured sip and then a small bite, letting the almost bitter sweetness dissolve on to his tongue. He would certainly be falling asleep on the train back to the city after this, he thought.

‘My journey went very well, thank you. I am used to the trains, of course, but it was a novelty to be on the water, taking in that sea air and now arriving back in my mother country. It has been far too long…’ He trailed off as Sushma finally walked into the room.

She was beautiful, he realised definitively. She moved like she had purpose – time to get where she needed to be but she wouldn’t waste it. It was like she was gliding beneath that sari, making the room’s afternoon light follow her as she knelt at her father’s feet and poured herself tea. He placed a hand softly on her head, careful not to push a strand of arranged hair out of place.

‘My daughter, Sushma. My beauty,’ Chand announced. ‘I hear you may have already met?’ he added, mischievously. His wife glanced over at him and rolled her eyes to silently say, ‘Leave the poor boy alone, he’s had an earful already.’

Bedi immediately began sweating. He had blown it already, hadn’t he? He looked too much, spoke too much, and probably smelled too much too. He may as well just politely finish his tea and then be on his way. His second cousin would have to do.

He let out an effeminate chuckle in response and folded his legs. ‘Sorry, that, yes. I wasn’t sure if this was the right abode, you see. A silly mistake, my apologies.’

Abode – such formality – Chand thought the Nairobi education system might have bestowed a more consistent vocabulary on its young men and women. Still, the boy was probably just nervous. Sushma, meanwhile, was transfixed by these parachute trousers. What was the point of her dressing up and trying to impress, to do a good job representing her family and justifying this man’s long trip, if he was going to arrive early, sweaty and dressed like a clown?

‘Of course, of course. Not a problem.’ It was like Chand could feel the gears of his daughter’s sharp mind turning. ‘So, tell us about your life. I understand from Mrs Bhatia that you are the son of a train driver, that you are a railyard marshal and that you have seven brothers and sisters? Quite the household.’ He felt like he was preparing one of his students for an oral exam while the boy looked on at him blankly, waiting to respond.

‘Yes, it is a large family but we manage. I take my commitment to my parents and siblings seriously and I have worked hard to become a deputy marshal. I am well on my way to being promoted to head yard marshal soon, with a large salary increase.’ Bedi felt the need to lay out his earning potential quickly – something he hoped Chand would be impressed by. ‘Perhaps within the year.’

‘Hmm,’ Chand gave him the courtesy of feigned appreciation with a slow nod. But he knew the facts and figures from Mrs Bhatia already. The boy had solid ambition but not too much that it would take over his life; equally, he would earn well but not so much that he would only become concerned with money. No, he had invited him here because he wanted to know who he was beneath the facts and the figures. What gave him his purpose? What was the abiding character that would cut through his status in the world?

He decided to take a different tack. ‘My condolences on the death of your dear mother, also.’ He knew it had only been a few years since the woman had died and that grief would expose Bedi to the raw facts of himself. ‘It is never easy for one to lose their mother, it leaves a lasting mark,’ he added, for sympathy.

Bedi was startled by the mention of his mother, since he always tried to avoid the fact of her death in conversation. But then he saw Sushma look up at him for the first time and they both intuitively locked eyes. She sensed there might be more to him than his awkward appearance and mannered speech.

For Bedi, it was like he fell into her. He fell into the dark brown – almost black – of her gaze. The rest of the room, and all of the worries it brought, dropped away. It was just them now, and it felt like it always had been. There was a certainty in her stare, like she saw him, even though he knew it would be enough to just be looked at. He got the sense he would be spending much of his life simply looking for her too, if he was lucky.

‘Thank you,’ he heard his mouth say while his eyes looked for another, less important place to rest upon. ‘She was a wonderful mother, raising so many of us. If I can share just some of the love she showed me, I would be very happy.’ He took a breath. ‘I hope she would be proud of me now, of the man I am and would like to be. I would like to make her proud, you see.’

He hadn’t meant to speak so freely but Sushma’s naked gaze encouraged him. It was like he saw the loving vulnerability of his mother there, as well as everything she thought he could be, and he needed to meet it with honesty. He wanted to be himself now but he wasn’t sure how.

Sushma felt herself softly blush at the yearning of his response. ‘Well said, beta,’ Chand reassured him, nodding slowly at the table.

Bedi’s heart calmed, knowing he was at least held in this man’s kindness for now. He felt the urge to respond in kind, or to answer his original question, but he couldn’t come up with the words. He waited in the stuffy, indoor air for a sense of movement.

Chand was glad to hear that there was more to the boy than just posturing attempts to impress him with his credentials. He was glad, too, that he could sit in the silence he had created. He wondered what his daughter made of his awkward vulnerability – it had been her idea to get married, after all, to ‘lessen the burden’ on her parents now that Raj would need schooling too. He had told her she could stay and live with them for as long as she wanted, that she should only marry when she was ready, but his wife had been quietly encouraging. She knew they couldn’t afford another dependant for much longer.

When Chand had married, he hadn’t even been given the luxury of seeing his wife until he lifted the chunni over her head in the temple. They were too young to make any decisions more lasting than the next day’s breakfast dish but there they found themselves tethered for life. His wife eagerly rose to the challenge and she showed him that life was so much more manageable when it was lived with another, that its twists and turns were a flow to succumb to, not a tide to fight, and that it was possible to support each other without smothering one’s own independence. He was lucky. It was an experience that taught Chand how love didn’t have to come from thin air, that it could instead be built slowly from companionship, intimacy and respect. Perhaps that was what Tolstoy meant when he wrote those words – that respect should not exist without love, otherwise it is only an empty place, a shallow covering.

He caught his wife’s eye again – he could tell she wanted him to keep questioning the boy, to do his due diligence, rather than allow their daughter to marry on the basis of an hour’s silence. Chand tilted his head to the side and playfully raised his eyebrows to say, ‘If you want him to answer questions, please go ahead and ask.’ The two of them really didn’t need to speak anymore – they had a lifetime’s worth of looks to draw upon instead.

‘Tell me, what books do you enjoy?’ she asked, making Chand smile.

It was inevitable, Bedi thought. He had a good run but now this was where it would all fall apart. He may as well be honest, it seemed to help when he had spoken about his mother.

‘I don’t read very much, I’m afraid.’ He could see Pintu smirking out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t too sure that boy could even read himself. He concentrated on the mother instead and the entreating smile she gave him to continue. ‘I would like to read more but I was never very good in school, you see. Better with my hands.’

Sushma glanced up from her cup at him again. She had worried he would turn out to be a simpleton and this might be proof. Maybe she had rushed into this whole marriage thing? she thought, feeling her heart beat harder. She wanted to get herself into the world, since she felt like there must be more to life than this house, her parents and their eccentricities, but she wouldn’t be allowed to do it alone. She would have to find a man to facilitate her exit from the family home and preferably he would be a kind one – someone who would let her get on with her life without imposing too much of his. If the only world he knew was his mother’s, he would want to keep her where she was, in her place.

Her own mother knew differently. She thought that her daughter, above all, wanted to be wanted. She recognised so much of herself in her child, in the fact that she felt a deep urge to be desired for who she was, on her own terms, and to be someone who smiled with all of her teeth, not a closed mouth. Sushma wanted to be someone who could make her own mistakes. She could tell that she wanted to say something now – to correct Bedi and to assert herself more in the meeting. But she knew better than to open her mouth and to give a bad impression of her entire family. The girls only spoke when asked to in these situations. She would be a silent sponge instead, absorbing impressions. She would hate that.

‘But I think intelligence can come from other places, from living in the world, not only from reading about it.’ Bedi was still going, carrying on to fill the space expected of him. He hoped he wasn’t offending the Sinhas and their literary way of life, but he felt like saying: what was the point of spending your life with your nose in a book, trying to escape reality, when you could be actually living? Wasn’t life for doing and being, for taking chances and getting things wrong as much as right, rather than being paralysed by thought? Nothing came from dreams except restlessness, his father had told him, you had to work instead with the hand life had dealt you. Why hope for more? You would only be disappointed.

Instead, he meekly continued: ‘I see you have many, many books here – I am ashamed to say I probably can’t name any of them. I’m sure I would if I had a teacher as good as you, sir. Chand, I mean.’

‘Oh, many of these are Mrs Sinha’s, dear boy, a fantastic mind. Sushma too,’ Chand replied. The honesty of the boy’s ignorance somehow made him happy. It was the naivety he spotted in his schoolchildren, a gap that could be easily filled with the right approach. ‘Perhaps she could teach you a thing or two about the world of books and the meaning they can lend to a life.’

‘I, I would like that very much.’ He stole another glance at Sushma and he could see she was smiling, briefly flashing the whites of her teeth. He wasn’t sure if it was a smirk of sympathy or derision, so he felt it best to continue talking.

‘I suppose, what I meant is that I never enjoyed reading because my life already felt too busy to be able to stop and imagine a fantasy instead.’

‘Perhaps you were never given the chance to try?’ Mrs Sinha replied.

‘Yes, possibly. There were always responsibilities.’ He paused, leaving Mrs Sinha unsure whether he had finished. She blinked at him. ‘I wasn’t sure how I could stick to them while also doing something that felt – I’m not sure – selfish?’ he continued, falteringly.

‘Ah, well, there is nothing selfish about bettering yourself, my boy.’ Chand stepped in, pausing to slurp his tea through his front teeth. ‘The world can become clearer through learning – it is why I have devoted my life to it. And I believe my family feels the same.’ He looked to them for approval and both children nodded their heads. He would like to ask Raj the same question but he was being looked after next door, and he could barely speak yet.

Bedi felt he was still missing something. It was irritating him, poking at a knot he hadn’t felt tangle inside himself before. He wanted to be heard. ‘That is lovely to see, but maybe not all of us can be better, or be bettered by anything as simple as the lines in a book? Maybe we can forget ourselves when we escape into a story – but how do we get back to reality afterwards?’

‘Well, perhaps your reality isn’t something all of us want,’ Chand snapped. ‘Life isn’t all about work you know – at least not work that involves being on the hot, stinking rails all day.’

Silence. Bedi looked at his knees and Chand felt his pulse beating in his neck. Why was this boy so insistently questioning him? What did he know of the world? he thought. What narrowness of life his parents must have shown him. He clearly expected nothing more from his existence than to eat, work, sleep and die. He daren’t look at his wife and her surely reprimanding stare. He decided to break the tension – more softly this time.

‘What I mean is that forgetting ourselves is sometimes exactly what we need. To leave that other person behind and to become something new – even if it isn’t “better”, at least you are trying to grow, like the plant that fights to find the light. Since living is to be in the flow of life. You are being.’

Bedi felt like Chand was trying to strangle him with the back-and-forth confusion of his words. This was all too much talk.

‘Being sounds like a fight indeed,’ Bedi forced out a chuckle. He needed air, lightness.

‘That it is. But life happens, don’t you worry about it. It is just a question of whether you want to be here for it or if you want to simply go through the motions.’ Chand was on a roll now, he could feel it in his bones. Like when a question from one of his students prompted a new thought and he found himself teasing it from the tapestry, tugging at the thread until the whole thing unravelled.

‘The reality is always here – life happens in the margins of the book while you read it – but what do you want from it? I read simply to understand more of the world; by taking me out of myself it helps me to feel more aware, more alive.’

Sushma had been growing quietly impatient at her father’s verbosity. She knew he was taking this as a ‘teaching moment’ and she was learning nothing about her potential husband in the process. She didn’t care about his philosophies of realities or ‘margins’ – they made little sense to her. In fact, she only felt sorry for Bedi being backed into a corner. Once he got going, her father could talk the tongue out of his own mouth. Her pulse quickened.

‘That’s enough, papa,’ she said gently, placing a hand on his knee. ‘We can discuss this another time.’