Alu looked from Zindi’s locked suitcase to his own bag lying in a corner with clothes spilling out of it.
What’s the matter, Zindi? he asked in surprise. Why …?
Zindi, rocking Boss in her arms, didn’t answer.
Zindi? he said again.
Zindi hid her face in Boss’s hair. I don’t know, ya Alu, she said. We’ve travelled so far together. It seems just the other day that we were in Mariamma with me worrying about Karthamma and Boss … And you sitting there with all those boils, catching fish … Who would have thought …?
He knew then what the packed suitcase meant. But still he wanted to be sure, so he sat down beside her and took her hand in his: What is it, Zindi?
She would not look at him. I’m old, Alu, she said, and every day I get older and older. I won’t last much longer; I’ve only got a few years left now. And today, when you people took Kulfi’s body — God have mercy on her — away, I wondered; I wondered what would happen to me if I died in a desert in a foreign land, without a house or friends to help me. I don’t think I would find a Mrs Verma, Alu — not everyone is as lucky as Kulfi — and what would become of me then?
Like a pebble sliding down a mined mountainside, a tear ran down the deep ridges of her cheek. I can’t go on any longer, Alu, she said. I’m too old and Boss is too young.
Alu nodded slowly: So what do you want to do now, Zindi?
You’re all right now, Alu, she went on. You’ll manage. You’ll look after yourself somehow. You don’t need me any more, so you’ll forgive me soon enough. Boss is all right, too, now. So there’s no reason to wait any longer here.
What is it, Zindi? he cried. Tell me.
He felt the warmth of her hand on his shaven, shrunken head. She said: Boss and I are going back home, Alu. Boss is going to build me a house some day.
Standing apart, Jyoti Das watched as Alu carried Zindi’s suitcase and his own bag to the veranda. He listened as Zindi poured profuse, tearful thanks on Mrs Verma, as Alu mumbled his gratitude, as Mrs Verma (looking at her watch, for she was already very, very late) bade them goodbye.
He caught up with them when they reached the gate. Where are you going? he asked Alu.
We’re going home, Alu said.
How?
By ship. So we have to get to Tangier first.
Tangier? Jyoti Das rolled the name around his tongue. With Gibraltar on the other side?
Alu nodded.
Jyoti Das looked up at the sky and said: It’ll be autumn there now!
He looked past them at the great silent dunes and suddenly he saw a sky alive with Cory’s shearwaters and honey buzzards, white storks and steppe eagles, Montagu’s harriers and sparrowhawks circling on the thermals; all of them funnelled, like clouds driven to a mountain pass, into that point where only one narrow strip of water lies between Europe and Africa, like a drawn sword.
My God! he said. The whole sky will be migrating over Tangier now.
He saw Zindi’s face cloud over with suspicion, so then he said: I’m migrating myself — to Düsseldorf. I’ve got nowhere else to go. Can I come with you, too?
Chapter Twenty-Two. Tamám-shud
There is little left to tell.
Travelling slowly, because of Boss, it took them nine days to reach Tangier. They found a cheap pension in the rue des Postes and took two rooms on the second floor from which they could, if they craned out of the window, glimpse the winding tumult of the Petit Socco. Next day Jyoti Das rang his uncle in Düsseldorf and later he bought a ticket for the ferry to Algeciras in Spain.
Next morning they went down the Avenue d’Espagne and, while Jyoti Das watched the flocks of swift-flying birds in the sky, Alu and Zindi gazed across the sparkling blue water at the hint of Spain shimmering in the distance. When the time came, they walked with Jyoti Das till he had to turn off into the quays. As he walked away, they waved and waved at his back and the single airline bag slung across it.
When he was through the gate and walking away, he seemed to remember something. He spun round suddenly and ran back.
Alu, he shouted through the bars.
What? Alu shouted back.
He cupped his hands around his mouth: Don’t worry about the sewing machine; they make them better at home now.
He laughed. Alu waved, and he waved back. Jyoti Das’s face was radiant, luminous, as though a light were shining through him. He waved again and walked jauntily away.
By the time the sleek Spanish ferry drew away, churning up the harbour, Jyoti Das was already on deck, waving. He was sure he could see them among the trees of the Avenue d’Espagne, so he kept waving as the lovely white town cradled in its nest of hills shrank away. Then he looked down and saw a humped back caracoling through the water. Then he saw another and another and suddenly there was a whole school of dolphins racing along with the ferry, leaping, dancing, standing on their tails. He looked up at the tranquil sky and gloried in the soaring birds, the sunlight, the sharpness of the clean sea breeze and the sight of the huge rock growing in the distance.
It was very beautiful and he was at peace.
When the ferry entered a bay and turned away from the rock of Gibraltar towards the shiny oil-tanks of Algeciras, Jyoti Das turned back to wave for one last time. But all he saw there was a mocking grey smudge hanging on the horizon, pointing to continents of defeat — defeat at home, defeat in the world — and he shut his eyes, for he had looked on it for too many years and he could not bear to look on it any longer.
And so he turned to face the land before him, now grown so real, and dizzy with exultation he prepared to step into a new world.
Alu and Zindi, with Boss in her arms, walked up through the steep, narrow streets of the Medina to the high battlements of the Kasbah. From there they could see the ferry clearly, cutting swiftly across the Straits, towards the Mediterranean. But Boss was looking the other way, towards the Atlantic, and soon they were looking there, too, scanning the waters. They saw nothing except sleepy, crawling oil-tankers. So, drowsily warmed by the clear sunlight, they settled down to wait for Virat Singh and the ship that was to carry them home.
Hope is the beginning.