Page 120 of A Thousand Painted Hours

“Shall we go swimming?” Gurdaya asked.

We all laughed. “I still love swimming,” I said.

“So do I! We have a pool. I made my husband build it for me.”

I was terribly aware of Tanveer on the other side of me, quiet and contained. I could not look at him, but saw him in flashes, the sleeve of his black coat, embroidered with silver, the lift of a knee. In front of us, a servant waved the crowds away so the pair of them could pass, and I felt curious eyes on me, too. When we were children, they were children like me. Now that we were adults, they each carried the glow and power of royalty. It made me feel dizzy that I did not realize, that I had been so foolish to think we had all maintained our status. I had not felt this in Cairo with Gurdaya, but I did now.

A car met us and whisked us to the Victoria Terminus. In the car, Gurdaya poured water and I drank deeply. “We shall eat on the train. It leaves at five. Will you be all right until then?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Are you all right, Elsie?” Tanveer asked.

I looked at him, and the truth tumbled out. “I am a little overwhelmed, I think.”

“Most understandable.”

At my side, Gurdaya swept hair from my face. “You are tired from the journey. We shall have plenty of time to rest on the train.”

I nodded. The soul of me seemed somewhere else, far away, as if she were watching. Watching me look through the window to the streets milling with people, and animals. Watching Gurdaya and Tanveer exchange a glance. I remembered when I brought Tanveer to Herewich from the hospital, and how little he’d spoken. My pain was small in comparison, but I understood now how hard it could be to speak shame aloud.

“Gudiya,” I said at last, rousing myself, “tell me about your children.”

She was happy to oblige. Her love for them carried us straight through to the train, where we were settled in a luxurious suite of rooms. The same servants who had waved a pathway through the crowd at the terminus now served tea from silver pots and offered cakes and samosas. “There is no coconut,” Tanveer said, a slight glitter in his eye.

“You remembered.”

“Of course.”

I ate hungrily, aware suddenly that it had been hours since I’d picked at my breakfast, too nervous to really eat. The samosas were filled with potatoes and peas, and I ate two small cakes layered with jam before I leaned back into the velvet comfort of the seats. The train began to move, and I looked out sleepily. Across from me, Tanveer stretched his long legs under the table and crossed his arms.

“Now then,” Gurdaya said. “I’ve brought cards and games. Which would you prefer? Rummy? Parcheesi?”

Tanveer spoke to his sister in Punjabi, and the words spilled over me, a happy memory, the way they’d moved between their languages, English to Punjabi to Hindustani, a river of languages flowing together. To me he said kindly, “I told her to let you sleep.”

I protested, sitting up straight and blinking. “I don’t mind.”

“Dear girl,” Tanveer said. “You will fall over any moment.”

Gurdaya spoke to the servant in Punjabi, and he disappeared and came back with a soft blanket and softer pillow. I curled up in the corner, safe after the long journey, and allowed myself to sleep.

The train took three days, time we spent playing card games and reading aloud to one another from a book I’d had with me on the ship, Agatha Christie’sThe Man in the Brown Suit. At night, we were tucked into our beds, and I looked up at the stars flowing by while I listened to the others breathe. Sometimes I slept, but I sometimes jolted awake in terror, crying out and shaking off my blanket. One or the other of them woke up and sat with me, bringing me water, covering me again as if I were an invalid. In the soft dark, it was easier to be comfortable with this new Tanveer, the husband who was also my friend. He sat with me quietly, holding my hand, but it was only kindness, and I did not make it anything more.

After lunch on the third day, Gurdaya fell asleep so deeply that she snored. I fondly covered her with a blanket and lifted her head to another pillow. She barely moved, her body a deadweight.

I found Tanveer looking at me when I sat back down. It was the first time she had not been there to distract me, which I thought might be the point. I allowed myself to take him in. He seemed to be making the same catalog of me. He said, “What made you change your mind?”

I looked out the window, thinking of the near rape, the mindless, unfocused rage Peter had displayed. Shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“Gurdaya has been worried about you since she visited in Cairo.”

What could I say to that? I only nodded. A sting of grief, or perhaps fury, ran through my midsection, but I could not bear to listen. “Channan can be very persuasive.”

“That is quite true”—he leaned forward—“but not the reason you are here.”

I took a breath, and in that air he occupied with me was the scent of his skin, so intimate and deep I could feel an echo in my own body, in my elbows and knees. He was the same to me, would always be the same, but I also felt in me the strength of adulthood, the ability to stand firm in reason rather than passion.

But I could not bear to tell the truth, either. I only shook my head in answer, pushing all the rising emotions back into their box.