Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

‘Baba?’

He opened his eyes, turned his head. He was sixty-five now, and a stroke two years ago had knocked the strength out of him. His beard was fully grey. ‘Ah, is it time?’

‘Tejpal’s outside. He’ll drive me.’

Baba Tarsem Singh stood and when she touched his feet he blessed her and held her for a long time. She could feel his old hands quivering against her back.

‘I wish you would come,’ she said.

‘I know you’ll do our name proud.’

Together they said, ‘Waheguru ji ka khalsa, waheguru ji ke fateh,’ and then Narinder took up her suitcase and went down the hall.

She was on her way to Sri Anandpur Sahib. It was the tenth anniversary of her mother’s death and time to go back.

She arrived at dawn, the sky a concentrated orange, and she stood at the marble steps and looked up to the temple. Bending deeply, she touched her fingertips to the first step and began the climb. When she got to the top she turned round and the sky had turned a broad blue and it felt as if her mother was all around her. Be with me, she said, and before she’d even said it she heard Him there at her side.

The granthi was in the darbar sahib, flicking holy water through the hall. Narinder waited until he’d finished, then said she was Bibi Jeet Kaur’s daughter and wanted to do a paat in her mother’s name, so her soul might be at peace.

The granthi said this was a most excellent idea. ‘So few do that these days, when it is more important than ever. I assume you’ll be making a healthy donation, too, hmm?’

‘Ji.’

‘That is excellent. I’ll ask the readers to get straight on it.’

‘I’d like to do the reading, please,’ Narinder said. ‘All of it.’

‘On your own?’

‘If you will allow it.’

For three days and three nights she read the guru granth sahib from beginning to end, pausing only to sip water from a steel glass a pilgrim kept topped up at her side. Word got round that Bibi Jeet Kaur’s daughter was in town, doing this, and many came to watch her read. They said she really was her mother’s daughter.

At the end of it, Narinder was exhausted and slept for much of the next day in her room at the hostel. Then she started to volunteer at the gurdwara, mostly in the langar hall, sometimes in the darbar sahib, once in the villages. Every day, she worked from dawn until the evening, when she’d have a simple meal of roti-dhal and water. Before bed she visited one of the smallest gurdwaras in the town, Sisganj Sahib. It was her favourite place. During the day it filled with devotees, because, as the gold plaque put it, this was where Guru Tegh Bahadur’s head was cremated, after he was decapitated by the Mughals for refusing to convert to Islam. In the evenings, however, the devotees dwindled to a weeping few, and Narinder could sit by the window and listen to the evening rehraas prayers while, outside, the river lapped onward.

One evening, a shadow appeared on the carpet. Narinder looked round. It was a woman, at the open window. She had an elongated, V-shaped face, with severe rings of black around close-set eyes. Her salwaar kameez was an old-fashioned, over-washed thing, most of its sequins missing, though the fancy way she wore her chunni made Narinder think she’d spent some time looking in the mirror before leaving the house. The woman brought her hands together and said sat sri akal.

‘Sat sri akal,’ Narinder replied, hands together too.

‘Are you the one from England?’

Narinder said she was.

‘I heard you read through the speakers. You do it very well.’

‘Thank you.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Nineteen, biji.’

‘Do you live in London?’

‘Ji.’

It seemed the woman was working up to ask something of Narinder. It wouldn’t be unusual. She remembered people all the time asking for her mother’s help. To send a message to a relative in England. To arrange a UK — India gurdwara tour. But now the granthi of the gurdwara appeared and told the woman to leave.

‘You have no right!’ the woman said. ‘I can speak to whoever I like.’

‘We don’t want troublemakers here.’ He took her by the elbow and forced her on her way.

‘Call yourselves God’s people!’ she said.

Narinder didn’t see the woman again for the rest of the trip and by the time she’d returned to England had forgotten about the encounter.

*

All year she longed for the summer, when she could return to Anandpur Sahib and to the bustle of India. The intervening months were dull, made long with winter. Breakfast was in silence — there was no TV — and then Tejpal would go up to his room while Narinder stayed down to read the granth with her father. They walked to the gurdwara for lunch and so that, later, Narinder could take her turn on the harmonium. The evenings were given to prayer and after dinner she washed the plates and asked if she might go to bed. Her father would smile at her from his armchair, looking up from his book, and wish her a good night. One evening that winter she remained in the doorway.

‘Baba, might I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘There was a poster in the gurdwara. About teaching Panjabi to some of the children after school. Do you think I might ask about it?’

‘I don’t think so, beiti. Do you need money?’

‘No, Baba.’

‘And in one or two years you’ll be married — these are things you can discuss with your husband.’

‘As you say, Baba. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, daughter.’

In her room, she allowed herself to feel disappointed, though she knew he must be right. To make herself feel better, she put on one of her CDs. It was a shabad — hymns were all they had — but anything would have filled her mind with musical delight. As she sometimes did, she started floating around the room, slowly, describing little circles every few steps, and when Tejpal banged on her door telling her to keep it down, she simply ignored him until he went away.

*

In the summer, the gurdwara committee sent her out into the villages with some of the other Anandpur Sahib volunteers. She handed out clothes and kitchen utensils and blankets, and international offerings with labels that read: Kindly donated by Mr and Mrs Prashant Singh, Portland, Oregon, or To our fellow Sikh brothers and sisters from attendees of Sri Singh Sabha Gurdwara, Darlington, UK.

Narinder made a little niqab of her chunni and gripped it in the corner of her mouth. It might just keep the dust from her eyes. Then she shook the metal bolt on the gate and stepped back, holding the blankets out. A lock wrenched and squeaked and the gate pulled open, and a tall, dark woman with a large gold hoop in her nose stood gazing down on her.

‘Waheguru ji ka khalsa, waheguru ji ke fateh. Please take a blanket for the cold nights.’

The woman stretched her elegant neck towards the woolly stack, then her eyes shifted all at once back up to the girl.

Narinder pressed the blankets forward once more. ‘Please. May God keep his hand on you and your family always.’

‘The valetheni’s come to do her annual pilgrimage. Her donations to the poor.’

Maybe it was the voice — snippy, too ready to retaliate — but like balls rolling into place Narinder realized that this was the same woman who’d come to the window. Last summer. The one who’d been forced away.

‘You needed help,’ Narinder said, without thinking.

The woman rested her hip against the gate. ‘You people don’t help. You pity. That’s what your gursikhi is. Go on, get away. We don’t need your blankets here. I’d rather freeze.’

The gate closed with a reverberating clang and Narinder stood there in the stony alley still holding her blankets. Something was wrong. She could sense it. This woman did need help. She knocked and, again, heard the shuffle and scrape of slippers crossing the courtyard. The woman was muttering even as she reopened the gate: ‘They don’t let you live, they don’t let you die. . What is it now? I told you we don’t need your blankets. Give them to your God. He can use them to warm that cold heart a little.’