Terraferma

Also by Jonathan Falla

Fiction

Blue Poppies

Poor Mercy

Glenfarron

The Physician of Sanlúcar

The White Porcupine

The Morena and other stories

Non-fiction

The Craft of Fiction: how to become a novelist

True Love & Bartholomew: rebels on the Burmese Border

Ramón López Velarde: 21 Poems (translations)

The Luck of the Devil: memoirs of Robert le Page

Hall in the Heart: A Fife parish hall and its community

Drama

Topokana Martyrs Day

Free Rope

Down the Tubes

River of Dreams

THE AUTHOR

Jonathan Falla is an English writer, born in Jamaica but now living in rural Scotland. His writing career has included several published novels, prize-winning drama for stage and film, and work on ethnography, history and music. As a paediatric nurse, he worked for disaster and aid agencies in Indonesia, Uganda, Burma, Sudan and Nepal. He held a scholarship at Cambridge, a Fulbright Senior Fellowship at the University of Southern California film school, and a writing fellowship of the Royal Literary Fund. In 2007 he was a Creative Scotland Award winner, and in the same year was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Prize. He is the only author to have had two stories shortlisted for the Macallan Prize in the same year. He now lectures in Arts for the University of St Andrews and the Open University, and has been Director of the Creative Writing summer school at St Andrews since 2009. He is also a musician, and a serving member of the Scottish Children’s Panel.

PREFACE

These stories date for the most part from the period 1990 to 2000.  I was in the habit of writing a story each Christmas which I would have printed and then send out by way of a greetings card; I did this for nearly two decades. Others were submitted to magazines or competitions, or written to commission for live performance.

Many, however, relate to memories of an earlier time and place. Varanasi and Some We Can’t Trust arose from a journey I had made some twenty years before, overland to India. At that time, the Shah was still in power in Iran, Afghanistan was reasonably peaceful, and young travellers were plentiful in both countries – until the Russian invasion of 1979.

In the early 1980s I worked for a famine relief agency in East Africa; hence The Rain King Departs from Uganda, and Don’t Shoot While They’re Running, set in Kenya and partly incorporating the experiences of my father-in-law. Ugly Americans and Matagalpa both originated in a visit to Nicaragua in 1985 when the memory of the overthrow of President Somoza’s dictatorship was still fresh. At that time, the European and American left eagerly supported the young Sandinista government in the face of the US-backed ‘contra’ rebels; small-scale aid projects such as the ‘jam cooperative’ abounded, while numbers of young people in solidarity with the Sandinistas came to the country as volunteers with ‘coffee brigades’ to help bring in the Nicaraguan coffee harvest.

Nothing Sticks to Don Roberto stems from a visit to Chile in 1998. The country was still far from reconciled to the 27-year dictatorship of General Pinochet which had ended at last in 1990.

In 2014 I participated in a seminar organised by ACES, the Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Science, considering the position of the arts in conservation debates. One activity  of the seminar was an exhibition in Aberdeen for which I suggested a focus on an imagined re-introduction of mammoths to the Highlands. The Shooting of Gormlass is based on a performance piece written for the exhibition.

The longest piece here is Terraferma (the Italian spelling) which dates from a period in the mid-1980s when I had a number of friends in Venice. At that time, terrorism had few Islamist connotations; the prominent revolutionaries were European: the Baader-Meinhof group, ETA, the IRA, and the Brigate Rosse in Italy, most of whose members had by then been arrested and who were divided into groups labelled as pentiti who were sorry, dissociati who sought to distance themselves from revolutionary ideologies, and irriducìbili who never gave up their beliefs. Several of the trials and investigations were based in Venice.

Meanwhile, another important social change was occurring: the huge European asylums for the mentally ill were seen as no longer appropriate or justified and were being closed one by one, in part as a result of new thinking led by the Italians. The asylum on the island of San Clemente in the Venetian lagoon was one of these. It had been opened in 1844 to house five hundred ‘mad women’ but, although men were admitted later, patient numbers had dwindled until, by the time it finally closed in 1992, there was just a handful remaining. 

A London film production company commissioned a script of Terraferma and after the closure we visited the island, which was by then deserted except for several hundred unwanted cats dumped by Venetians. There were persistent rumours that the island might be converted into a luxury hotel and after long delays it was. Today the hotel’s website makes much of the island’s distant past as a monastery – but the 19th century building you see there today was an asylum, never a monastery. The island is a palimpsest of many functions over a thousand years and, as such, ripe for a story.

VARANASI

At Mughal Sarai junction , before the river, the train paused to gather courage for the huge length of the bridge and the Holy City of Varanasi beyond. A French girl, stiff on her wooden seat, regarded her companion while he, defying the platform tumult and the filth on the glass, rested his fair cropped head and slept.

‘Luc?’ she murmured, ‘Tu veut manger?’

There was no response. Was he really sleeping? There were moments when she’d have liked to have been on her own, but she was not so very brave; she’d certainly not have made this journey without him. Time we got you out of Paris, Emie, he’d said; I’ll take you to India. And now look.

She pinched herself for uncharity. Le pauvre, three days of trains had done him in. Her, too; her bony back ached from the hard benches, so she climbed down from the hot carriage hoping he’d not criticise. The more exhausted, the more caustic he could be.

All about her on the platform roared the world’s give-and-take. Some quarreled, some prayed. Some traded batteries and razors, some studied schoolbooks or the Hindi press, some cooked on clay stoves. Some made their homes in corners, out of the eye of railwaymen. Possibly, some died. She wondered if they fornicated also, and gave birth. Saddhus with matted locks sat immobile, waiting for cash donations. Hot breezes dribbled over everyone, and nudged at Emilie’s limp pink seersucker skirt and her ratty brown hair. The platform stank of sweat, of urine, of spice and train oils. The girl stood still, turning her thin face cautiously.

Behind her, a Punjabi gentleman in a yellow shirt disembarked looking for supper, making for the Corporation’s tin barrow with its stains and vapours. A white-capped, dexterous boy spooned vegetable thali onto steel platters. The Punjabi was imposingly made; his grooming had triumphed over the train, he was sharp-creased. He stood out, well-presented among the platform-dwellers.

In the shadow of an up-tilted cart, a destitute pair with three children camped. The Punjabi, having eaten half his thali, went to them, handing down his platter. The family flexed like an anenome closing on a shrimp. Emilie wondered if they’d scrap, but the food was shared in silent discipline. Then she was touched by a stench, and a finger. She tensed and looked at her own forearm: a long black finger rested lightly on her pale skin where, in spite of the heat, were now goosepimples. The beggarwoman was in effect naked, brown tatters hanging from her hips. She stank, and her whining black lips curled like worms. She slowly fingered and stroked Emilie’s arm, where the skin crawled back and forth.

But the Punjabi gently gripped the beggarwoman’s shoulder and steered her towards the barrow, providing dal and chapattis without (so it seemed to Emilie) speaking a word, with only the eloquence of large hands and a leather purse. The Punjabi noticed Emilie’s attention, and grinned cheerfully:

‘Punjab a rich, good state. This Bihar such a poor state.’

His voice issued from a strong chest, resonating in a well-formed skull. Emilie nodded gratefully, noticing a fat gold ring, and the Punjabi raised this hand imperiously: Chai! gesturing left, right, inclusively. Everyone to have tea now! The barrow boys scurried at his command; sweet tea in old white cups for the gentleman and his European guest, and in friable clay mugs for the destitute. Under the gasping train, between the rails lay a midden of such mugs, tossed and broken, a slagheap of red shards.

So everyone was refreshed. Still the Punjabi stood, the focus of a ring of watchfulness. Emilie thought: It is effortless for him. She felt herself eyed by a cripple in khaki rags. She screwed up her nerve to buy the man chapattis, she teetered towards the act – but some little voice asked, ‘Why are you doing this?’ She hesitated, and was too late: the Punjabi had conjured bread for the cripple, with a wave of his golden hand.

‘You cannot feed all Bihar yourself,’ said Emilie, astonished at her own temerity.

‘Memsahib is a gentle person,’ replied the other, indulging her chagrin. ‘I am Vipi,’ he added, as though one could be gentle or Vipi. Was it his name, or his initials, V.P., wondered the girl.

Her lover appeared at the carriage door, his collarless blue shirt broadly marked with sweat. He peered sore-eyed across the platform.

‘Emie, tu m’achetes un Fanta?’

– lifting his chin towards the ice-barrow. The girl felt into her shirt for her pouch of cash but she was slow, and the Punjabi had seen. Vipi stood before her with two cold bottles before she could act. She was startled:

‘Oh, merci.’

They boarded, and the train edged towards the river. In the wooden window-seat, the boy Luc tugged a map from his patchwork shoulderbag. Vipi stood over him so that the boy must inhale sweat-and-patchouli. Possibly this proximity could be seen as Emilie’s fault.

‘You see where is our brass foundry?’ the Punjabi enthused. He touched on the map with his elegant little finger. ‘Jullundur, here.’

Luc said nothing, so that the girl squirmed, replying for him:

‘It is very big?’

‘Quite the biggest in Punjab,’ beamed Vipi. ‘My brother and I manage for our father. I shall have pleasure in sending you a brass gift.’

The brother stood quietly nearby, nodding slowly in agreement. Emilie smiled as hard as she could both for herself and for Luc. (So he was too tired to smile: wasn’t she tired also?)

The train moved out onto the terrific bridge – and stopped. There was an early evening moon and the water, that by day was fluid mud, now glittered silver-black. They lifted the window glass higher, drinking down the wind.

The girl felt a light touch on her thigh.

‘Please!’ said Vipi. He had placed there a green saucer of cashew nuts. He was steadying it with his thumb, while his little finger pressed her leg. She looked up, and gave a gay bob of her head – Oh, merci! – taking just two. The nuts were spiced, with some citrus sharpness, and her saliva gushed excitedly.

Luc scowled, seeing the Punjabi’s touch. But the girl was relaxing, charmed and soothed by open-handedness.

‘Delicieux!’ she smiled, at which the big man beamed, pushing the saucer up her thigh.

‘These also!’ He tipped more nuts from a wax-paper packet, heaping the little dish. The girl laughed; a nut rolled on her lap.

‘You would like to taste it?’ said Vipi to Luc, offering the bag. The boy gave a dismissive smile, instantly gone. He turned away, staring down at the water as though gauging the advisability of entering Varanasi.

‘Luc...?’ the girl tried.

She wanted a treaty between them all, but he’d not respond. Ten minutes later the train was still poised on the Varanasi bridge, and Emilie still longed for a word in French. He kept his sun-reddened face turned away, intent on the deep river; he was trying to punish her. Just sometimes, when she looked to him, she’d like a little support.

The brother handed Vipi a shallow cardboard box. A thick sweet perfume flowed over the sharp edges.

‘Now, these are special,’ began Vipi, glancing at the sullen, unmoving boy. Emilie almost allowed herself to giggle with pleasure; the box could have come from a very good patisserie.

‘What are these?’ she said.

‘Indian!’ he smiled, ignoring the sarcastic twist of the boy’s lip. ‘From Varanasi.’

Barely stirring, Luc glimpsed the contents of the box: sweetmeats, luxurious and costly. Sugar-dusted cubes of praline, rose-coloured cones, solid milks and orange gelatins flecked with gold leaf. The box was large, the price beyond polite enquiry.

He twisted on the hard slats of his window-seat and raised his brow in irony.

‘They’re special, Luc,’ the girl said in English to please the Punjabis. Luc’s fingers dipped into the box. It was awkward tugging the sticky delicacies apart.

‘Please!’ said Vipi’s brother producing a plate of new chased brasswork. ‘From our foundry,’ said Vipi happily, as he lifted sweets onto the shining dish, letting fall a little storm of coconut. ‘In India every man likes brass.’

‘I also have brass,’ said the French boy. ‘From Afghanistan.’

Luc dug in his bag and extracted a folding knife, solidly brazen. The boy held it out, nonchalant and boastful, and the Punjabis watched with mild courteous interest. The mechanism was peculiar, hinged in six places, in such a way that the blade pushed out from the haft like an erection.

‘Le voilá!’

He’d carved a mango somewhere and neglected to wash his clever blade. The mechanism was full of ants now crawling onto his hand; he shook them off in disgust, and dropped the knife.  

‘Never mind!’ said Vipi generously.

Luc fell sullen again, mortified, angry and exhausted. Punjabis and their expansiveness were larger than he could respond to now. He wanted to gaze in private at the water, with which there was no give or take. The Holy River he could simply regard; he was not required to swim in it or drink it down.

After the débâcle of the knife, however, the big Punjabis would not leave him be. Solicitous Vipi placed the entire box of sweetmeats on the boy’s knee: ‘Eat every one.’

Emilie felt him shrivel. She begged him: ‘Luc, accepte.’

The boy shrugged, ‘Non, merci.’

He looked at Emilie accusingly: Get me out of this, will you?

As she rescued him from under the box on his knee, she suddenly thought him very frail, no longer in the least intimidating. We must help you to grow, Emie, he’d once said, India is generous, you have to let it touch you. She almost laughed to remember.

She thought: Poor Luc, it has not touched, but hit you hard.

The train jolted, inching across the river, giving everyone an excuse to look elsewhere. In the sweltering, crammed carriage, the Punjabis stood nearby, grasping the luggage rack. Emilie gasped for air at the window, feeling a little faint. They travelled in silence until the outmarkers of a station crept by: goods sidings, signal boxes, labourers shouldering overlarge tools, trudging by the line. In the carriage began the anxious gathering of possessions that might be run off with the moment the train stopped. The girl stood with difficulty in the press. An elderly man, timid and shrunken by a minor functionary’s life, in frayed whites and spectacles thick as prisms, looked frantically up at the rack to a decrepit suitcase, brown fibreboard, strips of its shiny surface torn away showing the orange pulp beneath. The handle had broken at one end, and was swaddled in string. The little man could not manage; Emilie reached out to tug it down. At once, the big Punjabi hands were there. Vipi lowered the case to the anxious owner, smiling once again at Emilie.

‘Yes, memsahib is a gentle person.’

‘OK,’ said Luc, standing suddenly, ‘OK, it is Varanasi.’

‘May we assist...’ began the brother, but Luc’s glance indicted that Emilie might manage for herself. Diplomatically, she complied.

On the platform with the rucksacks standing between them, the boy unzipped a top pocket and pulled out a guidebook to look up cheap hotels. Emilie stood quietly, letting him take hold of things a little. The crowd seemed to be going in all directions at once, baggage upon shoulders. She saw a suitcase strike a woman a blow to the cheek, saw her flinch and protest.

Emilie looked round; Luc’s address search was taking time. She was drooping, inclined to a line of least resistance, to give him back his self-esteem. She glanced at the train. The Punjabis were travelling on to Jullundur; she had lost sight of them – until the smooth familiar voice came unexpectedly ahead of her. Vipi had pushed through the crush to a barrow and now returned, holding out a dark cake tightly-wrapped in cellophane through which the fruits gleamed.

‘Memsahib, I like you to have this for your suppertime.’

She held out her hand graciously as though she expected nothing less of him. Luc, not raising his head from the book, glanced sideways at the cake in her hand. Vipi dipped into his breast pocket, tucking a business card into the girl’s fingers holding the cake.

‘Write to me at our foundry and I shall like to send you a brass gift.’

Though her strength was flagging, she could flatter still. She tucked her head into her shoulders; a little French head-curtsey:

‘Vous êtes trés gentils.’

He comprehended and beamed.

‘When you return to India, I shall receive you both in Jullundur. I shall receive you both also in Delhi!’

He flicked an eye at the boy, who ignored him, then said to Emilie, ‘Even yourself.’

His warm gaze flowed into her. Beside her, Luc remained stone; the girl suddenly wished that his cropped hair were longer, his ears not so visibly listening.

Then the brother shouted from the carriage: ‘The train is leaving!’

‘You will remember,’ beamed the big brass manufacturer at the little French girl. He waved his head engagingly, then he was past her.

‘Quel poseur,’ muttered Luc, stuffing the book away.

She glared at him flushed and angry. Well? he stuttered in surprise, and what would she think if she saw fatcats distributing tea on the Gare du Nord? That they were Christians, or electioneering, that’s what!

‘Mais, ici c’est l’Inde,’ she said.

Luc was moving away. She lifted her ludicrous great pack onto her bony shoulders and started after him. Still she carried the cake. The crowd climbed onto a footbridge over the lines. Beggars encrusted the bitumened walkway, a gauntlet to be run, but the passengers swept through, Luc marching among them and the girl keeping up. The huge backpack hurt her collarbone, but she could manage very well.

Then the current of people propelled her to the side of the bridgeway, so that she came face to face with a young man standing motionless whom she could not pass without barging back into the flow. She looked at him: in his teens, perhaps; he didn’t look so starved. But, at