Jasmine in Paris

1 Nairobi, Kenya, March 1949 The girl took a deep breath. The smell of animal dung in the bomas – the corrals where the natives lived and kept their livestock – mingled with that of parched earth, along with the aromas of cooking, of firewood burning under pots. Since Jasmine had returned to Kenya after six months on the island of Penang in Malaya, there had been no rain. The vegetation was brown and brittle, with compacted earth everywhere. Over the past few days, however, she’d been aware of a change in the air: an intangible expectation but nonetheless real. The herds of zebra and impala seemed imbued with a manic energy, but Jasmine, once her attention fixed on this change, understood perfectly. Rain was coming. It had finally arrived the previous evening, with thunder and lightning striking as the family sat down to dinner. They’d moved outside onto the veranda to witness the quenching miracle. Today, she was accompanying Arthur, her stepfather, as she often did when he went to meet with tribesmen and their elders. Problems were always bubbling just beneath the surface: tribal disputes, petty resentments, cattle thefts and land grabs. But after what she had experienced in Penang, Jasmine had no desire to be drawn into a closer understanding of local politics. When one had been held at gunpoint and believed death was imminent, an argument over a missing goat seemed trivial. In the aftermath of the rain, the hot dusty earth, burned by months of relentless sun, gave off a new, unmistakable scent – the indescribable tang of water meeting dry ground. Jasmine drew it deep into her lungs, feeling a new energy course through her, before turning back to her sketch-pad. She was drawing children at play. There was a plentiful supply of them in this tribal village. Working rapidly and roughly, she tried to capture their postures, their constant movements and changing expressions. Later, at home, she would use these to work on more detailed paintings. It was vital to keep up her painting and sketching, and continue to develop her skills, if she were to gain a place at art school in Paris later in the year. The settlement was surrounded by a wall made of acacia branches, packed with mud. The villagers’ houses were constructed with mud walls, cracked in places like the veins of a leaf, where the mud and straw had dried under the powerful sun. The huts were like natural parts of the land, as though they grew like trees out of the bare earth. Even the roofs were plastered with mud – or possibly dung. So different from the stilted houses with their attap-thatched roofs in Penang. Regardless of gender, the children, like their parents, had closely-shaved heads. Their beauty lay entirely in their facial features and the grace of their bodies. Again, the contrast with Penang was all too apparent. Glossy shining dark hair was the Malays’ birthright. For them to shave it off – unless they became monks – was unimaginable. A memory surfaced of Bintang’s lustrous hair: Bintang was the Malay chauffeur Jasmine had fallen in love with in Penang. As he drove, she would sit behind him in the back of the car, her eyes fixed on the back of his beautiful head, imagining what it would feel like to reach a hand out and stroke it. She pushed the image away before it morphed into the vision of Bintang lying dead on the ground in a pool of blood. Jasmine had to concentrate on the present and the future and forget the past. If she let herself think about Bintang and what had happened in Penang, she would enter a very dark place. She had to protect herself against that. The children were laughing, chasing each other around the boma, small sticks in their hands mimicking the spears their fathers carried. The mothers sat apart, gossiping as they pounded millet in stone bowls. They had no need of hair in order to be beautiful – their white teeth and expansive smiles, the multiple decorative hoops dangling from pierced lobes, were enough. Their clothing was bright, in vibrant contrast to the dull earth tones of their surroundings, so that they seemed to burst out of the virtual canvas in Jasmine’s mind. Vivid oranges, ripe ruby reds, sunshine yellows. As she swung her gaze between her subjects and the paper, Jasmine wondered why she’d once disliked Kenya so much. Now, she was able to see it for itself and celebrate its unique qualities with every mark she made with her pencil. She needed to drink it all in, fix it, not only on the paper, but imprint it on her brain, to offer her sustenance and inspiration when she got to Paris. The sun was fierce, even though far away on the horizon she could see gathering cumulonimbus clouds. More rain soon. Jasmine adjusted her straw hat, an affectionately-preserved relic from her time in Malaya. Glancing up, she saw Arthur walking towards her, so she stowed away her sketch-pad in her satchel. ‘Ready to roll?’ he asked with a smile. ‘Aye aye, Captain. Did you achieve what you needed?’ He nodded. ‘I didn’t actually need anything. Just a routine call. An excuse to get out of the office and talk to people. Far better than reading reports. I get more from half an hour chatting with those men than from reading volumes of reports.’ They climbed into Arthur’s shooting-brake. ‘I’m beginning to understand why you love Africa so much,’ Jasmine said. ‘I know I’ll never love it as much as Penang, but I’m starting to like it.’ Arthur took a hand off the steering-wheel and gave her arm a squeeze. ‘Didn’t I tell you? You just have to open yourself up to it. Let it happen. Drink it all in.’ ‘You’re right.’ She twisted in her seat to look at him. ‘When I was at school last year I was so caught up in missing Malaya that I resented Kenya – simply for being different. I didn’t really give the place a chance.’ She leaned back, extending her legs into the footwell. ‘But after my time back in Penang I now see different can sometimes be good.’ ‘Food for the brain, Jazz.’ He drummed his fingers on the dashboard. ‘Important for an artist to create memories, build a*****e of treasures to draw on.’ ‘Why are you so wise?’ She turned to look out at the endless plain stretching away towards the Ngong Hills. She loved Arthur. Not in the same way she loved her stepmother, Evie – she couldn’t imagine loving Mummy more if she were her actual mother. Her fondness for Arthur was more about closeness of minds. They didn’t talk a lot. They didn’t need to. Jasmine knew he understood her without need for explanation. It was a deep-rooted shared understanding, a spiritual kinship. Perhaps because they both loved Evie so much. The realisation dawned that she’d actually known Arthur longer than Mummy had. He’d been Daddy’s best friend, present in her life from when she was a baby, before Evie came to Penang to marry Daddy, when Jasmine was seven. Thinking about her father made Jasmine’s stomach lurch, knowing she couldn’t delay any longer in telling Arthur the secret that had been gnawing away inside her since she’d returned to Nairobi. Taking a gulp of air, she said, ‘Hugh and I have a brother.’ It was out now and couldn’t be unsaid. Oddly, she felt better already for unburdening herself. She looked at Arthur, wondering at first if he’d heard her. She saw the frown crease his forehead and knew that he had. They were approaching a collection of wooden kiosks on stilts along the side of the dirt road. She turned away from him, gazing at the gourds, melons and bags of white onions hanging from the roofs of these makeshift shelters, wondering what he was thinking. Arthur drove on in silence until they’d passed the kiosks and people gathering to buy fruit and vegetables. When they reached a stretch of open road, he steered off the track and came to a halt. ‘You’d better tell me everything, Jazz. That’s quite something to drop into the conversation.’ ‘His name’s Amir. He’s a few months younger than Hugh,’ she blurted, referring to her nine-year-old half-brother, Hugh. ‘Amir? But that’s the name––’ ‘Yes. Of the boy Mary and Reggie are adopting.’ Mary and Reggie Hyde-Underwood, friends of Evie and Arthur, had been Jasmine’s hosts during the six months she had stayed in Penang. ‘I told you how Amir’s mother was murdered in front of us by that horrible British army officer – but I didn’t tell you who the father was.’ She looked down, twisting her fingers together. ‘I didn’t want to upset Mummy. It was such a betrayal by Daddy.’ Looking up at him she added, ‘When I saw Amir’s mother, I remembered her from that day when I was a child and Mummy and Mary and I stopped at Batu Lembah so I could use the bathroom, and Daddy was with a Malayan lady. Afterwards Mummy cried and cried for days and I thought it was my fault.’ Jasmine fidgeted with the cotton skirt of her dress, pleating it nervously with her fingers. ‘I didn’t understand then what was going on as I was only a child but as soon as I saw the woman again, I knew.’ Arthur took off his glasses and polished them with a handkerchief extracted from his shirt pocket. ‘What makes you think the boy is Doug’s?’ ‘Nayla, Amir’s mother, told me herself. But she didn’t need to. He looks exactly like Hugh, but darker. Like Daddy too. As soon as I saw him, I knew.’ ‘I see.’ Arthur replaced his spectacles. Jasmine saw him clench his jaw and felt a rush of anguish; perhaps she should have kept quiet. She scrabbled in her satchel, pulled out a photograph and handed it to him. ‘Here he is. See what I mean?’ Arthur studied it without comment, then handed it back. ‘Do Mary and Reggie know who he is?’ She nodded. ‘I promised them I’d tell Mummy but, Arthur, I don’t want to hurt her so I’ve kept putting it off.’ ‘Did your father know?’ ‘According to Nayla, she didn’t know herself until she’d left Batu Lembah. She says when she found out she was pregnant her family made her marry an old man in Selangor. He used to beat her, and she had a horrible time. He died just before the Japanese invaded, so she went back to Batu Lembah to find Daddy, but he was dead by then. She stayed on as a housekeeper on the estate.’ Her eyes welled with tears. ‘What shall I do? I don’t want to upset Mummy. Do you think she has to know?’ He took her hands in his. ‘It would be wrong for you and the Hyde-Underwoods, and now me, to know the truth and for Evie to be in the dark. Imagine if one day she found out. How would she feel?’ He reached into the glove compartment, took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one – a rare occurrence. Expelling a slow plume of smoke, he said, ‘I’ll tell her. I’ll find the right moment. Don’t worry. You did the right thing telling me.’ Jasmine closed her eyes, relief washing over her. ‘So, what’s he like, this secret half-brother?’ Her face broke into a smile. ‘Oh, Arthur, he’s adorable. Sweet and gentle and so intelligent. The poor lamb saw his mother shot, so you can imagine what kind of state he was in. He was holding her hand when it happened. But Mary and Reggie are so caring and understanding. And little Frances adores him.’ As she thought of the boy, she felt tears pricking her eyes. ‘I do too.’ That night Jasmine went to her room straight after supper. She lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling, wondering when Arthur would tell Evie about Amir. She was drifting off to sleep when there was a knock at her door and Evie put her head around. ‘You’re still awake. Can I come in for a moment?’ Jasmine pulled herself up and propped the pillows behind her. ‘Arthur’s told me.’ Evie sat down on the edge of the bed and took Jasmine’s hand in hers. ‘It can’t have been easy telling him that. Thank you.’ ‘I was scared to tell you myself. I thought it would be better to come from him. I hope you don’t mind?’