Over the next two years, the Brands kept busy with their missionary work. People kept coming to the house to seek their help, and Paul’s parents traveled to outlying villages to bring medical care and share the gospel.
When a gift of money came in from a church in England, Jesse got to work supervising the building of a new chapel in the village of Vazhavanthi. Back in England before Jesse became a missionary, he had been a builder. Paul marveled at how easily his father could supervise building projects and dispense medicine. The new chapel was completed on Christmas Eve, and Paul accompanied his parents to the opening service the following morning.
One of the things that Paul loved to do most of all was read. Sometimes at night in bed he would read by the glow of an insect light—a jar that contained glowworms and fireflies. When combined, the insects gave off just enough light to read by if he held the jar close to the page.
Paul kept his bug-eating sundew plant next to his bed, and at naptime in the afternoons, he would take a fly and drop it on the plant’s green leaves tinged with red. When the fly touched a leaf, the leaf would spring closed, engulfing the fly, and then slowly devour it.
In early 1923, when Paul was nearly nine years old, his mother uttered what sounded to him like the strangest words: “We are going home!”
Paul had no idea what she meant. “But we are home, Mummy,” he retorted.
His mother gave him a hug. “I know, Paul,” she said. “And this will always be your home, but you have another home in England. Imagine that!” Evelyn sounded overly cheerful, and Paul began to wonder what this other home was like.
Paul had never been “home” to England. In fact, he had seldom seen another European. When his mother explained to him about snow and sleet or cars and ocean liners, Paul could scarcely picture such things. But the thing that worried him most about this new home was the prospect of going to an English school.
Paul’s mother had taught him how to read and write, and his father’s science lessons involved the natural things around them: dissecting an ant hill to find the queen ant or standing very still, watching a snake claim a frog as its prey. Paul even did his math outside. Because he found it hard to concentrate while sitting in the house, his mother allowed him to do his math assignments while sitting high in a tree. Evelyn sat underneath the tree teaching Connie. When Paul had finished a set of math sums, he would tie his book to a rope and lower it down for his mother to check his work. If he got the answers all correct, his mother would tie the book back onto the rope, and Paul would hoist the book back up and do more. If he got some wrong, he had to climb down from the tree so his mother could help him correct his mistakes. Either way, Paul enjoyed his tree school much more than he could ever imagine enjoying a desk in a long row of desks, all occupied by boys in identical uniforms.
As much as he dreaded the idea, however, the day came when it was time for the Brand family to leave the hill country and start the long trip to England. Paul knew that his parents had met briefly in England and had then come to India separately as missionaries, where they met again and eventually married. He also knew that it had been twelve years since his mother and thirteen years since his father had been in England. As Jesse packed up the journals and books he was taking with him, Paul searched his father’s face to see whether his father looked any more excited about going to England than he did. Paul did not think so.
Things got even bleaker when Paul’s mother explained that they would stop at Madras on the way, where they would buy Paul a pair of lace-up shoes which he would be expected to wear from then on. Paul looked down at his wide, tanned feet, gloomy at the thought of encasing them in tightly strapped shoes. He had a feeling that wearing shoes was not going to be the worst of it.
Chapter 3
Everything Was Gray
The trip to England was an exciting experience for Paul. Most of all, he loved having his father around twenty-four hours a day. Together the two of them explored every inch of the passenger ship they were traveling on. Since he had never been on a ship, Paul was amazed by everything he saw on board, from the huge galley, buzzing with chefs and kitchen hands all working together to prepare meals for the dining room, to the heat and noise of the engine room, where large generators produced power for the vessel and steam turbines turned the propellers. Corridors were everywhere, leading to all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies. The things that surprised and delighted Paul the most were the faucets over the sink and bathtub in the small bathroom of their cabin. Neither Paul nor Connie had ever seen such items. They were fascinated by the way water flowed from the taps with just a simple turn of the handle. Not only that, but the water coming from the taps was so much cleaner than the hand-drawn well water they were used to in India. And they didn’t have to worry about the threat of guinea worms from this water.
Despite Paul’s expectations when they set sail from India, the month-long trip aboard ship passed quickly. Paul and the rest of the Brand family were gathered on the aft deck when the English coastline came into view. It was unlike anything Paul had ever seen—mostly flat, green land sloping up from the sea, with rolling hills in the distance wrapped in tendrils of mist. When some impressive white cliffs came into sight, Jesse leaned over, tousled Paul’s sandy brown hair, and said, “Those are the White Cliffs of Dover. We’re nearly home.”
As the ship approached the mouth of the river Thames, Paul felt uneasy. He took a deep breath, knowing that in about two hours relatives would be surrounding him. His mother had warned him that the whole Harris family—her side of the family—would want to hug and kiss him. Paul found such behavior odd. Except for his father, mother, and sister, he had never laid eyes on any members of his family. But these relatives all knew him, or thought they did, through the letters his mother sent home, and now they were waiting to barrage him with affection.
Evelyn Brand had seven older sisters, and Paul listened as Connie recited their names: Aunt Grace, Aunt Minnie, Aunt Lily, Aunt Rosa, Aunt Eunice, Aunt Florence, and Aunt Hope. Connie then recited the names of the younger Harris siblings: Uncle Charlie, Evelyn, Aunt Stella, and Uncle Bertie.
Paul nodded. His little sister had all the relatives’ names down pat, even though she had never met or seen any of them before. As Paul thought about his relatives, he couldn’t imagine what it must be like to grow up with ten brothers and sisters.
Connie went on in a singsong voice listing off more information about her mother’s brothers and sisters. “Aunt Rosa married Uncle Dick and then had some children and then she died. So Aunt Stella married him and had some more children. And Aunt Grace and Aunt Minnie and Aunt Lily got married, and Aunt Florence married a man from Australia and moved there. Uncle Bertie and Uncle Charlie got married too. That leaves Aunt Eunice and Aunt Hope at home with Grandma, and, of course, Mama off in India.”
“Please don’t get started on the cousins!” Paul begged, remembering that his mother had told him he had over fifty cousins on her side of the family alone. He’d heard enough about relatives he had never met.
The sight of two tugboats approaching the ship diverted Connie’s attention. The boats were moving up the river Thames and approaching the Tilbury docks. Paul watched as the tugs pulled alongside the ship, tied up to the hull, and began moving the ship toward the dock. It was a tight fit, and Paul marveled at how agile the two tugboats were.
The tugs maneuvered the ship alongside the dock at Tilbury, and thick hawsers (ropes) fore and aft were lowered from ship to dock. The looped ends of the hawsers were placed over the bollards on the dock, and the rope flicked taut as the ship was reeled in and snuggly tied up. The ship was secured, and a gangway was hoisted into place. The journey to England was over, and Paul knew it was time to go ashore and meet his relatives.
At the end of the gangway the Brand family were engulfed in the outstretched arms of relatives. Paul and Connie stayed close together, hoping the ordeal would soon be over. And it was. The excitement, the hugs, and the kisses died down, and it was time to climb aboard the train for the trip to Paul’s mother’s childhood home in St. John’s Wood, an upscale suburb in north London.
As the train pulled away from the station, Paul took in the sights. Unlike in India, everyone on this train had a seat. People weren’t standing or squatting in the aisle, and no one was riding on top of the train or clinging to its side. Paul stared out the window as the train rolled past streets dotted with houses and people, multistory buildings, lampposts, and cars and buses. The thing he marveled at most was the fact that almost everyone he saw both outside and inside the train was white-skinned. Those outside all seemed to be moving in an orderly manner, stopping at street corners. The men were tipping their hats to each other. It was all so different from the chaotic, colorful streets Paul had witnessed in Madras and Bombay.
After the train ride into London, the Brands made their way to Number 3 Cavendish Street. The house Paul encountered there was unlike anything he could have imagined. He counted three stories of windows in the gray stone walls, and he knew from his mother that the place had a basement. Despite its height, the house, sandwiched between two other villa houses, looked impossibly narrow. It was very different from the home he had left behind in India, with its vantage point on the hill and rolling slopes.
Paul smiled as he entered the house. The inside smelled foreign to him—a mixture of lemon and sweet aromas. His mother took his hand and guided him toward the stairs. “Come with us, Connie,” she said. “It’s time to meet your grandmother.”
Paul shrank back. The thought of meeting his grandmother for the first time confused him. His grandfather had died just months before they left India for England, and Paul was not sure whether to appear happy to meet his grandmother or sad that she had lost her husband.
Paul stood at the door of his grandmother’s room on the third floor. A large bed sat to one side, an overstuffed armchair beside it. The rest of the room was cluttered with old mahogany furniture and knickknacks.
Grandmother Harris was over eighty years old and couldn’t walk, and she hardly ever left her room. When she was not lying in bed, she would sit in the overstuffed armchair. She especially liked it when her grandchildren visited her. She would sit and tell them all sorts of stories about her ancestors. Paul had to admit that for her age, his grandmother was in amazingly good health. Her cheeks were rosy and not wrinkled in the way many other old women’s cheeks were. Her voice was strong and clear, and her eyes seemed to twinkle as she talked and told the children stories and quoted whole chapters of the Bible from memory.
The rest of the first day was a blur. About the only thing that Paul remembered afterward was the delicious dessert that night of jam roly-poly and fresh whipped cream.
The next day the Brand children were allowed to explore the house. They started in the attic, where Paul opened the small window and contemplated tying a rope to the frame and letting himself down to the ground. He decided to leave that activity for another day, and he and Connie continued their exploration. The two of them ended up in the basement breakfast room. The room was dark and gloomy compared to other rooms in the house, but it did not have the same formal feeling that most of those rooms had. The maids Dora and Caroline used the room for folding clothes and other chores. A labyrinth of hallways led to the kitchen, pantry, and cellars. While Paul and Connie were in the basement, Cissie, the family cook, fed them extra tidbits of food, as she called them. Paul immediately knew that this was the place where he and Connie would be spending a lot of time. He could see so many possibilities for games, and he proposed one right away. “How about we see who can go completely around the room without touching the floor once?” he asked Connie.
