Heat and Dust (6 page)

He had come with two cars, a Rolls and an Alfa-Romeo. All the young men with him piled into the Alfa-Romeo while he himself, Olivia, and Harry sat in the Rolls. Harry was in front with the chauffeur. They drove past the Crawfords' house, past the Saunders', past the church and cemetery. Then they were out in open country. They drove on and on. The Nawab was sprawled next to her on the pearl-grey upholstery, one leg laid over the other, his arm flung carelessly along the back. He didn't say one word but smoked a great number of cigarettes. The country they drove through lay broiling in the sun. It glittered like glass and
seemed to stretch out endlessly. At one point the Nawab reached across Olivia to pull down the blind on her window, as if wanting to spare her the sight of all that parched land. But it was all his land now: they had passed out of Satipur into his state of Khatm. No one said where they were going and Olivia felt foolish to ask. The Nawab's silence disturbed her. Was he bored, or in a bad mood? But in that case why had he insisted that she come? And now, having come, she felt as if she were in his power and had to submit to whatever mood he was in. Her dress stuck to the back of her legs with perspiration and she was afraid that, when she got out, it would be all wrinkled over the seat and look awful.

The car turned from the road and into a narrow track. It was difficult to drive here: they were shaken to and fro and Olivia hung on to the strap rather desperately so that she might not be flung against the Nawab. She was really very much afraid of this, for various mixed reasons. After a while the car couldn't go any further and they all had to get out and walk. The path got more and more narrow and climbed steeply upwards. The Nawab still didn't say anything though sometimes he held some branches aside to make it easier for Olivia to walk. But she still got scratched by thorns and also some insects were biting her; her straw hat had slipped to one side and she was very hot and near to tears. When she looked back, she saw Harry, also very hot, panting painfully behind them. The rest of their party was following them but at a respectful distance. The Nawab led the way, spotless in his white ducks and white-and-tan shoes.

He held aside some brambles and invited Olivia to walk ahead of him. They had arrived in a shady grove around a small stone shrine. It was cool and green here; there was
even the sound of water. There was also a retinue of Palace servants who had already prepared the place for their entertainment. The ground had been spread with carpets and cushions on which Olivia was invited to recline. The Nawab and Harry joined her while the young men were sent off to amuse themselves elsewhere. The servants were busy unpacking hampers and cooling bottles of wine.

Now the Nawab became charming again. He apologised for the journey – “Was it very horrid for you? Yes very horrid – oh our nasty Indian climate! I feel very very sorry for the inconvenience.”

“It's lovely here,” Olivia said, feeling terribly relieved: not only because she was cooler and more comfortable but because he was being nice again.

“It is a very special place,” the Nawab said. “Wait, I will tell you, only first I think we must look after him: just see,” he said, indicating Harry who had flopped down on a rug with his arms extended and breathing rapidly in exhaustion. The Nawab laughed: “What a state he is in. He is a very weak person. Because he is so flabby in his body I think. He is not a proper Englishman at all. No – shall I tell you – I think he is a very
im
proper Englishman.” He laughed at his joke and his eyes and teeth flashed; but at the same time he quite tenderly slipped a cushion under Harry's head. Harry groaned with his eyes shut: “It's killing me.”

“What is killing you? This beautiful spot, sacred to my ancestors? Or perhaps it is our company?” He smiled at Olivia, then asked her “Do you like it here? You don't mind I brought you? I wish Mr. Rivers would have come with us also. But I think Mr. Rivers must be very busy.” He darted the tip of his tongue over his lips, then equally rapidly darted a look at Olivia: “Mr. Rivers is a proper Englishman,” he
declared.

“I know you like him,” Harry said from his prone position.

“Go to sleep! We are not talking with you but with each other . . . I think Mr. Rivers went to one of the English public schools? Eton or Rugby? Unfortunately I myself did not have this chance. If I have a son, I think I shall send him. What do you think? A very good education is to be obtained and also excellent discipline. Of course Harry did not like it at all, he says it is – what did you say it is, Harry?”

“Savage,” Harry said with feeling.

“What nonsense. Only for someone like you because you are improper. Let us try and make him a little bit proper, what do you think, Mrs. Rivers?” he said with another smile at her. He called to the young men who came running up and, at the Nawab's invitation, they threw themselves on Harry, and one massaged his legs and another his neck and a third tickled the soles of his feet. They all, including Harry, seemed to enjoy this game. The Nawab watched them, smiling indulgently, but when he saw Olivia was feeling left out, he turned to her and now he was again the way he had been with his guests at his dinner party: attentive, full of courtesy and consideration, making her feel that she was the only person there who mattered to him.

He invited her to see the shrine with him. It was a small plain whitewashed structure with a striped dome on top. Inside there were latticed windows to which people had tied bits of red thread, praying for fulfilment of their wishes. They had also laid strings of flowers – now wilted – on a little whitewashed mound that stood alone in the centre of the shrine. The Nawab explained that the shrine had been built by an ancestor of his in gratitude to Baba Firdaus who had
lived on this spot. Baba Firdaus had been a devout soul devoted to prayer and solitude; the Nawab's ancestor – Amanullah Khan – had been a freebooter riding around the country with his own band of desperadoes to find what pickings they could in the free-for-all between Moghuls, Afghans, Mahrattas, and the East India Company. In the course of a long career, he had had a lot of ups and downs. Once he had sought refuge in this grove – all his men had been killed in an engagement, and he himself had only just escaped with his life, though badly wounded. Baba Firdaus had kept him hidden from his pursuers and also tended his wounds and nursed him back to health. Years later, when fortune smiled on him again, Amanullah Khan had returned; but by then the place was deserted and no one knew what had happened to the Baba, or even whether he was dead or alive. So all Amanullah Khan could do was to build this little shrine in the holy man's honour.

“Because he never forgot friend or foe”, the Nawab said about his ancestor. “Where there was a score to be settled for good or bad, he did not forget. He was only a rough soldier but very straight and honourable. And a great fighter. The British liked him very much. I think you always like such people?” He looked enquiringly at Olivia. She laughed – it seemed strange to her to be nominated as a spokesman for the British. Then he smiled too: “Yes you like rough people who fight well and are mostly on a horse. Best of all you like the horse. But I think you don't like others so much?”

“What others?” Olivia asked, laughing.

“For instance,” he said, also laughing, “myself.” But then he grew serious and said “But you are a different type of person. You don't like horses, I think? No. Come here please, I will show you something.”

He led her out of the shrine. There was a little spring which came freshly bubbling out of a cleft between some stones. It was the sound of this spring that, together with the bird-song, filled that green grove. The Nawab squatted down and dabbled his fingers in the water and invited Olivia to do the same: “How cold it is. It is always like that. People think it is a miracle that there should be this green grove and this cold water here in this place where there is only desert. Why is it so? Some say it is because of Baba Firdaus and his holy life, others say because Amanullah Khan paid his debt of gratitude. Do you believe that it could be so? That there is a miracle?”

They were side by side. He looked at her intensely and she looked down at her hands which she was dabbling in the water. It was fresh and fast running but so shallow that it just trickled over her fingers. She said “Perhaps a very small miracle.”

Then he slapped his knee and laughed loudly: “Oh Mrs. Rivers, you have a good sense of humour!” He got up and held out his hand solicitously though she managed without him. “Do you know,” he said then, very serious again, “that as soon as I saw you I knew you would be this type of person? Shall I tell you something? It is very funny: I feel I can tell you anything, anything at all, and you will understand. It is very rare to have this feeling with another person. But with you I have it. And something else also: I'm not someone who believes very much in miracles, not at all. I'm too scientific to have such beliefs. But also I think that there are things that
could
be, even if they are miracles. Don't you think so? That this could be? Ah, you see: I knew. You are much more the same type like myself than like – for instance – for instance – Mrs. Crawford.” He laughed, she laughed. He looked into
her eyes. “You are not at all like Mrs. Crawford,” he said while doing this; but next moment he saw he was embarrassing her so he smilingly released her from his intense gaze and, very gently just touching her elbow, propelled her back to where the others were.

Now he was in an excellent mood and the party began to go with a swing. The servants had unpacked the picnic hampers, filling the sacred grove with roasted chickens, quails, and potted shrimps. The young men were very lively and entertained sometimes with practical jokes which they played on each other, and sometimes with songs and Urdu verses. One of them had brought a lute-like instrument out of which he plucked some bittersweet notes. The lute also provided the music for the game of musical chairs they played, with cushions laid in a row. It happened – whether by accident or design Olivia didn't know – that she and the Nawab were the last two players left. Very, very slowly they circled around the one remaining cushion, keeping their eyes on each other, each alert to what the other might do next. Everyone watched, the lute played. For a moment she thought that, as an act of courtesy, he was going to let her win; but quite suddenly – he heard the music stop before she did – he flung himself on the one remaining cushion. He had won! He laughed out loud and threw up both his arms in triumph. He was really tremendously pleased.

8 March.
    It is from this time on that Olivia's letters to Marcia really begin. She had been writing to her before that, but infrequently and not in great detail: and it is only from the day of the Nawab's picnic that she began to write as if it
were a relief to have someone to confide in.

Olivia never told Douglas about the Nawab's picnic. She had meant to as soon as she got home, but it so happened that he had been held up by a stabbing incident in the bazaar that day and was even later than usual. She asked him many questions, and as he loved talking about his work (she wasn't always all that interested), the time just went and she never did get round to telling him about her day. And when he left next morning, she was still asleep. So instead she wrote the first of her long letters to Marcia. I wonder what Marcia can have made of these letters: she was living in France at the time – she had married a Frenchman but they had separated and Marcia was on her own, living in a series of hotel rooms and getting involved with some rather difficult people. Olivia's life in India must have seemed strange and far-off.

I have laid Olivia's letters out on my little desk and work on them and on this journal throughout the morning. My day in Satipur has taken on a steady routine. It starts early because the town wakes early. First there are the temple bells – I lie in bed and listen to them – and then the fire is lit and the kettle put on in the tea-stall opposite. The air is fresh at this hour of the morning, the sky tender and pale. Everything seems as harmonious as the temple bells. I go down to the bazaar to buy curds and fresh green vegetables, and after cooking my meal, I settle down crosslegged on the floor to work on my papers.

Towards evening I sometimes go to the post office which is situated in what used to be Olivia's breakfast room. If it is about the time when the offices close, I walk over to the Crawfords' house to wait for Inder Lal. Both houses – the Crawfords' and Olivia's – once so different in their interiors, are now furnished with the same ramshackle office furniture,
and also have the same red betel stains on their walls. Their gardens too are identical now – that is, they are no longer gardens but patches of open ground where the clerks congregate in the shade of whatever trees have been left. Peddlers have obtained licences to sell peanuts and grams. There are rows of cycle stands with a cycle jammed into every notch.