Heat and Dust (13 page)

1923

It was now no longer Harry who came to fetch Olivia but just the car and chauffeur. Harry was not keeping good health. He said he could not stand the heat nor the food from the Nawab's kitchen. He always had some stomach complaint, even though the Nawab had undertaken the ordering of his meals himself and only the European-trained chef was allowed to prepare them. But none of it seemed to agree with Harry.

He stayed mostly in his own suite of rooms, and Olivia visited him there. But he was not in a good mood with her. Once he even said to her, quite abruptly, "Douglas doesn't know you come to Khatm, does he;" and before she could recover herself, he said further "You shouldn't keep coming. You shouldn't be here."

"That's what Douglas says about you," she replied. "But it seems to me you're not so badly off here really."

She cast a glance at his surroundings to show what she meant. The Nawab had given his best guest suite to Harry. It was a suite of marble rooms with latticed windows looking out over the fountains and rose gardens. It had been charmingly furnished for Harry with some very fine pieces of European furniture. Only the pictures on the walls were Indian. They came from the Nawab's family collection of miniatures and were mostly of an erotic nature - princes sporting in bowers, princesses being prepared for nuptial delights.

Harry said "Have you noticed something? That you're never taken to meet the Begum and her ladies?"

"I have
met them, thank you." She gave a forced laugh: "It was hard going."

"Nevertheless," said Harry, "it's a discourtesy."

“To whom?"

"To you, to you."

They were both silent, then he said: "I've had a quarrel with him about it ... about you. I asked him straight out - "

"What?"

'''Why aren't you taking Olivia - Mrs. Rivers - to meet the Begum?' He-"

"What?" she asked again.

"Oh," said Harry, "you know how he can be when he doesn't want to answer something. He laughs, and if you keep on he makes you feel a fool and prim and stupid for asking such questions. He's very good at that. "

"I don't
want
to meet the Begum," she said, playing with her bracelet. She continued: "I come here to be with you and him of course - I mean, as your friend. Both of you. I can't be friends with them, can I. Not with someone who doesn't speak the same language ... I enjoy being here. I enjoy your company. We have a good time. Don't look like that, Harry. You're being like everyone else now: making me feel I don't
understand.
That I don't know India. It's true I don't, but what's that got to do with it? People can still be friends, can't they, even if it is India." She said all this in a rush; she didn't want to be answered, she was stating her position which she felt to be right. Next she asked: "What is all this about dacoits, Harry? ... Tell me, " she said when he didn't.

He sighed, and after a while he said "Honestly I don't know, Olivia. A lot of things go on and I'd just as soon not know about them. Gosh but I feel ill. Awful."

"Is it your stomach?"

"That too. And this dashed, dashed heat. "

"It's
cool
in here. It's lovely. "

"But outside, outside!" He shut his eyes.

She went to the window. The sun was beating down of course - the gold dome of the Nawab's mosque gave out blinding beams - but the lawns were sparkling green and the fountains, refracting the sun's rays, dazzled with light and water. In the distance, beyond the pearl-grey Palace walls, lay the town in a miserable stretch of broken roofs, and beyond that the barren land: but why look that far?

The Nawab came in - on tiptoe: "I'm not disturbing? Please say if I am and I shall run away at once." He looked with searching concern at Harry, then turned to Olivia:

"How do you find him? What do you think? I have called in doctors but he does not like our Indian doctors. He thinks they are - what do you think, Harry?"

"Quacks."

"Ridiculous," smiled the Nawab. "Dr. Puri from Chhatra Bazaar has a degree from Ludhiana College - he is a very highly qualified person - "

"He's a witch doctor," Harry said.

"Ridiculous," smiled the Nawab again. He sat on the edge of the sofa on which Harry was resting. "We want you to get well again quickly, quickly. We miss you. It is very dull without you - isn't it, Olivia?" And he turned right round now to look at her, as if to gather her up too within the shelter of his fondness and care.

"She's been asking about the dacoits," Harry said.

As the Nawab's eyes were at that moment so fully looking into hers, she saw an expression in them which he might normally have taken care to hide. And for a few seconds longer he searched her face. Then he turned away.

He said in a mild voice: "I hope, Olivia, whenever you wish to know something - if something is strange to you that at such times you will ask not Harry, nor some other person, but myself only." He leaned forward: "Who has spoken to you? What have they said? No you must tell me. If you don't tell me, how can I defend myself against the slanders people may bring against me. You must give me this chance. "

Harry said "What are you asking her to do - bring you reports from the Civil Lines at Satipur? Be your spy?"

The Nawab leaned back again. He lowered his eyes as if in shame. He said in a humble voice" I hope you don't believe this of me, Olivia. "

She cried out at once "Of course not! How could you think it!" and looked reproachfully at Harry.

On Sunday evenings Douglas and Olivia usually took a stroll through the graveyard. They wandered arm in arm along the paths between the graves, stopping to read the inscriptions so that the names of the dead became familiar to them. Olivia called these Sunday excursions their visiting rounds, but Douglas was apologetic about them. He said it was a shame that all the entertainment he could offer her was a walk around a graveyard. “Think of Marcia, " he said ruefully, in gay Paree."

"Silly." She pressed his arm. “Where do you think I'd rather be." .

They were standing by the grave of a young lieutenant - E.A. Edwards of the 54th who had fallen with five of his brother officers at the head of his regiment on 11 May 1857. Aged 29 years. He had become a particular friend because Olivia liked the inscription:
As a soldier ever ready where Duty called him, a dutiful son, a kind and indulgent Father but most conspicuous in the endearing character of Husband
...

”Just like you, darling," she told Douglas, pressing his arm again. After a while she added “Except you're not a kind and indulgent father yet."

“But I will be, "he promised.

"Of course you will."

The fact was, however, that she was not getting pregnant.

She was beginning to be worried: was something wrong? She could not believe it; she was sure that a couple like herself and Douglas were meant to have children, to be the founders of a beautiful line. He too was sure of it. Sometimes she thought it might be due to psychological reasons - because she had been so frightened by all the little babies in the graveyard, dead of smallpox, dead of cholera, dead of enteric fever.

She had brought a few flowers for the Saunders' baby. She knelt to place them at the feet of the Italian angel. When she got up, her face was radiant; she took Douglas' arm and whispered into his ear" I made a wish ... You know, the way they do at Baba Firdaus' shrine on the Husband's Wedding Day." They both smiled, but then she became serious and asked "Douglas, what
is
this thing about dacoits?"

"There is a gang operating around Khatm. They've been terrorising the outlying villages· - making raids and looting and some killings too. "

"How dreadful." She added "But what's
he
got to do with it?"

"Our Friend? That's the point. He's generally thought to be in cahoots with them, getting a rake-off in return for his protection. "

"It couldn't be," said Olivia.

Douglas laughed at her innocence. They walked on. He pointed out a few more Mutiny graves, but she was no longer interested.

She said "But he's a
ruler.
He wouldn't get himself mixed up with a robber gang like that. After all he
is
a prince." When Douglas burst out laughing, she said in a rather offended voice "He even has some sort of English title."

"Oh yes he's got all sorts of things ... Look, here's another one killed on 11 May '57:
Lt. Peter John Lisle of Clifton, Bristol.
He must have fallen in the same action as Lt. Edwards. There was an uprising in Satipur inspired by the then Raja of Satipur who had joined the mutineers: for which he paid very dearly afterwards. Unlike his neighbour at Khatm, our Friend's great-grandfather, who remained 'loyal':
after
making sure which was the best side to remain loyal to. That's how he got his English title and all his other perks. Clever chap. " He carefully picked a few weeds out of Lt. Lisle's grave. There were not many - the graves were extremely well kept. A permanent watchman had been hired, and Mr. Crawford himself came regularly for inspection to make sure the English dead were paid the respect due to them.

"Quite apart from anything else, " Olivia said, watching Douglas pick weeds, "he wouldn't
need
to, would he, join a gang of robbers. It's ridiculous. I mean, after all, he must be a rich man ... Do stop that. "

"But they're weeds."

"Oh goodness, let's go. This place is getting me down."

Douglas got up and dusted the knees of his trousers. Now he looked rather offended; he said "I thought you said you liked it here."

"I like the trees."

She turned and walked away from him down a path. She didn't want him to see how irritated she was both with him and the dead heroes. But she had more to ask him, so she stopped still and waited for him to catch up. "What sort of dacoits?" she asked.

"I don't want to talk about it." Douglas wore his stuffy look. He stared in front of him like a soldier on parade. He was making straight for the exit.

Now it was Olivia who lingered behind. She stopped again by the Saunders' grave and knelt to rearrange her flowers. She remained there. It was getting darker, the shadows were gathering. Sadness filled her heart. She didn't know why: perhaps because she wasn't having a baby? She thought if she had a baby - a strapping blond blue-eyed boy - everything would be all right. She would be at peace and also at one with Douglas and think about everything the same way he did.

"Come along now," Douglas called back to her in a testy voice. "It's getting dark."

She got up obediently but next moment - she didn't know how this happened to her - she sank to her knees again and covered her face with her hands. The angel glimmered white above her. The last birds stirred in the tree before falling asleep; otherwise there was no sound. Olivia wept silently. Then she heard Douglas' footsteps crunching along the path as he made his way back to her. But he too was silent as he stood above her, waiting.

"Sorry," she said after a while. She blew her nose into her handkerchief and wiped her eyes. She got up, but he didn't help her. She looked into his face - she could just make it out in the gathering darkness, glimmering above her like the angel. He stood there stiff and straight; he said " You should have gone to Simla. The heat's getting you down. "

"Is that what it is," she said, glad of the excuse .

* * * *

15June.
One of the town's beggars is a very old woman: at least she looks very old, but this may be due to her life of deprivation. She doesn't ask for alms, but when she is hungry she stands there with her hand stretched out. I never see her talk to anyone. Although she stays in the town: she does not seem to have a permanent pitch anywhere. Sometimes I see her in the Civil Lines area, sometimes by the royal tombs, sometimes in the bazaar or the alleys around it. She shuffles about in her rags, and when she is tired she squats or lies wherever she happens to be and people passing have to walk around her.

For the past few days, however, I have been seeing her in the same place. There is an alley behind our house where our washerman lives (the same alley where I saw the eunuchs dance). A few days ago I took some clothes to him, and I can't be sure of this but I think she may have been lying there at the time. The trouble is, one is so used to her that one tends not to see her. But I definitely noticed her when I went back to fetch the clothes. There was something about the way she was lying there that drew my attention. The lane ends in a piece of land where a man lives in a shed with two buffaloes. Just outside his shed the municipality have put up a concrete refuse dump, but most people see no point in, throwing their refuse within the concrete enclosure so that it lies littered around it, forming a little mound. The reason why I noticed the beggar woman was because she was lying on the outskirts of this mound of refuse. I thought at first she was dead but realised this could not be since no one else in the lane seemed concerned. The animals snuffling around in the refuse also paid no attention to her. Only the flies hovered above her in a cone.

The washerman was not at home and his wife was very busy with her household chores as well as pushing a long wooden pole into the clothes that had been put to boil. When I mentioned the presence of the beggar woman, she had no time to listen to me. Neither had the coalman who lives in an opening in the adjoining wall, nor the man with the buffaloes. They murmured vaguely when I asked how long she had been there. It struck me that perhaps she
was
dead and it was no one's business to take her away. Not mine either, and I went home carrying my laundry.

Later I wondered what had happened to me - that I had not even bothered to go close to see whether she was alive or dead. I told Inder Lal about her, but he was busy getting ready to leave for his office. I wanted him to come with me to see her so I followed him when he started off. He was wheeling his cycle with his tiffin carrier tied to the handlebar. Although he was very reluctant, I persuaded him to enter the alley with me. I saw at once that she was still there. We stopped to look at her from a distance. "Is she alive?" I asked him. He didn't know and was not inclined to investigate; anyway, it was time for him to go, he could not be late to the office. I decided I had to see. I stepped closer - Inder Lal cried "No don't!" and even rang the bell of his cycle as a warning. I went up to the refuse dump, I stood over the beggar woman: her eyes were open, she was groaning, she was alive. There was a terrible smell and a cluster of flies. I looked down and saw a thin stream of excrement trickling out of her. My first thought was for Inder Lal: I made gestures to him to go away, go to his office. I was glad he had remained at a distance. I gestured more wildly and was relieved when he turned away - clean in his much washed clothes and with his freshly cooked food in his tiffin carrier. I walked away, and when I passed the coal merchant, I said "She is ill." He assented vaguely. The washerman could be seen through the arched doorway eating his food in his courtyard. I could not disturb him. In fact, I felt I could not disturb or go near anyone. For the first time I understood –
I felt
- the Hindu fear of pollution. I went home and bathed rigorously, rinsing myself over and over again. I was afraid. Pollution- infection - seemed everywhere; those flies could easily have carried it from her to me.