Zemindar (64 page)

One further blow was to strike us before we were taken to the rooms Mr Khan had apportioned us. We were parted from Toddy and Ishmial.

‘It is because of
zenana
,’ Mr Khan explained with the apologetic shrug of his fat shoulders. ‘I myself am enlightened man and think little of such matters, but my ladies, and some of the other men, if they were to see your servants coming and going here, in this part of the house, there would be questions, and then trouble.’

‘But then, what will happen to them?’ Charles asked. ‘We want them near us, of course.’

‘Oh, of course, of course, they will be near you; in the servants’ quarters. I will treat them just the same as I treat my own. They too are guests. No one will be troubling them, that I am telling you.’

‘It’ll be all right, sir,’ Toddy said gruffly. ‘We’ll make out, and we’ll be ’ere when you wants us.’

‘Of course!’ Wajid echoed heartily, ‘very much all right!’ But I think we all reached our lowest ebb as Toddy and Ishmial turned and walked down the stone staircase away from us. I was worried about Toddy in particular; he certainly was as brown as a
bunnia
as he had once pointed out, but I had no confidence that his disguise would bear up to a close scrutiny, and I hoped he would allow Ishmial to do the talking. I knew that he had lived among natives for many years, but still, I was very uneasy.

We descended another staircase, traversed several cavernous corridors and at last Mr Khan opened a door and ushered us into our apartment, a suite of three lofty rooms, opening one off the other in a line, with, at the end of them, the usual
gussulkhana
or bathroom.

We were at ground level again, and each of the rooms opened on to a small courtyard completely enclosed by the blank, windowless walls of the house, in the centre of which stood a hideous marble fountain and a couple of lemon trees. There were no doors between the rooms, merely high Moorish archways cut in the walls; chandeliers of great splendour depended from the ceilings of the three large rooms (also candleless, I noticed gloomily) but, apart from these, several fine Persian carpets and a few bolsters, the rooms were empty. Later, three string beds were brought to us and, as a concession to Western habits, three circular cane stools. The rooms were cool, however: huge frilled
punkahs
flapped dangerously near the chandeliers, operated by coolies sitting on the inner corridor, for I saw the ropes disappear through holes in the walls in that direction. Of course, if this section were truly part of the
zenana
, no
punkah
coolie could sit on the ladies’ verandahs, and later, when we had time to examine our surroundings, we noticed that the courtyard could not be overlooked by any curious eyes. We were certainly private, and by the time Wajid Khan, having besought us to make ourselves comfortable and promised us food, had departed, I realized that we were perhaps too private.

We discarded our dirty
burqhas
, washed and, when the food arrived carried on a huge brass tray by a thin female servant we attacked it with enthusiasm. Then, since it was the very hottest time of the day, we were thankful to lie down on the carpets and sleep until the cool of the evening restored us.

Wajid Khan came at nightfall to assure himself that we were comfortable. He was followed by the same servant girl, bearing a platter of elaborate sweetmeats donated by his wife; but nothing was said of our departure and, after a few moments of polite platitudes and shaky syntax, he left us.

The first two or three days passed quietly and not unpleasantly, despite our anxiety. Charles was inclined to grumble at being confined to the tiny courtyard for his exercise, and Emily discovered bugs in her bed, but I think we were all too worn out, physically and emotionally, to have any urgent appreciation of our position. Each evening Khan came in most punctiliously; and, each evening, he said that he was ‘Still thinking, but tomorrow, undoubtedly tomorrow, something will be occurring to me.’ Apart from him, we saw no one but the servant girl, and morning and evening a sweeper woman who slipped into the courtyard through a small door in the wall to perform her unenviable duties and refill the great earthen jar of water. Twice a day food was brought us, delicious food: curries of various sorts, vegetable dishes and unleavened breads of many different types, and in the evening fruit and nuts as well. Our clothes were taken away and washed, and it was purest luxury to know ourselves clean again. I could have been quite content in Mr Khan’s household but for the feeling, at first unadmitted to, that we were prisoners.

We used to go to bed early. When darkness fell, the servant girl would bring us a couple of lanterns but, since the wicks were never trimmed, they smoked; so it was pleasanter to put them out and retire. In any event, as we discovered on the first morning, sleep in an Indian household is impossible after sunrise. The early hours are the favoured time to strive for musical accomplishment, and we were always woken at dawn by hideous wailings on stringed instruments, often accompanied by dirgelike nasal singing that went on and on interminably. For though the world could not see us, we could hear it, and at night I would lie on my string cot and listen to all the varied noises of the huge household and, beyond it, the constant, hive-like murmur of the city—and try to diminish my sense of isolation by distinguishing and naming to myself the various cacophonies of bazaar and kitchen and stable and street. At night, the doors into the courtyard were left open for the sake of coolness and I could watch the stars change position as I waited for sleep to come, but I never caught the glimmer of a lantern other than our own, or glimpsed the gusty flicker of a torch, so immured were we in the depths of the sprawling house. At first, our absolute isolation had spelt safety but, as the days passed, it became increasingly menacing. It was as though we were at the bottom of a deep black well, could hear but not be heard, could look upwards and only the stars could return our gaze.

On the seventh evening Wajid Khan sent word that he could not visit us as usual since his wife was ill.

The message was brought by the servant girl, who had been put at our disposal because of her slight knowledge of English. She was a pathetic little creature whom I guessed to be a half-caste on account of her yellowish complexion and dark grey eyes. We were informed that she had spent the first few years of her life in a mission in Agra (hence the English) but, beyond that, she would tell us nothing of herself or how she had come to find employment in a Muslim household.

‘It is the smallpox,’ she added, when she had conveyed the message about Wajid Khan’s wife verbatim, her eyes wide with apprehension. ‘It will sweep through the house now like an evil wind. Many will die!’

‘Smallpox? Are you sure?’ Charles’s voice was sharp with alarm.

‘Already one has died. One of the servants. It is smallpox!’

The girl glanced quickly from face to face, then backed out of the room salaaming, leaving us alone to face this new peril in our own way.

‘We must get out,’ Charles said quietly when the door had closed behind her. ‘It is suicide to stay here. If one of us were to fall ill, what chance would we have of recovery without a doctor or civilized attendance, or even medicines?’

‘Quite. But how?’ I asked. The door the girl had used was our only communication with the rest of the house, and we had learnt that a large man with a curved sword in his belt always locked it behind her. There was the other little door in the courtyard, but it too was locked, as I had discovered.

We discussed our predicament from every angle, wracking our brains for some solution to the problem; not for the first time I cursed the fate that had separated us from Toddy and Ishmial. If we could only get word to them, then perhaps they could obtain help for us from the Residency. Sometimes it seemed that they must surely go to the Residency on their own initiative to report our whereabouts, but in cooler moments I knew this to be unlikely. After all, no harm had come to us, and we had no real justification for thinking that any would. Not until now.

When Wajid Khan failed to appear on the third evening running, we sent him a message by the girl, saying we would like to speak to him. He made no response, so Charles wrote a note on the flyleaf of his Bible. The girl—her name was Ajeeba—assured us that she had delivered it, but we received no answer. Several more days passed, days of such acute frustration and anxiety that I do not care to remember them. Closely confined, ignorant of all that was taking place around us, ridden by unformed fears, the three of us gave way to nerves and bickered and squabbled among ourselves like children. Everything was an annoyance. Of course the heat was now almost unbearable. The rains were due to break any moment; the sky was leaden and heavy with unshed water, but still the searing wind of the Indian plains, the
loo
, kept us indoors even during the early mornings, so hot it was, so laden with cinder-like particles of dust that stung the flesh and burnt the eyes.

But whatever the inclemency of the climate and the uncertainty of our position, we did not make sufficient effort to behave with dignity or calm, and at length the only way we could keep the peace was by keeping to ourselves. I would retire to one room with Marcus Aurelius, Charles to another with his Bible, and Emily would sit on her little stool with Pearl, crooning and crying until her loneliness drove her to one of us for comfort. Poor Emily; she had so few resources, and always sooner or later she would hark back to Hassanganj, and how happy she had been there, and how she was sure that Oliver would have found some way out for us.

‘If he had done his duty by us, we wouldn’t be here now!’ I snapped back more than once, and Emily would sigh and say, ‘I can’t think why you dislike him so much. He was always so kind, and I remember thinking, when we saw his portrait in Calcutta, I thought I should be frightened of him. Oh, I do wish he were with us.’ And she would wander away to annoy Charles.

At the close of a day so stifling that I had lacked even the energy to open my book, but had lain on my bed half dead with heat and
ennui
, Ajeeba told us that the
Begum
was dead.

She was weeping quietly as she spoke, standing in the warm light of the lantern with the big brass tray containing the remains of our meal in her arms. A very hot curry had rendered me a little less inert and, impelled more by curiosity than sympathy, I decided to try to draw her out. We did not know which wife it was that had died, and I had an uneasy remembrance of Ishmial telling us that we would be safe so long as the
Burra-begum
spoke for us. I did not want to ask a direct question, so resorted to circumlocution.

‘I am sorry to see you weep. The lady must have been a kind mistress to you.’ The girl nodded, sniffing. ‘Have you worked for her long?’

She nodded again. ‘And my mother also.’

‘Your master must be very sad. But she was not his chief wife, was she?’

‘Of course she was!’ The girl was indignant that I should be so ignorant, or perhaps because of professional pride. I suppose there was more honour in serving the chief wife in such a household than any of the others.

‘She was the mother of the heir, as well. She … She …’ The girl gulped. ‘She had promised me a dowry. Because my mother died in her service and I have no father. She had promised it to me!’

‘And now what will happen? Will you lose your position?’

‘There are other
begums
.’

‘Will they give you your dowry?’

The girl shook her head violently, and I knew what had elicited the tears.

‘I am sorry to hear that,’ I said politely.

She looked me directly in the eye, and said with malice, ‘You will be in trouble now too. It was the
Burra-begum
, my mistress, who pleaded for you, because of what you had done for her son. And she sent me to wait on you; that is why I am here now. But the next wife is jealous for her own son. She has no cause for gratitude to you.’

‘How do you mean pleaded for us?’ I asked coldly. ‘One would think we were in some sort of danger, but Wajid Khan would never hurt us. We are
rakhri band
.’

‘Huh!’ grunted Ajeeba. ‘That was before! Now he is frightened. He thinks that when the Maulvi, and the others, know that he has sheltered
feringhis
in his house they will be very angry. He is frightened for his property. The Maulvi has greedy eyes for land. He is doing all other things like the other great men of Oudh. He is raising levies on Jamnabad, many men are to fight for him, many are already here, in the back courtyard; they sit and smoke and tend their weapons and say what dreadful deeds they will do when the fighting starts, and it will start very soon now. It will be worse than Meerut, worse than Delhi, it will be much worse, for there will be many more men, more sepoys, and the
talukhdars
and
zemindars
will lead them, so that it will be like the old times. Such killing!’ And the wretched creature licked her lips and forgot her tears.

‘The Maulvi?’ That must be the man whom Oliver had mentioned as being the neighbour of Wajid Khan near Fyzabad; the man from whom Wajid had probably learnt more than he cared to tell of the
chapattis
, the Maulvi of Fyzabad.

‘Yes,’ the girl went on, after a moment. ‘All things my master does like the other great men of Oudh, and more, much more, for he is one of the greatest. But when they find that he has sheltered the infidel, then who knows what will happen? He has much to lose, and what man wishes to risk his possessions for strangers?’

‘We do no one any harm,’ I pointed out reasonably. ‘And it was Wajid Khan himself who wished us to stay here until he had arranged a way of taking us to the Residency. We have nothing to fear.’

‘So?’ But the girl was not convinced. ‘There have been other
feringhis
, in the bazaars there is much talk of them, who also have taken refuge in the houses of our people, and then one day, who knows why, word gets around, trouble is caused, then they are led out and … zut!’ She drew her finger across her throat. ‘They are dead!’