Heat and Dust

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  But she found the Nawab more tender towards her than she had ever known him. He sent for her every day and made no secret in the Palace of the relations between them. He even began to take her into his own bedroom where she had not been before. She followed him wherever he called her and did whatever he wanted. She too made no secret of anything. She remembered how Harry had once told her “You don’t say no to a person like him” and found it to be true.

  The Nawab was delighted with Olivia’s pregnancy. He often stroked her slender hips, her small flat unmarked abdomen and asked her “Really you will do this for me?” It seemed to strike him with wonder. “You are not afraid? Oh how brave you are!” His surprise made her laugh.

  He never for a moment doubted that the child was his. The question simply did not arise for him so that Olivia – for whom it arose constantly – did not even dare to mention it. He became possessive about her, and every evening, when it was time for the car to take her back, he did his best to delay her, even begging her to stay with him longer. She hated it when he did that, and then it would be she who would plead with him to let her go. And he said “All right, go” but was so downcast that every time it became more difficult for her. Yet she had no choice. She dreaded the hour when it would be time for her to leave and he would say “No. Stay.”

  Once he said “No. Stay with me. Stay always.” Then he said “It has to be, very soon now. You have to be here.” He was very positive.

  She knew that if she asked “And Douglas?” he would answer her with a dismissive gesture: because as far as he was concerned Douglas had already been dismissed.

  One Sunday an English chaplain came from Ambala and held a service in the little church. Afterwards Olivia and Douglas lingered behind in the churchyard; they had not visited it since that day they had quarrelled there. It was very different now. Although the sun was still hot, the trees were no longer dusty but damp and dripping green. Showers of rain had also washed the dust off the graves so that the lettering stood out clearer now and tufts of green sprouted from the cracks in the stone.

  Douglas, striding between the graves, read out the by now familiar inscriptions. He was so engrossed that he went too quickly for Olivia and she had to call out to him. He looked back and saw her come towards him in her pale mauve dress with flounced skirt and matching parasol. He hurried towards her and embraced her right there among the graves. They walked on together arm in arm. He told her about all these young men buried here, and then about other young men, his own ancestors, lying in graveyards in other parts of India. “Great chaps,” he called them. There was Edward Rivers who had been one of Henry Lawrence’s band of young administrators in the Punjab; John Rivers, a famous pig-sticker, killed in a fall from his horse at Meerut; and a namesake, an earlier Douglas Rivers who had died in the Mutiny. He had been present at the storming of the Kashmere Gate in which the Hero of Delhi, John Nicholson, also fell. Douglas’ ancestor died of his wounds just a day after Nicholson and was buried very near him in the Nicholson cemetery at Delhi. The way Douglas said that made Olivia tease him: “You sound as if you envy him.”

  “Well,” said Douglas, feeling a bit sheepish, “it’s not a bad way to go . . . Better than to drink yourself to death,” he said, attempting a lighter tone. “Some of them did that too. It can get very tedious if you’re stuck out too long in a district all on your own.”

  “With only a few million Indians,” Olivia could not refrain from saying – but just then they reached the Saunders’ angel and Douglas was very concerned to take her attention off that. He pressed her head against his shoulder and did not release her until they had passed that spot and reached Lt. Edwards. Here he made her stop because that grave was shaded by a tree. They stood under its shelter.

  “Kind and indulgent Father,” Douglas read. He turned to kiss Olivia and murmured to her “Would you prefer a soldier or a civilian?”

  “How do you know it will be a he?”

  “Oh I’m pretty sure . . . And he’ll do something decent too, you’ll see.” He kissed her again and ran his hands along her slender hips and her flat abdomen. “You’re not afraid?” he whispered. “You’ll really do this for me? How brave you are.”

  He thought she was upset because of the proximity of the Saunders’ grave. Or perhaps the whole place had a bad effect on her – graveyards were morbid, of course, and especially for someone in her condition. As so often in his dealings with her – so much finer, frailer, he felt, than he or anyone he knew of – he accused himself of being a clumsy oaf and could not get her out of the place fast enough.

  20 August. Douglas did have a son – not by Olivia but by his second wife, Tessie. This son (my father) was born in India and lived there till he was 12 when he was sent to school in England. He never returned to India: by the time he was old enough to do so, there was nothing for him to return to. Instead he went into the antique business. At the time of Indian Independence Douglas, who had just reached retirement age, went home along with everyone else. He and Tessie had talked it over seriously whether they should go or stay on to spend their years of retirement in India. Several of their acquaintances had decided to stay on – those who, like themselves, had spent the best part of their lives here and loved the place above every other. Tessie’s sister Beth and her husband had bought a charming cottage in Kasauli to settle down there, they thought, for the remainder of their lives. However, after some years they found it was no longer as pleasant for them as it had been. The Indianisation of India was of course highly desirable, said the Crawfords – ever fair-minded and seeing all sides of a question: but it was desirable for Indians rather than for the Crawfords themselves. They too came home and bought a house in Surrey near enough to Douglas and Tessie for frequent visits. After they were both left widows, Grandmother Tessie moved in with Great-Aunt Beth, bringing her own favourite things so that there was some duplication of brass table tops and ivory elephant tusks. For as long as possible they remained in touch with friends in India – the Minnies, for instance, lived in Ooty – but slowly, one by one, everyone died or grew too old to keep up contacts. I would have liked to look some of them up now that I have at last got here, but I don’t think there is anyone left.

  I tried to tell Chid some of all this, thinking it might interest him, but it doesn’t. His own family never had any connection with India, and as far as he knows he is the first member of it ever to come out here. He is now very anxious to leave. But his health doesn’t seem to be getting any better, and yesterday I persuaded him to come to the hospital with me. Dr. Gopal, the Medical Superintendent, examined him and said at once he would like to admit him. Chid agreed – I don’t know what he had in mind, perhaps he saw himself resting amid cool sheets in a whitewashed room, tended by nuns. The reality turned out different. The doctor called one of his subordinates and questioned him about empty beds. There weren’t any but one was expected to be free within an hour as an old man was dying. He did die within that time and I helped Chid to the ward and into the bed.

  27 August. I visit Chid every day, both to keep him company and to bring him food. It is impossible for him to eat the hospital food which is doled out by an orderly passing along the ward with a bucket. The patients sit in rows holding out bowls into which are thrown lumps of cold rice and lentils and sometimes some vegetables all mixed up together. Only people who are completely destitute will accept this food, and it is indeed served up with the contempt reserved for those who have nothing and no one.

  There is one such poor man lying with a broken leg and ribs next to Chid. He has told me that he came to Satipur from his village some years ago and has been making a living by selling fruit from a basket. He had always been hoping to earn enough to send for his family, but this has not happened so far and he reckons himself lucky to make enough to feed himself from day to day. He usually sleeps, together with other destitutes, under one of the old gateways leading out of Satipur. That is where he will go back to when his leg and ribs are mended. I
t is unfortunately taking a long time. What bothers him most is his inability to get up and around – his leg has been strapped up in a contraption – so that he is dependent for his natural functions on the hospital sweepers. At times they come and push a bedpan under him, but since he is not in a position to pay them even the humble sum they exact, they are not too punctual about providing this amenity nor about removing it from under him. Once I came and found him in great distress because he had been left there for several hours. I removed it from under him and went to empty it in a bathroom. The state of these latrines has to be seen to be believed, and when I came out I did feel a bit sick. I tried to hide this so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but it seems I had already done enough. Everyone looked at me as if I had committed some terrible act of pollution, and the fruit man himself also shrank from me so that when as usual I offered him some of the food I had brought he refused it.

  Chid takes no notice of his surroundings at all. In fact, he does his best to shut them out completely. Whenever I visit him, he is lying with his eyes tightly closed and sometimes tears trickle out of them. I have already written to his family to ask for a ticket home for him, and now we are both waiting for it to arrive and for his health to improve sufficiently for him to travel. Meanwhile he wants to know and see nothing; just to lie there and wait.

  I still don’t know what happened to change him this way. All he will ever say – the only explanation he gives for his changed feelings towards India – is how he can’t stand the smell. I don’t even know what’s wrong with him physically, what disease it is he has got. I asked Dr. Gopal and he couldn’t tell me very clearly either. There is something wrong with Chid’s liver and something else with his kidneys and altogether his insides are in a terrible state. It is due, said Dr. Gopal, to bad wrong food and to bad wrong living.

  “You see,” he tried to explain – busy as he is, he always welcomes English conversation – “this climate does not suit you people too well. And let alone you people, it does not suit even us.” He explained to me that not only Westerners but even most Indians suffer from amoebic dysentery. They hardly know it, for they also suffer from many other diseases. He became eloquent as he enumerated all the diseases of India. It was indeed a terrible roll call, and by the time he came to the end of it (if there is an end), he said “I think perhaps God never meant that human beings should live in such a place.”

  Here I contradicted him, and we had a discussion on this theme in English. He has already told me that, while at medical college, he was a member of the Debating Society and distinguished himself at several inter-University debates. He is indeed skilled at spicing truth with humour, and this is how he concluded our discussion:

  “Let us admit for the sake of our argument that we Indians are fit to live here – where else are we fit for?” he asked, leaving a pause for me to laugh in. “But no one else,” he said. “None of you. You know in the bad old days you had your Clubs and they were reserved for British only? Well now it is like this that we have our germs and we have reserved these for ourselves only. For Indians only! Keep out!” He threw himself back in his chair to laugh and was still laughing as he turned to jab a needle into an emaciated arm that was held out to him.

  Of course to some extent I have to admit he is right: certainly as far as Chid is concerned. Obviously Chid’s body is not made to live the life of an Indian holy man. And it is not only physically that Chid is out of action, but in other ways – spiritually – too. Do the doctor’s strictures apply to the European soul as well as our bodies? I don’t want to admit it; I don’t want it to be so. There have been people in the past who stayed on here of their own free will. After the Mutiny an anonymous Englishman continued to live all by himself outside the gates of Lucknow, doing religious penance. Another anonymous Englishman was seen for years moving around the bazaars of Multan dressed up as an Afghan horse dealer (no one ever discovered who he was or where he came from, and eventually he was found murdered). And what about the woman missionary I had met on my first night in Bombay? She said she had been in India for thirty years and was prepared to die here if called upon to do so. Yes, and what about Olivia? It seems ludicrous to bracket her with religious seekers, adventurers, and Christian missionaries: yet, like them, she stayed.

  I still don’t think there was anything very special about Olivia; I mean, that she started off with any very special qualities. When she first came here, she may really have been what she seemed; a pretty young woman, rather vain, pleasure-seeking, a little petulant. Yet to have done what she did – and then to have stuck to it all her life long – she couldn’t have remained the same person she had been. But there is no record of what she became later, neither in our family nor anywhere else as far as I know. More and more I want to find out; but I suppose the only way I can is to do the same she did – that is, stay on.

  1923

  The landscape which, a few weeks earlier, had been blotted out by dust was now hazy with moisture. The view from Harry’s window was shrouded by clouds so that everything was seen as through tears that did not fall. The resulting air of sadness matched Harry’s mood.

  He told Olivia “I had a long talk with him yesterday. I told him I wanted to go home, that I had to . . . And he agreed. He understood completely. He said he’d make all the arrangements, I was to travel first class, everything must be – tiptop.”

  Olivia smiled: “I can hear him say that.”

  “Yes.” Harry too smiled through his sadness. “And he made me a declaration.”

  “I think I can hear that too.”

  “Yes you can. Of course it’s always the same – but Olivia it’s always true! Don’t you feel that? That when he holds his heart the way he does it’s because he really means it? . . . He talked about you too. Oh don’t think I feel bad about anything. Good Lord, what sort of a person would I be then, what sort of a friend? I wouldn’t be – worthy of him, would I.”

  Olivia said “Where is he?”

  “In Indore. Yesterday he heard from Simla – they are threatening an enquiry and he sat up all night composing telegrams and this morning he drove off to Indore to consult his lawyers.”

  “Is it true, Harry? Is he involved with them?”

  “Goodness knows. As far as I’m concerned, he’s always right and they’re wrong. I hate them. They’re the sort of people who’ve made life hell for me ever since I can remember. At school and everywhere. Well as long as they stick to bullying me – but when I see them doing it to him – and here – no, that’s unbearable. And he won’t bear it. They’ll find out. You should have heard him last night. Wait till my son is born, he said; then they’ll laugh from the other side of their mouths.”

  “He said that?”

  She turned from the window and stared at him so that he knew at once that he had said too much.

  “What else did he say?” she asked. “No, now you have to tell me. I have to hear.”

  “You know how often he says things he doesn’t mean. When he’s excited like that.” But the way she went on staring at him, he had to continue: “He said when this baby was born, Douglas and all were going to have the shock of their lives.”

  “Did he mean-the colour?” Then she said “How is he so sure?” She looked at Harry: “You are too, aren’t you . . . You think he’s a – irresistible force of nature –”

  “Don’t you?”

  She turned back to the window. She stuck out her hand to see if the rain had started. It had, but so softly that it was both invisible and inaudible, and everything – the garden pavilions, the pearl-grey walls, the mosque – seemed to be dissolving of its own accord like sugar in water.

  “I’ve been thinking about having an abortion,” she said.

  “Are you quite crazy?”

  “Douglas is terribly happy too. And making all sorts of plans. There’s a christening robe in their family that was worked by some nuns in Goa. His sister has it at the moment – her littlest one was christened in it a cou
ple of years ago, at Quetta where they’re stationed. But now Douglas is going to send for it. He says it’s awfully pretty. Cascades of white lace – very becoming to the Rivers’ babies who are very very fair. Douglas says they all have white-blond hair till they’re about twelve.”

  “Babies don’t have hair.”

  “Indian babies do, I’ve seen them. They’re born with lots of black hair . . . You have to help me, Harry. You have to find out where I can go.” When he stood dumb, she said: “Ask your friend the Begum. It’ll be easy enough for her.” She laughed: “Easier than poisoned garments, any day” she said.

  31 August. Today, as I came down from my room, a woman standing outside the slipper shop greeted me like an old acquaintance. I didn’t remember meeting her but thought she might be a friend of Inder Lal’s mother; perhaps one of the group of women who had accompanied us on the Husband’s Wedding Day. When I walked away through the bazaar, she followed me. It now struck me that perhaps she had been waiting for me outside the shop; but when I stood still and looked back at her, she made no attempt to catch up with me. She just nodded and smiled. This happened several times. She even made signs at me to walk on; all she seemed to want was to walk behind me. I had intended to go all the way to the hospital, but I felt strange being followed, so when I got to the royal tombs I turned aside and made my way to Maji’s hut. This time when I looked back, the woman was not following me but was walking straight on as if she had no further business with me.

  Maji was in the state of samadhi. To be in that state means to have reached a higher level of consciousness and to be submerged in its bliss. At such times Maji is entirely unaware of anything going on around her. She sits on the floor in the lotus pose; her eyes are open but the pupils turned up, her lips slightly parted with the tip of the tongue showing between them. Her breathing is regular and peaceful as in dreamless sleep.