Tigers

by M A Bennett

  Apart from Hari’s polite greeting to me – a pleasure to see you again, memsahib – master and servant spoke, for the moment, in Hindi, which gave me a moment to look about me and absorb the sights and sounds of Jaipur. I remembered this feeling from last year, that there was almost too much to take in, so I zeroed in on details – a stone arch above the traffic; a magnificent horned cow sauntering down the street; a young girl riding a bicycle, her black hair flying out like a flag.

  And then something that didn’t fit – a golden flash in the corner of my eye. I turned my head and stared, but he had gone. His presence imprinted itself on my eyes like a photograph. In the midst of that strange city, someone familiar – someone with blond hair, and, below it, the seas and craters of a face.

  Imagination.

  It had to be.

  I turned my face from the window and clasped Shafeen’s hand. ‘How is your dad?’

  ‘We’re going straight to see him now,’ he replied tensely. ‘We’re nearly at the hospital.’

  6

  The hospital in Jaipur was state of the art.

  In contrast to the India outside of stone and wood and history, this was a bang-up-to-date modern India of metal, glass and science. A harassed-looking but polite doctor directed us down a spotlessly clean corridor to a private room. ‘Will your mother be here?’ I asked Shafeen.

  He shook his head. ‘Hari said she was here all night and until lunchtime. They sent her home to sleep.’

  Shafeen went in first and I followed.

  And there he was.

  Aadhish Jadeja, the boy from the book.

  He lay on the snowy sheets, hooked up to machines that beeped and hissed and whistled. He looked smaller than the tall man I remembered from last year. That smiling, handsome chap who’d towered over me, in his beautifully tailored English clothes with his beautifully tailored English accent, was now laid low. He had a ventilator mask over his mouth, tubes coming out of his nose fixed with Elastoplast and one of those pulse-counter things on his finger. With his sunken face and white hair, he now looked every one of his sixty-eight years. I put my hand on his son’s shoulder. The last time we’d seen a man this age on a bed like this, he’d never got back up.

  Shafeen sat by the bed and held his father’s hand. ‘Father?’ he whispered in a voice so intimate that I felt like I shouldn’t be there. I almost turned to go, but I could see Shafeen willing him to wake, hoping against hope that his presence would be the one missing element of his father’s recovery. His expression was so raw and vulnerable, I knew I had to wait with him for as long as it took … I was actually looking around for a chair when Shafeen unexpectedly got back up. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘He isn’t here anyway.’ Then, avoiding the tubes and plasters, he kissed the one clear patch of his father’s cheek.

  I was reminded, again, of Rollo, and how Shafeen had kissed him goodbye.

  And I hoped against hope that Aadhish would wake up.

  7

  When I’d been to Shafeen’s house (or, more accurately, his palace) the year before, it had taken a good long while to drive out of the city into the hills. I settled myself in for a long haul.

  So I was pretty surprised when, after about five minutes of driving through the Fury Road traffic, we stopped in front of a grand building. Shafeen got out, so I did too.

  ‘What’s this?’ I asked.

  ‘Our house,’ he replied.

  ‘I thought your house was in the hills, where we stayed last year.’

  ‘It is our home in the summer, when it’s much cooler in the hills. But my parents mostly stay in the city during the rest of the year. My father’s on the board at the bank, and it would be one hell of a commute from the mountains.’

  It was a small joke, but it was a joke all the same, and it was good to hear him sounding more cheerful. I looked up at the grand apricot frontage of the mansion, with its elegant columns and frilly arched windows. I still couldn’t quite get my head around the idea of having two houses. I thought again of the parallels with the de Warlencourts. As if he’d heard my thoughts, Shafeen remarked: ‘You might say, if the hill palace is our Longcross, this is our Cumberland Place.’

  Just as Cumberland Place was, in its way, easily as grand as Longcross, this city house was just as grand as the Aravalli Palace in the mountains. The wooden door was beautifully ornate and gave on to a cool atrium of white stone with a plashing fountain in the middle. The fountain had a wide marble bowl, with an enamelled peacock perched on top. As we walked through the courtyard, he regarded us with his beady jewelled eye.

  As soon as we were in the house proper, things seemed a little more normal. Shafeen used his keys and then chucked them on a side table as we entered, just like I might do at home. But this wasn’t like any home I had ever known. The narrow hall opened out into a wide, airy room, with white arches holding up the ceiling and open veranda doors leading out into a long, green garden. Everywhere there were bronze bowls, exquisite rugs and painted vases. It looked palatial and perfect. In fact, the only slightly scruffy thing about it was a pale square of wall above the table where Shafeen had thrown his keys, which was a few shades lighter than the paint on the rest of the wall. Because it was the only imperfect thing in the place, I was curious. ‘What used to be there?’

  Shafeen glanced up. ‘A picture,’ he said. ‘Actually, a photograph.’

  ‘Who took it down?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I didn’t like it,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Was it of you?’ I said sympathetically. I’d done the same in my house – there was a school photo of me from Year 10, when I’d had a very ill-advised peroxide-blonde dye job. My dad hung it on the wall just to troll me, and I kept taking it down. ‘Did you have buck teeth? Bowl haircut?’

  He looked slightly surprised. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, it wasn’t of me.’

  On an ordinary day I would have prodded more, but this wasn’t the moment to be even more annoying than usual.

  I followed Shafeen into the beautiful, airy room. My instinct was to walk right into the garden, but on the veranda I realised that we were not alone.

  8

  A woman was stretched out on a fancy ornamental couch, her beringed hands folded neatly under her cheek.

  Her wrists were shackled in stacks of thin gold bangles. She was wearing a coral-coloured sari and bright drop earrings of gilded filigree, which fell across her cheek and pillow. Just above her nostril was a tiny diamond stud, and the plaited rope of her silver-shot black hair fell almost to the floor. She slept neatly and silently, with the almost imperceptible breathing of the truly knackered. Shafeen smiled for the first time in I don’t know how long. He sat beside the figure and gently shook her shoulder.

  ‘Mother.’

  Princess Himani woke at once. ‘Aadhish?’

  Man, Shafeen got mistaken for his father a lot. But this time I got it. His mother had obviously been dreaming of her husband and had woken to find his younger self before her. ‘It’s Shafeen, Mother. We just arrived.’ Tears started into her dark eyes at once, and she hugged her son so tightly I thought he would break. Covering his face with kisses, she murmured little endearments in Hindi. I didn’t understand a single word, but I guessed what they must mean; tender, secret, toddler words meant for her only son since the cradle. For the second time that day I felt like I was intruding on a private moment. But I needn’t have worried. She sat up straight and smoothed her sari over her knees, then held out her braceleted arms to me. I stooped to hug her and kissed her powdery cheek. She smelled of something nice and floral and comforting – a mum smell that I didn’t even know I remembered. ‘Greer,’ she said, smiling and holding both my hands in hers. ‘I’m so glad you could be with my priy. I mean, my darling.’

  ‘You can call me priy – he’s not here,’ said Shafeen drily. ‘What did the doctor say about him?’

  There was clearly only one him in the house – the prince.

/>   ‘Just what I told you on the phone. He had a heart attack, and he hasn’t regained consciousness.’

  ‘But he’s not … damaged?’

  ‘No. No other organ failure. And the heart itself is recovering well.’ She attempted a smile through the tears – a charming smile, like her son’s. ‘He just won’t wake up. They are trying all kinds of things to bring him round. Injections, drugs, you know.’

  She waved her arm and her gold bangles clashed again. ‘They say he will recover, and that it’s just a matter of time, but it’s just about finding the right trigger to bring him round. They can’t explain it. Perhaps your father is right about Indian doctors.’

  ‘Mother.’ Shafeen put his forehead in his hands.

  ‘What? You know what he would say. Your father always says they are very nice, but he never really trusts them. Not like the ones in England.’

  ‘And if I qualify in medicine? Will he trust me? I’ll be an Indian doctor.’

  She patted his cheek. ‘Of course he will,’ she said. ‘Because you have had a proper British education.’

  ‘I give up,’ he said. But he smiled.

  The princess turned her head. ‘Where’s Hari?’

  ‘Parking the car.’

  ‘Tell the boy to bring tea, then.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Mother, it’s not the Raj. “The boy” is called Prem, and he’s about forty.’

  The princess ignored him. ‘You’d like tea, Greer, I am sure?’

  My stomach wasn’t really sure what time it was. I didn’t know if it wanted breakfast or a Big Mac, but it definitely wanted something. ‘Lovely,’ I said.

  ‘I’m going to splash some water on my face. You two young people wait on the veranda. I won’t be long.’

  Shafeen and I settled ourselves in some chairs at a little white table a bit further along the veranda overlooking the garden. Even in the shade it was pretty hot. The lawn was wide and green and enclosed in this ornamental wall, with decorative tiles set along it at intervals. A peacock, looking like he’d just come alive and hopped down from the fountain, strolled across the lawn, and Shafeen gave him no more attention than he would a pigeon. I stretched out my legs, which were still a bit air-travel wobbly. We’d had some pretty swanky airline seats, but being in one position for ten hours is not kind to the limbs. ‘Do you think there will be food?’ I asked. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘It’s the jet lag,’ he said. ‘And don’t worry. Mother doesn’t mean tea in a mug. She means “proper” tea – English-vicarage-at-four-o’clock tea. Cucumber sandwiches, cakes – the lot. Tea fit for the Queen of England. Or a princess, at least.’

  ‘I always wondered,’ I said, ‘why princess? Why the royal titles?’ I stretched my arms above my head. ‘It was one of the first things I ever heard about you. At STAGS, I mean. That your father was an Indian prince. Before I even knew you.’

  ‘I bet it was,’ he said. ‘Rank is the only currency that matters in that place.’

  ‘Not wealth?’

  ‘No.’ He squinted up at the sun. ‘Look how they treated Nel. It has to be the “right kind of money”. No, my rank is just fine; I’d be the “right sort” if it wasn’t for one thing.’

  I knew what he meant, but he said it without bitterness. I got the feeling he didn’t want to be part of the club any more anyway. He was over that now. And certainly, sitting here under the Indian sun, STAGS, the Abbot and the FOXES all seemed a million miles away. ‘So how come the prince and princess thing?’

  ‘The princely states were part of the old India,’ he said. ‘When the British came they allowed the rulers to remain on their thrones so long as they acknowledged the British as their overlords. Really the princes were maharajahs and maharanis – like my grandparents were – or nawabs, the traditional Indian ranks.’

  ‘Jesus. It’s like that tortuous conversation in the House of Lords all over again.’ I remembered trying to disentangle the differences between marquises and earls and dukes.

  ‘Yes. Basically the simple version is that all those princely states went away after the British buggered off in 1947 and there was Partition – you know, the division of India and Pakistan. All those princely states became the new state of India. Palaces were turned into hotels. Maharajahs became hotel managers, but their titles remained. To remind them of a time when they were once kings.’ There was a distant look in his dark eyes, harking back to that time of princes and palaces.

  ‘Why didn’t your parents keep to the Indian titles?’

  ‘My father chose to style himself as a prince because it sounded more … British.’ Now he looked at me, his gaze back in the present again. ‘It’s my father’s way,’ he said. ‘Always anglicising. Always deferring to the Crown. I am your mother and your father, the British used to say. Father thinks the Raj was the best thing ever to happen to India.’

  ‘And you don’t.’

  He looked away. ‘God, no.’

  His answer was so definite, almost hostile, that I didn’t like to ask why. But there was something I did want to ask. ‘Don’t get mad,’ I said, ‘but what actually is the Raj?’

  ‘Was,’ he corrected. ‘Not is.’

  ‘Was then. I’ve been in India about five minutes and I’ve already heard that word three times. I mean, I know a bit. I’ve seen A Passage to India.’

  ‘You mean a film by a white man about India?’ He sounded quite fierce.

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Have you ever seen any Bollywood movies?’

  I thought about this. ‘I don’t think so, no,’ I admitted. ‘Unless you count Slumdog Millionaire.’

  ‘I certainly don’t,’ he said sternly. ‘That’s just another movie about India by a white guy.’ He shook his head. ‘You know, it’s pretty funny if you think about it. You’re always going on about movies, but you’ve never seen an Indian one.’

  ‘Jungle Book?’

  ‘Now you’re just being funny.’

  I didn’t mind Shafeen telling me off. If he was getting all heated at me, he wasn’t worrying about his dad. I got him back on track. ‘So. The Raj then.’

  He took a breath. ‘From 1858 to 1947 the British ruled India. So Queen Victoria was our sovereign too. Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘The British had made inroads into the country for centuries through trade – the East India Company was an enormously powerful network of merchants. The Indians rebelled against them in 1857, and that’s when the British cracked down. The Crown took over, essentially to protect Britain’s trading interests. There were rich pickings here, fortunes to be made. India was known as the jewel in the Empire’s crown.’ He stretched out his legs to match mine. ‘When the British came they brought a way of life with them, and for some people that never really went away. When my father thinks of the Raj he thinks of tiffin and polo and drinks at the club. That’s why it’s all “mother” and “father” and The Times newspaper with breakfast and tea at four.’

  ‘And what do you think of?’ I asked.

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said, as if he was telling a story, ‘On 13th April 1919, hundreds of Indian families crowded into the Jallianwala Bagh gardens in the town of Amritsar.’ He shot a look at me to see if I registered any recognition, but my mind was a blank. ‘As they flooded into the walled garden, the British army blocked off the entrances behind them.’

  The peacock cried out a warning. I had a sudden premonition that I wasn’t going to like this story.

  ‘With absolutely no notice, the army opened fire on the people gathered. They concentrated their aim on those who were desperately trying to escape. They fired 1,650 rounds of ammunition into the crowd; 1,000 people died, and 1,500 were injured.’

  I couldn’t speak.

  ‘Remember, this was just one year after the First World War. Hundreds of thousands of Indians had fought shoulder to shoulder with the British. But that didn’t co
unt on that day. They were all mown down.’

  I found just one word. ‘Why?’

  ‘The British thought it was the beginning of an uprising – the 1857 rebellion all over again.’

  ‘And I’m guessing it wasn’t?’

  ‘It was a religious festival. The Sikh festival of Baisakhi. There were women there, Greer. Children.’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘There’s one bit I can never get out of my head. People were trapped, desperate to get away. They were clawing their way up the walls to escape the gunfire. And in the middle of the gardens there was a well, Greer. Just like the Paulinus well. Our well, where we gather to chat shit, and where Henry and his posse used to smoke.’

  I thought of that well in the middle of the green and pleasant quad of STAGS. It seemed a million miles away.

  Shafeen bit his lip. ‘In that well in the Jallianwala gardens, they found 120 bodies – 120 people had jumped into the well, in desperation, to avoid the gunfire.’

  The horror silenced me once more.

  ‘The dead were left there overnight, where they’d fallen, because their families weren’t allowed into the gardens to collect them. The British imposed a curfew to prevent another “illegal gathering”.’

  Finally I found my voice. ‘What happened to the guys who did it?’

  Shafeen snorted humourlessly. ‘Nothing. The man who gave the order, one General Dyer, was widely praised for his actions. Lots of people thought he did the right thing. Rudyard Kipling was quoted as saying Dyer had done his duty to the Crown.’

  ‘Rudyard Kipling as in the guy who wrote The Jungle Book?’

  ‘The very same.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I felt, in some weird way, that I should apologise for my people, but that would have sounded mad.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘you asked what I think of when I think of the Raj. That’s what I think of. Amritsar.’