The fact that she was a Muslim had a strange fascination for him. Here too he differed from the Raja Sahib who, as an educated nobleman, had transcended barriers of caste and community. But for Bakhtawar Singh these were still strong. All sorts of dark superstitions remained embedded in his mind. He questioned her about things he had heard whispered in the narrow Hindu alleys he came from – the rites of circumcision, the eating of unclean flesh, what Muslims did with virgin girls. She laughed, never having heard of such things. But when she assured him that they could not be true, he nodded as if he knew better. He pointed to one of his scars, sustained during a Hindu–Muslim riot that he had suppressed. He had witnessed several such riots and knew the sort of atrocities committed in them. He told her what he had seen Muslim men do to Hindu women. Again she would not believe him. But she begged him not to go on; she put her hands over her ears, pleading with him. But he forced her hands down again and went on telling her, and laughed at her reaction. ‘That’s what they did,’ he assured her. ‘Your brothers. It’s all true.’ And then he struck her, playfully but quite hard, with the flat of his hand.
All week, every week, she waited for her day in Mohabbatpur to come round. She was restless and she began to make trips into the nearby town. It was the usual type of district town, with two cinemas, a jail, a church, temples and mosques, with a Civil Lines, where the government officers lived. Sofia now began to come here to visit the officers’ wives whom she had been content to see just once a year at her dinner party. Now she sought them out frequently. She played with their children and designed flower patterns for them to embroider. All the time her thoughts were elsewhere; she was waiting for it to be time to leave. Then, with hurried farewells, promises to come again soon, she climbed into her car and sat back. She told the chauffeur – the same man who took her to Mohabbatpur every week – to drive her through the Police Lines. First there were the policemen’s barracks – a row of hutments, where men in vests and shorts could be seen oiling their beards and winding their turbans; they looked up in astonishment from these tasks as her saloon car drove past. She leaned back so as not to be seen, but when they had driven beyond the barracks and had reached the Police Headquarters, she looked eagerly out of the window again. Every time she hoped to get a glimpse of him, but it never happened; the car drove through and she did not dare to have it slow down. But there was one further treat in store, for beyond the offices were the residential houses of the police officers – the Assistant Deputy SP, the Deputy SP, the SP.
One day, she leaned forward and said to the chauffeur, ‘Turn in.’
‘In here?’
‘Yes, yes!’ she cried, mad with excitement.
It had been a sudden impulse – she had intended simply to drive past his house, as usual – but now she could not turn back, she had to see. She got out. It was an old house, built in the times of the British for their own SP, and now evidently inhabited by people who did not know how to look after such a place. A cow was tethered to a tree on what had once been a front lawn; the veranda was unswept and empty except for some broken crates. The house too was practically unfurnished. Sofia wandered through the derelict rooms, and it was only when she had penetrated to the inner courtyard that the life of the house began. Here there were children and noise and cooking smells. A woman came out of the kitchen and stared at her. She had a small child riding on her hip; she was perspiring, perhaps from the cooking fire, and a few strands of hair stuck to her forehead. She wore a plain and rather dirty cotton sari. She might have been his servant rather than his wife. She looked older than he did, tired and worn out. When Sofia asked whether this was the house of the Deputy SP, she shook her head wearily, without a smile. She told one of her children to point out the right house, and turned back into her kitchen with no further curiosity. A child began to cry.
At their next meeting, Sofia told Bakhtawar Singh what she had done. He was surprised and not angry, as she had feared, but amused. He could not understand her motives, but he did not puzzle himself about them. He was feeling terribly sleepy; he said he had been up all night (he didn’t say why). It was stifling in the hotel room, and perspiration ran down his naked chest and back. It was also very noisy, for the room faced on to an inner yard, which was bounded on its opposite side by a cinema. From noon onward the entire courtyard boomed with the ancient sound track – it was a very poor cinema and could afford to play only very old films – filling their room with Bombay dialogue and music. Bakhtawar Singh seemed not to care about the heat or the noise. He slept through both. He always slept when he was tired; nothing could disturb him. It astonished Sofia, and so did his imperviousness to their surroundings – the horribly shabby room and smell of cheap oil frying from the eating shop downstairs. But now, after seeing his home, Sofia understood that he was used to comfortless surroundings; and she felt so sorry for him that she began to kiss him tenderly while he slept, as if wishing to make up to him for all his deprivations. He woke up and looked at her in surprise as she cried out, ‘Oh, my poor darling!’
‘Why?’ he asked, not feeling poor at all.
She began for the first time to question him about his marriage. But he shrugged, bored by the subject. It was a marriage like every other, arranged by their two families when he and his wife were very young. It was all right; they had children – sons as well as daughters. His wife had plenty to do, he presumed she was content – and why shouldn’t she be? She had a good house to live in, sufficient money for her household expenses, and respect as the wife of the SP. He laughed briefly. Yes, indeed, if she had anything to complain of he would like to know what it was. Sofia agreed with him. She even became indignant, thinking of his wife who had all these benefits and did not even care to keep a nice home for him. And not just his home – what about his wife herself? When she thought of that bedraggled figure, more a servant than a wife, Sofia’s indignation rose – and with it her tender pity for him, so that again she embraced him and even spilled a few hot tears, which fell on to his naked chest and made him laugh with surprise.
A year passed, and it was again time for the Raja Sahib’s annual party. As always, Sofia was terribly excited and began her preparations weeks beforehand. Only this time her excitement reached such a pitch that the Raja Sahib was worried. He tried to joke her out of it; he asked her whom was she expecting, what terribly important guest. Had she invited the President of India, or perhaps the King of Afghanistan? ‘Yes, yes, the King of Afghanistan!’ she cried, laughing but with that note of hysteria he always found so disturbing. Also she lost her temper for the first time with a servant; it was for nothing, for some trifle, and afterwards she was so contrite that she could not do enough to make it up to the man.
The party was, as usual, a great success. The Raja Sahib made everyone laugh with his anecdotes, and Bakhtawar Singh also told some stories, which everyone liked. The same singer from Mohabbatpur had been called, and she entertained with the same skill. And again – Sofia watched him – Bakhtawar Singh wept with emotion. She was deeply touched; he was manly to the point of violence (after all, he was a policeman), and yet what softness and delicacy there were in him. She revelled in the richness of his nature. The Raja Sahib must have been watching him too, because later, after the party, he told Sofia, ‘Our friend enjoyed the musical entertainment again this year.’
‘Of course,’ Sofia said gravely. ‘She is a very fine singer.’
The Raja Sahib said nothing, but there was something in his silence that told her he was having his own thoughts.
‘If not,’ she said, as if he had contradicted her, ‘then why did you call for her again this year?’
‘But of course,’ he said. ‘She is very fine.’ And he chuckled to himself.
Then Sofia lost her temper with him – suddenly, violently, just as she had with the servant. The Raja Sahib was struck dumb with amazement, but the next moment he began to blame himself. He felt he had offended her with his insinuation, and he kissed her
hands to beg her forgiveness. Her convent-bred delicacy amused him, but he adored it too.
She felt she could not wait for her day in Mohabbatpur to come round. The next morning, she called the chauffeur and gave him a note to deliver to the SP in his office. She had a special expressionless way of giving orders to the chauffeur, and he a special expressionless way of receiving them. She waited in the fort for Bakhtawar Singh to appear in answer to her summons, but the only person who came was the chauffeur, with her note back again. He explained that he had been unable to find the SP, who had not been in his office. Sofia felt a terrible rage rising inside her, and she had to struggle with herself not to vent it on the chauffeur. When the man had gone, she sank down against the stone wall and hid her face in her hands. She did not know what was happening to her. It was not only that her whole life had changed; she herself had changed and had become a different person, with emotions that were completely unfamiliar to her.
Unfortunately, when their day in Mohabbatpur at last came around, Bakhtawar Singh was late (this happened frequently now). She had to wait for him in the hot little room. The cinema show had started, and the usual dialogue and songs came from the defective sound track, echoing through courtyard and hotel. Tormented by this noise, by the heat and by her own thoughts, Sofia was now sure that he was with the singer. Probably he was enjoying himself so much that he had forgotten all about her and would not come.
But he did come, though two hours late. He was astonished by the way she clung to him, crying and laughing and trembling all over. He liked it, and kissed her in return. Just then the sound track burst into song. It was an old favourite – a song that had been on the lips of millions; everyone knew it and adored it. Bakhtawar Singh recognized it immediately and began to sing, ‘O my heart, all he has left you is a splinter of himself to make you bleed!’ She drew away from him and saw him smiling with pleasure under his moustache as he sang. She cried out, ‘Oh, you pig!’
It was like a blow in the face. He stopped singing immediately. The song continued on the sound track. They looked at each other. She put her hand to her mouth with fear – fear of the depths within her from which that word had arisen (never, never in her life had she uttered or thought such abuse), and fear of the consequences.
But after that moment’s stunned silence, all he did was laugh. He took off his bush jacket and threw himself on the bed. ‘What is the matter with you?’ he asked. ‘What happened?’
‘Oh I don’t know. I think it must be the heat.’ She paused. ‘And waiting for you,’ she added, but in a voice so low she was not sure he had heard.
She lay down next to him. He said nothing more. The incident and her word of abuse seemed wiped out of his mind completely. She was so grateful for this that she too said nothing, asked no questions. She was content to forget her suspicions – or at least to keep them to herself and bear with them as best she could.
That night she had a dream. She dreamed everything was as it had been in the first years of her marriage, and she and the Raja Sahib as happy as they had been then. But then one night – they were together on the roof, by candle- and moonlight – he was stung by some insect that came flying out of the food they were eating. At first they took no notice, but the swelling got worse and worse, and by morning he was tossing in agony. His entire body was discoloured; he had become almost unrecognizable. There were several people around his bed, and one of them took Sofia aside and told her that the Raja Sahib would be dead within an hour. Sofia screamed out loud, but the next moment she woke up, for the Raja Sahib had turned on the light and was holding her in his arms. Yes, that very same Raja Sahib about whom she had just been dreaming, only he was not discoloured, not dying, but as he was always – her own husband, with grey-stubbled cheeks and sunken lips. She looked into his face for a moment and, fully awake now, she said, ‘It’s all right. I had a nightmare.’ She tried to laugh it off. When he wanted to comfort her, she said again, ‘It’s all right,’ with the same laugh and trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. ‘Go to sleep,’ she told him, and pretending to do so herself, she turned on her side away from him.
She continued to be haunted by the thought of the singer. Then she thought, if with one, why not with many? She herself saw him for only those few hours a week. She did not know how he spent the rest of his time, but she was sure he did not spend much of it in his own home. It had had the look of a place whose master was mostly absent. And how could it be otherwise? Sofia thought of his wife – her neglected appearance, her air of utter weariness. Bakhtawar Singh could not be expected to waste himself there. But where did he go? In between their weekly meetings there was much time for him to go to many places, and much time for her to brood.
She got into the habit of summoning the chauffeur more frequently to take her into town. The ladies in the Civil Lines were always pleased to see her, and now she found more to talk about with them, for she had begun to take an interest in local gossip. They were experts on this, and were eager to tell her that the Doctor beat his wife, the Magistrate took bribes and the Deputy SP had venereal disease. And the SP? Sofia asked, busy threading an embroidery needle. Here they clapped their hands over their mouths and rolled their eyes around, as if at something too terrible, too scandalous to tell. Was he, Sofia asked – dropping the needle, so that she had to bend down to pick it up again – was he known to be an . . . adventurous person? ‘Oh, Oh! Oh!’ they cried, and then they laughed because where to start, where to stop, telling of his adventures?
Sofia decided that it was her fault. It was his wife’s fault first, of course, but now it was hers too. She had to arrange to be with him more often. Her first step was to tell the Raja Sahib that the doctor said she would have to attend the clinic several times a week. The Raja Sahib agreed at once. She felt so grateful that she was ready to give him more details, but he cut her short. He said that of course they must follow the doctor’s advice, whatever it was. But the way he spoke – in a flat, resigned voice – disturbed her, so that she looked at him more attentively than she had for some time past. It struck her that he did not look well. Was he ill? Or was it only old age? He did look old, and emaciated too, she noticed, with his skinny, wrinkled neck. She felt very sorry for him and put out her hand to touch his cheek. She was amazed by his response. He seemed to tremble at her touch, and the expression on his face was transformed. She took him in her arms. He was trembling. ‘Are you well?’ she whispered to him anxiously.
‘Oh yes!’ he said in a joyful voice ‘Very, very well.’
She continued to hold him. She said, ‘Why aren’t you writing any dramas for me these days?’
‘I will write,’ he said. ‘As many as you like.’ And then he clung to her, as if afraid to be let go from her embrace.
But when she told Bakhtawar Singh that they could now meet more frequently, he said it would be difficult for him. Of course he wanted to, he said – and how much! Here he turned to her and with sparkling eyes quoted a line of verse which said that if all the drops of water in the sea were hours of the day that he could spend with her, still they would not be sufficient for him. ‘But . . . ’ he added regretfully.
‘Yes?’ she asked, in a voice she tried to keep calm.
‘Sh-h-h – listen,’ he said, and put his hand over her mouth.
There was an old man saying the Muhammedan prayers in the next room. The hotel had only two rooms, one facing the courtyard and the other the street. This latter was usually empty during the day – though not at night – but today there was someone in it. The wall was very thin, and they could clearly hear the murmur of his prayers and even the sound of his forehead striking the ground.
‘What is he saying?’ Bakhtawar Singh whispered.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘The usual – la illaha il lallah . . . I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know your own prayers?’ Bakhtawar Singh said, truly shocked.
She said, ‘I could come every Monday, Wedn
esday and Friday.’ She tried to make her voice tempting, but instead it came out shy.
‘You do it,’ he said suddenly.
‘Do what?’
‘Like he’s doing,’ he said, jerking his head towards the other room, where the old man was. ‘Why not?’ he urged her. He seemed to want it terribly.
She laughed nervously. ‘You need a prayer carpet. And you must cover your head.’ (They were both stark naked.)
‘Do it like that. Go on,’ he wheedled. ‘Do it.’
She laughed again, pretending it was a joke. She knelt naked on the floor and began to pray the way the old man was praying in the next room, knocking her forehead on the ground. Bakhtawar Singh urged her on, watching her with tremendous pleasure from the bed. Somehow the words came back to her and she said them in chorus with the old man next door. After a while, Bakhtawar Singh got off the bed and joined her on the floor and mounted her from behind. He wouldn’t let her stop praying, though. ‘Go on,’ he said, and how he laughed as she went on. Never had he had such enjoyment out of her as on that day.
But he still wouldn’t agree to meet her more than once a week. Later, when she tried ever so gently to insist, he became playful and said she didn’t know that he was a very busy policeman. Busy with what, she asked, also trying to be playful. He laughed enormously at that and was very loving, as if to repay her for her good joke. But then after a while he grew more serious and said, ‘Listen – it’s better not to drive so often through Police Lines.’
At the End of the Century Page 19