by M. M. Kaye
‘You won't have to mind it at all!’ said Ash violently. He pressed his fingers through her hair and pulled her head back so that he could kiss her: her eyes, her forehead, her temples, her cheeks and chin and mouth. He kissed them in turn and spoke between the kisses: ‘My love… my foolish love. Do you really think I would let you go now? I might have done so before, but not now. In spite of everything, I couldn't now…’
He told her then how he had planned to ask her to run away with him and been forced to decide that he must not do so, because the danger was too great – for both of them, though for her most of all – but that the dust-storm had changed all that. It was the miracle that he had needed so badly and despaired of, since it gave them a way of escaping unsuspected – and without any fear of pursuit. They had horses with them, and if they set off as soon as the wind died down they should be able to cover a good many miles that night, and by sunrise be far beyond the reach of any search, for the confusion and havoc that the storm must have wrought in the camp would make it impossible to send out search parties to look for them before daylight. When they were not discovered it would be assumed that they had lost their lives in the storm, and were lying dead and buried in some sand drift among the hills; and the search for their bodies would soon be abandoned because the country for miles around would be changed by dust and blown sand, and too many gullies and hollows would be newly silted up withit.
‘They'll give up after a day or two, and go on to Bhithor,’ said Ash. ‘They'll have to, because of the heat if nothing else. And we don't even have to worry about money, for we can sell my watch and your rubies – those earrings and the buttons on your coat. We can live on those for months. Probably for years. Somewhere where no one knows us: in Oudh, or among the foothills in the north, or in Kulu Valley. And I can find work, and then when they have forgotten all about us -’
Anjuli shook her head. ‘They would not. Me they might forget, for I am of little worth to anyone. But with you it is different. You might hide for a year, or for ten years; but when you showed your face again, either here in Hind, or in Belait, and tried to claim your inheritance, you would still be an officer in the army of the Raj who had run away without leave; and for that they would catch you and punish you. And then all would become known.’
‘Yes,’ said Ash slowly. ‘Yes; that's true.’ There was a note of surprise in his voice as though he had made a new and disconcerting discovery. In the intoxication of the past hours he had genuinely forgotten about the Guides. ‘I could never go back. But – but we shall be together, and -’
He stopped, for Anjuli had laid a hand over his mouth.
‘No, Ashok.’ Her voice was a pleading whisper. ‘Do not say any more. Please, please do not, because I cannot go with you… I cannot. I could not leave Shushila… I promised her that I would stay with her. I gave her my word, and I cannot go back on that…’
For a while Ash had not believed her. But when he tried to speak, her fingers pressed tighter against his mouth and her voice hurried on in the darkness, explaining, pleading. Each word a hammer blow. Shu-shu loved her and depended upon her, and had only agreed to marry the Rana on condition that she, Anjuli, stayed with her. She could not possibly abandon her little sister now and leave her to face the terrors of a new life alone. Ashok did not understand how frightened and homesick and unhappy Shu-shu was. How terrified of the prospect of marriage to a middle-aged stranger and of living among people whose ways would be different from hers, in surroundings that were so unlike those she had hitherto known and loved. Shu-shu was only a child still. A frightened and bewildered child –
‘How could I ever be happy, knowing that I had deserted her?’ whispered Anjuli. ‘She is my little sister, whom I love; and who loves and trusts me – and needs me, too… she has always needed me, ever since she was a baby. Shu-shu gave me love in the years when I had nothing else, and if I failed her now, when her need is greatest, I would feel guilty all my days and never be able to forgive myself; or to forget that I had run away and left her… broken my word and – and betrayed her -’
Ash caught her wrist and wrenched her hand away: ‘But I love you too. And I need you. Does that mean nothing to you? Do you care so much more for her than you do for me? Do you?’
‘You know that I do not,’ said Anjuli on a sob. ‘I love you more than life. Beyond anyone and anything else. Beyond words – beyond shame! Have I not proved that to you tonight? But – but you are strong, Ashok. You will go on living and learn to put all this behind you and make yourself a good life without me; and one day -’
‘Never. Never. Never,’ broke in Ash vehemently.
‘Yes, you will. And I too. Because – because we are both strong enough to do it. But Shu-shu is not; and if I am not there to give her courage when she is afraid, and to comfort her when she is ill or sad or wild with homesickness, she will die.’
‘Be-wakufi!’ said Ash roughly. ‘She's probably a lot stronger than you suppose, and though she may be a child in some ways, she's her mother's daughter in a good many others. Oh, Juli, my darling, my Heart's-love – I know she's your sister and you're fond of her, but underneath all that shyness and charm she's a spoilt, selfish and demanding brat who likes her own way; and you've allowed her to have it, and to tyrannize over you for far too long. It's high time you let her stand on her own feet and realized that she isn't your baby sister any more, but a grown girl who will be a wife within a month and a mother inside a year. She isn't going to let herself die. Don't you believe it.’
Anjuli was silent for a moment or two, and then she said in a curiously flat and unemotional voice: ‘If Shu-shu were told that I had perished in the storm, and that she must go on alone to Bhithor, she would go mad with grief and fear, and there would be no one who could control her. Nandu is not here, and only he was able to do so before. I tell you I know her; and you do not. And though I love her, I am not blind to her faults – or to my own. I know that she is spoilt and selfish and self-willed; and Janoo-Rani's daughter. But I also know her to be gentle and loving and very trusting, and I will not bring her to her death. If I did, how could you love me? – knowing that – too was selfish and self-willed, as well as faithless? And cruel, too! For I should be all those things if I were willing to jeopardize my little sister's life and reason for the sake of my own happiness.’
‘And my happiness?’ demanded Ash, his voice harsh with pain. ‘Does mine not matter?’
But it had been no good. Nothing that he could say had made any difference. He had used every argument and every plea he could think of, and at last he had taken her again, ravaging her with an animal violence that had bruised and hurt, yet was still sexually skilful enough to force a response from her that was half pain and half piercing rapture. But when it was over and they lay spent and breathless, she could still say: ‘I cannot betray her.’ And he knew that Shushila had won, and that he was beaten. His arms fell away and he drew aside and lay on his back staring up into the darkness, and for a long time neither of them spoke.
The silence was so complete that he could hear the sound of his own breathing, and from somewhere in the outer cave the faint jingle of metal as one of the tethered horses moved restlessly. But it was not for an appreciable time that the significance of this dawned on him, and he realized that the wind had died, and that it must have done so some time ago, because he could not remember when he had last been aware of that vibrating drone. Not for at least an hour; and it was probably longer than that. In which case the sooner they made a start the better, for if they were going to return to the camp it would be wiser to do so under cover of darkness, and trust that in the general confusion their arrival would not be too public.
It was going to be bad enough, from Juli's point of view, to have been missing for several hours in the company of a single man. But the dust-storm would excuse that; and provided they returned as quickly as possible, scandal might be avoided by the mere fact that conditions had hardly been conducive to dalliance, an
d the camp itself likely to be in such a state of disarray that few people would have any time to waste on idle gossip and speculation. With luck, Juli would escape with no more than a scolding for riding too far ahead of her sister and uncle, and no one would ever suspect… A thought struck Ash with jarring suddenness, and he said sharply: ‘You can't go through with it, Juli. It's too dangerous. He's bound to know.’
‘Who will know?’ Anjuli's voice was muffled, as though she had been crying. ‘Know what?’
‘The Rana. He'll find out that you're not a virgin just as soon as he beds with you, and then there'll be the devil to pay. He isn't likely to forgive a thing like that, or take another man's leavings. He'll want to know who and when, and if you won't tell him he'll beat it out of you and send you back to your half-brother with your nose cut off, and without returning your dowry. And when your precious brother gets his hands on you, he'll either see to it that you die as painfully as possible, or he'll cut your feet off and let you live a cripple as a warning to other women. And what use are you going to be then to Shushila? You can't do it, Juli. You've burnt your boats now, and you can't go back.’
‘I must and I can,’ said Anjuli huskily. ‘He will not know, because…’ Her voice wavered and died, but she controlled herself with an effort: ‘Because there are… ways.’
‘What ways? You don't know what you are talking about. You couldn't possibly know –’
‘Harlot's tricks? But I do’ – he heard her swallow painfully. ‘You forget that I was brought up by servants in the Women's Quarters of a palace, and that a Rajah keeps many women besides his wives: concubines who know every art and trick that can please a man or fool him, and who talk freely of these things because they have little else to talk of, and because they think it only right that all women should be instructed in them…’ The young voice paused for a moment, and then went on again, very steadily: ‘I do not like to tell you this, but had I not known that when the time came I could deceive the Rana, I would not have taken you for my lover.’
The words fell like drops of ice water into the darkness, and as the little echoes reverberated softly round the cave they sent a thin cold trickle through Ash's heart, and he said harshly and with deliberate cruelty: ‘And I suppose you have thought too of what may happen to the child – my child – if you have one? Its legal father will be the Rana, and what if he chooses to bring it up to be another Nandu, or Lalji? Or appoints scorpions like Biju Ram to its service – perverts and panders who love to do evil? Have you thought of that?’
Anjuli said quietly: ‘It was the Nautch-girl and not my father who appointed Biju Ram to Lalji's household. And – and I believe that it is a child's mother who can, if she chooses, shape its early years and set its feet on a given path, for it is to her that it will look when it is small, and not to its father. If the gods grant me your child I will not fail him: that I swear to you. I will see to it that he shall grow up to be a prince that we can be proud of.’
‘Of what use will that be to me, when I shall never see or know him? When I may never even hear that he exists?’ demanded Ash bitterly.
For a moment he thought that she was not going to answer him, and when she did it was in a whisper. ‘I am sorry,’ said Anjuli. ‘I… I did not think It was for myself, for my own comfort that… that I wished it. I have been selfish… ’Her breath caught on a sob, and then her voice steadied again: ‘But it is done now: and what may come of it is out of our hands.’
‘It is not! It is still in our hands. You can come away with me – for the child's sake, if not for mine. Promise me that if there should be a child you will come to me. Surely you can do that? I won't believe that Shu-shu means more to you than any child of mine could do, or that you would sacrifice its future for her sake. Promise me, Larla!’
Only the echoes answered him, for Anjuli did not speak. Yet her silence spoke for her, repeating, wordlessly, what she had told him before; that she had already given a promise to Shu-shu. And that a promise was sacred…
A tightness built up in Ash's throat but once again anger drove him to speech, and he forced words past the constriction and threw them viciously at that obdurate silence: ‘Can't you understand what it will be like for me to have to live – as I may do – with the knowledge that my child, my child, is the property of another man to do what he likes with? To sell in marriage one day to whoever he chooses – as you and your sisters were?’
‘You…will have other children –’ whispered Anjuli.
‘Never!’
‘– and I shall not know,’ continued Anjuli as though he had not spoken. ‘It may even be that you have some already, for I know that men are careless of their seed. They think nothing of lying with harlots and light women, and do not trouble their minds as to what may come of such matings. Can you tell me that you yourself have never, until this night, lain with any other woman…?’ She paused briefly, and when he did not reply said sadly: ‘No. I did not think I was the first. For all I know there may have been more than one; perhaps many. And if that is so, how can you be sure that there is not, somewhere, some child who could call you father? It is the custom for men to buy their pleasure, and when they have taken it and paid, to walk away and think no more of it. And though you say now that you will never marry – and you may not – I do not believe that it is in your nature to become an ascetic. Sooner or later, in the years to come, you will lie with other women and – it may be – father other children without knowing it, or caring. But I, if I should conceive one, will know… and care. I shall carry it in my body for many months and suffer all the discomforts that come from that, and at the end risk death and endure much pain to give it life. If I pay that price, surely you could not begrudge it me?… You could not.’
You could not, sobbed the echo. And he could not. For Juli was right. Men were careless with their seed, yet they reserved the right to pick and choose among the fruit of their matings: to ignore, repudiate or claim paternity as it suited them. It had never occurred to Ash before that he might have fathered a child, and now that it did he was horrified to realize that it was not only possible, but that he had not cared enough to take any precautions against it, presumably because he had always thought (if he had thought about it at all) that precautions were something for women to worry about and to deal with.
Yes, he supposed it was quite possible that there could be a child of his alive at this moment, living in 'Pindi Bazaar or some smoke-filled hut among the Border hills, or in the poorer quarters of London. And if that were so, and Juli were to bear one – braving the ‘pains and perils of child-birth’ to do so – then what possible right had he to lay claim to it? Or even to insist that he would make a better father than the unknown Rana?
He tried to speak and found that he could not, because his mouth was drawn as though he had swallowed acid; and because there was nothing left to be said. The echoes had faded and the silence shut down again, and presently he became aware of movements in the darkness and knew that Juli was drawing on the tight-fitting riding trousers that he had stripped off – how long ago? It seemed, suddenly, a life-time away, and he felt cold and defeated and drained of all emotion. The air in the cave struck so cold that he shivered, and the sharp, absurd sound of his own teeth chattering reminded him that unless they found Juli's achkan and the remnants of his shirt, there would be no hope of avoiding an appalling scandal, because they would both be forced to ride back to camp half-naked. He retrieved his riding breeches and boots and stood up tiredly to put them on, and having buckled the belt about his waist and made sure that he had dropped nothing from his pockets, spoke curtly into the darkness:
‘What did you do with your coat?’
‘I don't know’ – her weariness was as vivid to him as though it had been his own. ‘I had it over my head, and I must have dropped it when I heard you call.’
‘Well, you can't go back without it, that's certain,’ said Ash roughly. ‘We'll just have to walk round in circles until we find it. G
ive me your hand. There's no point in losing each other in the dark.’
Her hand was cold and oddly impersonal. It did not clasp his, but remained entirely passive, and he held it as he would have held a stranger's: lightly and almost at arm's length, and solely as a means of keeping in touch in the inky darkness as they moved forward slowly, guiding themselves by the rock wall.
It took them nearly an hour to find the achkan. The shirt had been easier, as Ash had dropped it near the horses in the main cave, and now that the storm had passed, the entrance showed up as a grey, sharp-edged oblong that provided them with a landmark in the waste of blackness.
The depths of the cave had been cold, but the air outside was hot and still and heavy with the smell of dust, and the few stars that could be seen shone hazily, as though through a veil. The moon was either hidden by the hills or by dust clouds, and the valley was in shadow; but after the unrelieved darkness of the caves, both earth and sky seemed astonishingly light, and it was some time before Ash realized that this was not solely due to the fact that the storm had spread a pale-coloured shroud of dust and river sand over many miles of country, but because the dawn was near.
The discovery jolted him badly. He had never imagined for a moment that it could be as late as this, or that so many hours could have passed without his knowing it. He would have put it at two or three: four at most. Instead, it was almost a whole night, and his plan of smuggling Juli back into the camp under cover of darkness and confusion was useless, for by the time they reached it the sky would be light. No wonder there was no sign of the moon; it must have set hours ago. The stars were already fading and despite the dust there was a smell of morning in the air, that faint, indefinable smell that tells of a coming day as clearly as the growing light and the sound of a cock crowing.