by M. M. Kaye
‘That?’ said Sarji in answer to a question. ‘Oh, it commemorates a suttee. A widow who burned herself on her husband's funeral pyre. It is a very old custom, one that your Government has forbidden – and rightly, I think. Though there are still those who would not agree with me. Yet I remember my grandfather, who was a learned and enlightened man, telling me that many thinkers, himself among them, believe that this practice arose through the error of a scribe when the laws were first put down in writing, many centuries ago. The original law, they say, laid down that when a man dies his body must be given to the fire and his widow must afterwards ‘go within the house’ – in other words, live in seclusion for the remainder of her life – but that a scribe, writing this down long after, left out the last two words by mistake, so that it came to be believed that ‘go within’ meant to go within the fire. Perhaps that is true; and if so it is as well that the Raj has given orders that the practice must cease, for to be burned alive is a cruel death, though many thousands upon thousands of our women have not flinched from it, but considered it an honour.’
‘And many more have been forced to endure it against their will, if even half the tales one hears are true,’ said Ash grimly.
Sarji shrugged. ‘Maybe. But then their lives would have been a burden to them had they lived, so perhaps they were better off dead; and you must not forget that she who becomes suttee becomes holy. Her name is honoured and her very ashes are venerated – look there.’ He pointed with his riding whip to where a vivid splash of colour glowed bright against the dark stone and the tangle of greenery.
Someone had draped a garland of fresh marigolds over one of the carved weather-worn arms that bore silent witness to the hideous death of a wife who had dutifully ‘completed a life of uninterrupted conjugal devotedness by the act of saha-gamana’, and accompanied her husband's corpse into the flames. The stone was half hidden by grass and creepers, but someone – another woman, surely? – had decked it with flowers, and though the afternoon was windless and very warm, Ash shivered, and said violently: ‘Well if we have done nothing else, at least we can mark up one thing to our credit – that we put a stop to that particular horror.’
Sarji shrugged again; which might have meant anything – or nothing – and he began to talk of other matters as they turned their horses and made for the open country.
The two went riding together at least once or twice a week, and often at weekends or holidays they would go on longer trips together, staying away for a night or two, and choosing a route at random. Sometimes to Patri and the shallow waters of the Rann of Kutch, where the air smells of salt and seaweed and the rotting fish-heads that the boatmen fling out on the shore for the gulls to dispose of. Sometimes east towards Baroda, the capital city of His Highness Siraji Rao, the Gaekwar, or south, to the Gulf of Cambay where the great rollers drive in from the Arabian Sea between those two outposts of the Portuguese Empire, Diu Island and Damman – and where, on several occasions, they found the cargo-boat Morala at anchor, and went on board to collogue with her owner, Captain Red Stiggins. But only when he was alone did Ash ride northward in the direction of the distant blue ranges that lay between Gujerat and Rajputana.
Sarji was a cheerful and entertaining companion, but when Ash chose to ride towards the hills he did not want companionship, for on these occasions he would make for a lonely, ruin-crowned knoll overlooking the river below Bijapur from where he would gaze at the jagged outline of those ancient hills, and know that Juli had only to look out of a window of the Rung Mahal to see them too…
They looked so easy to cross: a low and insubstantial barrier, dusty-gold in the evening light or aquamarine in the shimmering heat-haze of the early afternoon. Yet he had learned that there were few paths through them; and even fewer passes where it was possible for a man to cross on foot, let alone on horseback. The hazards of those mountain passes, and the trackless miles of tiger-jungle that clothed the lower slopes, discouraged would-be travellers to Rajputana from attempting short cuts, and led the majority to turn westward and make a detour by way of Palanpur, or else go south to Bombay, and travel by rail or road through the ghats. But as Ash could see no prospect of his ever being able to enter Rajputana again, the difficulty or otherwise of finding a way through those hills was unimportant. Even if there had been a paved highway between Ahmadabad and Bhithor, it would have made no difference, because the Country of the Kings was forbidden territory, and like Moses, he could gaze at the promised land but he must not enter it.
Ash would sit on the knoll for hours, absorbed and motionless – so still that the birds and squirrels and even the shy lizards would often stray within reach of his hand, or a butterfly come to rest on his head. Only when Dagobaz – turned loose to crop among the ruins – became impatient and thrust an anxious nose into his breast, would he awake as though from a deep sleep, and coming stiffly to his feet, mount and ride back across the flat lands to Ahmadabad and the bungalow in cantonments.
On these days he would invariably find Mahdoo waiting for him, squatting unobtrusively in a corner of the verandah from where he could see the front gate while at the same time keeping a watchful eye upon the kitchen and the servants' quarters in case his assistant, young Kadera, should neglect his duties.
Mahdoo was not happy. He was feeling the weight of his years and he was also deeply uneasy on Ash's account. It was not that he had any idea where Ash went, or what he had been doing on these particular occasions. But though his knowledge of geography was slight, his knowledge of Ash was extensive, and once having learned that the borders of Rajputana lay less than a day's ride to the north, his intuition had supplied an answer that alarmed him. Bhithor was not so far beyond that border.
Their proximity to the Rana's kingdom worried Mahdoo a great deal, for though he had never heard so much as a whisper involving Anjuli-Bai, he had realized long ago that something far more serious than the Rana's attempts at blackmail and treachery had occurred there. Something deeply personal to Ash-Sahib that had struck at his happiness and peace of mind, and destroyed both.
Mahdoo was no fool. He was, on the contrary, a shrewd old man who had known and loved Ash for many years, and that combination of shrewdness, knowledge and affection had enabled him to make a fairly accurate guess at the cause of his child's trouble; though he hoped very much that he was mistaken, for if he were not, then the situation was not merely tragic, but profoundly shocking. Despite his many years of service with the Sahib-log and his long sojourn in their country, Mahdoo still held firmly to the opinion that all decent women (particularly young and beautiful ones) should be kept in strict purdah – European ones excepted of course, as their customs were different and they could hardly be blamed for going about unveiled when their men-folk were foolish enough to permit such immodest behaviour.
The ones he had blamed were those who had permitted the Rajkumaries and their women to meet and talk so freely and frequently with Ash-Sahib, who had naturally (or so Mahdoo surmised) ended by falling in love with one of them, which was a terrible thing to have happened. But at least it was over and done with, and before long he would forget this woman as he had forgotten the other one – that yellow-haired miss-sahib from Peshawar. He could hardly fail to do so, thought Mahdoo, when one considered the vast distance that separated Rawalpindi from Bhithor and the unlikelihood of his ever having occasion to enter Rajputana again.
Yet little more than a year later, by some evil chance he was sent south once more – and to Ahmadabad, of all places, so that here they were, once again within range of that sinister, medieval little state from which Mahdoo, for his part, had been so profoundly thankful to escape. Worse still, his child was plainly unhappy and given to strange moods, while he himself was filled with foreboding. Surely Ash-Sahib would not be so foolish as to cross into Rajputana and attempt to enter Bhithor again? Or would he?… young men in love were capable of any folly, yet if he were to venture once more into the Rana's territory, this time alone, without the backing
of armed men and the authority (or even the permission) of the Government, he might not leave it again alive.
In Mahdoo's opinion, the Rana was not a man to forgive anyone who had got the better of him, let alone someone who had threatened him in the presence of his councillors and courtiers, and nothing would be likely to please him more than to learn that his adversary had returned secretly (and presumably in disguise) without the knowledge or consent of anyone in authority; for then if the Sahib were simply to disappear and never be heard of again, how could anyone bring accusations against the state? It would merely be said that he must have lost his way among the hills and died of thirst or met with an accident, and who would be able to prove that he had so much as set foot in Bhithor, or even intended to do so?
Mahdoo had spent sleepless nights worrying over the possibilities, and though he had never served in any but a bachelor's establishment and had always taken a poor view of memsahibs and their ways, he now began to hope against hope that his child would meet some beautiful young miss-sahib among the British community in Ahmadabad, who would make him forget the unknown girl from Karidkote who had caused him so much sorrow.
But Ash continued to ride out alone and in the direction of the hills at least one day out of every seven, and appeared to prefer Sarji's society, or the Viccarys’, to that of any of the available miss-sahibs in the station. Wherefore Mahdoo continued to worry over the possible consequences of those solitary rides and to fear the worst, and when, towards the end of January, Ash told him that he was to take long leave and go to his own village for the duration of the hot weather, the old man had been indignant.
‘What? – and leave you to the care of young Kadera, who without my supervision could easily give you food that would upset your stomach? Never! Besides, if I were not here there would be no one to see that you did not commit any number of follies. No, no, child. I will stay.’
‘To hear you talk, Cha-cha-ji,’ retorted Ash, torn between amusement and irritation, ‘anyone would think that I was a feeble-minded child.’
‘And they would not be altogether wrong, mera beta*,’ returned Mahdoo tartly, ‘for there are times when you behave as one.’
‘Do I so? Yet this is not the first time you have taken leave and left me to manage without you, and you never raised a gurrh-burrh about it before.’
‘Maybe not. But you were in the Punjab then, and among your own kind, not here in Gujerat, which is neither your country nor mine. Besides, I know what I know, and I do not trust you to keep out of trouble when my back is turned.’
But Ash only laughed and said: ‘Uncle, if I give you my solemn oath that I will behave as soberly and circumspectly as a virtuous grandmother until you return, will you go? It need only be for a few months; and if before then my luck has changed and I am recalled to Mardan, you can meet me there instead. You know very well that you are in need of a rest and will be all the better for a month or two in the good air of the hills, with your family to cook and care for you and wait on you hand and foot. You need feeding up on good Punjabi food, and bracing with the clean winds of the mountains, after all these warm, heavy airs. Hai mai, I wish I could go with you.’
‘I too,’ said Mahdoo fervently. But he had raised no further objections, for he too hoped that Ash's period of exile would soon be over, and that any time now he would be recalled to his own Regiment. With Hamilton-Sahib and Battye-Sahib to plead his cause and press for his return, that day could surely not be too far off, and if so, he, Mahdoo, might never have to return to this pestilential place.
He had left on the tenth of February, accompanied by one of the syces whose home was near Rawalpindi, and Ash had seen him off at the railway station and had stayed on the crowded platform watching the train chug slowly away, a prey to conflicting emotions. He was sorry to see the old man go, and he would miss the pawky advice and the nightly talks that were spiced with gossip and punctuated by the familiar bubble of the hookah. On the other hand there was no denying that it was in some ways a relief to be rid of that anxious surveillance for a while. Mahdoo obviously knew or suspected too much, and was beginning to show it too clearly for comfort. A temporary separation would do them both good, and there was no doubt that the old man's health and spirits had suffered from the move to Gujerat and his dislike for the country and its people. All the same…
Ash watched the train disappearing in the distance, and long after the last smudge of smoke had thinned and vanished he stood staring after it, remembering the first time he had seen Mahdoo. Mahdoo and Ala Yar and Colonel Anderson, who had taken him under their collective wing and had been good to him when he was a bewildered boy speaking, feeling and thinking of himself as Ashok, and unable to credit that he was in reality an Angrezi with a name that he could not even pronounce; or that he was being shipped off to an unknown land to be turned into a ‘Sahib’ by strangers who, so he was told, were his father's people.
Remembering that day, the faces and forms of those three men were all at once as clear in his mind's eye as though they were there in the flesh and standing with him on the crowded platform: Colonel Anderson and Ala Yar, who were both dead, and Mahdoo, who was still very much alive and whom he had just seen on to the train and waved goodbye to as the Bombay-and-Baroda Mail drew out of the station. Yet there was something wrong with their faces – and suddenly he realized what it was. He was not seeing Mahdoo as he was now – grey and wrinkled and shrunk to half his former size – but as he had been then, when Colonel Anderson and Ala Yar were alive and all three men had seemed tall and strong and a little larger than life. It was as if Mahdoo had in some way joined them and become part of the past… which was, of course, absurd.
Gul Baz, who had accompanied them to the railway station, coughed discreetly to indicate that time was passing, and Ash awoke from his reverie, and turning away, walked quickly back along the platform and out into the yard to where a tonga waited to take them back to the bungalow.
Book Six
Juli
36
Perhaps it was just as well for Mahdoo that he left when he did, for his anxiety on Ash's account would have been considerably increased had he been present two days later, when an unexpected visitor arrived at Ash's bungalow in cantonments.
The Regiment had been out on a training exercise, and Ash had returned an hour after sunset to find a hired tonga standing among the shadows near the gate, and Gul Baz waiting on the verandah steps to inform him that he had a caller. ‘It is the Hakim from Karidkote,’ said Gul Baz. ‘The Rao-Sahib's Hakim, Gobind Dass. He waits within.’
It was indeed Gobind. But the sudden spasm of terror that had made Ash's heart miss a beat on hearing his name vanished at the sight of his face. This was no bearer of bad tidings sent by Kaka-ji to break the news that Juli was sick or dying, or dead – or even that her husband was ill-treating her. Gobind looked as spruce and calm and as reassuring as ever, and he explained that he was on his way to Bhithor at the earnest request of Shushila-Rani, who had become worried about her husband's health and had no faith in the Rana's personal physician, an elderly gentleman of seventy-eight whose methods, she asserted, were several hundred years out of date.
‘And as the Rani herself is at last with child, and must at such a time be saved any unnecessary anxiety,’ said Gobind, ‘my master the Rao-Sahib felt that it was not possible to refuse her request. Wherefore you see me now on my way to Bhithor. Though I do not know what good I can do – or will be permitted to do, since I cannot believe that the Rana's own hakims will be pleased at a stranger being called in to treat him.’
‘Is he seriously ill, then?’ asked Ash, with a flicker of hope.
Gobind shrugged and spread out his hands in an expressive gesture. ‘Who can say? You know how it is with Shushila-Rani. She is one who will always make the most of every small ache or twinge of discomfort, and it is more than likely that she is doing so now. Nevertheless, I have been sent to see what I can do, and to remain in Bhithor for as long as I am neede
d.’
Accompanied only by a single servant, a plump, foolish-faced yokel named Munilal, Gobind had travelled to Bombay, from where he had come by way of Baroda and Ahmadabad: ‘For the Rao-Sahib, knowing that you have been sent here, insisted that I should come by this way, saying that his nieces the Ranis would be pleased to have news of you, and that you in turn would wish to hear news of your friends in Karidkote. See, here are letters: the Rao-Sahib does not trust the public dâk, and so he entrusted them to me, giving strict orders that I was to put them into your own hand and no other… as I have now done.’
There were three letters, for in addition to Kaka-ji, Jhoti and Mulraj had also written; though only briefly, as Gobind, they said, would give him all the news. Neither of their letters contained anything that could not have been read aloud to anyone – Jhoti's being largely concerned with sport and horses, and ending with a frivolous description of the British Resident (whom he seemed to have taken in dislike on the trivial grounds that the man wore pince-nez and looked at him over them) while Mulraj's merely conveyed good wishes and the hope that Ash would see his way to visiting them on his next leave.
Kaka-ji's letter on the other hand was of considerable interest, Reading it, Ash understood why it had been necessary to send it by the hand of someone as trustworthy as Gobind instead of through the public post, and also why it had been essential to send Gobind to Bhithor by way of Ahmadabad.
The first part of the letter merely covered in more detail the ground that Gobind had already sketched in outline: Shushila's urgent plea for a doctor that she could trust, and the necessity of complying with it because of her condition. This was followed by a request that Ash would assist Gobind in the matter of horses and a guide and anything else that might be necessary to ensure his safe arrival in Bhithor, the money to cover all expenses being in Gobind's possession.