by M. M. Kaye
‘I would have left,’ sobbed Anjuli. ‘I would have gone at once with your friends, for I could not bear to see what I had been brought here to see, and had they not come I would have shut my eyes and ears to it. But then they – the Hakim-Sahib and your friend – told me why you were not with them, and what you had meant to do for me so that I should not burn to death but die quickly and without pain. You can do that for her.’
Ash took a quick step back and would have snatched his hands away, but now it was Anjuli who held him by the wrists and would not let him go.
‘Please – please, Ashok! It is not much to ask – only that you will do for her what you would have done for me. She could never endure pain, and when… when the flames… I cannot bear to think of it. You can save her from that, and then I will go with you gladly – gladly.’
Her voice broke on the word and Ash said huskily: ‘You don't know what you are asking. It isn't as easy as that. It would have been different with you, because – because I had meant to go with you; and Sarji and Gobind and Manilal would all have got safely away, for they would have been a long way from here when our time came. But now it would mean that we would all be here; and if the shot were heard and anyone saw where it had come from, we should all die a far worse death than Shushila's.’
‘But it will not be heard. Not above all that noise outside. And who will be looking this way? No one – no one, I tell you. Do this for me. On my knees, I beg of you –’
She let go his wrists, and before he could prevent it she was at his feet with the orange and scarlet turban that she wore touching the ground. Ash bent quickly and pulled her upright, and Sarji, from behind them, said tersely: ‘Let her have her way. We cannot carry her, so if she will not come with us unless you do as she asks, you have no choice.’
‘None,’ agreed Ash. ‘Very well, since I must, I will do it. But only if you four will go now. I will follow later, when it is done, and meet you in the valley.’
‘No!’ There was pure panic in Anjuli's voice, and she brushed past him and addressed Gobind, who averted his eyes from her unveiled face: ‘Hakim-Sahib, tell him that he must not stay here alone – it is madness. There would be no one to watch for other men who may come up here, or help to overpower them as you three did to these others. Tell him we must stay together.’
Gobind was silent for a moment. Then he nodded, though with obvious reluctance, and said to Ash: ‘I fear that the Rani-Sahiba is right. We must stay together, for one man alone, looking out through the chik into the sunlight and choosing his moment, could not guard his back or listen for steps on the stair at the same time.’
Sarji and Manilal murmured agreement, and Ash shrugged and capitulated. It was, after all, the least he could do for poor little Shu-shu, whom he had brought from her home in the north to this remote and medieval backwater among the arid hills and scorching sands of Rajputana, and handed over to an evil and dissolute husband whose unlamented end had proved to be her death-warrant. And perhaps the least that Juli too could do for her, because although it was only Shu-shu's hysterical refusal to be parted from her half-sister that had brought her to this pass, at the end the little Rani had done what she could to make amends. But for her intervention, Juli would even now be out there in the dust and the glare, walking behind her husband's bier towards the moment when a bullet from her lover's revolver would give her a swift and merciful death: and if he had been prepared to do that for Juli, it was not fair to refuse the same mercy to her little sister… Yet the very idea of doing so appalled him.
Because he loved Juli – because he loved her more than life and because she was so much a part of him that without her life would have no meaning – he could have shot her without a tremor, and never felt that her blood was upon his head; but to put a bullet through Shushila's head was a very different matter, because pity, however strong, did not provide the terrible incentive that love had done. And then, too, his own life would not be involved. The next bullet would not be for himself, and that alone would make him feel like a murderer – or at best, an executioner, which was absurd when he knew that Juli would have faced the flames with far less terror and endured the pain with more fortitude than poor Shu-shu would ever do, and yet he had resolved to save her from that agony… and was now sickened by the thought of doing the same for Shu-shu.
Sarji broke in on the confusion of his thoughts by remarking in a matter-of-fact voice that the range would be greater from up here than it had been from the edge of the terrace below, and that as Ash would be aiming downwards, and from at least twelve to fifteen feet higher, it was not going to be easy. He might have been discussing a difficult shot from a machan on one of their hunting trips in the Gir Forest, and strangely enough it seemed to take some of the horror out of this supremely horrible situation. For he was talking sense.
If the thing must be done, it must be done well; and at the last possible moment, so that it might be thought that Shushila, having taken her place on the pyre, had fainted. To bungle it would be a disaster, not only for Shushila, but for them all; because though there was every chance that the crack of a single shot would be lost in the noise of the crowd, a second or third could not fail to attract attention, or to pin-point the spot from where it had been fired.
‘Do you think you can do it?’ asked Sarji, coming to stand beside him.
‘I must. I can't afford not to. Have you a knife?’
‘You mean for the chik. No, but I can cut you a gap in it with this thing –’ Sarji set to work with the short spear that all members of the Rana's body-gguard carried, and sliced a small oblong out of the split cane. ‘There. That should serve. I do not think the cane would deflect a shot, but it might; and there is no need to take chances.’
He watched Ash take out the service revolver and sight along the barrel, and said in an undertone: ‘It is all of forty paces. I have never handled one of those things. Will it reach as far?’
‘Yes. But I don't know how accurately. It was never intended for such distances, and I -’ He swung round abruptly: ‘It's no good, Sarji. I daren't risk it from here. I shall have to get closer. Listen, if I go down there again, will you and the others – Yes, that's it. Why didn't we think of it before? We will all leave now, at once, and when we reach the terrace you three can go on ahead with the Rani-Sahiba, and I will get back to my place near the parapet and -’
Sarji cut brusquely across the sentence: ‘You could not get there. The crowds are too thick. It was all I could do to get to you before; and even wearing this livery they would never make room for you now. Besides, it is too late. Listen – they come.’
The conches sounded again. But now the mournful and discordant bray was deafeningly loud, while the roar that followed it came from the crowd lining the last short stretch of pathway that lay within the grove itself. In another minute or so the funeral cortège would be here, and there was no longer time to make for the terrace and try to force a way to the front of the close-packed and half-hysterical multitude that thronged it. It was too late for that.
The crowds on the ground below were swaying backwards and forwards as a flood-tide surges between the supports of a pier, pushing, jostling, craning to see over the heads of those in front, or striving to dodge the indiscriminate blows of men who laid about them with lathis in order to keep a way clear for the slow-moving procession. And now the advance guard were emerging from the tree shadows into the golden blaze of the afternoon sun, a phalanx of shaven-headed Brahmins from the city's temples, clad in white loin-cloths, with ropes of tulsi beads adorning their naked chests and the trident mark that is the fork of Vishnu splashed upon their foreheads.
The leaders blew on conches while the rear rank whirled strips of brass bells above the heads of those who walked between, and behind these came a motley company of other holy men, a score or more of them: saints, sadhus and ascetics, jangling bells and chanting; naked and ash-smeared or soberly dressed in flowing robes of saffron or orange, dull red or white; some
with their heads shaved and others whose matted hair and beards, having never been cut, reached half-way to their knees. As wild a crew as Ash had ever seen, they had gathered here like kites who can see death from a great distance away, converging together from every corner of the State to attend the suttee. Behind them came the bier, borne high above the crowd and rocking and dipping to the pace of its bearers like a boat on a choppy sea.
The body that it bore was swathed in white and heaped about with garlands, and Ash was astonished to see how small it looked. The Rana had not been a big man, but then he had always been magnificently dressed and glittering with jewels, and always the centre of a subservient court; all of which had tended to make him seem a good deal larger than he was. But the spare, white-shrouded corpse on the bier looked no larger than an under-nourished child of ten. An insignificant object; and a very lonely one, for it was not the focus of the crowd's attention. They had not come here to see a dead man, but a still living woman. And now at last she was here, walking behind the bier; and at the sight of her, pandemonium broke loose, until even the solid fabric of the chattri seemed to tremble at the impact of that roar of sound.
Ash had not seen her at first. His gaze had been fixed on the shrunken thing that had once been his enemy. But a movement near him made him turn his head and he saw that Anjuli had come to stand beside him, and that she was staring through the chik with an expression of shrinking horror, as though she could not bear to look and yet could not keep herself from looking. And following the direction of that agonized gaze, he saw Shushila. Not the Shushila he had expected to see – bowed, weeping and half-crazed by terror, but a queen… a Rani of Bhithor.
Had he been asked, Ash would have insisted that Shu-shu would never be able to walk to the burning-ground unassisted, and that if she walked at all and did not have to be brought in a litter, it would only be because she had been stupefied by drugs and then half dragged and half carried there. But the small, brilliant figure walking behind the Rana's bier was not only alone, but walking upright and unfaltering; and there was pride and dignity in every line of her slender body.
Her small head was erect and the little unshod feet that had never before stepped on anything harsher than Persian carpets and cool polished marble trod slowly and steadily, marking the burning dust with small neat footprints that the adoring crowds behind her pressed forward to obliterate with kisses.
She was dressed as Ash had seen her at the marriage ceremony, in the scarlet and gold wedding dress, and decked with the same jewels as she had worn that day. Pigeon's-blood rubies circled her throat and wrists, glowed on her forehead and her fingers, and swung from her ears. There were rubies too on the chinking golden anklets, and the hard sunlight glittered on the gold embroidery of the full-skirted Rajputani dress and flashed on the little jewelled bodice. But this time she wore no sari, and her long hair was unbound as though for her bridal night. It rippled about her in a silky black curtain that was more beautiful than any sari made by man, and Ash could not drag his gaze from her, though his body cringed from that tragic sight.
She seemed wholly unconscious of the jostling crowds who applauded her, calling on her to bless them and struggling to touch the hem of her skirt as she passed, or of the sea of eyes that stared avidly at her unveiled face. Ash saw that her lips were moving in the age-old invocation that accompanies the last journey of the dead: Ram, Ram… Ram, Ram… Ram, Ram…
He said aloud and incredulously: ‘You were wrong. She is not afraid.’
The clamour from below almost drowned his words, but Anjuli heard them, and imagining that they had been addressed to her instead of to himself, she said: ‘Not yet. It is still only a game to her. No, not a game – I don't mean that. But something that is only happening in her mind. A part she is playing.’
‘You mean she is drugged? I don't believe it.’
‘Not in the way you mean, but with emotion – and desperation and shock. And – and perhaps… triumph…’
‘Triumph!’ thought Ash. Yes. The whole parade smacked more of a triumphal progress than a funeral. A procession in honour of a goddess who has deigned to show herself, for this time only, to accept the homage of her shouting, exultant and adoring worshippers. He remembered then that Shushila's mother, in the days before her beauty captured the heart of a Rajah, had been one of a troupe of entertainers: men and women whose livelihood depended upon their ability to capture the attention and applause of an audience – as her daughter was doing now. Shushila, Goddess of Bhithor, beautiful as the dawn and glittering with gold and jewels. Yes, it was a triumph. And even if she was only playing a part, at least she was playing it superbly.
‘Well done!’ whispered Ash, in a heart-felt endorsement of all those outside who were hailing her with the same words. ‘Oh, well done –!’
Beside him, Anjuli too was murmuring to herself, repeating the same invocation as Shushila: ‘Ram, Ram – Ram, Ram…’ It was only a breath of sound and barely audible in that tumult, but it distracted Ash's attention, and though he knew that the prayer was not for the dead man but for her sister, he told her sharply to be quiet.
His mind was once again in a turmoil and torn with doubts. For watching the unfaltering advance of that graceful scarlet and gold figure, it seemed to him that he had no right to play providence. It would have been excusable if she had been dragged here weeping and terrified, or dazed with drugs. But not when she showed no sign of fear.
She must know by now what lay ahead; and if so, either the stories that Gobind had heard were true and she had come to love the dead man – and loving him, preferred to die cradling his body in her arms rather than live without him – or else, having steeled herself to it, she was glorying in the manner of her death and the prospect of sainthood and veneration. In either case, what right had he to interfere? Besides, her agony would be very quickly over; he had watched the pyre being built and seen the priests heap cotton between the logs and pour oils and clarified butter on it, and had thought even then that once it was lit the smoke alone would probably suffocate poor little Shu-shu before a flame touched her.
‘I can't do it,’ decided Ash. ‘And even if I do, it won't be all that much quicker: Juli ought to know that… Oh, God, why don't they hurry up. Why can't they get it over, instead of dragging it out like this.’
His whole being was suddenly flooded with hatred for everyone out there: the presiding priests, the excited onlookers, the mourners in the funeral procession and even the dead man and Shushila herself. Shushila most of all, because –
No, that was not fair, thought Ash; she couldn't help being herself. This was the way she was made, and she could not help battening upon Juli any more than Juli could keep from allowing herself to be battened upon. People were what they were, and they did not change. Yet despite all her selfishness and egotism, at the last Shu-shu had spared a thought for her sister, and instead of insisting on her support to the end, had let her go – at what cost to herself, no one would ever know. He must not let himself forget that again…
The red haze of rage that had momentarily blinded him cleared away, and he saw that Shushila had moved on, and that where she had been there was another small, lonely figure. But this time it was a child: a boy of about five or six years old, walking alone a little way behind her. ‘The heir, I suppose,’ thought Ash, grateful for something else to think about. ‘No, not the heir – the new Rana, of course. Poor little beggar. He looks done up.’
The child was stumbling with weariness and plainly bewildered by the strangeness of his surroundings and his sudden elevation in rank, a rank that was clearly shown by the fact that he walked directly behind the widowed Rani and several paces ahead of the hundred or so men who followed – the nobles, councillors and chiefs of Bhithor who brought up the end of the procession. Prominent among these was the Diwan, who carried a lighted torch that had been lit at the sacred flame in the city temple.
By now the noise had risen to a crescendo as those nearest to her foug
ht to touch the Rani and beg her blessing, and others took up the cry of Hari-bol or Khaman Kher, or shrieked with pain as the guards rained blows upon them, forcing them back. ‘At least the shot will not be heard,’ observed Sarji. ‘There is that to be thankful for. How much longer do you mean to wait?’
Ash made no reply, and presently Sarji muttered in an undertone that now would have been the time to leave – if they had any sense left in their thick heads. He had not intended his words to carry, but the end of the sentence was startlingly audible; for the crowds outside had suddenly fallen silent, and all at once it was possible to hear the hard breathing of the gagged prisoners and the cooing of doves from somewhere overhead under the eaves of the dome.
The cortège had reached the pyre and the bier was placed on it. And now Shushila began to divest herself of her jewels, taking them off one by one and handing them to the child, who gave them in turn to the Diwan. She stripped them off quickly, almost gaily, as though they were no more than withered flowers or valueless trinkets of which she had tired and was impatient to be rid of, and the silence was so complete that all could hear the clink of them as the new Rana received them and the late Rana's Prime Minister stowed them away in an embroidered bag.
Even Ash in the curtained enclosure heard it, and wondered incuriously if the Diwan would ever relinquish them. Probably not; though they had come from Karidkote, and being part of Shushila's dowry should have been returned there. But he thought it unlikely that either Shu-shu's relatives or the new Rana would ever see them again once the Diwan had got his hands on them.
When all her ornaments had been removed except for a necklace of sacred tulsi seeds, Shushila held out her slender ringless hands to a priest, who poured Ganges water over them. The water sparkled in the low sunlight as she shook the bright drops from her fingers, and the assembled priests began to intone in chorus…
To the sound of that chanting, she began to walk round the pyre, circling it three times as once, on her wedding day and wearing this same dress, she had circled the sacred fire, tied by her veil to the shrunken thing that now lay waiting for her on a bridal bed of cedar-logs and spices.