Before the Rains

by Dinah Jefferies

  Eventually the corridor went quiet and, as Eliza emerged, Jay was pacing up and down while glancing at her photos.

  ‘Trouble?’ she asked.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t get much of a chance to look at these but I really do understand what you mean about the poverty. We become inured to it, you see. Can I keep them for a while?’ He gave her half a smile and then shook his head. ‘You were right about Indira too. I’ve been blind.’

  ‘Always easier for an outsider to spot such things.’

  He sighed. ‘I never encouraged her. I have no feelings of that kind towards her. It would have been absolutely wrong and I always think of her as a kid sister.’ He gave her a look she couldn’t interpret. ‘When I marry it will have to be with somebody of equal birth. If anything happens to my brother I have to take over.’

  Well, that’s pretty clear, Eliza thought.

  ‘As I said, if Anish dies, I succeed to the throne, though Chatur will do everything in his power to prevent that. There is a great deal I’d want to change, and right at the top of the list would be reducing Chatur’s role. But to do it I would have to conform to tradition.’

  ‘Of course. It’s nothing to do with me either way.’ She steeled herself not to show any emotion at his tone of voice or the content of his words, but what he’d said had taken her aback and she wondered if it had been a warning message for her too.

  ‘Now let’s go and talk to Laxmi. By the way, I have already spoken to Clifford Salter about the sati. He was shocked, as you would expect, and promises to look into it.’ He paused. ‘I didn’t mention you had seen it too. Should I have?’

  ‘No. I’d rather he didn’t know. I don’t want him to overprotect me.’

  ‘The fact is he will be able to do very little.’

  Jay led her through the endless corridors and rooms to the blue vestibule she’d waited in when she’d first arrived.

  ‘Indi painted this room for my mother.’

  Eliza looked at the blue flowers, leaves and filigree scrolls picked out in gold, rising up the walls and trailing across the ceiling.

  ‘She is amazingly talented.’

  Laxmi came out at that moment and held out a hand to Eliza. ‘I’m pleased to see you. My son has been telling me about your trip.’

  Unsure which bit of the trip she was referring to, and listening to the unsteady rhythm of her own heart, Eliza nodded.

  Once within the inner principal reception room she saw that it was beautiful. Like a gleaming mirrored palace or sheesh mahal, all the walls were adorned with inlaid coloured glass mosaic, with winged angels painted on the ceiling and gilded plasterwork. She gazed in amazement. It was like nothing she’d ever seen, and the floor was piled high with silk cushions, though Laxmi indicated that they were to sit on chairs. Eliza perched on the edge of a red velvet upright affair, while Jay sprawled on a chaise longue.

  ‘I understand you have an idea about irrigation,’ Laxmi said.

  ‘It was just a thought.’

  ‘And a good one, though my eldest son, Anish, might not agree, but since Jayant spoke to me about it this morning I have thought of little else. It seems to me that if we are to keep the people on our side we have to make their lives easier; if not, the British, or the rebels, will easily persuade them to turn against us. As you know, it is already happening in some parts of the state, and this kind of unrest can only increase. I fear for our kingdom and I have been waiting for Anish to take action but, as he has not, I feel I must take matters into my own hands. So now I have come up with a plan and wish to unburden myself.’

  Jay raised his brows. ‘Prepare to be shocked.’

  ‘My idea is this. We have considerable family jewels in our vaults. If we are able to obtain a promise of British funding, I would happily cover the initial costs of an engineer to develop a plan for the project.’

  ‘We should be honest, Mother.’

  Prompted by Jay, Laxmi shrugged. ‘Very well.’

  ‘Eliza, my mother’s idea is that once the engineer had worked up a plan, we would mortgage some of the family jewels on the understanding that the British loans will materialize at a later date.’

  ‘But this would have to remain between the three of us,’ Laxmi added. ‘My elder son can know nothing of the mortgage. Jayant assures me we can rely on your discretion.’

  ‘Of course.’ Eliza thought for a moment. ‘You’ll need to know that the project will be approved and that there will be money available before you begin.’

  ‘Exactly, and that’s where you come in. If you are able to discuss the project with your Mr Salter and persuade him to organize the rubber-stamping of the necessary permissions, that would go a long way towards securing those loans. He might even help with finding the financiers who will back the project.’

  Eliza hadn’t expected Jay to take her off-the-cuff remarks so seriously, but felt delighted that he had. ‘I don’t know how much influence I have, but I’ll try.’

  They discussed the idea for another half hour and then, when Jay left for a polo match, Eliza got to her feet.

  ‘Stay, Eliza. Now that you’ve got to know us a little, are there questions you need answering?’ Laxmi asked, indicating that Eliza should sit again. ‘Is there anything you’d like to know?’

  Eliza was pleased. What had happened had left her feeling anxious about her own safety at the castle, but at the same time she couldn’t rid herself of the thought that she needed to know more if she was ever to feel at home here.

  ‘I’d like to understand more about your culture,’ she said, though at the back of her mind the image of the flaming funeral pyre would not fade.

  ‘The castle culture? Or the strict etiquette that governs our relationships?’

  Eliza thought about it and decided to say nothing about the sati. ‘Well, both, but I meant the rituals, the prayers. The gods. What are they for? There seem to be so many.’

  ‘We are a custom-bound society, but our pujas or prayers give us meaning in what might otherwise be a meaningless world. We are Hindus. It is not a religion, though some people think it is. It is what we are born to, a way of life.’

  ‘But if these gods don’t really exist?’

  ‘What is real is a matter of interpretation. They exist in our minds and hearts. That’s where they matter. They give us the structure within which we live our lives. Not all of it is good, but we know where we are. We know our place in the world. Can you say the same?’

  Eliza thought of the villages, where narrow dusty lanes twisted and turned with just a drainage channel dug out daily along the middle of the street. Despite the poverty she’d loved the baked clay houses, the sleeping cows and dogs and the tiny black-eyed children who’d watched as she’d wandered. She’d admired the incredibly graceful women: tall, straight-backed, heads and faces covered in the lightest muslin shawls. They were all as far from England as they could be, far in time and space but further still in dignity and tradition.

  ‘I haven’t really thought about it,’ she said, returning to Laxmi’s question, though it wasn’t strictly true. In some ways she had no idea where her place in the world really was, and she longed to tell Laxmi how terrible it had been to see the widow-burning and that it made her feel vulnerable because she too was a widow. She so wanted to be honest with this generous woman. Tell her the truth.

  ‘Now what can I do to help you settle in here even more?’ Laxmi was saying. ‘You still have a look of anxiety in your eyes, and you still have many months if you are to complete a year of our lives here in Juraipore.’

  ‘I’d like to be shown around the entire castle. The fortress too. I have no idea how to get from one place to another and I don’t really want to have to rely on other people all the time.’

  Part Two

  * * *

  ‘If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.’

  – Rabindranath Tagore

  12

  Eliza had falle
n asleep to the sensuous ringing of prayer bells, and in the morning woke with a stronger feeling of hope than she could ever have dared imagine. She gazed at the unbroken blue sky, watching as a dozen bright green parakeets took off from one tree for another, their fluttering wings revealing flashes of yellow under-feathers. Then, finding a staircase that led straight down to it, she went to walk under the scalloped archways and delicate columns in the courtyard below.

  A little later Jay arrived to help familiarize her more fully with the castle.

  ‘I didn’t expect it to be you,’ she said.

  He bowed. ‘I especially asked to be allowed the pleasure.’

  He kept it on a formal basis and she was shown everything: the durbar halls, the rooms for weaponry, all manner of sitting rooms, the men’s living quarters, banqueting halls, interconnecting offices, vast libraries, endless workrooms, stables, store rooms, kitchens, even more walled gardens, and then back to the zenana. Eliza tried to map as much of it as she could in her memory, as he explained each part, though it was so monstrously vast she could only hope to retain a fraction. But if she could now walk unaccompanied, and with some sense of knowing where she was going, it might minimize the feeling of not belonging.

  ‘So,’ he said, when they had finished. ‘How are you now? Honestly?’

  ‘You mean after seeing …’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m getting over it, I suppose.’

  ‘A thing so terrible does not fade quickly. Don’t hesitate if you ever need to talk about it.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He smiled. ‘And now I have a little rooftop escape planned for us. A little distraction.’

  She took a step back. ‘Really? Where?’

  He tapped his nose. ‘Follow me.’

  Jay led her through a doorway and into what seemed to be a dark, unused part of the fortress. Eliza shivered as they passed cracked plaster walls and climbed dingy narrow staircases. The windows were small and the maze of interconnecting corridors and dank rooms reeked with an air of desolation. Even the workrooms were more claustrophobic than the rest of the castle.

  ‘This is the oldest part of the fort and castle and, as you can see, we have abandoned it. Watch your feet, there are cracks in the floor just ahead.’

  After climbing several more winding staircases, he eventually took out a key from his pocket and unlocked a large studded door. After the darkness the light hit Eliza with force and she gasped in surprise, stumbling for a moment. He reached out a hand to steady her and then led her on to the roof.

  ‘This is my private escape,’ he said. ‘Nobody comes here.’

  Eliza gazed around her at the view, staggered by the opalescence of the endless pale blue sky. It felt glorious, like being on top of the world, with the wind blowing in her hair and the air so fresh she felt light-headed. ‘It’s truly beautiful.’

  The town below glowed golden, and the wide plains with their hilly outcrops seemed misty and grey. Between these low hills and the town, huge flocks of sheep wandered freely. She glanced up at the sky and watched a buzzard fly across from one side of the ramparts to the other. They were at the very back of the castle, and when she went to the edge to look down she could see the layout of the building below, with its many walkways and courtyards. But the people seemed tiny, and that made her realize how high up they actually were. She stepped back, feeling giddy.

  ‘All right?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. It’s just the air. It feels so pure.’

  ‘Like the very best champagne.’

  ‘Better.’

  ‘Now I have something to show you.’

  He walked over to a small round brick-built structure and opened the door. The next thing she knew, he was carrying an enormous kite across to her. Diamond-shaped, with simple cross-bars, the silk stretched over the frame was bright red and orange and painted with intricate patterns on the surface. Dozens of long yellow ribbons fluttered from the point at the base.

  ‘Want to learn how to fly it? It’s a perfect day for it, with just this light wind.’

  ‘Let me watch you first.’

  ‘Why not help me launch it? We actually fly kites all year round, but mainly from early December up to the festival of Sankrat, when you not only display your fabulous kite and your flying skill, but also use your line to strangle a competitor’s line so his kite crashes and yours stays up.’

  ‘I’m not going to compete with you, I hope.’

  He laughed. ‘Well, certainly not at flying a kite.’

  She watched as he held the ball of string and asked her to hold the kite. He unwound about sixty feet of string and then waited, as if paying attention to the wind direction. Then he asked her to walk sixty feet away, far enough so that the string stretched between them, and told her to stand with her back to the wind and the kite facing her.

  ‘Now just let it go,’ he said.

  She did so and watched as it tilted and then soared.

  ‘When wind travels over the surface of the kite, it divides into two streams of air. One flows over the kite while the second stream goes beneath. That’s basically what gets it up.’

  He unwound more string to allow the kite to go higher. She watched it whirling and swooping as if it was actually a living thing, its ribbons trailing and carving patterns through the air.

  ‘Come and hold it,’ he called.

  She went to him as he passed the ball of string. She hadn’t expected to feel such a strong vibration and almost let go in surprise. So he stood behind her and put his arms around her, then covered her hands with his own so that they were both holding the kite in the air together. With Jay so close and feeling the vibration in his hands, and in her own too, her mouth dried and she found it hard to swallow. She gazed out at the green speckled landscape and the sandy area beyond, where tiny smallholdings and villages were now mere dots. She spotted a thin ribbon of blue. Maybe it was the same river the puppet had been laid to rest in. And while she was seeing all this she was really only aware of her heart thumping. Time didn’t just stand still, it seemed suspended and shivering as if waiting for one of them to move.

  There was a sudden gust of wind and he pulled the kite closer, then let it out again. She stood still with his arms around her, feeling breathless.

  ‘I’ll take over now,’ he said.

  She moved away.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I wanted to do something to make you feel better.’

  ‘It worked.’

  ‘Look, I may be away for a while now. I need to chase up contacts, maybe even in England, see if I can attract sponsorship or backers for my irrigation. Will you be all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course. And I always have my friend Dottie.’

  It was with Jayant Singh in her mind that Eliza set out for the Residency, Clifford Salter’s grand town house, accompanied by one liveried guard and a rickshaw driver, who would show her the way and wait to accompany her back. She would deliver her contact prints and plates and also ask him about helping Jay to access permissions and loans for the water project.

  The room she was shown into looked as if it belonged in an English country house, with just the faintest touch of the oriental. She seated herself, back to the window, and carefully put down her envelope of prints and her package of plates.

  When Clifford entered the room, dressed in a pale linen suit and shirt and tie, she rose from her seat and stretched out a hand. He ignored the hand and came across to kiss her on the cheek. His eyes shone with pleasure and she could see how genuinely delighted he was to see her.

  ‘How lovely. I’ll order tea.’

  Then, drawing up a chair, he seated himself opposite her and shook a small bell. He ran a finger inside his collar. ‘So? Spill the beans.’

  She smiled. ‘Not much to spill. I’ve been able to take rather more informal pictures lately.’

  ‘Capital. We want the true flavour of Rajputana, not just the stiff set photographs these so-called royals are so fond
of. Now tell me, does Jayant Singh have many visitors?’

  ‘I really have no idea.’

  ‘But you must have seen something? Maybe somebody who appears a little out of place. Maybe rather rough. You never know who is influencing these people.’

  ‘He has a friend called Devdan who does seem a bit different, but that’s all I know.’

  ‘Very well. What about Laxmi?’

  ‘Laxmi? I’ve never seen her visitors, though I expect she does have them.’

  ‘And Chatur? Does he have any unusual visitors?’

  ‘All I know about Chatur is that he’s haughty and condescending. How would I know if he has unusual visitors? It’s a very large castle, Clifford.’

  ‘Of course it is. Of course. But you haven’t told me why you’re here. Unless it’s …’ He paused. ‘Can I hope?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So …?’

  ‘Jayant Singh has decided to employ an engineer to draw up plans to capture water to irrigate his lands and also the villages local to him. He wants to bring prosperity to the area and believes water is the solution.’

  ‘I see … water. Well, it does bring prosperity. He intends to drill?’

  ‘Don’t think so. It’s just in the early stages, but Clifford, the people are poor and there has been little rain. When I look at their ravaged faces I feel so guilty. The thing is, we need your help.’

  He twisted his mouth to one side. ‘We?’

  ‘Well, not me, but Laxmi and Jay, though I have offered to do what I can. You only have to see the poverty to want to help.’

  ‘Jay? You call him that?’ There was an uncomfortable pause before Clifford continued, during which he studied her. ‘Not more going on than meets the eye, I hope?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  He looked as if he was considering. ‘And this help?’

  ‘Involves raising money and rubber-stamping the idea. Jay needs British approval to go ahead. And he needs permission to dam a small river.’