Salim lowered himself on the cold palace steps. He looked at Daima. She was speaking to the footman. Must be asking about RayChal. He wrapped his shawl tightly about his shoulders. It was a cold morning with a strong south-westerly breeze blowing, bringing with it the fragrance of tuberoses. And with their fragrance, the thought of RayChal. His lips puckered and shook slightly as he tried to shut her out of his mind. He looked at the garden. It was spangled with yellow roses. They were dancing in the breeze and seemed to laugh at him. ‘We told you so, we told you so,’ they jeered in unison. He covered his ears with the palms of his hands, closed his eyes and screamed, ‘I know, I know, I know; I was a fool!’
Daima rushed to his side. ‘Chote Nawab? You all right?’
Lowering his hands, Salim replied, ‘I’m fine, Daima.’ He paused, swallowed. ‘Left her with her people. Where she belongs.’
‘She must be happy?’
He did not reply but watched the horses as Sulaiman unfastened them from the carriage and led them away. Eventually he spoke. ‘Very. She didn’t even look back.’
‘What else can we expect from a cow eater …? May she get eaten by worms,’ said Daima bristling up. She picked up the shawl that had fallen to the ground and put it around Salim’s shoulders.
‘No, Daima. Don’t curse her. It was my fault. I should have told her earlier.’
‘Why not? How can she hurt my son like this?’
Looking down, Salim stared at his shoes for a moment before replying, his voice hardly audible. ‘Rather me than her, Daima.’
‘This is just great … my chivalrous son! But who told her?’
‘Ya Ali, who can dig their grave better than I do?’
Putting her hand under his chin, Daima turned his face towards her. ‘That was brave of you, Chote Nawab,’ she said. ‘You didn’t have to tell her you know … maybe she would have never found out.’
‘Maybe, and maybe she would have. I don’t know whether I did right or wrong. All I know is I’ve lost her for ever.’
‘No …’
Grimacing, Salim shut his eyes momentarily. ‘The hatred with which she looked at me before walking away …’ He paused, his Adam’s apple moving. ‘I’ll never be able to forgive myself.’
‘Chote Nawab, all I know is she loves you as well … she’ll come back.’
‘They are sending all the women and children to Cawnpore and finally back to England. Our paths will never cross again.’
‘Don’t worry … there’s no dearth of women for our Chote Nawab.’
Salim got up and walked towards the garden. He picked up a broken branch and snapped it into pieces, his jaw set in a grim line. Then he looked back at Daima.
‘No,’ he whispered, his voice choked with emotion. ‘She was the love of my life. No one can love me like she did. What we shared was beyond this world.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
RACHAEL
Rachael looked around at what must have been a beautiful garden once. Piles of ash lay everywhere – from the fires the soldiers had lit the previous night to roast the deer the Dilkusha forest was so famous for.
Women and children were coming out of the tents and making their way towards a table laid out under the shade of a mango tree. There were whoops of delight at the sight of fresh bread and cold meat.
‘Goodness gracious, there are biscuits and jam and coffee with milk and sugar. I haven’t had a breakfast like this in months,’ Rachael heard Mrs Wilson exclaim as she piled her plate with food.
She watched the soldiers patiently serve the women and children as they devoured their breakfast. They looked famished. She felt guilty she had been well fed and looked after in the palace while her folk had had to endure so much hardship. Even their clothes were bedraggled. Why, she had never seen Papa so unkempt before. His shirt was torn in a couple of places and a patch had been clumsily sewn onto his trousers, just above the left knee. His hair was long and messy. She did not want to admit it, but he smelt as though he hadn’t bathed in months.
Her eyes roved once more over the crowd hovering around the breakfast table. Where was Mother?
‘Missy baba, Missy baba,’ exclaimed Ayah as she tore herself from the crowd and came running up to her. ‘I so happy to see you.’ Rachael grinned at her as she clutched her hands excitedly.
‘How have you been, Ayah? And pray tell me, where’s Mother?’
‘Memsahib not well, baba. She got the fever,’ she replied, as she led her down a long corridor in the palace. A stale smell of sickness and damp walls greeted her as she entered a dark windowless room. It must have belonged to one of the begums. Mother looked so frail and small in the four-poster bed on which she lay.
Rachael irritably pushed aside the muslin drapes that hung around the bed. ‘Mother,’ she said in a small choked voice as she reached out for her hand. Then, alarmed at how warm it was, hastily touched her forehead.
Mother smiled at her weakly. ‘You’re here, my child, you’re finally here.’ She paused as a spasm of coughing took hold of her.
Ayah rushed to her with a glass of water. After taking a small sip, Mother settled back into her pillow. She spoke slowly. ‘Now we can all leave for Cawnpore and then home. Finally home to England.’
‘But Mother, you’re burning. You can’t travel like this.’
‘She’s right,’ said Papa as he entered the room. ‘You three will have to come with me and the remaining soldiers to Alambagh.’ He looked around the room. ‘And for heaven’s sake, get rid of some of this luggage. We don’t have enough men to carry her and the baggage.’
‘Papa …!’ Rachael exclaimed, appalled at the manner in which he spoke, but he had already left the room.
‘I need my clothes,’ wailed Mother.
‘Do not vex yourself, Mother, I’ll see what I can do,’ said Rachael. She opened her mother’s pitaras and looked at the contents.
‘Kalyaan carry two pitara,’ said Ayah. ‘I carry two. Last one we leave?’
Rachael sifted through the contents of the tin box. Her face suddenly lit up as an idea struck her. She pulled out one of Mother’s skirts and put it on. Then another on top of the previous one. Then another. And another. Soon she was wearing six skirts. She did the same with the bodices. Grinning, she tried to walk and almost toppled over. Steadying herself, she looked triumphantly at Ayah. ‘Yes,’ she said, pointing to the box she had just emptied. ‘We can leave this pitara behind.’
Most of the Englishmen, women and children gathered in Dilkusha had left for Cawnpore. The remaining party waited for darkness to fall before they commenced their march to Alambagh. Rachael watched as the sick, the injured and the aged settled down in dolis and carriages. She looked at Mother’s doli and hoped she was comfortable. Nodding briefly at Ayah and Kalyaan, who were walking beside the doli carrying pitaras, she instructed them to keep checking on Mother. They were to inform her if they noticed anything amiss.
She smiled slightly as Christopher walked up to her.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to march with the soldiers,’ he said. ‘There aren’t any palanquins or carriages left. Most of them have left with the party for Cawnpore.’
‘That’s not a problem,’ Rachael replied, tottering under the weight of the half a dozen skirts and bodices she had donned.
Soon they were marching towards Alambagh. Rachael waved to Christopher. ‘Come and walk beside me,’ she said.
‘No,’ he answered. ‘Only the natives walk on the outside.’
Puzzled, Rachael looked around. She realised she was flanked on either side by Indian soldiers. And it wasn’t just her. All the English soldiers marching ahead of her were walking between two neat columns of Indian soldiers. And then the horror of it all struck her. The Indian soldiers were being used as human shields. She was aghast but could do nothing about it.
She sighed as it started to rain. A cold, miserable November rain. She waded gloomily through the sodden earth, her skirts covered with mud up to her knees. They b
ecame heavier with each step. If only she had known how difficult it would be to walk in them, she would never have worn them. As though that wasn’t enough, even her throat and head had begun to hurt.
Nonetheless, she trudged along. They had reached the far bank of the Gomti and could hear the sound of guns in the distance. As they made their way through a narrow lane between two rows of mud houses, they were suddenly exposed to enemy fire. The natives, hiding behind the mud walls, rained a volley of bullets on them. It sounded like several fireworks going off at once. Terrified, Rachael hastened her pace. However, she slipped, not for the first time that night. She pursed her lips and steadied herself. She had never felt more unladylike before. Just then the Indian soldier marching beside her groaned and fell to the ground. He had been hit. Rachael watched his bloodied body writhing in pain. She covered her mouth as a sob escaped her lips. She frantically pushed past the marching soldiers, walked up to a parapet by the side of the road and retched violently. Nothing came up. Only tears streaking down her cheeks.
She sat down on the parapet. Just two nights previously she had been so happy. She was going to meet her parents soon and she was in the arms of the man she loved. How she hated him now. How could she have been so gullible? When she had walked away from him in Dilkusha, he had stood there for a long time, looking lost and hurt, his eyes glittering. They looked beautiful – his eyes. Intense, hurt, beseeching, forlorn – all at the same time. She had quickly looked away, not wanting to be hypnotised by them. Otherwise her heart would have melted and she would have gone running back to him.
No, she would never go back to him again, never. How could he have protected her on the one hand and shot at her own people on the other? And how dare he propose to her, knowing all the while that he had been lying to her? She would never trust him again. ‘I hate you, Salim,’ she muttered through gritted teeth as her eyes filled with angry tears. ‘Oh, how I hate you.’
Oh Lord, was this night ever going to end? It seemed like one long nightmare. First Salim’s betrayal, then the news about Sudha, Mother’s illness and now this. She suddenly found herself longing for the warmth and security of Kaiserbagh Palace. And as suddenly she felt ashamed – she was now beginning to fathom what her people must have been through in the last few months, while she herself was cosseted in the palace. What must they have endured? And she couldn’t even make it through a single night.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Rachael started at the voice. It was Christopher. ‘I can’t go any further,’ she moaned. ‘Pray leave me alone. You go.’
‘Are you insane? You’ll get yourself killed,’ said Christopher.
‘That soldier died because of me,’ she screamed hysterically. ‘Can’t you see? If he wasn’t shielding me, the bullet would have hit me. I ought to be the one dead, not him.’
‘Calm down, Rachael,’ said Christopher, offering her his hip flask. Rachael did not say anything, merely raised her brows.
‘Take a sip. It’ll calm you down,’ Christopher replied.
Rachael hesitated, then took a small sip. Then another.
Christopher held out his hand and whispered, ‘You can’t give up so easily. Not now, when we’re almost there.’
She nodded quietly as he pulled her to her feet. She followed him, dragging her feet, her skirts and boots caked in mud, and wet hair clinging to her forehead. She must look a sight. Never before had she felt more miserable.
It was almost two months since Rachael and her parents had arrived at Alambagh. Rachael sat on the cold kitchen floor, her forehead etched with lines of concentration, as she rolled out a piece of dough.
‘Pray tell me if this will do?’ she asked as she pointed to the piece of dough on the rolling board. It didn’t look circular at all. More like a kite torn at the edges.
Ayah looked at it and stifling a grin answered, ‘Yes, it’ll do, baba.’
Rachael sighed and pushed back her hair with the back of her hand, peppering her hair with flour as she did so. She had never been to a kitchen before arriving at Alambagh. Nor had she realised how difficult it was to make a simple chapatti. She watched Ayah in fascination as she rolled them out effortlessly, one after the other.
Looking up, she smiled at Mother as she entered the kitchen. She had burnt with the fever for a whole week after their arrival at Alambagh. Rachael had been beside her day and night – and just when they had begun to despair and thought they had lost her, she made a miraculous recovery. Rachael watched her now as she looked at the chapattis, then at the daal bubbling in the pot, and screwed up her nose. ‘Brutus wouldn’t even sniff at this food,’ she said. Rachael shook her head. Mother was still the same. Nothing could ever change her.
‘Mother, at least we have Ayah to make these chapattis,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine what we would have done if she wasn’t here?’
Yes, they were fortunate indeed to have Ayah with them. Neither she nor Mother would have known what to do with the flour. They would have had to starve for sure, for food was rationed in Alambagh. Flour and daal was all they got on most days. Sometimes, if they were lucky, they got some meat and maybe even some peas and vegetables. But those occasions were rare and it was more bones than meat. The shortage was due to the refusal of most Indian traders to sell anything to the English, even at exorbitant rates. There were some who did not mind dealing with them, but they were afraid of being regarded as traitors for trading with the enemy.
Rachael looked at Mother again as she sat huddled on the stool, sipping a cup of tea, cupping her hands around the cup to keep them warm. Poor Mother. Papa had always surrounded her with servants and luxuries. It was a trying time for her.
Life in Alambagh was arduous. Food was scarce, water was scarcer. Soaps were a luxury. Baths had become a weekly occasion. And she was loath to admit that she smelt. But at least she had a change of clothes. Unlike some of the soldiers, who did not have any attire, other than the shirt on their back.
There had been days when they’d hear the sound of firing incessantly. Bullets and muskets would whizz over their heads every few minutes. But now they could relax. It was over a week since the firing had stopped. The handful of soldiers in Alambagh did not pose a threat to the natives. They knew a colossal army would soon be marching in from Cawnpore and were now preparing for the onslaught.
‘You know, it is so peaceful here, unlike the Residency. The firing over there was relentless,’ said Mother, taking another sip of her tea. ‘Every day about fifteen Englishmen or women would die. It was painful.’
‘What about the natives?’ Rachael asked. ‘The ones who were still faithful and were with you in the Residency?’
‘Oh, we didn’t bother counting them. Their deaths didn’t make much of a difference.’
Rachael stared at Mother aghast. How could she be so callous? She would have spat on her if she wasn’t her mother. ‘They fought against their own people for you and you say their deaths were inconsequential?’
‘Ah well!’ said Mother as she finished her tea. She got up and walked over to the open window. As she did so, a bullet whizzed past her, missed Rachael’s head by half an inch and hit the wall behind. The three women turned pallid. They looked at each other, then at the dent in the wall, too terrified to scream.
‘Hai Ram!’ screeched Ayah when she finally found her voice. ‘I die here one day, for sure.’
‘Don’t worry, Ayah,’ said Rachael. ‘It’ll soon be over.’ She tried to sound calm, but was visibly rattled.
Later that night she tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. She kept thinking of how the bullet almost killed her that day. She wondered how the children at the orphanage were. Were they safe? Did they have enough hands and supplies to keep them going? Did they also face such dangers every day? It had never occurred to her, while she was cocooned in the palace, what dangers her own people faced daily. What it was like to live in constant fear of being shot.
She threw her blanket aside and made her wa
y towards the hall. It had been used for dining and entertaining by the king – now it served as a makeshift hospital. She winced as the sound of groans greeted her. ‘Not sleepy?’ she bent down and whispered to Benjamin, a young soldier who had been wounded in the defence of the Residency.
‘I’m freezing,’ he replied.
‘Let me see if I can find another blanket for you,’ said Rachael.
She looked across the hall at Mrs Wilson as she dexterously cleaned a soldier’s wound and bandaged it. She had never expected such efficiency from her. But then adversity sometimes brought out the best in some people and she was one of them.
Smiling reassuringly at Edmund, Rachael administered some tincture of opium to reduce his pain. Injured during their march from Dilkusha to Alambagh, he had been in agony since his right arm had been amputated that afternoon. She then wrapped an extra blanket around Benjamin and looked around. Most of the other patients were asleep. And Mrs Wilson was tending to the handful that were still awake.
Rachael sank against the door as she took in the dirt, the squalor, the rows of injured men and women, the fetid smell. She could not take it anymore. Tears began rolling down her cheeks. She left the hall hastily and stood in the corridor looking at the full moon. She remembered how Salim had looked at her in the moonlight once and remarked that her skin glowed like ivory. Oh, dear Lord. Why could she not stop thinking about him? Oh, how she hated him! For making her cry like no one else ever had. But most of all she hated him for making her continue to love him, despite everything. Yes, she still loved him. She could not lie to herself anymore. She was in love with a man she ought to hate. And she despised herself for loving him so. Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with someone like Christopher? Life would have been so much simpler.
The World Beyond Page 21