Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  Wajid Khan met us at the top of a bare stone staircase, an uneasy, forced smile baring the wide gap between his two front teeth. He motioned the servant away impatiently and led us into a room that at some time had been half-heartedly furnished in the European manner. A fine ormolu table stood under an enormous chandelier which was innocent of candles and whose lustres were chipped or missing; four or five chairs stood around, and in one corner a very large majolica plant-pot stood on a three-legged bamboo stand. The pot contained three peacock feathers. There was no punkah, and the layer of dust on the table was a sure indication of how little the room was used. The lot of us had crowded into the room and, while Emily, Charles and I sat down with our host, Toddy and Ishmial stood with arms folded in a corner.

  ‘What can I say?’ Wajid commenced when we were seated. ‘Oh my! What can I say? My house is honoured. Of course it must be honoured but, Miss Hewitt, I am telling you that it is bad that you do not go straight to the Residency.’

  Charles had thrown off his burqha when the door was shut, and Wajid’s eyes kept sliding towards him apologetically while he addressed me.

  ‘We could not help it,’ I said. ‘We tried to make the bearers take us on, but they said it was safer for everyone to come back here. They must have told you there is some sort of trouble, and we couldn’t get past it without danger.’

  ‘Of course. There is trouble every day now. Every day someone’s house or shop is burned, every day the badmashes come out and break the heads of the populaces with their big sticks. There is much trouble, much trouble.’

  ‘We are very sorry to have caused you so much inconvenience,’ Charles said politely. ‘I trust we will not be on your hands for too much longer. It was just bad luck, I’m afraid. I believe we were nearly there.’

  ‘That is so. So they say. Yes, that is so. But now, the question is, sir, what thing are we to do? Tell me that, sir!’

  ‘Why, we must make another attempt,’ Charles answered. ‘Is there not another road, by the river, that we could take?’

  ‘Certainly! Oh, certainly, there are many roads. But the point is, you are not yet on them, you are in my house, and how to get you from my house to the road, that is the question!’

  Wajid Khan was sweating; beads of perspiration had formed on his forehead and cheeks and slid, as I watched, into his fine black whiskers. It was very hot certainly, but I believe his discomfort was occasioned more by fear than the temperature; having guessed that, I realized we must have even more to fear than he. But why? He had shown his good intentions by sending us the palanquins and the guards. It was no fault of ours that we were in his house, and what was there to stop him sending us on our way again? I banished the thoughts of sleep and food which had begun to trouble my mind, and shook myself alert.

  ‘Oh, sir!’ His liquid brown eyes besought Charles, and then turned to Emily and myself. ‘Oh, misses! This is a fine kettle of fishes, I am telling you. I am already besetted by so many disgraceful questions, and now one more. What can a man do?’ Then he held up a plump, pink-palmed hand for silence, shrugged his fat shoulders under the muslin shirt, sighed and tried to explain.

  ‘It is my family, you see. Believe me, if it was only I, oh, how happy I would be to do all in my power to assist you. How kind you were to my little son, Miss Hewitt; can I ever forget that, can I? No, of course I cannot forget; therefore I say, whatever will happen, I, Wajid Khan, will see that his friends are safe and in good hands. It is not my intention to abandon you to … to those wretches in the bazaars. No, nothing like that, never fear. But then, I am asking myself always, what can I do? This is my house, but it is not only I who live in it. There are many … very many people living in this house, my brothers and my uncles and my nephews, and their wives and children, and sometimes their wives’ families also. So many, I cannot count it. And I am afraid, sir, that not all my relations are cultural men like me. There are people in this house who take opposite opinions to me on many things, and in times like this, such people can be very dangerous. And, of course, I have to think of my own children. That is only right. You must agree that is the first thing a man must do.’

  He stopped and mopped his face and neck. His shirt was sticking to his flesh in islands of damp. Charles muttered and looked uncomfortable, and I saw Toddy-Bob’s black eyes fastened unwinkingly on our fat host. I was beginning to see where Wajid’s difficulties lay, and my heart sank. Then his eye fell on Ishmial.

  ‘Ah, yes! This is the man who brought me the rakhri. I recognize him.’

  He spoke rapidly to Ishmial in their own tongue, and Ishmial made a monosyllabic reply.

  ‘Yes, you see, I have asked him and he said that I have done everything in my power. How quickly I chose my best men to send to guard you. Never would they have let you down. And I had to do it all in secretness. And then they too had to go to you in secretness, for if my uncle, one uncle—oh, such an unloving man!—had come to hear of what I was doing, then surely he would have put an end to it. This uncle of mine, and other men in the family, they do not want to help the feringhi—oh, excuse me, misses, the Europeans. They are all too anxious to come to fisticuffs, I am telling you. They think this is the end of the British power in India, and they want to get the British out of Oudh. This also I am telling you so that you can see how difficult it is for me to have you in my house; and yet, now that you are here, how am I to get you out of it?’

  There was silence in the extraordinary room for a moment, as Wajid’s protruberant apologetic eyes roved from face to face. Then Charles cleared his throat and spoke on rather a high note.

  ‘I think there is only one thing to do. We must leave you at once. Of course, we can appreciate your difficulties, and we do not ask any further help of you. No doubt we can make our way to the Residency alone. Our servants are well acquainted with Lucknow and can guide us and, for the rest, well, we must take a chance on our clothing being a sufficient disguise.’

  Wajid rolled his eyes and flapped his hands. ‘Oh, sir, sir! Do not think of such rashness, I beg of you!’

  ‘Then what the devil do you want us to do?’ Charles asked impatiently, getting to his feet.

  ‘Only wait a little time, and I will tell you. But to go out of this house now, and be seen going out, that will be worse for all than if you stay—and that will also be difficult.’

  He sighed again, and I was sorry for his genuine distress of mind.

  ‘You see, sir,’ he admitted at last, ‘it is known to my relatives that you are in the house. In such a house as this who can keep secrets? Already they have been to me to say that you must be sent away, and—oh, what an ashamed man I am to have to say what might happen? I have been hearing such terrible things in these days, and you yourselves, do you not know how badly matters stand between your people and mine?’

  Charles sat down again, winded, and Emily, whose expression had changed from bewilderment to understanding to fear, began to wail, much to the perturbation of the soft-hearted Wajid, who looked as though he would like to join her.

  ‘Then what do you suggest we do?’ I asked at length.

  It must have been nearly midday, and it was difficult to think coherently in the heat, but I had forced my mind to work out the implications of Wajid’s explanation of the situation. One thing was evident: he felt he had already redeemed his honour by sending us the palanquins and the guards in response to the rakhri. He had gone to some lengths to point that out, as much for the benefit of his co-religionist, Ishmial, as for ours. Apart from this, what was explicit was that he could not count on his household forbearing to harm us if we left his house, and what was implicit was that he could not be certain of them if we remained in the house. It was, as he said, a ‘pretty kettle of fishes’.

  ‘What do you suggest, Mr Khan?’ I asked again, for he had not answered the first time, but was sitting silently glum, one fat leg crossed over the other, jiggling on a nerve, and cracking his knuckles methodically as he stared at his patent leather slipper.<
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  ‘You must stay here, miss. It is not good, but for the present it is the only thing.’

  ‘But you just said …’

  ‘Yes, my relations would sooner that you went. But in my house they will not dare to touch you. I am master here, I am telling you. I am thinking that if you will stay here quietly, then in a day or two I will find some way of getting you to the Residency, some private and acceptable way to all.’

  A day or two. That could mean anything, any length of time at all, and who knew what might happen even within the next few hours?

  ‘Yes! Yes, that is it. Now I have it.’ He slapped his knee with gratification. ‘There is a little piece of the house near the ladies’ quarters.’

  ‘The zenana?’ queried Charles.

  ‘That is correct! Near the zenana, where ordinary peoples may not enter. There are two-three rooms and a courtyard. Oh my, how private, and there you will be safe as houses. At the moment, it is not usable, and you will be so comfortable, you will see. My wife, oh, how delighted she will be to have you under her roof!’ His changes in mood were electric, and now that he had found a solution, he beamed happily, rubbed his hands together and laughed. ‘This is it, most certainly. You will be very fine and comfortable and, meanwhile, I will see how things go and make arrangements.’

  ‘What sort of arrangements?’ Charles asked suspiciously.

  ‘Oh, that I cannot say. Perhaps I will get word to your friends in the Residency or perhaps the animosities of my relations will be forgotten. This often happens, does it not?’ he asked optimistically. ‘But, whatever it is,’ and he lifted his hands, palms outwards, to underline his words, ‘this I can promise: that in one, or at most three days, you will be happily safe with your families in the bosom of the Residency. Do you not agree?’ he ended on a note of anxiety.

  We had no option, so we agreed and he hurried away to attend to the matter. When he had left, Ishmial went and stood with his back to the door. We waited again, a long time, in that stifling room.

  ‘Of all the impossible luck!’ Charles growled. ‘We were damn nearly there, and then this! I don’t like it, I don’t like it by half.’

  ‘What else can we do? Apparently we can’t just walk out. I think he is really trying to help us, and I suppose if his family are … er … disaffected, we must be a considerable embarrassment to him, Charles,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, no doubt of that. But how do we know we can trust him? Nobody who knows us is aware that we are here, either. He or one of his precious relations could do away with us all and no one any the wiser.’

  ‘Oh, Charles, don’t!’ said Emily faintly.

  ‘No, Charles, don’t!’ I agreed. ‘There is no point in taking that position. I believe he will do the best he can by us, and we have no alternative but to trust him.’

  We were silent for a moment, and then I said, ‘Toddy, what do you think, you and Ishmial?’ For it seemed to me that Ishmial alone of us all could estimate our unwilling host accurately.

  ‘Wouldn’t like to say, miss,’ replied Toddy dubiously. ‘They’re a changeable lot at the best of times.’ He turned and spoke to Ishmial, who replied at some length. Toddy grunted. ‘’E says, miss, as ’ow no ’arm will come to you, not while the Burra-begum knows ’ow things is. She’s the one ’ose little boy you saved in the bazaar that time. ’E says it’s probably on ’er say-so that ’is nibs sent the palanquins and that. Last night when Ishmial brought the rakhri ’ere, there was no end of a takin’, and ’is nibs went off to the zenana for a big talk with ’is ladies, and then when ’e come out ’e did like ’e said ’e did, fixed everything up in a ’urry and private-like.’

  ‘Well, we must thank God that he is such a devoted husband, then,’ said Charles sourly.

  ‘Oh dear, I do wish Oliver was here!’ Emily sighed, tears in her eyes. ‘He’s such a dependable man, and would have known just what to do. I don’t believe any of this would have happened if … if he had been with us. He would have made those wretched bearers take us another way. He’s so resourceful. I wouldn’t be nearly so frightened if he were here. Oh, Charles!’ And Emily bowed her head and wept. I was so anxious, and so hungry, that I felt very much like joining her. It occurred to me to wonder what explanation, if any, Oliver had given his brother for his sudden return to Hassanganj, but I was too dispirited to enquire. No doubt, manlike, Charles would have been satisfied with some story about Oliver salvaging the remnants of his possessions from the ruin of the house.

  One further blow was to strike us before we were taken to the rooms Mr Khan had apportioned us. We were parted from Toddy and Ishmial.

  ‘It is because of zenana,’ Mr Khan explained with the apologetic shrug of his fat shoulders. ‘I myself am enlightened man and think little of such matters, but my ladies, and some of the other men, if they were to see your servants coming and going here, in this part of the house, there would be questions, and then trouble.’

  ‘But then, what will happen to them?’ Charles asked. ‘We want them near us, of course.’

  ‘Oh, of course, of course, they will be near you; in the servants’ quarters. I will treat them just the same as I treat my own. They too are guests. No one will be troubling them, that I am telling you.’

  ‘It’ll be all right, sir,’ Toddy said gruffly. ‘We’ll make out, and we’ll be ’ere when you wants us.’

  ‘Of course!’ Wajid echoed heartily, ‘very much all right!’ But I think we all reached our lowest ebb as Toddy and Ishmial turned and walked down the stone staircase away from us. I was worried about Toddy in particular; he certainly was as brown as a bunnia as he had once pointed out, but I had no confidence that his disguise would bear up to a close scrutiny, and I hoped he would allow Ishmial to do the talking. I knew that he had lived among natives for many years, but still, I was very uneasy.

  CHAPTER 11

  We descended another staircase, traversed several cavernous corridors and at last Mr Khan opened a door and ushered us into our apartment, a suite of three lofty rooms, opening one off the other in a line, with, at the end of them, the usual gussulkhana or bathroom.

  We were at ground level again, and each of the rooms opened on to a small courtyard completely enclosed by the blank, windowless walls of the house, in the centre of which stood a hideous marble fountain and a couple of lemon trees. There were no doors between the rooms, merely high Moorish archways cut in the walls; chandeliers of great splendour depended from the ceilings of the three large rooms (also candleless, I noticed gloomily) but, apart from these, several fine Persian carpets and a few bolsters, the rooms were empty. Later, three string beds were brought to us and, as a concession to Western habits, three circular cane stools. The rooms were cool, however: huge frilled punkahs flapped dangerously near the chandeliers, operated by coolies sitting on the inner corridor, for I saw the ropes disappear through holes in the walls in that direction. Of course, if this section were truly part of the zenana, no punkah coolie could sit on the ladies’ verandahs, and later, when we had time to examine our surroundings, we noticed that the courtyard could not be overlooked by any curious eyes. We were certainly private, and by the time Wajid Khan, having besought us to make ourselves comfortable and promised us food, had departed, I realized that we were perhaps too private.

  We discarded our dirty burqhas, washed and, when the food arrived carried on a huge brass tray by a thin female servant we attacked it with enthusiasm. Then, since it was the very hottest time of the day, we were thankful to lie down on the carpets and sleep until the cool of the evening restored us.

  Wajid Khan came at nightfall to assure himself that we were comfortable. He was followed by the same servant girl, bearing a platter of elaborate sweetmeats donated by his wife; but nothing was said of our departure and, after a few moments of polite platitudes and shaky syntax, he left us.

  The first two or three days passed quietly and not unpleasantly, despite our anxiety. Charles was inclined to grumble at being confined to the tiny courtyar
d for his exercise, and Emily discovered bugs in her bed, but I think we were all too worn out, physically and emotionally, to have any urgent appreciation of our position. Each evening Khan came in most punctiliously; and, each evening, he said that he was ‘Still thinking, but tomorrow, undoubtedly tomorrow, something will be occurring to me.’ Apart from him, we saw no one but the servant girl, and morning and evening a sweeper woman who slipped into the courtyard through a small door in the wall to perform her unenviable duties and refill the great earthen jar of water. Twice a day food was brought us, delicious food: curries of various sorts, vegetable dishes and unleavened breads of many different types, and in the evening fruit and nuts as well. Our clothes were taken away and washed, and it was purest luxury to know ourselves clean again. I could have been quite content in Mr Khan’s household but for the feeling, at first unadmitted to, that we were prisoners.

  We used to go to bed early. When darkness fell, the servant girl would bring us a couple of lanterns but, since the wicks were never trimmed, they smoked; so it was pleasanter to put them out and retire. In any event, as we discovered on the first morning, sleep in an Indian household is impossible after sunrise. The early hours are the favoured time to strive for musical accomplishment, and we were always woken at dawn by hideous wailings on stringed instruments, often accompanied by dirgelike nasal singing that went on and on interminably. For though the world could not see us, we could hear it, and at night I would lie on my string cot and listen to all the varied noises of the huge household and, beyond it, the constant, hive-like murmur of the city—and try to diminish my sense of isolation by distinguishing and naming to myself the various cacophonies of bazaar and kitchen and stable and street. At night, the doors into the courtyard were left open for the sake of coolness and I could watch the stars change position as I waited for sleep to come, but I never caught the glimmer of a lantern other than our own, or glimpsed the gusty flicker of a torch, so immured were we in the depths of the sprawling house. At first, our absolute isolation had spelt safety but, as the days passed, it became increasingly menacing. It was as though we were at the bottom of a deep black well, could hear but not be heard, could look upwards and only the stars could return our gaze.