The Moneylenders of Shahpur

by Helen Forrester

  Meanwhile, Anasuyabehn stared unbelievingly at her aunt, marvelling at her powers of observation; she tended to think of her as part of the furniture, a necessary encumbrance, without life in herself.

  Her fears redoubled.

  Very quickly, Aunt loosed the deadliest shaft she possessed.

  ‘A man who kills and cuts up animals,’ she said.

  Dean Mehta stared at her, horrified, his worst fears realized.

  ‘No!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Oh, yes. The mother of one of his students told me.’

  ‘I must see him about it,’ he muttered.

  Making a great effort to be calm and firm, he turned to Anasuyabehn. ‘A young man about whom we know so little would not be suitable, child. I would prefer you to marry a Gujerati, at least.’

  Anasuyabehn nearly burst with rage at her aunt, and was about to explode verbally, when her little servant boy slid into the room.

  ‘The young Desai Sahib is here,’ he said to Dean Mehta. ‘He’s sitting on the front veranda.’

  Anasuyabehn’s rage gave way to panic; she sprang to her feet as if to fly.

  Her father and aunt got up immediately, and her father said kindly, ‘Don’t be afraid, child. Would you like to see him?’

  ‘No!’ said Anasuyabehn fervently, while her aunt exploded, ‘Tush, what are things coming to?’

  ‘All right,’ said the Dean a little testily, and, turning to the servant, he told him to bring Mahadev into the living-room.

  Anasuyabehn fled to the kitchen veranda, picked up a basket tray full of millet which she had been cleaning earlier, and began feverishly to pick the small bits of stone and the insects out of it. When she was sure all the insects were out and carefully deposited over the side of the veranda, she tossed the grain up and down on the tray to bring to the edge any other impurities. She picked these out and then emptied the millet into a shopping bag.

  ‘Bhai,’ she called to the servant, ‘take this to the miller.’ Her voice still shook, but she had gained some comfort from her domestic task.

  The boy shouted that he was making tea for the Sahib, and she waited quietly until he had finished and had taken the tea to the study.

  He came slowly back to her, his bare feet dragging, and took the bag from her. He did not leave her at once. He stood first on one foot and then on the other, his grubby face as woebegone as Anasuyabehn’s. In the moment or two he had been in the study his world had crumbled; from the conversation he knew that Anasuyabehn, whom he loved as much as his mother, far away in his native village, was going to marry the terrifying Mahadev Desai. He was only ten, and he could not visualize life in a house which held only a tart, old lady and an absent-minded old gentleman.

  ‘Well?’ asked Anasuyabehn.

  ‘Bahin, are you really going to be married?’

  Anasuyabehn nearly choked, as sobs rose in her and were hastily crushed down.

  The boy looked frightened, and she took his hand and pulled him to her. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘But you mustn’t worry. Your work will be here just the same.’

  He was not satisfied; a child’s instinct to sense trouble was with him, and he feared change.

  ‘Can I come with you to serve in Desai Sahib’s house?’

  ‘I don’t know, boy. I will ask. Do you want to come?’

  The boy fell to his knees and touched her feet. He would have lifted her foot and touched his head with it, but she restrained him. Such devotion from so small a person hurt her. ‘My cup is full,’ her heart cried. ‘My cup is full.’

  ‘There,’ she said comfortingly. ‘If the marriage is finally arranged, I’ll ask the Sahib. Go and get the clean shopping bag, to put the flour in – and remember to feel the flour as it comes out of the chute. Last time you brought back half of someone else’s rubbish which was already in the machine. The miller is a rogue.’

  Her gay tone made the boy laugh. He crammed his round, black cap on to his head and was soon on his way.

  Anasuyabehn sat stonily on the veranda. The first panic had ebbed from her and she felt tired and exhausted. Furthermore, she had no idea what to do. She was no fool; she knew that by worldly standards an alliance with the Desais was desirable; the difference in caste troubled her not at all – she had gone to school with many different castes – but the possible Bania orthodoxy of the Desais’ home life did. It was an orthodoxy which forbade more than a minimum of communion between husband and wife, judged success in life by the amount of money buried in the floors of the house and regarded its acquisition as a religious duty.

  Then there was Tilak, whose burning, narrowed eyes sought her out from among the other women at the tea parties and badminton parties given by the University staff, so that she blushed and had to put her sari up over her head to hide her confusion.

  In angry revolt against her father’s wishes, her tired mind sought frantically for a solution. She could become a nun, she considered desperately, and gain universal respect thereby – but the Jain religion offers little of true comfort for a woman.

  She could run away – to what?

  There is no place in India for a woman by herself, she thought bitterly, no honourable means of earning a living alone.

  She remembered mournfully those brave Jains who sought release from the cycle of rebirth by starving themselves to death. She thought of her soft, round body tortured by hunger, reduced to an ugly bundle of suffering.

  ‘I couldn’t do it,’ she acknowledged miserably. ‘I want to live – life could be so sweet.’

  She thought of Tilak and the weight of disapproval that would descend upon him, as a result of her aunt’s remark about his dissecting. What an old troublemaker she was. She wept.

  As her weariness gained on her, fear receded. Eventually, half asleep, she began to dream of a real lover, someone who thought her beautiful in mind and body, someone who would give her a son like himself, tall, slender, dynamic, and a little girl to dress in frilly, Western dresses. But the fact that Desai obviously thought of her as a very desirable woman was forgotten.

  Desai had stayed half an hour, listening politely to his would-be father-in-law and hoping to catch a glimpse of his betrothed. At last, reluctantly he took his leave, and it was arranged that he would call again more formally, bringing his relations with him to meet Anasuyabehn. The Dean gave no hint that his daughter might repudiate the agreement, because he heartily hoped she would not. Orthodox he was in much that concerned himself alone, but he was intelligent enough to know that his grandchildren were going to live in an entirely different world, and he felt that that world, as far as India was concerned, was going to belong to those with capital and initiative. The Desais had both. He knew that many might criticize his choice of a husband for his daughter; yet his instincts told him that he was right. Moreover, he liked Mahadev personally; the man was neither ignorant nor stupid and he heartily respected his future father-in-law’s learning.

  John had heard all these things from devious quarters. It provided him with considerable quiet amusement to listen to the sweeper, to Ranjit, to the milkman, the vegetableman, the washerman, all the horde of people who daily came up his veranda steps and took a tremendous interest in those they served. It was John’s opinion that it was impossible to eat something different for dinner without all the neighbours being informed by their servants of the details of it. To John, it was like a play which he watched as an audience. His own life was so plain, so austere, that he cared nothing if his neighbours knew all about it; he gathered from Ranjit that it met with their approval, even if Ranjit himself felt that his lifestyle should be a little more suited to his station.

  As John sorted out his sketches of the Dreams of Trisala and prepared to write captions for them, for his book, he wondered idly how Mahadev would get on at the formal family meeting in Dean Mehta’s house; and whether Tilak was aware that his name was being coupled with that of Anasuyabehn. Did Anasuyabehn herself realize the fact?

  CHAPTER EIGHT
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br />   John soon dismissed Mahadev Desai from his mind. After finishing the captions for his sketches, he began to draft a description of the enclosing cloisters of the Marwari Gate temple, with their fifty-two small shrines, each of which seemed to be the work of a separate person.

  He did not hear the students shouting goodbye to each other as they left the badminton courts and the cricket pitch, nor Ranjit gossiping with the milkman when he brought the evening milk.

  When Ranjit brought his tea on a small, brass tray, he forgot to drink it; and Ranjit took one look at the dark head bent over the manuscript and at the scuttling fountain pen, and turned on the desk light. Then he retired to the kitchen veranda and took a nap, knowing well that on such a day dinner would not be required until late.

  A sharp rap on the outside door, however, forced John to lay down his pen and call, ‘Come in.’ He fumed inwardly at the interruption.

  His irritation quickly turned to pleasure when he saw who the caller was.

  ‘Why, Tilak!’ he exclaimed. ‘Come in.’ He waved a friendly hand towards the couch. ‘Sit down. How are you?’

  It was odd, he reflected, that this excitable, tense man had found his way into his affections so quickly. Perhaps it was because his ability to be one minute exalted and the next minute cast down was almost childlike and one automatically consoled him as if he were still a youngster.

  As Tilak took the proffered seat, he looked unsmilingly at John. Then the door was flung open again by the wind, and a swish of sand flew across the stone floor. With a muttered exclamation, he jumped up to shut it. ‘Sand storm coming,’ he said, as he shot the great, brass bolt with unexpected force, as if to keep at bay something more than the whirling wind.

  He plonked himself down again on the couch and sat there silently, pounding one clenched fist into the palm of the other. It was obvious that he was in a dreadful temper; his face was as grim as an idol of an avenging god.

  John hastily abandoned all thought of his work, and asked, ‘Anything the matter?’

  ‘Everything,’ said Tilak.

  ‘Like to tell me about it?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. I came to you …’ he started and then stopped, realizing that he really did not know this monklike Englishman very well. The man was famous in the city and in the University, he told himself. Everybody spoke of him with admiration, and one of the first questions any member of the staff asked him was whether he had yet met him. Surely, he would understand. He looked at the face before him; a typical lantern-jawed English face, the skin made red and leathery by much exposure to the Indian sun, lines of pain etched deeply into it, yet with a long thin mouth as sensitive as his own and narrow, blue eyes, bloodshot with study, observing him sympathetically. Compared to Marathas, the English were not a handsome race, he ruminated with sudden pride. He sensed, however, that this eccentric Englishman had an integrity, a trustworthiness, which was rare enough anywhere, and he badly needed to talk to somebody outside the University.

  John always seemed willing to give him time, time and a considered opinion when asked for it, so Tilak made a real effort to control his rage; but the words he wanted would not at first come to him in English.

  John turned his chair so that he faced Tilak, took his pipe out of his pocket and resigned himself to listening. Quite often he found himself consulted by irate members of the University staff deeply provoked by the petty politics of the campus – as if I were some antiquated guru, he thought ruefully, guaranteed to give impartial advice. He knew that all he had to do was to listen for an hour and then suggest a little moderation on both sides, and the men concerned went away comforted. Most of the squabbles were incredibly petty and he got some amusement out of watching them resolve themselves.

  John offered Tilak a cigarette from the little wooden box which lay on his desk, and it was accepted eagerly. He struck a match for his guest, and watched him puff like a steam engine until he was wreathed in a cloud of smoke.

  Since Tilak did not seem to be able to get started, John eventually asked, ‘Well, how are things?’

  ‘Things are very well, thank you,’ said Tilak, grinding his teeth, ‘except that it seems that I am not to do the work which I came here to do.’

  ‘Really?’ exclaimed John, rather puzzled by the intensity of rage in Tilak’s voice.

  Tilak scowled, his fine face distorted with anger, and ground the end of his much abused cigarette into an ashtray.

  ‘These fools! These lunatics,’ he muttered. ‘These religious maniacs!’

  John surveyed the bent and shaking shoulders. He was almost afraid of such intensity of rage – it appeared unnecessary and unseemly to him. But when Tilak buried his face in his hands, and muttered that he might as well be dead as in Shahpur, John got up and went to sit beside him, not even noticing that he had managed several steps without the aid of his stick. He put a kindly hand on Tilak’s shoulder.

  The friendly gesture calmed Tilak. He began to speak more coherently.

  ‘After weeks of dealing with new students,’ he said, ‘preparing lectures, attending endless tea parties, fighting for the supply of a few magazines – at last, I tell you – at last it seemed that I might have a few hours for my own research; I’m doing some work on the gills of fish. So, off I went to the Muslim fish bazaar, and arranged for a small supply of the particular fish I wanted – you’ll know that fish are shipped up here from Bombay in salt-water tanks, live.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well,’ responded Tilak. ‘I took some fish back to my laboratory. They were dead but fresh, so I began work. I had three fish on a slab beside me, ready to put into formaldehyde, and one dissected. Then there was a knock at the door and the Dean came in.

  ‘“Ah, good day, Dr Tilak,” he greeted me, all charm.’

  ‘He is a very pleasant man,’ said John, a little on the defensive immediately.

  Tilak snorted.

  ‘Humph,’ he said. ‘He came close to the table and peered at what I was doing.

  ‘“Whatever is this?” he quavered.

  ‘“A fish,” I said. “In fact, altogether four fishes.”

  ‘He went quite white and looked at me horror-stricken.

  ‘“But, my dear sir, we cannot have this kind of thing in our University,” he said.

  ‘I didn’t know what to say. I was not quite sure what part of my operations was disturbing him. He looked very shaken.

  ‘“This is a Jain community, Dr Tilak, a Jain seat of learning. We cannot have life taken haphazardly right on our campus.”

  ‘I was so dismayed that I could only say stupidly, “They were dead by the time I got them here.”

  ‘He made a great effort to control himself, “I know that the sciences must be taught, but surely it can be done without taking life? Do you make a habit of this?”

  ‘“I dissected a frog this morning for Zoology I,” I said. Whereupon he was immediately violently sick all over my fish.’

  John suppressed a desire to burst out laughing.

  ‘What did you do?’ he asked.

  ‘I assisted him outside, and sent a servant across to his bungalow to get him clean garments. Anasuyabehn brought them herself. He did not address me further, and refused my help while changing in my office.

  ‘After he was cleaned up, he went home, leaning on Anasuyabehn, while I walked behind him carrying his briefcase and the bundle of dirty clothes. I felt a complete fool.’

  He got up and walked with three swift strides to the end of the room, turned and, with eloquent gestures of his hands, went on, ‘When we got to the gate of his compound, he turned round and said, “I’ll see the Vice-Chancellor tomorrow. In the meantime, please arrange to use only diagrams during your lectures.”’

  ‘What did you reply to that?’ asked John, a twinkle showing in his eyes, despite Tilak’s fury.

  ‘I just said, “All right” and left them and went home. What could I say? While Anasuyabehn was there I couldn’t quarrel with her father – such wome
n as she are rare and I would not wish to trouble – and furthermore, he is the Dean, and I have only been here a few weeks.’

  Tilak’s rage was fizzling out and he looked haggard.

  ‘When I went back to the lab. this afternoon, there was a different padlock on it – and that seemed the final insult. I couldn’t even get into my own laboratory. I’m tired, Bennett Sahib. No Hindu will take life wantonly – but the situation here is absurd.’

  He sank his head again into his hands and groaned, the drama of which was lost, as the veranda door burst open, admitting three of Ranjit’s grandchildren, who must have been visiting him. John knew them well. They liked to peep around the door and examine the white Sahib, unbeknown to him, they imagined.

  Ranjit shouted to them from amongst his cooking pots to come back, but John held them with a smile.

  ‘Tilak,’ he said, ‘stay and have your evening meal with me. We can send a message to your mother by the children, and we can talk about the Dean.’

  Tilak looked relieved.

  ‘Dean, Dean,’ shouted the children like parrots.

  John laughed, and explained to them what he wanted. Tilak wrote a note for them to carry to Mrs Tilak and gave them an anna each. They hitched up their ragged little pants and were away through the front door and were scudding through the gloom of the dusty lane, before an irate Ranjit was aware they had gone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Anasuyabehn had been very frightened by the message from Tilak, asking for a clean set of clothes for her father. As she flew to the almira to get out the garments, she questioned the peon.

  The man knew only that the Dean had vomited. A cold fear nagged at her that he might be seriously ill – he fasted so much.

  She decided that she would herself take the clean clothes to the small corner of the University building in which the Zoology Department had been lodged.