River of Fire

by Qurratulain Hyder

  A large Scandinavian woman stood on the wooden balcony overhead, and a number of people walked through the primroses carrying fishing rods.

  Champa and Cyril spent several days in a riverside inn and went for long walks in the forest. “Champa,” said Cyril one afternoon as he sat down on an up-turned canoe in the boathouse. “Tell me about your own milieu.” He had discovered that this woman from a distant land had become strangely dependent on him. She was insecure, but he thought she might be comforted by memory.

  He had become nosey too! “Are you also going to write a novel about me?” she asked unhappily.

  “No. Who is?”

  “Bill—William Craig.”

  “No, I don’t wish to write a novel about you. You’re not a freak, there are thousands of girls like you everywhere in the world, clever, sensitive, pretty.”

  So these three words describe me fully. She closed her eyes and tried to remember her own world. The drab locality in Banaras, cots scattered in the courtyard, Father reading depressing files of criminal cases. She cut out Banaras and went straight to Chand Bagh, Lucknow. She began telling Cyril about the Lantern Service, the Forest of Arden, the swimming pool, the American community songs sung around the bonfire . . .

  Cyril interrupted her. “Look who’s coming straight out of your Moon Garden!” he exclaimed.

  She looked up. Kamal emerged from the crowd of holiday-makers. “Hello, Champa Baji, Cyril,” he said. “We saw you the other day at a road-house, but were in a hurry to reach Lidhurst.” He sat down on another up-turned canoe.

  “I was just telling Cyril about Lucknow,” she said, looking a bit crestfallen.

  “How interesting!” Kamal smiled politely.

  Champa heard the sadness in his voice and continued rapidly, with a certain bravado, “I was telling him about India—the smell of hay on a hot summer afternoon in the compound of our kothi in Banaras, the neighing of horses, the bullock-carts passing by . . . You know, when the wheels of a bullock-cart creaked in the distance at night our maid-servants used to say, ‘This creaking of the wheels indicates that the goddess Bhavani is angry.’”

  Kamal listened to her in grim silence.

  “In the languid afternoons, the pankha coolie dozed outside—we have those long verandas with Georgian pillars in our country-home in Banaras district.” She added hastily, “Now, of course, the house is fast crumbling. It may soon vanish. No, Cyril, you won’t comprehend, your perceptions are different.”

  “I shall tell you . . .” said Kamal, leaning forward. He had suddenly entered a world which was far away and with which he was deeply in love. He wanted to escape from the tensions of the present, and set out on his own journey.

  “Nirmala is not well at all—in Lucknow, her mother must have gone to the Hanuman temple in Aligunj and then proceeded to some Imambara and prayed to Imam Hussain for her speedy recovery. Gyanwati used to sing in the mode Yaman—

  The House of the Prophet, the Children of Ali,

  How I adore Hasan and Hussain, sons of Zahra . . . !

  Can I translate this classical melody and the emotions they convey to me, into English? And during winter, at the time of weddings in our joint family, quilted curtains were dropped in the veranda of our ancestral mud-brick house in Kalyanpur and the mirasins crooned, May the shadow of Ali fall on my Shyam Sunder Banra.1 Can any western sociologist understand the beauty of this scene, this fusion of Muslim and Hindu imagery in a song sung at Muslim marriages? And the peasants of my village sang the Ballad of Alha-Udal: Alha sat by the Jamuna, Syed rushed forward crying, Ali—Ali—and ordered Udal: listen, sonny, King Prithvi has come with massive troops—drive him away.

  “Do you remember, Champa Baji, you and Gautam once came with us to Kalyanpur in the winter vacations, we sat under the tattered canopy of our village theatre and our nautanki orchestra played our favourite theatrical tunes! They were such good musicians. They staged Laila Majnun for us—Qadeer’s nephew Master Chapati played Majnun—and he sang Praise be to the Lord, Laila, I have come in thy Presence.

  “And he sang:

  Laila, thy face is my Qibla. The ringlets of thy hair my faith,

  To circumvent the Kaaba, I have come to thy Court.

  “The mystic import of such ghazals was readily understood by our common people—the West doesn’t have an equivalent in its culture.”

  Champa and Kamal were now transported to the mandap, sipping ginger tea out of clay cups. Master Chapati was singing:

  Like Zuleikha when I fell in love with thee, Laila

  I came to thy bazaar to be sold like Joseph—

  They sat on cane stool watching Laila Majnun against the backdrop of a crudely painted fountain, a palace and the full moon. The nautanki percussionist played kaharva on his tabla. A motor launch went past noisily, they returned from Kalyanpur. “Our nautanki staged a first class Nala Damayanti and Indersabha,” said Kamal proudly and lighted Cyril’s cigarette.

  Champa asked him: “Do you remember Vasanti’s song, The jogan has gone forth in the search?”

  You won’t get anything out of this search, my good woman, he wanted to tell her crossly. “It is an exercise in futility,” he said aloud, “I mean, remembering the old songs—Pankaj Mallik for instance.”

  “Yes, I was going to meet my man, fully made up and with braided plaits,” she said. “How can you know, Cyril, who is Pankaj Mallik and Arzoo Lucknawi and Kallan Qawwal and Ustad Fayyaz Khan, what importance they have in our lives . . . And Jigar Moradabadi who says: ‘A million suns went past and we continued to wait for the morn.’ And Kalidas: ‘Passing over the Vindhyas and the Sindhu in the company of cranes, the cloud went forth carrying the message . . .’”

  Now Kamal wanted to come back to earth but Champa sat before him like the conscience of time. He felt she was flying about like a leaf in the maelstrom of eons. He frowned.

  “Kamal, listen—” she was saying, “it is night-time, dogs bark, the bazaar is filled with silence. Birds are asleep, chowkidars are guarding the watermelon fields, gardeners are rattling the gondni’s rattlers. In a short while the grindstones shall start moving—”

  “Sarshar?”2 Kamal asked her. She nodded and was lost in thought again.

  “We used to assemble in Hari’s tower room and solve the world’s problems. Life was still very undefined. Sometimes we were picked up by strong beams of light; often we were surrounded by mists. We spent our youthful days in this light and shade of intellectual hide-and-seek. We aquired a kind of Gandhian humility, but it was not born of a sense of superiority. We felt as though the blood of mankind was on our hands and we had to wash it off. And, then, look what happened.” He spread his hands in front of Cyril Ashley—“One morning we discovered that our own hands were drenched in blood, and we saw that all those fine people—intellectuals and authors and leaders—many of them had blood-stained hands too. Most of them were not willing to atone. They ran away, or took different avatars, but there were some genuine human beings, as well.”

  “Like Qadeer and Qamrun?” Champa asked humbly.

  Silently he took her permission to speak about them. They appeared like holy, shining beings.

  “Yes, Qadeer and Qamrun, Ram Autar and Ram Daiya, our peasants and betel-leaf sellers, our chikan embroiderers who lose their eyesight doing intricate needlework for a pittance. They are our real backbone, Cyril.”

  Champa was still far away. She said, “Kamal, ask Gautam if he also remembers the wood-apples falling with a soft thud on the grass in Badshah Bagh . . .”

  He pondered. How shall I tell her that Gautam has probably forgotten her? But, can he forget her? He must remember her, just as he remembers the river and the mossy houses and wood-apple trees. Kamal looked anxiously at his watch. “Er . . . Excuse me, Champa Baji, I’ve just come from Sir Ronald Grey’s house—he’s the surgeon, lives in a village close by—because I had to speak to him about Nirmal. May I take your leave? Bye, Cyril.” He got up and strode away.

  It was
strange, he hadn’t shown any surprise at finding her with Cyril in a boat-house. Everybody knew everything about her. She stood on a pinnacle, fully exposed. Why did I let this happen to myself, why? She looked at Cyril in abject terror. She had come back to the present like a wood-apple falling with a thud on English grass. She was living at the mercy of circumstances. Perhaps it was already much too late.

  1 Banna or Banra—bridegroom, derived from Ban Raj Forest Prince Krishna, Shyam Sunder; dark and handsome Krishna.

  2 Pandit Ratan Nath Sarshar, nineteenth century Urdu novelist of Lucknow.

  53. The Trumpeter

  He used to play the trumpet regularly at the crack of dawn. He lived next door but she had never seen him. That summer morning it was ominously quiet. No trumpet sounded. Perhaps he was a student and had gone home. The morning seemed strangely empty. Champa had an uncanny feeling that it was the trumpeter of destiny who had given his last signal and vanished.

  The project on Anglo-French relations was complete and Cyril had gone to meet his wife in Staffordshire. He was planning to visit the National Library in Calcutta for further work on Lord Cornwallis. Champa looked forward to her admission to the Middle Temple. This Indo-English relationship could not last. As Ghalib had said about human life, it contained the seeds of its own destruction.

  The sun came up and she made her breakfast. Cyril’s head appeared at the window.

  “Hello Champa—damn good news!” he cried. “First give me a hot cup of tea.”

  She opened the door, and he blew in.

  “What is it, Cyril? Found a lucrative job for me?”

  He sat down at the kitchen table and grinned impishly. “Guess again!”

  “You’re going to become a don?” She poured his tea. He took a sip and said, “As our housekeeper Mrs. Platt once told her wayward granddaughter, Jean—‘Quit fooling around, luv, and get yourself the degree of M.R.S.!’”

  “M.R.S.? Oh . . .” she blanched. This was most unexpected—they had never discussed marriage.

  He lit a cigarette. “Rose and I are getting divorced. Now you and I can tie the knot—as they say in India.”

  “Divorce your wife in order to marry me? Have you gone off your head, Cyril?” she uttered, aghast.

  He was surprised by her reaction.

  “Have you really . . . because of me . . . I mean,” she spoke in a crushed voice. “How on earth did you make such a tremendous decision?” She had never been able to understand the mysteries of decision-making. You resolve to get married, to separate, to change your career, change your country or religion. How did people do these things? She had made a decision once about Amir Reza—how had she done it?

  “How could you . . . ?” she repeated.

  Cyril frowned. Then he said coolly, “As a matter of fact, I suffer from fits of insanity from time to time and act strangely, you know—Give me one good reason why not?”

  “Basically, because I am not a husband-snatcher—and secondly, I can’t take you to my folks in India and say, ‘Hello Pop, this is my Gora Saheb whom I have brought from Vilayat’.”

  “But you can have a roaring affair with a white man!”

  “This is not Home, this is Abroad. You’ll find many Hindus eating beef over here . . .”

  “I remember your telling me once about an upper-class Muslim lady in Lucknow, Zakia something, who married an Englishman, Mr. Stanley. An officer of the Indian Police—you said there was no uproar.”

  “Yes, but the Stanleys now live in Britain. I wouldn’t leave my old parents in India and I can’t take you to them in Banaras . . .”

  “Why not? You always gave me to understand that you belonged to Anglicised landed aristocracy.”

  “Yes, indeed.” She faltered. “But it won’t do. My people are very modern but conservative in certain matters.” She lapsed into silence. How could she take him to her dingy mohalla and shabby house after all the yarns she had spun about her “nawabi” family? And she didn’t want her humble and innocent father to die of shock.

  “Oh, Champa, why not? Can’t you cite Mrs. Stanley’s example to them?” he persisted.

  She paused and made another brave attempt—“After the recent Zamindari Abolition Act, my father has become very poor—you know all about Lord Cornwallis’ Permanent Settlement—it’s gone in a jiffy. So I must get back home, take up a job and help him.”

  Cyril was watching her intently. Champa began scrubbing the stove. He was silent for a while, then said ruefully, “I had always thought you were a bit of a waffler, Champa, that’s what made you so interesting. Now don’t let your fibs and fantasies catch up with you. I’m not concerned about your social status. Think it over. Every moment is unique, won’t be repeated. Do not imagine, Champa, that these moments can be retrieved. Your life—myself—all this is unique. You cannot afford to laugh at the tragedy of passing time. Think it over, I’ll ring you up tomorrow morning.” He got up and left.

  Champa spent the day in agony and lay awake all night. Early in the morning Cyril telephoned. The little demon who had prompted her to be rude to Amir Reza all those years ago on the avenue in Badshah Bagh, whispered something in her ears. Cyril had called her a waffler, he had seen through her right away. She said coldly, “Cyril, it occurred to me, perhaps you want a wife-cum-research assistant for your Cornwallis project in India. You wish to legalise the arrangement, don’t you? Maybe it’s not blind love for an exotic, interesting native woman—am I right?”

  “I beg your pardon . . . ?” He sounded horrified. “What you’re saying is perfectly outrageous!” his voice quivered with anger. “How can you be so . . . so crass!”

  “Hold on, listen to me, your society will never accept me—a dark-skinned native. Your wife Rose may be Jewish and poor, but she’s white and western. I wouldn’t like to be looked down upon or have my children referred to as half-castes.

  “At best, I would be tolerated and patronised. We have enough experience of Anglo-Saxon attitudes, Cyril, after all we were ruled by your nation for far too long.

  “You opted out as a young rebel, but eventually you’ll go back to the Establishment, revert to type. People do, you know, when they grow old. Or you may divorce me as soon as your fascination for the East is over. No, Cyril, I’m sorry. It won’t do.” She concluded archly, “Sorry if I have wounded your pride.”

  There was silence for a few moments. Then his frozen voice, “I misunderstood you, Champa. I am very sorry, too. Goodbye and all the best.”

  The day she was leaving Cambridge she went to his rooms and found him sitting at the window, busy working on The New Statesman and Nation’s Weekend Competition. The door was ajar. He remained absorbed even after Champa entered the room. When she sat down on a chair he raised his head and asked her about a possible clue. Champa pondered over it then gave him her opinion.

  “Thank you.”

  She was taken aback. This young man actually was the Hon’ble Cyril Ashley who had gravely consulted her about an oblique reference to Christopher Marlowe, and thanked her formally.

  “When are you coming down to London, Cyril?” she began conversationally.

  “I have no idea at the moment. Anyhow, when I do, I may not be able to see you. All kinds of things to do, you know, when one is in London.”

  Rain pattered against the window-panes and the room was filled with fresh, vapoury air. They talked of common friends for a while. “It may start pouring. I must leave,” she said looking at the wall clock.

  He rose from the warm brown leather sofa.

  Champa cast a glance about the room one last time as she stood up. At the door she extended her hand to Cyril. He bowed slightly and made way for her to leave. She kept her hand outstretched, and he held it in a light, limp handshake. “It was a pleasure and a privilege for me to have known you, Champa. Goodbye.” He strode back into the room.

  As she reached the end of the quadrangle, Champa paused and turned around. He was still busy with the crossword competition at the window
. She knew she would never see him again.

  54. Queen Mary’s Funeral

  Talat was about to step out of her office on an assignment when the telephone rang. It was Sajida Begum. “Champa is back to square one—rejoined Bill Craig’s office. I want you to ask Bill Craig about my novel before this cantankerous old maid starts interfering—she hates younger women like us, you know. So ring up Bill now.”

  Talat smiled. “Sajida Apa, Bill Craig can wait, Queen Mary can’t.”

  “Who—?”

  “I’m off to Westminster Abbey to see Her Majesty—”

  “So you’re meeting Royalty these days?”

  “Dead royalty, which makes them a little less royal I suppose. Bye.”

  Sajida was suitably impressed, and hung up.

  Talat stood near the coffin of the late Queen Mary in Westminster Abbey and saw a ‘close-up’ of death for the first time. The serene, lifeless face of the dead queen was visible through a haze of lilies and candles. Talat had seen the queen’s photograph in old magazines in Gulfishan—a young woman sitting ramrod straight in her hour-glass gown, imperious and haughty, the Queen Empress of India at the Delhi Durbar of 1911. If you are royalty you get married in Westminster Abbey, are crowned here, but even royalty is mortal so you lie in state here, too . . . Time was shuffling by outside the Abbey walls, like the old Eurasian who used to play haunting Scottish airs on his bagpipes in Lucknow. It was a fine summer’s day and crowds undulated outside in the sun. It was a holiday for them—here was death in all its earthly glory, for commoners to gape at.

  The story was to be filed immediately. Death may be eternal but its news got stale amazingly soon. One person’s ceasing to exist triggered off a wave of activity among the living, for a day or two. Talat walked past rows of silent, grave-faced men and women, showed her press card to the guards at the door and made her way to the tower where the BBC Eastern Service was broadcasting a running commentary of the funeral. The tower was cold and grey and smelt of lived-in emptiness. Chacha was rounding off his commentary in Urdu. He grinned and told Talat, “I found Queen Mary’s Indian cook outside. Go and interview him—just the thing for your Women’s Page . . .”