Heat and Dust (11 page)

30 April.
    As the heat and dust storms continue, Ritu's condition has become worse. She has now to be kept locked up inside the room and sometimes terrible sounds come from out of there. The other people living around the courtyard seem to be quite used to them and continue to move around their business undisturbed. Chid is also quite undisturbed. He says he has been in India long enough to have got used to everything. But I can't get used to these screams. I kept telling Chid “But she ought to have treatment.”

One day he said “She's going to have treatment today.”

“What sort?” I asked.

“One of their people is coming to do it.”

That day the screams broke out again, but in an entirely different way. Now they were bloodcurdling as of an animal in intense physical pain. Even the neighbours in the courtyard stopped to listen. Chid remained calm: “It's her treatment,” he said. He went on to explain that she might be possessed by an evil spirit which had to be driven out by applying a red-hot iron to various parts of her body, such as her arms or the soles of her feet.

Next day I decided to speak to Inder Lal about psychiatric treatment. I waited for him outside his office, and as we walked home together, I tried to explain to him what it was. I said “It's a sort of science of the mind,” which pleased him and made him attentive. He associates science with progress and everything else modern and up-to-date that he is eager
to learn about; when anyone speaks about such things, his face takes on an expression of wistful desire.

But when I mentioned the “treatment” to which Ritu had been subjected, he changed again. He became both melancholy and embarrassed; he said “I don't believe in these things.”

“But you had it done.”

“Mother wanted it.”

He went on to defend both himself and her. He said all her friends had advised it; they had cited many cases where it had effected a cure. At first his mother had also been reluctant, but then she said “Why not try,” and in the end he too said “Why not,” for they had tried everything else but had not succeeded in relieving Ritu's suffering.

Just then one of his colleagues passed us and greeted me very politely. They have all got used to me now and often take the opportunity of having conversation in English. Of course I greeted him back again, but Inder Lal did not care for this exchange. He frowned, and when the man was out of earshot, said “Why does he pretend to be so friendly?”

“He is friendly.”

Inder Lal's frown deepened. He wouldn't talk for a while but brooded in his thoughts.

“But what's he done?” I asked.

Inder Lal implored me not to speak so loudly. He looked over his shoulder which made me laugh.

“You don't know,” he said then. His whole face had closed up with fear and suspicion. “You don't know what people are like or what is in their hearts even when they are smiling with friendly faces. Again yesterday there was an anonymous letter,” he said, lowering his voice.

“Against you?”

He would not say. He walked beside me in brooding silence. I hate to see him like that, with all the brightness of his nature obscured by dark suspicions.

2 May.
    Where I advised psychiatry, Maji-the holy woman and friend-has advised pilgrimage. Inder Lal's mother and Ritu are to leave in a few days time: best of all, Chid is going with them! Maji has persuaded him to do so; I almost feel she did it for my sake – not that I ever complained to her about Chid, but she seems to know most things by herself.

She told me yesterday when I had gone to pay her a visit. At first we sat inside her hut, but it got so stifling in there that we crawled out again, even though the hot wind was still blowing. The dust swirled around the royal tombs and sat in a pall over the lake. Chid was with us too. He often visits Maji – he says he derives great benefit from her presence. They make a strange couple together. Maji is a very earthy-looking peasant woman; she is quite fat and always jolly. Whenever she looks at Chid, she gives a shout of laughter; “Good boy!” she cries – in English, perhaps her only two words in it. He does look like a good boy when he is with her – sitting very straight in his meditation pose and a spiritual if rather strained look on his face.

Maji explained to me about pilgrimages. She said “If someone is very unhappy and disturbed in their minds, or if they have some great wish to be fulfilled, or a terrible longing inside them, then they go. It is a long long journey, high up in the Himalayas. Very beautiful and holy. When she comes back,” she said about Ritu, “her heart will be at ease.”

She patted my knee – she likes touching people – and asked “Would you like to go?” She pointed at Chid: “Oh how he will love it, this good boy!” She laughed loudly, then
took his cheeks between her hands and squeezed them lovingly.

“Are you going?” I asked him, but he shut his eyes and murmured “
Om
.”

Maji said “All sorts of people go from all over India. They travel for weeks and months away from their homes in order to reach there. On the way they stop at temple rest-houses, and when they come to a river they bathe in it. They travel very slowly and if they like a place they stay there for a while and take their rest. At last they reach the mountains and begin to climb up. What shall I say of that place, those mountains!” cried Maji. “Yes it is climbing up into heaven. There is cool air and breezes, clouds, birds, and trees. Then there is only snow, everything is white and the sun also is shining white. Having bathed in the icy stream, they draw near the cave at last. Many faint and fall down with joy and none can restrain himself, they call out the Name at the top of their voices.
Jai Shiva Shankar
!” she called out at the top of her voice.

“
Jai Shiva Shankar
! “Chid echoed at the top of his.

“Good boy! Good boy!” she cried and encouraged him to repeat it in chorus with her. It really sounded as if it were echoing through those snowy mountains she had mentioned, and I must say, sitting here in the dust storm under the yellow sky, I too would have liked to be up there.

1923

Mrs. Crawford and Mrs. Minnies had left for Simla. Although Douglas had done his best to persuade Olivia to accompany them, now that she had decided to stay he was very grateful and happy. They spent lovely evenings and
nights together. Olivia tried to be lively and gay for him. She understood that, once Douglas was home, he just wanted to
be
home, with her, in their tasteful English bungalow, leaving outside all the heat and problems he had to contend with the whole day long. So she never touched on any subject that might cast even the faintest shadow on him – like, for instance, that of the Nawab – but chattered to him about everything she could think of that had nothing to do with India. Douglas loved her more than ever at this time, if that were possible. Inarticulate by nature, sometimes he reached such a pitch of high emotion that he felt he had to express it: but his feelings were always too strong for him and made him stutter.

Harry usually came quite early in the mornings, just after Douglas had left, and always in one of the Nawab's cars. He and Olivia sat in the car and drove to Khatm. Although the way was so hot and dusty, the landscape utterly flat and monotonous, Olivia learned to like these morning drives. Sometimes she glanced out of the window and then she thought, well, it was not so bad really – she could even see how one could learn to like it (in fact, she
was
learning): the vast distances, the vast sky, the dust and sun and occasional broken fort or mosque or cluster of tombs. It was so different from what one knew that it was like being not in a different part of this world but in another world altogether, in another reality.

They usually spent the day in the large drawing-room in the Palace. This was overlooked by a curtained gallery from which the ladies sometimes watched them; but Olivia never looked up. Besides the Nawab and Harry, there were the usual young men lying around in graceful attitudes. They drank, smoked, played cards, and were perfectly content to
go on doing that till the Nawab told them to do something else.

One day the Nawab said “Olivia” – this was what he called her now – “Olivia, you play the piano so beautifully but you have never played mine.”

“Where is it?”

She looked around the drawing-room. It was a long cool marble room furnished very sparsely with just a few pieces of European furniture between the pillars. There were carved sofas with brocade upholstery and a few little carved tables and a cocktail cabinet specially made for the Nawab out of an elephant's foot: but no piano.

The Nawab laughed: “Come, I will show you.”

He did not invite anyone else to follow him. He led her through various suites and passages. She never could find her way around the Palace: not that it was very large but it was intricate, and there were certain areas where she had never been and had no idea what went on there, if anything. He took her into an underground chamber which seemed to be a kind of store room. And what stores! There was an immense amount of camera equipment which, though already rusting, did not seem ever to have been used; some of it was still in its original packing. The same had happened to some modern sanitary equipment and an assortment of games such as a pinball machine, a croquet set, a miniature shooting gallery, meccano sets, and equipment for a hockey team. All of these things appeared to have been ordered from Europe but had taken too long to arrive for interest in them to be sustained. There was not one piano but two: a grand and an upright.

As the Nawab touched the baize cloth covering the grand piano, a small animal – it looked like a squirrel – came
scurrying out and ran for its life. The Nawab did not seem surprised. “Do you like my pianos?” he asked Olivia; and added apologetically “There is no one to play them.”

The keys were swollen and stuck, and when Olivia tried to play some of them, all she could get was a shrill jangle. “What a shame,” she said with feeling.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes you are right.” He too was suddenly sad. He sank down on to an unopened packing-case. After a heavy silence he said “They were ordered for my wife.”

Olivia tried again but the sounds produced were too heartbreaking.

“Can they be mended?” he asked.

“If you can get a good tuner.”

“Certainly. I will send for it immediately.”

“It's a person,” Olivia said. “I've been desperately wanting someone but Douglas says he has to come all the way from Bombay.”

“Why didn't you tell me? Such things you must tell me. There is so little I can do to serve my friends. Did you know I was married?”

“I've heard,” Olivia murmured.

He leaned forward: “What have you heard?” His eyes scanned her face which she kept lowered and, she hoped, expressionless. Nevertheless he seemed to have read something into it.

He said “You will hear many things about me. There are many people to give bad report. Whatever I do – there are always those who will say one thing when it is another. You know Murad?” Olivia knew him to be one of the young men who were always there, but it was difficult to distinguish one from another. “He is a spy,” the Nawab said. “Oh I know it and he knows I know it, we understand each other. And he is
not the only one. There are others, among the servants and everyone.” His eyes as they rested on Olivia were veiled with dark thoughts. If he suspected her too – and he probably did – she knew no way to defend herself.

But he reverted to the pianos: “If I have them repaired and brought upstairs, you will come and play for me, Olivia? It will make me so very happy. Sandy had been learning the sitar but she got tired of it so I sent for the pianos. By the time they arrived she had gone away. Please play.”

“But it sounds so awful.”

“For my sake.”

He stood behind her while she tried to play a Bach Prelude. It was murder, but he nodded solemnly as if he liked it. He bent over her closely.

“I wish Sandy could have learned to play like you. I miss her very much. She was supposed to be in purdah upstairs but she often hid from everyone to come and be with me. You see, she was a modern girl, she went to school in Switzerland and all the rest. She was not like our other Indian ladies but – yes, like you, Olivia. She was like you. Also beautiful like you.”

Olivia had now got to some intricate trills. She played them as well as she could, but the sounds that came out were tuneless and eerie. In any case, he seemed to have lost interest in the piano music. He straightened up with a sigh and, though she was still in the middle of her piece, turned to go out. She had to break off and follow him as she did not think she could find the way back by herself.

It was about this time – the time of her growing friendship with the Nawab – that she and Douglas began to speak seriously about having children. They were both very keen on it.
Olivia felt that someone as handsome, as perfect as Douglas should be procreated many times over! She teased him about it – she said he had only married her so as to people the world with a whole lot of Douglases. Not at all, he said; it was Olivias he wanted – as many of them as possible.