Heat and Dust (3 page)

After this party, Olivia felt better about being alone in the house all day. She knew the Nawab would come and call on her, and every day she dressed herself in one of her cool, pastel muslins and waited. Douglas always got up at crack of dawn – very quietly, for fear of waking her – to ride out on inspection before the sun got too hot. After that he went to the court-house and to his office and was usually too rushed to come home again till late in the evening and then always with files (how hard they worked their district officers!). By the time Olivia woke up, the servants had cleaned the house and let down all the blinds and shutters. The entire day was her own. In London she had loved having hours and hours to
herself – she had always thought of herself as a very introspective person. But here she was beginning to dread these lonely days locked up with the servants who padded around on naked feet and respectfully waited for her to want something.

The Nawab came four days after the party. She was playing Chopin and when she heard his car she went on playing with redoubled dash. The servant announced him and when he entered she turned on her piano stool and opened her wide eyes wider: “Why Nawab Sahib, what a lovely surprise.” She got up to greet him, holding out both hands to him in welcome.

He had come with a whole party (she was to learn later that he was usually attended). It included the Englishman, Harry, and then there were various young men from the Palace. They all made themselves at home in Olivia's drawing room, draping themselves in graceful attitudes over her sofas and rugs. Harry declared himself charmed with her room – he loved her black and white prints, her Japanese screen, her yellow chairs and lampshades. He flopped into an armchair and, panting like a man in exhaustion, pretended he had crossed a desert and had at last reached an oasis. The Nawab also seemed to enjoy being there. They stayed all day.

It passed in a flash. Afterwards Olivia could not recall what they had talked about – Harry seemed to have done most of the talking and she and the Nawab had laughed at the amusing things he said. The other young men, who knew little English, could not take much part in the conversation but they made themselves useful mixing drinks the way the Nawab liked them. He had made up a special concoction, consisting of gin, vodka, and cherry brandy, which he also
invited Olivia to taste (it was too strong for her). He had brought his own vodka because he said people never seemed to have it. He had taken possession of one of the sofas and sat right in the middle of it with both arms extended along the back and his long legs stretched out as far as they would go. He looked very much at ease, and entirely the master of the scene – which of course he was. He invited Olivia not only to drink his concoction but also to make herself quite comfortable on the sofa facing his and to enjoy Harry's humour and whatever other entertainment the day might bring forth.

That evening Douglas found Olivia not as usual half in tears with boredom and fatigue but so excited that for a moment he feared she had a fever. He put his hand on her brow: he had seen a lot of Indian fevers. She laughed at him. When she told him about her visitor, he had his doubts – but seeing how gay she was, how glad, he decided it was all right. She was lonely, and it was decent of the Nawab to have called on her.

A few days later another invitation from the Palace arrived for them both. There was a charming note with it, to say that if they would do him the honour and happiness of accepting, the Nawab would of course be sending a car for them. Douglas was puzzled: he said the Crawfords would as usual be taking them in their car. “Oh good heavens, darling,” Olivia said impatiently, “you don't think
they've
been asked, do you.” Douglas stared in amazement: whenever he was amazed like that, his eyes popped a bit and he stuttered.

Later, when it was clear that the Crawfords had really not been invited, he was uneasy. He said he didn't think he and Olivia could accept. But she insisted, she was determined. She said she wasn't having such a grand time here – “believe
me,
darling” – that she felt inclined to miss the chance of a
little entertainment when it came her way. Douglas bit his lip; he knew she was right but it was a dilemma for him. He couldn't see how they could possibly go, he tried to explain to her; but she wouldn't hear him. They argued about it to and fro. She even woke up early in the morning so as to go on arguing. She walked with him to the front of the house where his syce stood holding his horse. “Oh Douglas,
please
,” she said, looking up at him in the saddle. He could not answer her because he could not promise her anything. Yet he longed to do so. He watched her turn back into the house; she was in her kimono and looked frail and unhappy. “I'm a brute,” he thought to himself all day. But also that day he sent a note to the Nawab, regretfully declining the invitation.

28 February.
    One of the old British bungalows in the Civil Lines has not been converted, like the others, into municipal offices but into a travellers' rest-house. An ancient watchman has been hired to keep it clean and open it up for travellers. But he is not keen on these duties and prefers to be left to himself to spend his time in his own way. When a traveller presents himself, the watchman asks for the official permit; if this is not produced, he considers his responsibilities at an end and shuffles back into the hut where he lives rather snugly.

Yesterday I came across an odd trio outside the travellers' bungalow. The watchman having refused to open the doors, they had had to spread themselves and their belongings out on the verandah. They were a young man and his girl, both English, and another youth who was also English – he spoke in a flat Midlands accent – but wouldn't admit to it. He said
he had laid aside all personal characteristics. He had also laid aside his clothes and was dressed in nothing but an orange robe like an Indian ascetic; he had shaved his head completely, leaving only the Hindu tuft on top. But although he had renounced the world, he was as disgruntled as the other two about the watchman who wouldn't let them in. The girl was particularly indignant – not only about this watchman but about all the other people all over India. She said they were all dirty and dishonest. She had a very pretty, open, English face but when she said that it became mean and clenched, and I realised that the longer she stayed in India the more her face would become like that.

“Why did you come?” I asked her.

“To find peace.” She laughed grimly: “But all I found was dysentery.”

Her young man said “That's all anyone ever finds here.”

Then they both launched into a recital of their misadventures. They had been robbed of their watches in a house of devotion in Amritsar; cheated by a man they had met on the train to Kashmir who had promised them a cheap houseboat and had disappeared with their advance; also in Kashmir the girl had developed dysentery which was probably amoebic; they got cheated again in Delhi where a tout, promising them a very favourable rate of exchange for their money, disappeared with it by the back door of the coffee house where they had met him; in Fatehpur Sikri the girl had been molested by a party of Sikh youths; the young man's pocket was picked on the train to Goa; in Goa he had got into a fight with a mad Dane armed with a razor, and had also been laid up with something that may have been jaundice (there was an epidemic); the girl had contracted ringworm.

At this point the watchman came out of his hut where he
seemed to have been cooking himself a tasty meal. He said it was forbidden to stay on the verandah. The young Englishman gave a menacing laugh and said “Try and get us out then.” Though somewhat worn with sickness, he was a big young man, so the watchman stood sunk in thought. After a while he said it would cost them five rupees to camp on the verandah, including drinking water from the well. The Englishman pointed to the locked doors and said “Open”. The watchman retreated to get on with his cooking and perhaps ponder his next step.

The young man told me that he and his girl friend had become very interested in the Hindu religion after attending a lecture by a visiting swami in London. It had been on Universal Love. The swami, in a soft caressing voice very suitable to the subject, told them that Universal Love was an ocean of sweetness that lapped around all humanity and enfolded them in tides of honey. He had melting eyes and a smile of joy. The atmosphere was also very beautiful, with jasmine, incense, and banana leaves; the swami's discourse was accompanied by two of his disciples, one of whom softly played a flute while the other, even more softly, beat two tiny cymbals together. All the disciples were ranged around the swami on the platform. They were mostly Europeans and wore saffron robes and had very pure expressions on their faces as if cleansed of all sin and desire. Afterwards they had sung hymns in Hindi which were also about the flowing ocean of love. The young man and his girl had come away from this meeting with such exalted feelings that they could not speak for a long time; but when they could, they agreed that, in order to find the spiritual enrichment they desired, they must set off for India without delay.

The ascetic said he too had come for a spiritual purpose.
In his case, the original attraction had come through the Hindu scriptures, and when he arrived in India, he had not been disappointed. It seemed to him that the spirit of these scriptures was still manifest in the great temples of the South. For months he had lived there, like an Indian pilgrim, purifying himself and often so rapt in contemplation that the world around him had faded away completely. He too developed dysentery and ringworm but was not bothered by them because of living on such a high plane; similarly, he was not bothered by the disappearance of his few possessions from the temple compound where he lived. He found a guru to give him initiation and to strip him of all personal characteristics and the rest of his possessions including his name. He was given a new Indian name, Chidananda (his two companions called him Chid). From now on he was to have nothing except his beads and the begging bowl in which he had to collect his daily food from charitable people. In practice, however, he found this did not work too well, and he had often to write home for money to be sent by telegraphic order. On the instruction of his guru, he had set off on a pilgrimage right across India with the holy cave of Amarnath as his ultimate goal. He had already been wandering for many months. His chief affliction was people running after and jeering at him; the children were especially troublesome and often threw stones and other missiles. He found it impossible to live simply under trees as instructed by his guru but had to seek shelter at night in cheap hotel rooms where he had to bargain quite hard in order to be quoted a reasonable price.

The watchman returned, holding up three fingers to signify that the charge for staying on the verandah had now been reduced to three rupees. The Englishman again pointed at the locked doors. But negotiations had begun, and
now it was not long before the watchman fetched his keys. Actually, it turned out to be more pleasant on the verandah. It was musty and dark inside the bungalow; the place smelled dead. In fact, we did find a dead squirrel on the floor of what must have been a dining room (there was still a sideboard with mirrors and a portrait of George V inset). It was a gloomy, brooding house and could never have been anything else. From the back verandah there was a view of the Christian graveyard: and I saw rearing above all the other graves the marble angel that the Saunders had ordered from Italy as a monument over their baby's grave. Suddenly it struck me that this dark house must have been the one in which Dr. Saunders, the Medical Superintendent, had lived. I had not realised that Mrs. Saunders had been able to look out at her baby's grave right from her own back verandah.

Of course at that time the marble angel had been new and intact – shining white with wings outspread and holding a marble baby in its arms. Now it is a headless, wingless torso with a baby that has lost its nose and one foot. All the graves are in very bad condition – weed-choked, and stripped of whatever marble and railings could be removed. It is strange how, once graves are broken and overgrown in this way, then the people in them are truly dead. The Indian Christian graves at the front of the cemetery, which are still kept up by relatives, seem by contrast strangely alive, contemporary.

1923

Olivia had always been strongly affected by graveyards. In England too she had liked to wander through them, reading the inscriptions and even sitting on a grave stone under a
weeping willow and letting her imagination roam. The graveyard at Satipur was especially evocative. Although Satipur had always been a small station for the British, quite a few of them had died there over the years; and bodies were also brought in from other districts with no Christian cemetery of their own. Most of the graves were of infants and children, but there were also several dating from the Mutiny when a gallant band of British officers had died defending their women and children. The newest grave was that of the Saunders' baby, and the Italian angel was the newest, brightest monument.