Heat and Dust (15 page)

Walking back from the hospital, I passed Maji's hut near the royal tombs. She was sitting outside and beckoned to me. She looked into my face and asked me what was the matter. I told her; by this time I spoke of it with the same indifference as everyone else. But I was startled by Maji's reaction which was not at all like everyone else's. “What?” she cried. “Leelavati? Her time has come?” Leelavati! The beggar woman had a name! Suddenly the whole thing became urgent again. Maji scrambled up and dashed off in the direction of the bazaar with amazing speed for one so stout and elderly. I hurried behind her, to lead her to the garbage dump. But when we got there, the beggar woman had gone. We asked the washerman, the coal merchant, the buffalo owner: all shrugged as before and said she had gone somewhere else. They thought she must have got hungry and dragged herself off to beg for food. I felt foolish, having made so much fuss.

But Maji said “I know where she may be.” Again she set off at the same trot, sticking out her elbows to steer herself more quickly. We hurried back to the bazaar, then through the gate leading out of town till we came to the reservoir with the suttee stones on its bank. “Ah!” cried Maji. She had seen her before I did. She was lying under a tree in the same way she had been lying by the garbage dump. The stream of excrement was still flowing out of her but only in the thinnest trickle now. Maji went up to her and said “There you are. I have been looking for you. Why didn't you call me?” The old
woman was staring into the sky but it seemed to me her eyes were already sightless. Maji sat down under a tree and took the old woman's head into her lap. She stroked it with her thick peasant hands and looked down into the dying face. Suddenly the old woman smiled, her toothless mouth opened with the same bliss of recognition as a baby's. Were her eyes not yet sightless – could she see Maji looking down at her? Or did she only feel her love and tenderness? Whatever it was, that smile seemed like a miracle to me.

I sat with them under the tree. There had been a particularly severe dust storm earlier in the day and, as sometimes happens, it had cleared the air, so that now, for the remaining hour of daylight, everything was luminous. The water in the reservoir was pure as the sky, disturbed only by the reflections of skimming kingfishers or of trees momentarily nodding their leaves into its surface. At the far end some buffaloes were bathing, immersed so deeply that only their heads were visible above the water. There were a lot of skinny, lively monkeys skipping about on the bank, in and out and over the suttee stones.

“You see,” said Maji, “I knew she would come here.” She continued to stroke the old woman's face, not only with tenderness but with a sort of pride too; yes really as if she were proud of her for having done something special. She began to tell me about the old woman's life: how she had been left a widow and had been driven out of her father-in-law's house. Next her parents and brother had died in a smallpox epidemic, leaving her homeless and destitute. Then what could she do, Maji said: having been literally thrown on to the world to beg a living from it. At that time she had stayed not in one place but had gone all over, mostly from one pilgrim spot to the other because those were the most rewarding for
beggars. About ten years ago she had come to the town and fallen sick here. She recovered but was never again strong enough to move on, so she had just stayed.

“But now she is tired,” said Maji. “Now it is time. Now she has done enough.” And again she stroked her face and again with pride as if the old woman had acquitted herself well.

It was pleasant sitting here – cool by the water – and we were ready to stay many hours. But she did not keep us waiting long. As the glow faded and sky and air and water turned pale silver and the birds fell asleep in the dark trees and now only soundless bats flitted black across the silver sky: at that lovely hour she died. I would not have noticed, for she had not moved for a long time. There was no death rattle or convulsion. It was as if everything had already been squeezed out of her and there was nothing left for her to do except pass over. Maji was very pleased: she said Leelavati had done well and had been rewarded with a good, a blessed end.

1923

One day Olivia told Douglas that Harry was lying ill at Khatm and that she wanted to go and visit him. Douglas said “Oh?” and nothing further. She took this as the permission she wanted: from now on, she decided, Douglas
knew
that she went to Khatm, she had told him, he was apprised of the facts. There would be no need in future to hurry back lest he arrive at home before her. If he did, she could simply and truthfully tell him that she had been to visit sick Harry at Khatm. But he never did arrive before her; somehow he seemed to be kept at the office later and later, and when he came home he was so tired that he went to sleep very soon.
Olivia stayed up much later, sitting by the window to catch some cool air. She was usually still asleep when he left in the morning; he always left very early so as to be able to ride out on inspection before the sun got too hot.

However, one morning she was awake. She came and sat with him in their breakfast room (now the post office); this was something she had not done for some time. She watched him eat ham and sausages. It struck her that his face had become heavier, even somewhat puffy, making him look more like other Englishmen in India. She pushed that thought aside: it was unbearable.

“Douglas,” she said, “Harry doesn't seem to be getting any better.”

“Oh?” He had cut up his food into small pieces and was chewing it slowly, stolidly.

“I was wondering whether we shouldn't ask Dr. Saunders to have a look at him.”

“Dr. Saunders doesn't take private patients.”

“But he's the only English doctor around here.” When Douglas did not react, she added “And Harry
is
English.”

Douglas had finished his breakfast and now lit his morning pipe (he smoked a pipe almost constantly now). He puffed at it as slowly and stolidly as he had eaten. She had always loved him for these qualities – for his imperturbability, his English solidness and strength; his manliness. But now suddenly she thought: what manliness? He can't even get me pregnant.

She cried “Must you smoke that dashed
pipe
? In this
heat
?”

He stayed calm, knocking ash into an ashtray – carefully, so as not to spill any on the tablecloth. At last he said “You should have gone to Simla.”

“And do what? Take walks with Mrs. Crawford? Go to
the same old boring old dinner parties – oh oh,” she said, burying her face in despair, “one more of those and I'll lie down and die.”

Douglas failed to respond to this outburst. He went on smoking. It was very quiet in the room. The servants, clearing the breakfast dishes, were also as quiet as could be so as not to disturb the Sahib and Memsahib having a quarrel in English.

After a while Olivia said in a contrite voice “I don't know what's wrong with me.”

“I told you: it's the heat. No Englishwoman is meant to stand it.”

“You're probably right.” She murmured: “As a matter of fact, darling, I'd like to consult Dr. Saunders myself.”

He looked at her. His face may have changed, but his eyes had remained as clean and clear as ever.

“Because I'm not –” she looked down shyly, then back into his eyes, “getting pregnant.”

He left his pipe in the ashtray (a servant solicitously knocked it out), then got up and went into their bedroom. She followed him. They clung to each other; she whispered “I don't want anything to change . . . I don't want
you
to change.”

“I'm not,” he said.

“No you're not.” But she clung to him tighter. She longed to be pregnant; everything would be all right then – he would not change, she would not change, they would be as planned.

“Wait a while,” he said. “It'll be all right.”

“You think?”

“I'm sure.”

She leaned on his strong arm and went out with him to
the front of the house. Although it was still so early in the morning, the air was stale.

“I wish you'd gone to Simla,” he said.

“Away from you?”

“It's so bad for you here. This awful climate.”

“But I feel fine!” She laughed – because she really did.

He pressed her arm in gratitude: “If I can get away we'll both go.”

“You think you can? . . . Oh you don't have to for me,” she said. “I'm quite all right – I don't mind it – really I don't. I'm fine,” she said again.

He exclaimed at her fortitude. He wanted to linger, but his syce stood holding his horse, his peon carried his files, his bearer stood waiting with his solar topee.

“Don't come out,” Douglas said, but she did. She looked up at him as he sat in the saddle and he looked down at her. That morning it was difficult for him to leave.

He said “I'll have a word with Dr. Saunders about Harry.”

She waved to him for as long as she could still see him. A servant held the door open for her to go back into the house, but she stayed looking out a bit longer. Not in the direction in which Douglas had left, but the other way; towards Khatm, towards the Palace. It did not make any difference as everything was under the same pall of dust. But it was true what she had told Douglas: she felt fine – entirely untroubled by the heat or the murky atmosphere. It was as if there were a little spring welling up inside her that kept her fresh and gay.

Later that morning – she looked at her wrist watch, there was still time before the Nawab's car was to come for her – she walked across to the Saunders' house. But Dr. Saunders
had already left for the hospital and there was only Mrs. Saunders. Olivia was surprised to find her out of bed. She was sitting in one of the cavernous rooms staring into an empty fireplace. She told Olivia “It's not good to let them see you in bed . . . the servants,” she explained, lowering her voice and with a look towards the door. “I want to be in bed. It's where I ought to be. But you don't know what goes on in their heads.”

She went on staring into the fireplace (it did not even have a grate) as if she saw haunting visions there. There was something haunted about the room: perhaps this was due to the furnishing which did not belong to the Saunders but had been handed on through several generations of government issue. The prints on the wall had also been there for a long time; they were mostly scenes from the Mutiny, as of Sir Henry Lawrence struck by a bullet in the Lucknow Residency.

“You hear a lot of stories,” Mrs. Saunders said. “There was one lady in Muzzafarbad or one of those places – she was a lady from Somerset.” She sighed (thinking of the fate of this lady, or of distant Somerset?). “Her
dhobi
,” Mrs. Saunders whispered, leaning closer to Olivia. “He was ironing her undies and it must have been too much for him. They're very excitable, it's their constitution. I've heard their spicy food's got something to do with it – I wouldn't know if there's any truth in that but of this I'm sure, Mrs. Rivers: they've got only one thought in their heads and that's to you-know-what with a white woman.”

Olivia stared back at her. Mrs. Saunders nodded with grim knowledge; she adjusted her dress over her gaunt chest. Olivia found that her hand too had strayed to adjust the rather low neckline of her pale brown silk frock. Ridiculous!
She jumped up – it was time to go, the Nawab's car would nearly be there now.

The Nawab laughed at the idea of bringing in Dr. Saunders. He said, if a European doctor was needed, he would of course send for the best specialist – if necessary, all the way to Germany or England. However, to humour Olivia and Harry, he consented to send a car for Dr. Saunders.

Dr. Saunders, pleased and flattered to be called in by royalty, laid his finger-tips together and used many technical terms. He puffed while he spoke and with each word blew out the hairs of his moustache so that they fluttered around his mouth as if stirred by a breeze. The Nawab treated him with that exaggerated courtesy that Olivia had learned to recognise as his way of expressing contempt: but it made Dr. Saunders, who took it at face value, expand even further inside his tight shantung suit. The sight of the two of them seated opposite each other – the Nawab leaning forward deferentially while the doctor expounded and expanded – gave Harry the giggles and, seeing him, Olivia too could not stop. Dr. Saunders did not notice but the Nawab did and, glad to provide such good entertainment for his friends, he insisted that the doctor stay for luncheon.

Dr. Saunders reached new heights at the dining table. Flushed with enjoyment of his host's food and drink, he allowed himself to be prompted into expressing his considered opinion of India and Indians. He had many anecdotes to relate in illustration of his theme, mainly drawn from his hospital experience. Although Olivia had heard most of them before, she shared Harry's amusement at the Nawab's way of eliciting them.

“Then what did you do, Doctor?”

“Then, Nawab Sahib, I had the fellow called to my office and, no further argument, smartly boxed his ears for him, one-two, one-two.”

“You did quite right, Doctor. Quite right. You set a good example.”

“It's the only way to deal with them, Nawab Sahib. It's no use arguing with them, they're not amenable to reason. They haven't got it here, you see, up here, the way we have.”

“Exactly, Doctor. You have hit the – what is it, Harry?”

“Nail on the head.”

“Quite right. The nail on the head.” The Nawab nodded gravely.

After a while Olivia ceased to be amused. Dr. Saunders was too blatantly stupid, the joke had gone on too long. Harry also became weary of it. With his usual sensitivity, the Nawab at once became aware of the change in atmosphere. He threw down his napkin and said “Come, Olivia and Harry.” Leaving the doctor unceremoniously behind, he led the other two upstairs to Harry's suite. There he threw himself into a chair and, laying back his head, gave way to loud laughter. He was quite hurt when the other two did not join in: “I have worked so hard and done so much only to amuse you two,” he complained.