The Moneylenders of Shahpur (5 page)

Anasuyabehn’s widowed aunt had made her home with her brother and his daughter because she had no sons and disliked the idea of living with one of her brothers-in-law. She had constantly berated the old scholar about his neglect of his daughter in respect of finding a husband for her. The only reply she had been able to obtain from him had been, ‘We should wait a full two years from the time of her betrothed’s death – it is not judicious to hurry the girl.’

As a result of this, Aunt had almost given up hope of ever seeing her niece married, since the older a girl became the harder it was to marry her off. Aunt felt that her own abilities as a matchmaker were simply withering away.

She had, therefore, been delighted when, by devious routes, it was made known to her that the Desais would make an offer for Anasuyabehn, if they could be sure of not being snubbed. This was an opportunity which could not be ignored, a real test of her matchmaking skills, which
would benefit dear Anasuyabehn immeasurably. She consulted nobody, but assured the lady from whom this indication had come that such an offer would be well received. She was overwhelmed by the idea of being the instrument by which such a wealthy alliance could be brought about; it would crown all her previous successful efforts on behalf of other relations. After this, all her female relations with children to marry off would crowd about her, begging her favours on behalf of their offspring. Her thin, hooked nose quivered at the anticipation of her future importance in the family.

She conveniently forgot the difference in caste. She thought only of the Desai bank balance and willingly became the mediator between the two fathers. Two other offers for Anasuyabehn from the parents of poverty-stricken scholars were left to die from neglect on her part.

When she first broached the subject, Dean Mehta looked up from his book, said flatly, ‘No,’ and returned to his studies.

Undeterred, she continued to sit in front of him, chewing her thumb. He again glanced up, and added, ‘I’ll advertise for a husband for her in early spring.’

‘The girl is already twenty-four years old.’

‘I know, I know,’ said the Dean testily, ‘but Desai is not a Mehta.’

‘He’s near enough,’ said his sister, ‘and he’s rich, healthy and in love with her. What more could we want in these changed times?’

‘Does Anasuyabehn know Mahadev?’ asked the Dean suspiciously. It would, he thought, be quite easy for her to carry on an intrigue without his knowledge – after all, she occasionally went shopping or to visit a friend by herself.

‘No,’ said Aunt decisively. ‘Someone would have seen her and told me, if she had ever spoken to him.’

The Dean sat silently at his desk for a few minutes, staring out of the heavily-barred window and idly twiddling his fountain pen. He reviewed carefully all he knew of the recent history of the Desais, the hints he had heard of their holdings in many new enterprises, their influence amongst Government officials, Mahadev’s travels. At last he said, ‘Discuss the Desais with Anasuyabehn. She’s old enough to be consulted.’

His sister hid her satisfaction at this reply, and merely said, ‘All right.’

Her bare feet made a soft brushing sound on the stone floor as she shuffled off to the kitchen, ostensibly to consult Anasuyabehn.

The Dean continued to think about the Desais. Except on grounds of caste, there could be no reasonable objection to the match, and for years he had been preaching that Jainism had originally been a revolt of the Kshatriya military caste against their overbearing Brahmin priests; there was no caste among the original Jains. Young Desai was reasonably educated, had a good, though old, house and was certainly rich; his trips to Europe would have broadened his outlook and, indeed, these days, the family seemed to be financiers and jewellers rather than orthodox moneylenders.

It was said that Mahadev’s father was ailing and his uncle was very old, so it would not be long before Mahadev became the head of his communal family. Further, in less than twelve months Dean Mehta would himself retire, and he dearly wished to give himself to a life of contemplation – to become a monk; he had for some years been quietly directing his life towards this goal by study, fasting, confession and the taking of those vows permitted to a layman. To have Anasuyabehn settled now might mean that he would see a grandchild before he severed all earthly relationships by taking his final vows.

He re-opened his book and composed his mind again for work.

‘We’ll see what Anasuyabehn has to say,’ he decided.

Aunt, meanwhile, had sat in a corner of the kitchen and helped to prepare vegetables, while she considered what to say to Anasuyabehn.

The kitchen was quite modern. It had a water tap and beneath it, on the floor, had been built a low, stone enclosure to confine the splashes from it and guide spilled water down the open drain. The walls were whitewashed and, on a built-in shelf, glittered the brass cooking utensils. A watercooler reposed on a stand in a corner near the casement window, and huge double doors, which led on to a veranda, stood open to let in the morning freshness before the real heat of the day began.

‘Take the new box of charcoal outside,’ Anasuyabehn said to her little servant, ‘and brush it.’

The boy picked up a small handbrush and the box and obediently went out into the compound, where he could be heard happily talking to a squirrel, as he gently went over each piece of charcoal with the brush to make sure that no insect was accidentally burned when the fire was lit.

Aunt seized the opportunity to say, ‘I saw Mahadev Desai this morning.’

‘He’s been away a long time,’ said Anasuyabehn. ‘I don’t suppose many people will be glad to see him. He drives even harder bargains than his elders, I’m told.’

She was sitting idly on her kitchen stool waiting for the boy to come in with the charcoal. A neat pile of prepared vegetables, flanked by a tin of cooking fat and her spice box lay on the well-scrubbed floor beside her. The empty charcoal stove was out on the veranda and soon the servant would light a cooking fire in it and bring it to her,
carrying it gingerly with long pincers so that he did not get burned.

‘Tut,’ said Aunt. ‘You listen to too much gossip.’

Who’s talking? thought Anasuyabehn grimly.

‘He’s concerned mainly with the jewellery side now – opened a shop in a place near England.’ As she snipped away at the vegetables, she tried to think of aspects of Mahadev which might appeal to a young woman, and added, ‘He had a Western suit on this morning. I saw him driving through the cantonment, when I was on the bus – on my way to Mrs Patel’s.’

‘Did he?’ murmured Anasuyabehn politely, and thought absently that she must buy some more glass bracelets next time a bracelet seller came round.

Aunt had no intention of discussing matrimony with Anasuyabehn, but she did want to obtain from her some words of approbation in respect of the Desais, which she could carefully misinterpret as assent to a proposal. Mistress of domestic intrigue, dedicated matchmaker, she had no intention of giving Anasuyabehn the opportunity of refusal, and she was certain that a man with the taint of moneylending about him would be refused. She, therefore, said no more that day, but during the weeks that followed Anasuyabehn was regaled with quite a number of stories of the nobility and kindness of Mahadev Desai.

Anasuyabehn should undoubtedly have realized what was in her aunt’s mind, but she was entirely absorbed by ideas of marriage elsewhere. The memory of the beautiful, intense features of Dr Tilak staring up at her, as he walked past her home with Dr Bennett, had occupied her thoughts recently, and she only half listened to her aunt’s chatter.

Aunt, meanwhile, luxuriated in the thought of bringing off such a superb alliance in spite of the difficulties of Anasuyabehn’s advanced age and partly Christian
education. If only her sons had lived, she thought sadly, how much more interesting life would have been to someone as skilled in matchmaking as herself; there would have been grandsons and granddaughters to marry off. Why the cholera should strike at her sons and leave her daughters was beyond her; and what trying daughters she had – always complaining because they had been married off to brothers who lived in Bombay, so far away from Shahpur. They were lucky, she thought bitterly – at least they ate twice a day, which was more than she had done in the first days of her marriage.

How good her brother had been, she reflected, to give her a home. Anasuyabehn, too, was a charming, respectful girl; Aunt would enjoy taking an interest in her children, though, of course, she would not see very much of them – once a girl was married she belonged to her husband’s family, not to her father’s family.

First, however, Anasuyabehn must have a husband.

If I can get my brother so enmeshed in marriage arrangements that it would be difficult for him to retreat with dignity, he also will press Anasuyabehn towards the marriage. And I must prepare Anasuyabehn, so that at least she does not immediately object when the offer comes.

Lucky women went to and fro between the parents’ houses, and it was curious how, every time a visitor was expected at the Mehta house, Aunt thought of something which was required from town, and Anasuyabehn and her boy servant were dispatched to purchase it, whilst the horoscopes of the proposed bride and groom were discussed and compared.

Anasuyabehn was not a gossip; she had no reason to suspect anything. Even Savitri, her best friend, who might have told her, knew no one else amongst the Jain community
and, busy with her work as a chemist in a cotton mill, heard nothing.

Skilfully the old lady spun threads of praise and flattery between the unsuspecting fathers – the wily old moneylender, who was busy trying to rid his family of most of the taint of moneylending and to gain instead a reputation as a jeweller and financier of integrity, and the absent-minded scholar, who, having inspected and spoken to Mahadev, liked him very much. There were times, not so long since, thought Dean Mehta ironically, when neither of them would have dreamed of speaking to the other, but many things were permissible nowadays – the walls between the castes were crumbling down, and Dean Mehta was quite prepared to give them a helping push.

Once Dean Mehta asked his sister, ‘Is Anasuyabehn content about this marriage?’

‘Oh, she has all the foolish ideas of a young girl – but she will appreciate a good man. She agrees that the family in this generation is becoming a most worthy one – and she has been most interested in my stories of Mahadev.’

‘Ah,’ said her brother, a little relieved. ‘I’m content, as long as she has no antipathy to the match.’

‘None at all, none at all,’ said Aunt, with considerably more conviction than she really had. She hoped fervently that all her propaganda directed towards her unsuspecting niece was having sufficient effect to ensure an affirmative answer when the time came.

As she became further committed, the horrid thought of how other women of the family would snigger behind their hands at her, if she failed, began to haunt her – they might even suggest that she was, with advancing years, losing her skill, and that would be hard to bear. She put these thoughts firmly behind her; dear Anasuyabehn should have a wonderful marriage – and all through her aunt’s sagacity.

The day on which Mahadev would make a formal visit to his prospective bride’s family drew near. Unfortunately, his aunt had to return to Baroda to nurse a sick son, so it was understood that Mahadev would be accompanied by his brother and sister-in-law.

That morning, Anasuyabehn’s aunt hinted to her that her father had a well-to-do and charming suitor in mind for her. Anasuyabehn, who had done little else but dream about the new, unmarried Professor of Zoology, ever since she had seen him from the roof of her father’s bungalow, asked with interest, ‘Who is he?’

‘Ah-ha,’ responded Aunt, all cheerful coyness. ‘Your father will tell you in due course.’

Anasuyabehn could not think of any particularly eligible man who had swung into their orbit recently, other than Tilak, and she smiled happily.

Aunt had informed her brother that all was now arranged. The first gifts had been exchanged, and Aunt explained, ‘I locked them in the almira, so that they will be a nice surprise for Anasuyabehn, when you tell her that the final arrangements have been made.’

The Dean smiled. He liked the idea of giving his daughter a pleasant surprise. He had been extremely busy, because the enrolment in his Faculty had increased markedly that term, and he had hardly exchanged a word with his daughter for weeks. He felt that he really must now talk to her about her marriage, though his sister, he was sure, would already have discussed everything with her.
He opened his study door, and called, ‘Daughter, come here.’

‘Well,’ he greeted her, as she entered a little apprehensively. ‘This is a happy day for us, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, father,’ she answered submissively, masking a tumult of anxiety in her heart.

Aunt shuffled in behind her and sank on to the couch.

Dean Mehta sat down in his desk chair and took his daughter’s hand. ‘Well, now, are we quite happy at the idea of leaving our old father and going to a fine, young husband?’

Anasuyabehn did not know how to reply, and raised her heavily kohled eyes to her father.

Finally she said, ‘I don’t want to leave you, father – but I know it
is
time I was married.’

‘Good, good. You won’t be going far from me, anyway.’

He contemplated his daughter benignly. A placid, obedient girl, educated and yet without the flighty ideas of some of the women students on the campus. He beamed at her with satisfaction, while she waited with as much patience as she could muster. Then she said, in reply to his remark, ‘That will be nice, father.’ After all, Tilak would probably remain for years at this university.

Dean Mehta dug his key chain out of his pocket and selected a key, which he handed to his sister, while he nodded his bald head in amiable agreement.

‘Get the parcels out of the cupboard,’ he instructed her, and Aunt creaked to her feet to do so. Anasuyabehn watched her with pleasant anticipation, willing to go along with their desire to tease her gently.

‘The Desais have sent some beautiful gifts,’ said her father, as he watched his sister bring out a number of bundles.

‘The Desais?’ Anasuyabehn looked at him with blank incomprehension.

Dean Mehta glanced quickly at her, startled by the surprise in her voice. She was looking at him as if she had suddenly discovered a corpse.

‘Yes – Mahadev,’ he said.

Anasuyabehn sank into the visitor’s chair by her father’s desk, dazed by the shock. Far away, she could hear her father’s voice, but the only word she really heard was Mahadev. She was so aghast that it seemed to her that she never would take breath again; however, her aunt evidently turned the fan towards her, because she felt the breeze on her face. Gradually, the world took shape again. Out of the mist loomed her father’s face, full of anxiety, and his voice boomed into her ears.

‘Dear child,’ he said, full of self-reproach. ‘I kept you standing too long on this hot day. Let Aunt give you some water.’

Aunt had already poured a glassful from his carafe, and she held it to the girl’s lips. For once, the old woman could not think of anything to say.

Anasuyabehn sipped obediently, and life flooded furiously back into her. All her aunt’s gossip of the previous few weeks came back to her and fell neatly into place.

‘Marry a moneylender?’ she gasped scornfully. ‘Oh, no, father. No!’ The last word came out in a wail.

Dean Mehta looked at her in some astonishment.

‘He’s hardly a moneylender, child. He’s a big financier. Desai Sahib and his associates put up no less than half the money for the new chemical works at Baroda. Anyway, I thought you wanted to marry Mahadev.’

‘Why should I think of marrying him?’ Anasuyabehn asked, through angry tears.

‘Your aunt assured me that you wanted to.’

‘When I spoke of him,’ interposed her aunt hastily, ‘you agreed what a nice family they were. You made no criticism whatever.’

‘I never thought of marrying one of them,’ retorted the girl. She dabbed her eyes with the end of her sari.

Dean Mehta looked at his sister, and demanded sharply, ‘What’ve you been doing? Didn’t you ask her?’ He seemed suddenly fierce.

Aunt looked uncomfortable. Her mouth opened and shut, as she searched for a reply. She had not expected serious opposition from Anasuyabehn, once her father was committed to the match. She thought the girl would accept fairly contentedly the prospect of such a fine, rich bridegroom.

Anasuyabehn’s faintness had passed and she glared at the old woman, whose white widow’s sari served only to remind her of the troubles of early widowhood, the likely result if one married a man much older than oneself. Only a lifetime of training stopped her from screaming with rage at her aunt.

Aunt mustered her forces. She said indignantly, ‘I’ve talked of little else for weeks. I told her all about the family and about the return of their eldest son. I was sure she understood.’

‘Marriage never occurred to me,’ Anasuyabehn defended herself, through gritted teeth. ‘They’re not the same caste. I just thought you were telling me the news – gossiping!’ The last word came out loaded with rage.

‘Sister!’ Dean Mehta’s voice was full of reproach. ‘Now we are committed. You stupid woman!’ Mentally he reviled himself for leaving so important a matter to her.

‘It’s a good match,’ said Aunt defensively. ‘Mahadev could marry anyone he chooses round these parts – and he chose Anasuyabehn.’

‘
Chose
me?’ exclaimed Anasuyabehn. Since she had never even spoken to Mahadev she had assumed that his father was arranging the marriage.

‘Yes,’ replied Aunt quickly. ‘He’s admired you for years. However, you were betrothed. But now he finds you are free, and dearly wants to marry you.’

‘Oh,’ said Anasuyabehn, surprise for a moment overcoming her anger.

The Dean, thoroughly exasperated by his sister, nevertheless saw his chance, and said to his bewildered daughter, who was agitatedly running her fingers through her hair, ‘My daughter, your aunt is right. It is a good match in these troubled times.’ He pursed his lips, and then went on, ‘Certainly she should have talked it over thoroughly with you – I regret not asking you myself, but I’ve had so much on my mind lately – however, here we are committed to it, and before we do anything more, I want you to consider it carefully.’

Anasuyabehn looked at him helplessly. She felt, as her father pressed Mahadev’s suit, that her last Court of Appeal was being closed to her, and she sat like a silent ghost while her father extolled Mahadev’s virtues. When he produced an exquisite sari which had been brought, as a token of the engagement, by one of the ladies concerned in the negotiations, she sat with it half opened in her lap, and hardly heard his voice.

‘Child, it was sad that your betrothed should die – I know you liked him. And, unfortunately, it made you look a little unlucky in the eyes of parents …’ He tailed off.

‘Mahadev is a handsome man,’ put in the old woman, her voice almost wistful, only to be crushed by an icy look from Anasuyabehn.

‘And a generous and thoughtful one,’ added her father, cheering up a little, as he picked up a small box from his desk.

Mahadev had often been impressed by Anasuyabehn’s quiet and dignified demeanour when he had watched her in
the streets; she walked with the perfect foot placement and timing of an elephant, he had many times told himself. Older and wiser than most bridegrooms, he greatly desired to win the favour of his wife-to-be. He had, therefore, insisted that the traditional bags of white and brown sugar be sent to her home, burying in them, instead of the usual two rupees, a small silver box with which to surprise her. It was this box which her father now handed to her.

Though she was very dejected, Anasuyabehn’s curiosity was aroused by the unexpected token. She took the box from her father and opened it.

On a fluffy bed of cotton reposed a small nose ring consisting of a single diamond set in gold. Exquisitely cut, it flashed in the sunlight with a delicate blue radiance, a beautiful ornament which spoke, with fabulously expensive eloquence, of its donor’s wealth, and of his interest in her as a person. With an odd quirk of humour, Anasuyabehn saw the mental agony with which a close-fisted, traditional moneylender must have parted with such a valuable gem. He must be in love to the point of insanity, she thought grimly.

Fascinated, she lifted the ornament out and laid it on the palm of her hand, a hand that began to tremble with a deep fear of the unknown. Here was proof positive that her suitor would not take a negative answer easily. The gift was really valuable and quite unnecessary at such a time.

Until her father had handed her the little box, she had taken it for granted that, somehow, she would be able to escape from the marriage agreement. But now fear seemed to creep out from the blue stone and wind itself round her heart. A man who loved passionately was not going to be fobbed off so easily – nor was his powerful family, who seemed to be bent on rising socially as a caste. She knew what it was to be in love, she admitted, in love with a strange Maratha from Bombay, and, as she met Tilak on
various social occasions, she had begun to feel the white heat of it. What might a powerful man like Mahadev do, if he felt the same?

And deep down inside her was a little worm of added fear, nesting in her Gujerati respect for money, that, because of Mahadev’s undisputed wealth, she might be tempted to be unfaithful to the new unnourished love which possessed her – though Tilak was not a bad match; a professor had everyone’s respect and a steady, if not large, income.

She could feel fresh grief rising in her, in belated mourning for her original betrothed. If he had lived, she would have had a family by now and would never have lifted her eyes to Tilak – and Mahadev would have looked elsewhere for a wife. She had not cried at the time of her fiancé’s death – one rarely does about someone seen only once; but now she wished deeply that his thin, tuberculosis-ridden body lay between her and the fires of passion and fear now consuming her.

I’ll object, she thought, and her inward sense of weakness made her outwardly more belligerent. She gritted her teeth and glared furiously through her tears at her aunt.

Her father took her silence for reluctant acceptance, and said quite cheerfully, before her defiance could be expressed verbally, ‘Well, daughter, now you can see how highly Mahadev thinks of you. I think well of him myself and I believe you would learn to, too. Come, let us make him happy and give him a marriage date.’

Toothless and shrivelled as a dry orange skin, her aunt squatted on the floor, nodding her head and smiling amiably.

‘An astrologer should arrange it,’ she said, taking out her betal box and scraping round in it for a suitable piece of nut to chew. ‘Though first there should be some parties, so that my niece may meet her future husband.’

‘I don’t want to be married,’ said Anasuyabehn in a small tight voice.

‘Tut, tut,’ said her aunt, grinning as she chewed.

‘I’d rather be a nun.’

‘You’ll change your tune when you have a small son in your arms,’ said the old lady, waving one scrawny arm to hitch her sari further over her shoulder.

‘Father,’ implored Anasuyabehn, tears pouring down her face. ‘Must I?’

The Dean scratched his head in embarrassed silence. Finally, he said, ‘Daughter, I have loved you too well and kept you by me too long. It will not be easy to find anyone else as well-to-do, so healthy or so influential.’

‘I don’t like him, Papa. I don’t care about him being rich.’ She sniffed back her tears. ‘He’s not the only man in the world.’

‘Come, come, daughter,’ he said. ‘You have not yet even
met
your future husband. We’ll have all the usual tea parties, as if you were just a young girl, and you may speak with him. Don’t cry, child. I am sure you’ll be a patient and dutiful wife and will be amply rewarded.’

Her aunt sniffed and looked at the ceiling; her own rewards in marriage had been few. It was unnatural, however, for a woman not to be married; and this is what came of leaving girls single too long – they became stubborn.

Anasuyabehn covered her face with her sari and, under its comforting darkness, she saw for a moment a dark, thin face looking up at her as if enchanted. The new Zoology man was a fine man to look upon. She gave a little, shivering sigh.