Rajmahal (29 page)

“Oh, you think I'm running a charity do you? A repository for dipsomanic inmates of old people's homes eh?”

“What nonsense, Junior!” said Surjeet Shona. “Can't you be kind to her for a change?”

“Kind?! Why don't
you
try being kind instead of lecturing others?”

“She's using my bathroom isn't she, and I feed her, don't I?”

“Who do you think bloody looked after her when she was ill, who do you think . . . ?!”

“All right, all right, you did a lot for her. But then, she hated the home! And what about her happiness?”

“Happiness! All that happiness means to her is drinking. Day in, day out, that's all she wants. And what about the
Pir
's tomb? I suppose you don't care if there's no sanctity there and drunken old biddies rollicking about...”

“Don't exaggerate!” said Surjeet Shona, shortly again. “Haven't you seen how she venerates the tomb? She only drinks in her room. And haven't you noticed that she covers her head and . . . ”

“The poor
Pir
must be doing somersaults in his grave!”

“Now who's being disrespectful!”

But Junior didn't let these circular arguments get in the way of his resolve. Maudie must go.

She did, but in a way not quite expected.

Maudie's earlier hospital stay, enforced circumspection at the home, and the new distraction of the tomb garden had drained her system of alcohol and restored some of her balance. Her anxiety only sharpened when she grappled with her life and the continuous confrontation with Junior. The dead white paint no longer adorned her face.

“If I'm old and dark, that's how God wants it,” she reasoned with herself. “Why fight Him?”

For the first time since her illness, she looked over her bedraggled body in the mirror, and straightened her shoulders. “Mum always told me to stand straight,” she said out aloud. “That's better. Much better, my girl.” The “my girl” reminded her of both her husband and handsome Robby Rozario, who were merged into one in her mind. “He never got 'round to asking me,” she sniffed when she noticed two little raw patches in the corners of her lips. “It's some vitamin deficiency,” she said, forgetting Rozario. “That's what Anthony always said about Mum. Funny how she had the same thing ... Doc, I'll have to call doc . . . ” She leaned closer to peer at her lips and caught the reflection of a dark metallic object in her open
almirah
. It was a gun, once her husband's.

“My,” she said. “I'd forgotten about that!” She admired it, examined the bullet chamber.

“It's some protection at least!” she thought.

 

Junior, acting as if a black angel had descended on him, was going about breathing mushroom clouds while he ruthlessly targeted the widow.

“I'm stopping your money, Maudie!” Junior pronounced, preparing for the final push. “I'm not obliged to do anything, am I, with you cluttering up this place uninvited?”

“Oh my,” whispered Maudie.

“And you'd better follow my conditions or I'll have you thrown out!”

“What, what conditions?” asked Maudie, too nervous to argue.

“One. You have to give up drinking completely, because you are living in sacred precincts. Two. You are forbidden from entering the domain of the
Pir
's tomb. And three. You are forbidden from entering the main Rajmahal building, except for Surjeet Shona's apartment on the ground floor, which you may access only by the garden! That is all!”

Junior quickly marched away before Maudie's face could take on the stretched skeletal look again.

The ultimatum had sent a door crashing shut in her face, fracturing her
will. She needed badly to drink again, but the source of her money had dried up. She sat wringing her hands, too afraid of the watchman's reaction if she told him of her penury. She knew that friendly though he was, there was always that little greedy gleam behind his eyes. “He'll chuck me to the wolves!” she said, and softly keening, she swayed with her hands over her face. That was how Surjeet Shona came on her.

“Aunty Maudie,” she said. “What is it?”

“That Junior Mallik,” she sobbed. “That Junior Mallik's so wicked! He says I can't go to the tomb any more, or into your apartment except by the garden . . . And no more money, and no more . . . no more . . . you know!”

“How can anyone have the heart to do this to her?” thought Surjeet Shona.

“How much do you want, Aunty Maudie?” she asked tentatively, knowing her kindness could destroy the old Anglo-Indian lady.

So Surjeet Shona lent Maudie the small sums she needed for her deadly addiction. And her kindness was the end of Maudie. For drink was her devil, not Junior. She grew weaker and weaker, hardly eating the tempting food Surjeet Shona set out for her each day. She forgot the
Pir
, the birds and flowers, the trees and woodpeckers.

“Good-bye Maudie,” said the Rajmahal sadly. “Good-bye dear, gracious, sad lady.” And it mimicked what the
swadeshi
ghost would have said if it had not vanished by then along with all the other ghosts and Petrov—“Ah, why do these Christians do this? It is men who are said to be addicted to such weakening substances.”

One night, Maudie went ricocheting between the walls of the hedge-maze, scratching herself till she bled. She reached the
Pir
's tomb, lovingly took her place on the ledge, and repositioning her little Catholic veil, tilted her head at the familiar angle. The moon shone perfectly round on three of its quarters with the fourth quarter smokily unfinished. It swam swiftly upward in a sky of great luminosity against clouds shining from within, yet edged with blackest density, the unfinished moon swimming, swimming swiftly cometlike with its smoky tail, yet staying within the ambit of her
upturned eye. Then a golden star, just one star, gleamed at her from an opening.

“It's not twinkling, it's a planet,” said Maudie. And it reminded her of her lost star-studded golden earrings. “They stole them all. My jewels. My money.” And then, as drunk as she had ever been in her life, she looked again at the mesmerizing bright silver moon riding so triumphant over the evilly circled clouds, and thought, “It's a sign. Look! So bright, the silvery moon!” And then, as her tongue darted to the sour little sores at the corners of her lips, the moon diminished, slowly grew smaller and smaller, and vanished. And the sky was caste over with deepest black mourning. Against the remaining light in the sky, the semul tree stood out, bare, not a flower to be seen. And then she saw that not only the flowers and the moon, but the golden star, the reminder of her losses, had all vanished. A chilling drop of water fell on her cheek. She felt it as the tear of the world, telling her, “Go Maudie. Do what you have to do.”

Maudie went weaving back to her room, crushing the bulky semul flowers on the ground with her feet, and staining her white sandals. In her room she picked up the gun, as she had been doing for many nights. Then she raised it to her temple with a trembling hand.

“Do something!” the Rajmahal exclaimed impotently. “Oh God!”

Urged by her black cloud of despair, her opposite of hope, Maudie was about to pull the trigger, when the door opened to Junior, furious at hearing she had violated the tomb ban. Her desperation and resolve funneled sharply toward him, such a wicked man, and she turned the gun on him and fired. Junior registered the flash and a scalding streak along the side of his head. And the watchman, who was approaching outside felt the buzzing of an extra strong bee as it whizzed by on a suicide mission and thudded into the pained Rajmahal wall. Maudie's hand recoiled with the shot and the gun splintered into the beveled glass of her splendid triple-mirrored dressing table and dropped from her hand. “Seven years bad luck,” said Maudie, passing out in a dead faint.

FOR A TIME AFTER THE SARDAR BAHADUR'S MOMENTOUS DEPARTURE, the ground floor Rajmahal apartment acted as a curtailed visiting pad for the Ohris till Surjeet Shona moved in. Much to its delight, for it longed for one of the blooded Ohris to honor its insides permanently. Surjeet Shona was the daughter of the same favorite great grand son, Satinder, who had dared to question the Sardar Bahadur's last wishes. Surjeet Shona Kaur, daughter of Satinder Singh Ohri, son of Maninder Singh Ohri, son of Rupinder Singh Ohri, son of Sardar Bahadur Surjeet Singh Ohri. So the “Surjeet” was after the progenitor on the Sikh side, and the “Shona” after an illustrious Bengali ancestress, the redeeming feature of course, being that she was from the aristocratic family of Raja Sheetanath himself.

“See here,
ji
,” the Sardar Bahadur's wife had protested. “How are you sitting quietly and saying nothing to this shameful thing?”

“It had to happen some day, didn't it? I expected worse when we sent the boy out of the country to study. Aren't you thankful he hasn't come back with a mem and the girl is from a Raja's family, connected to us by this house? And haven't we lived so happily in this house, in Calcutta, a Bengali city?”

“I told you even then!” said Inderjeet Kaur as if he hadn't spoken. “I told you something terrible would happen. And what about Satinder's children? They will become soft with eating rice and fish! They will not even be proper Punjabis, let alone Sikhs! The line will die away and they will speak that gole matole
rasgulla
language!” She rocked back and forth and slapped her forehead.

“
Arrey baba
they will be Ohris, and they will be brought up as Sikhs! That has been made clear. And they will speak Punjabi, even if they know a
little Bengali. Don't I know Bengali?!” he thundered. “Are you saying I am any less a Sikh?”

“I know how you learned Bengali, Rupinder's father,” mumbled Inderjeet Kaur. “Oh yes, I know very well!” The reference was to the Sardar Bahadur's ladies, who had acted as sleep-in language primers to him, so he didn't answer.

The Rajmahal, on the other hand, found the double pedigree of the Sheetanath-Ohri conjunction most auspicious and a cause for rejoicing.

Surjeet Shona, the first born of that upsetting, breakaway marriage, was able, in the end, to absorb both Punjabi and Bengali currents and speak both languages, neither well. She was aware of the xenophobia of both sides and would often discuss the problem with the Rajmahal's resident philosopher, Petrov. At the end of one of his discourses, Surjeet Shona forced the issue back to her personal self. “And in any case, what should I, as a hybrid, then do?”

“Nothing, dear child, nothing. You are an important manifestation of what will inevitably happen after a hundred years, when every Indian is a hybrid like you and all the cultures fade out, and the not-this-not-that hybrid shines out like an arc lamp!”