Zemindar (16 page)

‘Well, Laura? And is it still like the Arabian Nights?’ Kate Barry enquired, as the buggy inched forward into the throng.

For some moments I could only shake my head. ‘No, not at all,’ I then said. ‘It’s horrible. Terrible, Kate. How can they exist in such conditions?’

‘I’ve often wondered that myself. Perhaps because they have never known anything better, for themselves at least, poor divils.’ She brushed the flies away from her face. ‘But it’s a pity you did not see it a few years ago; then you would have found it rather more like your idea of an Eastern city. There was still the poverty, the disease and the smells. But there was magnificence and pageantry too! All the swells, the princes and
talukhdars
, sometimes the Nawab himself, riding through the streets on jewelled horses and with great retinues of servants, slaves and soldiers all dressed like Aladdin, with scimitars in their sashes and egret plumes on their turbans. The elephants had silver
howdahs
on their backs in those days, and the horses were magnificent, prouder than the men who rode them. And then there would be the royal ladies in silken palanquins, strings of ’em, guarded like jewels, on their way to say their prayers at the mosque. But they have all gone now, poor things, or if they are here, they stay at home in their crumbling palaces. They are nobodies now, y’see, and I expect they feel it just as we should.’

It was difficult to reconcile this picture of past splendours with what I saw around me.

‘I thought annexation was supposed to better the lot of the people,’ I said, ‘but what has been done to help these poor creatures?’

‘It will take time,’ Kate answered tranquilly. ‘And at least now they are not forced off their own streets when the royal household wishes to take the air. The Nawab always feared assassination, y’know, and quite rightly. But there was pomp then, and display, and believe it or not, the people enjoyed it, although they had no part in it. Then we pushed the Nawab off his
gadhi
, so now all that is left is … this!’

‘But cannot something… surely something
must
be done to help them?’

I just then caught sight of a woman in a tattered
sari
with a tiny bone-thin child clasped in her arms. The child’s head was lolling back against her arm, and its whole face was a mass of putrefying sores, around and over which crawled a legion of contentedly buzzing flies. The mother made no effort even to brush them aside, but gazed at us dully, with the apathy of long suffering, and mutely extended her open palm for alms. I fumbled in my reticule, but the buggy pushed past her before I could extract a coin, and there were so many other comparable ills around me that with a sigh I replaced it.

‘To help them? Who knows but that we will in time. If we have time!’

I would have asked Kate to explain herself, but we had now reached our destination, the principal shopping street, and the driver drew up for us to alight.

I was relieved to see that here the crowd had thinned somewhat, and that the street was markedly broader than those we had already traversed. It was scarcely a salubrious thoroughfare, but the shops were richer and better stocked, though on examination their contents proved disappointing. There were the inevitable booths of the
halwais
, or sweetmeat sellers, spread with copper trays laden with sticky masses all covered with flies; some silversmiths and goldsmiths, the proprietors sitting crosslegged almost on the street, but oblivious of the crowds as they bent intently over their work of weighing, assaying and chastening the precious metals; a number of shops displaying slippers or the small embroidered caps typical of the kingdom, and several emporia of silks, muslins and other fine fabrics. To the largest and finest of these latter we made our way.

The cool darkness of the shop was welcome after the glare and smells of the street, and I looked around me with interest. Bales of gorgeously coloured stuffs, glowing softly in the dim interior, rose from floor to ceiling on three sides of the room; the fourth side lay open to the street and protected from it only by a narrow verandah edged by a wooden rail. A fine carpet covered the floor, and at the far end of the shop, upon a raised dais covered with white sheeting, sat the proprietor with his back against a cylindrical cotton bolster. He was a Hindu, and by the look of him a very prosperous tradesman, well-oiled and acceptably fat, with a fine belly swelling beneath his
dhoti
and white muslin tunic, and a small flat turban on his head. Beside him on the dais an incense coil in a silver holder smouldered beneath a hovering cloudlet of fragrant blue smoke. He rose as we entered, touching his forehead in that gesture it was so difficult not to think subservient, clapped his hands to summon his assistants, and when we were all accommodated on chairs, resumed his cross-legged seat.

Mrs Barry was an old customer; they exchanged remarks in Hindustani, and, having understood what was required, he directed his underlings to unroll his choicest wares for Charles’s inspection. Peacock blues and acid yellows, dusky rose and rippling turquoise, satins and silks, cut-velvets and embossed brocades soon lay in gorgeous disarray on the carpet, while the shopman expatiated on the glories of his stock, and Mrs Barry cut down his prices in two languages, both salted, I have no doubt, by her caustic Irish tongue. I watched for a while, amused by the repartee, the emphatic gestures and the comically despairing expression on the shining dark face of the proprietor, but as Kate had taken over the task of advising Charles, and the bargaining looked like being a lengthy process, I wandered over to the verandah to watch the street.

The crowd, though hardly less squalid than on the other streets, was continuously fascinating, and there were here on the Hazrat Ganj not a few people of more prosperous appearance. Or rather I should say not a few men, for one did not see the women of the upper classes unveiled and in public. The poor females whom I watched gliding through the crowds, children straddled on their hips, or haggling over a handful of parched gram from the baskets of the lowest sort of street vendor, were of the most depressed castes and income, poor sexless creatures in ragged clothing, worn-faced and avid-eyed.

However, the ladies of the city were present, even though unseen, passing along in their closely curtained litters or palanquins, and accompanied often by servants. One of these palanquins had come to rest before the shop adjoining that in which I stood. It must have been a silversmith’s, for a female servant who wore a
burqha
covering her from top to toe made frequent sorties between the shop and the palanquin with the sort of small wooden boxes I had noticed were used to hold the trinkets produced by these craftsmen. The curtains of the palanquin would open a fraction, a jewelled hand, nails tipped with henna, would take the box and then withdraw, and the two women, one within and one without, would discuss the merits of each article. Then the hand would appear again, the box would change hands and the servant would return to the shop for a further selection. A fine fierce-looking man, tall and well dressed with a long black beard, wearing a sword and carrying a matchlock, stood behind the palanquin, so I presumed the lady it enclosed was someone of consequence. The curtains of the palanquin were of some heavy material, richly embroidered and reasonably clean, and as I watched idly from my vantage point, I was amused to see a small brown face with bright enquiring eyes appear between the folds at the bottom end of the equipage. The lady had brought her child out with her for an airing. The child caught my eye as I watched, and its face broke into a charming smile. I smiled back and nodded my head in what I hoped was a reassuring manner. It smiled again and parted the curtains a little more so that its small shoulders, clad in peach-coloured brocade, were also visible. Then, in a gesture which must be common to the populations of the world, the boy put one small finger to his lips, enjoining silence, and in a trice was out of the curtains and standing between the shafts of the palanquin, looking excitedly around him. For a moment no one missed the child: the warlike guard was leaning on his matchlock watching the bargaining; the bearers had withdrawn to the shady side of the street; the mother and her maid were engrossed in their transactions—and the child was free.

At that instant a commotion broke out further up the street. There were cries and shouts of alarm. I saw the crowd break up and part, as everyone made for the sides of the road, those behind pushing those in front up shaky steps and on to verandahs such as I stood on; and then I heard the sound of hoofbeats and almost simultaneously the first of a string of horses appeared, careering madly—eyes rolling, heads tossing, hooves flailing—towards me. My attention had been deflected from the child, and when I again looked for him he had disappeared. For a second I thought he must have climbed back to his mother, being alarmed by the noise, but then I caught a glimpse of peach brocade between the bodies of the people packed beneath me, and the next instant the child was standing, laughing, in the middle of the road.

There was a sort of long, despairing sigh from the crowd, a wail of anguish from the burly guard, and then he and I leapt together towards the child. I was a little nearer, the crowd around me rather thinner, and I reached him first. Sweeping him into my arms without stopping, I rushed headlong on across the street, aware only of the horses rushing upon me, of a cloud of dust choking me, and then I and the bundle I carried had fallen among the feet of the people on the far side of the street. Dark hands raised me, set the child on its feet and brushed the dust from my clothing. Brown faces peered anxiously into mine, and a babel of voices, congratulatory and exclamatory, arose around me. The guard knelt at my feet, his forehead touching my shoes, his big hands joining palms together before his face. When he looked up I saw tears rolling down into his beard, and he did so only to reiterate his thanks and then touched and retouched his forehead to my feet again.

I found this manner of expressing gratitude embarrassing, though I knew it was the custom of the people, and was truly glad to be rescued by the appearance of my party, none of whom had known that anything untoward had happened until summoned by the wails of the Averys’ coachman, who thought I must undoubtedly be dead. Then what a questioning ensued! I was still a little shaken, so Kate turned to the guard, who now clasped the little boy, and spoke to him in Hindustani. The good man must have given an exaggerated account of the matter; it was certainly lengthy and much interrupted by various members of the crowd breaking in to give their amendments, the whole accompanied by a great deal of dramatic gesturing. I felt foolish, now that all was over, and gladly assented to cutting short the shopping in order to remove myself from the curious gaze of so many strangers. The guard helped me into the carriage, making a last obeisance as he did so, and, once seated, I shook the hand of the little boy, who, to his credit, had not even whimpered from the moment I had snatched him up. Only the mother of the child, though she must have known by now what had happened, remained silent, enclosed in her dark palanquin. I could not help but wonder, as we moved away, at the strength of a system that could produce such absolute conformity even in a time of crisis. I know that had I been the mother and the boy my son, I would have broken my
purdah
without a moment’s hesitation.

We returned home, and I would soon have forgotten my trifling adventure, but for a sequel that took place that evening, and that was to bear strange repercussions into my future life.

We had formed the habit of gathering together in company to pass the hour before the early dinner, and on that day were sitting on the lawn before the house enjoying the wintry sunshine. The flowerbeds had received their last watering, the grass had been newly scythed, and one of the gardeners, plying a twig broom, had brushed the yellow dust of the driveway into a neat herringbone pattern. Darkness was still an hour or more away but the first of the fruit bats had already flapped on leathern wings across the sky and a young moon showed silver in the evening’s pale gold. Conversation had flagged, all of us enjoying the peace too much to mar it with talk. Only Wallace fidgeted in his chair and appeared, as usual, preoccupied and anxious to be away. Connie was absent.

Suddenly there was a stir at the gate and, to our surprise, a cavalcade of five or six horsemen turned in to the drive and trotted up to the house, halting at the pillared porch.

Wallace crossed the lawn to investigate and returned accompanied by a figure of just such oriental splendour as I had once imagined all Indian gentlemen would present. This was a man, short and broad and full-bearded, whose deliberate, stately walk and self-contained survey of the company in which he found himself indicated clearly a habit of authority. His dress, though simple, was rich; snowy breeches and a loose shirt of embroidered muslin were covered by a long open coat of multicoloured brocade. Slippers of black velvet embroidered in gold curled up at the toes to end in golden tassels, and on his head he wore a flat turban, whose precise pink folds were embellished by a fine ruby. Jewels shone too on his hands and in his ears, and a curved dagger in a gem-encrusted scabbard was thrust through the gathered satin of his cummerbund. Behind him paced a servant carrying a large round tray covered with a cloth.

It was obvious that Wallace was at a loss with his unexpected guest, but he ushered him in to our circle of chairs with rather excessive cordiality and said, ‘May I introduce Mr Wajid Khan, the Talukhdar of Nayanagar. I believe he has something of importance to say to you, Laura. This is Miss Hewitt, sir,’ and he indicated me to the newcomer.

The gentleman bowed politely to the company, then approached me and with his hands joined made a deeper bow.

‘Miss Hewitt, madam. My pleasure to meet you is extreme.’

He bowed again while I wondered whether I should extend my hand, rise, or remain seated.

‘I have come, madam,’ he went on before I had resolved my perplexity, ‘to offer you the most heartfelt thanks of myself, my wife and all my family for the great service you have this morning performed for us in the Hazrat Ganj.’