Heat and Dust

I made my way from Dr. Gopal's office through the crowded hospital corridors. I kept having to step over patients lying on the floor. "Then where should she die?" I had asked Dr. Gopal. lt had seemed a forceful question to me at the time, but now it no longer was so. Now a new thought a new word — presented itself to me, and it was this: that the old woman was dispensable. I was surprised at myself. I realised I was changing, becoming more-like everyone else. But also I thought that, if one lives here, it is best to be like everyone else. Perhaps there is even no choice: everything around me — the people and the landscape, life animate and inanimate — seemed to compel me into this attitude.

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 stanrted 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'll the heat. No English woman 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 he. 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 ear 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.

"It's cruelty to animals.”

"But he calls us animals.” the Nawab pointed out.

Harry said "He's just an old bore. Why ever did you bring him.”.

"It was she, U the Nawab said, pointing at Olivia. But when she looked embarrassed, he tried to make it up to her:

"He is not a bore. He is very amusing. 'We doctors at home in England':” he said, laying his fingertips together and blowing out an imaginary moustache. It was not a very good imitation, but to oblige him the other two laughed. At first he was gratified but then his mood changed and he said with disgust "You are right. He is a bore. Tcha, why did we bring him, let's send him away. "

Olivia felt compelled to say: "He really is exceptionally obnoxious. Don't judge by him."

The Nawab looked at her rather coldly: "Don't judge what by him?"

"All of us."

"Who's us?" Harry asked her. He too sounded hostile.

Olivia felt herself floundering — it was the same sensation she had had at the Crawford's dinner party, of not knowing where she stood.

"I don't know how you feel about it," Harry pursued, "but please don't lump me in with all that lot."

"But, Harry, the Crawfords — for instance — they are not like Dr. Saunders, you know they're not. Or the Minnies. Or for that matter Douglas and — "

"You?"

"All are the same," the Nawab said suddenly and decisively.

Olivia had a shock — did he mean her too? Was she included? She looked at his face and was frightened by the feelings she saw so plainly expressed there: and it seemed to her that she could not bear to be included in these feelings, that she would do anything not to be.

"I shall send him away," the Nawab said, calling loudly for servants. He gave orders that Dr. Saunders was to be put in a car and despatched home. "Oh and pay him, pay him", he said. "You do it. Just give him the money, he will take it", he told his servant and laughed; and the servant smiled too at this insult that was being delivered to Dr. Saunders of being paid off by servants.

"I'd better go too, "Olivia said; swallowing tears.

"You?" cried the Nawab. "With him?" He sounded outraged. "Do you think I would allow you to go home in the same car with him? Is that the idea you have of my hospitality? Of my friendship?" He seemed deeply hurt.

She protested" But I have to go home soon — and since the car is going — " She was laughing, feeling suddenly terribly light-hearted:

"Another car will go. Ten cars will go if necessary. Sit down please. Oh we are having a rotten time instead of enjoying ourselves, why are we like this? Harry! Olivia! Please be jolly! I will tell you a dream I had last night — you will laugh — it was about Mrs. Crawford. No but wait, wait she was not Mrs. Crawford, she was an hijra and she was doing like this." He clapped his hands as one dancing and laughed uproariously. "She was with a whole troupe of them all singing and dancing, but I recognised her quite easily. It is true," he said, "she does look like an hijra."

Olivia asked "What is an hijra?"

The Nawab laughed again: "I will show you."

It was then that he called his attendant young men and ordered eunuchs to be brought to sing and dance. And for the rest of Olivia's stay that day she had a very enjoyable time.

* * * *

2OJune. Shortly before the monsoon, the heat becomes very intense. It is said that the more intense it becomes the more abundantly it will draw down the-rains, so one wants it to be as hot as can be. And by that time one has accepted it — not got used to but accepted; and moreover, too worn-out to fight against it, one submits and endures. There are compensations too. The hotter it is, the sweeter are the mangoes and the sugar melons, the more pungent the scent of the jasmine. The gul mohar tree, spreading its branches like a dancer, blooms with astonishing scarlet blossoms. All sorts of sweet sherbets are sold in the bazaar, and the glasses in which they are served (though perhaps not very clean) are packed to the top with crushed ice (also not very clean but who cares).

On Sunday Inder Lal and I went to Baba Firdaus' grove for a picnic. It was my idea though when we were sitting, soaked with perspiration, in the bus and rattling through the broiling landscape, I wondered whether it had been such a good one. We got off and toiled up the rocky, completely barren and exposed path that led to the grove: but once there, it was like being received in Paradise. The sun could not reach here through the foliage of the trees; the sound of the little spring trickled cool and fresh. Inder Lal lay down at once under a tree, but I was so delighted with the place that r wandered around it. The contrast could hardly have been more complete with the last time I had been here — on the Husband's Wedding Day — when it was packed with pilgrims and loudspeakers. Now it was quite, quite still except for the water and the birds, and sometimes the leaves rustled. I bathed my hands and face in the spring which was so shallow that I could touch the stone-cold pebbles in its bed. I inspected the shrine and found it to be a very plain structure with an arched entrance and a small striped dome like a sugar-melon set on top. Inside it was rather thickly whitewashed — probably each time a Husband's Wedding Day came round a new coat of paint was hurriedly slapped on; the latticed window was covered with red threads tied by supplicants. There was no tomb — Baba Firdaus' whereabouts at the time of his death were unknown — but a little whitewashed mound of stone stood in the centre. On ~his were draped several strings of flowers, most of them dead but one or two quite fresh. The place was so completely deserted, so full of silence and solitude, that I wondered who could have left them there.

When Inder Lal woke up, I unpacked the sandwiches I had brought for us. He had never had sandwiches before and ate them with interest, always glad to be learning something new. What was also new to him was to have an outing with only one other person present instead of the usual crowd of family and friends. He said he appreciated the conversation that could be had when there were only two people together, each then being in a position to disclose the contents of his heart to the other. I waited for him to do so, but he only asked me some rather banal questions, such as about picnics in England. He listened eagerly to my answers and kept trying to draw out further details. "For my information only," he said. It is a phrase he often uses when asking me questions. He seems to relish collecting irrelevant bits of information and to store them away for further use. His mother does the same with things. I have seen her reverently pick up and smoothe out a wrapper of chocolate paper I have thrown away, corks, empty bottles, shreds of cloth. She hoards them away in her big trunk and when I ask what for she is surprised. To her, as to him, every scrap is useful or could become so in the future.

He said" Look what I have brought. "

He produced two pieces of red string; he said we had to tie them to the lattice in the shrine and then our wishes would be fulfilled. We took off our sandals and entered the shrine. He first tied his piece of string, to show me how to do it; he shut his eyes and wished fervently. I said "I thought it was only for barren women."

"All wishes are heard," he said. "Now you do it." He handed me my string and watched me with interest: "You can say your wish aloud," he encouraged me. "If you are alone or only one friend with you."

Instead of answering, I pointed at the fresh garlands laid on the stone mound: "Who do you think can have put them? It looks as if no one's been here for ages."

He said "Even if a place like this is in the middle of the desert, one thousand miles from anywhere, people will come." What did you wish?"

I smiled and went back to sit in our place under the tree; he followed-me. "Tell me," he coaxed, really consumed with curiosity.

"Well what do you think?" But whatever it was, he felt embarrassed to say. So now I was curious, wondering what he could be thinking.

He parried: "How can I say. I am not a magician or other person with powers to read another's thoughts. But if you tell me," he said cunningly, "I will tell you."

"Let's try and guess."

"You first." He enjoyed this game.

I pretended to concentrate very hard while he looked at me eagerly. "I think," I said finally, "it had something to do with your office."

At once his face fell- in astonishment, in consternation:

"How did you know?"

"Oh I just guessed."

But I wished I hadn't. He became depressed and no longer enjoyed the game. When I said "Now it's your turn," he gloomily shook his head. Sunk in his own troubles, he was no longer interested in my wishes.

But now I wanted him to be. I really had the desire — as he had said — to disclose the contents of my heart to another. However, it is difficult enough to do that to a person conversant with one's life and problems: what then to say to him to whom these are utterly unknown and alien! If I had had a definite wish — such as for a husband, a baby, or the removal of an enemy — I would have been glad to tell him. But in fact, while I had tied my thread with all the others, there had been nothing really definite I knew to wish for. Not that my life is so fulfilled that there is nothing left to ask; but, on the contrary, that it is too lacking in essentials for me to fill up the gaps with anyone request.

However, at that moment I did have a desire, and a strong one: to get close to him. And since this seemed impossible to do with words, I laid my hand on his. Then he looked at me in an entirely different way. There was no lack of interest now! But it was difficult to tell what there was. I could feel his hand tremble under mine: and then I saw that his lips trembled too. Perhaps because he was about to speak; perhaps with desire, or with fear. There was certainly fear in his eyes as they looked at me. He did not know what to do next, nor what I was going to do next. I could see — it was ludicrous! how everything he had heard about Western women rushed about in his head. And yet at the same time he was a healthy young man — his wife was away — we were alone in a romantic spot (getting more romantic every moment as the sun began to set). Although the next few moves were up to me, once I had made them he was not slow to respond. Afterwards he made the same joke the Nawab had made; about what had happened hereon the original Husband's Wedding Day to make the barren wife pregnant.

1923

One day Harry arrived with the car sent for Olivia. She was ready to leave at once but he said to wait awhile, he wanted to rest before going back. He sat on and on. He seemed ready to spend the day. She said, several times, "If we don't leave soon, it'll get too hot."

"Play something, "he said, indicating the piano. "Go on, I haven't heard you in ages."

"And then we'll go," she bargained.

She sat down at the piano and began to play with her customary dash. She played Debussy, and Harry put back his head against the yellow armchair and shut his eyes and one foot tapped with pleasure. But after a while she played too fast and stumbled, and once or twice a key got stuck and she banged at it impatiently. She broke off: "I'm out of practice. Come on now, Harry, we must go."

"Why are you out of practice?"

"It's too hot to play. And have you heard the piano, what a state it's in?" She banged at a defective note again. "This is simply no climate for a piano and that's all there is to it. Get up, Harry, do."

"You could get a tuner. From Bombay.”

"It's not worth it. I hardly play now."

"What a pity."

He said this with such feeling that she became thoughtful.

Why hadn't she been playing? She hadn't asked herself that before, had vaguely thought it was too hot or she just didn't feel like it. But there was something more, and she tried to think what that could be.

"Debussy," she said. "Schumann. It's so… unsuitable."

She laughed.

"It suits me," Harry said.

"Here?"

"Why not?" He looked around her room and repeated "Why not. You've made it very nice in here. Very nice indeed. " He settled deeper into his chair as if never wanting to leave again: "The Oasis, "he said.

"Don't start that again please." It really irritated her. "I can't see why anyone should want an oasis. Why it should be necessary."

"Goodness," he said, "how tough you are, Olivia, who'd have thought it… And you're never ill either, are you."

"Of course not. Why should I be." She was quite scornful.

"That's all just psychological.”

"Last night I was so bad again. And I haven't eaten Indian food in weeks. I don't know what it's due to."

"I told you: psychological."

"You may be right. I'm certainly feeling quite psychological… In fact I'm feeling," he said, shutting his eyes again but this time in pain, "as if I couldn't stand it another day." And he sounded as if he really couldn't.

She tried to be sympathetic but could not overcome her impatience. For one thing, she was so impatient to be off! And he just sat there, not wanting to move. From the servant quarters came the sound of a voice chanting and a drum being beaten in accompaniment, both on one fiat note and without pause in absolute monotony.

"It's like brain fever.” Harry said.

"What?… Oh, that. I don't hear it any more. It's been going on for days. There's always something like that going on in the quarters. Someone dying or getting born or married. I think it may be why I don't play the piano much any more. I mean, it doesn't exactly harmonise, does it… Harry, we must go or we'll die of heat on the road."

"I don't want to go," he said.

She had a moment of panic. Her voice trembled: "What about the car?"

"We'll send it back."

Olivia stared at the tips of her white shoes. She sat very still. Harry watched her but she pretended not to notice. At last he said: "What's the matter with you, Olivia?" He spoke very gently. "Why are you so eager to go?"

"We're expected." Hearing how lame that sounded, she became more irritated with him: "And you don't think I like sitting around here all day, day after day, staring at the wall and waiting for Douglas to come home, do you? I can well see how people can go batty that way… like Mrs. Saunders. Just sitting inside the house and imagining things. I don't want to become like Mrs. Saunders. But if I go on sitting here by myself, I shall."

"Is that why you like to come to the Palace?"

"Douglas knows I go to the Palace. He knew about Dr. Saunders coming there — he spoke to him himself — and that I'd been to see you."

"Yes to, see me."

This hung on the air and did not cease to do so after she replied "You're jealous, Harry, that's what it is. Yes you are!" She laughed. "You want to be the only one — I mean," she said, "in the Palace, the only guest there." She said this last bit quickly but not quickly enough. She was blushing now and felt entangled.

"All right, "he said." We'll go."

He got up and moved to the door, putting on his solar topee. She felt that now — out of pride, or to prove her innocence — she ought to be the one to hang back. She hesitated for a moment but found that she did not, after all, have enough pride (or innocence) for that. She followed him quite quickly to the car.

That journey was uncomfortable, and not only because of heat and dust. They hardly spoke as if angry with each other. Yet Olivia was not angry, and once or twice she did try to talk to him but what came out might as well have been left unsaid. She could not bring herself to speak about what was disturbing her — she was afraid that, if she did, she might say more than she meant; or he might misinterpret whatever it was she did mean.

Suddenly Harry said "There he is."

A red open sports car was parked across the road. As they approached, the Nawab, wearing a checked cap and motorist's goggles, stood up in it and made traffic policeman gestures. They stopped, he said "Where have you been? I have been waiting and waiting. "

He had come to meet them because he wanted to go to Baba Firdaus' shrine. He was tired of being shut up in the Palace, he said. He invited them to climb into his sports car which he was driving himself. When Harry said he didn't feel like it, he wanted to go home, the Nawab wanted no more time on him but said "You come, Olivia."

She too wasted no time on Harry but got in beside the Nawab. They drove away in one direction while the chauffeur drove Harry in the other. He could be seen sitting alone at the back of the limousine, looking pale and cross.

"Why is he so cross?" the Nawab asked Olivia. "Do you think he is ill? Is he ill? Has he said anything to you?"

He was deeply concerned and continued, for most of the way, to talk about Harry. He said he knew Harry was often homesick and wanted to go back to England to see his mother; and the Nawab wanted him to go but at the same time — "Olivia, can you understand this, does it sound very selfish" — he could not bring himself to part with him. "I can see you think I am very selfish," he concluded sadly.

She knew it was not necessary to contradict. Her role was to listen and she was content with that; also to be next to him and sometimes to steal a look at him where he sat dressed up in cap and goggles and steering his car.

"Often I have wanted to say to him: '.Harry, your Mother wants you at home, you also want to be with her: go.' Sometimes I have said. Once everything was done, his berth booked, his baggage packed. At the last moment I broke down. I could not tolerate this parting. Then it was he who said 'no I shall stay'… Now we have to get out and walk, will it be too hot for you, Olivia?"

He led the way up the rocky path to Baba Firdaus' grove.

He went on talking and she listened to him and so did not much feel the sun beating down.

He said "There are certain people who if they are absent life becomes hard to bear. Once I asked a faqir from Ajmere (a very holy person): 'Why these people? Why they and not others?' He gave me the following reply which I like very much: 'These are the people who once sat close to you in Paradise.' It is a beautiful idea, isn't it, Olivia? That we sat close to each other once in Paradise. "

They had arrived in the grove. He parted the branches for her, they entered. But just as they did so, some men emerged from the shrine. Olivia had a shock. They were rough and armed and for a moment they stared dangerously at the Nawab and Olivia. But next moment, realising who it was, they fell at the Nawab's feet.

He told Olivia to sit under a tree. She watched him talk to the men. He was easy and familiar with them. They stood before him in an attitude of humility and with a look of adoration on their desperado faces. She was quite sure they were desperadoes. She studied them — they looked like mediaeval bandits — but not once did they dare glance in her direction. The Nawab dismissed them quite soon, then called her into the shrine.

"Look what I have brought," he said.

He held two lengths of red string. She tied hers first, then he tied his. Afterwards he asked "What did you wish?"

"Is one supposed to tell?"

"U there is only one person there with you… You know what women come here for? What they wish? Is that what you wished also?"

"Yes," she said. "Ah".

There was a silence; then he said: "It is all superstition. But perhaps it is true. It may be true; there are many stories of miracles that have happened. You have heard the story of the Husband's Wedding Day? Of course it is all quite unscientific, and educated people like you and I — "

"Still we did tie strings."

"Only for fun."

"Who were those men?"

He didn't answer at once, and when he did, it was with another question: "Who do you think they were?" He gave her one of his shrewd looks, then laughed: "I suppose you think they are bad men. You must have heard many stories I think, isn't it, and you believe they are true." Again she felt she did not have to defend herself or answer him.

"But if they are bad men," he went on, "I think they can't be so very bad because look what they have come here for." He pointed to the mound in the shrine on which some fresh garlands had just been laid and sticks of incense were still smouldering. "You see, they did not come for any bad purpose but to pay their devotions."

He looked at her as if testing her reaction. But she had no reaction, only some very strong physical sensations. The vast simmering plain of heat surrounding the grove trickled here and there through the leaves. The Nawab's overwhelming presence was concentrated now on her alone.

"Come, "he said." Sit with me. "

Both sat on the step leading into the shrine. He spoke to her in a gentle, reasoning voice: "Yes perhaps they are outlaws, it is true, but still they are human beings who come here — you see — to pray and tell their wishes: Like you and I also." He was silent for a while, as if to let her feel the truth of his words; or perhaps the communion between himself and her, to let that sink in.

"When we go from here, Olivia, will you go back to Satipur and say yes, the Nawab is a bad person, now I have seen with my own eyes that he meets with outlaws, dacoits he is hand in glove with them. You will go back and say that, Olivia?"

Now he was really waiting for an answer, and she did not hesitate to give him one. "Do you really believe I'd do that," she said with such sincerity — indeed, indignation — that he was satisfied with her. He respectfully touched her arm with his finger-tips.

"No I don't believe," he said. "And this is why I open my heart to you and tell you everything… Don't think please that I want you to say only he is a very good person, a fine and noble soul. Not at all. Of course I would like to be a fine and noble soul- it is necessary for all of us to strive for this but also I know how far I am from such a goal. Yes very far indeed," he said and looked discouraged.

"Who isn't, "Olivia said. He touched her arm in the same way as before, and partly she wished he wouldn't and partly she longed for him to do it again.

"You are right. We are all far from it. But there are some people — many people, " he said, pausing to let her think who they were: "They make themselves into judges over others, saying this is good, this bad, as if they are all-knowing. Who is Major Minnies that he should say to me don't do this, and don't do that, who has given him the right to say this to me? To me! " he said, incredulously pointing at himself. "To the Nawab Sahib of Khatm. "He was speechless for a moment.

"Do you know how we got our title? It was in 1817. My ancestor, Amanullah Khan, had been fighting for many, many years. Sometimes he fought the Mahrattas, sometimes the Rajputs or the Moghuls or the British. Those were very disturbed times. He went from place to place with his men, wherever there was fighting and booty to be picked up. They had to live, all of them! Sometimes, when he did not have the wherewithal to pay his soldiers, they mutinied against him and- then he had to flee not from the enemy but from his own men, can you imagine! But when things picked up for him again, they all came back and others also joined him. So sometimes he was very up and sometimes quite down. Such was his life. Olivia: I envy him. His name was feared by everyone-including the British! When they saw they could not subdue him by any means,' then they wanted him for their ally. Oh they were always very cunning people and knew which way to take out their own advantage. They offered him the lands and revenues of Khatm and also the title of Nawab. And because he was tired at that time, he said yes all right and he became a Nawab and sat down here. Because he was tired." He became gloomy. "But I think you: " can get tired also sitting in a palace. Then you feel it would be better not to have anything but to fight your enemies and kill them. You feel you would like to do that very much. Don't you think, Olivia, it is better to meet your enemies in this way than to have them secretly plotting against you and whispering slanders? I think it is very much better!" he cried, suddenly very upset.

She put out her hand and laid it on his chest as if to soothe him. And really he was soothed; he said "How kind you are to me." He laid his hand on top of hers and pressed it closer against his chest. She felt drawn to him by a strength, a magnetism that she had never yet in all her life experienced with anyone.

"Listen," he said. "Once it happened that a Marwar prince did something to displease him. I think he did not offer opium out of the correct silver chalice — it was only a very small thing, but Amanullah Khan was not the man to sit quiet when insulted. Not like me." When she began to protest, he said "I have to, what can I do. I am helpless… He invited this Marwar prince and all his retainers to a feast. A ceremonial tent was put up and all preparations made and the guests came ready to eat and drink. Amanullah Khan greeted his enemy at the door of the tent and folded him to his heart. But when they were all inside, he gave a secret sign and his men cut the ropes of the tent and the Marwar prince and all his party were entangled within the canvas. When they were trapped there like animals, Amanullah Khan and his men took their daggers and stabbed with them through the canvas again and again till there was not one enemy left alive. We still have that tent and the blood is so fresh and new, Olivia, it is as if it had happened yesterday." He must have felt that she was trying to remove her hand from his head so he held it against himself tighter. She could not escape him now, even if she had wanted to.

"Not here," he said. He led her away from the shrine and they lay together under a tree. Afterwards he made a joke:

"It is the secret of the Husband 's Wedding Day, " he said.

"Then what did you make me tie the string for?" she asked. '

He laughed and laughed, well pleased with her.

* * * *

31 July. Maji has informed me that I am pregnant. At first I didn't believe her — how could anyone possibly tell so early, even if it were true — but she was absolutely certain. Moreover, she has warned me that I had better be careful' because soon all the midwives in town would come to me to offer their services. They always know, she said, long before anyone else does. They can tell by the way a woman walks and holds herself. That is their business and they are always on the look-out for custom. There is no doubt, she said, that soon they would get on to me.

She was so positive that I have begun to believe her. I assumed that she knew by some kind of second sight — it always seems to me that she has powers that others don't. Once 'I had a headache and she put her hand on my forehead and. I can't describe the strange sensations transmitted to me. They lasted for days. So I thought that nothing about Maji would ever surprise me — until she told me, quite casually, that she knew about me because she herself had been a midwife. That surprised me more than if she actually had revealed supernatural powers.

She laughed at my reaction. She said what did I think, that she had always led this idle life of hers? Not at all. She had been a married woman and had had several children. Unfortunately her husband had not been much of a breadwinner — he had preferred his toddy and the company of friends gathered around the toddy shop — so the burden of looking after the family had fallen on her. Her mother had been a midwife and so had her grandmother and both had taught her all they knew. (I wondered about her mother and grandmother — they might have been the women who had attended Olivia! It was possible.) But after her husband died and her children were settled, she gave up her profession and spent several years going to holy places to pick up whatever instruction she could. Finally she had come back here to Satipur and built herself this little hut to live in. Her friends have been looking after her ever since, bringing her what food she needs so she doesn't have a care in the world. Her children all live rather far away, but sometimes one or other of them comes to visit her or writes her a letter.

I was so surprised to hear all this — having never thought of her as having had a worldly life — that I quite forgot what she had told me about myself. It was she who reminded me; she laid her hand on my abdomen and asked me what I intended to do. She said she would help me if I wanted help — I didn't understand her at first, and it was only when she repeated it that I realised she was offering me an abortion. She said I could trust her completely, for although it is many years since she has practised professionally, she still knows all there is to know about these matters. There are several ways to procure an abortion and she has at one time or other performed all of them. It is a necessary part of an Indian midwife's qualifications because in many cases it is the only way to save people from dishonour and suffering. She told me of various abortions she has performed in this good cause, and I was so fascinated that again I forgot all about my own case. But later, on the way home in the rain — the monsoon has started — I did think about it. Then my sensations were mainly of amusement and interest, so that I went skipping in and out of puddles, laughing to myself when I trod in them and got splashed.

15 August. Chid has come back. He is so changed that at first I could not recognise him. He no longer wears his orange robe but has acquired a pair of khaki pants and a shirt and a pair of shoes. Beads and begging bowl have also gone and his shaved hair is beginning to grow back in tiny bristles. From a Hindu ascetic he has become what I can only describe as a Christian boy. The transformation is more than outward. He has become very quiet — not only does he not talk in his former strain but he hardly talks at all. And he is ill again.

Apart from trips to the bathroom, he is mostly asleep in a corner of my room. He hasn't told me anything about how or why he parted company with Inder Lal's mother and Ritu. Nor do I have any idea what happened to him to change him this way. He doesn't want to talk about it. The most he will say is “I can't stand the smell " (Well of course I know what he means — the smell of people who live and eat differently from oneself; I used to notice it even in London when I was near Indians in crowded buses or tubes). Chid can't bear Indian food any more. He will only accept plain boiled food, and what he likes best is when I make him an English soup.

The smell of Indian cooking makes him literally cry out with nausea and disgust.

Inder Lal is very disappointed in him. He keeps waiting for the fireworks of high-flown Hindu doctrine to start again, but there is nothing like that left in Chid. In any case Inder Lal is not pleased with Chid's return. I ought to explain that, after our picnic at Baba Firdaus' shrine, there has been a change in my relationship with Inder La! He now comes up to my room at night. For the sake of the neighbours, he makes a pretence of going to sleep downstairs but when it is dark he comes creeping up. I'm sure everyone knows, but it doesn't matter. They don't mind. They realise that he is lonely and misses his family very much; no human being is meant to live without a family.

After Chid moved back in again, Inder Lal at first felt shy about his nightly visits. But I have assured him that it is all right because Chid is mostly sleeping. He just lies there and groans and it is difficult to believe that it is the same person who performed all those tremendous feats on me. Inder Lal and I lie on my bedding on the opposite side, and it is more and more delightful to be with him. He trusts me now completely and has become very affectionate. I think he prefers to be with me when it is dark. Then everything is hidden and private between us two alone. Also I feel it makes a difference that he cannot see me, for I'm aware that my appearance has always been a stumbling block to him. In the dark he can forget this and he also needn't feel ashamed of me before others. He can let himself go completely, and he does. I don't mean only physically (though that too) but everything there is in him — all his affection and playfulness. At such times I'm reminded of all those stories that are told of the child Krishna and the many pranks and high-spirited tricks he got up to. I also think of my pregnancy and I think of it as part of him. But I have not told him about it.

I have tried to tell him. I specially went to call for him at his office and took him across the road to the British graveyard, that being the most secluded spot I could think of. It is not a place he is at all, interested in; in fact, he had never even bothered to go into it before. The only thing to make any impression on him was the Saunders' Italian angel which can still be seen rearing above the other graves: no longer in benign benediction but as a headless, wingless torso. Inder Lal did not seem put out by this mutilation. Probably it seemed natural to him — after all, he has grown up among armless Apsaras and headless Sivas riding on what is left of their bulls. In its present condition indeed the angel no longer looks Italian but quite Indian.

I showed him Lt. Edwards' grave and read out the inscription: '''Kind and indulgent Father but most conspicuous... ' It means," I told Inder Lal, looking round at him, "he was a very good husband and father. Like you. "

"What can I do?" was his odd reply.

I think what he was saying was that he has no alternative but to be a good husband and father: having been thrown into that stage of life, whether he likes it or not. And on the whole I think he doesn't. Anyway, I have decided not to tell him about my pregnancy. I don' want to spoil anything.

1923

When Olivia found that she was pregnant, she didn't tell Douglas. She put it off from day to day, and in the end it happened that she told the Nawab first.

One morning, on arrival in the Palace, she found everyone running around carrying and packing and giving each other conflicting instructions. Even Harry was packing up in his room and seemed in rather a good mood. He said they were going to Mussourie at last, the Begum had decided the night before. One of her ladies had been indisposed and had been advised a change of air, so the Begum said they would all go. It would do Harry good too, she thought; she had been very worried about him.

"Oh?" said Olivia. "Do you see her often?"

Ever since the day Harry had pointed out that not being received in the purdah quarters was a discourtesy to Olivia, they had not mentioned the Begum. But Olivia was aware that Harry was received there on a footing of intimacy.

"Every day," he said. "We play cards, she likes it." He changed the subject: "And the Nawab also says he is bored being here, so today everyone is packing."

"He's bored?"

"So he says. But there's something else too." He frowned and went on packing very meticulously.

"What?"

"Oh I don't know Olivia." Although reluctant to talk, he did seem to want to share his feelings. "He won't tell me exactly but I know there's some trouble. As a matter of fact, Major Minnies is with him right now. Didn't you see his car outside? I was wondering about that, hoping you wouldn't collide on the stairs or something. "

"Why not? What's it matter? I’ve come to see you. "

"Quite. "He went on packing.

She interrupted him impatiently: "Do stop that now, Harry, and tell me what's going on. I ought to know." He turned around then from where he was kneeling on the floor and gave her a look that made her emend to "I'd like to know."

"So would I," Harry said. He left his suitcase and came to sit near her. "Or would I. Sometimes I feel I'd just as soon not. "

They were silent. Both looked out of the latticed window framing the garden below. The water channels intersecting the lawns reflected a sky that shifted and sailed with monsoon clouds.

Harry said "I know he's in all sorts of trouble. It's been going on for years. Financial troubles — Khatm is bankrupt and then all that business with Sandy and the Cabobpurs who've been complaining right and left and trying to bring a case about her dowry. And of course that makes him more stubborn to fight back though he can't really afford to. Simla has been getting very acrimonious lately, and I know he's had some rather difficult interviews with Major Minnies. I halt it when Major Minnies comes here." He flushed and seemed reluctant to continue; but he did: "Because afterwards he's always so upset.' You'll see now when he comes up. He usually takes it out on me — don't think I'm complaining, I'm not, I'm glad if that makes him feel better. Because I can see how hurt he is. He's terribly terribly sensitive, Olivia, and of course being talked to like that by Major Minnies — being threatened — "

"How dare they!" cried Olivia.

" You see, the truth is he's only a very little prince and they don't have to be all that careful with him the way they'd have to be for instance with the Cabobpur family. And he feels it terribly. He knows what he is compared with the others. You should see old Cabobpur: he's just a gross swine, there's nothing royal about him. Whereas of course he is — "

"Yes."

They heard his voice, his unmistakable step on the stain.

Both waited. He burst in without knocking — which was unusual: at other times he showed the most courteous diffidence in entering his guest's suite. But now of course he was greatly upset. He strode in and went straight to the window and sat there, smouldering.

He said" I shall see the Viceroy himself. There is no point in talking with Major Minnies or anyone like that. It is like talking with — servants. I do not talk with servants." His nostrils flared. "Next time he comes here I shall refuse to see him. And I shall tear up any letters he dares to write to me and send the pieces back to him." He turned on Harry: "You can take them back to him. You can fling them in his face and say here is your answer. But I suppose you would not like to do it. " He turned his fierce gaze on Harry who looked down. Olivia also did not like to look at the Nawab just then.

"I suppose you are afraid to do it. You are afraid of Major Minnies and other creatures of that nature. Answer! Don't sit there like a dumb stone, answer! Oh both of you are the same, you and Major Minnies. I don't know why you stay here with me. You want to be with him and other English people. You feel only for them, nothing for me at all. "

"You know that's not true." Harry did his best to sound calm, reasonable.

It only infuriated the Nawab the more. He turned to Olivia: "Now he is playing the Englishman with me. So cool and quiet and never losing his temper. He is playing Major Minnies with me. How different from these terrible orientals. Olivia, do you also hate and despise orientals? Of course you do. And you are right I think. Because we are very stupid people with feelings that we. let others trample on and hurt to their hearts content. English people are so lucky — they have no feelings at all. Look at him," he said, pointing at Harry. "He has been with me so many years but what does he care for me? You see, he does not even try to answer me." He sat by the window; his profile was outlined against gardens and sky, like the portrait of a: ruler painted against the background of his own dominions. "And you, " he said to Olivia. "You also care nothing for me. "

"No? Then why am I here?"

"You have come to visit Harry. You want to be with him. And I'm very grateful to you that you are so nice to him because without you he would be most bored and lonely here. His health also is not good." He got up and came over to Harry and touched his shoulder with affection.

Harry said "I can't bear this."

"I know you can't. I'm an unbearable person. Major Minnies is right. "

"That's not what I meant."

"But it is true."

He went out and Olivia followed him. As he walked down the stairs, she called his name which she had never used before. He stood still and looked up at her in surprise.

She went running towards him, and as they 'met on the stairs, she was not at all sure what she was going to say. Afterwards, thinking about it, it seemed to her that she had not intended to tell him about her pregnancy. But that is what she did. She had to tell him in a low voice and he could not react much as they were in the middle of the Palace with servants and followers on every landing and who knew what ladies lurking behind curtains.

After that it wouldn't have been fair not to tell Douglas as well, and she did so that same night.

Next day she was waiting for Douglas, and also for: Major Minnies whom they had invited to dine; but at about eight o'clock Douglas sent a peon from the office to say they would both be late. Something had happened again though he did not say what. Olivia sat waiting on the verandah. She had been waiting all day — not for Douglas but for a message from the Palace. None came. She did not know what had happened: they were supposed to have left for Mussorie, but she could not believe that they would do so without seeing or communicating with her in some way first. She made up her mind that, if they had left, she would go too. She would tell Douglas that she could not stand the heat and must leave for the mountains immediately. Sitting there, alone and waiting in vain, she realised that it would not be possible for her to stay.

But when Douglas and their guest at last came, she did her best to overcome her disturbed state of mind and play the role expected of her. She sat at the dining table between white candles — her dress was white too, white lace — and chatted to them about a champagne party on the Cam she and Marcia had once attended where one of the boats had overturned. All the time she felt the two men to be as tense and disturbed as herself. When she left them to their brandy and cigars, she could hear them speaking together in worried tones; and when they came to join her on the front verandah, both were grave. She pleaded "Won't you tell me what happened?"

They did so reluctantly (Major Minnies said it was a pity to spoil their mood). Of course the Nawab was involved again. His gang of dacoits, instead of confining themselves to the territories around Khatm, had strayed into the province under Mr: Crawford's jurisdiction. They had raided a village some five miles out of Satipur and had got away with cash and jewellery. No one had been killed but several villagers, who had tried to conceal their valuables, had been roughly handled. One woman had had her nose cut off. As soon as the villagers' report reached Satipur, Mr. Crawford and Douglas had informed Major Minnies who had at once driven over to the Palace. The Nawab had refused to receive him.

Olivia said "But they've gone to Mussourie." She added carefully "Harry told me: I saw him yesterday."

"They were to have gone but the usual thing happened: the Begum changed her mind, “ Major Minnies said. "I don't know what it was this time — I think someone heard an owl which is of course very inauspicious before a journey — so they all had to unpack again. "

Olivia laughed — ostensibly at the superstition. She was gay with relief; they were still there, they had not left.

Major Minnies said "I wasn't altogether surprised when he wouldn't see me: because unfortunately we had had rather a lively scene just yesterday. He got… quite excited."

"Dashed impudence," Douglas said with heat. "I hope Simla isn't going to dilly-dally any further with him."

"No it rather looks as if they won't. The wheels of Simla grind slowly but they grind exceedingly small. I'm afraid it was putting my case to him in these terms that got him so worked up."

"Did that surprise you?" Olivia asked.

She felt Major Minnies look at her across the dark verandah. His cigar glowed as he pulled at it. He answered her calmly: "No."

It was Douglas who was not calm: "It's time he was taught a lesson."

"You talk as if he's a schoolboy!" cried Olivia.

Major Minnies fair and judicious, seemed to be intervening between them. "In some ways," he said, "he is a fine man. He has some fine qualities — and if only these were combined with a little self-restraint, self-discipline… " Again Olivia felt his eyes on her in the dark; he said "But somehow I admire him. And I think you do too. "

She said "Yes. "

He nodded. " You're right. No, "he said, as Douglas began to protest, "we must be fair. He is a strong, forceful character, and perhaps given other circumstances — I've thought about him a great deal," he said and now seemed to be addressing only Olivia. "As you know, I've had dealings with him over several years and we have, I can't deny, had a lot of trouble with him."

"And of what sort!" said Douglas, unable to hold back. "He is a menace to himself, to us, and to the wretched inhabitants of his wretched little state. The worst type of ruler — the worst type of Indian — you can have."

"Perhaps you're right; no doubt you're right" said Major Minnies. He was silent and thoughtful for a long time; at last he said, slowly, as one making a confession: "Sometimes I feel that I'm not quite the right kind of person to be in India. Mary and I have spoken about it. Not that I would, at any stage of my career, have contemplated changing my job, this place — never, not for anything!" he said with an access of passion that surprised Olivia. "But I do realise that in many ways I step over too far."

"Into what?" asked Olivia.

"The other dimension." He smiled, perhaps not wanting to sound too serious. "I think I've allowed myself to get too fascinated. Take the Nawab: I can’t deny that he does fascinate me — as I’m sure,” he told Olivia, "he does you.”

"Oh gosh darling,” Douglas laughed "does he?”

"Well,” said Olivia, laughing back, "he is a fascinating man… And terrifically handsome.”

"Really?” Douglas asked as if he had never seen him in that light.

"Oh absolutely,” said the Major. "He is — a prince. No other word for him. The trouble is that his state is unfortunately not quite princely enough to satisfy either his ambition or indeed-his need for money.”

Douglas was amused;" So he has to take to armed robbery to make up for it?”

"I also think he’s tremendously bored the Major said. _ "He’s a man who needs action — a large arena… I can always tell when he’s feeling particularly frustrated because then he starts talking about his ancestor Amanullah Khan;”

"That brigand,” said Douglas.

"Was he?” Olivia asked the Major.

"An adventurer — at a time of adventurers.- That’s what our Friend wants: adventure. He is not really the type to sit in a palace all day, or he would like not to be. But that’s all there is for him, and moreover all he’s ever known.”

"All he can do,” Douglas said.

"I used to know his father,” the Major told Olivia. "What a character. A great penchant for the nautch girls — till he went to Europe and discovered chorus girls. He brought several back with him, and one of them stayed for years. She was in that room where he is now, what’s his name.”

"Harry?”

"As a matter of fact, the old Nawab died in there. He had a stroke while he was with her… He was a great connoisseur of Urdu poetry. Every year there was a symposium at Khatm to which all the best poets came from all over India. The old Nawab wasn't a bad poet himself — he was always making up couplets — wait, let me see if I remember… "

After a moment he began to recite in mellifluous Urdu: it sounded very beautiful. Olivia looked up at the sky, furrowed with wavelets of monsoon clouds, and the moon slowly sailing there. She followed her own thoughts.

"Are these dew drops on the rose or are they tears? Moon, your silver light turns all to pearls," the Major translated. He apologised: "Doesn't sound like much in English, I'm afraid."

"No it never does," Douglas agreed. In the dark he took Olivia's hand and held it in his own. The Major went on reciting in Urdu. His voice was loud and sonorous, and under cover of it Douglas whispered to his wife" Are you all right? — She smiled at him and he pressed her hand. "Happy?" he asked, and when she smiled again, he lifted her hand to his lips. The Major didn't see, he was looking up at the sky and reciting in Urdu; his voice was full of emotion — a sort of mixture of reverence and nostalgia. And afterwards he sighed: "It gets you," he said. "It really does. "

"Doesn't it," Olivia agreed politely. But she did not feel moved, either by the poetry or by his emotion. They did not; she felt, add up to much. She remembered what he had said about going over too far — and it made her scornful. What did he know about that? If he thought that the nostalgic feelings engendered by a little poetry recited on a moonlit night was going too far! She laughed out loud at his presumption, and Douglas thought it was with happiness which made him very happy too.

"Did you know that the old Nawab died in this room?" Olivia asked Harry.

Harry said "What else do you know?"

"Oh there was some chorus girl… "

He burst out laughing, then told her the rest of the story.

After the old Nawab's death, the Begum had not permitted the girl to leave the Palace without first surrendering all the valuables the Nawab had given her. The girl — a tough little character from Yorkshire, Harry said — had tried to hold on to some of them, but there she had reckoned without the Begum. One day — actually, Harry said, it was the middle of the night — the girl had turned up in Satipur with nothing but the clothes she stood up in (which happened to be a satin nightie and a japanese kimono). She had been in a terrible state and claimed that the Begum had tried to poison her. The Collector and his wife, not entirely sceptical of her story, had done their best to calm her, promising to send her to Bombay and arrange for her to leave on the next boat home. But when they offered to send to the Palace for her clothes and other possessions, she became hysterical and begged them not to. She told them some tale she had heard about poisoned wedding garments that had been sent to an unwanted bride in the family: no sooner had the unfortunate victim put on the cloth-of-gold bodice than it clung to her, penetrating her with its deadly ointments. The girl swore that she knew this to be actual fact because the old Nawab himself had told her; also that all attempts to save the bride had been in vain and she had died writhing in agony. The old woman responsible for preparing the fatal garment was still alive and living in the Palace at Khatm. She lived a very pampered life in the purdah quarters where she was kept to pass on her art to others. "Oh you don't know what goes on in there," the girl said with a shudder. No one could talk her out of her fears, and although the Begumhad of her own accord sent her suitcases after her, the girl refused to touch them but had left for Bombay wearing an odd assortment of clothes lent to her by the English ladies of Satipur.

Olivia smiled when she heard this story: "She must have been crazy. Those poor old things in the purdah quarters," She asked, casually, "Do they know about me?"

"Know what about you?" Harry answered.

Olivia hardly ever thought about the purdah ladies. Sometimes it seemed to her that the curtains up in the galleries were moving, but she did not look up. The Nawab never spoke to her about his mother. Olivia realised that the Begum belonged to a different part of his life, perhaps to a more inner chamber of his heart: and this made Olivia proud and stubborn so that she did not want to speak to him about his mother, or to acknowledge her existence.

But she found the Nawab more tender towards her than she had ever known him. He sent for her every day and made no secret in the Palace of the relations between them. He even began to take her into his own bedroom where she had not been before. She followed him wherever he called her and did whatever he wanted. She too made no secret of anything. She remembered how Harry had once told her "You don't say no to a person like him" and found it to be true.

The Nawab was delighted with Olivia's pregnancy. He often stroked her slender hips, her small flat unmarked abdomen and asked her "Really you will do this for me?" It seemed to strike him with wonder. "You are not afraid? Oh how brave you are!" His surprise made her laugh.

He never for a moment doubted that the child was his. The question simply did not arise for him so that Olivia — for whom it arose constantly — did not even dare to mention it. He became possessive about her and every evening, when it was time for the car to take her back, he did his best to delay her, even begging her to stay with him longer. She hated it when he did that, and then it would be she who would plead with him to let her go. And he said" All right, go" but was so downcast that every time it became more difficult for her. Yet she had no choice. She dreaded the hour when it would be time for her to leave and he would say" No. Stay. "

Once he said "No. Stay with me. Stay always." Then he said "It has to be, very soon now. You have to be here." He was very positive.

She knew that if she asked" And Douglas?" he would answer her with a dismissive gesture: because as far as he was concerned Douglas had already been dismissed.

One Sunday an English chaplain came from Ambala and held a service in the little church. Afterwards Olivia and Douglas lingered behind in the churchyard; they had not visited it since that day they had quarrelled there. It was very different now. Although the sun was still hot, the trees were no longer dusty but damp and dripping green. Showers of rain had also washed the dust off the graves so that the lettering stood out clearer now and tufts of green sprouted from the cracks in the stone.

Douglas, striding between the graves read out the by now familiar inscriptions. He was so engrossed that he went too quickly for Olivia and she had to call out to him. He looked back and saw her come towards him in her pale mauve dress with flounced skirt and matching parasol. He hurried towards her and embraced her right there among the graves. They walked on together arm in arm. He told her about all these young men buried here, and then about other young men, his own ancestors, lying in graveyards in other parts of India. "Great chaps," he called them. There was Edward Rivers who had been one of Henry Lawrence's band of young administrators in the Punjab; John Rivers, a famous pig-sticker, killed in a fall from his horse at Meerut; and a namesake, an earlier Douglas Rivers who had died in the Mutiny. He had been present at the storming of the Kashmere Gate in which the Hero of Delhi, John Nicholson, also fell. Douglas' ancestor died of his wounds just a day after Nicholson and was buried very near him in the Nicholson cemetery at Delhi. The way Douglas said that made Olivia tease him: "You sound as if you envy him. "

"Well," said Douglas, feeling a bit sheepish, "it's not a bad way to go… Better than to drink yourself to death," he said, attempting a lighter tone. "Some of them did that too. It can get very tedious if you're stuck out too long in a district all on your own. "

"With only a few million Indians," Olivia could not refrain from saying — but just then they reached the Saunders' angel and Douglas was very concerned to take her attention off that. He pressed her head against his shoulder and did not release her until they had passed that spot and reached Lt. Edwards. Here he made her stop because that grave was shaded by a tree. They stood under its shelter.

"Kind and indulgent Father, " Douglas read. He turned to kiss Olivia and murmured to her "Would you prefer a soldier or a civilian?"

"How do you know it will be a he?"

"Oh I'm pretty sure… And he'll do something decent too, you'll see." He kissed her again and ran his hands along her slender hips and her flat abdomen. "You're not afraid?" he whispered. "You’ll really do this for me? How brave you are."

He thought she was upset because of the proximity of the Saunders grave. Or perhaps the whole place had a bad effect on her — graveyards were morbid, of course and especially for someone in her condition. As so often in his dealings with her — so much finer frailer he felt, than he or anyone he knew of — he accused himself of being a clumsy oaf and could not get her out of the place fast enough.

* * * *

20 August. Douglas did have a son — not by Olivia but by his second wife, Tessie. This son (my father) was born in India and lived there till he was 12 when he was sent to school in England. He never returned to India: by the time he was old enough to do so, there was nothing for him to return to. Instead he went into the antique business. At the time of Indian Independence Douglas, who had just reached retirement age, went home along with everyone else. He and Tessie had talked it over seriously whether they should go or stay on to spend their years of retirement in India. Several of their acquaintances had decided to stay on — those who, like themselves, had spent the best part of their lives here and loved the place above every other. Tessie's sister Beth and her husband had bought a charming cottage in Kasauli to settle down there, they thought, for the remainder of· their lives. However, after some years they found it was no longer as pleasant for them as it had been. The Indianisation of India was of course highly desirable, said the Crawfords — ever fair-minded and seeing all sides of a question: but it was desirable for Indians rather than for the Crawfords themselves. They too came home and bought a house in Surrey near enough to Douglas and Tessie for frequent visits. After they were both left widows, Grandmother Tessie moved in with Great-Aunt Beth, bringing her own favourite things so that there was some duplication of brass table tops and ivory elephant tusks. For as long as possible they remained in touch with friends in India — the Minnies, for instance, lived in Ooty — but slowly, one by one, everyone died or grew too old to keep up contacts. I would have liked to look some of them up now that I have at last got here, but I don't think there is anyone left.

I tried to tell Chid some of all this, thinking it might interest him, but it doesn't. His own family never had any connection with India, and as far as he knows he is the first member of it ever to come out here. He is now very anxious to leave. But his health doesn't seem to be getting any better, and yesterday I persuaded him to come to the hospital with me. Dr. Gopal, the Medical Superintendent, examined him and said at once he would like to admit him. Chid agreed — I don't know what he had in mind, perhaps he saw himself resting amid cool sheets in a whitewashed room, tended by nuns. The reality turned out different. The doctor called one of his subordinates and questioned him about empty beds. There weren't any but one was expected to be free within an hour as an old man was dying. He did die within that time and I helped Chid to the ward and into the bed.

27 August. I visit Chid every day, both to keep him company and to bring him food. It is impossible for him to eat the hospital food which is doled out by an orderly passing along the ward with a bucket. The patients sit in rows holding out bowls into which are thrown lumps of cold rice and lentils and sometimes some vegetables all mixed up together. Only people who are completely destitute will accept this food, and it is indeed served up with the contempt reserved for those who have nothing and no one.

There is one such poor man lying with a broken leg and ribs next to Chid. He has told me that he came to Satipur from his village some years ago and has been making a living by selling fruit from a basket. He had always been hoping to earn enough to send for his family, but this has not happened so far and he reckons himself lucky to make enough to feed himself from day to day. He usually sleeps, together with other destitutes, under one of the old gateways leading out of Satipur. That is where he will go back to when his leg and ribs are mended. It is unfortunately taking a long time. What bothers him most is his inability to get up and around — his leg has been strapped up in a contraption — so that he is dependent for his natural functions on the hospital sweepers. At times they come and push a bedpan under him, but since he is not in a position to pay them even the humble sum they exact, they are not too punctual about providing this amenity nor about removing it from under him. Once I came and found him in great distress because he had been left there for several hours. I removed it from under him and went to empty it in a bathroom. The state of these latrines has to be seen to be believed, and when I came out I did feel a bit sick. I tried to hide this so as not to hurt anyone's feelings, but it seems I had already done enough. Everyone looked at me as if I had committed some terrible act of pollution, and the fruit man himself also shrank from me so that when as usual I offered him some of the food I had brought he refused it.

Chid takes no notice of his surroundings at all. In fact, he does his best to shut them out completely. Whenever I visit him, he is lying with his eyes tightly closed and sometimes tears trickle out of them. I have already written to his family to ask for a ticket home for him, and now we are both waiting for it to arrive and for his health to improve sufficiently for him to travel. Meanwhile he wants to know and see nothing; just to lie there and wait.

I still don't know what happened to change him this way.

All he will ever say — the only explanation he gives for his changed feelings towards India — is how he can't stand the smell. I don't even know what's wrong with him physically, what disease it is he has got. I asked Dr. Gopal and he couldn't tell me very clearly either. There is something wrong with Chid's liver and something else with his kidneys and altogether his insides are in a terrible state. It is due, said Dr. Gopal, to bad wrong food and to bad wrong living.

"You see," he tried to explain — busy as he is, he always welcomes English conversation — "this climate does not suit you people too well. And let alone you people, it does not suit even us." He explained to me that not only Westerners but even most Indians suffer from amoebic dysentery. They hardly know it, for they also suffer from many other diseases. He became eloquent as he enumerated all the diseases of India. It was indeed a terrible roll call, and by the time he came to the end of it (if there is art end), he said" I think perhaps God never meant that human beings should live in such a place."

Here I contradicted him, and we had a discussion on this theme in English. He has already told me that, while at medical college, he was a member of the Debating Society and distinguished himself at several inter-University debates. He is indeed skilled at spicing truth with humour, and this is how he concluded our discussion:

"Let us admit for the sake of our argument that we Indians are fit to live here — where else are we fit for?" he asked, leaving a pause for me to laugh in. "But no one else," he said. "None of you. You know in the bad old days you had your Clubs and they were reserved for British only? Well now it is like this that we have our germs and we have reserved these for ourselves only. For Indians only! Keep out!" He threw himself back in his chair to laugh and was still laughing as he turned to jab a needle into an emaciated arm that was held out to him.

Of course to some extent I have to admit he is right: certainly as far as Chid is concerned. Obviously Chid's body is not made to live the life of an Indian holy man. And it is not only physically that Chid is out of action, but in other ways spiritually — too. Do the doctor's strictures apply to the European soul as well as our bodies? I don't want to admit it; I don't want it to be so. There have been people in the past who stayed on here of their own free will. After the Mutiny an anonymous Englishman continued to live all by himself outside the gates of Lucknow, doing religious penance. Another anonymous Englishman was seen for years moving around the bazaars of Multan dressed up as an Afghan horse dealer (no one ever discovered who he was or where he came from, and eventually he was found murdered). And what about the woman missionary I had met on my first night in Bombay? She said she had been in India for thirty years and was prepared to die here if called upon to do so. Yes, and what about Olivia? It seems ludicrous to bracket her with religious seekers, adventurers, and Christian missionaries: yet, like them, she stayed.

I still don't think there was anything very special about Olivia; I mean, that she started off with any very special qualities. When she first came here, she may really have been what she seemed; a pretty young woman, rather vain, pleasure-seeking, a little petulant. Yet to have done what she did — and then to have stuck to it all her life long — she couldn't have remained the same person she had been. But there is no record of what she became later, neither in our family nor anywhere else as far as I know. More and more I want to find out; but I suppose the only way I can is to do the same she did — that is, stay on.

1923

The landscape which, a few weeks earlier, had been blotted out by dust was now hazy with moisture. The view from Harry's window was shrouded by clouds so that everything was seen as through tears that did not fall. The resulting air of sadness matched Harry's mood.

He told Olivia "I had a long talk with him yesterday. I told him I wanted to go home, that I had to… And he agreed. He understood completely. He said he'd make all the arrangements, I was to travel first class, everything must be — tiptop."

Olivia smiled: "I can hear him say that."

"Yes." Harry too smiled through his sadness. "And he made me a declaration."

"I think I can hear that too."

"Yes you can. Of course it's always the same — but Olivia it's always true! Don't you feel that? That when he holds his heart the way he does it's because he really means it?… He talked about you too. Oh don't think I feel bad about anything. Good Lord, what sort of a person would I be then, what sort of a friend? I wouldn't be — worthy of him, would I."

Olivia said "Where is he?"

"In Indore. Yesterday he heard from Simla — they are threatening an enquiry and he sat up all night composing telegrams and this morning he drove off to Indore to consult his lawyers."

"Is it true, Harry? Is he involved with them?"

"Goodness knows. As far as I'm concerned, he's always right and they're wrong. I hate them. They're the sort of people who've made life hell for me ever since I can remember. At school and everywhere. Well as long as they stick to bullying me — but when I see them doing it to him and here — no that's unbearable. And he won't bear it. They'll find out. You should have heard him last night. Wait till my son is born, he said; then they'll laugh from the other side of their mouths. "

"He said that?"

She turned from the window and stared at him so that he knew at once that he had said too much.

"What else did he say?" she asked. "No now you have to tell me. I have to hear."

"You know how often he says things he doesn't mean.

When he's excited like that." But the way she went on staring at him, he had to continue: "He said when this baby was born, Douglas and all were going to have the shock of their lives."

"Did he mean-the colour?" Then she said "How is he so sure?" She looked at Harry: "You are too, aren't you… You think he's a — irresistible force of nature — "

"Don't you?"

She turned back to the window. She stuck out her hand to see if the rain had started. It had, but so softly that it was both invisible and inaudible, and everything — the garden pavilions, the pearl-grey walls, the mosque — seemed to be dissolving of its own accord like sugar in water.

"I've been thinking about having an abortion,” she said. "Are you quite crazy.”

"Douglas is terribly happy too. And making all sorts of plans. There's a christening robe in their family that was worked by some nuns in Goa. His sister has it at the moment — her littlest one was christened in it a couple of years ago, at Quetta where they're stationed.. But now Douglas is going to send for it. He says it's awfully pretty. Cascades of white lace — very becoming to the Rivers' babies who are very very fair. Douglas says they all have white-blond hair till they're about twelve. "

"Babies don't have hair."

"Indian babies do, I've seen them. They're born with lots of black hair… You have to help me, Harry. You have to find out where I can go." When he stood dumb, she said:

"Ask your friend the Begum. It'll be easy enough for her." She laughed: "Easier than poisoned garments, any day" she said.

* * * *

31 August. Today, as I came down from my room, a woman standing outside the slipper shop greeted me like an old acquaintance. I didn't remember meeting her but thought she might be a friend of Inder Lal's mother; perhaps one of the group of women who had accompanied us on the Husband's Wedding Day. When I walked away through the bazaar, she followed me. It now struck me that perhaps she had been waiting for me outside the shop; but when I stood still and looked back at her, she made no attempt to catch up with me. She just nodded and smiled. This happened several times. She even made signs at me to walk on; all she seemed to want was to walk behind me. I had intended to go all the way to the hospital, but I felt strange being followed, so when I got to the royal tombs I turned aside and made my way to Maji's hut. This time when I looked back, the woman was not following me but was walking straight on as if she had no further business with me.

Maji was in the state of samadhi. To be in that state means to have reached a higher level of consciousness and to be submerged in its bliss. At such times Maji is entirely unaware of anything going on around her. She sits on the floor in the lotus pose; her eyes are open but the pupils turned up, her lips slightly parted with the tip of the tongue showing between them. Her breathing is regular and peaceful as in dreamless sleep.

When she woke up — if that's the right expression which it isn't — she smiled at me in welcome as if nothing at all had occurred. But, as always at such times, she was like a person who has just stepped out of a revivifying bath, or some other medium, of renewal. Her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone. She passed her hands upwards over her face as if she felt it flushed and fiery. She has told me that, whereas it used to be very difficult for her to make the transition from samadhi back to ordinary life, now it is quite easy and effortless.

When I spoke to her about the woman who had so mysteriously followed me, she said "You see, it has started." Apparently it wasn't mysterious at all: the woman was a midwife marking me down as a potential client. She must have noticed me before and followed me today to check up on her suspicions. My condition would be perfectly obvious to her by the way I walked and held myself. In a day or two she would probably offer me her services. And now Maji offered me her own again: "This would be a good time," she said. "8 or 9 weeks — it would not be too difficult."

"How would you do it?" I asked, almost in idle curiosity. She explained that there were several ways, and that at this early stage a simple massage, skilfully applied, might do it. "Would you like me to try?" she asked.

I said yes — again I think just out of curiosity. Maji shut the door of her hut. It wasn't a real door but a plank of wood someone had given her. I lay down on the floor, and she loosened the string of my Punjabi trousers. "Don't be afraid," she said. I wasn't, not at all. I lay looking up at the roof which was a sheet of tin, and at the mud walls blackened from her cooking fire. Now, with the only aperture closed, it was quite dark inside and all sorts of smells were sealed in — of dampness, the cowdung used as fuel, and the lentils she had cooked; also of Maji herself. Her only change of clothes hung on the wall, unwashed.

She sat astride me. I couldn't see her clearly in the dark, but she seemed larger than life and made me think of some mythological figure: one of those potent Indian goddesses who hold life and death in one hand and play them like a yo-yo. Her hands passed slowly down my womb, seeking out and pressing certain parts within. She didn't hurt me — on the contrary, her hands seemed to have a kind of soothing quality. They were very, very hot; they are always so, I have felt them often (she is always touching one, as if wanting to transmit something). But today they seemed especially hot, and I thought this might be left over from her samadhi, that she was still carrying the waves of energy that had come to her from elsewhere. And again I had the feeling of her transmitting something to me — not taking away, but giving.

Nevertheless I suddenly cried out "No please stop!" She did so at once. She got off me and took the plank of wood from the door. Light streamed in. I got up and went outside, into that brilliant light. The rain had made everything shining green and wet. Blue tiles glinted on the royal tombs and everywhere there were little hollows of water that caught the light and looked like precious stones scattered over the landscape. The sky shone in patches of monsoon blue through puffs of cloud, and in the distance more clouds, but of a very dark blue, were piled on each other like weightless mountains.

"Nothing will happen, will it?" I asked Maji anxiously.

She had followed me out of the hut and was no longer the dark mythological figure she had been inside but her usual, somewhat bedraggled motherly self. She laughed when I asked that and patted my cheek in reassurance. But I didn't know what she was reassuring me of. Above all I wanted nothing to happen — that her efforts should not prove successful It was absolutely clear to me now that I wanted my pregnancy and the completely new feeling — of rapture — of which it was the cause.

1923

Satipur also had its slummy lanes, but Khatm had nothing else. The town huddled in the shadow of the Palace walls in a tight knot of dirty alleys with ramshackle houses leaning over them. There were open gutters flowing through the streets. They often overflowed, especially during the rains, and were probably the cause, or one of them, of the frequent epidemics that broke out in Khatm. If it rained rather more heavily, some of the older houses would collapse and bury the people inside them. This happened regularly every year.

It had happened the week before opposite the house to which Olivia was taken. The women attending her were still talking about it. One of them described how she had stood on the balcony to watch a wedding procession passing below. When the bridegroom rode by, everyone surged forward to see him, and there was so much noise, she said, the band was playing so loudly, that at first she had not realised what was happening though it was happening before her eyes. She saw the house opposite, which she had known all her life, suddenly cave inwards and disintegrate, and next moment everything came crashing and flying through the air in a shower of people, bricks, tiles, furniture, cooking pots. It had been, she said, like a dream, a terrible dream.

What was happening to Olivia was also like a dream.

Although no one could have been more matter-of-fact than the women attending her: two homely, middle-aged midwives doing the job they had been commissioned for. The maid servant who had brought her had also been quite matter-of-fact. She had dressed Olivia in a burqa and made her follow her on foot through the lanes of Khatm. No one took any notice of them — they were just two women in burqas, the usual walking tents. The street of the midwives was reached by descending some slippery steps (here Olivia, unused to her burqa, had to be particularly careful). The midwives' house was in a tumble-down condition — very likely it would go in the next monsoon; the stairs looked especially dangerous. They were so dark that her escort had to take Olivia's hand — for a moment Olivia shrank from this physical contact but only for a moment, knowing that soon she would be touched in a far more intimate manner and in more intimate places.

The midwives made her lie on a mat on the floor. Since the house opposite was no longer there, she had a clear view through the window of a patch of sky. She tried to concentrate on that and not on what they were doing to her. But this was in any case not unpleasant. They were massaging her abdomen in an enormously skilful way, seeking out and pressing certain veins within. One of the women sat astride her while the other squatted on the floor. Their hands worked over her incessantly while they carried on their conversation. The atmosphere was professional and relaxed. But when sounds were heard on the stairs, the two midwives looked at each other in consternation. One of them went to the door, and the other quickly hid Olivia under a sheet. As if I'm dead, Olivia thought. She wondered who had come. Also she wondered what would happen — what would they do — if she did die there in the room as a result of the abortion. They would have to dispose of her body quickly and secretly. Olivia guessed that such a disposal could be managed without too much difficulty. The Begum would arrange about it just as easily as she had arranged for the abortion. Probably she had already thought about it and laid suitable plans.

It was the Begum herself who had come, with only one attendant. Both of them were shrouded in black burqas but Olivia knew which was the Begum from the deferential way in which the midwives treated her. She appeared keenly interested in the operation (such personal attention, Olivia thought; I ought to be flattered). The Begum watched from behind her burqa as the two midwives continued their massage. Then one of them got up and went to prepare something in a corner of the room. Olivia tried to see what it was, and the Begum was also curious and followed to that corner. Olivia lifted her head slightly but the other midwife pressed it down again so she only swivelled her eyes in that direction. She saw the midwife showing the Begum a twig on to which she was rubbing some paste. The Begum was so interested that she put up the front of her burqa in order to see better. Now Olivia was curious to see both the twig and the Begum's face. She had forgotten what she looked like — that visit with Mrs. Crawford seemed long ago — and wanted to check up whether she had any resemblance to the Nawab.

The midwife with the twig came towards her, holding it.

Olivia understood that it was to be introduced into herself. The two women opened Olivia's legs and one of them held on to her ankles while the other pointed the twig. The Begum also bent over her to watch. Although the midwife worked swiftly and skilfully, the twig hurt Olivia as it entered into her. She was unable to stifle a cry. Then the Begum bent over her to look into her face and Olivia stared back at her. She did look like the Nawab, very much. She seemed as interested to study Olivia 's face as Olivia was to study hers. For a moment they gazed into each other's eyes and then Olivia had to shut hers, as the pain down below was repeated.

* * * *

Beth Crawford did not allow herself to speak about Olivia until many years — a lifetime — had passed. I don't know whether she thought about her at all during those years. Probably not: Great-Aunt Beth knew where lines had to be drawn, not only in speech and behaviour but also in one's thought. In the same way she had never let her mind dwell on the Begum and her ladies once the half-hour of obligatory social intercourse with them was over. She had had no desire to speculate about what went on in those purdah quarters once she had left them behind and the European chairs were put away and the ladies alone again and at ease on their divans. Beth felt that there were oriental privacies — mysteries — that should not be disturbed, whether they lay within the Palace, the bazaar of Satipur, or the alleys of Khatm. All those dark regions were outside her sphere of action or imagination — as was Olivia once she had crossed over into them.

The only person not to be reticent about Olivia was Dr. Saunders. It was he who had found her out. The midwives at Khatm had done their work well, and Olivia began to miscarry that same night. She woke up Douglas who took her to the hospital, and early next morning Dr. Saunders curetted her. But he knew about Indian "miscarriages" and the means employed to bring them about. The most common of these was the insertion of a twig smeared with the juice of a certain plant known only to Indian midwives. In his time Dr. Saunders had extracted many such twigs from women brought to him with so — called miscarriages. Afterwards he confronted the guilty women and threw them out of the hospital. Sometimes he slapped them — he had strong ideas about morality and how to uphold it. But even he admitted that certain allowances might be made for these native women born in ignorance and dirt. There was no such extenuating circumstance for Olivia. "Now my young madam," he said as he confronted her. The matron, a Scottish woman born in India — between them, she and Dr. Saunders kept the hospital clean and strict — stood grimfaced behind him. Both were outraged, but Dr. Saunders was somewhat triumphant as well, having been proved right. He had always known that there was something rotten about Olivia: something weak and rotten which of course the Nawab (rotten himself) had found out and used to his advantage.

No one ever doubted that the Nawab had used Olivia as a means of revenge. Even the most liberal and sympathetic Anglo-Indian, such as Major Minnies, was convinced of it. Like the Crawfords, and presumably Douglas himself (who allowed no one to guess his feelings), Major Minnies banished Olivia from his thoughts. She had gone in too far. Yet for many years he reflected not so much on her particular case as on its implications. It all fitted in with his theories. Later, during his retirement in Ooty, he had a lot more time to think about the whole question, and he even published — at his own expense, it was not a subject of much general interest — a monograph on the influence of India on the European consciousness and character. He sent it around to his friends, and that was how Great-Aunt Beth had a copy which I read.

Although the Major was so sympathetic to India, his piece sounds like a warning. He said that one has to be very determined to withstand — to stand up to — India. And the most vulnerable, he said, are always those who love her best. There are many ways of loving India, many things to love her for — the scenery, the history, the poetry, the music, and indeed the physical beauty of the men and women — but all, said the Major, are dangerous for the European who allows himself to love too much. India always, he said, finds out the weak spot and presses on it. Both Dr. Saunders and Major Minnies spoke of the weak spot. But whereas for Dr. Saunden it is something, or someone, rotten, for the Major this weak spot is to be found in the most sensitive, often the finest people — and, moreover, in their finest feelings. It is there that India seeks them out and pulls them over into what the Major called the other dimension. He also referred to it as another element, one in which the European is not accustomed to live so that by immersion in it he becomes debilitated, or even (like Olivia) destroyed. Yes, concluded the Major, it is all very well to love and admire India — intellectually, aesthetically, he did not mention sexually but he must have been aware of that factor too — but always with a virile, measured, European feeling. One should never, he warned, allow oneself to become softened (like Indians) by an excess of feeling; because the moment that happens — the moment one exceeds one's measure — one is in danger of being dragged over to the other side. That seems to be the last word Major Minnies had to say on the subject and his final conclusion. He who loved India so much, knew her so well, chose to spend the end of his days here! But she always remained for him an opponent, even sometimes an enemy, to be guarded and if necessary fought against from without and, especially, from within: from within one's own being.

Olivia never returned to Douglas but, escaping from the hospital, she went straight to the Palace. The last clear picture I have of her is not from her letters but from what Harry has told us. He was in the Palace when she arrived there from the hospital. She was so pale, he said, that she seemed drained of blood. (Of course she had suffered great blood loss from her abortion.) It isn't so very far from Satipur to Khatm — about 15 miles — and it was a journey that she had been doing daily by one of the Nawab's cars. But that time when she ran away from the hospital there was no car. Harry never knew how she came but presumed it was by what he called some native mode of transport. She was also in native dress a servant's coarse sari — so that she reminded him of a print he had seen called Mrs. Secombe in Flight from the Mutineers. Mrs. Secombe was also in native dress and in a state of great agitation, with her hair awry and smears of dirt on her face: naturally, since she was flying for her life from the mutineers at Sikrora to the safety of the British Residency at Lucknow. Olivia was also in flight — but, as Harry pointed out, in the opposite direction.

Harry left India shortly afterwards. He never had been able to decide what were the Nawab's motives in taking on Olivia. In any case, the question — like the Nawab himself — dropped out of Harry's view for many years. He was glad. When he looked back on his time spent in the Palace, it was always with dislike, even sometimes with abhorrence. Yet he had been very, very happy there. Back in England he felt that it had been a happiness too strong for him. Now he wanted only to lead his quiet life with his mother in their flat in Kensington. Later, after his mother died, his friend Ferdie moved in with him, giving up his job in a laundry in order to look after Harry. Ferdie also met the Nawab, but that was many years later by which time — Harry thought — the Nawab was quite changed. His circumstances were changed too, and when he came to London now, he no longer lived at Claridges but was quite hard up. Perhaps that was why he never brought Olivia, because he couldn't afford it; or perhaps she just didn't want to come. She never came to England again but stayed in the house in the mountains he had bought for her.

When I told Maji that I was leaving Satipur, she asked "Like Chid?" Chid's departure back to England had amused her as everything else about him had always amused her. "Poor boy," she said. "He had to run away.” Her broad shoulders shook with laughter.

I assured her that I was not running away but on the contrary was going further, up into the mountains. She was pleased with that. I then plucked up courage and asked her, as I had wanted to for some time, what she had been doing to me that day when she said she was giving me an abortion. To my relief nothing had happened — but I felt that, if she had wanted something to happen, her efforts would not have been unsuccessful. What had she done? I asked her. Of course she wouldn't tell me, but from her sly laugh I gathered that she was not innocent. I thought of the way she had sat astride me, a supernatural figure with supernatural powers which it now seemed to me she had used not to terminate my pregnancy but to make sure of it: make sure I saw it through.

The rainy season is not the best time of year to go up into the mountains. There are always landslides and the roads become impassable for days on end. The mountains are invisible. One knows they are there — the ranges of the Himalayas stretching God knows into what distances and to what heights — one even feels, or imagines, their presence, but they can't be seen. They are completely blotted out and in their place are clouds, vapours, mists.

Just above the small town of X, there is a handful of houses scattered along the steepest side of the mountain. Even at the best of times they are difficult to get to except by the sturdiest climbers; and now during the rains they are almost inaccessible. I have been told that, up till a few years ago, there were several other Europeans besides Olivia living in these houses. The Norwegian widow of an Indian historian devoting herself to sorting out her husband's papers; a German turned Buddhist; and two ex-missionaries who had tried to start a Christian "ashram". Now they are all dead and are buried in the old British cemetery on a plateau a few hundred feet down (there are British cemeteries everywhere! they have turned out to be the most lasting monument). Only the German Buddhist was cremated on the Hindu cremation ground, and Olivia. The ex-missionaries tried to raise some objection to Olivia 's cremation — they said she belonged in the cemetery, never having been converted to any Indian religion. But she had specifically requested cremation, so it was done. I presume that her ashes were scattered over these mountains since there was no one to take charge of them, the Nawab having died before her.

Her house is still there. I had to wait several days for the rain to clear sufficiently before I could climb up. It stands quite by itself on a mountain ledge; I suppose it has a superb view, though at this time of year there is nothing to view except, as I said, clouds. There is some dispute about possession of the house which Karim and Kitty are trying to get settled along with other disputed properties of the Nawab's. They hope to do so before the Army requisitions the house. It has developed dangerous cracks, and inside everything is covered in mildew.

But it retains what I imagine to have been Olivia's ambience. There is a piano of course — not the upright she had in Satipur but a grand piano the Nawab had sent up from Khatm (together with the tuner from Bombay). The curtains and cushions, now tattered, are yellow, the lampshades tasselled; there is a gramophone. A chair and embroidery frame stand in a window embrasure: I don't know whether this is just a decorative tableau or whether she actually used to sit here, glancing up from her embroidery to look out over the mountains (now invisible). There is a row of stables outside but all they ever stabled was the sedan chair it is still there, though dusty and broken — in which the Nawab was carried up and down the mountain. He had got too fat and lazy to climb.

Harry said that he had a shock when he saw him again in London. Fifteen years had passed, the Nawab was fifty years old and so fat that there was something womanly about him. And the way he embraced Harry was womanly too: he held him against his plump chest with both arms and kept him there for a long time. And then all the old feelings came back to Harry. But afterwards he found that his feelings towards the Nawab had changed — probably because the Nawab himself had changed so much. He seemed softer and milder, and with many troubles of a domestic nature.

The court of enquiry set up in 1923 had gone against him, and as a result a prime minister had been appointed to take charge of the affairs of Khatm. Although still in name the ruler of the state, the Nawab did not under these circumstances care to spend much time there. The Begum too was not often in residence but had taken a house in Bombay for herself and her ladies. The Nawab often stayed with them there, when he was not with Olivia in X. Sometimes he also stayed/with his wife, Sandy, things having been more or less compounded with the Cabobpur family. But Sandy's health was not good, and at present she was in a place in Switzerland undergoing treatment for her mental troubles.

The Nawab's own troubles were mainly financial. Not only did he have to keep up the Palace and three separate establishments — for his mother, wife, and Olivia — but he still had many dependants in Khatm. He had to provide for all those young men — now young no longer — who had been his companions in the Palace, for they were either his blood relatives or descendants of family retainers some of whom went right back to the time of Amanullah Khan. The Nawab felt deeply ashamed of no longer being able to keep them in the manner to which they were accustomed. For years he had been haggling with the British authorities for an increase in the income they had stipulated for him out of the state revenues: but they were completely un-understanding, they had no conception at all of the obligations a ruler like himself had to discharge. That was why he had now come to London, in order to appeal directly to a higher authority. He made, or tried to make, many appointments and was for ever pulling scraps of paper out of his pocket with names and telephone numbers scribbled on them, though often he could not remember whose they were.

He spent most of his time with Harry and Ferdie. It was not easy for them. They lived in a very orderly way but he was not an orderly person. He also seemed physically too large for the flat, and in fact broke two of the dining room chairs just by sitting on them. And they had difficulty feeding him for he could not be satisfied on the meals Ferdie cooked for Harry's delicate digestion (which had never recovered from India). The Nawab had developed a sweet tooth and, unable to obtain Indian sweetmeats in London, had got into the habit of eating a great number of cream pastries. His afternoons were usually spent in a popular restaurant — a palatial hall with marble pillars not unlike the Palace at Khatm. Three times in the course of the afternoon a lady in a long tea gown played selections on a multicoloured organ; and listening to her with pleasure, the Nawab would turn to Harry: "How nicely she plays — just like Olivia." He had always been quite unmusical.

Like his father, he had in recent years become very fond of reciting Persian and Urdu couplets, especially those that dealt, as most of them did, with the transience of worldly glory. He would point to himself as a living illustration of this theme. Besides the question of increased allowance, his most urgent problem at the time was that of the state jewels which were missing. The government of Khatm was accusing the Begum of having purloined them: to — which she answered with spirit that she had taken nothing that was not her own. This case was indeed destined to linger on for many years and, after Independence, became the problem of the Government of India who tried to bring a case against the Begum. However, by that time both she and the jewels were safely in New York.

The Nawab became excited when he spoke of the harassment offered to his mother. He suffered from high blood pressure, and when he got too worked up, Harry would try and calm him down. "You'll have a fit of apoplexy and die", Harry warned him. (In fact this did happen — but not for another fifteen years and then it was in New York, in the Park Avenue apartment of the ancient Begum and in her arms.) When Harry said that, the Nawab always laughed: he truly did laugh at the thought of dying. He liked to tell a story of something that had happened in Khatm about a year after Harry's departure. The gang of dacoits with whom the Nawab had been suspected of associating had been rounded up by the (reformed) police force. Some of them had been killed in direct encounters, others had been captured and brought to trial. These were all sentenced to death for various murders and dacoities committed over the years. The Nawab visited them in prison many times and found them cheerful and resigned right up till the end. In fact, he spent their last night with them, watched them eat their last meal, play their last game of cards, lay themselves down to sleep. They actually slept — it was he who remained awake. He accompanied them to the place of execution and joined. them in their last prayers. He watched the noose being placed around their necks and stayed till the very last moment. At that last moment, one of them — Tikku Ram, a man of very high caste — suddenly turned to the hangman and began to ask "Are you a-?" but could not finish because the hangman had slipped the hood over his face. The missing word was probably "chamar"·- he was worried about the caste of the hangman who was performing this last intimate function for him. It was apparently his only worry at that moment of departure. The Nawab commended this attitude and said he hoped he would be able to emulate its spirit when his turn came.

There are no glimpses of Olivia in later years. The Nawab did not speak about her very much: she had become as private a topic to him as the Begum. He never said anything about the way she was and lived up there in X. Perhaps he never thought about it, just assuming she was all right with the comforts he took care to provide for her. She herself gave no clues either. She still corresponded with Marcia but, unlike her letters from Satipur, the letters from X were short and quite unrevealing. Also very rare — at first she wrote two or three times a year, but even that grew less. She never wrote after the Nawab's death, though she survived him by six years.

Marcia told Harry that she and Olivia were very much alike. Harry thought this may have been true when they were young — Marcia too was small and frail though dark where Olivia had been blonde — but by the time he got to know Marcia he had difficulty in reconciling her with his memories of Olivia. Marcia drank and smoked too much, and laughed shrilly. She was talkative, nervous, and had twice taken an overdose of sleeping tablets. She said that where she and Olivia were most alike was in their temperament which was passionate. She claimed she could understand Olivia completely. Of course, she said, their tastes differed — for instance, Marcia never could understand what Olivia had seen in Douglas, as far as she, Marcia, was concerned, he was just a stick and she was not in the least surprised that Olivia should have got bored to death with him and gone off with someone more interesting. Later, when she met the Nawab in London, Marcia said that he was more interesting than Douglas, though again, personally speaking, not her type. But the fact that her and Olivia's tastes differed did not detract from the similarity of their temperaments; nor of their characters — which were prepared to follow the dictates of those temperaments wherever they might lead them. When Harry asked the Nawab whether Marcia was like Olivia, the Nawab said "Oh no no no no!" without a moment's hesitation. The idea seemed to strike him as simultaneously ludicrous and horrifying.

What was she like? How did she live? Looking around her house above X, it strikes me that perhaps she did not live so very differently from the way she had done in Satipur, and might have done in London. The rooms were arranged in her style, she still played the same pieces of piano music. That much I learned from the remains of her house — though not much else. I still cannot imagine what she thought about all those years, or how she became. Unfortunately it was raining heavily all the time I was there, so I couldn’t see what she looked out on as she sat in the window at her embroidery frame. It might make a difference to know that.

I have taken a room in the town of X and live there in the same way I did in Satipur. The town is the same too — the houses are ramshackle, the alleys intricate and narrow; only here everything is on a slope so that it looks as if the whole town might slide down the mountain any minute. Bits of it do slide down from time to time, especially now during the rains; and the mountains themselves crumble off in chunks which hurtle down and block the sodden roads. I’m impatient for it to stop raining because I want to move on, go higher up. I keep looking up all the time, but everything remains hidden. Unable to see, I imagine mountain peaks higher than any I’ve ever dreamed of; the snow on them is also whiter than all other snow — so white it is luminous and shines against a sky which is of a deeper blue than any yet known to me. That is what I expect to see. Perhaps it is also what Olivia saw: the view — or vision — that filled her eyes all those years and suffused her soul.

I rarely look down. Sometimes, when the rains stop, the mist in the valley swirls about and afterwards the air is so drenched with moisture that the birds seem to swim about in it and the trees wave like sea weed. I think it will be a long time before I go down again. First of course I’m going to have my baby. There is a sort of ashram further up and I’m told they might take me in. I have seen some of the swamis from the ashram when they come down to the bazaar to do their shopping. They are very much respected in the town because of the good lives they lead. They are completely dedicated to studying the philosophy of those ancient writings that had their birth up in the highest heights of these mountains I cannot yet see. The swamis are cheerful men and they laugh and joke in booming voices with the people in the bazaar. I'm told that any sincere seeker can go up to the ashram, and they will allow one to stay for as long as one wants. Only most people come down again quite soon because of the cold and the austere living conditions.

Next time I meet a swami I shall speak to him and ask for permission to come up. I don't know yet how long I shall stay. In any case, it will have to be some time because of my condition which will make it more and more difficult to get down again, even if I should want to.