In the City of Gold and Silver (35 page)

The British have barely reached the other side when they encounter a huge deployment of troops. Not just sepoy regiments and taluqdars'
 
troops, but thousands of peasants too, each one fighting desperately to defend their territory. It is a general mobilisation, much to the surprise of the British officers newly arrived in India.

“They had told us it was a mutiny,” writes one of them, amazed. “Now what I see around me is a struggle for national independence. The whole country is up in arms against us foreigners.”
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*

However, the superiority of the British forces quickly becomes apparent and increasing numbers of taluqdars desert. Rajah Man Singh is the first to betray and abandon the struggle. He retreats into his fort with his seven thousand soldiers, taking a number of his peers with him.

Despondency in the face of the adversary's strength is not the only reason for the defections. These feudal lords have become fearful of the power of popular revolt. They understand that a victory may well upset Indian society's age-old traditions and threaten their privileges to a far greater extent than the British—with their ingrained sense of hierarchy—ever would.

 

* * *

 

This evening, Hazrat Mahal has
 
returned to the palace exhausted and distraught. Between the losses on the battlefield and the desertions, the fighting force has been reduced by a third. There are about sixty thousand men left, and of these, only thirty thousand sepoys.

While her friend Mumtaz tries to entertain her, an officer demands an audience. Accompanied by a eunuch, he halts at the entrance to the drawing room. His preoccupied manner presages bad news.

“Well, speak up! What is the matter?” the Queen Mother questions him.

“While trying to resist the enemy attack at Nawabganj . . . Rajah Jai Lal . . . ”

Hazrat Mahal trembles, her face has paled, she cannot speak. It is Mumtaz who encourages the man to continue:

“What happened to the rajah?”

“A cannonball killed him,” stammers the man, lowering his head.

Cannonball . . . killed . . .

Hazrat Mahal does not understand . . .

And suddenly, as if she were watching a performance, she hears someone shout:

“Is he dead?”

From the eyes staring back at her, she realises it is she who has just cried out, and that
 
the man is watching her, stunned.

Mumtaz barely has the time to hurry the officer out of the room before Hazrat Mahal collapses in her arms. Jai Lal dead? Pain clutches her heart and prevents her from breathing. Panic-stricken, Mumtaz lies her down, bathes her forehead with cool water, and caresses her hands and her face, all the while trying to comfort her. In vain. She is suffocated by sobs, she thrashes about, she tries to stand up, but, drained of blood, she collapses onto the divan.

“So, you loved him so much?” murmurs Mumtaz, distressed.

Why had she never let him know? Always this damned pride . . . And now it is too late.

Mumtaz remains beside her friend all evening, singing old chants from their childhood to calm her. Hazrat Mahal closes her eyes and slowly, as her breathing becomes more regular, she falls asleep.

When she wakes up the next morning and realises it was not a nightmare, her tears begin to flow again, even more profusely. Despite all her efforts, she cannot control herself. She requests Mumtaz to cancel all her audiences and not to allow anyone entry to her apartments.

Towards midday, a huge commotion erupts in the hall. Drowning the eunuchs' and the women's high-pitched cries, a loud voice thunders: “Let me pass, you fools! If the Queen Mother is ill, it is all the more vital I see her!”

The brocade door hanging is swept aside, revealing a tall figure.

Her eyes wide with surprise, Hazrat Mahal looks at him as if she were seeing a ghost.

“You . . . are not dead?” she manages to say.

“Dead?”

The rajah stands stock-still, then, understanding the confusion, says:

“Oh no. It was the unfortunate officer beside me who was killed. I, as you can see for yourself, am very much alive!”

The emotion is too much for her, the floodgates, carefully built up over all these months, burst open, and sobbing, she throws herself into his arms, stammering incomprehensible words.

He embraces her trembling body and rocks her gently, as if she is a child that needs reassuring. Tenderly he caresses her long hair and, leaning forward, he places a kiss on her burning forehead.

Mumtaz disappears discreetly.

I
n a modest dwelling in the old town, a stout woman, her hair not quite grey yet, is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her guests. Since the previous day, she has done her utmost to make her two poor rooms more welcoming. She had swept the mud floor, washed the blue painted walls and had dusted relentlessly. Then, in the bedroom, she laid out the treasures her niece had brought for the occasion: a large floral carpet, silk cushions, and instead of the
charpoy
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one of these Angrez inventions they call a “mattress,” covering it with a soft satin quilt, and lastly, sheets so fine, she had never seen anything like them.

When her niece Mumtaz had come to ask her to discreetly receive a couple of her friends in her house, Aslam Bibi had cried out. She, a respectable woman, was certainly not going to endanger her reputation built up over forty years of virtuous living by encouraging illicit love affairs!

However, Mumtaz had been so insistent that she had finally given in. A widow, the mother of already married daughters, Aslam Bibi still has a sense of romance and had been moved at the idea of this couple risking death, or at least perpetual banishment, for love. In India, whether one is Hindu, Muslim or Christian, nobody takes a woman's virtue lightly. She was going to live the greatest adventure of her life through these mysterious lovers! Though it is mainly the purse of gold her niece had slipped her that had overcome her last hesitations. Since her husband's death, Aslam Bibi barely manages to survive by weaving fine muslin that used to be highly appreciated, but hardly sells any more since the king's exile and the ruin of the rajahs and taluqdars.

Night has long fallen. Sitting in her kitchen, the woman begins to worry: and what if her guests did not show up? Should she return the gold? . . . Impossible! She has already given part of it to the moneylender who has been advancing her money to live since her husband died—at 14 percent a month, a bargain, he claims, because he regards her highly; a regard he would be ready to prove to her. Since she has been widowed, however, Aslam Bibi has learnt a great deal. She knows she must not annoy her creditors but also that she should not respond to their advances in the hope they will forget the debt, as it is the opposite that actually happens: when there is nothing left to gain, they are pitiless.

She hears a soft scratching sound at the door. Roused from her thoughts, the woman jumps up to open it, taking care not to let the hinges creak, and hurries to welcome the slim silhouette concealed under a black burqa.

“Assalam-o-Alaikum.
”
 

“Walaikum Assalam.”

They only exchange the traditional greeting.

Mumtaz has indeed ordered that everything be done with the greatest secrecy, but these few words suffice to convince the hostess that her guest is a Muslim woman belonging to the highest society. In addition, the delicate hand is proof enough, even if the absence of jewellery tries to assert the contrary.

 

Alone in the bedroom, Hazrat Mahal contemplates the peeling walls—a contrast to the refined bedding in which she recognises her friend's intervention. She removes her burqa, sets her clothes in order—a dark blue garara embroidered with silver that brings out the sheen on her fair skin—and carefully arranges the coils of pearls decorating her hair. Will Jai Lal find her beautiful?

Jai Lal . . . Remembering his kisses, she is overcome by a wave of emotion. The memory of that morning when she had fallen into his arms crying fills her with joy . . . and fear. What had he thought of her? It has already been two days since that moment, and they have been careful to avoid meeting each other; their desire is so intense, they fear they will betray themselves.

It is the first time she is in love. She realises the feeling she had for Wajid Ali Shah was mainly admiration for a sovereign wreathed in glory, then, when she had come to know him better, tenderness tinged with pity for a kind and loyal being. She had long convinced herself he was doing all he could in an impossible situation . . . Since becoming the regent, though, and especially since she has been in daily contact with Jai Lal, she has come to understand that, more than kindness and intelligence, a leader's greatest virtue is courage.

However, does courage exclude prudence? Is this meeting with Jai Lal in this unknown house not pure madness? Although she has chosen to risk her life to meet the man she loves, does she have the right to jeopardise her image of “the fighting mother” revered by the soldiers, her son's position and the future of the freedom movement?

She would never have agreed to Mumtaz's plan, even at the cost of tearing her heart out, if her friend had not managed to convince her it was foolproof. She would leave the palace using the same means that Wajid Ali Shah's former “fairies” sometimes employed. These beautiful dancers, abandoned by their master, pined away uselessly in a zenana which had become their tomb . . . The boldest of them had cultivated or renewed relationships outside the palace, and for a few gold coins, the eunuchs turned a blind eye: with the king gone, there was no longer any need to guard his treasure.

This evening, Hazrat Mahal had claimed she was very tired and had asked not to be disturbed for any reason. Mumtaz had discreetly brought her a burqa and ordered a phaeton from a coachman she knew well. He would wait for the lady and bring her back to the palace before daybreak. Meanwhile, Mumtaz would sleep in the Queen Mother's bed to make believe the regent was there in the unlikely event that, disobeying her orders, someone were to enter the bedroom.

 

The rustle of a drape . . . she feels a hand touching her shoulder. A shiver runs through her, she wants to turn around, but does not have the strength to. She remains where she is, motionless, savouring this lingering touch that moves upwards, caressing her neck . . . a gentle, firm hand that does not ask, that demands, as if it were evident.

In an ample embrace, he takes her in his arms and gazes at her, marvelling, all the while continuing to caress her back, her waist, her hips. And she, who had imagined this moment for months, feels like a child without a past, who wants only one thing: that this moment should last forever. With eyes wide open, she contemplates this man, she trembles and the violence of her desire frightens her. For the first time in her life, she is no longer in control of her feelings.

So, to return to familiar ground, in an attempt to tame the unknown, she closes her eyes and parts her lips slightly, expecting a kiss.

“No!”

Jai Lal moves away, leaving her quivering. And, as she looks at him uncomprehending, says:

“No, my dear, I am not one of your dreams, a ghost you hang your desires and your emptiness on. Look at me. I am a real man, with his qualities and his faults, a man who loves you and whom you may be able to learn to love.”

“But . . . I love you!”

“You do not love me yet. You are scared. You just proved it by closing your eyes to remain in your imaginary world. You are enamoured of a dream. I think both you and I deserve better than that.”

She lowers her head to hide her tears. She knows he is right. She, whose courage everyone extols, is incapable of laying down her armour. She, with her sensual beauty that seems to promise infinite delight, can certainly take her partner to the peak of sensual pleasure, but she is left behind on the bank, while the other does not even notice—whether it be Wajid Ali Shah, the only man she has ever known, or the friend in the zenana
 
with whom she tried to forget her loneliness. It is not that she is acting, quite the contrary; she enjoys love but is unable to relinquish her inhibitions, panicking at the idea of being vulnerable and of running the risk of being abandoned again.

Abandoned, as she had been as a baby, by the person she was attached to with all the fibres of her being: her mother, who died just a few weeks after giving birth to her. She had been told that for days she had refused her wet nurse's milk and had almost died too.

Her father's death had rekindled her feelings of insecurity. Since then, she could never allow herself to stumble . . . there was no one left to pick her up.

Thus she had been forced to arm herself with an inner strength. But she alone knows the weakness and anxiety hidden deep beneath her confident exterior.

And now that she is in love for the first time, she is terrified, she wants to let go but is incapable of doing so.

The sobs she can no longer contain suffocate her.

“Come, my
jani
,
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cry as much as you want, but know that I love you and I will do so for the rest of my life.”

He takes her in his arms and embraces her tenderly:

“Although I take a long time to make up my mind, I also have a reputation for stubbornness and even if you fight like a fury to escape my love, I will never let go of you!”

She sobs even harder. It seems as if all the defences she has built up to protect herself are crumbling. She no longer knows if she is crying out of fear or happiness.

He draws her towards the big bed and slowly he undresses her. For hours he talks to her and caresses her, covering her whole body with kisses. She likes his slightly rough hands—the hands of a man more used to riding through the countryside than frequenting salons—but most of all, she likes the passion that seeps through
 
every one of his gestures, and which he tries to suppress so as not to scare her.