The Moneylenders of Shahpur (21 page)

A bevy of ladies hurried into the passage, calling, ‘Hurry up!’ In the background, Mahadev inquired if anything was wrong.

Savitri composed herself and said quietly to the first lady, ‘Anasuyabehn has fainted. It must have been the heat and the excitement.’

The little cousin discreetly slipped the note from under Anasuyabehn’s trailing veil and stuffed it down her blouse. She had no idea what the letter was about, except that it must be most important to Anasuyabehn. With thumping heart, she gave way to Aunt and wrapped her sari loosely round herself, to hide the telltale bulge.

Between them, the ladies got Anasuyabehn on to her bed and crowded round her, chattering anxiously, while word spread in the compound that the bride had been taken ill. A bad omen,’ muttered one old lady to another.

Dean Mehta, old Desai and Mahadev pushed their way into the crowded room. To give the patient air, the Dean ordered that the room be cleared, except for the three gentlemen, Aunt and Mahadev’s aunt. This was done, though the little cousin continued to stand, unremarked, by the head of the bed. Savitri had considered it prudent to sidle quietly out of the house through the sweeper’s door.

A lota of water was brought by the boy servant and Aunt sponged her face. After a few minutes, the eyelids fluttered under their smudged paint – and closed again, as she realized her predicament. She was now legally married to Mahadev – and, far away in Bombay, Tilak was trying to start negotiations to marry her; he had not deserted her, he had not run away. He loved her and she loved him. Waves of grief broke over her, as if someone had died, and she sobbed helplessly before her astonished relatives.

How many times do we die in our lives, she wondered, our spirits crushed and broken? And yet the body lives on.

The marriage garland round his neck withering in the heat, Mahadev could bear the sobs no longer. Regardless of convention, he pushed Aunt away. Kneeling by her bedside, he took her hand and himself massaged it gently to get the circulation going. At first Anasuyabehn neither knew nor cared whose hand held hers, whose fingers carefully rubbed her wrists. It was, nevertheless, comforting, as if someone, at least, realized her suffering. Eventually, the weeping ceased. She lay with eyes closed, while Aunt leaned over and gently wiped the wet cheeks.

Her eyelids felt heavy, too heavy to open, but Mahadev waited patiently, and, finally, she did open them, to come
face to face with the anxiety and fear clearly mirrored in his usually cold, intelligent eyes. Dimly she knew that, of all the people gathered round her, Mahadev cared the most – and Mahadev was innocent – he had not done anything that contributed to her predicament; she had received nothing but kindnesses from him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and closed her eyes again.

Old Desai and Dr Mehta were relieved to see her come round, and began in hurried whispers to debate what they should do. Aunt interposed to say that the wedding must go on, as soon as Anasuyabehn was a little recovered; it would be too unlucky otherwise.

Anasuyabehn felt so tired that all she wanted was to be left alone. But Mahadev was there, still rubbing her hands. With a great effort, she swallowed her tears, opened her eyes again, and said that, if she could have a very hot, strong cup of tea, she thought she could go on – the time taken to prepare it, she argued, would give her a few minutes of rest.

Mahadev laughed out loud with relief. He whispered that she could have the whole of Gujerat if she wanted it. She made her lips smile.

The tea was made, the guests reassured, and, by the light of the moon, they set out in procession for the house rented by Dean Mehta. Laden with sweets, dates, money and the kernels of four coconuts, the Mehtas returned home exhausted, to go to bed for the remainder of the night.

The following evening, shaken but composed, Anasuyabehn sat quietly amongst her cousins, while the committee of eminent Jains inspected further gifts from her family. Then alms were distributed to an eager crowd of beggars and saddhus waiting at the compound gate.

Normally, the guests would have been feasted for several more days, but Mahadev had to go to Paris, so, to the
sound of steady drum beats, Anasuyabehn dipped her hand in red powder and marked the house walls with the imprint of her palm. In the marriage tent, she impressed an auspicious mark on Mahadev’s brother’s forehead, making the gesture very respectful and leaving him beaming contentedly. Someone handed her yet another sari, and she wondered vaguely how many dozen she now owned. A coconut was put into her hand and, with Mahadev smiling down at her, she stepped into his carriage. Another coconut was put under the wheels of the carriage and the vehicle jolted over it to break it. The pieces were then offered to her, with four sweetmeats and two brass vessels.

The driver whipped up the horse. Cars and carriages slid out before and behind them. In procession, they made their way into the old part of the town to the Desai Society.

‘This is it,’ she thought numbly. ‘In that old house they will have prepared a bed covered with rose petals and I will sit on it and Mahadev Desai and I will be alone for the first time.’ She knew what to expect and she felt dull and lifeless. She could feel the warmth of her husband’s thigh against hers, and she turned towards him instinctively. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he told her gently. ‘Everything will be all right.’

At home, the Dean looked at the imprint of his daughter’s hand and prayed for her. Then he went to say farewell to most of the guests, pressing some to stay a few days more. He did not yet want to be alone.

In the hopelessly untidy kitchen, deserted for the moment, Anasuyabehn’s faithful little cousin surreptitiously read Tilak’s letter. Through the crumpled paper, she saw Anasuyabehn’s face, so colourless, so dead, her lips hardly moving as she forced herself to say, ‘Burn it.’ To the young girl it was as if something in the new bride had burned with a mighty flame and was now cold ashes,
and the youngster trembled with fear of love not yet experienced.

She struck a match, lit the letter and held it in her hand until it was reduced to a tiny corner of paper attached to curling, black embers. Then she dropped it into the ash-choked charcoal brazier.

On the morning after Anasuyabehn’s departure, Aunt stood on the veranda and surveyed the appalling muddle. Pieces of tissue paper, palm leaves, withered flowers and garlands, two pieces of cloth flapping loose from the marriage tent, a pair of chuppells abandoned on the steps; behind her, in the kitchen, a mass of teacups and glasses to be washed, and unsorted laundry to be dealt with, seven house guests still to be fed, and a reception for some thirty people to be arranged for that evening. The last item, thank goodness, would be dealt with by the caterers and her younger brother; she could already hear him talking to two of the cooks; and Dean Mehta, she supposed rather sourly, was probably at his devotions. Lucky for some people that they had so much time for prayer and meditation; she herself had to be content with hastily repeated mantras as she made the morning fire.

The postman, his khaki uniform already black with sweat, picked his way through the debris and handed her the morning’s letters.

Although she could not read, she recognized amongst them the handwriting of a great-uncle who had been
invited to the wedding. What a mercy that old windbag was too old to travel, a walking gossip column, who would have smelled out the rumour about Anasuyabehn and would have retailed it on every veranda between Shahpur and Calcutta. She sighed, when she thought about this, and hoped that Anasuyabehn’s first child would not arrive before ten months – in fact, twelve months would be better.

When she knocked at the study door and opened it, the Dean still had his rosary in his hand. She put the letters on his desk and retreated to the kitchen.

After he had put his rosary into its box, the Dean mechanically opened his letters. It was with considerable shock that he read Tilak’s uncle’s preliminary inquiry regarding a match between his nephew and Anasuyabehn.

It seemed to him, at first, that he must have misread, and he perused again the careful description of Tilak’s assets, both physical and monetary. But there was no doubt that it was an offer for his daughter.

Here was proof that the girl had lied to him. His little daughter had lied. He was engulfed in wretchedness. What had she been doing?

As he stared at the letter, his fear and disappointment at his daughter gave way to anger against the hapless Tilak. He tore the letter up and flung it into his wastepaper basket.

If he heard so much as a breath of scandal about Tilak and his daughter, the man should go. If it were the last thing he did as Dean, Tilak should be made to rue the day he ever tampered with Anasuyabehn.

The letter from Bombay crossed with one from John to Tilak, in which he told of entrusting Tilak’s letter to Savitri for delivery. He wrote also of the haste with which the marriage was being solemnized, and that he hoped that Tilak would find someone else and be happy with her.

When the servant brought John’s letter to Tilak, he was
sitting by his mother’s couch while she had her morning tea. As he read the missive, a fearful numbness crept over him, and his mind refused to accept the news it contained. He continued to sit, the letter in his hand resting on his knee, while the numbness gave way to a ghastly emptiness.

It seemed to him that he had been stripped of his clothing and walked by himself through a vast empty space, a cold wind beating upon his bare flesh. It seemed that he walked for a long time, ignoring the wind, refusing to be afraid, and gradually his senses returned.

When he opened his eyes, he did it carefully and slowly, as if letting in the light would also let in something horrible; but it was only his mother’s troubled eyes which met his.

She had put down her cup in her saucer, and she asked, ‘What’s the matter?’

Tilak was unable to speak. He handed the letter to her and she read it, her English being quite adequate to the task.

‘Your friend in Shahpur – the Englishman?’

‘Yes.’ With that single word, all the emotion which he had tried to control since he left Shahpur suddenly erupted. He fell to his knees by the couch and buried his head in the Kashmir shawl draped over it. He hammered the couch with clenched fists. ‘Why couldn’t Uncle get through on the telephone?’ he almost screamed.

His mother put down her cup and saucer with a clatter, and leaned forward to put her arms round her wilful, dreadfully hurt son. ‘The lines to Shahpur were simply choked by calls, my dear child. Uncle couldn’t help that – it’ll be years before we get a proper service.’

Because both Tilak’s uncle and his mother feared a nervous breakdown, they did their best to dissuade Tilak from returning to Shahpur.

‘There’s nothing you can do, my son.’

‘I know that, mother. But I want to see the Vice-Chancellor and find out how things are in the University, and I would like to hear from John Bennett exactly what happened.’

Though he was obviously distraught, he was, they felt, trying to be rational, so they reluctantly agreed to the journey. The following morning, he and his servant arrived at Shahpur station. In the vast Victorian waiting-room there, he took a shower and changed his clothes. He was calm enough to eat a little breakfast in the empty first-class dining-room, while his servant ate in less sumptuous surroundings at a platform stall.

He had an overwhelming desire to see Anasuyabehn once again, just to look upon her face. He told himself sardonically that one is permitted to look on the face of one’s dead. He did not wish to call on her; apart from it being too modern an idea for the Desais to accept, it would awaken again in her the despair she must have felt at having to go through with her marriage. But just to see her passing by was a gnawing need.

The servant came into the dining-room to inquire what he should do next, and Tilak instructed him to take his luggage to his rooms in the students’ hostel.

The servant looked scared, and whispered that perhaps the Sahib should not show himself there for the present. Wouldn’t a hotel be safer?’

Tilak told him roughly not to be a fool. The students
were not going to hurt him. ‘For myself, I may stay a night or two with Bennett Sahib. I have to see him.’

Satisfied, the servant went away to find a porter.

After giving up his ticket, Tilak went through the barrier. He hesitated on the steps outside, and a motorcycle rickshaw drew up quickly by him. ‘Sahib?’ the man queried hopefully, revving his engine.

‘Do you know the Desai Society – the one in the city centre?’

‘Ji, hun. Everybody knows it.’

‘Right. Put me down fifty yards before you get to it.’

They drove through narrow alleyways thronged with people, then into an area where the alleys were little more than passages lined with the high boundary walls of various Societies. They came at last to a square which held the goldsmiths’ bazaar, and there the rickshaw wallah stopped.

He pointed to an archway on the other side of the square. ‘Through there, Sahib, is a vegetable bazaar. Opposite it, is the Desai Society’s gate.’

Tilak paid the man without comment. He had a shrewd suspicion that he had been taken on a tour of the old city and that probably there was a much shorter route from the station, but he could not be bothered to bargain; his mind was on Anasuyabehn.

Uncertain what to do, he walked through the archway and found the compound gate without difficulty. A few women and children were standing near the gate, sweepers or the very poor, and one or two professional beggars squatted with their backs against the Desais’ wall, their begging bowls in front of them. Tilak hastily crossed the tiny square and pretended to look through the vegetable bazaar.

‘What are the people waiting for?’ he asked a stallholder.

The stallholder told him of the great marriage just performed. Today, the rumour was that the bridegroom was going to take his bride on an aeroplane. He thought that the
women were waiting, in case, at the time of departure, the Desais felt like giving a little more in charity.

As he was talking, a taxi came from the further side of the little square and drew up at the gate.

The compound gate was opened by a chowkidar, who immediately kicked one of the beggars to make him move out of the way. The grumbling beggar moved about six inches and then was forced to his feet by the rush of onlookers who closed in on the entrance. Tilak himself was propelled, not unwillingly, towards the gate by a couple of eager youths and three giggling country girls, and was soon hemmed in by a small crowd.

A servant put two suitcases into the taxi. Then a very old man in horn-rimmed spectacles was assisted in, while the crowd murmured in nervous awe; everyone knew of old Desai.

Surely, the bride would come now. The women pushed forward and Tilak, to his consternation, found himself to the front of the crowd with the beggar who had been so ignominously kicked, and rows of women pushing behind.

A murmur of women’s voices came from within the Society. Anasuyabehn, her face half obscured by her flowered silk sari, stepped on to the street, followed closely by a man in white khadi, who, Tilak presumed, was her husband. They were followed by several ladies and gentlemen who stood around the gateway. Anasuyabehn turned her head, as if to say goodbye to one of the ladies – and then she saw him.

For a moment she stood transfixed, the words of farewell unspoken. She lifted her sari further over her face to shield herself from the gaze of the jostling relations.

Oblivious of the reason for her momentary pause, Mahadev put his arm gently round her back to move her towards the taxi, and in the self-same second the beggar, knife in hand, lunged forward as if to stab her.

Tilak saw the knife flash as it was drawn and he leaped between them, taking the knife in his own back, as he and Anasuyabehn crashed to the ground.

She screamed as she fell and, in the rush of people towards her, the beggar turned and ran for his life.

A shocked Mahadev beheld a man with a knife in his back lying over his new bride. The crowd began to move hastily away, while the chowkidar lifted Tilak up slightly so that Mahadev could get at his wife. He pulled her free and lifted her to her feet. She was dust-covered and bruised, but was able to stand on her feet, one hand to her mouth, as Partner Uncle bent and very carefully withdrew the knife. He tore a light cotton shawl from round his neck and pressed it on the wound, while he shouted for someone to bring a string bed to carry the man into the compound.

From his more elevated position in the old-fashioned taxi, old Desai had watched with horror. Now he scrambled out and went to Mahadev. ‘Is she hurt?’ he asked anxiously.

Mahadev was gently wiping his wife’s bruised cheek. ‘No bones broken,’ he said. ‘The man seems to have taken most of the fall, somehow.’

Old Desai whipped round to look at his Partner Brother kneeling by Tilak. Partner Brother looked up and said, ‘He’s dead.’

Anasuyabehn turned her face into her husband’s shoulder, while a Desai aunt tried to persuade her back into the compound. Mahadev, his face deadly pale, held the shuddering young woman. ‘Wait a minute,’ he urged the aunt.

Old Desai turned back to his son. ‘Take your wife and go to the airport. Catch the plane. This is a police matter, and they’ll keep you here for weeks as a material witness. Your wife can tend her bruises and change her sari in the airport.’

Mahadev stared at him, overwhelmed for the moment by the sight of murder.

‘Go, boy, go,’ his father urged. ‘That knife was meant for
you.
Your wife nearly died instead of you, because just at the very second he struck, she moved in front of you. Seated in the taxi, I saw exactly what happened, and I fear there may be other dacoits nearby who will make a second attempt.’ He paused for breath, an old man fearing the loss of his eldest son. He caught at Mahadev’s sleeve. ‘Wake up, boy, and get into the taxi, quickly.’

Mahadev forced himself to speak firmly, as he wrapped Anasuyabehn’s sari end round her bruised arm. She was not weeping, only breathing heavily, her face almost colourless. He half-lifted her into the taxi and, when he followed her, she clung to him, burying her face in his shoulder. During the nights he had spent with her, he had been very gentle, making sure that she was pleasured. Last night, he thought with a sudden glow, she had turned willingly to him and had responded to his overtures.

Despite the shocked looks of two older ladies, who had scrambled into the taxi after him, he continued to hold her and to whisper to her not to be afraid; he would protect her.

Thankful to get away, the taxi driver hooted to persuade the stallholders, who had replaced the original crowd, to get out of his way while he turned in the small space.

At a point where the narrow street he was travelling debouched into a main thoroughfare, he was stopped by an armed policeman. The constable flung open all the doors, took a good look at the passengers, made sure no one was hiding under the seats, and then motioned them onwards.

Through his mirror, the driver saw a police jeep ease its way into the rabbit warren he had just left.