The Peacock Spring (23 page)

‘What a tour!’ said Lady Srinevesan. ‘You lucky, lucky child. I wonder how many Indian girls have ever been asked to go on a tour like that,’ but,
‘You must remember,’ said Una, ‘When you rank as a child, you are ordered, not asked.’

Lady Srinevesan’s eyebrows lifted. She made no comment but said afterwards, ‘I took a mental note of that.’

‘Imagine!’ said Edward in the Kailasa temple at Ellora, ‘imagine those stonecutters digging out this enormous cave from above on the hill, working their sculptures from top to
bottom with those primitive chisels.’ The temple was wider than the Parthenon, half again as high, and even the accustomed Edward was awed. Over the gateway, the architect had left an
inscription: ‘How did I do it?’

‘You don’t care in the least how he did it, do you?’ said Edward and, though Una could feel his disappointment in her, she could not answer, ‘I do.’

‘Ellora? Ajanta?’ Una had asked it almost stupidly. ‘What are they?’

‘You know quite well.’ Edward was impatient. ‘Temples, enormous temple caves, carved straight out of the rock, Buddhist in Ajanta, but some at Ellora are Hindu or Jain. Then I
thought we would fly down to Cochin,’ he had said. ‘It’s a fascinating old port; and drive up to the wildlife sanctuary. The charm of the sanctuary there is that you go by water,
not by car, and can glide close up to the animals. I shall have to pause in Madras for work but you shall see some dancing. We shall make a detour back through Delhi to reach Agra on the
twenty-ninth because that is the night of the full moon. Then Fatehpur Sikri. Then we’ll stay at Varanasi – Benares – on our way to Darjeeling and Hal. Which will you find more
important,’ Edward bantered, ‘Hal or the Himalayan snows?’

‘But this will take a long time,’ Una had stammered. ‘Won’t Alix . . . ?’

‘Alix wants a little time for herself. It seems this home her mother is in hasn’t proved satisfactory.’

‘No.’ Una could imagine that.

‘She wants to settle her in another and better one in Naini Tal. I can help her there – then I’m giving her a fortnight in Paris. She will need more clothes.’

Una’s lips twitched. A
poor and starving country. I am here to organise relief
. . .
clothes must be inexpensive
. ‘I hope you have given Alix plenty of money,’
said Una. Edward did not take in the satire.

The time in Delhi, those six short weeks, had passed in a flash; this month was endless. Ajanta; Ellora; Cochin; Periyar; Madras. They were simply steps in a pilgrimage of exile to Una.
‘Would you like to go home?’ asked Edward in despair.

‘No.’ Una could not help wincing as she said it; Ravi had given her a snub. ‘It’s a good thing you are going,’ he had said, cheerfully matter-of-fact. ‘It
will give me a chance to finish my poems. They have to be in on the twenty-fifth.

‘Finish them without me?’ As soon as she made that protest Una knew it was stupid. ‘I am the one who writes the poems,’ said Ravi.

She had comforted herself by sending postcards to Hem.
Hemango Sharma, All-India Institute of Medical Sciences
. ‘Though really they were for Ravi,’ she was to tell him.

‘I knew that, but you might have had the sense to send them in envelopes. I was thought to have a rich tourist woman infatuated with me.’

‘Oh!’ That thought had not occurred to Una. ‘Did it send you up or down?’ she asked.

‘On the money side, up; in regard, down.’

‘Poor Hem!’ But she did not sound contrite, merely amused.

So they came to Agra. ‘I wanted to be here for this moon, Budh Purnima,’ said Edward. ‘It’s said to be especially bright at this auspicious time, perhaps a promise moon.
That would be fitting for me, I hope,’ and Una silently added, ‘For Ravi and me, too.’

Edward would not let her visit the Taj Mahal until he was sure the moon had risen above the dome and, as Una came out on the entrance steps, it seemed to her as if the whole Taj soared into the
sky. The cool lustre of minarets and dome seemed as high above the garden, where water channels glimmered and there were walks, lawns, cypress trees, as the Emperor and his queen had, in their
lives, been above even the noblest of men and women. ‘Well, Taj means ‘a crown’,’ said Edward.

Youths and girls, Indian and Western, were gathered on the entrance steps, silently looking; even their transistors were hushed; it was only the middle-aged who talked, they and the storytellers
above on the wide terrace, a man or a boy, standing in a ring of pilgrim villagers or people from the bazaar, and skilfully telling, ‘in couplets,’ said Edward, listening, ‘and
wonderfully embroidered,’ the love story of Shah Jehan and Mumtaz Mahal, Pearl of the Palace, and how she had followed him in every battle he fought until she died bearing his fourteenth
child, and how he had loved only her until death laid him beside her, under this marvel of beauty he had built for her. Inside, under the dome, visitors thronged reverently round two inlaid marble
oblongs, guarded by fretted marble screens, but the real tombs were in a vault far below; no touch or footstep must profane the royal sleep and, ‘Edward,’ said Una suddenly,
‘I’m glad I came.’

‘And I’m glad to hear it,’ said Edward. ‘I was beginning to feel I was dragging you round in chains.’

Standing on the terrace, they listened to the storytellers; they had had to take off their shoes and to their bare feet the marble was still hot from the day’s sun, yet a breeze blew from
the Jumna river. ‘There is always this breeze like a whisper in the Taj,’ said Edward, and then, from under the dome, came the sound of a flute, silver-toned, unearthly, enticing yet
pure as all flutes are, perfectly fitting the night. Edward and Una stood entranced together, as they had been long long ago, thought Una and, in this moment, Edward did not mind that it was the
cool small hand of his daughter he held, not Alix’s; nor Una that it was Edward’s not Ravi’s.

The sound stopped as if the flute had been snapped in half. There were cries and angry shouts, a rumpus under the dome, and then they saw two of the guards roughly impelling a young man across
the terrace; he still clutched the flute, silver in the moonlight, but his long dark hair was tousled over his face as he struggled, the muslin of his white shirt torn, his feet stamped upon, as he
was jostled and hustled down the steps. ‘But why? Why?’ cried Una. ‘He was only playing. Edward, stop them! Why don’t you stop them?’

‘I expect,’ said Edward, ‘they think he profaned the tomb.’

‘But he didn’t. It was beautiful. He meant it as a tribute. I’m sure he did,’ and it was when the flute song broke that everything broke, thought Una afterwards; until
then there had been no uglinesses. When they came out of the Taj Mahal gatehouse Una heard a monkey-man’s drum.

Edward had stayed to talk to the entrance guards, perhaps about the young musician, and she walked across the courtyard to where, among a group of men, the rough nasal voice was chanting or
singing as a pair of monkeys capered in the moonlight. There were the same guffaws and shouts of laughter she had heard round the monkey man in Shiraz Road, but this time she was close enough to
see why. The little female, when she was jerked, obediently held up her tattered quilted skirt, but her eyes were darting backwards and forwards looking for nuts or fruit; only when the male
approached her did she squeal into life, trying to escape from her string, but the man held her. The male monkey circled round her, gibbering, walking on the backs of his front paws. The laughter
rose as he closed in. As Una stood unwillingly mesmerized, there were cries of ‘Shabash! Shabash!’ as he sprang, ‘Shabash!’ and, ‘Come away at
once
!’ said
Edward behind her.

On the way back to the hotel, ‘Those monkeys seemed to be acting a play,’ said Una; she tried to make her voice normal, which was not easy; she still seemed to hear
the monkey sobs. ‘What would it have been?’

‘Something from the Ramayana, or the story of Radha and Krishna.’

‘
Krishna?
’ Krishna of the flute, the tender love play? ‘Oh no!’ cried Una. Now the flute seemed to be sobbing too.

‘They often take one of the great epics for this kind of travesty.’ He spoke lightly but Una forced herself to ask, ‘Edward, why did the female monkey squeal so when . . . when
the male took her?’

Edward’s ‘Never mind’ was short and Una hardly knew what made her go on.

‘I want to know. Should it have hurt so much?’

‘Perhaps he was a big monkey.’

‘He was – and she was small. She screamed but he went on. It was . . .’ Una shuddered.

‘The man probably gave the male monkey bhang or some such drug to make him randy. Now, that’s enough,’ said Edward.

It was enough. Una was sick.

‘But why let it upset you so?’ asked Edward when, spent and white, she was in bed.

‘They were . . . perjuring themselves.’ Una could explain no more than that.

‘Who?’

‘The people and the monkeys.’

Edward became matter-of-fact. ‘Monkeys can’t perjure themselves. They can’t speak, you silly billy.’

‘That’s just why.’ Once more Una retched. ‘They were helpless.’ They did not know what a show they were making of themselves, helplessly twirled on the end of a
string, beaten and drugged into making their pitiful tricks that started automatically at the signal of that nasal chant, the beating drum.

‘The man ought to be prosecuted,’ said Edward.

Next morning Una was sick again.

‘I think Agra must be the smelliest city in the world,’ she said as they drove through the streets.

‘Wait until you smell Calcutta,’ said Edward. ‘There—’ but, ‘Don’t,’ said Una hastily. ‘Open the car door . . .’

‘I told you when you came,’ said Edward when the retching was over. ‘You mustn’t be squeamish if you live in India.’

‘I know but I keep heaving,’and, too, Agra was hot. Una felt curiously limp and when, on their last day, there was a city electricity cut that meant no air conditioning, no lifts,
toiling up to the fourth floor, she felt as if her legs were paper, and when she reached her room her face was green-white, her hair soaked with sweat. Am I going to be ill? Yet, next morning,
driving out at dawn to Fatehpur Sikri, she was radiantly well.

They were so early that, in the deserted sandstone city, there were only workmen collecting tools and baskets. Una and Edward picnicked among the bougainvillaea, sitting on the steps of Jodh
Bai’s pavilioned palace. ‘She was Akbar’s chief Hindu wife,’ said Edward, ‘daughter of the Rajah of Amber who gave her to the Emperor as a truce. Akbar had a chief
Muslim wife as well and a Christian one; he is said to have had five thousand women in his harem.’

‘Not as many as Krishna,’ said Una.

‘But these were historically real, and not one of them,’ said Edward, ‘could give the Emperor a son until he came here to this hill where a saint called Salim was living as a
hermit. Salim told Akbar he would have three sons and, sure enough, Queen Jodh Bai produced Prince Salim, later called Jehangir, and soon there were two other little princes. Come, I will take you
to the Saint’s mosque and tomb, if you have finished eating all the oranges.’

‘It’s only oranges I want to eat,’ said Una. ‘Oranges and oranges.’

In honour of the saint, Akbar had moved his capital to this beautiful small city he had built on the hill; it had kept an air of completeness though it was given over to tourists, workmen,
‘and peacocks,’ said Una; the peacocks were so tame they came near for pieces of bread and fruit, gazing at Una and Edward from bright eyes oblonged with white, ‘as if they were
decorated,’ said Una. They walked proudly, lifting their feet, but when they scratched the dust for insects the feet became usefully mundane. There were still elephant lines, camel stables,
stables for more than a hundred horses – their sandstone tethering rings were still on the wall. Edward showed Una the treasury; the mint; the small palace of Birbal, Akbar’s astrologer
and favourite storyteller; the audience halls, a debating chamber ‘for men of every religion’, and, for lighter moments, the parcheesi pavement where the ‘pieces’ were
dancing girls, and the open pavilion where Akbar took his exercise playing blind man’s buff with the court ladies. Una bought a postcard for Hal, and for Hem one of the tower the Emperor
built for his especial elephant. In those days punishment was often being trampled to death by an elephant, but this elephant was so wise he could sense innocence and, ‘If he refused to
trample, the victim was freed,’ said Edward, and, ‘This is the pigeon post office. Akbar used to send his messages by pigeon post.’ What a perfect way to send a letter to
Ravi!

The Saint’s, Salim’s, tomb broke the harmony; its marble and tessellated mother-of-pearl seemed ostentatious against the plain sandstone of the city walls and courtyards, yet the
tomb was hallowed. As Una and Edward crossed the courtyard, a young couple came out, she in an old-fashioned burka whose lattice showed her eyes; Una saw she had been weeping and, on the
four-poster bed that incongruously stood inside the tomb, there were fresh rose petals and rupee notes on the satin counterpane. ‘They have been to pray for a child,’ said the
custodian. An old man sitting cross-legged on the floor in the corner whispered a rhythm of prayer. ‘Some rich family are paying him to sit here and pray all day.’

‘For a child?’

‘Of course,’ said the custodian. ‘All who come to the tomb of Salim very much wanting a child.’

Edward went out into the courtyard but Una hardly knew he had gone; rooted by the bed a quiver was running through her as if she had been touched by the saint’s finger. Slowly she emptied
her purse of its notes on to the counterpane. She wished she had some rose petals.

‘Not sick again!’ said Hal.

They were in the rest house at Tiger Hill where they had ridden out from Darjeeling in the early hours to see – ‘If we are lucky enough,’ Edward had said – the dawn
‘flowering of the snows.’ They had been lucky; the far-off ranges had turned from an outline of white-streaked grey to a flush of pink, then to deep rose and gold that ran along the
range. It had been a shock to Una to find how high her eyes had to look up in the sky to see the great peaks; Kanchenjungha towered but Everest looked almost small because of the distance across
the cloud-filled land. It had been an awesome moment but afterwards the smell of sausages being cooked in the rest house for breakfast, worse, the smell of the pony-men’s rancid butter tea,
had undone her; she had to fly to a bathroom that smelled too of dank whitewash and phenyl and begin her daily retching over a tin basin.