The World Beyond (16 page)

‘Ah! Abdul Rehman Mirza,’ Salim exclaimed. Yes, he had heard about the rumpus caused in the city by Abdul Rehman yesterday. He had attacked Major Lincoln with two other men. Then, having escaped unhurt, he had led a procession of thousands of men shouting slogans against the Company and firangi rule. However, as the procession reached Roomi Darwaza, they found Major Lincoln’s men waiting for them with bullets and lathis. Abdul Rehman was mortally wounded and finally caught.

Salim stood upright as some redcoats marched into the courtyard and stood in a single file on either side. The crowd became silent. Only the buzz of flies and mosquitoes could be heard. Abdul Rehman Mirza was led into the courtyard, his hands and feet bound in chains. His eyes were half closed and his clothes bloodied. He was flanked on either side by armed soldiers. After taking two steps, he stumbled and fell. Everybody held their breath as he floundered to stand and collapsed yet again. Two sepoys dragged him roughly to the banyan tree in the centre of the courtyard.

A scene from the past flashed through Salim’s mind. He remembered the time when he had watched a butcher skin a goat. The butcher had smashed the goat’s head with a stone a few times but that had not killed it. It was still conscious and writhed and twitched as the butcher proceeded to skin it. He had watched in horror as the goat’s heart continued to beat for a long time after it had been skinned. Salim was only twelve then. He had a nightmare that night and several other nights. And try as he might, he could not erase the sight of the goat, fully skinned, its body covered in blood, its heart pumping rapidly.

And now, as he watched Abdul Rehman, his hand curled into a fist as he curbed the desire to dash into the jelo-khana and free the dying man. The hangman was now putting a noose around Abdul Rehman’s neck. Salim looked around at the crowd. Some of the men stood defiantly, chin up in the air. There was fear in the eyes of some, but their faces remained impassive.

An old man standing next to Salim staggered and was about to fall. Helping him to his feet, Salim asked, ‘Are you all right?’

‘All right?’ the old man answered. His arms shook as he pointed a finger at Abdul Rehman. ‘Who will perform my last rites now?’ he asked as tears flowed down his cheeks.

He was Abdul Rehman’s father, Salim realised and he swallowed. His thoughts flew to Abba Huzoor. He wondered how he was, exiled as he had been from his own kingdom.

The old man was again pointing to his son. ‘He’s half-dead. What was the need?’

Salim did not answer but stared ahead, his eyes blazing, his face contorted in anger. The commanding officer shouted his command and the noose around Abdul Rehman’s neck tightened. His feet thrashed momentarily in mid-air, then all was quiet. Everything was still. The buildings, the people, even the leaves of the banyan tree from which the body of Abdul Rehman now swung, were motionless. A single dry leaf fell slowly, sadly, noiselessly to the ground. Salim looked up at the tree. At the dried yellow leaves, holding their breath and clinging onto the branch, knowing that when the next wind blew it would be their turn to fall.

The crowd began to disperse, subdued, quiet, holding their breath. Salim watched them go. How long would it remain silent, subjugated, afraid, he wondered.

Salim knelt down in his room, facing the west, towards Mecca, as the call for the evening prayers rang out from the mosques. He closed his eyes, raised his arms and muttered his prayer. Then he bent forward so his forehead could touch the ground and thus offered his obeisance to Allah, on this twenty-second day of Ramzan.

Then he straightened up and began pacing the floor. Gangaram had been caught and put behind bars. What he had witnessed in Newazganj yesterday, he had never witnessed before. What started as a quiet gathering to mark the mourning day of Ramzan, the night Hazrat Ali, the fourth Muslim caliph, had been assassinated, soon turned into a frenzied crowd. As the night wore on, the mob became angrier and angrier. Their thoughts were not with Hazrat Ali anymore, but with Abdul Rehman and the twenty sepoys who had been hanged the previous day. Each and every man present in Newazganj was livid. Gone was the fear, the timidity, the hesitation that Salim had witnessed during the hanging.

‘Down with Company rule. Throw out these firangis,’ the crowd had chanted.

Lifting the khus mat, Salim looked out. Not a soul to be seen.

Early this morning, Salim was informed, the same gathering had taken out a silent procession from Newazganj to the Hussainabad Imambara. On the way back, however, some men lost their cool when they saw Major Lincoln. The bloody firangi responsible for all the arrests and hangings. They tried to attack him. They were arrested, beaten and put behind bars. One of them was Gangaram.

Salim lifted the mat again. He could see no movement in the courtyard below. Then he saw Nayansukh and Daima, creeping towards his room. He did not wait but bounded down the stairs to meet them.

‘Daima?’ he said as he took her hands in his.

Daima’s lips quivered. ‘Gangaram is no more … Chutki’s fiancé’s dead.’

‘What happened?’ Salim’s voice was barely audible.

Daima did not answer but simply clung to him.

‘They shot him,’ said Nayansukh. ‘After torturing him.’

Closing his eyes, Salim leant against a pillar as Daima’s tears ran down his angarkha.

‘His whole body was charred,’ Daima whispered between sobs. ‘We couldn’t recognise him at all.’

‘Bits of skin hanging … skin peeling off … blood oozing from everywhere … he had been tied to the floor with ropes … then pelted with heated brass rods, Salim bh—’ said Nayansukh, his voice breaking.

Salim took a few steps away from Daima. He stood still with his back towards her, his feet apart, arms folded behind his back, chin jutting out. His Adam’s apple moved as he tried to get a grip on his emotions. He turned back after a few minutes and looked at Daima’s anguished face. He thought of Chutki, of Gangaram, of the frenzied crowd at Newazganj. Yes, the time had come.

Chapter Sixteen

R
ACHAEL

Rachael sat quietly, sipping her sherbet. She looked around. The hall was full of people talking, laughing, eating, dancing. She knew most of them. Or maybe not. What were they like at home? Did they still wear their charming smiles or did they scream at their servants like Papa did?

She took another sip and thought of Salim. She wondered how he was. What must he be doing right now? It was becoming more and more difficult for her to see him these days. Alas, when would she be able to sneak out and meet him again? She had read somewhere – if you crave for something from the core of your heart, you often get it. And there was nothing she wanted more right now than to waltz with Salim. But first she would have to teach him. She giggled inwardly as she imagined herself teaching him how to dance. She could visualise him stepping on her toes and exclaiming ‘Ya Ali’ every time he did so.

‘May I have this dance?’ Salim? Rachael’s heart skipped a beat as she turned around. Her face fell. It was Christopher. She had been hallucinating. She rose petulantly and gave him her hand as he led her to the dance floor.

His face was sunburnt. If Ahmed saw him like this, he would say he looked like tandoori chicken. The thought made her snicker.

‘What’s so funny?’ Christopher asked.

‘Nothing, nothing at all,’ Rachael answered as she laughed even louder.

‘Where’s the bracelet I gave you?’

‘Oh, it’s in my jewellery box,’ Rachael lied. She had no clue where it was.

‘But you promised never to take it off.’

‘Umm … I broke my promise, I fear.’

‘But my future wife ought to learn to keep her word.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Rachael looked at him incredulously. ‘Christopher, whatever Papa might’ve said to you, I’ve never thought of you that way. You’re a childhood friend and that’s how I intend to keep it.’ She looked at Christopher’s crestfallen face. ‘Look—’

‘Then why did you lead me on?’ he asked, tightening his grip on her hand. Rachael sighed. Perhaps she
had
led him on. She may even have married him eventually. But that was before she had met Salim.

‘Will you or won’t you marry me?’ Christopher demanded.

‘No,’ she shouted, just as the band stopped playing. Her word echoed through the room and everyone stared at her and Christopher. She lowered her gaze and murmured, ‘No, Christopher, I cannot.’

Christopher spun on his heels and left the room.

Summer had its own charm. It was a time of abundance, when the branches of trees sagged under the weight of ripe fruit – mangoes, lychee, jackfruit, jamun … Rachael found herself in a mango orchard that morning, the trees laden with oval orangish-yellow mangoes. She sat down gingerly on a swing. Well, it wasn’t exactly a swing. Just a rope with a cushion on it, hanging from the branch of a mango tree. Soon she was enjoying herself as she swung higher and higher. She sniffed inquisitively as the smell of mangoes in the orchard, mingled with the strong smell of sugar cane growing in the nearby fields, reached her.

Raising her right hand over her eyes, she looked at the tree in front. All she could see of Salim was a flash of white and his pointed velvet shoes. He did not seem like himself today. Something was eating him. She couldn’t blame him. After all, he had seen much, lost much and suffered much in the last few months. But what she saw in his eyes today was something different. It was as though he had made up his mind about something and was determined to carry it out. What exactly that was, she could not tell.

She watched him jump down from the tree with a thud and squish a mango gently on all sides with his hands. Then he bit a little hole on the top and gave it to her. She looked at him, then at the mango and again at him.

‘Go on, sip through the hole.’

Rachael took a small sip, then she sucked really hard. Thick yellowish-orange juice oozed out and ran down her hand. She licked it with a sheepish grin.

‘Mmmm, it’s delicious. I’ve never eaten a mango like this before, and that, too, while swinging from a mango tree. Mother would be horrified. She firmly believes ladies ought to eat mangoes and oranges in the privacy of their rooms.’

‘And I’ve never climbed a tree in an angarkha before,’ Salim replied, dusting the mud from his clothes. ‘Ya Ali, it has been years since I last climbed a tree.’ He picked up a raw mango from the ground, swung it in the air and caught it. ‘When Ahmed and I were little, we were sitting on one of these trees devouring mangoes one day, when the caretaker arrived out of nowhere and chased us out of the orchard with a cane.’

‘Oh dear!’

‘You should have seen his face when he came to know that I was Abba Huzoor’s son. He sent me a basketful of mangoes as an apology.’

‘You must miss him a lot.’

‘Not really. I don’t remember bumping into him again.’

‘I was talking about your father.’

Salim was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t miss him as much as his presence. The knowledge that he’s there, that I’ve nothing to worry about,’ he replied quietly.

Rachael got off the swing and touched his arm lightly. He smiled at her.

‘You look like a baby with mango pulp smeared on the tip of your nose. Wait, don’t move.’ He took out his handkerchief and gently wiped her nose before tweaking it.

‘Ouch.’

‘Where were you yesterday? I missed you,’ he said.

Rachael looked at the monkeys chattering and swinging by their tails and legs on the trees before answering. A baby monkey lost his balance while jumping from one branch to another and was caught just in time by its mother. ‘There was a party at home and I simply couldn’t get away. There’s this friend of mine called Christopher …’

‘Christopher? Who’s he?’

Rachael noticed his voice had suddenly gone sharp. She snapped a dry twig she had been playing with. KHATACK! ‘He’s a good-for-nothing. But a brilliant dancer. It was good fun dancing with him last night.’

‘Was it, now?’

‘Yes, he’s a soldier – same regiment as Papa. Papa’s fond of him, you know. In fact, if he had his way, he would love to see me betrothed to him.’

Salim’s face turned white. He held her elbows in a tight grip. ‘And you? Do you also want to marry him?’ His tone was clipped, his breathing uneven.

Rachael laughed inwardly. Contrary to the picture Salim was conjuring, she had spent the most unpleasant evening with Christopher. But at least now he knew she had no intention of marrying him.

She looked at Salim, her eyes narrowing into a smile. ‘Are you jealous, Salim? Christopher’s just a friend. Like you and me?’ She raised an eyebrow and looked at him.

‘So we’re just friends?’

‘Aren’t we?’ Rachael asked, suppressing a grin. She was enjoying this. So Prince Salim was jealous. Ah ha! Surely he must love her then …

‘I thought it was more …’

‘More what, Salim?’

‘Nothing.’ He picked up her shoe that had come off while she was swinging, and slipped it under her foot. ‘Come to Lal Barahdari tomorrow after dusk. You’ll get your answer.’

Rachael smiled and a myriad little mango blossoms showered down on her.

The next evening Rachael followed Salim into what looked like a huge hall. He pointed to the throne and said, ‘This is the coronation hall.’

The hall led into a spacious palace garden. In the centre of the garden was a magnificent pond, surrounded by colourful little fountains and adorned with statues. The statues were lit by colourful lamps. The entire garden looked like a fairy land.

That wasn’t all. In the centre of the pond was a pavilion. Rachael followed Salim demurely, as he led her to a boat. She loved the way the water parted as the oars hit it with a chopping sound.

He held out his hand and helped her get off the boat on to the pavilion. They entered the first of the two rooms. It was covered with Persian rugs and smelt of roses. Not the soft demure smell of the shy pink rose but the strong smell of the passionate red rose. Salim led her to a diwan and she sat down in silence. She did not know what to say. She felt like a princess in a magical palace. It was too beautiful to be true.