Heat and Dust (14 page)

“But I will be,” he promised.

“Of course you will.”

The fact was, however, that she was not getting pregnant. She was beginning to be worried: was something wrong? She could not believe it; she was sure that a couple like herself and Douglas were meant to have children, to be the founders of a beautiful line. He too was sure of it. Sometimes she thought it might be due to psychological reasons – because she had been so frightened by all the little babies in the graveyard, dead of smallpox, dead of cholera, dead of enteric fever.

She had brought a few flowers for the Saunders' baby. She knelt to place them at the feet of the Italian angel. When she
got up, her face was radiant; she took Douglas' arm and whispered into his ear “I made a wish . . . You know, the way they do at Baba Firdaus' shrine on the Husband's Wedding Day.” They both smiled, but then she became serious and asked “Douglas, what
is
this thing about dacoits?”

“There is a gang operating around Khatm. They've been terrorising the outlying villages – making raids and looting and some killings too.”

“How dreadful.” She added “But what's
he
got to do with it?”

“Our Friend? That's the point. He's generally thought to be in cahoots with them, getting a rake-off in return for his protection.”

“It couldn't be,” said Olivia.

Douglas laughed at her innocence. They walked on. He pointed out a few more Mutiny graves, but she was no longer interested.

She said “But he's a
ruler.
He wouldn't get himself mixed up with a robber gang like that. After all he
is
a prince.” When Douglas burst out laughing, she said in a rather offended voice “He even has some sort of English title.”

“Oh yes he's got all sorts of things . . . Look, here's another one killed on 11 May '57:
Lt. Peter John Lisle of Clifton, Bristol.
He must have fallen in the same action as Lt. Edwards. There was an uprising in Satipur inspired by the then Raja of Satipur who had joined the mutineers: for which he paid very dearly afterwards. Unlike his neighbour at Khatm, our Friend's great-grandfather, who remained ‘loyal':
after
making sure which was the best side to remain loyal to. That's how he got his English title and all his other perks. Clever chap.” He carefully picked a few weeds out of Lt. Lisle's grave. There were not many – the graves were
extremely well kept. A permanent watchman had been hired, and Mr. Crawford himself came regularly for inspection to make sure the English dead were paid the respect due to them.

“Quite apart from anything else,” Olivia said, watching Douglas pick weeds, “he wouldn't
need
to, would he, join a gang of robbers. It's ridiculous. I mean, after all, he must be a rich man . . . Do stop that.”

“But they're weeds.”

“Oh goodness, let's go. This place is getting me down.”

Douglas got up and dusted the knees of his trousers. Now he looked rather offended; he said “I thought you said you liked it here.”

“I like the trees.”

She turned and walked away from him down a path. She didn't want him to see how irritated she was with both him and the dead heroes. But she had more to ask him, so she stopped still and waited for him to catch up. “What sort of dacoits?” she asked.

“I don't want to talk about it.” Douglas wore his stuffy look. He stared in front of him like a soldier on parade. He was making straight for the exit.

Now it was Olivia who lingered behind. She stopped again by the Saunders' grave and knelt to rearrange her flowers. She remained there. It was getting darker, the shadows were gathering. Sadness filled her heart. She didn't know why: perhaps because she wasn't having a baby? She thought if she had a baby – a strapping blond blue-eyed boy – everything would be all right. She would be at peace and also at one with Douglas and think about everything the same way he did.

“Come along now,” Douglas called back to her in a testy
voice. “It's getting dark.”

She got up obediently but next moment – she didn't know how this happened to her – she sank to her knees again and covered her face with her hands. The angel glimmered white above her. The last birds stirred in the tree before falling asleep; otherwise there was no sound. Olivia wept silently. Then she heard Douglas' footsteps crunching along the path as he made his way back to her. But he too was silent as he stood above her, waiting.

“Sorry,” she said after a while. She blew her nose into her handkerchief and wiped her eyes. She got up, but he didn't help her. She looked into his face – she could just make it out in the gathering darkness, glimmering above her like the angel. He stood there stiff and straight; he said “You should have gone to Simla. The heat's getting you down.”

“Is that what it is,” she said, glad of the excuse.

15 June.
    One of the town's beggars is a very old woman: at least she looks very old, but this may be due to her life of deprivation. She doesn't ask for alms, but when she is hungry she stands there with her hand stretched out. I never see her talk to anyone. Although she stays in the town, she does not seem to have a permanent pitch anywhere. Sometimes I see her in the Civil Lines area, sometimes by the royal tombs, sometimes in the bazaar or the alleys around it. She shuffles about in her rags, and when she is tired she squats or lies wherever she happens to be and people passing have to walk around her.

For the past few days, however, I have been seeing her in the same place. There is an alley behind our house where our
washerman lives (the same alley where I saw the eunuchs dance). A few days ago I took some clothes to him, and I can't be sure of this but I think she may have been lying there at the time. The trouble is, one is so used to her that one tends not to see her. But I definitely noticed her when I went back to fetch the clothes. There was something about the way she was lying there that drew my attention. The lane ends in a piece of land where a man lives in a shed with two buffaloes. Just outside his shed the municipality have put up a concrete refuse dump, but most people see no point in throwing their refuse within the concrete enclosure so that it lies littered around it, forming a little mound. The reason why I noticed the beggar woman was because she was lying on the outskirts of this mound of refuse. I thought at first she was dead but realised this could not be since no one else in the lane seemed concerned. The animals snuffling around in the refuse also paid no attention to her. Only the flies hovered above her in a cone.

The washerman was not at home and his wife was very busy with her household chores as well as pushing a long wooden pole into the clothes that had been put to boil. When I mentioned the presence of the beggar woman, she had no time to listen to me. Neither had the coalman who lives in an opening in the adjoining wall, nor the man with the buffaloes. They murmured vaguely when I asked how long she had been there. It struck me that perhaps she
was
dead and it was no one's business to take her away. Not mine either, and I went home carrying my laundry.

Later I wondered what had happened to me – that I had not even bothered to go close to see whether she was alive or dead. I told Inder Lal about her, but he was busy getting ready to leave for his office. I wanted him to come with me to
see her so I followed him when he started off. He was wheeling his cycle with his tiffin carrier tied to the handlebar. Although he was very reluctant, I persuaded him to enter the alley with me. I saw at once that she was still there. We stopped to look at her from a distance. “Is she alive?” I asked him. He didn't know and was not inclined to investigate; anyway, it was time for him to go, he could not be late to the office. I decided I had to see. I stepped closer – Inder Lal cried “No don't!” and even rang the bell of his cycle as a warning. I went up to the refuse dump, I stood over the beggar woman: her eyes were open, she was groaning, she was alive. There was a terrible smell and a cluster of flies. I looked down and saw a thin stream of excrement trickling out of her. My first thought was for Inder Lal: I made gestures to him to go away, go to his office. I was glad he had remained at a distance. I gestured more wildly and was relieved when he turned away – clean in his much washed clothes and with his freshly cooked food in his tiffin carrier. I walked away, and when I passed the coal merchant, I said “She is ill.” He assented vaguely. The washerman could be seen through the arched doorway eating his food in his courtyard. I could not disturb him. In fact, I felt I could not disturb or go near anyone. For the first time I understood – I
felt
– the Hindu fear of pollution. I went home and bathed rigorously, rinsing myself over and over again. I was afraid. Pollution – infection – seemed everywhere; those flies could easily have carried it from her to me.

Later I went to the local hospital situated at the Civil Lines end of town. It is an old, grim stone building – the same one Dr. Saunders was in charge of – and it is too small for the town's needs. In-patients and out-patients overflowed on to the verandahs and corridors and the patch of grass outside. I
went straight into the Medical Superintendent's room which was large, airy, and tidy. The Medical Superintendent, Dr. Gopal, was also tidy – a goodlooking man in a white coat and an oiled moustache. He was very polite, even gallant, and got up from behind his desk to greet me and seat me in the chair facing him. The desk and chairs were solid old pieces of English furniture, probably dating from the time of Dr. Saunders. Dr. Gopal was very sympathetic to my story and said, if I would bring her in, they would see what could be done. When I asked whether it would be possible to have her brought in an ambulance, he said that unfortunately the ambulance was under repair and in any case it was only meant for cases of emergency.

“But she
is
an emergency.”

The doctor smiled sadly and stroked his moustache. He asked me the standard question: “Which country are you from?” Although no doubt a very busy man, he seemed prepared to talk to me longer. I had the impression that he wanted to, perhaps in order to practise his English.

Two out-patients came in, bearing slips of paper. They were villagers with simple faces under big turbans; they stretched out the slips of paper to Dr. Gopal. Under his brusque questioning, it soon transpired that the two prescriptions had got mixed up, and that Meher Chand who was suffering from piles was taking the medicine meant for Bacchu Ram who had gall-stones. Dr. Gopal quickly rectified this mistake and dismissed the patients who left looking satisfied.

I asked “Does it happen very often?”

“Of course. These people can't read and the orderlies are not very careful. You see our problem. If she is dying,” he said, “then don't bring her, there is not much we can do.”

“But then where should she die?”

“You see our problem,” he said again. “There has been no addition to the hospital for over twenty years. We don't have beds, we don't have staff or equipment.” He went on. It was a long list of difficulties. Again I saw that he liked talking to me – partly to practise his English, that motive may have been there, but also to have someone to whom he could in this way unburden himself. “You saw the type of patients we have, and then also we make mistakes on our side, how is it to be avoided? I would like to have more staff, I make applications in triplicate, I go to see the Minister: at last when I get the staff, they are often useless people.” His English was fluent and he expressed himself well. He had a lot to express – his feelings were deep and his life difficult. He looked at me across the desk with the same eyes as Inder Lal's, craving understanding.

What I understood best was that the problem of the beggar woman, if I wished to undertake it, was now mine. Everyone else had too many problems of their own. I thought what to do. Perhaps she could still be treated and, on that chance, I had to get her to the hospital. I could hire a cycle rickshaw or a horse carriage to take her there. Then I thought how to get her into a vehicle. I would have to lift her by myself, for I could not expect anyone else to take the risk of touching her; also, I was not at all sure whether I could persuade any carriage owner to take her.

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. It 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.