Heat and Dust (21 page)

“I've been thinking about having an abortion,” she said.

“Are you quite crazy?”

“Douglas is terribly happy too. And making all sorts of plans. There's a christening robe in their family that was worked by some nuns in Goa. His sister has it at the moment – her littlest one was christened in it a couple of years ago, at Quetta where they're stationed. But now Douglas is going to send for it. He says it's awfully pretty. Cascades of white lace – very becoming to the Rivers' babies who are very very fair. Douglas says they all have white-blond hair till they're about twelve.”

“Babies don't have hair.”

“Indian babies do, I've seen them. They're born with lots of black hair . . . You have to help me, Harry. You have to find out where I can go.” When he stood dumb, she said: “Ask your friend the Begum. It'll be easy enough for her.” She laughed: “Easier than poisoned garments, any day” she said.

31 August.
    Today, as I came down from my room, a woman standing outside the slipper shop greeted me like an old acquaintance. I didn't remember meeting her but thought she might be a friend of Inder Lal's mother; perhaps one of the group of women who had accompanied us on the Husband's Wedding Day. When I walked away through the bazaar, she followed me. It now struck me that perhaps she had been waiting for me outside the shop; but when I stood still and
looked back at her, she made no attempt to catch up with me. She just nodded and smiled. This happened several times. She even made signs at me to walk on; all she seemed to want was to walk behind me. I had intended to go all the way to the hospital, but I felt strange being followed, so when I got to the royal tombs I turned aside and made my way to Maji's hut. This time when I looked back, the woman was not following me but was walking straight on as if she had no further business with me.

Maji was in the state of
samadhi
. To be in that state means to have reached a higher level of consciousness and to be submerged in its bliss. At such times Maji is entirely unaware of anything going on around her. She sits on the floor in the lotus pose; her eyes are open but the pupils turned up, her lips slightly parted with the tip of the tongue showing between them. Her breathing is regular and peaceful as in dreamless sleep.

When she woke up – if that's the right expression which it isn't – she smiled at me in welcome as if nothing at all had occurred. But, as always at such times, she was like a person who has just stepped out of a revivifying bath, or some other medium of renewal. Her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone. She passed her hands upwards over her face as if she felt it flushed and fiery. She has told me that, whereas it used to be very difficult for her to make the transition from
samadhi
back to ordinary life, now it is quite easy and effortless.

When I spoke to her about the woman who had so mysteriously followed me, she said “You see, it has started.” Apparently it wasn't mysterious at all – the woman was a midwife marking me down as a potential client. She must have noticed me before and followed me today to check up on her suspicions. My condition would be perfectly obvious to her
by the way I walked and held myself. In a day or two she would probably offer me her services. And now Maji offered me her own again: “This would be a good time,” she said; “8 or 9 weeks – it would not be too difficult.”

“How would you do it?” I asked, almost in idle curiosity.

She explained that there were several ways, and that at this early stage a simple massage, skilfully applied, might do it. “Would you like me to try?” she asked.

I said yes – again I think just out of curiosity. Maji shut the door of her hut. It wasn't a real door but a plank of wood someone had given her. I lay down on the floor, and she loosened the string of my Punjabi trousers. “Don't be afraid,” she said. I wasn't, not at all. I lay looking up at the roof which was a sheet of tin, and at the mud walls blackened from her cooking fire. Now, with the only aperture closed, it was quite dark inside and all sorts of smells were sealed in – of dampness, the cowdung used as fuel, and the lentils she had cooked; also of Maji herself. Her only change of clothes hung on the wall, unwashed.

She sat astride me. I couldn't see her clearly in the dark, but she seemed larger than life and made me think of some mythological figure: one of those potent Indian goddesses who hold life and death in one hand and play them like a yo-yo. Her hands passed slowly down my womb, seeking out and pressing certain parts within. She didn't hurt me – on the contrary, her hands seemed to have a kind of soothing quality. They were very, very hot; they are always so, I have felt them often (she is always touching one, as if wanting to transmit something). But today they seemed especially hot, and I thought this might be left over from her
samadhi,
that she was still carrying the waves of energy that had come to her from elsewhere. And
again I had the feeling of her
transmitting
something to me – not taking away, but giving.

Nevertheless I suddenly cried out “No please stop!” She did so at once. She got off me and took the plank of wood from the door. Light streamed in. I got up and went outside, into that brilliant light. The rain had made everything shining green and wet. Blue tiles glinted on the royal tombs and everywhere there were little hollows of water that caught the light and looked like precious stones scattered over the landscape. The sky shone in patches of monsoon blue through puffs of cloud, and in the distance more clouds, but of a very dark blue, were piled on each other like weightless mountains.

“Nothing will happen, will it?” I asked Maji anxiously. She had followed me out of the hut and was no longer the dark mythological figure she had been inside but her usual, somewhat bedraggled motherly self. She laughed when I asked that and patted my cheek in reassurance. But I didn't know what she was reassuring me of. Above all I wanted nothing to happen – that her efforts should not prove successful. It was absolutely clear to me now that I wanted my pregnancy and the completely new feeling – of rapture – of which it was the cause.

1923

Satipur also had its slummy lanes, but Khatm had nothing else. The town huddled in the shadow of the Palace walls in a tight knot of dirty alleys with ramshackle houses leaning over them. There were open gutters flowing through the streets. They often overflowed, especially during the rains, and were probably the cause, or one of them, of the
frequent epidemics that broke out in Khatm. If it rained rather more heavily, some of the older houses would collapse and bury the people inside them. This happened regularly every year.

It had happened the week before opposite the house to which Olivia was taken. The women attending on her were still talking about it. One of them described how she had stood on the balcony to watch a wedding procession passing below. When the bridegroom rode by, everyone surged forward to see him, and there was so much noise, she said, the band was playing so loudly, that at first she had not realised what was happening though it was happening before her eyes. She saw the house opposite, which she had known all her life, suddenly cave inwards and disintegrate, and next moment everything came crashing and flying through the air in a shower of people, bricks, tiles, furniture, cooking pots. It had been, she said, like a dream, a terrible dream.

What was happening to Olivia was also like a dream. Although no one could have been more matter-of-fact than the women attending her: two homely, middleaged mid-wives doing the job they had been commissioned for. The maid servant who had brought her had also been quite matter-of-fact. She had dressed Olivia in a burka and made her follow her on foot through the lanes of Khatm. No one took any notice of them – they were just two women in burkas, the usual walking tents. The street of the midwives was reached by descending some slippery steps (here Olivia, unused to her burka, had to be particularly careful). The midwives' house was in a tumble-down condition – very likely it would go in the next monsoon; the stairs looked especially dangerous. They were so dark that her escort had to take Olivia's hand-for a moment Olivia shrank from this
physical contact but only for a moment, knowing that soon she would be touched in a far more intimate manner and in more intimate places.

The midwives made her lie on a mat on the floor. Since the house opposite was no longer there, she had a clear view through the window of a patch of sky. She tried to concentrate on that and not on what they were doing to her. But this was in any case not unpleasant. They were massaging her abdomen in an enormously skilful way, seeking out and pressing certain veins within. One of the women sat astride her while the other squatted on the floor. Their hands worked over her incessantly while they carried on their conversation. The atmosphere was professional and relaxed. But when sounds were heard on the stairs, the two midwives looked at each other in consternation. One of them went to the door, and the other quickly hid Olivia under a sheet. As if I'm dead, Olivia thought. She wondered who had come. Also she wondered what would happen – what would they do – if she did die there in the room as a result of the abortion. They would have to dispose of her body quickly and secretly. Olivia guessed that such a disposal could be managed without too much difficulty. The Begum would arrange about it just as easily as she had arranged for the abortion. Probably she had already thought about it and laid suitable plans.

It was the Begum herself who had come, with only one attendant. Both of them were shrouded in black burkas but Olivia knew which was the Begum from the deferential way in which the midwives treated her. She appeared keenly interested in the operation (such personal attention, Olivia thought; I ought to be flattered). The Begum watched from behind her burka as the two
midwives continued their massage. Then one of them got up and went to prepare something in a corner of the room. Olivia tried to see what it was, and the Begum was also curious and followed to that corner. Olivia lifted her head slightly but the other midwife pressed it down again so she only swivelled her eyes in that direction. She saw the midwife showing the Begum a twig on to which she was rubbing some paste. The Begum was so interested that she put up the front of her burka in order to see better. Now Olivia was curious to see both the twig and the Begum's face. She had forgotten what she looked like – that visit with Mrs. Crawford seemed long ago – and wanted to check up whether she had any resemblance to the Nawab.

The midwife with the twig came towards her, holding it. Olivia understood that it was to be introduced into herself. The two women opened Olivia's legs and one of them held on to her ankles while the other pointed the twig. The Begum also bent over her to watch. Although the midwife worked swiftly and skilfully, the twig hurt Olivia as it entered into her. She was unable to stifle a cry. Then the Begum bent over her to look into her face and Olivia stared back at her. She
did
look like the Nawab, very much. She seemed as interested to study Olivia's face as Olivia was to study hers. For a moment they gazed into each other's eyes and then Olivia had to shut hers, as the pain down below was repeated.

Beth Crawford did not allow herself to speak about Olivia until many years – a lifetime – had passed. I don't know whether she thought about her at all during those years. Probably not: Great-Aunt Beth knew where lines had to be
drawn, not only in speech and behaviour but also in one's thought. In the same way she had never let her mind dwell on the Begum and her ladies once the half-hour of obligatory social intercourse with them was over. She had had no desire to speculate about what went on in those purdah quarters once she had left them behind and the European chairs were put away and the ladies alone again and at ease on their divans. Beth felt that there were oriental privacies – mysteries – that should not be disturbed, whether they lay within the Palace, the bazaar of Satipur, or the alleys of Khatm. All those dark regions were outside her sphere of action or imagination – as was Olivia once she had crossed over into them.