The Moneylenders of Shahpur Page 8

  ‘I didn’t eat much lunch,’ said Tilak, almost apologetically.

  ‘You would hardly feel like it.’ John lit his pipe. ‘Would you like a cigarette?’

  Tilak accepted a cigarette, lit it and drew slowly on it.

  ‘To someone like myself,’ John remarked reflectively, ‘Mehta is typical of all India – keeps his own customs, but is tolerant of other people’s – except when it is a matter of killing something.’

  ‘He’s far too reactionary to be typical.’

  ‘Not in everything,’ John protested. ‘He doesn’t seem even to press his daughter to comply – she actually finished her education at a Christian convent school – and then her engagement – that’s not a bit orthodox.’

  ‘I heard that the boy died,’ Tilak replied idly, as he blew a smoke ring.

  ‘Yes, but I wasn’t thinking of him. I was thinking of her new fiancé.’

  ‘Her new one?’ Tilak was shocked. His thin hands gripped the arms of his chair.

  ‘Yes, she’s going to marry the Desais’ elder son – you know, the family which seems to have a financial finger in any pie round here. They’re really moneylenders, but on a big scale these days.’

  Tilak asked in a breathless voice, ‘When is she going to be married?’

  ‘In a month or two, I suppose.’ John glanced quickly at Tilak. The Maratha’s face was immobile, the lips compressed, the black eyes staring into the darkness, as if he saw, unexpectedly, something frightening. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I want to marry her myself,’ Tilak almost snarled between his clenched teeth.

  ‘Well, don’t bite me, old chap,’ said John humorously. ‘I didn’t know you were interested – seriously.’

  Tilak stood up and went to the veranda rail. ‘I am most interested,’ he said sadly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ John said sympathetically, and wished suddenly that he, too, could feel as strongly about a woman. Now, however, he looked at Tilak with some concern. The man had seated himself on the veranda rail and was feverishly cracking his finger joints, pulling first one finger and then the other as if he would dismember himself.

  ‘I’ve no father to advise me, and my uncle would not understand,’ he said. ‘Bennett, what can I do?’

  John shifted about in his chair.

  ‘Do you really want to marry her?’

  ‘Of course I do. It’s time I married and I want to marry her.’

  ‘She’s a different caste and religion.’

  ‘Don’t be old-fashioned, Bennett Sahib. Plenty of people are marrying out of caste now.’

  ‘Surely your family would object?’

  ‘Uncle will – and so will mother, at first – but mother I can persuade.’ He spoke with all the certainty of a spoiled younger son. ‘It’s Dean Mehta who is the stumbling block.’

  ‘And the girl? What does she think?’

  Tilak looked startled for a moment, and then said, ‘I haven’t asked her.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you should find an opportunity to know her better, and then ask her. You’ll have to be quick, though.’

  Tilak gave up cracking his finger joints and gnawed one instead. ‘I feel that it is all right with her – I’ve seen her a number of times.’

  ‘Have you spoken to her?’

  ‘Twice. The last time was when she brought clean clothes for her father this morning.’

  John marvelled at the speed with which Tilak had made up his mind. Yet was it so very different among English people? One saw a girl and sought to know more of her and, after a while, one realized one was in love; yet probably that love was present from the first moment, unacknowledged.

  ‘Look,’ John said, ‘I can’t see, really, how you can forestall the marriage arranged for her, without a concerted effort on her part. Even then, I can’t imagine how you’re going to persuade the Dean to let her marry you – you’re simply not popular with him, at present.’

  ‘I’ll do it, somehow.’

  John whistled under his breath. ‘Be careful, Tilak,’ he warned him. ‘It’s not worth ruining your career.’

  Tilak agreed, and then laughed sardonically. ‘To have a wife and no food for her would be a disaster.’

  ‘I saw Desai and some of his relations going to visit them, earlier this evening,’ John told him, as he relit his pipe.

  Tilak started to pace up and down, and John pushed his chair back, to give him more room. ‘Don’t do anything rash, old man.’

  ‘Humph.’ Tilak swung back to John’s chair. ‘I’ll go home, Bennett Sahib. Come to visit me one day.’

  ‘I will,’ John promised, and escorted his friend down to the compound gate. ‘Take care,’ he said.

  Tilak hardly heard him. He was already swinging swiftly down the dark lane, towards the hostel.

  After he had vanished into the gloom, John stood for a moment holding the heavy compound gate ajar. It was not a pleasant night. A small crying wind was whipping up little whirls of dust. Families, who would usually be strolling up and down at this time, had obviously stayed at home because of the threat of a storm. Even the pariah dogs, who could ordinarily be heard rustling in the bushes or snarling at each other, seemed to have taken refuge. In spite of the puffs of wind, the heat was intolerably oppressive, and John took out his handkerchief to mop his forehead.

  As he tucked the hanky back into his shirt pocket, he heard the sound of galloping horses approaching up the lane. Fools, he thought, to ride so fast in the darkness.

  They were passing him almost before he could see them; four turbanned figures, their turban ends wrapped across their faces to protect them against the dust, naked feet thrust into high stirrups. He wondered who they were; there were few riding horses in the district, camels and oxen being the working animals. Horses were used for carriages.

  Strangers, he guessed. Visitors of some kind, following the lane through until they would, eventually, strike the new road that had been built to connect more distant villages with Shahpur. It was a road which ran parallel with the railway and would, one day, be driven right through to Delhi.

  Encumbered by a stick, it was not easy for him to shut the gate and shoot its great iron bolt. He felt tired and was thankful to reach his couch again, to lie down under the slowly turning ceiling fan.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  John rose early the next morning, with the intention of working steadily through the day. He felt restless, however, and found himself doodling idly in the dust deposited on his desk by the dust storm the previous night.

  The storm had begun soon after Tilak had left. The wind had howled round the small bungalow, like a lonely ghost. It had stirred up a dust so thick that windows and doors had had to be shut tightly, to avoid near suffocation. This morning, every leaf on the trees in the compound had a thick coating of dust balanced precariously on it. Inside the building, a fine powder lay on every floor and ledge; food tasted gritty and hair and skin felt dry and uncomfortable.

  ‘Ranjit!’ John shouted. ‘Come and clean this room – it’s not fit for a dog. Get the chattya wetted, to cool the place.’

  ‘Ji,’ came a resigned response from the back veranda. Brass dishes clattered against the stone floor, as Ranjit stopped doing the washing up and found his duster. Then John heard him shriek across the compound to Ramji, the sweeper, to bring his broom; Ranjit himself would not touch a broom – he was high-caste.

  Ranjit appeared at the veranda door and surveyed his fretful master. ‘Sahib, do your legs hurt?’ he inquired solicitously. ‘When I go to the bazaar, shall I ask the Doctor Sahib to come?’

  ‘It’s not my legs this time, Ranjit; my brain won’t work.’ He pressed his hands over his eyes. ‘I can walk fairly well now with only one stick. In fact, I think I’ll go for a walk.’

  Ranjit grunted agreement. So that he could dust, he piled all the books and papers on the desk into one tottering tower. Ramji came in silently and began to sweep, shuffling across the floor in a squatting position, the soft fronds of his
broom making a sighing sound on the stone flags.

  As Ranjit removed the cover from the typewriter and shook the dust off it, he remarked, ‘That murder on the Mail train was a bad business.’

  John was halfway into a clean shirt and his voice came muffled through the cotton cloth. ‘What murder?’

  Ranjit ran his duster along the window sill, and Ramji clucked as the dust fell where he had already swept.

  ‘You haven’t heard, Sahib?’

  ‘I haven’t been out today. How will I know if you haven’t told me?’ A flushed face emerged through the neck of the shirt. ‘Who’s been murdered?’

  Ranjit paused in his work and twisted his moustache thoughtfully before he answered, ‘An English lady travelling on the Delhi Mail.’

  ‘Not Miss Armstrong?’

  Surprised at the sharp concern in his master’s voice, Ranjit hastened to reassure him. ‘No, no, Sahib. That was not the name. She was going up from Bombay in the First Class – a stupid place to travel, Sahib. It’s where thieves will go first – she should have gone in the Ladies’ Compartment.’

  John smiled, as he buttoned up his shirt. It was true that when trains were held up, the Ladies’ Compartment, full of screaming women, all of whom would have sent their valuable jewellery ahead by post, was not usually tackled by thieves.

  ‘Where did this happen?’ he asked.

  ‘About four miles up the line, Sahib. You know where the train curves into that cutting? – I think it’s called Ambawadi.’

  ‘A good spot,’ said John.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ranjit, ‘Harichandra says there were many of them, some on horseback, some travelling on the train, and they –’

  ‘On horseback? I saw four men on horses pass, when I was seeing Dr Tilak out of the gate last night.’

  Ranjit stopped dusting, and Ramji looked up and gaped at John.

  ‘Did you, Sahib? It could have been some of the Sindhi refugees – some of them brought horses when they came, and have made a little business trading in them – but horses are not very commonly ridden here, Sahib, are they? They are mostly for pulling carriages.’

  ‘Yes,’ said John. ‘Perhaps it was just some Sindhis taking horses to a customer.’

  He ran his fingers through his hair to straighten it. ‘Make something with puris for lunch,’ he instructed. ‘I’ll go for a walk round the campus and maybe call on Dr Tilak.’

  ‘Ji, hun,’ agreed Ranjit. ‘The campus will be the only place free of police today.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll scour round this district as well?’

  ‘They will come bothering and badgering, no doubt, Sahib. Locusts!’

  ‘Tut, Ranjit. They have to work fast, or the dacoits will be out of the province before they can say Jack Robinson.’

  Ranjit opened the door and Ramji continued his sweeping across the front veranda. He grunted. ‘Police – work?’

  John laughed, and went out into the merciless sunshine. Although it was hot, the air smelled sweet after the storm, and he began to whistle cheerfully, as he wandered along the lane. From inside the houses he passed he could hear the lively chatter of women’s voices and the thud-thud of spices being pounded. The dhobi, bent nearly double by the great bundle of washing on his back, saluted him. Children stopped their play to listen to his whistle, fascinated at the strange, sweet sound, and he called a cheerful ‘Hullo’ to those he knew. It was a pleasant morning and his spirits rose.

  He found Tilak emerging from a lecture room, followed by a crowd of students who drifted down the corridor, their shirt tails wafting gently behind them. They were all talking at once, their voices as shrill as cockatoos’.

  Tilak drew John into the welcome quiet of his small laboratory which, he informed him, he had found unlocked that morning. He bade him sit down on a stool, while he washed the chalk from his hands.

  ‘My frog and fish seem to have sparked a great debate,’ he remarked, as he dried his hands on an old duster. ‘The families of some of the students are really orthodox, and their relations are making a fuss. They don’t want their children to take such Courses.’

  ‘O, Lord,’ groaned John sympathetically.

  Tilak flung the duster into a corner.

  ‘The old folk want the impossible,’ he said. ‘They want their young men to get enough training to put them into the better paid Government jobs, without their usual way of life being upset. It’s the same everywhere.’

  ‘Surely, it’s only amongst the Jains that you would find it. And you have to remember that they are really a very cultured people. Seeking work outside their traditional occupations is new to them.’

  ‘A pack of village moneylenders,’ snorted Tilak.

  John laughed. ‘Come, Tilak,’ he said. ‘It’s not so bad. They’ll get used to you. After all, you must have had a battle with your family to get permission to take up research.’

  ‘No. Father went to Cambridge,’ replied Tilak tartly. ‘He did physics.’

  John felt snubbed, but he managed to say, ‘That must have made your path much easier.’

  Tilak caught the slight sarcasm in his friend’s voice, and repented his sharpness.

  ‘It didn’t,’ he said with a rueful laugh. ‘He was insisting all the time that I take physics.’

  John relaxed and laughed, too. ‘Do you want to do some work now?’ he inquired. ‘If so, I’ll leave you.’

  ‘I prepare my lectures at home. Like to walk over with me? I can offer you some coffee.’

  John assented, and they went out together and walked through the flower gardens in front of the building.

  On the lawns, water-sprinklers slowly revolved, with an opulence which always made passing villagers stop to gape, because they themselves were so short of water. Blackbirds hopped in and out of the gentle downpour and the flowers glittered with tiny droplets; their perfume in the desert air seemed strange and exotic to John.

  Tilak interrupted his thoughts by saying, ‘Mother and Damyanti went home to Bombay this morning. They caught the nine o’clock train.’

  ‘Really?’ exclaimed John.

  ‘Yes. They missed the gaiety of Bombay – and the heat here was hard on mother. I suppose I must get myself a servant.’

  ‘I can imagine their being homesick.’

  ‘Can you? Is it that you are homesick for England?’

  ‘No. When I was in prison, I used to be homesick for Shahpur!’

  Tilak laughed, disbelievingly. ‘That is not possible. I wish I had never seen the place. You were in prison?’

  ‘I was a prisoner of war.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Tilak, highly interested. ‘I once did three months for participation in a riot.’

  ‘All the best people in India have been in jail.’

  ‘True,’ replied Tilak. ‘How else would we have got Independence?’

  They came on to the road which bordered the campus. Students were standing about in sullen groups, all apparently engrossed in shrill argument. On the verge, a group of villagers was squatting in a circle, resting for a while from their long walk to town. As they leaned towards each other and gave respectful attention to an old man haranguing them, their big, ruby-red turbans looked like great raspberries ripening in the sun. Their red-clad womenfolk sat placidly behind the men, gossiping amongst themselves, while their half-naked children, oblivious of the heat, darted about like minnows in a stream.

  John paused and regarded the scene lovingly. So colourful, so sane.

  ‘Arree!’ shouted Tilak suddenly. He stumbled and clutched at one shoulder.

  John jumped, and turned to him in astonishment. ‘What happened?’

  Tilak picked up a half brick. ‘This,’ he said grimly. ‘It was thrown at me.’

  John’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Good heavens!’ He turned swiftly to look back along the road.

  The groups of students were melting rapidly away; those who had bicycles had already mounted them and were pedalling hard into the distance.

  The vi
llagers had shot to their feet and were staring aghast at the two men. Except for squawking crows, there was a profound silence.

  ‘Did you see who threw that brick?’ John called to the nearest villager, a middle-aged man.

  ‘No, Sahib.’ His face looked like a dried raisin, and he fluttered work-roughened hands. John could well imagine the panicky fears of accusation going through the man’s head; fears of arrest, of beatings, of a fine levied against his village. He would never open his mouth.

  John turned back to Tilak, who stood looking down at the brick in his hand. With the other hand, he ruefully rubbed his back.

  ‘Are you much hurt?’ John asked, in some anxiety. ‘Turn round. Let me see your back.’

  ‘I’m only bruised, I believe,’ Tilak answered, as he turned. ‘My frog is avenged, I think.’ He dropped the brick in the dusty road.

  There was some blood on Tilak’s shirt, so John said, ‘Let’s get back to your room, so that you can take off your shirt and I can see better what the damage is. Are you steady enough to walk?’ He put his hand under Tilak’s elbow, and they continued slowly towards the hostel. ‘I don’t think a villager threw that brick – they would not dare to,’ John continued. ‘It was a student, all right. We’ll get the Dean to institute an inquiry – he’ll find the young devil.’

  ‘The Dean?’ exploded Tilak. ‘No, John. I’m grateful to the brick-thrower – he’s made up my mind for me.’ He stopped and faced John. ‘I’d like to be alone,’ he said, his expression sad and disillusioned. ‘I’m not badly hurt.’

  ‘Of course, if you wish it.’ John bit his lower lip. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right? Don’t do anything rash, will you?’

  ‘My friend, sometimes one must grasp life by its shirt tail. Otherwise, it flashes past before you realize it.’ He raised his hand in salute and left John to ruminate over this cryptic remark, while he strode away towards the students’ hostel and his empty rooms.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When John approached the gate of his compound he was surprised to see Ranjit squatting outside it, when it was reasonable to suppose that he would be on the back veranda preparing lunch. John quickened his step, and, as he approached Ranjit, he observed an unusually tense, tight-lipped look about him.