‘She jilted me,’ he said with a tremor on his lower lip. ‘She scolded me about having seen Indira and she turned me out of her room. She seemed insane with jealousy. Something has come over her.’
‘She is only pretending to be jealous of Indira,’ I said, my eyes riveted on the rough, serpentine road ahead of me.
I laughed a little and added:
‘I think you are exaggerating there. You really mean that her emotions towards you are changing, not—’
‘Han, I have been feeling that there are certain currents in her. . . . She is going away from me. She did this at the time of her affair with my cousin. She maintained the outer relations with me, but inside she was with him. I could see it in her eyes and in the way she hung on his words, teasing him and being teased by him. And then she would become impatient and irritable with me over small things. And sometimes she was furious with me and looked at me with a hard glint in her eyes. And I felt so surprised to see her change, because there had been no occasion for a quarrel. And I wondered why she had suddenly begun to hate me so, and why she was being so cruel to me. I looked at her appealingly, asking for pity. And she would relent a little. But then she would begin to harden herself against me once more and thrust me away into the mire of suspicion and uncertainty. . . . I feel she is doing the same now. I think she is scheming against me. I know she is drifting. That is why she would not let me sleep with her last night. But I wonder why she sent the ayah to call me if she only wanted to drive me away. I am beginning to believe that—’
‘I think your difficulties with her have just begun.’
Victor seemed rather shocked when I said this, though he knew that what I said was only a confirmation of his own familiar feelings. The surprised anguish in his face reflected, I felt, his dread of the fact that she might leave him.
‘Do you really think that she might leave me?’
I did not answer this question, because I knew it would torment him for days if I answered in the affirmative. I tried to soothe him by asking him another question instead.
‘Why do you care for her so much?’
‘You know, there have been times when she has been dependent on me, so possessive that I could not even breathe. I was all in all to her. And during those days I could not be free of her. In fact, even now, in that way I know she is still possessive and would like to keep me firmly in her hold. But somehow, somewhere, she has also decided to resist me and throw me away. And the two feelings are quarrelling in her.’
‘And I suppose that though you did not worry when you could take her for granted, you are now unhappy that she wants you and yet doesn’t want you. You are both evenly matched in this war.’
‘But you don’t see, Hari, that I can’t do without her. I can’t rest without her. I need a woman. And she is that woman. I need her support. What with all the troubles of the state I need her by me now especially. And it is terrible that she should treat me as she did last night. I could have hit her for insulting me like that. Oh, I feel mad at the very thought of her rejection of me.’
Victor’s voice rose as he said this. And I could sense the bitterness that was rising like a flaming fire in him. In all his explanations he had not mentioned that he wanted her physically also, and I knew that there was a strong pull of the wanton in her for him. So I asked him:
‘Is there any residue of sex which has not yet been appeased?’
‘Of course,’ he answered. ‘As I have always been ailing, I have not even begun to give free rein to our love. At first her children came. And then it took me some time to forget about Raghbir Singh. And she is so highly sexed that she would approach me all in a mad passion and not have the patience to prolong our pleasures by talking about things and adjusting ourselves together.’
‘Well,’ I said, embarrassed by his revelations and yet marvelling at his honesty, ‘from the dust out there, I guess the infantry of Brigadier-General Chaudhri Raghbir Singh is ahead of us.’
‘You know, I would not like to lose her,’ Victor continued. ‘And yet an appalling fear grips me, the fear of a life without her, as though I am swimming in a sea without a raft.’
‘Hullo,’ I said. ‘I hear the sound of firing. The convoys seem to have come to a standstill.’
‘What do you think is the matter?’ Victor asked, nervous and impatient. I slowed up a little but kept driving steadily across the incline of the hilly road and soon we emerged past the sarcophagus of the jungle, away from the funereal halls of tall shafts and tendrils of dense greenery, interspersed with small clearings and cool bowers.
Presently two sepoys put up their hands to stop us at the head of a bridge. As soon as they recognized His Highness they stood at attention and saluted.
‘What’s happened?’ His Highness asked.
‘Don’t know, Maharaj,’ one of the sepoys said, looking straight in front of him as he still stood at attention.
‘Son of don’t know—why don’t you know?’ shouted His Highness, angry at the stupidity of the sepoy.
But an officer—a Captain, from the pips on his shoulder—came running up from the other end of the bridge and, saluting perfunctorily, said:
‘There are some Communist guerillas, sir, sniping from the two sides of the hills beyond the village of Panna there. And they have held up our convoy.’
‘But we want to get to the Panna hunting lodge,’ His Highness said.
‘It is not very safe, Highness,’ the Captain said.
‘We must go! What is this?’ His Highness’s Rajput blood was up.
‘Well, sir, you can make a detour by the track from Panna which emerges near the hunting lodge; but we will have to give you the escort of a platoon. I will go and detail off a platoon.’
‘These Communists must be wiped out!’ His Highness burst out like an angry boy. ‘It is a good thing I ordered the manoeuvres. . . . Captain Sahib, where is General Raghbir Singh? Please ask him to meet me by the cross-roads before Panna.’
The Captain saluted and about-turned with a dramatic alacrity.
But he did not need to go and inform General Raghbir Singh. The invisible wireless, which is rumour in India, had already communicated to the Commander-in-Chief news of the arrival of the Maharaja, for his car was hurrying along towards us across the bridge.
We got out in time for General Raghbir Singh to come out of his car and greet us.
‘I congratulate Your Highness on your sagacity in ordering these manoeuvres, because there is trouble in the villages,’ General Raghbir Singh said in a flattering tone.
‘I shall not rest till every Communist is destroyed!’ His Highness said histrionically.
‘Of course, the sardars are also behind the disturbances,’ General Raghbir Singh said to sober His Highness. And then, realizing that Victor might feel he was trying to create differences between him and his cousins, the noblemen, the Commander-in-Chief added: ‘I think they are themselves divided. And yet all of them are inclined towards the Congress Praja Mandal. And the Praja Mandal seems to have Communists in it, though the two parties hate each other.’
‘I shall destroy the sardars too! What do they think they are, to defy me! Swine!’
Victor was working himself into a rage. But he saw the strong, relatively undisturbed face of his cousin, Raghbir Singh, and felt a little abashed about his hysterics. So he changed his tune:
‘I should like to see Thakur Parduman Singh. After all, he is an old man and in the position of an uncle to me. He may see that the States Department is threatening the very existence of Sham Pur!’
‘Han, Highness,’ said Raghbir Singh. ‘We must see all the three sardars: only, we must see them separately. I shall send a message to Thakur Parduman Singh. I hear he is at Udham Pur, which is only seven miles from the hunting lodge.’
‘Acha, we will proceed there,’ Victor said. ‘It is all the same to me whether they come together or singly.’
‘Huzoor, it is easier to settle them one by one,’ suggested Raghb
ir Singh with instinctive cunning.
‘Han, it is easier to destroy them one by one,’ agreed His Highness.
‘I shall go and order an escort for your car, Highness,’ said General Raghbir Singh.
He came to attention, saluted and turned.
Already a procession of armoured cars, tanks and jeeps was advancing towards us. So General Raghbir Singh walked up towards the bridge to give the necessary orders.
The hunting lodge was about a mile and a half away from the village of Panna, a majestic wooden bungalow in the Nepalese-Chinese style, situated on the edge of the wood, a kind of last outpost of human existence before the vegetable and animal world took over. The walls of the ample veranda were covered with tiger, panther and cheetah skins, interspersed with the heads of stags and deer, all trophies of the hunt of the last two or three generations. And somehow, after the miles of wilderness of matted thorns and weeds and flat paddy fields around Sham Pur, one felt suddenly ushered into the tangled web of scrub and shrub and a dense green hell which was frightening as well as fascinating to me for the dangers it might hold.
Actually, I knew that there was no possibility of a tiger walking in. Rather, I felt that one might be surrounded by the guerillas here and be cut off from all contact with the world and be heard of no more. For, the luxury of this lodge, with its beautiful oak furniture and its chests and, what was more important, its arsenal of guns, made it an obvious target for the armed bands composed of the discontented villagers who were in revolt against poverty and forced labour, which took thousands of them away from their fields to serve as beaters and camp-followers during a hunt at the summons of any lackey of the Maharaja.
I also realized that the three noblemen, who were in league with the Praja Mandal, seemed determined to destroy the Maharaja, considering that they had joined hands even with the Communist guerillas in open armed rebellion against the state. And our escort of one platoon was nowhere near enough, should the guerillas attack us.
I roamed around warily on the beautifully kept lawns of the lodge, while Victor finished his toilet. And then, while he went out looking for pigeons and wild doves in the niches and gables of the beautiful roof of the hunting lodge, I went and bathed.
When I emerged I was suddenly accosted by a dishevelled young man who said:
‘Dr Shankar, leave the Maharaja and come over to us—you know your heart is with us!’
And, saying this, the lad made off.
I was unnerved for a moment and followed his slouching gait, trying to remember his features. But he had fled.
His Highness was a good shot and had felled six big and beautiful pigeons by the time I returned to the veranda.
I found that his morale was up with his success with the birds, and he brought an enormous zest to the breakfast which was served to us by the permanent cook-bearer, Khuda Bux, who was attached to the lodge.
‘Tell me, then, Khuda Bux, how are things with you?’ Victor asked the benign old man with the broad, flat face. ‘And what has happened to your henna-dyed beard?’
‘By Allah, I am loyal to your Highness, even as I have loyally served your father and grandfather. Only, being a Mussulman by birth, I seem to have come under suspicion of the Hindu villagers. And for the last few months, Huzoor, ever since the riots, I have been living in continual fear of being murdered. There is much that goes on in Panna and Udham Pur that does not reach your ears, sire. But when the headman, the Jagirdar himself—forgive me, Maharaj, already I have become impertinent! . . .’
‘No, no, go on, and tell me everything.’
‘Huzoor, almost all the Muslims in Udham Pur were murdered, some months ago, except those who ran away. And to tell you the truth, Maharaj, that is why I had my beard shaved off. And, Huzoor, how shall I tell you? . . . But I saved myself by falling at the feet of your uncle, the Thakur Sahib of Udham Pur. I told him that I would become a convert to the Hindu faith and—tobah! tobah!—by assuring him that I—oh, I can’t even tell you the truth! That I, who have eaten your salt, should have uttered those words! Please forgive, Maharaj. . . .’
‘Tell me, tell me, Khuda Bux.’
‘Maharaj, I told him I would tell him all about you. But I had every intention of getting to know all about him and telling you, my sire!’
‘So you betrayed my salt!’ said Victor teasingly.
I was surprised that he was not angry or suspicious about Khuda Bux, in spite of this khansamah’s revelations about his treachery. But I knew that Victor had an instinctive love of intrigue and was waiting to judge to whom Khuda Bux had been more loyal.
‘Maharaj, how can I ever betray your salt!’ continued Khuda Bux. ‘To be sure, these murders made one lose one’s izzat! I had to have my beard cut, and crawl before a fanatical Hindu like Thakur Sahib, and even to get converted! But I could never betray your salt. In fact, I have gleaned enough about the real feelings of Thakur Sahib about you to tell you, Huzoor, to be careful of him.’
‘And what have you gleaned?’ asked Victor. ‘But, look here, khansamah, I wanted to have those pigeons curried for breakfast and you are here talking away. . . .’
‘Huzoor, the pigeons are being done by Damru,’ assured Khuda Bux. ‘I will go and fetch them.’
‘Oh no, you leave them now for lunch and tell me about my uncle.’
‘What shall I say, Huzoor,’ apologized Khuda Bux. And he looked aside as though unable to record any unpleasant facts about His Highness, lest it be inferred that he agreed with the Maharaja’s enemies.
While Khuda Bux was making up his mind, Victor sighed heavily and, with a sudden gesture of his head, said to me:
‘I don’t know why Gangi is doing this to me. She doesn’t realize that I would do anything for her.’
‘Cruelty is a fundamental habit with a neurotic,’ I said. ‘And it is precisely because she knows that you would do anything for her that she is doing this to you.’
What I said seemed to carry conviction with him and he hung his head down.
‘Thakur Sahib is after those lands by the Sutlej river which he says were to be divided between your father and the Thakur Sahib’s wife, your aunt,’ began Khuda Bux, as though he was talking on his own. ‘He says that there is a document somewhere in the Sarkar’s office which proves his claim. And, according to him, you say the document cannot be found. . . .’
‘Does the swine accuse me of stealing it?’ Victor snarled as he got up. And his eyes flashed even like those of the tigers and panthers who stared out of the walls.
‘The other two thakurs, Mahan Chand and Shiv Ram Singh, used often to come down to the house of Thakur Parduman Singh, Huzoor. And they all drank hemp together and abused your sacred person.’
‘I know, I know. I know that every man’s hand is turned against me!’
‘What is their complaint?’ I asked Khuda Bux.
‘Sahib, it is heard that they claim the right to the Sham Pur Palace in Benares and to the properties in Delhi, Lahore, Amritsar, Haridwar, Bombay and some part of the lands on the Sutlej—according to the same missing document.’
I reflected on the nature of the heritage over which these cousins were fighting like dogs over a bone, and the ironic fact that all that they were fighting for was threatened not so much by the Praja Mandal but by the Communists. It was strange how the privileged fought over their position and power even in the face of disaster, right till the end, in a mad scramble to which they were driven by urges, desires and fears, which were only heightened by disruption.
‘All this shooting is being helped by the thakurs, Huzoor,’ said Khuda Bux. ‘And it is a good thing that you are here, and the Jarnel Sahib, and the foj. . . . The innocents will get heart. . . .’
‘Acha, acha, clear the table!’ ordered Victor impatiently. Khuda Bux bowed, salaamed and proceeded to clear the breakfast things.
Victor walked up to the door of the magnificent dining-room and looked out expectantly. Then, beaten back by the glare, he withdrew and came towards
me, wringing his hands and saying:
‘The unrest in the state has coincided with my difficulties at home. Why did this have to happen to me? I feel cornered!’
‘All one’s difficulties,’ I said, ‘arise from the greed of a weak stomach and the longing for women of a weak heart.’
‘Philosophizing won’t help,’ Victor said.
‘But concealing the truth won’t help either,’ I said. ‘Certainly, this is no way to get rid of fears and sorrows.’
‘How can I be free of them?’
‘I suppose if one limits one’s demands on life,’ I said without any conviction in my voice, ‘and faces the roots of one’s conflicts, one may become more or less free. Not by continually deceiving oneself, by being selfish, unjust, dissolute, discontented, envious and afraid. . . .’ I realized the harshness of my dictum and checked myself.
‘Go on, speak your mind. I deserve all this. So long as you don’t scold me too much.’
‘You were made too luxuriant a tree long before you were even a sapling. You grew to an awareness of sex before the proper season. . . .’
But there were voices in the veranda and I could not go on.
‘Where is this rape-daughter?’ came the shrill staccato hillman’s accent of Raja Parduman Singh’s voice. ‘I want to tell him that while he goes about womanizing, his subjects are in revolt. The whole praja is in revolt! And, rape-sister, he is not ashamed! . . .’
A wiry, dark little man, with a brave, upturned moustache, the Raja Sahib was a typical white-clad, feudal nobleman in his muslin robes, tight pyjamas and big turban.
‘His Highness is there,’ counselled General Raghbir Singh from behind the old man to calm him.
‘Han, Raja Sahib, don’t be so angry,’ said Thakur Mahan Chand, the replica of his elder brother, except that he was fairer and taller.
‘Han, uncle, let us at least hear what he has to say,’ advised Thakur Shiv Ram Singh, the youngest of the three noblemen, who was dressed dandily in an English sharkskin suit which was belied by the gold rings he wore in his ears.
‘Ohe, keep quiet, fools!’ shouted the old Raja. ‘Let me take this boy to task for ruining his patrimony. He has been spoilt! All of us have been too kind to him. He deserves a shoe beating! What a scandal he has created in Simla by raping that memni! And his carryings-on with that Brahmin whore, Ganga Dasi . . . ! I wonder if he has brought her here. I should like to drag that woman by the hair and throw her out of the state!’
Classic Mulk Raj Anand Page 65
