by M. M. Kaye
There had also been a word that stood for his mother's quarters, but he could not remember it: or their signals either, for though the outline of those remained, the details had been lost in the debris of the years and try as he would he could not recapture them. It was only when he had given up the attempt that suddenly, lying awake one night, the lost word slid unbidden into his mind: Hanuman. Of course: Hanuman the Monkey-God, whose legions had made a living bridge across the sea to Lanka, each holding his neighbour's tail so that Rama might cross in safety to rescue his wife Sita, kidnapped and held prisoner there by a Demon.
Did Juli remember that? Or had she been too young? Yet she had remembered so much – far more than he had done – and her response to his oblique conversation had made it clear that she had not forgotten their old method of communicating with each other when they were not alone. Perhaps he could make use of it again and press his advantage one step further. It was worth trying, thought Ash; and he had tried it on the following evening. But this time Juli had made no response, or given any sign that she understood him or remembered, and though she did not avoid his gaze, she could not have been said to return it.
Ash went back to his tent feeling tired and defeated, and was rude to Mahdoo and short with Gul Baz. And when later that night the dai scratched timidly on the canvas, he called out to her to go away, saying he was no longer in need of treatment and did not wish to see anyone. In proof of which he reached out and deliberately extinguished the lamp, knowing that she could not work in the dark and must accept the dismissal without argument – not that he imagined for a moment that she would think of arguing it. But apparently the dai possessed more obstinacy than he had credited her with, for the darkness thinned as the canvas was pushed aside and a bright bar of moonlight accompanied the familiar shrouded figure into the tent.
Ash raised himself on one elbow and repeated crossly that he did not need her that night and would she please go away and leave him in peace, and the woman said softly: ‘But you yourself told me to come.’
It seemed to Ash as though his heart tried to jump into his throat so that for a moment he could not breathe or speak, and the next instant it had jerked back again and was hammering so wildly that he thought she must hear it. ‘Juli –!’
There was a ghost of a laugh; a familiar laugh but with an odd catch in it, and his uninjured hand shot out to clutch a fold of coarse cotton and grip it as though he was afraid she would vanish as silently as she had come.
Anjuli said: ‘Did you not mean me to come? You spoke of Hanuman, and that was always our word for your courtyard.’
‘My mother's,’ corrected Ash involuntarily.
‘Yours too. And as she is gone it could now have only meant one place. Your tent. That is right is it not?’
‘Yes. But you were only a child – a baby. How could you possibly have remembered?’
‘It was not difficult. Once you and your mother had gone, there was nothing else for me to do but remember.’
She had spoken quite matter-of-factly, but that brief sentence brought home to him as never before how lonely those years must have been for her, and once again he found that there was a lump in his throat and he could not speak.
Anjuli could not have seen his face, but she seemed to have followed his thought, for she said gently: ‘Do not let it trouble you. I learned not to mind.’
Perhaps she had indeed done so. But he found that he minded – that he minded unbearably. It appalled him to think of the child Juli left cruelly alone and neglected, with nothing to live for but memories and the hope that he could keep his promise and return. How long had it been, he wondered, before she gave up hoping?
Anjuli said: ‘And you too remembered.’
But that was not entirely true. In fact had it not been for Biju Ram, he might still not have known who she was, let alone recalled the old game of double-talk and the code-words that he himself had invented. Ash cleared his throat and spoke with an effort: ‘Yes. But I did not know if you would remember… if you would understand.’ And then, suddenly, panic gripped him as he realized for the first time, the stupidity and selfishness of what he had done. ‘You shouldn't have come here. It's too dangerous.’
‘Then why did you ask me to?’
‘Because I didn't dream that you would. That you could.’
‘But it was very simple,’ explained Anjuli. ‘I had only to borrow one of old Geeta's bourkas and persuade her to let me come in her stead. She is fond of me because I once did her a favour. And I have come before, you know.’
‘Then it was you – on the first night after the accident. I was sure it was, but Mulraj said it was only the dai and I -’
‘He did not know,’ said Anjuli. ‘I came with Geeta because I had been angry with you for being – for behaving like a Sahib. And because you had not thought of me for years while I – I…’
‘I know. I'm sorry Juli. I thought you might never want to speak to me again.’
‘Perhaps I would not have done if you had not been injured. But I thought you might be dying, and so I made Geeta bring me with her. I came with her more than once, and sat outside in the darkness while she worked over you.’
‘Why, Juli? Why?’ Ash's grip tightened on the fold of cloth, jerking at it imperatively, and Anjuli said slowly: ‘I suppose – to hear your voice. So that I could be sure that you were really who you said you were.’
‘Ashok.’
‘Yes, my brother Ashok. My only brother.’
‘Your –?’
‘My bracelet-brother. Had you forgotten that? I had not. Ashok always seemed more my true brother than Lalji ever was – or Nandu or Jhoti. It was always as though he were my only brother.’
‘Was it?’ Ash sounded oddly disconcerted. ‘And are you now sure that I am that same Ashok?’
‘Of course. Would I be here if I were not?’
Ash pulled at the cotton bourka to draw her nearer, and said impatiently: ‘Take this thing off and light the lamp. I want to look at you.’
But Anjuli only laughed and shook her head. ‘No. That would indeed be dangerous; and very foolish too, for if someone were to surprise us they would only think that I was old Geeta, and as she seldom speaks, I would be safe. Loose me now, and I will sit here for a space and talk to you. It is easier to talk thus, in the dark; for while I cannot see your face, or you mine, we can make believe to be Ashok and Juli again, and not Pelham-Sahib, who is an Angrezi, or the Rajkumari Anjuli-Bai who is to be –’
She stopped a little abruptly, and leaving the sentence unfinished, subsided onto the carpet to sit cross-legged and comfortable beside the camp bed: a pale, shapeless form that might have been a ghost – or a bundle of washing.
Later on, trying to recall what they had talked of, it seemed to Ash that they had talked of everything. Yet no sooner had she gone than he remembered a hundred things he had meant to ask or forgotten to say, and he would have given anything to call her back. But he knew that he would see her again somehow, and there was enormous comfort in that. He had no idea how long she had stayed, for there had been so much to tell that they had lost count of time. But the bar of moonlight from the open tent-flap had crept upward until it showed him the small square of coarse mesh that concealed Juli's eyes, and he could catch a glint of them as she smiled or turned her head. A little later it lay in a pale lozenge on the roof above her head, and later still, as the moon reached its zenith, it vanished altogether, and left them in darkness with only the glimmer of stars showing in the segment of sky beyond the tent door.
They spoke in whispers for fear of arousing Ash's servants, and had it not been for the intervention of the dai, Geeta, who taking her courage in both hands had scuttled through the silent camp to find out why her mistress had not returned, it is possible that they might have talked on into the dawn and never noticed it. But Geeta's anxious voice had jerked them abruptly back from the past and to a realization of the lateness of the hour, and of the risk that they ran; for neither
of them had heard her approach and it might well have been someone other than the old dai who tiptoed to the tent door while they talked.
Anjuli rose swiftly and moved to the doorway, blotting out the stars. ‘I'm coming, Geeta. Goodnight, my brother. Sleep well.’
‘But you will come again, won't you?’
‘If it is possible. But even if not, we shall see each other often in the durbar tent.’
‘What is the good of that? I can't talk to you there.’
‘Oh yes you can. As we used to do in the old days, and as you did tonight. It is late, brother. I must go.’
‘Juli, wait –’ His hand went out in the darkness, but she had moved out of reach, and a moment later he could see the stars again and though he had heard no sound he knew that she had gone.
20
Ash leaned back against the pillows and stared out at the night sky, brooding with dismay on that word ‘brother’. Was that really how she thought of him? He supposed that she must. And if that was why she felt free to visit him, he ought not to complain. But he did not think of her as a sister – though honesty compelled him to admit that he had certainly treated her as one, both in his neglect for her feelings and his forgetfulness of her existence. Yet the last thing he wanted from her now was sisterly affection, even though he realized that as long as she thought of him as a brother they were comparatively safe, while should their relationship change to anything deeper, the dangers ahead were incalculable.
He lay awake for a long time, making plans and discarding them, but when at last he fell asleep, only one thing was still clear to him: the need for caution. He would have to be very careful – for Juli's sake more than his own, though he was well aware of the peril in which he would lie should anyone suspect that his feelings towards one of the brides whom he had been charged with conveying to their wedding were far from detached.
He had not needed Mulraj to point out to him how easy it would be for young Jhoti to die on the march – ostensibly from an accident – without any inquiry being made by the British authorities; and he knew that it would be equally easy for his own death to be arranged. There were so many ways in which a man could die in India, and provided he were to do so at some stage in the journey where the camp was conveniently out of reach of an English doctor or anyone else capable of giving a professional opinion on his corpse before heat, vultures and jackals had effectively disposed of it, his murderers would run no risk of being found out. Nor would his death be a lingering one, as for their own sakes they would kill him quickly. But it would be otherwise with Juli.
Ash remembered the tale of the cheetah that Nandu had burned alive because it had lost him a wager, and he shivered at the thought of what might be done to Juli. Whatever happened, she must not risk coming to his tent again. They would have to find some other way of meeting – for if she imagined for a moment that he would be content to see her only in the presence of her relations and her women in the durbar tent, she was very much mistaken. Nevertheless, they must be careful…
On that decision, Ash fell asleep. And waking in the cheerful sunlight of another idle, cloudless morning, straightway abandoned it. The dangers that had been so easy to visualize in the darkness seemed far less menacing by daylight, and by the time he was carried to the evening meeting in the durbar tent and saw her smile at him as she sketched the familiar gesture of greeting, he had forgotten his good resolutions and decided that she must come just once more, if only so that he could explain to her why she must never come again, which was something that he found too difficult to convey to her by oblique and roundabout methods.
Three hours later she was seated on the end of his camp bed while old Geeta crouched in the shadows among the guy-ropes outside and kept watch, trembling with anxiety and muttering prayers to a variety of gods. But Ash had not succeeded in making Juli see the rashness of her behaviour.
‘Are you afraid that Geeta will talk? I promise you she will not. And she is so deaf that we would have to talk much louder than this before she could hear what we were saying.’
‘That is not the point, and you know it!’ said Ash. ‘What matters is that you are here, and you should not be. What could you say if you were discovered?’
Anjuli laughed at him and said lightly that there was not the least danger of her being discovered there, but that even if she were, no great harm would result from it. ‘For has it not been agreed that you are now as our brother, having done us all great service in rescuing my sister and myself from the river, and injuring yourself in attempting to save our little brother from death? And should a sister not be permitted to visit a sick brother? Particularly when she comes after dark when strangers cannot gape at her, and is accompanied by an elderly and respectable widow.’
‘But I am not your brother,’ said Ash angrily. He would have liked to add that he had no wish to be, but as this did not seem to be an appropriate moment to say so, he said instead: ‘You are talking like a child! and if you were still one this would not matter, but the trouble is that you are not. You are a woman grown, and it is not fitting that you should come to my tent alone. You must know that.’
‘Surely,’ agreed Anjuli; and though he could not see her face for the darkness and the bourka that she still wore, he knew that she was smiling. ‘I am not entirely foolish. But if I am discovered here I can pretend to be. I shall say what I have just said to you, and though I shall be severely scolded and forbidden to come again, that is the worst that would happen.’
‘To you, perhaps,’ retorted Ash. ‘But what about me? Would anyone believe that I – or any man for that matter – can see no harm in entertaining a woman in the privacy of my tent and by night?’
‘But then you are not a man,’ said Anjuli sweetly.
‘I 'm not – What the devil do you mean?’ demanded Ash, justly incensed.
‘Only not in the way you meant,’ explained Anjuli soothingly. ‘Or not at present. My uncle himself has said that no woman could possibly consider herself endangered by the presence of an invalid who was trussed like a fowl in splints and bandages and incapable of moving freely.’
‘Thank you,’ observed Ash caustically.
‘But it is true. When you are well again it will be different. But at present you could hardly be suspected of doing any harm to my virtue, even if you wished to.’
Ash could think of no adequate retort, though he knew that it was not as simple as all that, and that even the kindly Kaka-ji would not take a lenient view of his niece's behaviour, or his own either. But the temptation to let Juli stay was too great, and he made no further attempt to send her away or discourage any further visits. She had not stayed very long that night, nor had she allowed him to dispense with the dai's treatment. She had sent the old lady in to knead and massage him while she herself waited outside in the moonlight, and the two had left together. But despite Geeta's ministrations, Ash had once again endured a wakeful night.
He was in no hurry to get the camp on the move again, but there were a great many disadvantages in letting it remain for too long in one place; not the least of them being the risk of depleting the surrounding countryside of food and fodder. He had no desire to risk a repetition of the situation that he had found on his arrival at Deenagunj, and he also knew that the presence of so large a number of men and animals encamped in one spot would be bound to foul the locality to an extent that would soon become painfully noticeable. Already the wind blowing in through his tent door had brought him warning of this. Yet as long as they stayed there, Juli would probably continue to visit him, while once they moved on it might not be too easy. For that reason alone he would have given anything to stay, but he could not bring himself to disregard his responsibilities to the camp, and on the following morning he discussed the matter with Mulraj and informed Gobind that he was now perfectly capable of travelling; not on horseback, possibly, but in one of the baggage carts or on an elephant.
Gobind had been dubious, but after some argument had given way o
n condition that Pelham-Sahib allowed himself to be carried in a palkee, and a sedan having been procured, orders had gone out that the camp would march next day.
The decision had been generally welcomed, though not by the younger bride, who only a few days ago had been complaining of the inaction, yet now that they would shortly be on the move again, was reminded by all the bustle and preparation of what awaited her at their journey's end. Thinking of it, she wept and wrung her hands and clung to her sister for comfort, wailing that she felt ill and that the very thought of having to travel in that hot, stuffy ruth again was more than she could bear.
There had been no meeting in the durbar tent that evening, and later the dai had arrived alone and overcome her timidity sufficiently to whisper that Anjuli-Bai sent her salaams and regretted that she would not be able to visit the Sahib that night, or on the next one either. But during the following week she came nightly, though her visits were brief and she did not come alone, but always with Geeta, who would treat Ash and then retire out of earshot to wait while her mistress and the Sahib talked together.
The old lady's hearing might be poor, but her eyesight was still excellent, and her fears made her an admirable watch-dog, for the smallest movement attracted her attention. Her nervous little cough signalled a warning if anyone came too near, and the two in the tent would fall silent. But no one interrupted them, and Ash's servants, who would not have allowed anyone else to approach unchallenged, were used to the sight of the dai and the lateness of her visits, and being aware of her timidity were not surprised that she had taken to bringing a companion with her. They saw the women arrive and leave again, and were not troubled.
The friendly sessions in the durbar tent were no longer an accepted part of each day, for after long hours spent in a closed ruth, Shushila was often too weary for company. The roads, where they existed, were little better than cart-tracks between villages, and where there were none the surface of the plain was almost preferable. On both, the dust lay thick and the hooves of the trotting bullocks stirred it up in choking clouds that forced their way between the closely drawn curtains of the ruth, covering everything within, clothing, cushions, hands, faces and hair, with a thin grey film of grit.
