The Moneylenders of Shahpur. Helen Forrester
retiring girl and, presumably, imagined that she could not be seen from below or she would undoubtedly have dried her hair indoors; her Western education had failed to rob her of her modesty or dignity. Now, she stood, in all innocence, shaking out her wonderful tresses, and laughing and chattering with her friend, Savitri, who was seated on the low parapet which guarded the edge of the roof.
John thought what a contrast the two women made. Anasuyabehn had an inborn winsomeness, and, as she raised her arms to rub her hair, her fine figure was readily apparent; yet her laughing face and cheerful voice had all the ingenuousness of the carefully protected woman. She was no beauty; but he knew that when she felt at ease with people, she could be quite charming.
Savitri – well, Savitri was Savitri. Thin as a camel after a desert journey, hair cut short and permanently waved last time she had been in Bombay, large, horn-rimmed spectacles; an assertive woman, whose violent efforts to be modern sometimes had results which left her acquaintances gasping. Yet she and Anasuyabehn were old friends, products of the same school and the same college – but different parents, thought John. Though Savitri’s parents were Hindus, their home was almost completely European, while in Dean Mehta’s house, despite his study of English, many of the old Jain ways still lingered.
As he and Tilak came level with the bungalow, Anasuyabehn approached the parapet, and, parting her waterfall of hair with her hands, she looked out across the compound straight at Tilak.
Tilak stopped in his tracks, fascinated by the gentle, fair face, made stronger looking by sweeping black brows, and by the marvellous hair rippling down past the girl’s knees. In that unguarded moment she did, indeed, look very different from her usual modest self. Behind her, the leaves of an overhanging tree rustled and cast a dappled shade over her, guarding her from the searching rays of the sun.
She stood for a moment, as if captivated, and then, suddenly realizing her dishevelled state and the impropriety of staring at a man, she whipped away across the roof to the staircase.
Tilak continued to stare at the spot where she had stood, as if the shabby, white parapet had mesmerized him.
‘Heavens,’ he breathed in English, and then blinked and turned his face away, as he realized that he was being insolently scrutinized by Savitri, who was still seated on the low wall.
Embarrassed by this merciless examination, he turned to John and said in his stilted English, ‘What were you saying about the Vice-Chancellor and the Dean?’
John was also acquainted with Savitri. He gravely lifted his stick in salute to her. She smiled acknowledgment and he turned his attention again to Tilak.
Though Tilak had reopened the conversation, it was obvious that he was not really listening to John’s reply. His face was rapt as they walked along, the eyelids narrowed, the lips parted, and John felt uncomfortably that this lean, attractive newcomer was probably far too emotional to slip quietly into the life of the University. An intense man, thought John, with a difficult subject to teach, in a district where the life of every crawling bug is sacred.
In the middle of a story being told to him by John of how local villagers refused to spray a locust invasion, because of their beliefs, Tilak asked suddenly, ‘Whose was the bungalow where the two girls were up on the roof?’
As they climbed the steps of the Arts and Science Building, he looked up at John, impatient for his answer.
A quizzical gleam in his eye, John glanced back at Tilak. ‘It was Dean Mehta’s bungalow. Why?’
Tilak flushed at the query and did not reply at once. Then, with a burst of inspiration, he said, ‘It is helpful to know exactly where various members of the University staff live, and so on.’
In the hall, he saw the name of the Dean on a door facing him, and he promptly changed the subject, a slight grimness in his voice. ‘Well, here I go. Now we shall see what effect Zoology creates in a Jain world!’
But Dr Tilak was received with quiet courtesy by Dean Mehta and his fears were allayed. The Head Peon was instructed to help him remove his mother and sister and luggage from John’s room and he left to do this, while John arranged with the Dean to visit the Marwari Gate temple with him the following morning.
The Marwari Gate temple had been built by an emperor as a sacrifice for the sins of his teeth. John had visited it on a number of occasions, but this time he wanted to arrange to see some of its sacred manuscripts.
The next morning, with clean handkerchiefs held politely over their noses, he and Dr Mehta followed their amiable guide, a monk, through the courtyard and into the halls and sanctuary. He marvelled again at the lacelike carving of canopies, roofs and figures of Tirthankaras, all in white marble.
It was explained to him that some of the manuscripts he wished to see were kept in the Treasure House and no stranger could be admitted to that. He was allowed, however, to examine the outside of the Treasure House. It was covered with finely engraved silver. The engravings told the story of the fourteen dreams of Trisala, the mother of Mahavira who was the founder of Jainism. John asked if he might make sketches of these.
The monk was reluctant to agree to this, and called several others to consult them. John remembered again that a limp is considered punishment for past sins, and, from the conversation, he thought he would be turned down because of this.
They finally agreed, however, and John arranged to visit them again in a few days’ time.
Dean Mehta wished to remain at the temple with his religious teacher, so John wandered off by himself.
A few minutes’ walk brought him to the flower bazaar and to the big, frowsy cinemas; the latter were tawdry with electric lights and hand-painted posters showing languid, suffering film heroines.
Near one of the cinemas, he stopped to buy some hot sweetmeats from a man clad only in a loincloth, who had a tiny stall tucked into the angle of a wall.
While he slowly ate his sticky sweets out of the palm leaf in which they had been wrapped, he watched an artist in the cinema entrance painting a poster to advertise the next film. Crowds of people pushed impatiently around him. A beggar woman, clutching a naked, swollen-bellied child, squatted at his feet and whined hopefully. He put a coin into the child’s hand and the woman blessed him, while the starving child stared unseeingly over its mother’s shoulder, giving no sign of life, except to clutch the coin firmly in its mouselike hand.
Although such sights were familiar to him from childhood, a sudden wave of pity swept over him as the woman crept away. With an irritable gesture, he threw away the dripping palm leaf, and made to move out into the crowd.
‘Bennett Sahib!’ exclaimed a cheerful, feminine and very English voice. ‘How could you?’
Startled, he looked round.
Diana Armstrong, Dr Ferozeshah’s head nurse, was standing half behind him. Down her rumpled khaki skirt was a spreading splash of sugar syrup, where the palm leaf had struck her. Her freckled face, brick-red with heat, was crinkled up with laughter. Her red hair was plastered down against her head by perspiration and her khaki shirt was equally soaked and clung to her slim figure.
John’s first thought was that he had never seen a more bedraggled-looking Englishwoman. Then he hastily collected his wits. She was, after all, his doctor’s head nurse.
‘Miss Armstrong!’ he exclaimed. ‘I am so sorry.’
He looked around him helplessly.
‘Can I get you a tonga in which to return home? Or perhaps the restaurant across the road would find us something to wipe it with.’
‘The restaurant, I think,’ replied Miss Armstrong. Her voice had suddenly lost its laughter and was rather quavery. ‘I think I’d be grateful for a cup of tea as well.’
John