The Moneylenders of Shahpur. Helen Forrester
the crowded restaurant, customers paused in their conversation to watch them pass. At the bottom of the narrow entrance steps, they were besieged by beggars. Miss Armstrong ignored them. She looked up at John, and said, ‘You’re a brick to offer to help – it’s a big job – are you sure you want to do it?’
She looked anxiously at him, and he could not say to her that he wished he had not volunteered, and said instead, ‘I shall enjoy it – it will be a change for me. Now, can I get you a tonga?’
She was dismissed and, in spite of his affirmative reply, felt unaccountably a little hurt.
‘No, thank you,’ she muttered, ‘I’ll walk. Goodbye – and thank you.’
She turned stiffly on her heavy, flat-heeled shoes, and in a moment was lost in the jostling crowd.
John waved at a passing tonga, and the driver drew into the pavement.
‘University Road,’ said John, ‘How much?’
‘Eight annas, Sahib,’ said the driver outrageously.
‘Four annas and not a pice more.’
‘Sahib,’ the voice was full of reproach.
‘Four annas.’
‘Six annas,’ said the driver, ‘and not a pice less,’ and he lifted his whip to start his horse, to indicate that he would rather go without a fare than reduce his price further.
‘All right,’ said John, and clambered in through the door at the back of the carriage. A little boy, who had been sitting by the driver, scrambled down, ran round the tonga and locked the door after John.
John smiled at the boy and gave him an anna. But behind the smile he felt cross. In two days two new people had entered his life, if one counted that Miss Armstrong had previously been only a pair of hands passing papers to Dr Ferozeshah. They both seemed to be people who would disrupt the peace of his life; Dr Tilak appeared likely to seek his advice quite often and Diana had momentarily disturbed his usual composure.
Since his dismissal by his fiancée, he had tried to avoid women, swearing that he would never let himself be hurt again. Almost every time he walked, he was reminded of the repugnance in his fiancée’s eyes, when she saw how crippled he was; and then he would damn all women.
He told himself not to be ridiculous. Nevertheless, by the time he was deposited at his compound gate, he had worked himself into a thoroughly bad temper. When Ranjit saw him, he scampered out to his own veranda, from which he did not stir until he had listened to the typewriter pounding steadily for more than half an hour.
Later, when he crept into the room to ask the Sahib what he would like for dinner, he was surprised to find him leaning his head disconsolately against the typewriter, looking as miserable as he had when first he returned to Shahpur.
‘Sahib?’ queried Ranjit, his wizened face full of concern. ‘Are you well?’
The Sahib did not raise his head from its hard resting place, but he smiled up at Ranjit out of the corners of his eyes, and with a jolt Ranjit was reminded of the small boy John had once been who wept and raged his frustrations out of himself.
‘I am all right now, Ranjit. Sometimes I get fed up because I don’t walk very well.’
Ranjit scratched his jaw, and wondered if that was the only trouble. He decided, however, that this was not the time to probe further, and said, ‘Your legs improve daily, Sahib. Don’t get depressed.’ Then in a cheerful managing voice, he asked, ‘What would you like for dinner? I have some good lady’s fingers, succulent and green.’
‘I’d rather have them smooth and white,’ said John with sudden spirit, while Ranjit looked at him aghast.
It was about three weeks later that John was again reminded of an uneasy sense of unwanted change in his life.
Ranjit came in to tidy his room and, seeing that he was not working, sat down on the floor to gossip.
He regaled John with a detailed description of the contents of Tilak’s baggage, Mrs Tilak’s disgruntlement at the poor lodgings provided for her son by the University, Dr Tilak’s hot temper and, by comparison, the quiet character of his sister, Damyanti. Mrs Tilak was a widow, he said, and she and her daughter normally lived with her elder brother-in-law in Bombay.
John lay resting on his wooden couch and laughed at Ranjit. He lay on his back, with one muscular arm curled round his head, and Ranjit, as he watched him, thought that he must be much taller than he seemed when standing. When on his feet, he tended to stoop and put a lot of weight on his stick. A strong man, however, and very virtuous, though, in Ranjit’s opinion, he was too young to live in quite the sagelike manner that he did.
‘It defeats me, Ranjit,’ remarked John, ‘how you manage to find out all these things.’
‘Sahib,’ replied Ranjit primly, ‘I do but listen to the conversation of others. Ramji told me himself that Mrs Tilak upbraided him personally because, she said, the lavatories were filthy, and, you know, Sahib, that he does his best to clean them.’
John thought of Ramji’s apathetic efforts at cleaning, and snorted.
‘And anyway, Sahib, what else does one expect a lavatory to be except very dirty?’
‘Ours is clean,’ said John, yawning and stretching like a cat.
‘You clean it yourself, Sahib,’ said Ranjit disapprovingly.
‘If I left it to you and Ramji it never would be clean.’
He rolled over to face Ranjit and his eyes were suddenly a little flinty.
‘Why should one not clean one’s lavatory, may I ask? Gandhiji set everyone a good example by taking a sweeper’s broom and doing a sweeper’s work.’
‘I am a Brahmin, Sahib, and well versed in the scriptures.’
‘You cook for me.’
‘True, Sahib – but times are changing and I must change with them,’ said Ranjit huffily, fingering the little shikka on his head. His grey hair was thinning rapidly, but he cultivated carefully this precious tuft of hair by which God, in due course, would pull him up to Heaven.
John abandoned what he knew to be a useless argument and swung his legs down to the floor.
‘Let’s look at the account book,’ he said. ‘It’s time we did.’
Ranjit heaved a sigh and produced from his shirt pocket a much thumbed notebook, in which were entered in Gujerati characters the various expenditures of their small household. John ran an experienced eye down the list, to make sure that not overmuch of any one item was being used; occasionally, Ranjit’s hospitality to his family extended to gifts of tea or sugar out of John’s store, as well as free meals.
Meanwhile, Ranjit took out of his shirt pocket a dirty screw of newspaper and from this extracted three rupee notes and a handful of small change, which he carefully counted out on to the floor in front of the couch. John checked the amount with the book and found it balanced. Satisfied, he returned the housekeeping book to Ranjit, heaved himself up and unlocked the almira, took out his cash box and went back to the couch.
Without thinking, he sat down cross-legged and was surprised that he could arrange himself in that position without pain. Ranjit held out an incredibly wrinkled brown hand and John counted his wages into it. He then gave him money for a week’s supply of food and fuel.
The servant folded the notes up carefully and stowed them away in a grubby handkerchief, after which he sat looking rather gloomily at a small line of ants marching across the floor, until John asked him, ‘What’s the matter, Ranjit?’
‘Sahib, you have thousands