-
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/raj1.jpg)
Join us as we continue our discussion of the Raj Quartet.
We will be reviewing and finishing Towers of Silence, the third book of the Raj Quartet.
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/Rajquartetcvr.jpg)
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/Rajtitle175.jpg) |
|
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/indiapostpartition.jpg) |
Discussion Leader ~ straudetwo (traudestwo2@gmail.com)
-
From Traude:
Great news: Thanks to SeniorLearn we've found a new home from which to resume our discussion of The Raj Quartet. My thanks also to you, previous readers, for your participation and input. A WARM WELCOME back to you. New readers are cordially invited and always welcome, of course.
⁋ At its apogee the British empire was the largest in history and India its most precious Jewel in the Crown. The first novel opens in 1942 when war raged in Europe; the Japanese had advanced into Malaya, Singapore and Burma, threatening to invade India. Ghandi had called on the British to "Quit India", and anti-British rioting had broken out in the fictional city of Mayapore, where the river forms a natural border between the British cantonment and the Indian part of town.
This is the backdrop for the impossible, hopeless, heartbreaking love story of Daphne and Hari. Then there is the story of Edwina Crane, the superintendent of a Protestant missionary school, and there is Ronald Merrick, the superintended of the Indian Police, surely one of the most loathsome villains in literarture.
⁋ The setting of volume 2, The Day of the Scorpion, is Pankot, a hill station where an Indian army regiment, based in Ranpur in the valley, spent the hottest months of the year. Both towns were located in a nominally independent princely state, the fictional Mirat, which sought to maintain its relative autonomy. The Layton family is introduced, their friends, and other new characters, all vividly sketched, for example Count Bronowsky, a White Russian emigré and adviser to the Muslim ruler of Mirat and, memorably, Barbie Batchelor, a retired missionary and former friend of Edwina Crane, who became the live-in companion of Mabel Layton, the matriarch, known as Mrs. Layton Sr., of Rose Cottage.
Ronald Merrick, now a Captain in intelligence. He becomes a room mate of Teddy Bingham who is engaged to Susan Layton. He is given 72 hours furlough and marries Susan in Mirat earlier than planned because they will be sent into combat. A rock intended for Merrick is thrown at the limousine carrying the two men to church, and it is Teddy who is wounded. Teddy dies in combat and Merrick is gravely wounded.
⁋ Volume 3, The Towers of Silence, is told essentially through the impressions, thoughts and perceptions of Barbie. When our discussion site disappeared in October, we had only 87 pages to review of its last part = Part 5 "The Tennis Court". I’d like to do so now.
⁋¶ Nicky Paynton's husband is killed in action. She plans to return to England where her two boys are in school and arranges to auctions off her belongings; the auction turns into a farewell party, which is attended also by Susan Layton, remarkably improved after treatment by a new doctor about whom the British community knows nothing.
Mildred, Susan’s mother, had told all that "the job of an RAMC analyst is not one which normally can be taken seriously". The bridge club friends have made up their minds about "the Jew-boy trick-cyclist" (!!). But their preconceived notions are shattered when they meet Captain Samuels who has come to pick up Susan. Isobel Rankin, wife of the area commander, interrogates him but he parries well.
A furious Mildred discovers that Sarah is pregnant and orders Aunt Fenny to take her back to Calcutta “to get rid of it”. Before leaving, Sarah says goodbye to Barbie in the hospital.
After her discharge, Barbie returns to the church bungalow. She packs up the apostle spoons and, with Clarissa’s consent, asks one of the rectory servants to take them to the Commander's House. An acknowledgement from Colonel Trehearne with an invitation to dine with him on Ladies' Night arrives the next month. She looks at her emaciated body and declines.
Another letter comes from the Mission in Calcutta, asking if she Miss Batcherlor would accept a temporary position in Dibrapur to fill in for the Eurasion teacher who is getting married -- Dibrapur, where Edwina had visited on the day of the riots. Barbie realizes that Sarah has visited the Mission while in Calcutta to plead for her without telling her so. Just as Barbie is about to tell Clarissa of the astonishing offer, Captain Coley, Mildred’s emissary and lover, comes to inform Barbie that her trunk must be removed from the Mali's shed as soon as possible.
The following day she hires a tonga-wallah, "an enclosed dilapidated man with a curved nose and predatory eyes, a starved bird with folded wings." The tonga is old, so is the bony horse. The gate of Rose Cottage is unlocked, the trunk sitting on the front steps. A man in civilian clothes stands on the veranda, looking down into Mabel's famous rose garden, all torn up and being turned into a tennis court. She challenges him and he turns around. It is Ronald Merrick.
The left half of his face is horribly disfigured by a violet burn mark, the left eye half closed, the left arm has an artificial hand. He has come to Pankot for fittings of the artificial limb at the hospital, and to Rose Cottage to see the Laytons who, the Mali told him, are in Calcutta.
There's a mutual careful appraisal. Barbie watches how Merrick handles the cigarettes and holds his coffee cup. In turn he watches her intently, the gloved hand supporting his chin. They talk about Barbie's plan to go to Dibrapur; about the transport of the trunk on the waiting tonga (which Merrick emphatically discourages), about Edwina's words in the letter she left behind before immolating herself :
"There is no God, not even on the road from Dibrapur"; about Lady Manners; Daphne; the child; about man-bap = “I am your mother and father”, the maxim of the British rulers; about Merrick's unshakeable conviction of Hari’s guilt.
Barbie opens the trunk, is surprised to find the butterfly lace shawl, takes out the picture (the same one Edwina had) showing Queen Victoria on her throne with angels overhead and representative Indians clustering at her feet. Barbie calls it the picture of the Unknown Indian and spontaneously presses it into Merrick's artificial hand.
Again Merrick warns the load is too heavy a load, the road too steep. But the trunk is loaded on the back of the tonga and roped. Barbie puts the butterfly lace shawl on her head and climbs up to sit next to the tonga wallah.
“The equipage moved slowly out of the compound of Rose Cottage. The valley lay under a thin blanket of cloud. The sun had gone in. The first spots of a chilly November rain. The tonga gathered momentum. The old man began to apply the brake. Once or twice the horse slipped. For some reason she wished she had the picture back. The rain was coming down harder. As they passed the club, a flurry of tongas was climbing up the hill and about to turn in there. The old man's hands were knotted in the reins. One of the other wallahs shouted an insult.
'Hold your tongue!’, Barbie shouted back. She began to sing.
Behind the equipage a peculiar light glowed on and off - winter lightning. Something troubled her. The lightning
brought it closer. It was Mildred's face, eyes hooded, mouth turned down, quirked at the corners; glass held under chin in droop-wristed hands.
The horse slid, stumbled, righted itself. It raised its tail. There was a smell of stable. The horse stumbled again. The old man jerked the brake harder. She thought she smelt burning. She glanced at him. His eyes at last were wide open. He looked at her for an instant before redirecting his own troubled gaze at the road ahead and at the trembling flanks of his old horse. There was Mildred's face again, just for the split second it took for it to dissolve and reform and become the face of the man who regarded her closely, chin in hand, thoughtful and patient, so purposeful in his desire for her soul that he had thrown away Edwina's.
She began to tremble. They were passing the golf course. People were running under colored umbrellas.
Sometimes, although rarely, these cold showers - penetrating the warmth of a Pankot November day - troubled the atmosphere and produced an imbalance, a rogue element of electric mischief that shattered the silence like a child bursting a blown-up paper bag containing flashes of paper fire.
There was just such an explosion now as the rickety old tonga entered he steepest part of Club Road. It blared across the valley, jerking alive the unliveliest members of the club, comfortably cushioned in upholstered wicker, and was accompanied by the brightest amalgam of blue and yellow light ever seen in the region. The horse screamed; its eyes rolled; it reared, thrashing the space between its hooves and the greasy tarmac and then achieved both gravity and momentum, dragging and rocking the high-wheeled trap with its load of missionary relics...
Barbie, covered in mud and blood, made it back to the rectory bungalow and said ‘I’m afraid there’s been some trouble at the junction. Perhaps someone could kindly deal with it. I have seen the Devil...’
The driver survived too. But the horse had to be shot.”
Coda.
In December 1944 Barbie Batchelor was admitted to the Hospital of the Samaritan Mission of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. She lapsed into silence, communicating in writing. Unaware of where she was, she sat at the barred window and watched big birds no one else saw circling in the distance.
She did not recognize the fair-haired visitor as Sarah but wrote on her pad “Birds”. The girl promised to find an answer and came back with it the next evening.
“The birds belong to the towers of silence. For the Ranpur Parsees”, and then wrote it down as if she thought Miss Batchelor might forget it.
Miss Batchelor wrote:Yes, I see. Vultures. Thank you.
She looked round the room, shook her head and wrote:I have nothing to give you in exchange. Not even a rose.
For some reason the girl put her arms around Miss Batchelor and cried. “Oh, Barbie”, she said, “don’t you remember anything?”
It was August 6, 1945
The date meant nothing to Barbie. No date did. The calendar was a mathematical progression with arbitrary surprises.
She took her seat at the barred window. It was raining. She cold not see the birds. But imagined their feathers sheened by emerald and indigo lights. She turned away and rose from the stool. And felt the final nausea enter the room.
She stood, swaying slightly ... padded slippered to the secure refuge of her bed and sat, leaning her shoulder against the iron head. She raised a questioning or admonishing finger, commanding just a short moment of silence for the tiny anticipated sound: the echo of her own life.
They found her thus, eternally alert, in sudden sunshine, her shadow burnt into the wall behind her as if by some distant but terrible fire.
-
Thanks Traude - It's so good to have the Raj back. Will review my notes and come back.....
-
I'm here. Running late today.
-
Welcome, Gumtree and Frybabe. It's GOOD to see you. A dream has become reality and I thank all those who made it possible.
As I composed, detracted from and added to my recapitulation, it occurred to me that a broad recap was necessary, and this is a good time for it - now that we are headed for the endgame and deo volente follow up with Staying On.
No summary, no matter how well-intentioned, could ever be as eloquent as the author's own words. That's why I felt some of them had to be included in the recap. The difficulty lies in how to begin one and how much to include. Several essential details will become clear in volume 4, A Division of the Spoils. If there are any questions on context, please do bring them here.
And so to Volume 4, A Division of the Spoils.
BOOK ONE: 1945
starts with the chapter An Evening at the Maharanee's , "when the peace in Europe is almost a month old; only the Japanese remain to be dealt with." The political situation in India demands immediate action, amid confusion and disunity between members of the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. It may be helpful to define who's who in our own glossary.
An enormous amount of detail is contained in 107 pages, and we'll have to proceed slowly. We'll meet a new character, Guy Perron, an eminently worthy counterbalance to the ubiquitous Ronald Merrick.
Thank you.
-
I don't remember Guy Perron.
-
Frybabe
Guy Perron is a new and fascinating character in the fourth volume, which covers the period of 1945-1947.
A slightly cynical upper-class English historian whose specialty is India, he enlists (because he wants to explore the country in person) and becomes a sergeant in the Intelligence Corps (later to match wits with Merrick), a marvelous chance for traaveling to many arts of India. He has refused all offers of a commission, and his rank gives him cover and flexibility.
It is Perron who temporarily prevents the suicide of a countryman who has discovered and annunciates a truth which will be fleshed out : that Britain's "moral obligation" to Victoria's Jewel in the Crown was in reality an obligation to property, a concept that is no longer viable.
In this volume we meet the Laytons again, other English military men and diplomats and several Indian politicians, among them the scrupulous Mr. Kasim (MAC), whose young son Ahmed is the aide (and the ears of) Count Bronowsky in the principality of Mirat, where Teddy and Susan got married, and whose older son Sayed, a commissioned officer in the Indian Army, is captured by the Japanese and turns to fight on their side, because he believes it will lead to Indian independence faster.
The chapter "A Visit at the Maharanee's" opens in June 1945 with a description of the political background.
In volumes 1-3 we read about the growing sentiment of nationalism in India; Ghandi's demands; rioting;
violence; bloodshed. Now the focus is more sharply on the Indian leaders of both sides : Ghandi, Nehru, Jinnah; Kasim, Bose. All of them wanted independence for India but disagreed violently on how to achieve most expeditiously. What Kasim wanted most and abelieved to be an absolute requirement was Indian umity, i.e. unity between Hindus and Muslims -- which was never to be.
Instead, the country was partitioned in two a little over two years later on August 24/25 1947.
Talking about dates, Staying On returns to the former hill station of Pankot twenty-five years after partition. The protagonists are Lucy and Tusker Smalley, relatively minor characters in The Day of the Scorpion.
They were the childless couple who did not live in a bungalow but in rented rooms in the Smith Hotel, unsuitable for party-giving. At the end of parties they attended, they always stayed behind waiting to hitch a tonga ride with others back to the hotel. Lucy was good at note-taking during meetings presided over by the imperious Isobel Rankin, the station commander's wife.
The couple literally stayed behind long after everybody had left, still in the old Smith Hotel, whose Indian owner has higher aspirations.
-
Sorry to be late. My granddaughter was here to work on a school project on my computer which, apparently, has more bells and whistles than her own. I stand in awe ...
Back to the Divison of the Spoils.
The first chapter takes us to Bombay. It's June 1945, the monsoon season, characterized by sudden heavy downpours which leave lawns lusciously green. An armada of British ships has gathered in the harbor and rumors are swirling that they are to sail any time now to re-take Malaya. Even the name of the operation has been bandied about: Zipper - a severe breach of security
Guy Perron, a Field Sergeant with Intelligence, is attached to the rifle company of an infrantry regiment, waiting to be deployed and housed in a muddy, dreary camp in Kalya outside of Bombay, where new airborne troops are expected. To keep the newcomers and those already there 'entertained' is somewhat of a problem.
On August 5 Perron is ordered to attend a party at the house of a Maharanee in the company of a Captain Purvis. Since Capt. Purvis is too ill, Perron goes alone - without any idea of what to what to look for. The mist over the harbor has cleared and Perron notices more ships at anchor.
To be continued
-
To continue.
The "defense of property" mentioned by Captain Purvis, one of the characters in Volume 4, warrants
a quick look at history.
By the middle and toward the end of the fifteen hundreds, trade was well established between England and the Indian subcontinent, and beyond - with China. The Honourable East India Company, HEIC, an early joint-stock company, became the most influential trader and was granted the Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600.
East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, salpeter, tea and opium.
It also began to make inroads into coastal territories and to rule them administratively as well as militarily with large native armies. The Bengal lancers would become famous.
There were skirmishes and a minor mutiny in 1764, quelled fairly easily. A far more violent, bloodier rebellion broke out in 1857, that took a much greater effort. Under the Government of India Act of 1858, the British Crown assumed the administration of India in the new British Raj.
A British Viceroy , also called Governor-General, became the direct representative of the Monarch.
Lord Wavell is Viceroy as Volume 4 opens in th summer of 1945. The last Viceroy was Lord Mountbatten. He and Lady Mountbatten had a cordial relationship with Pandit Nehru.
("Pandit" is the honorific for a Brahman leader and scholar. In volume 1 we met Pandit Baba, the mover and shaker behind the scenes, who keeps Merrick in the crosshair. The stone that hitTeddy was meant for Merrick, and the woman's bike Teddy finds outside the quarters he and Merrick share is another warning.)
Hindus, the majority, founded the Indian National Congress (INC), also called Congress party. It rules India
to this day. The Muslims, in the minority, founded the Muslim League. At this point in our story, many Muslim League leaders have already gone over to the INC, but not Mohammed Kasim (MAK). His twin goals are freedom and unity.
Both parties have long wanted freedom and independence for India but cannot come to terms with each other about the specifics. The first joint conference organized by Lord Wavell comes to naught and he travels back to confer with Whitehall.
That is the situation as the book opens. Bombay is a hotbed of swirling news and rumors. It appears that the Indians know a great deal more about "Zipper" and military planning than the British soldiers - and that includes Guy Perron, who, after all, IS Field Intelligence and due to ship out with the armada. Captain Purvis fears a major breach in security.
To wear the uniform to the party would be a dead give-away, but Perron has a more neutral outfit (and civilian) shoes in his backpack. It identifies him as affiliated with the Education Department. Captain Purvis is quartered in a large modern building, the same one in which Aunt Penny lives, and Perron is to change there and have the briefing. At the entrance Purvis runs headlong into an Indian servant, almost hurting a young woman coming out behind him. Perron apologizes for Purvis.
Let's play fly on the wall and see what happens.
To be continued
-
We've been buffeted by high winds and new snow, followed by sleet. Not even the postman made it up the driveway (!) which looks and is treacherous. Until I get sand, I'll be housebound.
To continue.
The grasp of the Raj Quartet is vast and deliberately all-encompassing. Literally hundreds of characters populate the pages, fewer than twenty carry the plot forward.
One of several continuing threads is the crucial role class distinction played at the time.
Class distinction not only between the enlisted men and the commanding officers, and within the civil administration, but also, and more so, a racial separation between the British and the millions of Indians they governed under a system later to be called apartheid in South Africa.
The insurmountable gulf is exemplified by two characters, Hari Kumar, the young Indian raised and educated in England at an elite private school, the fictional Chillingborough, where he is a brown gentleman on the cricket field, a monument to British virtgue.
The lower middle-class Ronald Merrick went to India in search of power, hiding his racial hatreds, his homosexual tendencies and his insecurities. It is in India that the twain meet under radically different circumstances, when Hari, suddenly penniless, must return to a country he does not remember, and literally becomes the personified "invisible" Indian.
Merrick meanwhile has attained a position of considerable influence as superintendent of the Indian police, and it is he who is responsible for Hari's arrest, his torture in prison and subsequent incarceration.After about two years, Hari's case is brought secretly to the personal attention of the British governor by Lady Manners, Daphne's aunt. Hari is interrogated by a British lawyer (Captain Rowan, also an alumnus of Chillingborough) and an Indian lawyer and soon after quietly discharged.
Though nothing is heard from him directly after that, but he is referred to again and again by other characters, especially by Merrick.
Another continuing thread is the extreme Indian climate and the presence of (and white males' susceptibility to) one particular tropical disease, amoebiasis, a parasitic infection which, when undiagnosed as that, can lead to death. Captain Rowan, Hari's interrogator, and Captain Purvis in volume 4, are afflicted with it.
Under those precarious circumstances it became customary for British parents to send their children to be educated in England at about age five, to live either with family members or in boarding schools, where they
stayed for years - with a rare parental visit - until school was over and they returned to India.
"Orphans of the Raj", they've been called. Kipling was one of them and has written about his unhappy experiences.
To be continued
-
HI! Just found you. Will dig out my book.
-
Kidsal,, GOOD to see you!
-
Traude You are indefatigable and your summaries are electrifying. Thank you.
Guy Perron is like a breath of fresh air coming into the claustrophobic RAJ world where both British and Indian societies are virtually closed to each other. Apartheid indeed - how amazing that the world condoned it in India (and elsewhere) at that time.
Despite his education at Chillingborough Perron is cast in a different mould from those who were trained for the ICS. By the time he arrived on the scene I had become rather impatient with the Raj men who were unable to change their ingrained attitudes. The women too, except for Sarah Layton and Barbie Batchelor
Barbie Batchelor is beautifully drawn - what a tragic figure and in many ways how alike she and Edwina Crane become. Her doubts and gradual disintegration are perfectly illustrated - so too, are Mabel's quiet decline and demise.
M.A.K. is his own man and can see a viable way forward for India - though he cannot convince others.
Count Bronowsky, so intelligent and across everything that happens. I disliked him intensely at the beginning and took him for a villain but he grew upon me. Maybe it was his old world courtesy or maybe his fundamental honesty.
And then, Ronald Merrick, so intelligent and able but twisted and vicious. He's up there with all the great villains of literature.
I have only read the Raj through once, and slowly, though perforce backtracking here and there for clarification. When we're finished here I intend to go back and re-read it all. It is something to be savoured.
Stay safe in all that ice and snow. We are in heatwave conditions here.
-
Thank you, gumtree. I so appreciate your and Kidsal's being here with me. It is comforting not to be alone on this journey. I hope to be able to complete it, deo volente.
I am grateful.
-
Traude, I only read the Jewel in the Crown but I would like to participate in your discussion The Division of the Spoils that I ordered today from Amazon. P.S. is a masterful writer, I know I will like the book.
"When we're finished here I intend to go back and re-read it all. It is something to be savoured." I reread a good book sometimes but only because I read it too fast the first time.
Hello Gumtree, Kidsal and Frybabe, I look forward to your posts.
-
Welcome Eloise. Our little group is expanding. I have been relying on Traude's synopsis' for the Quartet since my volumes seem to have disappeared after I read them. I have Staying On so I can read along if and when we get to that followup.
Has anyone read Scott's Six Days in Mayapore? I am considering ordering it.
-
Éloïse, WELCOME, welcome. Good to have you with us here.
What I'd like to convey is the continuity of the story which is presented from different view points of different characters yet all conceived in the ingenious mind of Paul Scott. He died young at 58: he had contracted amoebiasis while in India, he was a heavy smoker and drinker. One might dare to say that his life was like a candle lit on both ends.
Fryebabe, I had the same disappearing experience. Despite intensive searching, volumes 3 and 4 simply could not be found and, to my horror, volume 2, The Day of the Scorpion, was in a terrible condition, dog-eared and with coffee stains. Whoever mistreated the book probably absconded with volumes 3 and 4. It all worked out for the best, though; volumes 3 and 4 came in a larger paperback format and more readable font size.
No, I have not read Six Days in Mayapore but plan to get to it after Staying On.
During the briefing of Sergeant Perron, Captain Purvis, an economist by trade, makes observations worth pondering:
" Has it ever struck you, Perron, that there is nothing more gullible in the whole animal world than a human being? One has this hysterical belief in the non-recurrence of the abysmal, I suppose. One always imagines one has reached the nadir and that the only possible next move is up and out."
Gumtree, I agree. Edwina and Barbie are cut from the same cloth, they had the same noble intentions, and both came to doubt and despair of the effectiveness of their mission. The character of Barbie may have been drawn in admiration of and as a tribute to someone he knew. It is a truly moving portrayal.
To be continued
-
I have Six Days in Maypore -- started reading it but got distracted. I believe it is worth reading.
-
Kidsal, "Six Days in Mayapore" is definitely on my list.
A few more things must be explained to understand Chapter 1 of this volume.
~~~ The British Indian Army aka IA consisted of all-Indian regiments, Indian officers and the rank and file, led by British (Officers. Created for the protection of the regions under direct control of the Raj in India, those regiments fought on the side of the British also in other regions of the world loyally faithfully and with distinction, notably in World War I.
~~~ The hopes of Indian leaders in Congress in Delhi that some degree of self-government might be their eventual reward were dashed. There was outrage among the Indian leaders that in 1939 the British Viceroy declared war on Germany without informing Indian leaders beforehand. That was the beginning of an ever-widening national movement, and Ghandi was one of the spokesmen, but a cautious one, compared with more radical leaders in Congress, particular one Chandras Bose.
In our story, the hill station of Pankot is the home of the Pankot Rifles and Colonel Layton its regimental Commander. Fighting in North Africa, he and members of the regiment were taken prisoner by Italians and later transferred to Germany. The sepoys (privates) and havildars (sergeants) were housed separately, of course.
~~~ As early as 1939, Chandras Bose, member of the Indian Congress, took matters into his own hands, fled India and sought an alliance with Germany and later with Japan, believing (erroneously) that fighting on the side of the Japanese would lead to Indian independence sooner. That is how the idea of the Indian NATIONAL Army (INA) was born.
~~~ The prestige of the Raj suffered a blow with the fall of British Malaya, the massive surrender at Singapore, and the humiliating retreat from Burma. Countless Indians, officers and men, were taken prisoner by the Japanese, among them Sayed, the elder son of M.A.K., a commissioned officer and his men. Sayed was one of those who joined the Japanese and the Indian National Army, convinced some of his men to join him. It made him a traitor.
At this point in our story, August 5, 1945, the war in Europe was over, but yet no end to the war with Japan. The British and Indians held prisoners in Germany had been released. Guy Perron, a member of the Field Service, knew that a boat load of disgraced Indian officers, NCOs and sepoys had arrived in Bombay from Bordeaux.
~~~ Perron and his officer were charged with keeping their ears to the ground for anything that might be cause for suspicion that a popular movement was afoot in Bombay to storm the docks and whisk the prisoners from under the noses of those in charge of them off into the bazaars or into the hills, where in the past many a band of irregular horsemen had melted away to live on and fight again.
~~~ British Intelligence initially did not believe that the Indian NATIONAL Army was a substantial force to be reckoned with but even so was aware of misinformation on the subject and of the infiltration of INA spies. Tensions were high, therefore, especially in view of the fact that the Indian population knew more about the British boats in the harbor and where they were headed than the British grunts in camp Kalyan did, many newly arrived and at a loss to understand whatever for.
~~~ About a week before August 5, Captain Purvis had been invited to and attended a party at the same Maharanee's and told her about two bottles of rare Scotch he had brought from Britain. He insisted on bringing her one of them. And she had invited him to come back. Unfortunately he told a colleague the next day that he was suspicious of the guests at the party and how much more they knew about "Zipper". He was promptly ordered to go back but, as we have seen, he was too ill. Perron was delegated to go in his stead.
Bottle and note in hand Perron arrived at 7:30 p.m. as ordered. No one answered the bell for a long time, nor could the sound of one be heard. A young girl finally opened the door, the niece of the Maharanee, as it turned out. The Maharanee and servants were still resting. The girl waved aside his apologies and his offer to return at a later time. She announced his arrival to her aunt and was then called to her chamber. He presented her with the bottle of Scotch. The Maharanee (who could not remember Captain Purvis !) then ordered the girl to wake the servants, have them unlock (!) the liquor cabinet and make the arriving guests comfortable.
As Perron stepped out into the hall, there were guests arriving - and some unexpected surprises.
To be continued
-
To continue
My apologies for having been absent for a few days - the weather is the culprit. I have spent many a cold snowy winter in Massachusetts, but none has affected me as much as this one has, and I wished I had a furry, old-fashioned muff to warm my stiff arthritic fingers. Mercifully, for the first time in more than a week the temperature on Saturday rose above the freezing point and my fingers are serviceable again.
While offline I read the first chapter once again. It is difficult to really adequately summarize the very detailed information contained in 106 1/2 pages, including
the political developments in India since May 1945;
the increasing tensions between the Congress party and the Muslim League and their irreconcilable plans for the future of the country;
the uncertain plans of the British military on whether, when or if, to set out to retake Singapore (the Zipper project);
the precarious situation of the princely states (here, Mirat);
the repatriation of Indian prisoners held in Germany, with their leader, Colonel Layton;
the role of British intelligence in Indian cities;
the fate of the Indian soldiers who went over to the Japanese and the Indian National Army(Sayed, the elder son of MAK).
British intelligence referred to as JIFFS, who are to be prosecuted as traitors.
The pejorative is taken from the acronym JIFC = short for Japanese-Indian (or Indian-inspired) Fifth Column.;
and the case of the havildar in Col. Layton's regiment who became a traitor and now is being held separately under the control of the ubiquitous, sadistic Merrick.
For a comparison I took out the video of the Granada TV series and watched the first episode on disk # 3, which has the same title as the first book chapter.
For obvious reasons, many of the long speeches in the book have been shortened; some were left out altogether; what is shown to have happened at the Maharnee's party is quite different from the book; the character of Captain Purvis is fused with another character, and a viewer who has not read the book may be forgiven for feeling a bit confused.
Since I found no shortcut, I'll continue summarizing the chapters as best, and as briefly, as I possibly can.
When Perron came out of the Maharnee's room, new guests had come in and were shown to the cloak-room, and he suddenly found himself within yards from the English girl he had seen earlier in the day at the entrance of Captain Purvis' quarters.
Wondering about her reaction to his miraculous transformation from a sergeant in the field service in jungle green to one from the education corps in khaki, he took the initiative and said, "Good evening. We meet again." After a quick glance at his left shoulder tab she answered "Sarah Layton" , and without any other word followed Aneila, the Maharanee's niece, into the cloak room.
Perron continued along the passage and reentered the living room where a bearer was presiding over the cocktail cabinet and where he had another and rather more devastating shock.
To be continued
The pejorative term is derived from the acronym JFC
-
Traude Sorry you're having such a bad time with arthritis - hope your weather keeps warming. We are just the opposite here with oppressive heatwaves which sap all energy. Bushfires are raging throughout south-eastern Australia and have claimed many lives (about 40 confirmed to date) and there are many serious burn victims. At the same time 60 percent of Queensland is under water from floods - many places evacuated or isolated. And here at home on the west coast we too have fires.... some lit by arsonists.
You relieved my mind by saying that the first 106 1/2 pages of this volume are so detailed. I thought I was the only one who found it a bit much. It really is daunting as it needs such careful reading and evaluation lest one becomes lost.
It certainly helps to have the pertinent issues listed as you have done - my notes are so scrappy and now almost indecipherable - not worth the paper I scribbled them on - your clear and concise presentation is just what the doctor ordered ...
I have deferred watching the series until we have finished with the books. Bearing in mind that films so often take shortcuts and liberties with the given text and have a habit of amalgamating characters and events I thought it better to wait. So I'm glad you mentioned the shortcomings of the series.
-
I keep meaning to find a copy of Six Days in Mayapore. I will, deo volente
-
Hi Traude and Gumtree,
I am so sorry not to have kept up with this series. Traude always is so well prepared and writes so clearly what I can't understand. I just got lost on book I. For some reason, time was pressing. I didn't catch up again. :'(
-
I had to come in again this evening - our bushfire toll keeps rising and is now around 100 dead, 750 homes razed to the ground, countless hectares of land are burnt to a cinder and some fires still rage out of control... the death toll is sure to rise as many are still unaccounted for.
-
You're here now Hats - that's what matters...it's always good to see you :)
-
Sunday morning here and milder.
Thank you for your post, Gumtree.
It's a great pleasure to have you here again, Hats. Thank you.
I am truly grateful and will be back later.
-
Gumtree, our media have covered the wildfires in Australia and reported that they are the worst ever. The toll in lives lost and homes destroyed has risen since you posted earlier today. One despairs at the extent of such devastation and personal tragedy. The fires are occurring in Victoria state. I seem to remember reading somewhere that you live in the western part of the continent.
What can one say except send prayers?
Hats, I have been drawn to Paul Scott's work as if by a magnet. Every time I open one of the books, I find something that makes me see more clearly, understand more fully. Please stay with us. I've always enjoyed your company, and am happy you joined the new Writers' Nook in Seniors & Friends.
More to come.
-
Traude Thank you for your concern. And you were right - I do live on the west coast but here the bushfire threat is also high and there are fires burning but contained for the moment .
The bushfire toll in the east seems to grow by the hour as do the heartrending stories of near escapes and sadly those who were unable to find safety.
We have extended family and more distant relatives in the affected areas so can only hope and pray for their safety. My son and DIL live on Sydney's North Shore where an arsonist lit a fire for fun! They're OK.
This is a big country - vast areas now lie in ashes - recovery will take years.
Thanks again...Gum
-
To continue
About to enter the living room Perron hesitated momentarily at the sight of three men who were observing him:
an elderly gentleman in white ducks wearing an eye patch and leaning on an ebony cane; a good-looking young Indian in well-cut civilian clothes, and a British officer he had met once before - and that was the shock:
In the dead of night Perron and his officer were standing dockside with a group of military police and witnessed the arrival of Indian officers and men formerly imprisoned in Germany as they shuffled past, in oddly assorted uniforms -
the remains (it turned out later) of Colonel Layton's famed Pankot Rifle regiment. But the night was not over yet.
Perron and his officer were summoned to the security shed where a major in a Punjab uniform with a badly burned face and one gloved hand was staging the interrogation of a havildar from the group of returnees suspected of treason. The major - none other than the diabolical Merrick, wanted Perron to closely observe and listen to every word of the interrogation conducted in Urdu, a sadistic exercise described verbati at some length. After relentless grilling, Merrick abruptly ended the interrogation.
Then Merrick asked Perron what he thought of the man ("harmless", said Perron, and then cleverly turned the conversation to Chillingborough and asked Perron whether he remembered an "Indian boy" named Harry Coomer ("he was good at cricket", Perron recalled). Merrick told him of Hari's return to Mayapore and his arrest in connection with the evil deed in the Bibighar gardens and that he, Merrick, had made the arrest.
The same man was looking directly at him. The elderly man (Count Bronowsky) nterpreted Perron's brief hesitation as shyness and encouraged him to come in. The count made the introductions, Ahmed Kasim, younger son of MAK Kasim, identified. Sarah joined the group. The count asked questions about Perron's his field of studies and his plans for the future. Perron learned that Colonel Layton is in Bombay and concerned about the havildar whom he is planning to talk to. Merrick gave no sign that he and Perron had met before. Later he cornered Perron in the corridor and instructed him not to mention to Sarah that he and Perron had met, that he had interrogated the havildar nd that the man in Merrick's control.
Perron confirmed that he was officiaslly on duty at the party but refused to answer questions even under the threat of being exposed as field security. In a test of wills Merrick ordered Perron to make an arrest of certain "sexually ambiguous" guests (who according to Captain Purvis were known to flock to the Maharanee's parties), when a very upset Aneila interrupted and summoned Perron back to the Maharanee's chambers.
Her highness was disturbed by the noise in the corridor, pronounced the wiskey "disgusting", and wondered whether the "Purvis creature" had intended to poison her. She made Perron try some of the golden liquid, which he hugely enjoyed, explaining the quality and rareness of genuine malt Scotch. But the Maharanee could not be pacified. After asking about the guests she ordered a wailing Aneila to send them all home, to lock the liquor cabinet and send the servants to bed. Perron took the rejected bottle (a quarter of it gone) with him, apologizing profusely.
The count's limousine took Sarah, Perron and Merrick back to the apartment building, Sarah and Merrick to Aunt Penny's apartment and Perron to Captain Purvis apartment upstairs.
To be continued
-
My grandson visited today and monopolized my computer to work on an essay for school. He accomplished the mission and I have my computer back - now ready
to continue.
The mysterious, slightly paranoid and profoundly unhappy Captain Purvis makes only a brief appearance in this chapter. It is impossible to know what Paul Scott meant him to represent in the framework of this novel. But we are certainly allowed to hazard a guess.
The economist had attracted the attention of unknown and unnamed people in London by writing a paper about the economy and expounding certain implications and predictions. In short order he was contacted, and promised a very important job (but given no details) and kept in virtual seclusion in an attic for months on end. He was also given a commission and, when he balked, he was told that he had better not refuse - for his own good.
Eventually he was shipped to Bombay where he had arrived three months, two weeks and four days earlier. He suffered from an amoebic infection like countless British men in India. Few of them, and apparently few army doctors, realized that amoebiasis could be fatal. They did know that drink alone brought relief.
Captain Purvis brought a goodly supply with him. When the reader and Perron met him, he was down to two bottles of the rare Scotch wiskey, the genuine article, one of which he sent with Perron as a gift to the Maharanee - who scorned it, as we have seen.
It is not too far-fetched to speculate that somebody wanted Purvis removed from his academic post, out of circulation, and prevent him from repeating his theories and predictions, which may have made him a "danger". That is supposition. Yet that may quite possibly have been the reason why his character was so ignominiously combined in the TV adaptation with that of Major Beamish, of whom nothing more is heard.
The door to the Purvis apartment was closed when Perron came up the stairs (the elevator still out of order). For the first time he saw the name of the owner.
Hapgood. Hapgood, the banker, who was away with his family in a more comfortable place. It explained the presence of the centuries-old Indian
paintings on the living room wall which Perron had noticed earlier.
He had to ring twice before the door was opened. The servants were agitated, talking all at once. The living room was a scene of destruction: bottles thrown at the walls and the priceless Moghul paintings, pillows tossed and the drinks table overturned.
A telegram had arrived, said the servants, Purvis Sahib then made several calls shouting and drinking. Be put in a call to Delhi. He drank while he waited. He kept calling the operator, drinking, shouting, cursing. Yes, the call from Delhi came through, and Purvis Sahib became a wild man. Then the line went dead.
Perron read the telegram, an official military signal marked Secret and Urgent.
It informed Captain Purvis of his secondment to the department of Civil Affairs and ordered him to report to Headquarters, South-East Asia Command, by August 9. Copies had been sent to an impressive list of authorities. No explanation was given but that was hardly necessary. In Ceylon, Purvis would find himself attached to a group of Civil Affairs officers bound for Malaya either with or in the wake of Zipper.
The door to Captain Purvis room was locked. No sound came from within. One of the servants produced the key to the adjoining room, (the room of the Hapgood's daughter "which smelt of stale powder and self-satisfaction"), its window kept open for airing. The balcony was only steps from the balcony of Captain Purvis' room. Perron jumped across the parapet.
Captain Purvis' room was empty. The bathroom door locked.
Over the anxious protests of the bearer ("What will Hapgood Sahib say when he comes?"), Perron broke down the bathroom door with the help of the cook, the sturdiest servant. It took five tries.
They found him in the bathtub, fully clothed, bleeding from several wounds in one arm. Together they pulled him out and into his room. Perron sent the cook down to the apartment of Major Grace asking for Major Merrick, and began to resuscitate Purvis. Eventually Purvis opened his eyes.
Merrick appeared with an English IMS officer who examined the patient and said to Perron, "Well done. You better go next door and have a bloody strong drink and get out of that wet uniform."
To be continued
Perron and the cook
-
My book arrived and I started it trying hard to bridge the gap between Book 1 and Book 4. Thank you Traude for giving us a resumé of the plot, it's a big help.
-
Thanks, Traude. There certainly is a lot going on in this volume said and unsaid, I think.
There certainly are a number of ways to divert or shut up those whose ideas don't fit the power's-that-be political agenda. Captain Purvis may have been the victim of one such. I vaguely I remember thinking that the powers may have been interested in his thinking and wanted to get him closer to the "problem" to get further opinions or thoughts. It certainly doesn't follow, though, that they would send him on to Ceylon and hence to Malaya, if so. Maybe the powers that sent him to Bombay didn't order him on to Malaya, but simply bureaucratic processes that were set in motion by miscommunication or simple error. I do not remember whether it was just him or if the whole group he was attached to were being sent.
Everything about this section reeks of paranoia, spys, counterinsurgency, etc. Captain Purvis simply did not have the temperament for that arena, and, he ended up with amoebic infection (dysentery?) to boot.
-
Many thanks for your posts, Éloïse and Frybabe. I'll answer tomorrow because tonight I'm all "talked out". The reason?
Earlier in the day the local book group met to discuss The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Since I had promoted the book, I needed to be especially well prepared, and I was.
I need not have worried - the meeting was wonderful.
Will continue tomorrow.
-
To continue.
Éloïse, each volume of the Quartet enhances the reader's understanding of this ultimately tragic story because Paul Scott presents the arid historic events in human terms and from the perspective of fictional British and Indian in fictional locations. He does so masterfully.
Volume 1, the Jewel in the Crown, was an overview of sorts of the daily lives of, on the one hand, the British in their cantonment and, on the other hand, of the multitudes Indians in their segregated quarters, most of them in servitude.
There are cursory hints of tension between Hindus (a vast majority) and Muslims in the fictional Mayapore. The full extent of that conflict (and growing nationalism) becomes more apparent with every successive volume. There are "good", well-meaning characters (Lady Manners, widow of a former British provincial governor and aunt of Daphne; Sister Ludmila; Lady Chatterjee; Indian lawyer Gopal, Edwina Crane who has despaired of her mission and the effect she had on the minds of young Muslim children, and more). Dozens of characters populate the pages, often nameless and some never reappear.
Only one character really prospers (for wont of a better word): the sadistic Merrick.
Volume 2, The Day of the Scorpion, focuses on the British hill station Pankot, where the Pankot Rifles regiment spends the least bearable months of the monsoon season, and on the fictional Mirat, one of a number of such princely states, virtually owned by a ruler who is nominally autonomous but governs under the watchful eyes of the British. Mirat, like Mayapore, has a large Hindu majority, but, thanks to the careful guidance of the Nawab by the astute Count Bronowsky, a cautious atmosphere of let's call it "good will" prevails.
The reader is introduced to the characters of sisters Sarah and Susan Layton, to Teddy Bingham, and to members of the British colony. The wives, known as ]i]memsahibs[/i], are the backbone of the families, vulnerable to tropic diseases, bearing signs of premature aging because of India's climate, and many of them alone, while husbands (like Colonel Layton) are fighting abroad.
As outlined, volume 3, The Towers of Silence, is written from the perspective of another British missionary, who knew Edwina Crane, Barbie Batchelor. She too begins to doubt whether she had been effective in her mission, and her faith.
Frybabe, yes. Poor Purvis was being kept under wraps quite deliberately, another "man who knew too much". But some of those who pulled the wires in England had obviously managed to find a niche for themselves in Delhi, from what we can gather.
Even before the end of the war in Europe, Whitehall made plans for India, contingent upon developments in the east. One was a training course for British officers to encourage their staying on in India at the end of the war in Asia. Sarah Layton's uncle Captain Grace was the head of one such program, elevated to Colonel and quartered with aunt Penny in a luxurious modern building with air-conditioning (!) in Calcutta, the same building where Captain Purvis was billeted in an elegant,expensively furnished apartment owned by the Hapgoods. It is easy to speculate that Mr. Hapgood, a banker, was planning to stay on.
Merrick returned to the Purvis apartment to take Perron downstairs where a dinner was laid out for him, adding that he had a "vested interest" in Perron's safe return to the camp and, when asked why, declared that he was going to ask to have Perron transferred to his department.
After a bath and change of uniform, Perron was introduced to a visibly tired Colonel Layton who had returned to the Grace's apartment alone. When presented with the now half-empty bottle of Scotch he was overcome. Sarah, Perron and Merrick ate alone. Afterwards, with Perron politely declining an invitation to spend the night at the apartment, Merrick hailed a taxi to take Perron back to the lot that held Perron's jeep. The guard commander promptly unlocked the gate, Perron went back to the waiting taxi and said "Everything is in order, Sir."
"Right", said Merrick. "I'll see you in Delhi. In a couple of days, I expect." The cab drew away.
"Oh no, you won't", said Perron aloud. "You bloody well won't".
The brand new jeep did not start. Half an hour later, soaked to the skin again by a new downpour, Perron gave up on the electrical system and was given a room for the night.
Aslant one wall, there was a trestle table covered by an army blanket, with a neatly positioned telephone, blotter and pencil tray, and a triangular piece of wood with the name Capt. L. Purvis,
the lonely place where Purvis had waited for the call from Delhi that never came. And, on the wall behind the desk, he had marked off with a blue crayon the days of his martyrdom.
To be continued tomorrow
with a new chapter, Journeys into Uneasy Distances. (96 pages).
-
This book, as any book I love to read, gives me a thrill each time a small sentence gives so much information without going into details. At the start of the book when Perron meets Sarah for the first time, she has to evaluate who he is, an 'inferior' or a 'superior' and these few words say more than meets the eye: "She studied his uniforme briefly, taking everything in at a glance as young English women in India were trained to do" With just a glance she knows instantly he is a mere sargeant, or if you will someone to be polite to but not someone to get closely associated with or at first at least.
But you can't help but have a sense that something is going to happen between those two. Paul Scott automatically knows what constitutes a good plot. Mind you I don't know that yet, I just assume it because of small hints we read to that effect.
I am hooked and it's going to be hard to put this book down.
-
Éloïse, thank you for the post. I feel exactly like you about Paul Scott's writing and the beauty of the style. The passage you mentioned is pertinent. Perron is clearly intrigued by Sarah :
"She was a bit thin, a bit bony, but she walked well. He judged her to be in her twenties but found it difficult to place her. Accent, style of dress, forthrightness: these proclaimed her a daughter of the raj , but her manner had lacked that quality - elusive in definition - which Perron had come to associate with young memsahibs: a compound of self-absorption, surface self-confidence, and, beneath, a frightening innocence and uncertainty about the true nature of the alien world they lived in. They were born only to breathe that rarified, oxygen-starved air of the upper slopes and peaks, and so seemed to gaze down, from a height, with the touching look of girls who had been brought up to know everybody's place and were consequently determined to have everybody recognize their own."
Perron's (perhaps slightly cynical) observations were accurate, and they could all be applied to Susan, (whom he had not yet met, only heard about). Sarah was made of a different mold; she did not fit the stereotype. Sarah was older by one year. At a young age the sisters were sent to England to be educated, which was the long-established custom. During the school year they stayed with an aunt in London, and during vacations with great grandfather Layton. They returned ("came out", as it was called) to India when school was over. Susan would be married, widowed, bear a son and become emotionally unbalanced, all in the space of a few months. Merrick was the last-minute substitute as best man at Susan's wedding to Teddy Bingham, which took place in Mirat. Teddy took the stone that had been meant for Merrick. From that day forward their destinies were inextricably linked.
During the imprisonment of Colonel Layton Sarah became the rock. handled the servants, managed household affairs, and quietly settled the bridge debts Mildred Layton, the emotionally barren mother, had incurred and forgotten about in the alcoholic fog of her days.
To continue.
Sarah had come to Bombay to meet her father and accompany him on the train home. Colonel Layton had been told told one of his havildars (whose father had been a decorated soldier in the Pankot Rifles) was suspected of treason and being held in Delhi. Incredulous and anguished, attermpted through channels to arrange a personal encounter with the havildar, convinced he could straighten everything out. But Merrick in his zeal successfully argued against it.
On the next day, there was no incident in Delhi, where Merrick saw Sarah and her father off on the train to Ranpur and Pankot. The Colonel had been "docile, good-humored and quietly intent on the morning papers with the reports of the "devastating power" of the bomb the Americans had dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Monday morning."
To be continued
-
Éloïse, I did not want to go forward too quickly but think you probably are right in step, so
to continue.
The first 2-1/2 pages of the new chapter (which is subdivided by Roman numerals and asterisks) are not a linear continuation of the preceding chapter but, like the beginning of volume 1, narrated by a traveler on a train journey, in this case a journey yet to come, but through familiar terrritory, radically changed and now barren, desolate, and in ruins: evidence of a mass exodus. A second train journey, also still to come (but in the opposite direction) is remembered. - in effect foreshadowed.
This narrative detour is baffling and out of context. But patience will be rewarded. :)
The last paragraph in part I holds valuable information :
"The train is cautious in its approach to Premanagar ⁜ . Tracks converge from the east, coming from Mayapore. To the left , some miles distant, is the fort, no longer a prison, infrequently visited by tourists; peripheral to the tale but a brooding point of reference and orientation. To the south lies Mirat with its mosques and minarets. North, a few hours' journey, is Ranpur⁜⁜ where a grave was undug, and farther north still, amid hills, Pankot, where it was dug in too great a hurry for someone's peace of mind. ...
⁜ Premanagar was known for its fort in which Hindu leader and Congress member Mohammed Kasim was held in solitary confinement. He like many other Indian leaders had been arrested in the wake of the Mayapore riots.
⁜⁜ The italizing is mine. The reference is to the grave of Mabel Layton, hastily interred in the Pankot cemetery per the instructions of Mildred Layton, despite Mabel's express wishes to be buried in Ranpur (headquarters of the Pankot Rifles regiment) near her second husband, Colonel Layton's father. All pleas by Barbara Batchelor, Mabel's companion, were ignored and Barbara ordered to leave Mabel's Rose Cottage.
To be continued tomorrow
-
Continuing (a day late, sorry) subsection II of Chapter Two.
On the train to Pankot
Sarah had often rehearsed the circumstances of her father's return, but she had not pictured them like this, with the two of them traveling alone from Bombay to Pankot. He said he had done the same thing, but that there was always a moment when his imagination failed, the moment following the actual reunion -- probably because the scene of reunion was not determinable in advance: a railway station; a dockside; even an airport; the old house in Ranpur; the front verandah of Rose Cottage; the compound of the grace and favor bungalow in the lines of the Pankot Rifles depot. The reunion itself was the important thing, he said. He never thought beyond it.
He told Sarah that a fellow POW, a Catholic, had shocked a padre by confessing that he always wondered what - after creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh - God had done on the eighth. The day of reunion was like the seventh day. But a reunion is only a moment in a day, and Sarah had already had that moment with her father in Bombay.
There were many questions she would have liked to ask her father: how he was treated, whether he was ever punished, perhaps for trying to escape, but she said nothing. She saw his restlessness, his anxiety to be occupied and how easily he could get upset. She had seen him pocket bits of bread: the prison camp habit of saving the 'unexpired portion' - the mark of a man who has seen hunger. He was uninquisitive about affairs at home; he had not mentioned the death of Teddy Bingham, the son-in-law he never knew.
With the treasures packed in the hamper Aunt Fenny had handed them in the Bombay train station, Sarah prepared a breakfast she knew her father would like, with cold bacon sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs. Col. Layton relaxed. But he insisted on rinsing the tea cups and picking up the egg shells. He left the toilet cubicle spotless while Sarah wondered how he could have done it without any cleansing articles on hand. The Colonel had already scandalized Aunt Fenny's and Uncle Arthur's servant Naziruddim by polishing his own shoes, drawing his own bath.
Col. Layton checked his watch regularly, satisfied that the train was running on time. He and Sarah took turns standing by the open window breathing in the famliar air. Father and daughter changed into their uniform for the arrival. A third strips had been added to Sarah's uniform and her father noted it with pride. In response Sarah cast down her eyes - they had never been a demonstrative family.
Tomorrow The Arrival
-
Yes Traude I am following the same chapters as you. Your post gives me insight as to how the story develops. I don't have anything to add at this time, but I am enjoying the book. Thanks for giving me something new to learn about the history of that period. I am especially interested because Quebec was a British colony at one time
-
Ḗloïse, thank you for mentioning the connection between Canadian and British history.
As best I recall from history classes, the province of Québec was part of a Grand Coalition in British North America; so were the provinces of Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario. I don't remember in what year Canada as a whole became a British Dominion, but I recall that there were five dominions, all of them colored pink in my old history atlas (pre-WW II status, of course), like the other English possessions elsewhere in the world.
It is astounding what a disproportionately small number of British military and administrative personnel accomplished in the immense Indian subcontinent over a few centuries. The fall of the Empire was a tragedy by any measure. The outcome is a known fact, but told in Paul Scott's work by and from the perspective of people, though they are fictive characters, it becomes more vivid, immediate and comprehensible.
This chapter centers on Sarah's lengthy observations and introspections. Therefore I am attempting to compress the pace of the narrative into shorter, more concise "capsules" (for wont of a better word).
The Arrival
Col. Layton's requests had been followed scrupulously - there was no clamorous crowd a the station, no welcoming committee. Present were only the depot adjutant, Captain Kevin Coley, an NCO and a truck to take the small group of Indian soldiers back to the lines. (Re-reading this passage I wondered exactly where those "lines" were).
Few words were exchanged between father and daughter on the ride up Club Road past all the old familiar places. When the driver changed gears for the final uphill climb to Rose Cottage, Sarah had the sensation that she had no longer any personal involvement in her father's homecoming. He had been informed by letter of Mabel's death and her burial in Pankot (instead of in Ranpur); now she worried how he would take the other visible changes, how he would feel looking down at the tennis court from the verandah and whether he'd miss the abundance of roses over which Mabel had labored until her last day. Neither of them seemed eager and anxious to peer out of the window, both leaning back, passive and reluctant.
Before the last bend in the road Col. Layton asked the driver to stop and told Sarah he would walk the rest of the way. After a few minutes she told the driver of the staff car to go on ahead. She too walked up. Her mother, no loner financially strapped, had put her own imprimatur on the surroundings and the house itself, ordered new furniture and a new rug for the entrance hall. Mabel's old wooden marker "Rose Cottage" was half hidden by wild growth on the bank. Its identifying function had been usurped by neat white boards on each of the stone pillars, announcing respectfully in bold black lettering the number of the house, 12 Upper Club Road, and the name of its occupier: Col. J. Layton.
"It would be better for you and daddy", she had said to her mother earlier, "to be alone for a bit when he gets here. Ill be in the garden with ayah and Edward." Thus, she thought, the true climax of his homecoming had been delayed, transferred from the scene with his wife to the scene with his daughter who had a grandson to present. And a dog. But no husband. Instead, the ghost of the soldier she had married. The ghost, and the living likeness of the child.
To be continued
-
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/raj1.jpg)
Join us as we continue our discussion of the Raj Quartet.
We will be reviewing and finishing Towers of Silence, the third book of the Raj Quartet.
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/Rajquartetcvr.jpg)
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/Rajtitle175.jpg) |
|
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/indiapostpartition.jpg) |
Discussion Leader ~ straudetwo (traudestwo2@gmail.com)
To continue - with a few personal thoughts about the opaque relationship between Mildred and her daughters.
The term 'dysfunctional families' was unknown when Paul Scott wrote his books. But I submit to you that such families existed and that the fictional Laytons were one of them. They were not "demonstrative", Sarah said.
In and of itself, that's not unusual. But there was more to it in case of the Laytons, I believe.
First there were the "years of unavoidable separation", which the Layton girls spent in England from age five or six until their return to India in 1939, and which had left an indelible mark on both of them.
Not long after their return, Col. Layton and the regiment went overseas (from the regimental base station at Ranpur) with such haste that the only accommodation he found in the hill station in Pankot for his wife and daughters were the quarters in the grace and favour, the military housing Mildred detested. For years she had coveted Rose Cottage and expected that under the circumstances Mabel Layton Sr. would invite her and the girls. No such invitation came.
That was the root of the growing resentment toward Mabel (well hidden) and the contempt toward Barbara Batchelor, openly displayed.
Scott sketched his characters, major and minor, with a sure hand and in great psychological depth. Mildred is called "emotionally arid" - among other things. No other character (including Merrick!) is depicted in more withering, unflattering terms.
Sarah soon observed Mildred's drinking; it fell to her to "tidy up" after her mother, figuratively speaking, i.e. pay Mildred's bridge debts and see to affairs of the house. Always protective of Susan, Sarah became even more so after Teddy's death; before and after he birth of the baby, when she became the "rock". However, there is no mention that Mildred ever really talked with either daughter about things we would call "meaningful" in today's parlance.
Moreover, whatever Mildred judged to be inappropriate or undesirable was either white-washed; made light of; ignored; or deliberately erased and forgotten, as if it had never happened, never to be referred to again.
Exactly that is what took place when Mildred discovered Sarah's pregnancy after the visit in Calcutta. Mildred exhorted Aunt Penny and ordered her to "undo" what had happened. The subject was never mentioned again. Not surprisingly, Sarah found it harder to forget, let alone to 'erase', the memory.
The visit in Calcutta is narrated - brilliantly and without sensationalism - in the last dozen or so pages in Volume Two, The Day of the Scorpion.
To be continued
-
Scott sketched his characters, major and minor, with a sure hand and in great psychological depth. Mildred is called "emotionally arid" - among other things. No other character (including Merrick!) is depicted in more withering, unflattering terms.
You're right about Scott depicting Mildred so scathingly though I hadn't consciously thought about it in those terms before. I was always waiting for some saving grace to be uncovered in Merrick but not in Mildred - Scott convinced me totally as to her character.
I think the majority of Raj families were to some degree dysfunctional and have always put it down to what I consider to be their unnatural lifestyle - firstly with the children at school in England for years at a time and secondly the life the women led on the military post where they tried to combat boredom by filling their idle hours playing cards and drinking gin - these factors are scarcely conducive to a productive and rewarding life. The strict heirarchy occasioned by the men's rank also produced an unnatural environment for social interaction. I wonder that any family can really survive under such conditions - No wonder Mabel decided to opt out and work her garden. It is really only with the war that Sarah suddenly has any real purpose or occupation apart from picking up after Mildred and watching out for Susan.
-
I was involved with the discussion of the first book of the Raj Quartet. I've just found books three and four on Bookins.com and they're on there way to me. I'd like to read the third book before I start commenting on the fourth book, but Traude's summary of the story up to the beginning of Division of the Spoils may have to do.
I'll be back when my books arrive and I've had a chance to catch up with the posts.
Nancy
-
Gumtree and Nancy, I'm grateful for your posts. They were my Joy in the Morning ! I believe that's the title of a book, but it expresses my feelings perfectly.)
I'll answer more fully later.
Again, thank you both.
-
Thank you again. Now to respond more fully to your posts.
Gumtree, how true.
It had not occurred to me before that the lives of the other military family were much like the Laytons'; they too were dysfunctional. With the children an ocean away, how could a real family unit be sustained? Children who returned to India as young adults have been described as "orphans of the raj".
But how would parents learn of possible abuses in foster homes, if indeed they were told? Who would do the telling and how long would it take for such a message to get back to India?
There were such cases: In Something of myself Rudyard Kipling tells us that he was a victim in his first foster home in England, and that he suffered from insomnia for the rest of his life as a result of abuse there. His parents sent him and his sister to England when Rudyard was six and his sister three (!) years old.
In Volume two, The Day of the Scorpion, Sarah recounted her and Susan's early years in Ranpur (where the servants slept on the threshold); about school in England, living in the city with Aunt Lydia (who disliked India); about summers in the country with great-grandfather Layton; about a visit there from Aunty Mabel, and about her struggle to understand the family connections, spcifically that Mabel was not an aunt but the second wife and widow of Col. Layton's father, buried in Ranpur. Wondering where she belonged and where home was, Sarah drew a family tree of the Layton and Muir branches in an exercise book, marking where family members resided, in England or in India, respectively.
After the return to India, Sarah came upon the old exercise book and realized that she still wondered about the family, where she herself belonged, where home was. There is more introspection in the chapter we are currently reviewing.
By contrast (and I beliee by design), Susan's image is much less distinct. She is depicted as totally self-absorbed, pretty, an enthusiastic dancer, much admired by the young eligible officers on the station -- yet strangely distant. More is revealed about her in the other volumes but she remains undefined, almost ephemeral. It is never made fully clear what caused her withdrawal and her catatonic silence after the attempt to kill her baby.
In this chapter, Sarah's thoughts on the day of Col. Layton's return to Rose Cottage provide the reader with a much clearer picture of Susan's monumental insecurities and total lack of identity. Further details will emerge later in this chapter.
Gum. I agree on Paul Scott's characterization of Merrick. He seems intent on making the reader see Merrick almost a hero manqué. Merrick's homosexual tendencies are never identified as such, but in the Chapter "Orders of Release", in The Day of the Scorpion, the reader learned that Merrick had sodomized Hari Kumar in prison in Mayapore. (Reportedly, questions about Scott's sexuality have been raised in Britain.)
Following Hari's interrogation in Premanagar prison by a British lawyer, Nigel Rowan, and an Indian lawyer, Mr. Gopal, he was quietly discharged.
Aberlaine/Nancy. You will be welcome to join us any time you like and feel prepared.
To be continued
-
the reader learned that Merrick had sodomized Hari Kumar in prison in Mayapore.
Hmmmm! I don't remember the bit specifically about Hari being sodomized, but I do remember his interrogations in prison were very painful.
I had a mind to do a comparison of Sarah and Susan, but I am pretty brain dead right now. I will say that I am closer to Sarah in temperment/personality than with Susan. I forget - is Sarah the older of the two? I am the first of three girls. I was expected to be more responsible and be an example for my sisters. Sarah is responsible, reliable, practical and is more internally motivated. Susan is almost the opposite isn't she? Susan seems more flighty, and externally motivated in most things she does. Her subconscious and sometimes conscious efforts are all geared to gain the attention and adoration she needs to validate her existence.
-
Hello, frybabe, how good to see you!
I was doing one last check before calling it finally a day. And there was your post. Thank you.
Yes, Sarah is the elder by one year. After finishing school, she took a secretarial course while waiting for Susan to finish. I try hard not to develop a dislike for any character -- at least not right away ;) but find it almost impossible where Susan is concerned - perhaps because there is so little is there ?
In 1939 Aunt Fenny and Uncle Arthur, Major Grace, spent a holiday in England and on their return took their nieces home with them.
BTW, isn't it amazing how much people smoked and drank then, Paul Scott himself reportedly included?
Good night
-
Traude: Merrick as hero manque
Your comment touched a chord with me as that is exactly how I see Merrick. Not only is he frustrated in his career ambition - being sidelined after the Mayapore affair and unable to transfer from the police to the army - but he is unfulfilled in his personal life as well. I think Scott uses the injuries Merrick suffered - the loss of his arm and the disfiguring burns - as metaphors to intensify the sense of his being maimed and that he is maimed in more than one way.
As for Susan and Sarah: In some ways these two girls could be myself and my younger sister...I am the elder by three years and have always been the reliable and practical one while she is the flighty, lazy and beautiful one. I have a reputation of being calm in a crisis and doing what has to be done - my sister collapses in tears and thus becomes the centre of attention causing more stress in the process. I love her dearly but there are times !!! I think such a situation between siblings is not uncommon and indeed, Frybabe has expressed the existence of a similar situation in her family. So it would seem that Scott described a realistic relationship in which Sarah led and Susan followed. I think somewhere Susan makes a comment to the effect that: 'she didn't have to think because she had Sarah to do her thinking for her'
Susan's mental incapacity is something of a mystery - she always appears to be playing a part and doing what is expected of her but I have not noticed an explanation of the underlying cause unless it is that she too is maimed perhaps simply by being 'an orphan of the Raj' and not having the fortitude to cope with her situation.
-
I am not to sure where everyone is in the book?
-
To continue
The echo of the rape in the Bibighar Gardens and the arrest of those believed culpable of the crime reverberates through this novel. The events are told in Daphne's diary (volume 1), and parts are retold in the successive volumes by other participants, among them - most prominently - Merrick himself.
Mayapore was shaken by both this commotion and the riots, but an embarrassing scandal was avoided because Daphne and Hari remained silent. Daphne had devised the plan in a desperate effort to shield Hari. it worked - to an extent. There were instant rumors and doubts about the guilt of the accused, but there was not enough proof to warrant their criminal prosecution. When the prisoners were asked whether they had been maltreated, they all denied it - fearing reprisals, of course, if they had not.
Disapproval and contempt in the cantonment for Daphne and Lady Manners were automatic.
But there was enough reason to believe that Merrick had overstepped his boundaries, and the powers that be transferred him to a backwater province to make him harmless. Little did they know! The hindus, on the other hand, neither forgave nor forgot. They were out to destroy him. And he knew it.
The most detailed account of what happened that night in the Bibighar Gardens comes from Hari Kumar himself. And it is in Volume 2, The Day of the Scorpion, beginning on pp. 231 et ff. in my old paperback.
Lady Manners, Daphne's aunt and widow of a former British Governor, had petitioned the then Governor, Sir George Malcolm, on behalf of Hari.
About two years after being arrested, Hari was granted a Hearing on May 15th, 1944, in complete secrecy, and arrangements were made for Lady Manners to hear and see the proceedings through a grille from a secluded upstairs room in the prison. Lady Manners' escort was Captain Nigel Rowan, an aide to the Governor's, and we'll see both later in the current chapter.
In the hearing in what amounted to an interrogation, all the facts and the background were laid bare - old school friend Colin's coming face to face with Hari on the maydan in Mayapore and seeing right through him without any sign of recognition - the reason for Hari's getting drunk that night; Hari's rescue by Sister Ludmila; Merrick coming to the Sanctuary the next morning and plucking Hari off just like that as he is washing off his hangover under the water pump; and all the rest of it.
Most important is the information about the abuse in the local police station when Hari was first arrested, stripped and examined ("inspected", he recalled it) for more than an hour by the fully dressed Merrick, inapproriately touched by him, without a doctor present, shivering in the air-conditioned room. More graphic violations by Merrick are detailed in that chapter, none need to be reiterated here.
Hari had not been told what the hearing was about and answered the first questions by Nigel Rowan in Urdu and had to be jogged. THEN came the revelation: the perfect king's English out of the mouth of a brown Indian face. In fact, it was a Chillingborough connection, except for different years, and not brought up.
The most damning testimony was taken without the recording secretary present. Hari was asked whether he wanted to repeat it later but declined. Very elaborate care was taken to fashion two separate reports, both secret. Hari was released without fanfare. But what could Hari do after this harrowing experience with the only thing he had, perfect English?
Gum , about Susan, "she had once confessed to Sarah that she felt like a drawing that anyone who wanted to could come along and scrub out; that there was nothing to her except this erasable image. The first psychiatrist, Captain Samuels, had shown no special interest when Sarah mentioned it. ...
But the image had stayed in Sarah's mind as an explanation of her sister's self-absorption and self-dramatization.
She did not understand what had made Susan feel so inadequate ..."
The question about nature vs. nurture is still out there.
How important, how dominant are our genes?
Can we reform, or CONform, to another's wishes/plans for us?
(I have personal reasons to ask, but that doesn't' mean you have to answer ... >:(
Would Susan have had the same insecurities if she had been raised with the family?
To be continued
-
Welcome back, kidsal! Good to see you !!
I saw our post just when I checked my last message for typos. (Some might still be here, but it is late ...)
We are covering (using the term loosely :) )the chapter "Journeys into Uneasy Distances" and filling gaps, also
talking about the characters as we perceive them so far.
Goodness gracious, a whole hour lost tonight! Mercy.
Thanks for posting
-
Here to continue.
I was happy and grateful for your posts. It is helpful, I believe, even necessary, to pause and check how far we've come in our understanding and where we are in the narrative. Reams have been written about the Quartet and about the author - especially after the TV series brought it to the attention of a much larger audience. Comparisons were made with E.M. Forster's book A Passage to India which, interestingly, was made into a TV series around the same time.
The Quartet deals with the same theme, i.e. the British presence in India, and recounts in every volume the history of the British presence in India several times over (notably the Rebellion of 1857 and Amritsar in 1919), up to World War II and beyond to the partition of the India in 1947. The narration is not linear, not fully chronological, and the reader is given multiple perspectives. A bit demanding. That is the reason for taking a look back now and again.
Here in this place we are following the characters and their interaction - more than history and ideologies. It's a large enough task :), don't you think?
Merrick of course is a pivotal characters. A man on a mission, with a grammar school background, yet defiant and fiercely determined to make good in India - as he did, with any and all means at his disposal. We've seen how he made himself indispensable during the riots in Mayapore and how highly Brigadier Reid thought of him; we've seen how he insinuated himself into the lives of the Laytons. He emerged from the remote post to which he had been banished with a commission as an intelligence officer and the rank of major - clearly a person with the aura of importance. At this point in the story he has (1)sole control of C. Layton's Havildar, who may or may not be a traitor; (2) plans to have Guy Perron transferred to his own department, and (3) is moving to gaini direct entry into the Layton clan, yes direct entry .
Ostensibly through Edward, the 'Little Master' - who cried when Col. Layton lifted him up into the air on the first greeting - and who LOVES Merrick without reservations.
But the next scene now shifts to Ranpur and Nigel Rowan.
To be continued
-
I am a bit confused. Which book are all of you reading? I know it's not the first one. I would like to join in with you, if just to lurk and read. I know it's not the first book. Excuse my confusion.
-
Hi Hats,
We are on volume 4, but we digress a lot and go back over bits of the previous volumes to refresh our memories and remind ourselves from where or what previous actions have bearing on the "present".
-
Frybabe, thank you. The title of the fourth work is right in front of me. Thank you. I hope to get a copy.
-
Hello everyone, Traude, thank you for keeping us up to date on the story. I am reading it, but slowly, and with your posts I can recall what went on in the first volume. Just a couple of hints and it all comes back to me. New characters come into the picture that were just briefly mentioned before are becoming more prominent in the story and I like that continuity. I don't want to search my brain to know why we are reading something that doesn't seem to belong. Anyway I am with you and enjoy reading everybody's posts.
-
Hats, Frybabe, Éloïse, kidsal, everybody: My apologies for answering so late.
And thank you, Frybabe, for answering Hats' question for me. It made by absence less glaring. :D
Hats, it is a very special pleasure to see you back.
hank you all for being here with me. Without you we couldn't HAVE , this exchange!
Hats, yes, what we are focusing on is volume 4 of the Raj Quartet. All four volumes have individual titles. The title of volume 4 is A Division of the Spoils. The volume deals with the period from 1945 to 1947, ending with the Partition of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan.
In volume 4 the reader meets OLD characters, some in the then "present" time, some merely referred to, but also NEW characters, like Guy Perron. An overwhelming array of people marches across the pages of these novels; they all carry the story forward, many are unnamed (like Barbie's 'Unknown Indian') and a great many never are heard from again. They form the "background", not unlike the chorus in an opera, but in an immense line stretching to the end of vision and becoming blurred.
Some events in which the "old" characters were involved in the previous volumes are brought up again in volume
4 - events of which the "new" characters could have no knowledge. That requires a lot of REtelling by the author, as you have seen, and he obliviously relished l o n g conversations, which could qualify as speeches. In fact, sometimes we simply have to put the book down and let the information gel for a time, just as Ḗloïse has indicated. Thankfully, we can take the time.
That is what makes it necessary for me to go back to retrace a specific connection in context as to when it had happened. I don't consider it a divergence from what is actually happening "in the moment" of volume 4, but rather a clarification, elaboration, ultimately an amplification of the circuitous path Paul Scott has taken.
The four volumes are a continuum, but it all fits together, not a single stitch is dropped in the intricate fabric of the story.
It seems to me that we are not unraveling this novel so much as reassembling it, perhaps like putting shards of colored glass in varying sizes back on a vast canvas whose details have long faded and whose once magnificent frame is splintered. Hats, as the wonderful puzzle solver you are, would you say that is a possible analoygy?
In Chapter 1 of this volume, we accompanied (vicariously, of course) Guy Perron, whom we had just met :D , to a party at the home of a Maharanee, named Aimée; were later privy to the discovery of a murder - in reality a failed suicide, and were justifiably anxious to learn whether Major Merrick would be able to entrap Perron in his (Merrick's) net. There is no immediate answer. But the date is important: August 7, 1945.
We are currently going over the events described in Chapter 2, "Journeys into Uneasy Distances". Scott shifts gears, forward in time, way forward beyond 1947, and then brings us back to August 7, 1945, the day after Hiroshima ... not yet directly ahead, but through the thicket of long introspective passages by Sarah, and flashbacks to significant events of which the returning paterfamilias Col. Layton knew only what he was told, if he was told at all. We are going to discover later that he did not know that Susan had a breakdown and was in a world of her own in an institution. At the moment in the story Susan is at least functioning.
Those of you you have Volume 2 called "The Day of the Scorpion" on hand will find some chapters compelling.
A reader coming straight from reading "The Jewel in the Crown" might find the beginning of "The Day of the Scorpion" slow and, at first glance, even somewhat disconnected from volume 1, for some aspects were not prominently mentioned before, for example the independent princely states, their precarious status and their role. However, the fictional Mirat, one such princely estate, is the scene of crucial action in volume 2, and again in volume 4, yet to come.
No one but Scott has described the sights, sounds, scents, immensity, the glorious architecture and the concomitant abject poverty of India in more vibrant, exquisite language.
To be continued
-
Traude thank you for your informative posts, it gathers the story together and I love this:
It seems to me that we are not unraveling this novel so much as reassembling it, perhaps like putting shards of colored glass in varying sizes back on a vast canvas whose details have long faded and whose once magnificent frame is splintered
-
Éloïse, many thanks, chère amie.
T
-
Have made some notes:
1. Rampur - grave undug, Pankot - grave dug in too much of a hurry???? What does this mean?
2. 8th day - What did God do? Great question!
3. The greatest distances are between those people who are related.
4. Why was Rowan taking a "dose of pills?"
5. What did Rowan and Governor Malcom do about Harry? Have I forgotten or have we been told?
-
Thank you, Traude. It's taking me awhile to settle in. I'm trying.
-
Dear Friends, I am so glad to know/see you all here and I welcome your questions . Special thanks to our last posters.
Kidsal Absolutely, Q&A are essential, always, how else could we get to the core
of things?
Hats, your presence, like everyone's presence, counts. It's my reason to go on and I appreciate it. We need not, and we should not, hurry. There is so much to reflect on, to savor, even to discover about our world and human behavior, which obviously never changes :) :) :)
Will be back
Meanwhile loving thoughts to all across time and distance.
-
Here I am back.
Had to wait for my daughter's Sunday call. Her regular calls brighten my Sundays and the looming week ahead. I treasure them.
Kidsal Good questions.
1. Ranpur was the seat, garrison, headquarters of the Pankot Rifles. Pankot was the summer residence in the hills where everybody fled to when the climate in R. became unbearable.
Mabel wanted to be buried next to her husband, Col. Layton's father, in Ranpur. Barbie knew it,and so did no doubt DIL Mildred - there was very little she did not know about. But, and most likely out of spite, Mildred had Mabel hastily buried in Pankot instead. That was the wrong grave, dug too soon in the wrong place. There's no record in Volume 4 of conversations between Mildred and her husband, Col. Layton just returned. But from the brief passage you mentioned the reader learns that Mabel's remains were transferred to Ranpur to a freshly dug grave.
2. and 3. are super questions to consider, but we each have to find our individual answer.
Does anyone want to try?
4. Rowan suffered from the intestinal problem that affected so many British in India. That's why he took those pills. Probably the same kind Merrick gave Teddy to "cement" him from the 'runs'. The same malady affected Captain Purvis, we recall, who took those pills by the handful. We know that Paul Scott himself had the illness throughout his (short) life.
5. Nigel Rowan was an aide to H.E. (His Excellency) Sir Malcolm in a department having to do with politics, a job Rowan is trying to get out of, as we are about to see. Of course Governor
Malcolm knew what happened in Mayapore and Merrick's heavy-handed actions - for which he was banned to the hinterland, temporarily.
Lacking details, the reader must assume that it was Lady Manners' plea that finally prompted a reaction from the Governor about Harry/Hari and the other young people who were taken prisoners on that fateful night. The codefendants were eventually released, but on that day in the prison, significantly ONLY Hari's case was taken up.
So Rowan, a lawyer, was charged with the task of interrogating Hari. And an interrogation it was, not a hearing. Hari was not informed beforehand and, as it turns out, knew nothing about Daphne's death. It is not made clear whether the Governor was handed the ACTUAL minutes that detail Hari's abuse by Merrick in Mayapore, or the sanitized version - from which the abuse history was omitted.
How could one not be moved by the scene of Lady Manners and Rowan in the limousine, its shades drawn as they near the prison; Lady Manners fingering a mugshot of Hari whom she has never seen (which she handed back to Rowan); the hollow corridors of the prison and the stale air; the sudden blast in the air-conditioned little room where Lady Manners watched and listened, the secretive staging of the whole thing ... ?
Please ask any other questions, I am here. Thank you.
To be continued
-
Continuing.
We are getting to subsection III in Chapter 2, volume 4.
Col. Layton has returned to Pankot and to re-vamped Rose Cottage, where a large tennis court (hardly used) has replaced Mabel's lovingly tended rose bushes. The Colonel is weary and preoccupied about the Havildar suspected of treason who's firmly under Merrick's control and held incommunicado.
Edward, Susan's son, the Little Master, has taken a shine to Merrick.
Sarah and her father resume the habit of earlier years: morning rides, mostly in silence.
Nigel Rowan is coming to Pankot from Ranpur with a mission.
Merrick is in Delhi waiting for Guy Perron to join him. But Perron has put his Plan B in motion.
It sounds like a mystery - and it is. And the suspense pulls us along.
To be continued
-
Continuing
with Nigel Rowan, an aide to the current British Governor of the region, Sir George Malcolm.
His appointment was to be temporary but then extended. His quarters in Government House are on the top floor where the temporaries live, where the stairs and corridors are narrow, and the bathrooms have no running water. By now he is the oldest inhabitant and the two uniformed Indian servants consider themselves in his personal employ. He knows their histories, weaknesses, aspirations; he helps them in their personal matters; and settles their disputes. He had never felt himself cut out to be a good regimental officer, but he was enough of a soldier to miss the contact with the men for whose welfare he was responsible. The servants are the surrogates.
Upstairs two servants are waiting for him; one gets the room key off the board and unlocks the door; Rowan hands him the key to hi liquor cabinet and a drink is poured. The other servant turns on the lights and the fan in the sitting room and the bedroom and summons the bhishti whose sole duty is it to carry the hot water up from the basement. That has been the routine since Rowan was appointed to the job. He is off duty for 24 hours, and that, too, is the weekly routine.
While Rowan waits, he checks the mail, briefly goes over a copy of the upcoming agenda, which he himself has prepared. In the pouch is private mail, and a letter from Sarah.
It is a long one and printed in its entirety. Paul Scott stresses the date, August 11, 1945 - five days since Miss Batchelor death on August 6, 45. Since then another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. An end to the war is in sight.
To be continued
-
Hi Traude,
It's very refreshing and exciting to see you with an ongoing book discussion. Finally, I am becoming, almost, organized. My book, Division of the Spoils, is coming today. I will start reading tonight.
I haven't read Vol. one - three. I feel that in the process of reading Vol. 4, I will come to understand the earlier books. I will definitely go back to the earlier books at a future time. Thank you for being here.
-
GumTree,
Sorry to hear about the fires.
-
Hello, Hats, welcome back. I've been thinking of you yesterday and today, just as I was working on how to best present my next post here. (Telepathy may well have been a work, and I hve had that happen before.)
I'm just so glad you posted and that you have the book. The support and feedback I receive sustain me. Thank you.
Back soon.
-
To continue. First a few generalia.
Early on it became evident in the first volume of the "Raj Quartet", titled "The Jewel in the Crown", and in every volume thereafter, that the narration is not straightforward, nor chronological. There's not only one narrator but several. None of them is necessarily unreliable, actually far from it.
There are many detours, flashbacks, fast-forwards, much introspection by different characters and, for the reader, a lot of virtual walking with the narrator du jour through (some typical) towns and the streets of the cantonments the British had established. But believe me, the author is a master in the art of weaving an intricate story; he is in full control of the multiple threads, and he does not let go until the bitter end.
At this point in the story we are still in August of 1945, the atomic bombs have been dropped;
Japan has not declared surrender; the situation is unresolved; tension are high. There are immediate concerns in India itself. And Nigel Rowan plays an important role.
He is in Ranpur on his weekly 24 hr. furlough routine. A skilled, trusted aide to the British Governor, Sir George Malcolm, he has successfully handled two very delicate, secret missions for His Excellency, (1) the interrogation of Hari Kumar (which resulted in Hari's quiet release), and (2) representing the Governor during the release of the prominent Indian political leader MAK, Mohammed Kasim (father of Sayed and Ahmed) from Fort Prenagar into the custody of his kin, the Nawab of Mirat, in June of the previous year.
On that night Rowan sat in the Nawab's special coach in the train station of Ranpur on his way to Prenagar with Count Bronowsky. That is where fate led him to meet Sarah Layton.
(Let me mention quickly that Scott has given great weight to fate/destiny.)
Readers may recall that at that time Sarah had traveled to Calcutta to visit, in her sister Susan's behalf, the gravely injured Merrick who was present when Susan's husband, Teddy Bingham, was killed. Sarah was staying with her Aunt Fenny and her uncle Arthur, Col. Grace, recently entrusted with the task of encouraging British officers to stay on in India after ... On the evening of the hospital visit Sarah was introduced to Captain Clark, an opportunist, if ever there was one.
On her return to Aunt Fenny's that evening in Calcutta, Sarah found a message from Pankot that Susan had gone into premature labor. She left at once. On her layover in Ranpur Sarah saw and walked over to the Nawab's special carriage, waiting on a separate track and Count Bronowsky by the door. He did not immediately recognize Sarah, in uniform, but soon enough remembered her from Susan's wedding in Mirat and brought her into the carriage. That's where she met Nigel Rowan.
I believe it was necessary to refer to this background so that we could understand what is to follow in the story line now.
To be coninued
-
To continue
Another of my occasional personal remarks, if I may.
Paul Scott took about nine years to write the Raj Quartet - between 1966 and 1975, and I for one have no doubt that he wrote with what they call his "life's blood".
He was meticulous and always consistent in even the most minute details, and insistent on driving home an especially relevant point - often more than once. And I feel duty-bound to
recount at least the most significant events and happenings of the protagonists, carefully, as succinctly as I can, but without hurry.
We know that Scott received his "just due" in the form of the coveted Booker Prize in 1977 only after the publication of the last book, "Staying On". it is considered a sequel to the Quartet. He did not live to see the TV and Masterpiece Theatre productions. The full recognition and world-wide fame came posthumously.
Now to get back to Nigel Rowan in his quarters in Ranpur, supposedly off duty for 24 hours, eating dinner from a tray the servant brought up from the mess, washing down the handful of pills with the second drink. Before him is an envelope with Miss Batchelor's last papers which had been handed to him earlier that day by the Mother Superior of the Samaritan Hospital in Ranpur. Barbie had spent the last months of her life there in voluntary silence, not recognizing
anyone.
He calls Sarah in Pankot to give her the news and promises to send Barbie's papers by official pouch with the overnight train. A short time later the phone rings, it is Hugh Thackery, the Governor's secretary, who tells Rowan "HE wants a word". The Governor and his entourage are back from Delhi where they attended the Conference of Indian leaders mentioned on the first page in volume 4. It was unsuccessful because there no unity was achieved between Muslims and Hindus leaders on how to handle the next important steps
Rowan goes at once. And the reader follows willingly, vicariously gazing at thet grandeur of Government House; the halls and imposing formal rooms; upstairs to the magnificent private residence, to the anterooms, the hustle and bustle of the staff; lat the personal chamber.
The Glovernor reports on the failure of the Conference.
And says that there may be a crisis: MAK, one of the most influential Indian leaders and so far politically uncommitted, is traveling to Pankot for the burial of his personal secretary. It is feared that the visit could be used for political purposes and lead to unrest, protests, or violence.
Rowan is charged to take the night train to Pankot accompanied by Mr. Gopal, the Indian lawyer who was present at Hari's interrogations a few months earlier.
He is to carry a letter handwritten by the Governor and, through Mr. Gopal, to try and arrange the hand delivery of the letter to MAK.
All the details have been seen to, Mr. Gopal is informed and waiting to be picked up.
"By the way", says the Governor, "Im losing you ... They're asking you back to the Political
Department . I know you will be pleased. I will miss you, though."
A two-car escort takes Rowan and Gopal to the station; the official carriage has been put on the train. At the last-minute three unexpected passengers break through the cordoned-off area and demand to be allowed to board the special carriage.
To be continued
-
Continuing.
We've seen that Rowan is capable of handling any situation, no matter how unexpected, difficult or absurd. As the Governor's Special Emissary he has ample experience.
His problem of the moment is how to accommodate three extra travelers who are "overflow" on the train that's full to capacity, but they do carry a Government order. However, only one of them is an officer -- it's Merrick, now a Lieutenant Colonel, accompanied by his Indian servant and Sergeant Perron. Another officer is raising a fuss on the platform and the British Movement Control Officer, new in the job, echoes the other officer's complaint. Rowan overrules them both.
Knowing all about Merrick (even as Merrick knows little if anything about Rowan), Nigel Rowan is intrigued. Mr. Gopal, the Governor's other emissary and Hari's Indian interrogator, knows all about Merrick and Mayaapore as well, but has no desire to meet Merrick in person. He takes his bedroll, his tiffin set and his umbrella and moves to an old aide's room.
In their phone conversation Sarah had mentioned a Sergeant Perron but Rowan thought she was joking - until she said that Perron (a few years younger than Nigel) remembered him quite well from Chillingborough.
And there are the three. Merrick with his swagger cane, his servant in an extraordinary outfit, wearing a cap of gold thread swathed with stiff white muslin, an embroidered waistcoat over a white tunic gathered at the waist by a belt; tucked into the belt a miniature axe on a long shaft decorated with silver filigree; a clean-shaven, pockmarked face, kohl-rimmed eyes.
"A bazaar Pathan, handsome, predatory, a man instinctively to be distrusted."
Following behind is Perron, towering over them, unsmiling and fairer than Rowan remembered him from the olden days, when Guy was known as "a spot of trouble".
The "tiffin" in "tiffin set" (personal luncheon tableware) is etymologically derived from "tiffing".
I've not found a definition of "Pathan", but the meaning is rather clear.
The end of this chapter will be reviewed next.
-
Traude, Pathan is a tribal designation/affiliation. We are more likely to hear of them referred to as Pashtun these days. They are mostly native to Afghanistan and Pakistan. I read recently that the Pashtun tribes are about 65% Taliban (religious fundamentalist). Persian, I am sure, can give us a more in depth portrait.
If I find an illustration of Pathan tribal dress I will attempt to post it. I assume by "bazaar Pathan" Scott means to convey that the fellow is dressing to the hilt for the part and may or may not be a true Pathan.
-
While trying to find some illustrations of native pathan dress, especially ceremonial, I ran across this little bio of the only Pathan to be awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroism in WWII.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7996508
-
Frybabe, thank you for your posts and the information.
I know about the connection to the Pashtuns and their tribal standing, e.g. in Afghanistan. James Michener elaborated on that in his book "Caravans", one of the discussions we held in the Books on SN several years ago. The Pashtuns are known for their tribal loyalty and principle.
However, there is obviously something hideous, actually revolting, about Merrick's "Red Shadow", Perron's nickname for the man, an intimation of pure evil, reinforced because of his relationship with Merrick.
In fact, Rlowan's distrust is borne out later in this chapter when the Red Shadow turns out to be a voyeur, a procurer of the worst sort, and a thief, hardly the traits one would associate with a Pashtun!
That made me think there might be a more specific definition for the type of Pathan Scott describes here.
Thanks also for the link. We can assume that's exactly how one of Col. Layton's Indian Officers looked and dressed.
-
I am sorry to say that I have read very little of Michener. In fact, after looking at his list of books, practically nill. My Dad had Tales of the South Pacific which I started but never finished. The book has long since disappeared. I do have Iberia but have never read it. Shame on me for not reading a native Pennsylvanian. Double shame on me, I haven't read any Pearl Buck either.
I couldn't locate a pix of Pathan dress contemporary to our story except for military. However, here is a link to some illustrations dating from the second half of the 19th century which look somewhat like the discription Scott gave.
http://www.khyber.org/pictures/historypaint.shtml
-
Frybabe,
Thank you very much for the link and the portraits of the Pashtoons. The 'turbans' in the very first picture could very well be of white muslin.
There was an earlier reference to a Pathan, and I just found it.
It is in Volume , The Towers of Silence, in Part 3, in the chapter "The Silver in the Mess" .
Teddie has found a broken woman's bike outside the quarters he shares with Merrick. Both Merrick and Hosain, the Indian servant they share (and who is much more attentive to Merrick than to Teddie) are out. Teddie begins to feel sick and simply wipes off the strange chalk marks left on the steps. By the time Merrick returns Teddie is in acute discomfort. Merrick takes one look and asks "Oh, Mirat tummy?" and then brings out some "stuff" that he promises will help settle Teddie's stomach.
"Ten minutes later Teddie felt ephoric and they went to the mess together. At dinner he drank beer. Afterwards he drank several brandies and Merrick drank one. Without Merrick to guide him he might have lost his way in the maze of covered walks. By the time they got back to their room Teddie was satisfactorily several over the eight, but still on his feet. He protested when Merrick helped him take off his shoes. He did not remember getting into bed.
He woke with a thick head when Hosain roused them at half past seven with morning tea, and recalled a dream that had been so vivid it hardly seemed like a dream at all but obviously was because it couldn't have happened that he woke in the middle of the night and saw an Indian - a Pathan in a long robe - standing in the middle of the room."
I remember reading James Michener's Tales from the Pacific, or a similar title, which were made into a movie. The only other book I read of Michener's was "Caravans" - an excellent yarn - which we discussed in SN in December of 2001, when the eyes of the world were on Afghanistan after the horrible events of 9/11.
The book is fiction, set in 1946 and it probably has some historic ackground.
More than once during the discussion I found myself wondering if people in authority had read or knew of the book.
Oops, doorbell. Back shortly
-
Back for a moment.
Michener was known for doing extensive research on his books, many of which are veritable tomes. He wrote "Caravans" in 1963 and it is definitely of manageable length. The topic was perfect for the times, of course.
I'm expecting the grandchildren and will try to get back later.
-
My silence was involuntary.
On Monday I had appointments for bloodwork etc. in preparation for a semiannual checkup. On Tuesday the local book group met and, when we parted at about 4 p.m., I took a fall in the hostess's driveway and ended up in the ER. That's more than 48 hours ago, and I am beginning to feel more like myself again.
My apologies.
I will be back.
-
Sorry to hear about your fall, Traude. I hope you didn't break anything.
Yes, I remember the episode you just mentioned. The broken bike, I thought, was symbolic (Hari Kumar). I thought the "dream" of the Pathan standing in the middle of the room was kind of spooky. The scene added to the general sinisterness of Merrick's behavior/personality.
I think that the only point in the series that I felt Merrick let his guard down and revealed a little about himself was when he sat on the porch with Sarah one evening. It seemed at that point that he was trying to make an emotional connection (sympathy? understanding?). I think that was when they were staying in Mirat, but I forget exactly.
-
Frybabe The scene with the Pathan standing in Teddy's room didn't strike me as spooky - I just thought Merrick had made sure that Teddy was thoroughly intoxicated so that he (Merrick) would have the freedom to have a guest in the room. I imagined the guest to be the servant who paid more attention to Merrick's needs than to Teddy's. It certainly didn't occur to me then that it was Merrick dressed as a Pathan.
-
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/raj1.jpg)
Join us as we continue our discussion of the Raj Quartet.
We will be reviewing and finishing Towers of Silence, the third book of the Raj Quartet.
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/Rajquartetcvr.jpg)
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/Rajtitle175.jpg) |
|
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/indiapostpartition.jpg) |
Discussion Leader ~ straudetwo (traudestwo2@gmail.com)
-
Thank you for your posts, Frybabe and Gum.
I am most grateful also that unseen hands have restored the original header of this discussion, the view of the bungalow and the map of the subcontinent. I'll have to learn how to do that and am sorry for my omissions.
I've always loved geography and maps. My old school atlas was one of the books I hauled across the ocean when we came to this country; it is in good repair and still being used.
The fictional Mayapore, Ranpur, Pankot and Mirat are believed to be the area of the Punjab.
In any event it is clear from Volumes 1 and 4 of the "Quartet" and from "Staying On" that the entire region in the north east of India became Pakistan.
BTW, Frybabe, "Staying On" (a much slimmer book, as we know) is available on line,
just in case you had extra time ;) to check it out.
Thank you both for responding to the question about the Pathan whom Teddy Bingham imagines he saw in the middle of the night. We'll see one or two more similarly attired Pathans in this book and may have to decide whether they are real or only an apparition.
Yes, Merrick was ambitious and a man of action from the very beginning. India was his chance. In India he could (and did) become SOMEONE important. He had the intelligence and the daring. He was capable and competent, attentive to his superiors. He had the ears of the regional British administrator in Mayapore and those of the army commander, Brigadier Reid. He bungled the Bibighar Garden affair and was removed from the scene, but not for long, and reemerged as an officer in army Intelligence, more important than ever.
He tried to ingratiate himself to the Laytons in Mirat before Susan's and Teddie's wedding but Mildred remained cool. Sarah does not like him. Aunt Penny later said:"He isn't one of our boys ..." After the wedding Merrick approached Sarah, ostensibly to thank her and apologize for the incident with the stone. He went into the story of Daphne and Hari, again, just as he had done on the day he met Barbie at Rose Cottage (she had come to retrieve her trunk), and to Count Brownowsky after the wedding, insisting each time that his actions were justified, that "those" boys" were guilty.
Hari has since been discharged and is living with his aunt Shalini and earns a little money giving English lessons.
When we were last together here, the night train was rolling from Ranpur to Pankot.
Rowan and Gopal are riding in the governor's coach as emissaries on a secret mission.
Merrick, just returned from Delhi, is planning to interrogate all the men from Col. Layton's Indian Armyregiment. His personal servant, a Pathan, is on board.
Guy Perron was in Delhi with Merrick because he has been officially assigned to Merrick's group. However, he wants no part of this and has put a prearranged Plan B into motion.
We'll find out all about that in the next chapter, "The Moghul Room".
It is a pleasure to know you are here with me, and I thank you.
FLOB = for the love of books.
-
Thanks Traude, but I already have bought the book. I am waiting to read along when we get to it. Six Days in Mayapore is on my to buy list.
-
Hallo, everyone.
The events described in Chapter 3, "The Moghul Room", are dense and so detailed that they were condensed in the TV presentations by Granada. I've pondered on how best to summarize this chapter while remaining faithful to the content of the book.
The leading characters are all in this chapter, but it is essentially Guy Perron's story for the telling. Events are seen through his eyes. On the train, Guy tells Nigel about Operation Bunbury, his Plan B, and that he has activated it because he has become one of Merrick's "chosen people"and wants no part ot it. He asks what Rowan knows about Merrick, but Nigel is holding back. Guy has been drinking heavily during his days with Merrick to aneasthesize himself. He is badly hung over when the train arrives in Pankot and onlh dimly aware of being taken by jeep first to Area Headquarters, where he has a late breakfast in an empty NCO's mess, and later to the military wing of the General Hospital to await further orders from Merrick. He thinks about the telegram he had sent to Aunt Charlotte and, for good measure, the coded letter, but in the misery of this anonymous room and the grim reality his illusion of imminent escape is withering.
To be continued
-
Hello everyone. Easter is over and I am back.
Before continuing to follow Perron's account of what is happening in Pankot, it is expedient, I believe, to check what else is taking place in Pankot where several players are converging. Will they accomplish the purpose for which they went there?
Both Rowan and Perron have taken a shine on Sarah.
Does either of them have a chance?
* Governor Malcolm had reason to fear disturbances because Mr. Mohammed Kasim was traveling to Pankot for the burial of his long-time secretary Mr. Mahsood. The British authorities have been alerted.
* The war is not over for British India. The Indian leaders of the Congress Party and the Muslim League are bitterly divided.
One of the most influential and respected Indian leaders is Mohammed Kasim (MAK), but he has not yet revealed where HE stands. Governor Malcolm has known MAK for years and is trying to arrange a last-minute meeting, even though he has no such official authority. This becomes Nigel Rowan's mission and Mr.Gopal is the go-between.
* A large noisy crowd greets the train in Pankot, the sound of drums is deafening. The crowd is eventually dispersed;
there are no major incidents. Perron is first taken to Area Headquarters and later to the grounds of the General Hospital,
as directed by Merrick.
* Nigel's mission fails. Mr. Gopal returns to Ranpur. Nigel is given leave to stay on in the Guest House next to the unoccupied Summer Residence for a few days. He has promised to contact Perron.
* On the train to Pankot Guy Perron has told Rowan that Col. Layton's Havildar (Sergeant) Karim
Muzafi Khan has hanged himself in prison in Delhi while Merrick and Perron where there. Another wasted life on Merrick's conscience, if he had one. There is no actual proof the havildar ever was a traitor. The interrogation of the other Indian returnees from Col. Layton's regiment is still on the agenda.
* Re Harry/Hari.
During Hari's examination/interrogation in prison, Mr. Gopal had not liked Hari but was inclined to believe him innocent of planned rape, while Rowan originally thought he was guilty (!!), something that was not revealed in earlier chapters. It was Mr. Gopal who extracted the truth from Hari at last.
Hari has been living with his aunt since his release from prison, without activities or plans. Believing himself partly responsible for Hari, Gopal secretly entrusted a good friend of his with approaching Hari. It took time before Hari believed that the man was genuinely interested in helping him. At this urgent suggestion Hari started teaching Indian boys English, but there are few of them and the pay is low. The friend, who reported regularly to Mr. Gopal, unobtrusively brought small gifts and necessities, some apparently sent from Mrs. Gopal. Once he found the aunt in tears. "How can he go on when there is no hope for him ?" she asked.
During the discussion of the first volume, "The Jewel in the Crown", we wondered what Hari COULD have done when he saw the poverty and segregation on his rrival, and what we might have done under similar circumstances. Some of us believed he should have sailed back to England with the next ship.
But how could he have done that? There was no money for the ticket. No future in England. No support, no power, no influence. Colin's father could have helped but decided not to.
* By contrast, Merrick found in India all the things he could never have had in England because of his low class :
power, influence, promotion. Now he has "chosen" the Laytons, specifically Susan, and asked for her hand in marriage.
It was all carefully and cruelly plotted. The deviousness and ruthlessness Merrick employed is beyond words and makes one gasp.
And that is where Corporal Dixon comes in. We cannot leave out his story, especially because it involves not Cpl. Dixon directly but another poor, lost soul (my term, with permission) "chosen" by Merrick (nota bene despite the fact that in the Granada TV presentation the characters of Cpl. Dixon and 'the poor soul' are fused into one).
To be continued
-
To continue
Guy Perron's reception in the NCOs' mess hut is friendly, if detached. A Sergeant Potter presides over the bar. Everybody listens when Corporal Dixon spins his tales. The men call him 'Sophie' or 'Miss Dixon', or "Mum". Several of the men had seen service in the field and considered Pankot a relief Station. Dixon points to Guy's green stripes and, with a grin, refers to him as "Copper". When quizzed, Guy answers that he'll be there a day or two.
Guy is next taken to the office of the adjutant in the Pankot Rifles lines. In a low slung building a school-lecture room is being readied for the interrogation/interviews of the returned Pankot Rifles prisoners scheduled for the following day. The adjutant, new in India, is greatly impressed by the painstaking arrangements which Merrick directs from a dais until he is satisfied.
The subaltern does not know (how could he?) that the planned interrogations are utterly pointless --
because the men have already been interviewed by Col. Layton himself (with the exception of Karim Muzafir Khan, so studiously kept away from Col. Layton by Merrick and now dead by his own hand);
an Indian lieutenant implicated in the death of a sepoy in Koenigsberg, Germany, is himself dead;
the involvement in treason by the Pankot Rifles, an elite regiment, is unlikely;
and the name of Karim Muzafir Khan is mentioned only once in the official documents (which Perron has read while in Delhi) in spite of Merrick's false claims that it appears several times.
With all details firmly in place, Merrick asks for transport back. Perron will be given a lift. A car arrives with the Red Shadow already inside and Perron is ceremoniously let out directly in full view of the mess hut. "Better get a tonga in the morning, Sergeant", says Merrick. "I can't guarantee transport".
When Perron arrives at the mess hut a little later, a bottle of rum under his arm as a gaift, the reception could not have been more different from the first one. The gift of the bottle of rum is refused because it is against some rule. His chit for a beer is not accepted. His presence is ignored. But it is only when Corporal Dixon comes in that Guy realizes he is being cut dead. Dixon begins a story ridiculing "certain people" identified only by nicknames, and Guy has the uncomfortable feeling he is one of them. On leaving Perron asks about breakfast the next morning and Sergeant Potter tells him that "it is a bit of a moveable feast" but Perron could take it in his room.
The next morning the Depot lines have a Saturday look. He waits and does not initiate any conversation. Merrick arrives bynoon and speaks with the adjutant first. Then he comes to talk to Perron.
The Japanese have surrendered.
Merrick is being reassigned and to fly from Ranpur to Delhi and from there to Ceylon. Perron is ordered to stay in Pankot to get the interviews started with an interviewing board of a couple of Pankot Rifles officers.
"I may send for you in Singapore", Merrick adds.
"Incidentally", he says, I saw Capt. Rowan last night We were dining at Col. Layton's house. at dinner with the Layton's. Has he contacted you yet?"
Perron shakes his head no.
"I'm sure he will. So be careful what you say if he raises the subject of Mr. Kasim's elder son Sayed of the Indian Army. Surely you are famiiliar with his case?"
Perron again shakes his head no.
"I was sure you would read the file. I told you in Bombay it is one of our most interesting cases." Perron makes no reply.
Waving Perron closer, Merrick says,
"By the way, Sergeant, I'm leaving Suleiman in your care, at least for a day or two. He'll continue to be quartered with the servants in Flagstaff House but report to you every morning. Another officer will come to replace me, and he might need Suleiman's services. If not you have to put him on a train back to Delhi. Meanwhile make whatever use of him you think fit. He knows his way around Pankot pretty well now."
Guy looks up and sees the Red Shadow leering at him. For the first time Guy grins back at him.
To be continued
P.S. These are the events told in chronological order and we WILL hear more about Corporal "Sophie" Dixon.
-
My pleasure in reviewing and summarizing this marvelous tale here is undiminished. Knowing that I have your cyber company doubles my pleasure and makes it all worthwhile. But I have no intention of prolonging this marvelous opportunity beyond all reasonable limits - and will proceed in due haste.
I also invite you to come in and comment, as you have, regarding the Quartet or other works by Paul Scott.
FRYBABE, for example, has mentioned Paul Scott's Six Days in Mayapore.
And [Kidsal[/b] had a question a while ago about Rowan's taking medicine by the handful. a
Please feel free to continue to comment or ask questions. And accept my apologies for not answering. Just holler!
Frybabe, I haven't been able to locate a source for Six Day s in Maypore. Though it isn't essential now, do you have a source? Scott published a half dozen or so small volumes before he finally hit it BIG with the Quartet.
Kidsal, you had asked about Rowan and the medicine he took in such amounts, fortified with booze -- . I'm sorry if I haven't made that much clearer, sooner.
Rowan had contracted AMOEBIC DISENTERY in Burma, a disease that could be fatal if left untreated. Susan's husband,
Teddie Bingham, had it, so did the fictional Capt. Purvis and thousands of other Brits, even Paul Scott himself.
For the moment, then,we continue with Perron, quartered with medical personnel with whom he has no connection. Euphoric he is free from Merrick, Operation Bunberry very much in the pipeline. Antsy may be a good word to describe Perron's feelings.
We are now in the special "phase" (Perron's word) between August 14 and 16 of 1945. At last the war is over.
Merrick leaves Pankot on the morning of V-J day. Perron had not expected the Red Shadow to report to him - but there he is in full splendor, reeking of garlic, and offering Perron access to all kinds of earthly and some not so unearthly unimaginable sexual delights and pleasures -- until Perron explodes with a barrage of expletives he didn't know were in his vocabulary and chases the Read Shadow away, admonishing the brand new soldier at the guardhouse in the strongest, most explicit terms not to admit Suleiman ever again.
Is that the end?No.
To be continued
Tki be cotinued.
-
Here is a link to the book. I thought I saw a version dated 1956 so that would mean Scott wrote it before the Quartet.
http://www.amazon.com/Six-Days-Marapore-Paul-Scott/dp/0226743195/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239851617&sr=1-1
Here is what Wikipedia says about Scott. I didn't see Six Days in Mayapore mentioned. I think I ran across a Paul Scott website some time back. I will look that up when I have time. (Like after I get home in about an hour)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mark_Scott
-
NO WONDER I can't find info on "Mayapore". It is "Six Days in Marapore". Copyrighted in 1953, so it is a precursor to the Raj Quartet. I've been spelling it wrong all this time. Nevertheless, it isn't mentioned in the lists of books by Scott that I looked at. I could be remembering wrong on the dedicated Paul Scott website too. I could have swore (pardon) I saw one months ago, but can't locate it now.
Something else I came across. Mayapore is used as a name place in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The author of the article speculated that they picked up the name from Jewel in the Crown.
-
I just did a quick Google and see thatSix Days in Marapore is currently available at your Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I'll to look for it closer to home....my home.
-
Thanks so much for yhour posts, Frybabe and Gum.
Exactly my experience, Frybabe. I distinctly remember seeing "Six Days in Mayapore" mentioned somewhere, and next time I looked it was no longer there. >:(
Listed in my copy of "A Division of the Spoils" are these
Novels byPaul Scott
Johnnie Sahib
The Alien Sky
A Male Child
The Mark of the Warrior
The Chinese Love Pavilion
The Birds of Paradise
The Bender
The Corrida at San Felíu
The Raj Quartet
The Jewel in the Crown
The Day of the Scorpion
The Towers of Silence
A Division of the Spoils
Staying On
--------------------------------
Ergo, Six Days in Mayapore. was left out. Arrrrrg
Thank you for the links, Frybabe.
From the material published since, these are the apparently undisputed facts:
⁋ Paul Scott served in India. Once there, he was given a commission. He worked in intelligence. He drank. He smoked.Both to excess we're told.
⁋ Like the majority of the British, he longed to go home where the war was already over. Most of all, he wanted to be done with India.
⁋ Once home, and afflicted with amoebic dysentery, he found he couldn't let go of India. He began to write. The reception to what was published was lukewarm.
⁋ Years later he went back to India. That visit sparked the writing of the 'Raj Quartet'. 'Staying On' finally brought him the coveted Booker Prize.
By that time it was too late for him. He was too ill to attend the award ceremony and died not long after.
But his work endures. That is what counts.
Let me take this opportunity to say that - contrary to erroneous web information which I had repeated in good faith - a biography WAS WRITTEN of Paul Scott by a fellow Britain, a woman. I'll be happy to talk about it further when the time comes.
Many thanks.
-
This is vacation week in Massachusetts and, to my pleasure, my grandchildren have come by every day. Today my grandson came to spend the night, accompanied by his dog Brady, an exuberant black Labrador who forgets that he is no longer a
puppy :)
I have not forgotten Perron, of course, how could I? As soon as I have regained my "groove" tomorrow, I'll pick up the story.
My apologies for this involuntary delay.
-
Traude How lovely for you to have your grandchildren so close. - I'm not so sure about the dog ;) Enjoy -
-
Thank you sincerely for your understanding and patience. We have embarked on an ambitious journey; I have enjoyed every step of the way in your cyber company.
Much of the action in the Raj Quartet takes place in the northeast of the Indian subcontinent and specifically in what is now Pakistan. As we read and hear in the daily news, that part of the world is still embroiled in unrest and fierce fighting. Kashmir, a former princely state, a place of legendary beauty, and bordered by Pakistan, India and China, is tense. India is now voting, a process that will take a month to complete.
Now back to Guy Lancelot Percival Perron.
After angrily shooing off Suleiman, Merrick's Red Shadow, Perron spent the rest of the morning and afternoon in the meeting room at the depot. Nigel Rowanlooked in on him and invited Perron to come stay with him in the guest house of the Summer Residence. Welcome relief for Perron.
In late afternoon Perron returned to his quarters in the compound on the grounds of the hospital to pack his gear, settle the accounts and hand the various servants their bhaksheesh. His unit, like the others in the barrack-like "hutment" had its own bath house. He had a key to padlock the front door from the outside and also unlock the back door from the inside. Several servants were already waiting by the back door. Perron told the bearer that he was leaving and called the bhishti for a bath.
It was not to be the leisurely soak he had anticipated. For in the midst of splashing and humming he had the distinct feeling of a soundless presence in his room just beyond the bath house door. He had
the sensation of being watched, and the vibrating sense of intrusion was so strong that he imagined actually seeing the Red Shadow's kohl-rimmed eye pressed to a crack in the wooden door. Just beyond he door was the uniform with Perron's wallet and the open kitbag with the bottles. Perron was outraged.
The bath towel was too skimpy to wrap around for the surprise operation Perron was planning but his underpants were within reach. Continuing to scoop water, splash and hum, he hooked the pants with his toe, then maneuvered himself out of the tub, into the pants, then pushed open the
door, roaring for the bearer.
Promptly, Perron's wallet disappeared back into his uniform jacket; a ten-rupee note stuck to the Red Shadow's fingers and disappeared into his belt.
"Sahib ...", he stuttered, showing his now empty hands, and backing away.
Perron lifted the ten rupee note from the Red Shadow's belt and pronounced anathema with a stream of expletives. With each one he pushed, shoved, prodded the Red Shadow through the door, across the verandah and, with a final kick, dispatched him over its edge. The Red Shadow fell heavily on the gravel and lay there, winded or pretending to be.
There had been witnesses, the bearer, the sweeper, the bhishti - and Sergeant Potter, the sergeant in charge of the bar in the NCOs' mess hut.
Perron called out, "Just the man I wanted. Will this cover everything? I'm leaving."
"So I gather", said Potter ignoring the ten rupee note and looking down at the Red Shadow. "But presumably not together?"
Sudden cut-off.
Will return momentarily
-
Continuing.
When Potter returned a while later Perron was dressed and packed. They settled the bar chits.
Perron bore no ill-will toward Potter because he realized that the sudden change in the NCOs' attitude was due solely to having been seen with a man they had cause to dislike.
But what cause?
"We thought he'd had the nerve to plant you on us", said Potter and asked whether 'that fellow' could make trouble for Perron with Colonel Merrick. Perron answered that since Colonel Merrick had gone to Ceylon and that he, Perron, expected to be repatriated almost any day, he would probably be back in England before Merrick knew what hit him, or rather what had hit Suleiman.
Potter didn't need much more persuasion to spill the beans. The story Potter recounts involves Merrick. IHMO it is essential for us to hear about it because it not only confirms his ruthlessness and manipulativeness, but shines a strong light on Merrick's (and Paul Scott's) sexual ambiguity.
There is a victim in the story and his name is Lance Corporal Pinker, Pinky for short. That is next.
Thank you for being here.
-
I have to tell you, Traude, that your account of the interrupted bath is much more lively than I remember of what Scott wrote. I had to laugh. I don't remember that reaction when I originally read it.
-
Frybabe :) :)
-
Continuing
Pinker's story and Miss Khyber Pass 1935
Pinker was not his real name, of course.
When Sergeant Potter and Corporal 'Sophie' Dixon returned from Burma with the retreating, of the Pinky had been in India for a few months, spent mostly in Pankot, and had never seen field service. He was a reserved young man, studious, friendly, hard-working and conscientious. He had lived an institutional life with other men in uniform without ever arousing the suspicion that he was what has been called abnormal.
At that time Pinky was working on the wards. His transfer to the office of Captain Richardson, the pschiatrist, came later. Pinky and Sophie worked on the same officers' ward when Colonel (then Major) Merrick turned up for periodic treatments of his artificial arm. On one such occasion Merrick was admitted briefly because the chafing of his harness had caused an inflammation and there was the possibility of infection.
At this point in the story Potter filled Perron in on Sophie's record in the field. His compassion for the sick and wounded sprang from Dixon's feminine side. He never left anyone in doubt about his physical preferences, but these were made entirely acceptable to the men because it was his care and dignified ministration to a sick man's needs that they were made to feel, never the other thing.
The irony was that originally Dixon had liked the officer with the burned face and artificial arm. And so did Pinky. Potter remembered Dixon telling him "Sometimes I wonder about the Major. When I give him the bedpan this morning he looked at me ever so thoughtful. I nearly come out in one of me hot flushes. Watch it, Dixon, I says to meself. Hands off the tiller and leave it to the Navy!"
It would have been a good idea not only to watch "it" but Pinky who was heading for trouble. But by then Pinky was off the wards and working in the office of the psychiatrist, who had succeeded Captain Samuelson, Susan's former doctor. When Merrick next came to the hospital for treatment he said to Sophie, "I see your old colleague's working for Captain Richardson. Isn't that a waste of nursing skills?" Dixon was not surprised that Merrick had seen Captain Richardson. A visit to the psychiatrist was not remarkable, given the nature of Merrick's wounds.
Six weeks later Merrick came back to Pankot and the hospital. This time he as accompanied by the Red Shadow. Dixon saw them together and at once nicknamed Suleiman "Miss Khyber Pass of 1935." The nickname stuck.
A few days after Merrick had returned to Delhi taking the Red Shadow with him, Dixon found Pinky crying and packing his kit.
It took him a while to find out why.
More later
-
Entrapment
Pinky's job in Captain Richardson's office was clerical and confidential. Psychiatry was still a bit of a joke in Pankot but it had become vaguely fashionable in the army. Just as potential officer-cadets
in England had a routine chat with a psychiatrist at the war office selection boards, so, in Pankot's military wing, convalescent men had chats with Richardson. The doctor had few patients and lots of time on his hands. Pinky discovered that Richardson kept sets of separate and confidential files for personal reference in his future civilian career.
Richardson told an eager Pinky that psychiatry was a very inexact science and that there were judgments which had better not be officially recorded because the army would not understand the complexity of a man's emotional life, and it was grossly unfair to penalize someone by recording a professional but far from conclusive opinion that might be interpreted wrongly later on and block a man's promotion.
When Richardson saw Pinky's genuine interest in psychiatric method he sometimes lent him "closed files" of men who had been discharged and, when there was time for it, discussed them with Pinky.
The open files and the separate private files were kept under lock and key. If Pinky was lent a file, it had to be returned before Richardson left the office.
Intensely curious, Pinky stole the key from the drawer in Richardson's desk, had a copy made at the bazaar and returned the original. Thereafter night after night he poured over the confidential files, totally absorbed and oblivious of the risk. The files changed his entire attitude about himself. He went to the canteen or the Chinese restaurant with a new confidence and looked openly around.
It was during this first extrovert period that Merrick came back into his life late one evening after Richardson had left. Pinky was at the open filing cabinet, selecting the evening's reading, and did not hear Merrick enter. Merrick spoke to him in a friendly tone and an appointment was made for him to see Richardson the next day.
When Merrick came Pinky sent him right in. A short time later he too was called in. Richardson handed him the key and asked for a particular file. Without thinking, probably because he had become so used to handling the files, Pinky took out both the buff official file and the green private one.
Richardson handed back the green file and Pinky put it away. When Merrick had gone Pinky asked whether he should open a file for Merrick and was told Merrick was not a client.
Pinky had seen both files before, but they did not interest him: they bore the name of a woman.
To be continued
Merrick
-
Riding for the Fall
Some weeks passed. Pinky sought contact but was too shy to initiate it. He went to the Chinese restaurant several times a week and took to wandering through the bazaar, pausing to look into shop windows, waiting for someone to join him.
One night, in front of a store that sold clocks and watches, somebody did: an Indian boy dressed in western style. He looked clean.
The next night Pinky returned to the same spot, and so did the Indian. Through the store window they looked at each other's reflection. No word was spoken. Pinky's mouth was dry. Coming out of nowhere, an Indian man suddenly touched his arm and said, "Sahib, you want woman?" Pinky shook his head.
The man bent closer. "Sahib, you want boy? That boy looking at watches? That boy very good boy. Like English soldier very much. He like you. He is telling me. Sahib wait here. Boy come."
The man walked away quickly - a turbaned white-clothed figure wearing an embroidered waistcoat and baggy pants. To Pinky, this man whom he had never seen before looked vigorous and virile. East of Suez no shame attached to wanting boys. The man understood and casually accepted his needs.
Pinky slowly walked on looking into store windows. Coming to an alley he stopped and looked back. The boy came toward him briskly and smiled at him as he passed, going up the alley. The alley was dark. For a moment Pinky was afraid. Alleys like this were sometimes patrolled by military police - but he followed, his heart pounding.
It was no good. Pinky had been overexcited. The Indian told him next time everything would be all right.
"Come back tomorrow at half past nine."
Pinky said nothing could stop him.
"Leave me a token then," said the Indian. "Lend me your wristwatch." Pinky took it off and told him to keep it. The Indian had already refused money. He led Pinky back down the rickety stairs into the alley and went with him until the light from the bazaar lit Pinky's way.
To be continued
-
It is time to turn our attention back on Pinky. It's been many days since my last post, and I am sorry but it could not be helped. At first I thought my discomfort was caused by a spontaneous rise in temperature one day and the equally abrupt thirty-odd degree drop the next day. It was not the only cause. A nasty, tenacious bug had landed on me which proved to be resistant to my usually effective, homeopathic remedies and lingered. This is the best day in more than a week.
Back to Pinky. In late afternoon of the next day, Pinky was ready to lock up Richardson's office when in walked Col. Merrick, there to see Richardson, who had left. Exactly like the last time weeks earlier, Merrick asked for an appointment, and Pinky went to get the appointment book from Richardson's office. When he came out Merrick was sitting down, holding the green private file Pinky had been reading before and was unable to return to the cabinet. Pinky was nervous for a moment. But Merrick was studying the cover but did not open the file. An appointment was made for the next day. Then Merrick adjusted his artificial arm and suddenly held out the gloved artefact to Pinky and pried open the fingers. In the palm of the glove lay Pinky's watch.
Merrick said, "I think this is yours."
Pinky did not remember with any clarity what happened next, only that Merrick reprimanded him for
reading a green file because all of them were locked away safely at all times, none available to anyone when Richardson was not in the office.
Then he said, "I see you managed to get a key to the cabinet."
Pinky nodded.
"You would be wise to hand it over."
Pinky did.
Then Merrick asked whether the phone was connected to the hospital or the civil exhange. Pinky answered "to the hospital", which would get any number.
Then Merrick sent him outside and said, "You'll be wise to wait and do nothing foolish."
Pinky found himself on the verandah not knowing how he had got there. Shock had affected his ability to coordinate what he did and saw: a figure leaning against a pillar. It was a figure, not a figment of his imagination, it looked like the man who had procured the Indian for him the night before.
After an untold period of time filled with anxiety Pinky heard Merrick closing the office door and got unsteadily to his feet. Nothing of what Pinky had imagined would happen actually did. Wordlessly Merrick walked away, followed by the procurer, The Red Shadow himself, who had kept watch on Pinky while Merrick read the filer HE was after.
To be continued
-
Traude, I am happy to hear that you are starting to feel better. George and I both got some kind of bug last week, he worse than me.
These days, I think we call Merrick's maneuver entrapment. I am not clear on whether Merrick new beforehand that Pinky was sneaking looks at the files, or whether Pinky just made it easier for Merrick to blackmail him for the info he wanted. Ah hah, not only does he have Pinky's watch, but caught him red-handed invading patient privacy.
-
Traude Sorry to know that you've been under the weather. Some of these bugs can be the very devil to shake off. Take good care of yourself.
Over the past few weeks I have been watching the BBC TV series 'Story of India' presented by well known historian/presenter Michael Wood. It was excellent and traced the history of India from prehistory times to the present. Wood uses historical evidence and archeological remains to show the influence differing cultures and religions of the past have had on India's present and of course the political intrigues and wars that have continued through the long centuries. The last two episodes dealt with the rise of the Moghuls as well as focussing on the Sufi and Muslim influences and then the British Raj.
Each episode shed some light on the India of today and naturally on that depicted in Paul Scott's great novel and certainly amplified my appreciation of what Scott actually achieved in his portrayal of the period. The presenter, Michael Wood does not gloss over the primary interest or failings of the British in controlling India nor their inadequacy and perhaps unseemly haste at the time of partition. The Massacre of Amritsar and the infamous General Dyer was referred to on two separate occasions - once early in the series, and the second time more fully in the last episode where it was dramatised making it all the more realistic.
As I type this I realise that it is more than likely you have seen this series yourself - I plan to find it on DVD so that I can view it again.
-
Frybabe and Gum, thank you both.
I really wasn't so much concerned about myself as afraid to pass the bug on. Ergo, no hugs for the grands last Sunday >:(
Frankly, I also worried whether I'd be able to give a promised talk at the high school from which my son graduated and where my grandson is in the 7th grade and my granddaughter in the 4th. Tomorrow's the day, deo volente. No rest for the wicked:)
Yes, Gum, this special series about India was shown here not long ago on PBS at a time slot a little inconvenient for me. Before long regular programming was supplanted temporarily by fund-raising which, though essential, was an unwelcome interruption.
The Moghuls left a rich heritage. Our present chapter is titled "The Moghul Room" and we are winding our way towards it, slowly but surely. :D
Frybabe, the episode involving Corporal Pinker is first told to Sergeant Potter by "Sophie" Dixon, then by Potter to Guy Perron, who will share it with Nigel Rowan. The episode is
essential for us to know about IMHO and could not possibly be omitted. In the interest of time my rendition is shorter.
Weeks earlier Merrick had come to Richardson's office at an early evening hour when Pinky was standing by the open file cabinet. He asked for and was given an appointment for the next day. As soon as he arrived Pinky showed him in. Shortly he was called in himself and asked for a specific patient file. Pinky made the mistake of taking both the official tan file and the private green file back to Richardson, who handed the green one back.
Pinky remembered the file, he had held it in his hand but put it back unread: the patient was a woman.
Merrick's visit may have taken Richardson by surprise and, like any psychiatrist, he would have been reluctant to share with Merrick more than what the ordinary file contained. But during that visit Merrick realized that there was more than one file, specifically a green one, and by shrewd deductive powers guessed at the truth. In short order the trap snapped.
After Merrick left trailed by the Red Shadow there was silence.
No MP arrived.
Pinky was sick.
Then he began to run.
Lights in surrounding huts were being turned on.
Pinky ran back to the office.
The green file he had held when Merrick entered was still on the desk.
He felt for his key.
There was no key.
Anywhere.
Pinky remembered the wristwatch.
No watch.
The cabinet was locked.
Merrick had the key and the watch.
He had the rogue file.
H hid it in his own desk.
Closed the windows and locked the door.
In the morning Pinky reported sick. The MO found nothing wrong with him. But he looked awful and the MO sent him to sick bay for observation. An Indian orderly brought him tea. He drank it gratefully. It did not stay down. Nothing did. Curled up in the embryonic position he fell asleep.
When we woke in late afternoon, Richardson was sitting on his bed.
He asked, gently,
"My green file on the ordnance officer, Captain Moberly, can you tell me where I can find it?
I have an interview with him this evening."
"Yes, sir", Pinky said, feeling calm. "It's in the bottom left-hand drawer of my desk."
"Thank you, Pinker," Richardson said, and stayed where he was.
Eventually he said, "All things considered, Pinker, I think you'd better remain here for a day or two
even though there's nothing physically wrong with you. I don't mean you are malingering. I mean that your illness is psychosomatic. I take it you yourself are in no doubt of hat?"
Pinker nodded. There was nothing Richardson could do for him, but Pinky felt he understood. Richardson's face was the last friendly face he was likely to see until he came out of prison. But he did not think he would ever come out. He hoped he would die of terror and humiliation. How could he ever face his parents again if he survived to be sent home? Two years. In an Indian prison. For a crime he had not committed and had never intended to commit. He had only wanted a bit of love.
Next morning he felt purged. The nursing sister said she was pleased with him. He had expected that by now everyone would have heard about him and he had steeled himself to bear their contempt. He guessed whatever Richardson was doing was being done as discreetly as possible. Allowed up, he sat on the verandah of the sick bay and opened his mind slowly to his own "case".
Tomorrow A Good Man
-
A Good Man
After two more days in sick bay Pinky reported for duty at Richardson's office. A new NCO was at his desk. Richardson told him that since he was up he might as well show the new lance corporal some of the routine. A spark of hope was kindled. Pinky spent the morning and afternoon helping his successor. Richardson came and went. He was neither friendly nor unfriendly. About 5 o'clock he asked Pinky to come in.
When the door was shut Richardson handed him a piece of paper. Pinky read it. Read it again.It was a posting order to a Field Ambulance in a division that was preparing for something
called Operation Zipper . When Pinky finally understood what this meant he sat down without permission and cried. He cried from relief and out of gratitude. It didn't last long and wasn't noisy. The lance corporal in the other room could not have heard it. Richardson handed him a glass of water.
When Pinky had qieted down he stood up, ready to leave. He said that he wanted to apologize for having abused Captain Richardson's confidence in the matter of the files. He knew it was very wrong and he was sorry. He could not bring himself to mention the other thing that Richardson had referred to obliquely - so obliquely that is was almost as if he hadn't referred to it at all.
Richardson said, "Yes, I think it was an abuse. Between us we might have overlooked it. But under the circumstances I decided you would have to go. If it's any comfort to you, Pinker, although I suppose I ought not to say this, I think you were extremely unfortunate to come up against this particular officer. But there it is."
Then he added, "Also, from observation I'd say that you'll actually be much happier in the field than in a place like this. Your conduct sheet is clean. There's no reason why it shouldn' stay like that, is there?"
Richardson offered his hand. Pinky took it.
Then Richardson asked, "Tell me, how long was Major Merrick trying to get me on the phone the other evening?"
"Get you on the phone, sir?"
"He said he tried to ring me so that I could come over and deal with -- the problem."
"He sent me outside, sir."
"I see. How long were yout outside?"
"I honestly don't know, sir."
"Quite. Well, never mind, but I was in my quarters the whole evening. You didn't try to pass him off with a dud number?"
"He didn't ask for a number, sir. Just whether the phone was on hospital or civil exchange.
"Well, I wondered because my phone never rang. It might be just as well. These things are much better discussed in the light of day, wouldn't you say?"
Pinky nodded.
"Good bye, Pinker, and good luck."
Just before Pinky reached the door, Richardson said:
"Oh, Pinker, I nearly forgot. This is yours, isn't it?"
He was holding Pinky's watch.
"I think it must need a new strap otherwise you'll lose it again."
Slowly, Pinky took the watch. His face was burning. He mumbled something like thank you, sir, goodbye, sir, and remembered to come to attention. He was still at attention when Richardson said:
"If it's of any interest to you, I found it in the Ms. I suppose it slipped off your wrist when you helped yourself to Captain Moberly's file."
In the midst of his packing later in the evening Pinky sat down and looked at the watch : the gift of his parents when he joined up. He threw the watch don the floor and stepped on it with his boot until it was all in pieces. That was what he had done with his life so far. After that he resumed packing, pausing every so often to wipe is eyes and cheeks.
That's when Sophie found him.
Next: Dinner at the Laytons
-
Continuing
Dinner at the Layton's
Perron had interrupted Sergeant Potter's telling of Pinky's story with one question.
What was the name of Richardson's former patient? he asked.
'Bingham', Potter answered. The name meant nothing to Potter, Dixon, or Pinky. But it registered with Perron.
Perron apologized profusely for arriving late at the Summer Residence guest house, where Nigel Rowan had been the only guest. He waved aside the apologies. The obligatory drinks were served. Here then was the chance for Rown and Perron to fill in he ten years during which they had not seen each other, and for the author to engage in elaborating on background information.
Rowan remembered Perron's Aunt Charlotte and his eccentric uncles but could not fully believe Perron had set his Operation Bunbury in motion and expected orders for repatriation any day. Now Perron confirmed that he had done so.
Perron in turn remembered Laura, Rowans beautiful fiancée (who was not included in the cast of characters in the Television series). He now learned that Laura had visited Rowan in Burma but had married somebody else.
Rowan and Perron had things in common:
(i) both had known Hari Kumar as Harry Coomer;
(ii) both fancied Sarah;
(iii) both were fixated on Merrick. Perron's experience was more recent, and Merrick had told him only that he had been best man at Sarah's sister's wedding.
"Who is Mrs. Bingham?" was the first question.
"Tell me about Merrick and Kumar", came next.
First Rowan resisted, then he revealed the connection to the Laytons; Capt. Bingham's death in a foray against Japanese infiltrators in which Merrick was gravely injured trying to save Teddie Bingham; Susan's one-year-old son who had taken to Merrick more than to anyone else in the household.
He added, "She is going to marry him, you know. It was announed at dinner the other evening."
Rowan said he had an invitation to dinner with the Laytons that evening and, when Mrs. Layton learned that Perron was to join Rowan at the guest house, extended the invitation to include Perron.
"When Mrs.Bikingham asks you tonight how you like working with Colonel Merrick, you better tell her
a lie and say you find it extraordinarily interesting."
Though Perron wanted to beg off he went along.
The house - no longer called Rose Cottage - and its tasteful decor pleased his trained aesthetic eyes.
in the book now follows a detailed description of the dinner, Perron's impression of the two family members he had not met yet: a spot-on analysis of Susan and her mother, bits of the conversation. Perron pronounced himself taken with Mrs. Layton(!), which I found surprising. Susan paid little attention to conversation. She momentarily brightened only when Perron congratulated her on her upcoming wedding." Yes, we will be very happy", she said, then lapsed back into silence. Sarah looked distracted and also said little. After dinner Colonel Layton asked Perron (again) what he thought would come of the interviews with the Indian returnees. "Very little", said Perron. Colonel Layton nodded in agreement.
A long conversation between Rowan and Perron followed in the guest house. It is Rowan's take of Kumar, a reiteration of the interrogation at the prison, with little that is new for the reader.
For that reason I'll continue with the last part of this chapter and the last days/hours before the saving telegram arrived, and the visit of the Moghul Room.
-
While I should have more to comment on, the only thing that pops out at me is "Oh yes, they did change the cottage names to street numbers".
I remember a sense of discomfiture and puzzlement regarding Merrick wanting to marry Susan. It is not clear to me if he feels some responsibility for Teddys' death and wants to make some kind of amends by doing so. Genuine feelings for Susan are out, I think, but the boy is another story. He is untainted by the stories/hearsay/innuendo surrounding the Kumar affair. He alone seems to like Merrick without reserve. Merrick, if inwardly starving for affection and acceptance, would certainly respond to that. Of course, it could be that Merrick was just looking for a way to advance himself and gain some respectability.
Merrick is complex. At times I am appalled at his behavior and think him evil. Sometimes I feel sorry for him. But always, I distrust him.
-
Frybabe, thank you for your thoughtful comments.
I agree, it's all about Merrick and about Hari and of course the Raj, and what both are meant to represent, respectively.
No matter on what I page I open any of the volumes there's always another thought, an additional aha moment, if I my call it that. When we've completed the discussion of volume 4, and before delving into the much shorter sequel "Staying On", I plan to l treat myself to the uninterrupted viewing of the video. From my first viewing years ago I do not recall any direct or even indirect homosexual hints n the TV program. Pinky's story is omitted. But that angle IS in the book and Merrick is associated with it. The Count spotted it at the reception after Susan's wedding; in the circumstances this is hardly a surprise. It takes one to know one.
Reviewers have referred to it more and more and made comparisons with the author's own sexual ambiguity, or possibly duality. On one occasion, when Merrick tells Sarah about his upbringing in England in one of his many monologues, he mentions a young teacher, a man, who recognized Merrick's ability and drive and became his mentor. Was that an initiation in other ways as well?
Merrick had drive, a quick wit and a good mind; there was no stopping him. Even so he would never have succeeded in England as he did in India. In England he would have been as invisible as Hari became in India. Hari was just another brown face.
"What has your English education done for you?" Merrick asked Hari during his extraordinarily sadistic interrogations both before and during Hari's caning. Merrick was relentless in his verbal attacks and efforts to convince Hari that he should confess his guilt - the premeditated gang rape of Daphne. His case had holes. The evidence of the bicycle was manufactured.
Merrick sought out victims; he "adopted" them; he felt he "owned" them and could manipulate them as we wished: Hari, Pinky, the Havildar (of whose gilt there was no proof), the Laytons, including Colonel Layton, whom Merrick effectively kept away from the Havildar. He considered them all "weak". Daphne and Safrah escaped the net. And so did Perron.
Merrick was cut out for his police job but his aims were much higher. And he was the right sort for intelligence work. The fortunes of war had turned against England - in Europe, in North Africa, and last in the East. There was a desperate shortage of personnel (no more "top drawer" officers, hence the modified rules for access to the English club in the first volume, "The Jewel in the Crown"). The war was good for Merrick. He was in the right place at the right time.
Yes, it is more than uncomfortable to think about Susan at the hands, as it were, of this man.
A man who had made Hari stand nude and shivering for a long period of time in an air-conditioned room, even touching him inappropriately while sneering that "she was no virgin, was she?"
The Laytons had reservations, Rowan also voiced concern in conversation with Perron because, for one thing, he knew that the Hindus were not likely to forget the Bibighar Gardens, that they had struck at Merrick before and would do iso again, and that Susan might be affected as a result.
I tend to believe that Susan was a means to an end, nothing more. He wanted more power. And he was good and patient with young Edward, clearly a difficult, even strange, child of an unstable, self-absorbed mother. We're pointedly told that Merrick was the only adult of either sex Edward would listen to.
We have no idea how Susan herself felt about Merrick. Nor do we know how Dr. Samuelson was able to get through to Susan, bring her back from the temporary insanity after she had tried to burn the baby, and got her to function again - - even though perhaps not fully. Susan had also seen Captain Richardson, Dr. Samuelson's successor. The secret lay in the private file in Richardson's file cabinet.
When Merrick had formulated his plan to marry Susan, he went to see Richardson but was told only general things. Due Pinky's mistake in bringing in not one file, but two, Merrick discovered that the details could be contained in the file which Richardson had handed back to Pinky.
Having spotted Pinky's latent inclinations, he conceived of the devilish plan that was executed with the aiding and abetting of the utterly repulsive Suleiman, the Red Shadow.
Then he let Pinky stew in his wretched misery.
What kind of a man hatches and carries out such a sadistic plan only to walk from the devastating effects?
Did he suddenly lose interest because he had gotten the information he was after?
We don't know what Richardson did or said to Merrick. Whatever it was, Pinky's record remained unblemished.
More tomorrow.
-
Continuing
The initially talkative Rowan became more and more quiet in the course of the evening. Sarah seemed listless and did not have much to say. Perron saw no glances passing between Sarah and Rowan. When the two men took their leave, he heard Rowan making an appointment with Mrs. Layton for a tennis game the next day.
Back in the guest house the men went out to the verandah again. When a round of fresh drinks had been ordered, Rowan said he would be leaving the next morning. Surprised, Perron wondered when he made that decision. "A little while ago", answered Rowan.
And suddenly Perron understood. Rowan had not declared himself to Sarah, and probably never would because he could not live in close proximity to Merrick and having to conceal what he knew about him. They sat in silence for some time. Perron could almost feel the presence of Hari out in the darkness beyond the verandah.
Slowly Rowan opened up: How he learned about Hari Kumar whom he had known briefly as the boy Harry Coomer; read the relevant documents about the alleged crime in Mayapore; Merrick's part in the prolonged interrogations of Hari in prison; Merrick's banishment to a back-water garrison.
Rowan admitted that he was initially convinced of Hari's guilt, and that only Mr. Gopal's
line of questioning eventually led to the discovery of the truth. That piece of vital information transpired while the recording secretary was out of the room, and it was not repeated nor recorded when the secretary came back in.
Afterwords Rowan and Mr. Gopal prepared two versions of the official report, one without the piece of vital information, the other the full transcript WITH the detail in it. In actual fact the information contained in the official version was strong enough to establish that Hari was not guilty as charged, which made his immediate release possible.
Rowan realized that everything Hari had said was true. As for Colin Lindsay, Rowan checked his record and found that Colin was in Mayapore at the time Hari saw him and that he had put in for a a transfer after a few days.
It is not hard to imagine that Colin had been in India long enough to know of the existing taboo, of the impossibility of contact between a British officer and an Indian. But one wonders, might it not have been possible to somehow convey a shimmer of recognition, a fleeting half-smile? Some kind of familiar gesture?
Rowan's parting gift for Perron came in a large manila envelope.
"It's a carbon copy of the full typescript", he said. "I thought you might like it. Take it home with you. To the groves of academe. Officially it does not exist. His Excellency told me to lose the copies of the full record. I destroyed the top and the shorthand book. I kept the carbons. I still have one."
At the door Rowan stopped and said, "You'd better destroy it if you find Operation Bunburry snarled up and you're still stuck with Merrick. I mean on account of his light-fingered servant. By the way
you've not told me why you asked who Mrs. Bingham was."
"It's a long story," answered Perron.
"But connected in some way?"
Perron: "Where Merrick's connected everything's connected."
Rowan: "Yes, I suopose it is."
Tomorrow Last Hours in Pankot
-
Perron's Last Hours in Pankot
Rowan left early the following morning. He left a note for Perron with the address of a bank in Delhi for future correspondence, and the name of the officer at Area Headquarters who would be the first to see the telegram Perron expected.
At the Pankot Rifles Depot Perron was told that the interviews of the Indian returnees had been suspended. Before going back to the guest house he went to the telegraph office and introduced himself to the signal sergeant, leaving his telephone number. He remained at the guest house all day, afraid to go out, just in case a miracle would speed Operation Bunburry up. No call came.
On waking next morning, Sunday = the first Sunday of Peace, Perron could not stand being cooped up any longer. Among the notices at the guest house he had seen one from St. John's Church (Church of England) and decided to attend the second service at 10 a.m. The church was packed. He saw only white faces from the back pew where he sat among the soldiers. Were there no Indian Christians in Pankot? he wondered. No Eurasians on this Sunday of all Sundays? he began to feel oppressed and agitated. Way ahead the chaplain was reading a lesson. When the congregation stood up to sing he nex hymn, Perron got up and slipped out.
Outside on the road tongas and their drivers waited in the shade. Perron flashed a two-rupee note and hailed one. At the telegraph office the sergeant handed him a telegram. Bunburry! Were had he been, the sergeant wondered. He had just called the guest house and no one answered. The telegram ordered Sergeant Perron to proceed immediatel to Deolali for onward transmission too UK for demobilization.
The sergeant clerk set to work at once outlining the steps and procedures that needed to be taken. Then he took Perron to the Duty Officer. A girl om a WAC uniform was at the file cabinet. She turned around. It was Sarah. "The duty officer has gone off somewhere," she said to the sergeant who had brought Perron. "But I'll cope. Leave Sergeant Perron to me." And she did. She made phone calls, complete all arrangements, secured all signatures. When all was done she said: "I envy you, Guy. But I'm glad for ou. And I'm not at all sure you don't deserve a medal. Ronald Merrick is going to be furious!"
Perron expressed his gratitude for everything she had done and asked whether he could take her to lunch. And when Sarah said she had to go to a lunch party at the club, he asked whether she could make tea time. Perhaps not, she replied, but she assured him she would see him some time in the afternoon. At the guest house Perron studied the precious papers and then composed himself to rest. He instructed the lone remaining server to attend to the phone and wake him at four o'clock.
Something was going wrong with Operation Zipper. He dreamed of speeding towards the beaches on the landing craft that had come under fire by Japanese - and woke with a start. His watch read ten minutes to five. The server did not answer the bel. Furious, he got up shouting the man's name.
Sarah was sitting on the verandah, a pot of tea in front of her. "How long have you been here?", he asked. "About an hour", she said. "You may not have a very comfortable trip, if you decide to go tonight. The best we could do is the back of a fifteen hundred weight that's leading the convoy down. But it'll take you right to the station in Ranpur."
She handed Perron a slip of paper with a name, Sub-Conductor Pearson, and a telephone number.
"Joe Baker at the signal station has received another telegram from a Major Foster who's arriving on the morning train. I suppose it's Ronald's replacement. I'd settle for the discomfort if I were you. The convoy leaves at ten. Call Sub-Conductor Pearson just before seven and he'll tell you where to go to meet it."
Their hands touched briefly when Sarah handed him the slip of paper. For a moment Perron thought
he didn't really want to leave, but he said instead, "Yes, I've met Major Foster. He is the replacement. I'll settle for a night's discomfort."
The servant brought out the drinks trolley. The sun was just coming out. From base to roof, the Summer Residence rose out of the shadow of a fast-moving cloud.
"You have seen the house, I suppose", Sarah said, "I epected Nigel has shown it to you."
"But isn't it shut?" he asked.
"The servants will always let you in," she answered.
"There seems to be only one servant left", he said.
"They live in the main quarters.T hey come down only if there are people in the guest house.
The Residence was built in 1890. It's mostly in plain Anglo-Indian style. But there's a Moghul suite where they used to put pet princes. The throne room is very ordinary, the ballroom is quite small. But they danced on the terrace too. There used to be colored lights in the trees.."
After a while they lapsed into silence. Eventually he said, "I never thanked you for Emerson", Barbie's heavily annotated book,
and the passage
he world rolls: the circumstances vary every hour. All the angels that inhabit this temple of the body appear at the windows, and all the gnomes and vices also. By all the virtue they are united. If there be virtue, all the vices are known as such; they confess and flee.
They walked over the damp grass to the Residence.
A
-
Good morning.
When I finished the previous post in the wee hours of the morning it was even longer. ;D But try
as I might to post it, I did not succeed.
Crestfallen, I went to bed. But before that I made a copy :).
Only now in the clear light of a fresh day did I discover that part of the post was transmitted. The sentence "They walked over ... through the wet grass." was NOT the end of it! There was to be more, clearly. My apologies for being technically challenged.
This involuntary break in the post gives me the chance, though, to add that the interlude in the Summer Residence is described beautifully and with admirable restraint. Without further ado, here is the summing up.
They walked to the Residence through the wet grass. Stairs, corridors; doors opened with keys obtained earlier for a consideration from the ancient chaudikar who was lost below in a dream of opium and the vanished splendor of which he was the guardian. They moved through the maze of imperial history; they stopped in the Moghul suite. The light of the setting sun filtered through one unshuttered window on to the tiled floor where the chappals lay, temporarily set aside.
A smell of old incense permeated the fabric of the covers and cushions of an immense divan such as might have been used by court musicians. Dust seemed to rise from it, gently enveloping them in a dry benevolent mist in which hung minute particles of the leaves and petals of garlands of flowers:
jasmine, roses, frangipani, marigolds and all the names of Allah. Are you afraid, he asked. No, she said, I am not afraid.
...
She said she would not stay for supper.
"Then let me take you."
"No, you've too much to do. I'll wait while you pack and change. Then I must go and you must eat."
Handing her a wrapped package he said, "I've bought a few things for people at home. I've nothing else to offer." She took the package and said "Whatever it is I shall like it."
"Another drink?"
She shook her head. There wasn't time. She must leave now. She didn't need a tonga. It was only a short walk up the hill. He went with her to the front of the guest house. The light was almost gone - how could he let her go home alone?
"I shall be perfectly all right. It's what I'd prefer. Honestly. Goodbye, Guy."
She turned and set off on the narrow drive. He called after her ,she glanced around and waved the package. He began to follow her - then stopped, understanding her wish to go now and go alone.
In a moment a curve in the drive had taken her away.
He went back to finish packing his kit-bag. As he shoved the typescript well in to make room for his slacks, shirt and chappals, he remembered the particular li e We haven't een each other since the night we visited the temple ...
He sat on the verandah staring out into the dangerous Indian night, drinking the last of the brandy, and waited until it was time to take a tonga for the rendezvous with Sub-Conductor Pearson's convoy on the first leg of the journey back to the source, to another world entirely.
Next Chapter The Dark Bungalow
-
It is very difficult for Sarah to let her guard down, isn't it? The one time she actually did, it turned into a disaster (her pregnancy and abortion). I can feel the awkward tension between the two as they say their goodbye.
Traude, I am lamenting the fact that very few people are posting here. Too bad for them.
-
Frybabe,
Thank you for the post and thank you for being here. I'm grateful for the company and glad to be able to carry on. I feel the Raj Quartet is eminently worth the investment of time. There are so many verities. And there is proof - if any were needed - that, sadly, we do not learn from history but make the same mistakes over and over again. Signposts are set in the first volume, The Jewel in the Crown, and reappear in other volumes (the massacre at Amritsar in 1919 for one). Each thread in the complicated epic is woven seamlessly into the fabric of the story. The author's psychological insight into his characters is astounding. He had a keen sense of observation and must have been a good listener, a quality that's rather care these days.
The Dark Bungalow is a first-person narrative by Sarah and relatively short (46 pages). It will not take long to summarize.
Tomorrow.
Thank you.
-
As much as I try to correct typos when I see them, sometimes I notice them after the fact. >:(
Case in point : the title of the new chapter. It is The DAK House, not "dark house".
The British built dak bungalows in the hills as postal stations accessible only with horses. A dak bungalow could also serve as a rest station for travelers. A destination, an end, is inherent in the Hindi word "dak".My apologies for not spotting my typing error sooner.
This chapter is told in Sarah's voice and gives her perspective of the days already described in the preceding chapter.
Sarah began to realize that only her father's absence had kept the family together and his return showed how deeply they were divided. Colonel Layton tried to come to terms with each of the family members separately: he made time for his wife, there was a time for Susan and Edward, a time for Sarah; a different time for the ervants, for Pankot, for the regiment.
Sarah's time was before breakfast when she and her father went for a ride. The ride home varied, the routine was the same. Colonel Layton would rein in his horse at the same stopping point and gaze down at the same village in the misty distance. It was, Sarah discovered on a map, the village of the Havildar Karim Muzzafir Kahn, who survived imprisonment in Germany but not the shame of being held in prison in Delhi on suspicion of treason and chose death by his own hand. In the long tradition of Man-Bap (I am your father and your mother) Colonel Layton, as commander of Indian troops, knew himself to be responsible to look after them in every way.
One morning Sarah overheard her mother saying, "So, why don't you go down?" , adding that after all it is what she had done: accompanied by Captain Kevin Coley, she rode over long distances to visit the wives of the men "when you all went into the bag" , and talked patiently with the wives who came to see her in Pankot. But Colonel Layton could not find the inspiration. Also, under the weight of the dishonor, the Havildar's wife had since left the village and returned to her own.
Sarah studied her parents and wondered. She had initially dismissed Barbie's feverish mutterings in the hospital about her mother and Captain Coley as singularly unlikely, but the circle of conjecture made her ponder the possibility again and again.
On the Friday of that week Major Smalley in the office told Sarah that Barbie had died at the Samaritan Hospital in Ranpur. Sarah called the Reverend Mother who told her in vague but rather urgent tones that Barbie had left papers for her that should be retrieved. That is when Sarah contacted Nigel Rowan and asked him to go to the hospital in her stead to pick up whatever tems were there. We know from the previous chapter that Rowan did as asked and promised Sarah she would receive the package te next morning in the official pouch.
But on the same evening the Governor ordered Rowan to go up to Ranpur on the governor's train with Indian lawyer Gopal on a special mission. Rowan took the package with him to deliver it in person.
(Sarah and Rowan had met on the station in Ranpur when Sarah, waiting for the Ranpur-Pankot connection, spotted the Nawab's special train and was invited in by Count Bronowski. They had met again just days earlier in Delhi where Sarah was waiting for her father's homecoming.)
To be continued
-
There is a caesura in the books's narrative at this juncture which must be included here also because of the information it conveys.
On the evening of the day when Sarah contacted Rowan the Laytons attended a dinner party at the Trehearnes at the Commandant's House. It was Col. Layton's first dinner out. He had not quite fully adjusted to being home, his hands still trembled, on occasion he still covered bread on his plate as if trying to save it, as he must have done as POW; sudden noises startled him. At their arrival Maisie Trehearne said Kevin Coley's servant had just called to say the adjutant Sahib had gone to bed with a temperature. "I have been worried about him", said Maisie. "He's been so restless lately. After all these years of resisting all attempts to move and promote him he's acting as though ts time to do something about him."
"Watch out for the dogs", Mildred had told her husband. For once the Trehearnes' dogs were sequestered. Unused to such treatment they started howling in protest. Visibly disturbed, Col. Layton stopped eating.
After dinner when Sarah and Mildred repaired their makeup in Maisie's bedroom Maisie brought up Barbie's death. Asked whether she knew, Mildred said she had heard the news from Lucy Smalley who said the Bishop Barnard people had written to Arthur Peplow because she rectory had been "the woman's" last address. Then she added:
"I expect the Mission wanted to be sure she's left nothing here that they ought to have and I'm sure their solicitors will be already on to ours making a fuss about the annuity Mabel willed her. I suppose the estate will have to cough up what she'd have received if we'd ever got round to buying it. Thank God I had the presence of mind at the time to tell our own solicitors in London to drag their feet and thank God she went off her head as soon as she did because that gave them a good excuse to rag their feet even harder. Mabel must have been off [i[her[/i] head making that sort of provision fr an elderly spinster."
"I really never understood about annuities", said Maisie.
"You buy the damn things to provide an income for life which is all right if the person the annuity's bought for lives a long time. The catch is that once it's bought the capital sum has gone forever. Even if you die the next day.
I must say it would amuse me if the Bishop Barnard people think they've got several thousand rupees coming to them. They have complete control of her estate, apparently, for what it is worth."
"Poor Miss Batchelor," said Maisie. "I sometimes I think she had a sad life."
Mildred: "I don't think you'd feel so sympathetiv, Maisie, if you'd had to watch her encouraging Mabel's eccentricities and anti-social instincts and at the same time be pretty sure she was feathering her own nest ...
and then making all that macabre fuss about where Mabel should have been buried. I had Mabel's funeral and Susan's premature labor to cope with, Sarah was in Calcutta ... And of course John tells me he never heard Mabel say a single thing about where she wanted to be put. I took him to see the grave this morning. He thought it very suitable."
The subject was dropped when Susan came in the room. "How pretty you look", said Maisie.
It was still a thing Susan needed to hear but it was no longer said in spontaneous admiration but rather out of the obligation people felt to encourage Susan back to life and happiness. Under Mildred's ever watchful eyes Susan had learned to function on the surface at least, and barely. Only Sarah knew how precarious Susan's emotional state was. Sarah heard her crying at night in the bedroom they shared and tried to comfort her.
So here we have the definitive answer to one of the questions we have been pondering
There's more to come.
-
Col. Layton was late joining Sarah the next morning. He led off as usual but forced a variation.
Without any more warning than a look behind he turned on to a road up the hill that narrowed to a track to the old dak house. Sarah remembered it from years ago. They had never been inside. Two boys were moving about on the verandah. It was her father's surprise for Sarah, breakfast just for the two of them with bacon sandwiches, tea. He had arranged it and it had made him late.
One of the boys was Fariqua, the mali's son. Sarah asked about Fariqua's friend.
Col. Layton said, "I caught sight of him the other day when I went round to the servants' quarters. Thought he was just visiting because he dodged out of the way. But this morning I found him and Fariqua curled up in the goatshed."
"Doesn't he have a home?" Sarah asked.
"Probably several. None permanent. Orphan. Ambitious boy, though. Tells me he's going to Rajputana one day to become a mahout, ride an elephant for a maharajah. Meanwhile he scrapes a living running errands in the bazaar ..."
(Here the reader recognizes the same eager boy who, only a year or so earlier, had run errands for Barbie in the bazaar and confided to her his dream of becoming an elephant driver. And Barbie had become fond of him.)
But the mali had no need for two boys to help him now, said Col. Layton. What would her father talk about, Saraha wondered, Mabel, the roses, the grave? It hardly mattered they were all connected.
He began with the tennis court: it shouldn't be difficult to get a foursome together, Susan and the new subaltern, and surely Sarah herself had a friend. "What about this Nigel Rowan?" he asked.
"Nigel is in Ranpur", she answered. He pressed on. Was there anyone in particular? Had there ever been someone particular, someone she wanted to marry? Sarah shook her head.
"Tell me," he said with some urgency, "what are your feelings towards Ronald Merrick?"
Sarah stared at him. He went on : Aunt Fenny had given him to understand that Sarah held Merrick in high regard ... She protested. He did not believe her and said "Mother said you were holding him in high regard..."
Sarah insisted it was not true, that she didn't even like Ronald and that he knew it.
"But Ronald was Teddie's friend," Col. Layton isaid.
"He was not Teddie's friend," she said forcefully. Of course all he knew was what her mother had told him.
"What was Teddie like?" he wanted to know. A little like the new subaltern at the station, she answered.
Then he asked why she didn't like Merrick and she said she couldn't explain.
Her father replied, "He isn't quite our class, of course ..."
And proceeded to recite what he knew of Merrick's humble background, father small shop in North London, newspaper agent, tabacconist, parents killed in motor accident,
Ronald mentored by assistant head master of good grammar school, socially a leg up,
the best he could expect in England would be insurance or accountancy;
decided to come to India, made his way with drive and ambition with Indian police,
a commissioned officer, decorated,hat
made good in India.
"But why has Merrick volunteered these details?"
"Because he wants to marry Susan", her father said. "I was afraid it wold hurt you to know."
"It doesn't hurt me, it appals me. You've got to stop it. She's not fit to marry anyone, let alone Ronald Merrick."
"The psychiatrist apparently says she is."
"Who told you that?"
"Ronald. He saw the fellow a few weeks ago."
"With Susan's approval?"
"No. He saw him before he spoke to Susan."
"The bloody nerve of the man!"
That was the news. She knew Susan would not ask for her opinion. Sarah would say nothing, simply stand by and be available, as she had done all these months. She said that as long as Susan is interested and prepares for the wedding, making plans, she'd be all right. She would watch.
But, Sarah added, she had plans of her own, of going home to England and finding a job.
"But not yet", said her father. "I've just come back myself and I want to enjoy my family."
And suddenly Sarah felt the strong urge to confess to her father right then and there what had happened to her in Calcutta. She had rehearsed a confession many times. "Look," she began. "I have something to tell you ..."
but her father said, "No", sharply, and then again, more gently. He took her hand. "No, Nothing to tell me. Better be off." He let got of he hand and hugged her briefly, without looking at her.
She walked down the rickety stairs. The boys brought the horses. Ashok helped her to mount. They rode back in silence.
He knows, she thought. He knows about the pregnancy and the abortion. Aunt Fenny or mother had told him.
He knows ...
To be ciontinued
-
Nothing for Sarah had been in the overnight pouch from Ranpur, said Sergeant Baker when she arrived at the daftar. She set to work. The phone rang, Nigel.
"There was nothing in the bag; is that why you are calling?" "Partly", he answered and explained he had come on the overnight and had the package with him. And that Merrick, with Sgt. Perron in tow, had also traveled up because a havildar from Col. Layton's regiment had committed suicide in prison. Fearing the news would upset Col. Layton, Merrick wanted to deliver it himself.
"He's been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel", Nigel added,"did you know?"
"No, I did not, Nigel", she answered. "But my father told me this morning that Ronald might become my brother-in-law because he wants to marry Susan. And Susan wants to marry him."
She asked how long Rowan would stay in Pankot and how soon could they could discuss this unsettling news further?
Rowan wasn't sure how long it would take him to handle the task for the Governor, and that he had said the same thing to Sarah's mother when she invited him to dinner at Rose Cottage that evening. He expected to be free the following evening. Hearing the urgency in Sarah's voice, he invited her for lunch at the guest house.
She almost didn't recognize him in mufti. It disguised the thinness that his uniform accentuated.
Over drinks he asked, "When did all this happen?" Sarah told him.
Nigel: "Does your father approve?"
Sarah: "Let's say he doesn't know Ronald well enough not to."
Nigel: "So you have the impression it's more or less fixed?"
Sarah: "If it is, I want to unfix it. I hoped you might help me. I would be most grateful."
He didn't answer at once.
Then he said it was difficult to see on what grounds he could. He didn't know Susan at all. He and Sarah had talked about Merrick only in generalities.
"One's instinct isn't much to go on if it comes to interfering," he said.
"Is it only instinct, Nigel?"
He thought for a moment, then allowed that Merrick's professional future was uncertain, and there might possibly be other incidents of "persecution" by people unknown, factors that could affect Susan.
Suddenly Sarah realized what he might think of her own attempts to interfere.
"I am sorry, Nigel", she said. "I shouldn't try to involve you. It's not your problem. I'll ring mother and tell her I won't be nome for lunch. Then I'll go through this stuff of poor Barbie's."
He showed her to the phone in his bedroom.
It rang. Her mother was at the other end, emphasizing the importance of the dinner and the guests.
"I don't want just a family dinner", Mildred said. "I want Captain Rowan here too."
Sarah: "He'll come when he can."
"I want you to make sure he does. I must have nother man at the table."
Sarah: "Nigel isn't definitely free. If you want to make sure, better invite someone else. There's always Edgar Drew."
"I said a man, not a boy. And a man of our own sort."
Sarah: "Then ask Ronald to bring Guy Perron."
"You can hardly ask a colonel to bring his sergeant along, even if there was a chance of his agreeing to it. I want Captain Rowan.
"I can't promise", Sarah said.
"I'm saying that it is the least you can do for me to guarantee he WILL be her," Mildred said.
"The least?"
Mildred: "The least. He sounds to me like the most presentable man you've ever bothered to get to know. In the circumstances, in all the circumstances, I should prefer it if you brought him into the open and
remember that this isn't Calcutta. but Pankot."
Very quietly Sarah said, "Why do you want that, mother? So that Susan can take one look at him and decide he's for her? I suppose that would solve everything from your point of view."
"Not quite everything", Mildred said and hung up.
To be continued
-
The conversation between Mildred and Sarah was a very "palpable" one. You can feel the viciousness of the woman. Sarah is not doing too badly standing up to her.
-
Thank you for your post, Frybabe.
How very true.
Only Scott's dialogue, or parts of it, can convey Mildred's malice, cruelty and connivance. A summation of the essence and nuances of this family dynamic isn't possible, IMHO. But I am trying to condense what we need to know - which isn't all that much - before we go on to the next chapter.
And since we are at an important juncture in the plot of this story, I'll take the liberty of adding a few comments of my own.
Two chapters are left in this volume: The Circuit House and Pandora's Box.
Thank you for being here.
-
Sorry to have been away for awhile. Am starting at about your Apr 15 comments about Merrick and Perron going separate ways and the Red Shadow (can't remember who this is??) So guess I have a lot of reading to do!
-
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/raj1.jpg)
Join us as we continue our discussion of the Raj Quartet.
We will be reviewing and finishing Towers of Silence, the third book of the Raj Quartet.
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/Rajquartetcvr.jpg)
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/Rajtitle175.jpg) |
|
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/indiapostpartition.jpg) |
Discussion Leader ~ straudetwo (traudestwo2@gmail.com)
Hi Kidsal, welcome back!
Red Shadow is the nickname someone gave to Merrick's hired fellow. Can't think of the word I want right now. He apparently did a number of things like an orderly, go-fer, bodyguard(?), guy Friday.
-
Great to see you back, kidsal, I'm so glad.
As Frybabe said, Merrick came to Pankot several times to have his artificial arm/hand re-fitted at the military hospital there. One time he came with a flamboyant servant in tow, described by Paul Scott as a "Pashtun". We talked about this term a little bit and came to conclude that it is a tribal designation, and Frybabe supplied a link which showed men in their traditional attire, honorable and respectable.
But Merrick's servant was a bird of a different feather. His name was Suleiman and Perron dubbed him " the Red Shadow". The medical non-commissioned men in Pankot, especially gay "Sophie" Dixon, immediately spotted him for what he apparently was: slippery, sexually accommodating, ready and able to do ANYthing for his master - or any other comers, (but Perron declined), no matter how shady or cruel.
After recognizing Pinky's proclivities in the hospital ("it takes one to know one"), Merrick put Suleiman to the task of procuring a boy for Pinky, a novice. Armed with this knowledge, Merrick black-mailed Pinky into handing over the key to the file cabinet in Captain Richardson's office. Pinky was told to wait outside, guarded by none other than the Red Shadow, the procurer, while Merrick took his time to read Susan's SECRET file before he put it back. It contained all the details of Susan's breakdown and hospitalization. That was all Merrick needed to put his plan to marry Susan into action.
More later
-
Was surprised (and grateful) that Scott retold the story of Kumar and Daphne. There is so much detail and so many people that sometimes I forget who is who?
-
kidsal
Somtimes it is difficult to keep track of who is who, where and when. So the accounts of the same events by different characters is really helpful. I think it is remarkable that Hari Kumar is still a presence in this fourth volume. We don't meet him again, not directly that is, but we'll hear from him in another chapter of this book.
What Merrick had to say about the night of the Bibighar Garden and his role in the investigation is self-serving, of course. We readers witnessed with Lady Manners what happened when Hari was interrogated by Rowan and Mr. Gopal. And Rowan's own report, when he finally opened up to Guy Perron, was the most detailed and revealing by far. Had it not been for Mr. Gopal's persistent and different line of questioning, the essence of the truth would never have been discovered, especially since Rowan originally believed that Hari was guilty.
A wrong was righted, Hari was released. But what good did freedom do him? He lived hand-to-mouth
with the aunt and rejected anything that smacked of charity. Rowan spoke to Perron of his concern for
Hari and wondered if Guy might be able to do something for Hari once Guy was back in England in his old university job. The prospects were dim, at best.
It is tempting to speculate whether Rowan would have told Sarah what he knew about Merrick if she had pressed harder. I don't think so. He was the consummate political expert, the Governor's obedient servant, politics his career even as his future was uncertain now.
_________________________
The telephone rang again and Sarah though it might be her mother calling back to apologize. But the call was taken elsewhere in the house. Once she stopped shaking she walked back into the living room and picked up Barbie's package. Inside she found a book, Emerson's Essays, and something soft, marked In the Event of My Death. Dear Sarah: the butterfly lace. Hastily she put it down, unable to face the memory it evoked. She opened the book and read a few passages, remembering how fond Barbie had been of the essays. Sarah found them tiresome and self-righteous.
The other package contained large envelope and several smaller ones, variously marked, To Sarah. Not to be Opened before My Death. Private and Personal: To Colonel Layton's daughter. To the Girl who Visits me. To the Girl with the fair helmet of Hair. To Whom it Might Concern. To Gillian Waller from a friend - heart-breaking evidence that Barbie had not recognized her in the end, had even given her a new name, Gillian Waller. The name rang a bell but Sarah couldn't remember why.
She put the notes back into the large envelope and stuffed it and the lace into her shoulder bag. Rowan came back in. "That's settled", he said, looking pleased. "Tomorrow. Probably in the evening."
"Which leaves you free for tonight?" asked Sarah.
"Yes", he answered. "Would you prefer to dine here?"
"I think that's ruled out, Nigel", Sarah said. "I'm not inventive enough to think of an excuse that would cover both of us."
"In that case I'll come to Rose Cottage", he answered.
Noticing the package was gone from the table Rowan asked,"Mystery cleared up?"
"There wasn't much of a mystery", Sarah answered, "but I haven't looked through everything yet.
Are you keen on Emerson?"
"I don't know him, I'm afraid", said Rowan. "Guy Perron is the expert. He was quoting him last night."
Sarah: "Oh? Barbara Batchelor was an expert too I should think, judging by the homework she seems to have done on him. I thought you might like to keep the book as a reminder of a pretty odd sort of mission."
"I shan't need reminding", replied Rowan. "If you don't want it, why not give it to Guy? It might cheer him up."
"Is he very down-in-the-mouth"? asked Sarah
"I shouldn't say that. Fighting mad might be nearer the mark. He told me he has a scheme to wangle his repatriation. But I never did know when Guy was serious."
Sarah: "I should say he is serious when necessary. For instance in Bombay he saved a man from drowning in the tub."
Rowan: "But not - I gathered - from chucking himself out of the hospital window later and breaking his neck. So Guy said."
"I didn't know that", said Sarah. "Poor Captain Purvis. I think Guy Perron should have the book if you don't want it. When will you see him?"
Rowan wasn't sure. Guy had not been billeted. "Poor Guy", he said. Two suicides in one week and being attached to Merrick's department is a bit much.
Incidentally, Guy told me last night you had met another Chillingborough alum, Jimmy Clark.
Where was that?"
"In Calcutta", Sarah said.
"What was he doing there?"
"Passing through, looking up old acquaintances, including Uncle Arthur and Aunt Fenny. He'd been on one of Uncle Arthur's courses and was quite the blue-eyed boy."
"Was that the only time you met him?" asked Rowan.
"Yes", Sarah said."He flew off he next day on a glamorous-sounding appointment. Or perhaps he was just swanning around."
Rowan: "Probably. What did you make of him?"
Sarah: "I thought he talked a lot of sense. He had us all sized up pretty well."
Rowan: "Us?"
Sarah:"People like us. English people in India. Except that he didn't think we were really English any more. He said we got left behind. Preserved in some kind of Edwardian sunlight."
Rowan laughed. "Let's eat", he said.
Conclusion of this chapter and commentary to follow.
-
Traude Thank you for continuing your summary - you always tap into the most pertinent aspects of this huge novel which reinforces its power for me.
The complexity of the novel makes it difficult to comment upon the small players in the vast scheme - though they are the ones which make it come to life...
Barbie Batchelor and Guy Perron are two vastly different characters yet both responded to something in the Emerson - interesting.
I found Hari to be a 'presence' right throughout the four volumes - he seemed always to be there somewhere in the background - especially in relation to Merrick.
-
Gum. It really is my pleasure. I am grateful to you and those who are here.
What makes summarization difficult is the structure, the presentation of radically different perspectives in the dealings of the British and Indian politicians, the latter bitterly divided among themselves.
The author's focus is consistently sharp-pointed; objective, unbiased. Major or minor, the characters are believable. (The unvarying distinct focus made me think of a play by John Van Druten, titled I am A Camera, based on The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood, a contemporary of W.H. Auden, Aldous Huxley and Ray Bradbury. "The Berlin Stories" were also the basis of Cabaret with Joel Grey and Lisa Minelli.)
* * * * * *
An extraordinary feast was laid out. "Game pie of a kind" Rowan pointed ot. "And champagne, also of a kind. Compliments of Government House. It came up in the icebox."
"Who is all this meant for?" asked Sarah. "Not for me. Could it be for the elusive congressman, Mr. Kasim?"
No said Rowan, it was for him, from H.E., because this was his last assignment for the Governor.
"They are taking me back into the political."
Sarah: "When? When are you going? What's your ambition? The Residency at Hyderabad?"
"Too late", Rowan , "I'd need another ten or fiteen years."
Sarah: "Then why go on? Why not just get out?"
Nigel: "I thought we already talked about that when we first met over Count Bronowsky's champagne at the station in Ranpur. You said nothing was an excuse for working at half-pressure, or standing back from a job while it's still there to be done".
Sarah: "And you've remembered! It doesn't sound like me at all. I can't have been thinking straight."
"Have some more game pie", said Nigel.
"I can't even go through this", she answered, and suddenly she felt nauseated. She murmured an excuse. She shivered. But it was not a fever, she realized, it was delayed shock, a physical response to the emotional strain of the ride home from the Dak bungalow, knowing that either Aunt Fenny or her mother had told Col. Layton about the abortion in Calcutta. But that had been for her to tell her father; no one else.
She began to weep as she'd never done before, not even at that time in Calcutta, when Aunt Fenny took her into her arms in the hospital room. To muffle the sound of her crying, she turned on the taps ful force and bathed her ruined face in cold water. A Layton face, more than a Muir face. Built to last.
She remembered when she had last thought that, in the garden at Rose Cottage, bending down for the scent of a rose. Barbie was with her. it had been before Mabel's death; Susan was still pregnant. And Barbie had asked who Gillian Waller was. And gone on to explain that Mabel had uttered the name in her sleep when Barbie checked on her to remove Mabel's eye glasses and turn off the light.
Then Barbie asked "Is Susan more cheerful?"
"Not cheerful" said Sarah. "Holding on."
"To what?" Barbie asked. "Would you say she is dangerouly withdrawn?"
And Sarah rembered another occasion in the garden when Barbie had grabbed her arm again and again.
"They say the child should have a father. I'd encourage it if I were you. If she doesn't marry again you'll never get away. Some people are made to live and other are made to help them. If you stay, you'll end like that, like me."
"Are you all right, Sarah?" Nigel called from the bedroom.
"Yes, thank you", she called back.
She waited until she heard the bedroom door click shut. She considered her reflection in the mirror and slowly understood the irony. There goes a man she might have been happy with and who up to the time he rang her at the daftar, when she told him about Susan and Ronald, probably thought he could be happy with her.
She completed the repair of her face, exaggerating the lipstick, and put a smile on her face before she opened the bathroom door.
* * * * *
This is the end of the chapter The Dak Bungalow.
What happened subsequently at the dinner in the Layton house has been described by Guy Perron in he previous chapter, The Moghul Room. As the keen observer he was he noticed the coolness between Sarah and Rowan although he - and the readers :) - did not know why until the end of the Dak Bungalow chapter. Some details may warrant looking at again.
The next chapter The Circuit House leads us on to a different track, back to Congressman Kasim. It advances the plot. There's going to be a meeting between Mr. Kasim and his elder son Sayed, a Lieutenant in the Indian Army, captured by the Japanese, who went over to the Indian National Army and was promoted, recaptured by Indian forces and held in Delhi prison. Newly minted Lieutenant Merrick is in charge of his case.
I am confident that the salient facts of this chapter can be summarized relatively easily. There are no revelations in this chapter about Sarah or Susan. Merrick is there, of course, holding all the cards. And we wonder about his reasons for wanting to marry Susan.
Thank you again.
-
P.S. I discovered earlier that the header with the bungalow and map needs to be refreshed. Sadly, that is a task I cannot manage. Sorry.
-
Nigel: "I thought we already talked about that when we first met over Count Bronowsky's champagne at the station in Ranpur. You said nothing was an excuse for working at half-pressure, or standing back from a job while it's still there to be done".
Sarah: "And you've remembered! It doesn't sound like me at all. I can't have been thinking straight."
I loved that passage. Thank you for including it.
What a shame that Merrick seems to have spoiled things between Sarah and Rowan. Obviously, Rowan feels very strongly about avoiding entanglements of any kind that include Merrick.
Oh, I came across something interesting that I want to explore further. While looking up George Orwell, I discovered he was born in India in 1903 and was sent to England for his schooling. He eventually returned to India for a while, spending five years as a member of the Indian Imperial Police. When I get some time I'd like to see what he might have written of the experience.
-
Frybabe. Thank you. Good idea to investigate Orwell. A surprising number of writers have background in the raj, I've discovered. Will write them down from now on.
-
George Orwell served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, not in India as one would expect from the name. Anyhow he did write about it. I think these two are articles - A Hanging and Shooting an Elephant. His novel Burmese Days, so I read, depict his experiences in service. He found it totally unsuitable, began to despise British Imperialism and resigned after five years. Interestingly, Burmese Days was published in the US in 1934, a year before it was published in Britain.
-
Thank you, Frybabe.
Yes, Orwell. He was born in Burma in 1903 as Eric Arthur Blair. When he was five, his father, a plantation owner, sent him to England, the traditional routine for educating British children.
In 1922 he, the son, returned to Burma where he still had connections, and joined the police force.
Though not the "jewel in the crown", Burma was part of the British Empire.
After the Japanese had taken Singapore and boldly marched into Burma, the British mounted an offensive to retake Burma. The poorly-planned effort ended in ignominy; officers, men, sepoys in full retreat. Among them were Paul Scott's fictional characters Nigel Rowan and Teddie Bingham.
-
Perhaps you quoted this but believe it is very revealing. Sarah's father:
"Without India what would we have been? Lawyers, merchants? India's always been an opportunity for quite ordinary English people to live and work like a ruling class. A ruling class that few of us could really lay claim to." Did the U.S. act the same in the Philippines?
-
kidsal
Thank you for quoting that passage. Much more of this long exchange between father and daughter is worth quoting, e.g. continuing from page 370, when Sarah said
"India is no longer an opportunity", and
Col. Layton answers "That is hardly Ronald's fault."
Sarah : "I didn't mean it that way. I meant it's no longer any use looking at Susan's
future from that angle. It's all finished. She ought to go home. Ronald's the kind of man who'll kever let her. He's worked too hard to get here. It would be different if they were in love. But they're not. I don't believe he's capable of feeling that for anybody."
Col. Layton leaned back and said "It's not his first prposal though. Is it?"
"Isn't it?" asked Sarah.
"Didn't you know ?"
"Know what?"
"That he was very fond of the girl in that wretched case that caused him so much trouble."
Sarah: "Daphne Manners? Ronald told you he was very fond of Daphne Manners? Fond enough to propose to her? "
(page 371) Col. Layton, "Yes, he did."
Sarah: "It's not the impression he originally gave me. All he said was that he once thought he liked her but that he went off her pretty quickly when he realized she wasn't sound."
Col. Layton: "Sound?"
Sarah: "He may not have said 'sound'. But that's what he meant. Not sound. Meaning too friendly with Indians."
Col. Layton: "He told me he proposed marriage to her. I don't see it as a thing a man would invent."
Sarah: "And I don't seee it as a thing a man would talk about. Why did he?"
Col. Layton: "I suppose I asked him. I mean not directly. We were talking about the case, about his future. ... Wretched case altogether. Wretched to talk about. I'd really prefer not to."
Sarah: "All right, daddy, we won't talk about it. That doesn't mean we may not have to live with it, Susan especially, if people start pressing for inquiries into some of the things that were done at the time. But I mustn't say that, must I? The mere prospect might make you feel sorry for him. You should never feel sorry for Ronald."
Col. Layton: "I'd feel sorry for any man who was victimized."
Sarah: "Victimized, yes. So would I."
It occurred to Sarah then that she had repaid him badly for the care and affection he'd shown making arrangements like these before telling her something he thought might upset her. She had not set his mind tot rest, she had not even spoken kindly to him in the last few minutes.
"It was a lovely breakfast", she said. "I'm sorry if I've spoiled it. I honestly didn't mean to."
Col. Layton assured her she had not.
* * * * * *
A recap.
Sarah had met Merrick twice, the first time in Mirat on the day of Susan's wedding, and the second time after Teddie's death when she visited Merrick in the hospital in Bombay. She had not liked him.
After surgery and discharge Merrick came to the hospital in Pankot for adjustments of his artificial hand. He called on the Laytons and found Rose Cottage shuttered, the family away on holiday.
Sarah learned later from Clarissa Peplow, the rector's wife, what had happened on that day.
Barbie had come to Rose Cottage in a tonga to retrieve her trunk, ready for pickup on the steps, as per instuctions from Capt. Coley. A stranger was on the terrace and she challenged him. It was Merrick. She recognizd him from the description she had been given. They talked about the missions and Edwina Crane. Barbie became animated, opened the trunk, took out the butterfly lace and pressed the heavy picture of Queen Victoria with the adoring children at her feet into Merrick's hand. She disregard his warning and climbed into the tonga, the lace shawl wrapped around her head.
We know that the tonga overturned somewhere down on Club Road, spilling everything into the ditch. We also know that Barbie climbed out alive and made her way back to the rectory. Coming in the door she asked for a spade (!) and announced she had seen the devil. The devil was Ronald Merrick.
By the time the family returned from holiday Merrick had left Pankot. Sarah had not liked him.
It became animosity when he turned up in Pankot again and again on the excuse of visiting the hospital. Sarah felt that Merrick was attaching himself to them. Yet she found herself in his company more often than was explainable, for example at the movies or at the Chinese restaurant, whenever it as inconvenient to entertain him at Rose Cottage because Susan ws unwell or had take too much of her sedative. Going out with Merrick when he was in Pankot became one more of many duties that had been lumbered on Sarah or she had stupidly volunteered for.
Merrick knew she didn't like him. For reasons known only to himself he bided his time.
In time he told Sarah about the morning when Barbie asked him to supervise the loading and securing of the trunk on the back of the tonga. He strongly advised her against it. In vain. Barbie had struck him as over-excited, wearing the lace shawl like a bridal veil, he said. "Exalted may be a better word", he added.
The web of butterflies, worked by a blind old Frenchwoman ino a magnificent large shawl, given to Mabel by the mother of her first husband, used for Sarah's christening and for Susan's baby. And what was left of the shawl with its rusty stains Barbie had worn at the Samaritan hospital in Ranpur; returned to Sarah.
-
A heap of gratitude to the kind , helpful hand who refreshed the header.
The map is going to come in handy when we look at the territory destined to become Pakistan, a new, autonomous nation on the subcontinent in 1947.
With much appreciation,
Traude
-
kidsal
I have been thinking about your question about the Philippines in your # 131 and will try to answer it later. It was not my intention to ignore it!!
-
I just know that there was discrimination in the Philippines. During WWII, our Navy discriminated against the Philippino sailors -- used as cooks, waiters -- same as Blacks. I have a friend whose husband is Philippino -- he was a teenager at the time of WWII. He and his friends helped runs supplies to American fighter pilots who had been shot down and were in hiding in the hills. At the end of the war they gave them college tuition and he became a doctor. But when you read McArthur's story of life in the Philippines - soldiers liked being stationed there as they were treated so royaly.
-
Thank you for your last post, kidsal. I needed to think about your interesting question, which is definitely pertinent in relation to our book. But I needed to do more research on the war in the Pacific.
Google is a wonderfully rich source of information about anything under the sun. Everything can be found there, although the entries are not always consistent in every detail. On that scale that might be impossible to avoid. The truth is that I have found many incongruities and inaccuracies on European history and literature and would have loved to inform Google of the discrepancies. I never did.
In this context I found one reference on The Philippines and the United States: A short history of the security connection by Adrian E. Cristobal, and A. James Gregor,
"The history of the security relationship between the Philippines an the United States began with the occupation (!) of the archipelago by American forces at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War of 1898. Bases were established in the Philippine islands and the general conviction by U.S. defense specialists was that they served strategic purposes. Nonetheless, there was little preparation undertaken for their adequate defense. As a consequence, the inhabitants of the Philippines suffered Japanese occupation during World War II. The subsequent liberation brought still more havoc. ..."
But was hardly all.
Another source pointed me to the Philippine-American War (1899-1902),
"an armed military conflict between the United States and the Philippines which arose from the First Philippine Republic struggle against the U.S. annexation (!) of the islands. ..."
General MacArthur was in the picture too, of course. Thank you for reminding me. But could forget his tall impressive presence and the fact that he DID return? Years later.
No doubt westerners thought themselves superior to the people they governed in East Asia. But there have always been class differences in any civilization, e.g. than among Indians themselves (the castes), and possibly among Filipinos. I say that because I have a personal connection.
More later
-
This is the connection. It dates back years.
We had not been in Washington long and had few friends. A colleague in the patent law office were I worked wangled an invitation to a 'grand old party' for my husband and me. We were the first guests(!), and it was our first cocktail party. Of course we had been to sit-down dinners back in Europe, but had no experience standing around while balancing a glass and a plate or a cigarette; never "circulated". The hostess and her husband ignoring our obvious awkwardness, were most gracious and facilitated introductions.
That's how we met Lucia and her husband Jim. Lucia told me she was from the Philippines and worked in P.R. at a bank. I nodded politely although I had no idea what it meant, never heard of public relations before. :) It was a memorable night, the flickering candles, the whirring fans, the gloved waiters noiselessly circulating, the smoke, and Lucia, talking, talking.
On another occasion I met her sister Lilia and we had lunch a few times. When alone together, the sisters conversed in Tagalog, a native tongue, one of the official languages of the Philippines. While I felt an instant liking for Lilia, I never quite warmed to Lucia. She told me (over and over) about the number of servants back home outside Manila, that their mother managed the business and sent the daughters money to bolster their incomes, and how frequently she sent them tickets for a flight home.
I listened politely and, of course, NEVER asked questions (even though they did occur to me). We had little in common. I had no time to worry about fashions. I had other concerns, we had to make our way in this new world in an entirely new beginning, and we had a little girl to take care of. We had no relatives in this country. No sooner had we arrived in Washington, our sponsors, a military family who lived in Arlington, were transferred. But we were never out of touch. Lucia and I drifted apart. We went to Lilia's wedding and remained in contact with her until we moved from Virginia to Massachsetts.
-
Frybabe
I came upon more interesting information on "Images of the Pathan: The Usefulness of Colonial Ethnography". It begins with quotes by two different British colonial officers who served in India in the eigtheen hundreds.
It is a LONG scholarly treatise but the introductory paragraphs confirm that a special meaning was attached to the term 'Pathan', a term that had given us pause in this discussion.
"Contrasts in the British colonial view of Pathan character are the norm rather than the exception. In official reports they were viewed either as brave and honorable, or as treacherous scoundrels as the otges demonstrate as the quotes demonstrate.
The controversy over Pathan personality extended into literature as well. The romantic view of the courageous warrior Pathan was popularized by colonial writers like Mundy and Kipling and, in recent years, by Kaye's monumental best seller, The Far Pavilions. The counter view was taken most strongly in Scott's The Raj Quartet, in which the Pathans are made to symbolise all that is sinister, cruel and corrupt in the subcontinent.."
-
In the new chapter The Circuit House the scene shifts back to the Fort at Premanagar, where Mohammed Ali Kasim, known as M.A.K., was imprisoned in 1942 immediately after the riots in Mayapore and held there for fifteen months. Kasim was one of few remaining Muslim members in the indian Congress; most of his Muslim colleagues had joined the Muslim League, clamorously calling for the creation of a separate Muslim state.
The British administration was fully aware and, in Volume 2, The Day of the Scorpion, the reader is given to understand that some British governors looked favorably on partition. as the only ultimate solution. One of them was Sir George Malcolm.
M.A. Kasim had been Indian minister in Sr. Malcolm's administration; he was known and respected as a man of principles, standing firmly for an independent but undivided India.
After Kasim had been taken into custody at his home - something he fully expected - he was taken to the governor's office, which he had not anticipated. The governor tried to persuade Kasim to 'declare himself', at least to resign his membership in the Congress. Sir Malcolm made clear that this was entirely his own initiative and that he was 'putting his neck out'. In exchange for agreeing to the governor's proposal, Sir Malcolm would rescind the order of Mr. Kasim's incarceration. The offer was declined.
At Premanagar Kasim read his beloved Urdu poet Gaffur and the Koran. He prayed. He chafed under the imposed inactivity and because he was not receiving mail initially, because of the "oversight" by the British officer in charge at the prison. The correspondence, once it began, was censored, of course.
M.A. Kasim was not happy with the choices his sons had made. He had almost given up on Ahmed, his younger son, who had become an aide at the court of the Nawab of Mirat, working under the tutelage of the wazir, Count Bronowsky. Sayed, the elder son, had become an officer in the Indian army and was taken prisoner by the Japanese. His father, Mr. Kasim senior, did not know that Sayed had gone over to the INA, the Indian National Army, that he had become "Jiff", nor that he was recaptured by the British.
Under these circumstances, and given Mr. Kasim's prominence, the British could no longer afford to hold Mr. Kasim. Once again Governor Malcolm devised a face-saving, secret mission. On his orders Nigel Rowan and Count Bronowsky engineered Mr. Kasim's release - NOT to his house in Ranpur, but into the custody of his distant cousin, the nawab of Mirat. He was reunited with his life and lived in the Nanoora Hills where she died. The official word: Kasim was released for reasons of health. His mail was still censored.
When first presented with the news, Kasim refused to believe that Sayed had gone over to the INA and 'blamed the messenger', Ahmed. He continued to think of Sayed as a traitor and steadfastly refused to write to him.
At this juncture in the story Kasim makes a return trip to Premanagar for a reunion with Sayed. He is again accompanied by Ahmed, by his new secretary and by a servant. We have reason to believe that this too is Governor Malcolm initiative. Sayed is being brought up from Delhi by Merrick, just back from Ceylon and Rangoon, newly promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and decorated with the DSO.
To be continued
-
The train from Mirat, with the Nawab's coach, arrived at Premanagar station in the wee hours of the morning.
At 5 o'clock Ahmed told him it was time.
"How far is the Circuit House? I have forgotten", Mr. Kasim asked.
"About half an hour's drive", replied Ahmed. "The limousine is waiting."
The railway coach and the limousine belonged to the Nawab. But this was the last time he would find himself in his kinsman's and Count Bronowsky's debt. When what had to be done at Circuit House was done, he would return to the coach, which was filled with all the accumulated stuff of his life under restriction at Nanoora, and travel by rail to Ranpur to stay in his own home permanently.
Mr. Mehboob, the new secretary, came fussily across the dimly lit and deserted cinder-yard to greet him and conduct him to the waiting limousine. Hosain carried Kasim's briefcase. The secretary had been Mr. Mahmood's assistant and when Mahmood began to lose his grip but could not bring himself to admit it, called in and relied on Mehboob. He gave him the nickname: Booby. Booby-Sahib. As a secretary, He wasn't a patch for poor old Mahmood, and as a man Mr. Kasim found him irritatingly like an English caricature of an Indian - possessive towards people with power, arrogant to those with none.
Even his physical characteristics fitted him for the part he played with such breathless intensity.
Booby-Sahib handed Mr. Kasim 3 pieces of personal mail , one from Bapu (Ghandi's nickname), one from Mr. Kasim's daughter in Lahore, and the third from "your indefatigable supplicant, Pandit Baba Sahib". The reader knows the Pandit as the instigator of Merrick's persecution.
"Come along, Ahmed", he said. But Ahmed said he'd ride in the escort car. It was not a surprise. Kasim's younger son and the secretary had never pulled on well together.
"Why are they giving us an armed escort? " Mehboob asked. "So much tamasha about everything!"
(tamasha = confused excitement; a lot of to-do)
Light was just beginning to come when they reached the Circuit House. Kasim could see men waiting in the compound, one of them with a slung rifle. The sight of the man with the rifle unnerved him. The presence of such a man suggested that they had already brought Sayed from the fort.
Presently the men disappeared and the one with the rifle made himself scarce. Then Kasim allowed himself to focus on the dawn-image of the fort, or, rather, on the place where the silhouette should be, a few miles distant but elevated commandingly above the plain on the hill.
He did not at first identify it. When he did, he stared, fascinated by the evidence of its relatively diminutive proportions. It had originally been a Rajput fort. The Muslims had conquered it. It was they who had built the mosque and the zenana house where he had spent his imprisonment. The Mahrattas had invested it. The British had acquired it. So much history in so insignificant a monument? Insignificant, that is to say, in relation to the vast stretches of the Indian plain.
Kasim and Mehboob were ready at the appointed time. There was a knock on the door. An English voice said:
"The party is fully present now but the senior conducting officer would appreciate a preliminary word with Mr. Kasim." Mehboob opened the door wider and a young English civilian stepped in. He identified himself as the assistant to the Divisional Commissioner and brought the Commissioner's apologies for being unable to be there himself.
He asked whether the advance private word with the conducting officer would be all right and if it might be - in private. Kasim said he would send word. Just then Ahmed came in.
"Have you seen your brother, Ahmed?" Kasim asked.
Ahmed: "No, but I have seen the conducting officer. I thought I'd better warn you. It's Merrick."
"Merrick?"
Ahmed: "The ex-police officer in the Manners case, the one Pandit Baba's been pestering you about. I didn't know that Merrick had anything to do with the INA, but he was in the army in intelligence when we met him in Mirat. Actually I saw him again in Bombay about three weeks ago. He said he was working in Delhi."
"Ah, yes. That Merrick. The one Dmitri told me was badly wounded. You never told me you saw him again so recently."
Ahmed: "I haven't seen much of you since getting back. And the case didn't seem to interest you."
"No", Kasim said. "But perhaps it will. He knows you know him in connection with that old case?"
Ahmed: "Yes."
"So he will assume that by now I know too. In fact he would probably assume you would be here with me to meet your brother, which means that he does not in the least mind my knowing who he is. But he must know, mustn't he, Booby, that he's on the [/b]list[/b]?"
Booby: "It's clear, Minister. He hopes to ingratiate himself somehow. You could always say you will meet nobody except Sayed."
"What is his rank, Ahmed?"
"Major, I think."
Kasim: "Since you know him it would be a good idea if you went now and brought him along personally.
Go with him, Booby. I shan't want you again until this is over . Ahmed, just give me one minute."
When they had gone, Kasim went to the single window which overlooked the inner courtyard. A policeman with a rifle was posted nearby facing towards him. There were bars but no glass in the window. Kasim closed the inner shutters. The only light in the room now came from the single naked bulb in the center of the room and from the high fanlight on the wall that faced the front compound. The furniture was sparse : a string charpoy with a mattress, two wooden armchairs and two smaller chairs, a table. He made a move to sit at the chair behind the table but then decided ro remain standing.
To be continued
-
"Major Merrick? Please come in."
Kasim offered his hand, and felt a twinge of pity for a man with such a badly disfigured face and such an obviously useless left arm, clamped to his body with the cap tucked at elbow level and a briefcase suspended from the gloved fingers of an artificial hand. The man said,
"Actually, Lieutenant Colonel since I and your younger son last met, Mr. Kasim"
The grip of the right hand was strong- like he voice. Kasim now saw the pip and crown on each shoulder tab and the ribbon of the DSO.
Merrick said, "I'm sorry about the few minutes delay, but when we arrived your elder son asked for a few minutes alone", The journey from Delhi had not been taxing and that he and Lt. Kasimhad had breakfast alone.
Kasim replied that his concern about Sayed's breakfast had already been answered satisfactorily, adding,
"Please tell me, what is the purpose of this preliminary private word?"
Merrick: "The purpose is to tell you as much as possible about the charges which Lieutenant Kasim will probaly have to face."
Kasim hoped he showed no surprise. But he was surprised.
He said: "I have not asked for this; I'm not sure I wish to be told anything about such matters. My son himself must have a good idea what the charges may be. What can you tell me that he cannot?"
Merrick: "Naturally, Mr. Kasim, it is entirely up to you whether we have preliminary words. It was not my own department's idea, but Government seemed to think it fair." (!)
"Fair?" Kasim asked.
Merrick: "The charges and evidence in these cases are not fully prepared yet by any means, but Government feels that your son would be much more at ease if he doesn't have to tell you everything himself."
He paused. "It could after all be a bit painful for him."
"Painful?" Kasim asked.
Merrick kept him waiting for a reply. He seemed utterly composed and in command. "He has never struck me as being among those who are unrepentantly proud of the situation they find themselves in."
"Very well, then" said Kasim. "Tell me what you wish - but as briefly as possible."
Merrick elaborated: waging war against the King-Emperor was the almost unavoidabale common charge; that there was incontrovertible evidence that Sayed was captured fighting in one of the INA units which accompanied the Japanese when they tried to invade India in 1944; that the unit he commanded surrendered voluntarily and seemed to have been abandoned by the Japanese without access to supplies or communication lines. However, voluntary surrender or no, he was in arms waging war.
Kasim: "You were in that theater of war ourself, Colonel?"
Yes, said Merrick, he was an intelligence officer on the staff of one of the divisions brought in to mount the counter-attack, therefore the INA became a concern.
"One does the job one is given", Merrick added. "The INA were involved in that incident, but I was wounded entirely by my own fault."
Kasim: "How was that your own fault?"
Merrick: "I was trying to stop a fellow officer acting thoughtlessly ..." and paused. "You asked me to be brief."
"I know", Kasim answered. "But I should like to hear about this other matter. It is all relevant to my rather sparse knowledge of the INA."
Merrick outlined the events of that day in the jungle; the former Indian soldier from Teddie's own regiment; Teddie's search for other Indian allegedly hiding nearby; the burning jeep; Merrick's severe injuries.
"What are the other charges against Sayed?" asked Kasim.
Merrick: "Incitemen? Abetment? Bringing aid and comfort to the enemy? As I said the charges are not framed yet."
Kasim: "Is there another more serious factor that may be considered?"
Merrick: "More serious factor, Mr. Kasim?"
Kasim: "One hears gossip, tales, possibly exaggerated, or so one hopes, that recuritment was not always voluntary, that in a few cases certai methods were used to persuade sepoy prisoners- of-war to join."
"You mean brutal methods?"
"Yes, I meant that", answered Kasim.
After several moments Merrick said, "The only answer I can give you, Mr. Kasim, that I don't know. ...
A lot of evidence has been collected of cases of torture and brutal behavior, and several officers and NCOS have been named, but your son's name has never bee among them. The men who surrendered with him have invariably soken of him with great respect in regard to his care for their welfare. The point is that the men we have access to, those already recaptured, represent only a percentage of the eventual sources of evidence. There are al those still in Malaya, for instance."
"Yes. I see. Thank you. And this is all you have to tell me?"
"I think so. I hope it's helped you in a general way."
"Yes", answered Kasim and made a decision.
"Tell me, Colonel Merrick, are you still troubled - as I understood from Ahmed you were - by incidents devised to remind you that your conduct as Superintendent of Police in Mayapore - I should say suspected conduct -
had made you unpopular in certain quarters and wasn't going to be forgotten?"
Merrick smiled. A cheerful smiled, Kasim thought.
"Not until recently", he said.
"Another stone?"
"No. Chucking stones at British officers is a hazardous operation. They've reverted to the subtle approach. The bicycle again."
It had happened in Delhi, Merrick said, before he returned from Rangoon. His cook, a Muslim, had told him. A bad odor came from the saddle bag: which containe putrid pork. Kasim averted his face to disguise his own revulsion. "You should report it to the police", he said.
"I always do", Merrick answered. "This kind of childish persecution doesn't bother me personally. ... The Bibighar affair was used as an excuse to stir up trouble generally. It looks to me as if it's going to be given another innings in conjunction with the INA cases because it's been discovered I'm connected with them."
"Given another innings, by whom?"
"By whomever prefers anarchy over law and order. Has Coun Bronowsky never talked to you, while you've been
living in Nanoora, about the power exercised in India by unommitted and irresponsible forces? He as very eloquent about it the first time I met him."
"Count bronowsky and I", Kasim said, "don't have an intimate relationship in spite of my younger son's connection with him. He and I are politically opposed. He is dedicated to the continuing autocratic authority of the Nawab. I am dedicated to the diminution and final extinction of the autocratic authority of all the Indian princes."
"I suppose you and I are potentially opponents too, Mr. Kasim."
"You and I?"
Merrick: "I and your party. Surely I'm on the list?"
"What list, Colonel Merrick?"
"The list of officials whose conduct in nineteen forty-two may be inquired into. I'm told it looks as if I'm likely to be on it."
"Told by whom?"
"The CID officer I reported the incident to. Not that it surprised me. I imagine my old friend Pandit Baba of Mayapore won't be happy until I am (on the list). He's the one responsible for this childish persecution, but there's never been any clear evidence to connect him with it. You know the man I mean, Mr. Kasim?"
Kasim smiled. "I've never met him. I think now I must see Sayed. You are due to take him back to the fort
when?"
"When your meeting is finished; back to Delhi this evening."
"Then I will say good-bye to you now, Colonel Merrick. "
Again he made a snap decision, adding, "I don't think we shall ever be opposed in the sense you mean. Not you and I personally. I am not interested in past quarrels, only in solving present and future problems. It is the only way any of us will ever make progress."
"Quite. Quite", Merrick said. For the first time he looked uncertain of himself, disappointed, if the unscarred side of his face was anything to go by.
"I'll bring Sayed now", he said.
"No, please don't bring him. It would offend me o see him physically in the custody of anyone. I apologize for any inconvenience, but I would prefer to see Sayed in the courtroom. At least it will be larger nd airier. They can post as many men outside as they wish. That should take only a few minutes to arrange, shouldn't it? Perhaps you'd be so kind as to send someone to let me know when everything is eady."
"I'll come myself, Mr. Kasim."
To be continued
-
Traude, I'm such a dunce. I only just know got the significance of the bicycle showing up now and again. DUHHHHHHH! Of course, reference to the planted bike in Kumar's case.
-
Frybabe Thank you for the post.
Here's what Merrick also told Mr. Kasim:
"It (the bicycle) is obviously a symbol of the bicycle I'm supposed to have planted outside the house of one of the boys who assaulted Miss Manners. Miss Manners' bicycle. The bicycle's rather a good touch. They began after I'd left Mayapore just by chalking inauspicious signs outside the door of my bungalow. Then one day there was this rusty old bicycle outside my quarters. That was in Mirat, just before someone chucked the stone. The incidents have a twofold purpose, of course - to let me know it's known where I'm presently living and working, which they do, and to undermine me psychologically, which they don't."
However, I submit the chalk marks were NOT "inauspicious", and the bungalow in Mirat was NOTt "his" alone. Teddie stayed there too. It was Teddie who found those chalk marks, and the bicycle. And Teddie who caught the stone, meant for Merrick, on the way to the church on the day of the wedding. But where there any incidents BEFORE Mirat? I mean in the backwater place to which Merrick was temporarily exiled, before he became an officer in intelligence? And "supposed to have planted" is a falsification: readers know he DID plant it to incriminate Hari Kumar.
We also know that Merrick has presented a totally different picture - to the authorities in Mayapore (they didn't quite believe him, though), to Bronowsky, to Barbie, to Sarah. Over and over he declared that the "boys" were "in it together". We could say that he told these untruths so often that he came to believe them himself, but that would be wrong because he was convinced from the very beginning that all the boys were guilty. Not only were his perceptions skewed, he was willing to do and say anything to enhance his stature and make himself indispensable.
It's interesting that Mr. Kasim felt a "twinge of pity" when he saw Merrick's ruined face and useless arm. Col. Layton felt the same way - only more so.
But what exactly was it that made Merrick want to marry Susan? What was he after? Was there something satanic about him? Poor Barbie, in ill health, mourning for Mabel and confused, had reported that she "had seen the devil" at Rose Cottage. I have the feeling her words carry a great deal of weight because Scott described her with infinite compassion, almost with reverence.
Thank you for being here.
Back to the Circuit House.
-
I absolutely do not remember reading that passage about the bike OR I forgot I did.
As for Merrick wanting to marry Susan. I got the impression that at some point (probably the evening he sat on the porch and talked with Sarah) he was starting to feel his age, wanted a chance at some kind of respectability and normalcy in his life, and of course, advance his position in life. By the way, I really thought at first that he was interested in Sarah. He probably got the vibes that she didn't like him and went for the Susan. Having said that, his clandestine digging into Susan's psychological records indicates something calculating. What did he stand to gain from it. To find out what he was about to get into? To find out how to best approach her and her family?
Why on earth would Susan want to marry him. But then, she didn't know what we know about him did she. My take on it is that she just "went along", kind of a mechanical thing. I didn't get much of a sense that she was thinking of a father for her son, but that certainly would have entered into it. She certainly wasn't thinking clearly because of her depression.
-
Thank you, Frybabe.
Clearly, self-advancement was one of Merrick's motives. India gave him a uinque chance, way beyond anything he could have aspired to in England. He had become an influential man in Mayapore, a force to be reckoned with. He ingratiated himself to both the British civilian administrator and the more bellicose Brigadier Reid - the latter later disgraced like Brigadier General Dyer after the Massacre of Amritsar in 1919.
Merrick's rise in the Indian Police may have been meteoric, but he lacked social connections. From all indications in the first volume he was socially insecure. It is quite possible that he was longing for a personal life back in Mayapore; he did unburden himself to some extent vis-a-vis Daphne. But she rejected his attention;
in fact, she scorned him - and he took his revenge on Hari. The matter of Merrick's sexual ambiguity is only hinted at in the first volume but looms larger in the other volumes, especially in Spoils.
The ruthlessness, the cruelty, the means Merrick employed in the pursuit of his goals are appalling. Was he totally without compassion, then ? He was good with Susan's son who adored him. (Would he have done as good a job if the child had been a girl?)
Did he have a psychological need deep down that made him WANT to torment and humiliate those he considered weak - and enjoy it? There's more to puzzle over in the last chapter of this volume.
-
A few additional comments on this chapter are in order, I believe.
Kasim's new secretary Mr. Mehboob, nicknamed Booby-Sahib by his late predecessor, knows all the ins and outs of Indian politics and is clearly devoted to Mr. Kasim. However, he is rather obsequious, and technically incorrect, when he calls Kasim "Minister". It made Kasim uncomfortable and he protested - to no avail.
In this chapter we learn that Mr. Kasim also has a daughter in Lahore. Both she and her husband fervently support a division of India. She has written to her brother Sayed all along and, in the latest letter to her father, urged him to "come over" to their side.
When Mehboob joined Mr. Kasim at Premanagar station he reported that, before leaving Ranpur, he had received a call from Government House inquiring whether Mr. Kasim was on his way to Premanagar, and to confirm Kasim's appointment with the Governor on the following day -- obviously another attempt by Governor Malcolm to "nudge" Mr. Kasim to change his stance.
Now in the Circuit House Kasim did not recognize the corridor along which Merrick was leading him. Merrick opened a door to a small room. It had the acrid odor of legal millstones grinding fine and slow between sessions, and of his youth, pleading interminable cases in court-houses much like this. Had choosing the court-room for the meeting with Sayed been a mistake? Wouldn't it be like putting Sayed on trial? But then, for him, what was about to follow was Sayed's trial.
Merrick's called out, "Mr. Kasim, are you all right?"
"Yes, I am perfectly all right. I just thought ..." and broke off.
There was a third man whom Merrick urged forward, a tall man, taller than himself, broad-boned, dressed like an active service officer in dark green cotton uniform, pale brown skin, dark-browed, brown-eyed. He had a moustache British style. The hair was cropped too, but not too close. A fine-looking man.
Sayed did not wait for the reception he would get. In one silent, effortless flowing movement he knelt down at Kasim's feet, placed his hands on Kasim's shoes, lowered his head on to his hands and then raised it, at the same time removing his hands, and rose. Kasim instinctively put his arms around him. After a few moments Kasim released his son and said, "Come, let us go through".
Merrick was walking down the corridor, his back to them, but he had been a witness.
To be continued
-
Kasim led the way through the magistrate's room out on to the dais in the court-room and down into the well. He stopped at one of the pleaders' tables, the table at which Sayed must have been sitting. There was an empty coffee cup and a used ashtray. The smell of tobacco hung in the air.
He still drank too, probably, like Ahmed, but with the excuse that the habit qas acquired in army messes just to prove equal capacity with British officers. The smoking was new and, despite himself. he found the dirty ashtray regugnant. But he said nothing. Also without a word, Sayed removed it and tk t across to another table.
"Come, sit", Kasim said. "Have yu seen Ahmed yet?"
"Not yet, father. But Ronald told me he's here."
"Ronald?"
"Ronald Merrick.. The chap you've been talking to. He said he'd make sure Ahmed and I had a word afterwards. He's quite a good fellow really."
The voice was strong too, the accent clipped, more so than Kasim remembered from their last meeting, certainly more clipped than when Sayed graduated from the Indian military academy.
"You sound like a British officer",
he had told him then, and they both laughed.
He could have stopped Sayed from choosing the army as a career, and he had been criticized for not doing so. It hadn't always been easy for him to explain why he had a son who held the King-Emperor's commission. Nor could it have been easy for Sayed when young Englishmen, fellow members of the mess, who his father was. But Sayed never complained, and when Kasim became Chief Minister in Ranpur, any embarrassment Sayed might have felt vanished. He remembered Sayed saying,"You are a Minister, I am an officer. We are both necessary." He meant necessary to India and Kasim had been moved.
He asked, "How are you being treated ? You look well. Put on an inch or two. Like Ahmed. Who is commandant at the fort nowadays? Still Major Tippet?" Sayed replied that he was there only overnight and did not know.
"When I swas released to to to Mirat," Kasim continued, "they brought me here first of all to meet Ahmed. Now that I am going back home it seemed a convenient place for us to meet. If I had come to Delhi, the world would havebeen watching. Anyway, this has given you an outing. What did they tell you?"
"First they told me to get ready for a trip. When Ronnie Merrik came back from Rangoon, he put me in the picture. He said Government had given permission for us to meet and that he as coming with me."
Kasim asked, "So, the impression was that I had petitioned Government and Government had decided to be magnanimous?"
"Yes", was Sayed's answer.
"It is not entirely accurate" Kasim replied and Sayed said, knowing how "devious they can be", he had "not swallowed it whole."
"Devious to what end?" Kasim wondered, and when Sayed hesitated, he encouraged his son to speak freely.
Sayed looked down on the table. "They know you've neer written to me. They think this shows you disapprove of what I've done." He glanced up. [/b] "It would be very useful to them to have someone like you on their side. A member of Congress, ex-Chief Minister. A Muslim. Someone to denounce us all as traitors. They realize such people will be in short supply." [/b]
"Quite so," Kasim said. Both major parties will stand behind the INA although the true nature of INA came as a surprise to many of us. Among those of us at Simla (the Conference of Indian leaders in June of 1945 organized by the then British Viceroy Lord Wavell) it was generally agreed that INA would be supported. "
"Generally? Not unanimously?" Sayed asked.
Kasim went on to explain
that all parties would jointly organize the defense - if these cases ever came to trial;
but that the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief would have the ultimate say-so in this situation that was legally without precedent and administratively farcical;
that it would take years to court-martial every INA soldier,
but that in the event a scale of priorities would have to be established - and that on such scale every Indian officer commissioned by the King will be at the top.
He asked his son for details about why and when he joined INA and
-
I'd been laboring over a long post and was unaware that at some point the computer ceased cooperating, something I realized much later.
When I completed the post, I tried to send it - and promptly failed. My next thought was to SAVE the message by printing it. But to compound the misery, the printer needed a new cartridge - which took time to install, though I was able to print the post eventually.
Only NOW have I discovered that part of the message did make it! I am so sorry. At least you'll see that I have not been inactive :)
Now I need to recover from this calamity. Will copy the rest of the post ASAP.
-
Here now with renewed apologies is the balance of my post 147 which ended in mid-sentence.
Asked for details why and when his son had joined INA, Sayed began to describe the outrages he and his men - and untold numbers of other POWs - had suffered under the Japanese. The exchange between father and son became more intense and more emotional. Focused on the eventuality of a trial, his father considered every one of the possible charges Merrick had mentioned and how to answer them. His conclusion:
"I strongly advise you NOT to mention any of this hardship to a British magistrate; you would find no sympathy. You'd be considered a coward. Your military career is over. You should plead guilty to waging war against the King and then submit a reasoned statement setting out the considerations that led you to do so. I will help to choose and instruct your defense counsel, but in a wholly private and confidential manner. Pleading guilty is the only way to come to court with any ind of integrity left."
"Integrity? Sayed countered. "What have you ever done, father, except to wage war against the King?
What is the difference between you and me, except you went to prison now and again and I carried a gun?
You are throwing everything away! No one will trust and respect you if you don't stand up for us along with other Indian leaders."
Kasim: "The only contract of this kind I ever made was with myself, to do what I could to obtain the independence and freedom and unity and strength of this country.
I did not interfere with your decision to become a soldier, because I asked myself what kind of independent country India will be without a professionally trained army to defend that independence.
But you can no longer be a soldier. You can no longer help your country. That is what angers me. Your life so far has been a waste."
Sayed stared at him. "It is not "a" country. It is two countries. Perhaps it is many countries, ut primarily two.
If I'm not wanted in one, perhaps I shall be wanted in the other."
"Ah", exclaimed Kasim, "then we are even more divided!"
"No", Sayed said. "We're only divided by your refusal to face facts, father, and by your reliance on this or that legal interpretation, and also - I begin to think - by your reliance on the British to act like gentlemen. I no longer believe in such concepts. It's no good to rely on principles, no good reling on the British. They're interested only in themselves and always have been. Now they're afraid of the Americans and the russians and will try to get rid of India as quick as they can. Then where will you be, father? There's only one answer and it is to seize what we can for ourselves and run things our own way from there.
"You said my military career is finished. I would agree with you. But it would be finished also if the British raj were replaced by a Hindu raj - because I am a Muslim and they hate us. They even hate each other - from the United Provinces, the Punjab, Bengal. A Hindu raj would be a catastrophe. They hate and envy us because we have something that holds us together: we have Islam.
The only thing that matters in this world, father, is power. We must grasp our own. Surely you have thought of that?"
Carefully, Kasim said "You are asking me to throw everything away and go over to the League?"
"It wouldn't be throwing anything away. Nita and Guzzy (Kasim's daughter and son-in-law) are very keen on this. Their letters are full of hints that you would be welcomed by Jinnah (the emergent leader of Pakistan).
Perhaps we should say goodbye now, father. Thank you for coming to see me."
"You have come the greater distance" Kasim said.
"That is my duty", said Sayed and asked "You will write to me?"
Kasim nodded. He hugged his son and murmured 'Allah be with you' into Sayed's shoulder.
-
Fewer than twenty pages are left to summarize in the chapter of The Circuit House, but it has taken me longer to continue than I had anticipated. I had not intended to quote as much as I have in the preceding posts but found it inevitable. However, I believe only a direct quote can fully reflect the meaning of what is being expressed and how it is taken by the respondent. A reader had reason to pause as well. I am sorry it took me longer than I intended.
In the evening of this exhausting day, the Nawab's limousine took Mr. Kasim's party back to Premanagar station, where they were to catch the night train from Mirat to Ranpur. A tire puncture delayed them and the station master registered concern when they arrived late. But in good time the Nawan's coach was shunted to a more convenient place for coupling. Then it was Mr. Mehboob's turn to fuss that there were no steps to facilitate Kasim's climbing up.
"We don't need steps", Kasim said and reached for the handgrips to heave himself up, only to find himself steadied from within by Ahmed who was holding the suitcase he had brought from Mirat. "Surely you're not going yet?" he asked. "Please sit, I'll send for tea. And why don't you come to Ranpur with me for a few days? I could use your help with a few things."
Ahmed said he wanted to to return to Mirat in the Nawab's limousine and have the tire properly repaired in a garage on the way because he had to attend a council meeting in the morning. Kasim tried to dissuade Ahmed who waved aside all arguments, politely but firmly. Kasim's heart sank.
He recalled Ahmed's coming to the fort, he had feared bad news about his wife , and remembered his relief when Ahmed told him she was well. Relief that turned to bitter-sweet resignation when he learned that she was to share his partial release and suffer the humiliation of living under restrictions in Mirat. After the relief, the resignation and the humiliation came the shock of learning of Sayed's capture. How he had called his first-born a traitor and insulted Ahmed - who seemed to have forgiven him.
In a flash it occurred to him that his release could have been the turning point in his relationship with Ahmed - except that his own stubbornness, his peremptoriness, his coldness of manner, his careful avoidance of showing emotion were perhaps the chief impediments to a closer understanding. During his mother's fatal illness, Ahmed became merely dutiful in matters where dutifulness seemed obligatory - like right now, with Ahmed poised to get off the train.
Kasim quickly asked how Ahmed had found Sayed, what they had talked about, and was there anything Ahmed wanted to share.
Ahmed said general things, personal things, about hawking and not drinking too much.
"But what about Jinnah?", Kasim iasked. "No? He didn't tell you he insisted that I go over to Jinnah?"
"Nothing like that at all", said Ahmed and explained that a subaltern was present in the room- though not seated close enough to overhear, that he was with his brother for about ten minutes, and that Merrick had informed him only his father could be alone with Sayed.
"That's all they allowed? But it doesn't matter. So let me settle the question of what your feelings would be if I went over to the League. The League is very strongly placed. While most of the Congress was in prison in the last few years, they have paved the way to divide the country. In the elections they are likely to win most of the seats reserved for the Muslims. Even my own is not safe. Jinnah would welcome me. I might even get a portfolio in whatever central government he is able to set up in whatever kind of Pakistan he is able to wrest out of us. To make sure
of a portfolio I could also do what perhaps a father should. Publicly defend my son against charges of treason.
I put it in these crude terms because for once Amed, for once I am asking you to tell me what your honest opinion would be if I did these thigs. Your mother always followed me. It was not easy for her eventually because her own family became very Pakistan conscious and very Jinnah conscious, just as Nita and Guzzy have become. What I am asking you is whether you and Sayed and Nita and your mother were thinking that I was wrong all the time, and that you were all conforming and saying nothing out of family loyalty. Whether it is your view that now I should in turn conform for everybody's sake, including my own."
Beneath them the coach wheels clanked. The coach had been coupled to a shunting engine.
"I've got no view, father", Ahmed said, getting up. "You know I don't understand these ins and outs. They don't seem to me to have anything to do with ordinary problems although I suppose they must. But however many solutions are found, people are still dying of starvation, or they are killing each other senselessly."
Kasim got up too. "Then it means you don't care either way? At least one of the questions is out of the way. I shan't have to be conscience-stricken about you as well as Sayed. That is a relief. You see I made my mind up long ago what I would have to do. I have only been waiting for the moment when I was forced to take action. Ahmed, whatever your answer had been, my mind would not have altered.
But one likes to know where one stands with one's own family. To me Sayed is a man whose actions remain indefensible because he broke his word, he broke his contract. It follows that I cannot break mine. Never in my life shall I go over to Jinnah. I did not say so to Sayed ..."
The train shoved forward a yard and stopped again. Righting himself, Kasim said, "This is my position. I think you deserve to know. Now you'd
better go if you're not coming to Ranpur" and slid open the door, leading the way through the deserted corridor, the thick carpet muffling their footsteps. They embraced formally.
"Don't hang around too long in that garage", Kasim said and released his son. Pulling him back he asked him not to tell Sayed anything he had said for it might make things harder for Sayed later. He added that his comments on Jinnay were made in confidence but would become public knowledge soon enough. "Since you profess political detachment I can't expect you to approve or disapprove, but I'm sorry if I've spoken roughly. I haven't meant to upset you."
Again the train jerked and this time started moving slowly. Ahmed clasped one handrail and went down the steps.
"Why should I be upset?" he called. "I've won my bet with Dmitri. He bet me you'd go over to Jinnah. I bet him you wouldn't."
The whistle blew and Ahmed raised his voice: "He wouldn't offer stakes, though. We both expected me to win, really..."
Ahmed jumped off and ran a few paces.
"Mind yourself, shut the door", Ahmed shouted.
"Ahmed", Kasim called back, "what do you mean? Expected or wanted? Ahmed ..."
The train gained speed and he turned - straight into Booby.
"Minister, what are you doing? Why is this door open? Why isn't someone here looking after things in a proper way?
It is getting so that no one can be relied on to look after you at all!"
Next: Last appointment at Government House
-
Governor Malcolm and MAK had an amicable working relationship for several years that began before the war in Europe. There was mutual respect and genuine sympathy. (That can be seen in Kasim's addressing Malcolm as "Governor-ji" in The Day of rhte Scorpion and here. the ji indicates repect, affection, admiration, rolled in one.) They knew precisely where the other stood but neither could or would change his stance. Their exchanges had been frank and sincere - despite the unbridgeable divide. And Malcolm had not given up yet.
Kasim reaffirmed that he would not contest the upcoming election and would not nourish the idea that the INA were heroes;
he woud continue to stand for a free, united, independent India.
Does that mean, Malcolm asked, that Kasim would not align himself with the defence of the INA. Kasim said yes.
But if he did not defend the INA and his son, how could be survive politically, Malcolm wondered. Was he going back to practicing law?
Kasim said he was fortunate not having to earn a living.
But, Malcolm insisted, what if legal matters came up that could be of interest to Kasim?
Legal matters involving possible inquiries and legal processes?
Matters that might arise from the civil disturbances that followed the arrests of Congressmen like Kasim?
"I am not interested in anything like that," Kasim said. "To me it is all water under the bridge."
Eventually he got up to leave. Pleasantries were exchanged. Before they got to the door to the ante-room Malcolm stopped and asked whether Kasim remembered the last thing Malcolm had said to him before he was sent off to the Premanagar Fort.
"Yes, I remember it very well. You said you would leave a thought in my mind, that one day this room might be mine."
Malcolm: "If it is what you want I might almost guarantee it. Ranpur hasn't had an Indian Governor before. but you wouldn't be the first Indian Governor appointed in the country."
For a moment the temptation of the peak - that splendid upper air, the immensity of the landscape - made Kasim's head spin.
Then he heard himself saying: "Well you see how difficult that would be, unless the Viceroy had been succeeded by a Governor General of a self-governing dominion, and unless his executive council had been superseded by an Indian cabinet responsible to a freely elected cental Indian Assembly. ... Please don't misunderstand me."
"I don't misunderstand", Malcolm replied and smiled. "I had hoped to be able to make your rustication temporary."
Thus they parted.
There were no more cards to play...
To be continued
-
Homecoming.
On the road to Kasim's house the crowds were still milling, waiting for Mr. Kasim, patient and eager to welcome him back from whatever great occasion had called him out. Close to the entrance the car slowed to a crawl. Booby Sahib was prepared. With crowds he was a different man. He beamed, rolled down the window and spoke reassuringly to those who were closest, and the people parted like a Red Sea. Triumphantly he turned to Kasim and said, "You see, Minister, here we are, finally at home."
When he knocked on Kasim's door later, he was invited to come in and sit down. One immediate concern was a reply to Bapu's letter of condolence. Kasim decided it would be handled in the morning. For the moment, Booby said, there's only the letter from Pandit Baba. Kasim flicked his hand.
"Oh, throw it away, Booby. It's all water under the bridge. We've never answered him before, why should we now? We do not even know, only guess, what he is bothering me personally for. He is a tiresome man and of no account."
"Yes, Minister, I will throw it away. Ahmed rang this afternoon when we were out."
"Saying what?"
"I couldn't get the hang of it. We need more intelligent staff, Minister."
"What did the message say?"
"Three words only, expected and wanted".
"That is all?"
"That is all, Minister."
Kasim smiled. "It is enough. Thank you, Booby. That is all for tonight."
This completes the summing up of "The Circuit House" chapter.
Before us we have the last chapter of this volume, titled Pandora's Box.
It begins in June of 1947 with Perron's return to India and Bombay. He is our guide, again, and will tell us the rest of the story.
Thank you for accompanying me this far.
-
Pandora's Box
In this last chapter of the fourth volume of The Raj Quartet Paul Scott brings all the intricate threads in the fabric of the story to a seamless close. Though I have been distracted by and concerned about illness in the family I have been thinking of how I in turn can best sum up this complex story, and what approach to use. Unfortunately that hasn't become clear to me until today. Apologies for my delay.
Our guide in this final chapter is again Guy Perron, returned to India two years after his repatriation. The perspective of the narrative is obviously his; but some historic details of the final struggle for Indian independence need not be outlined since the outcome has long been known. The readers now want to know what happened to he characters they have come to know and, for the most part,care about. That necessitates learning a bit more about the Princely States generally because the fictitious Mirat was one of them.
More than 568 of these existed in India before independence. They were a nominally sovereign entity of British rule in India that was not directly administered by he British, but rather by an Indian ruler under the form of suzerainty or paramountcy.
The rulers had different titles, including Maharaja = great king. Some Hindu rulers used the title Thakur or the variant Thakore. The Sikh princes in the Punjab region tended to adopt Hindu type titles. Most Muslim rulers used Nawab.
After long months of indecision, uncertainties, unsuccessful conferences with Indian leaders, failed missions and journeys across the Atlantic, some leaders at Whitehall (including Sir Stafford Cripps of the Labor party) who were laboring over a so far elusive plan for a retreat from India, discovered large blank areas on the maps of the subcontinent they could not explain. They turned out to be the Princely States.
Finally the long delays came to an unexpectedly rapid end, considered in hindsight as possibly too precipitous, when Prime Minister Clement Attlee appointed Lord Louis Mountbatten Viceroy of India.
To be continued
-
Hi Traude,
Sorry to hear about illness in your family. Family comes first.
Maybe you can clear up something for me at the end of the book. My memory has faded a little, but wasn't the very first narrator (way back in the first book) someone who had come to India long after all these events. Did Scott ever say who that was? I remember going through the whole series waiting for an answer and not finding it. Did I miss it? Or do we assume it was supposed to be Scott himself? I expected the series to end back with the very first narrator and learn who it was. I carried the notion the whole way through the series that it was someone who was related to one of the characters or who was drawn to go by family stories passed down. Someone who went to find a personal history and came back with something much, much greater.
Funny how you can get these thoughts in your mind without anything actually being said that it is so.
-
Thank you for your # 154, [b/Frybabe[/b].
Indeed there is an implication from the start in volume 1 of The Raj Quartet that the narrator of the story is the author himself. It is never actually confirmed in any of the volumes, but many reviewers and readers have come to the same conclusion. They express an even stronger conviction that Guy Perron is in fact the author himself and that Perron's views are the author's own. Everything seems to "fit"!
Alas, not all web sources are current, nor are all accurate. I've found discrepancies in historic dates pertaining to European history and 20th century German writers :( :(, and I've learned to check, double-check, even triple-check. In good faith I shared with you one source that reflected on Scott's all too brief life, lamented that he had little to say about himself and his writing (true), and bemoaned the fact that no biography had been written yet. Fortunately that is no longer true:
Paul Scott: A Life of the Author of the Raj Quartet by Hilary Spurling was published in 1991, obiouvsly after the above-mentioned report. I expect that we will talk about Scott either after we finish volume four, or after Staying On.
Thank you again.
To be continued
-
Thanks for the info on the biography, Traude. I am going to check into it.
-
Frybabe :)
On the last day of May 1947, Mountbatten (Perron calls him "the bustling new Viceroy") was back in Delhi from the latest consultation in London.
On June 2 he met with Indian leaders and told them in confidence of the new plan he had proposed that had been approved by the British cabinet.
On June 3 he said in a broadcast to the Indian nation it was now clear that that the division of India into tow self-governing dominions, India and Pakistan, was inevitable, adding that the British Parliament would pass the necessary legislation.
On June 4 he held a press conference (which some old hands thought unnecessarily showy). In answer to a question he confirmed that
the hastening-hrough of legislation at Whitehall meant that Government would transfer power not next year but THIS year. He said:
"I think the transfer could be about the fifteenth of August."
The astonished questioner did a rapid calculation. Ten weeks to go. Ten weeks. Ten weeks?
******
Perron had stayed in touch with Nigel Rowan and with his former intelligence officer in Poona. They sent him several political cartoons from a popular Indian-controlled English-language newspaper, cartoons that were amazingly intuitive, interpretive and remarkably predictive.
When Perron arrived in Bombay, he went first to the newspaper office. The editor, clearly feeling honored by the visit, showed Perron copies of all the cartoons and explained their meaning and context. Perron found one of them especially expressive.
"I have a party tomorrow", said the editor. "Come to my house, I'll show you the original." Perron explained that he could not accept because he had to leave Bombay in the morning.
"Then take this copy," the editor said. "I have never yet had in my office an Englishman all the way from London who comes to see me entirely to discuss Halki " (the cartoonist's pseudonym).
Perron thanked him. He felt rather moved. It was the special gift Indians had to move you unexpectedly; unexpectedly because you felt that historically you did not deserve any consideration or any kindness.
To be continued
-
Hello again, Traude: I hope the illness within your family will soon be happily resolved. It is a constant worry when someone near and dear is ill and one feels so helpless. However, you should not apologise here as I'm sure, that like me, everyone reading this discussion is grateful for the time and thought you devote to it and also for the clear sighted appreciation of Scott which you offer. It is a gift to us. Thank you.
Frybabe raised the question of the identity of the early somewhat mysterious narrator. I'm afraid I am with those who consider that the narrator is indeed Scott himself and I expected he would reveal himself before the end. When Perron appeared on the scene and continued to play a key role I soon had the unfounded conviction that he too is Scott in another guise.
I really must find the Spurling biography of Scott.
I love the description of Mountbatten as 'the bustling new Viceroy' - so apt. Mountbatten was admirable in many ways but was always a showman ever seeking to further his own career. I read somewhere that he clearly saw the situation in India as being beyond any immediate solution and that agreement between the factions could perhaps never be reached no matter how long the discussions took. He decided therefore that it would be better (for whom?) if the British were to leave quickly and let the Indians sort out the mess alone. Of course, at home, he was lauded for his swift and decisive action.
-
Many thanks, Gumtree.
The recent crisis involved my son-in-law who is a cardiac patient and has a number of angiograms behind him. A wonderfully cheerful man, he continues to work. Recently he had a sudden setback. Monitoring showed that he suffers from severe cardiac arrhythmia. The doctor recommended a pace maker, and it was implanted last week. My daughter reports that he is on the mend. I wish I could have been with them.
Thank you and Frybabe again.
To continue.
Hilary Spurling's biography of Paul Scott is available, I found, at Amazon: a handful of new copies and many ore used ones. Barnes & Noble has 49 used copies. One way or the other, I'm determined to order one.
Mountbatten, exactly!
He had a distinguished career in the war in Europe and North Africa. He was a favorite of Churchill's. In 1943 he was appointed Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia, where he set out to raise the morale of the Allied forces there who thought of themselves as 'the forgotten army'. The re-conquest of Burma was completed by 1945, and in September of that year Mountbatten accepted the formal surrender of the Japanese Expeditionary Force in Singapore. He intended to resume his naval career when Prime Minister Attlee - impatient with Wavell's fumbling and failed missions - asked Mountbatten to assume the role of Viceroy of India, and charged him with the task of transferring sovereignty of India from the British crown to independent rule. Independence was achieved, albeit in the form of two independent states, India and Pakistan, admidst rioting, the migration of milliond. and massacres.
Mountbatten took credit - and was given credit, though not universally - for the swiftness of the process, but the cost of freedom was enormous. A strong case can be made that by hastening the transfer of power, Mountbatten in fact made it less manageable : because not enough troops were in place when the rioting escalated.
These events have been retold by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre (authors of Is Paris Burning?) in Freedom at Midnight and in Mountbatten and India. The latter is about the authors' research and their interviews with Mountbatten.
While the Partition plan announced in early June of 1947 did set out the principles of freedom and division, the position and the future of the five hundred odd Princely states was left unclear. All of them had recognized the British as the 'paramount power'. Especially large ones, like Hydarabad, harbored the hope that their way of life might continue unchanged. Some of the more ambitious rulers began , in the words of one scholar, "to luxuriate in wild dreams of independent power in an India of many partitions".
That all of them were integrated ultimately is an achievement for which Mountbatten deserves credit.
But Churchill (among many others) was famously displeased with Mountbatten and further enraged by the flamboyant conduct of Edwina Mountbatten and her meddling in governmental affairs. After 1948 Churchill never spoke to Mountbatten again.
What happened in the small fictional Mirat, where most of the action in this last chapter takes place and where familiar characters converge, will be viewed through the lens of Guy Perron.
Thank you for being there.
To be continued
-
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/raj1.jpg)
Join us as we continue our discussion of the Raj Quartet.
We will be reviewing and finishing Towers of Silence, the third book of the Raj Quartet.
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/Rajquartetcvr.jpg)
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/Rajtitle175.jpg) |
|
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/indiapostpartition.jpg) |
Discussion Leader ~ straudetwo (traudestwo2@gmail.com)
I read Is Paris Burning? when I was in high school and was impressed by the way it was put together with all the little vignettes-all parts of the whole. I wonder if Freedom at Midnight was written similarly. Lovely to read the little stories that contributed to the big picture.
-
Frybabe,
I understand that Freedom at Midnight is written in a casual style in a vein similar to Is Paris Burning?. The authors dug very deeply into the events of t1947 and 48, recounting anecdotes and images that might not otherwise have become known.
Some considered the book controversial for its portrayal of British expatriates and native Indian rulers; and because of graphic details of Gandhi's assassination and the horrific carnage at the time of Partition.
And still there is war in so many corners of the world ...
-
Dear Friends,
Last night between 11 p.m. and midnight local time on July 16, I composed a long posted and, at the end, clicked on "send".
Safari's laconic reply was "Not Found". I tried the other SL sites I've bookmarked, the reply was the same.
The document was still on the screen so I made a copy.
I'm retyping it here now.
Continuing with Guy Perron's narration. It is heavy with irony.
When Perron left the newspaper office, he walked along the crowded Bombay street for a while, then hailed a taxi and told the driver to head for Queen's Road. He tipped the wallah excessively as if this munificence had become obligatory since Mountbatten had removed the last doubt that the British intended to leave, and thus made them the only people left in India who were universally popular.
He studied the blocks of flats, not certain which block he wanted. Then he recognized the foreground of one and entered, imagining Purvis ahead of him, barging into the servant and the girl - the girl who was Sarah.
The entrance was dark, the lift out of order. He mounted the steps and stood perplexed before the door that should have said "Grace" but didn't. On the opposite door, the plate read Major Rajendra Singh. Surely that was right? He climbed the next flight of stairs and arrived at the flat above Rajendra Singh's.
Hapgood - Mr. Hapgood, the banker. Mrs. Japgood, Miss Hapgood, the banker's daughter. One of the few remaining happy families in Bombay? He pressed the bell. Would the servant be the same servant? Would they recognize one another? The door opened. He did not recognize the servant. The boy was (God help us all, thought Perron), Japanese.
He asked whether Mr. Hapgood was home and held out his card. The boy studied it carefully, ridging eyebrows as beautifully shaped as Aneila's the Maharanee's niece. Not quite Japanese, Perron decided; a mixed-blood oriental, from Sumatra? Singapore? Jakarta?
A handsome, "poisonous-looking" (?!) young man who sported a gold wrist watch. One could smell the starch in his arrogantly spotless white steward's jacket and trousers. He wore black shoes with pointed toes.
"I will see if Master is in," he said.
Perron thought: Master, now, is it? The British will always be safe.
The boy let him in, closed the door and went in the direction of the living room. Perron peered down the corridor toward Purvis's old room. The door was closed, so was the door of the adjoining room. The flat looked as if it had not been redecorated since.
"Master says come."
Perron followed the boy through the dining room into the living room, which had once struck him as elegant but now looked just a little disorganized. A quick glance at the wall confirmed the continuing xistence of the Guler-Basohli paintings. A man stood on the balcony, as Purvis had done, holding a glass in his hand, looking out at the Oval. The evening was clear, the sun not yet down. . The man was tall and thin. For some reaon Perron had always imagined Hapgood as short, rotund and red-faced, like the tea-planter at the Maharanee's party. Hearing footsteps, Hapgood turned around.
"Mr. Perron?"
"Yes, Mr. Hapgood?"
"What can I do for you?"
"I'm sorry to bother you. I called downstairs on the off-chance of seeing Colonel and Mrs. Graace. I see they've gone but I thought I'd take the opportunity to come up, becaue I feel I owe you an aology."
"Oh .. Have we met?" Hapgood asked.
To be continued
-
I had trouble getting into SL yesterday as well - fortunately I didn't have a long post to lose.
-
Guy Perron, as ever the acute observer, noticed Hapgood's "formidable" eyebrows and his yellow, creased face. Looking at him.
Waiting.
Perron explained that he had been in the apartment two years earlier when Leonard Purvis was billeted there and the Hapgood family in "Ooty" (short for Ootacamund) in the high mountains. He said that on the day when "things rather got on top of" Purvis, he saw the result and had felt it was his, Guy's, fault that two of the Kangra paintings had been damaged.
"Oh?" said Hapgood, then, correcting, "Actually they're Guler-Basohli school. But Kangra covers it."
The servant came in. "Scotch? Gin?" Hapgood asked. Perron opted for Gin.
"But why do you feel it was your fault?"
Perron explained that Purvis had no idea what they were until he told him, so it was probably his fault that Purvis had singled them out when he threw the bottles.
"Oh?" said Hapgood. "Was that why? We often wondered. He never seemed to notice them." He walked over to the paintings.
"My wife was pretty upset at the time. But you see that the damage was pretty well disguised. They are exquisite, aren't they?"
He turned to Perron. "Did you know the man my old bearer told me about? The man who had to climb the balcony and pull Purvis out of the bath?"
Perron admitted he was the man.
Hapgood said, "Good heavens." Then "My dear chap. How nice of you to call - to have remembered the paintings. My wife will be sorry to have missed you. She was awfully touched that you bothered to leave the servant a chit for the bathroom door."
As Perron remembered it, the servant had asked for one, but he did not remember actually signing one; he had probably done so afterwards while drinking Old Sporran.
"Perron", Hapgood was saying. "But ..."
"Sergeant Perron", Guy said. "Field Service, Poona."
"Field Service. I see. Did you know a fellow who's now in pharmaceuticals here? What's his name?"
"Bob Chambers", said Perron. "He was my officer. We kept in touch. I am staying in his apartment here. He had to go to Calcutta just before I arrived."
The servant stood by and refilled glasses every time Hapgood snapped his fingers.
"So you know the Graces?" he said.
One of their nieces and the niece's father, explained Perron.
Hapgood : "I'm afraid Mrs. Grace has left. Poor old Arthur died last year. Very suddenly. My wife and I were very upset. He had dinner with us the night before. Mrs. Grace had gone up-country to see her sister. The niece was getting married. Yes, I remember now. She was here to meet her father?"
Perron replied that the elder niece had been in bombay; that there's a younger one, Susan. "Rings a bell," Hapgood said. "She married a man named Merrick. Chap with something wrong with him?"
"He lost an arm in the war."
"That's it," Hapgood exclaimed. "Fenny left us a some snaps she took at the wedding. Pity my wife's not here. She'd have details like this much clearer in her mind. If you're anxious for news of the family, I'm sure I could turn up the sister's address. Pankot, wasn't it?"
"I have the Pankot address", said Perron. It's just that I've not heard since the end of 1945. My fault really. One somehow lets things slide."
To be continued
-
The Hapgoods had last seen Fenny when she left for Delhi after the funeral, on her way to visit another sister in London. It was to be a short trip; no correspondence was exchanged. Then their daughter married an "awfully nice Canadian Air-Force chap we met in Ooty. We were in Montreal last year for the wedding. Pretty killing expense. But once in a lifetime. Now my wife is back in Montreal waiting to become a grandmother - any day now."
Perron lifted his glass, "Good luck."
After drinking Hapgood said, "Are you committed this evening?"
Perron lied, I'm afraid so."
Tomorrow, perhaps?"
'Unfortunately I've left this call very late. I'm off tomorrow."
"Oh. Where are you off to? Not home?"
"No, a little state called Mirat." (Aside: Hapgood getting curious)
"A long journey", he said. "They had some trouble there recently. Is that why you are going?"
"I didn't know that. What sort of trouble?"
'Usual thing. Communal rioting. I think it's died down. Anyway it's in the Punjab things are getting tricky. Too many people on the move in the hope of ending up in the right place. But what can you expect when you draw an imaginary line through a province and say that from August 15 one side is Pakistan and the other side's India? The same applies to Bengal."
Hapgood gave Perron a penetrating glance and said: "It's what an important minority felt that's what they had to have and in the long run it's probably best." Perron nodded. He thought Hapgood was probably more in sympathy with the Muslims than the Hindus.
(Hapgood coming to the point) "Do you have press connections, then , Mr. Perron?"
"Only marginal ones. Sufficient to help me move about and get seats on planes."
"I asked", Hapgood continued, "because every stranger from home you come across nowadays is either a journalist or a member of parliament swanning around ostensibly to observe the democratic process of dismantling the empire but actually making soundings for his private business interests. Nothing wrong with that, of course. India's going to be an expanding dominion market once it settles down. The thing is we'll have to meet more outside and inside competition. Do you have business interests as well as marginal press ones, Mr. Perron?"
"My interests are primarily academic."
Again Hapgood snapped his fingers and again while they continued talking his glass was taken, replenished and returned. This time Perron had his own glass topped.
Hapgood (pressing on): "If you have press connections, though, I suppose you're here to be in on the kill, if I may put it that way. Forgive me, but Mirat seems to be an unlikely place to go. If you want to be in at the kill you should go up to the Punjab and try to accredit yourself to the wretched chaps who've been formed into the boundary force and have the job of protecting the refugees and stopping them tearing at once another's throats."
Perron: "As I said, my interests are primarily academic. And at the moment primarily concerned with the relationship between the Crown and the Indian states."
"Well, you could go to Bahawalpur. They've had some high-jinks there. Or down to Hyderabad. That's the one princely state large and powerful enough to prolong its independence for a while. ..."
Perron: "I have a definite invitation to Mirat. I think it will suit me very well, especially if it's had its troubles."
"What sort of an invitation, Mr. Perron? I ask because I might be able to help you."
"That's very kind of you. Actually the invitation is from the Chief Minister, Count Bronowsky. I met him here in Bombay during the war. He was kind enough to say I'd be welcome in Mirat at any time."
"Then there's nothing I could do to smooth your way better. It was Bronowsky I had in mind. I don't know him socially but he's had an account with us for years and we usually meet in my office when he comes to Bombay. Haven't seen him in some time. How is he?"
"I've no idea. Well, I'd imagine. There was a telegram waiting for me at Bob Chambers's flat inviting me to turn up whenever I wanted."
"Please give him my regards."
Perron looked at his watch and prepared to finish his drink.
"Are you absolutely committed this evening? I've got a few people coming in, couple of chaps from the bank and their wives. Friends.
It's a buffet. Nowadays you never know who'll turn up or who'll they bring . Being alone just now I encourage it."
Perron was tempted. He had a brief and flaming image of the Maharanee floating in on the arms of a couple of English bankers ..
and said, "I'm afraid I'm committed, sir. Perhaps if I come back this way I could give you a ring."
"Of course", Hapgood said, pleased to be called sir. But it was nowHapgood wanted. A new face to ease the ache of boredom.
"You have a new servant I see," ventured Perron.
"Young Gerard? Bit of a mongrel.We inherited him from a chap who retired last year. Our agent in Ipoh. Gerard kept things going for him while he was in prison-camp. Very efficient fellow. Not like poor old Nadar, the one you remember. Trouble with Nadar, he couldn't keep his hands off stuff that got left around. We had to let him go. Mistake probably. My wife says it's better to employ a dishonest servant you know inside out than one you never get on any sort of terms with. Not that it matters either way to us next year. Our time will be up then. Learn to do our own cooking and washing, I shouldn't wonder. Neither of us fancies Montreal. So it looks like Ewell or Sutton. Know anything about mushrooms?"
"Mushrooms?" Perron thought of cloud formations.
"A friend of our Canadian son-in-law, an ex-RAF type who lives in Surrey, has gone in for mushrooms. Grows them in his garage. Making a fortune I'm told. You need to put your mind to something, though. For me preferably something with a saleable end-product ..." He smiled. "Well, if you change your mind, just arrive. Meanwhile I'd better get myself ready for the invasion."
Perhaps Gerard had run his bath, Perron thought -- with the same imperturbable expression he had shown when running baths for Japanese officers in his previous master's house in Ipoh?
As Gerard held the door open for him, Perron glanced once more down the corridor to get his last glimpse of Purvis's still-closed door.
To be continued
-
A few additional remarks on the last segment may be in order.
As before, I felt it necessary to quote parts of the conversation between Guy Perron and banker Hapgood because the mere retelling of them would be bland in comparison. It is important not only WHAT is being said, but HOW. And what Hapgood says reveals a lot about him also, I believe. He's bored and lonely without his wife by his side, one could well imagine him feeling closed in in that well-appointed apartment.
Hapgood did not mention names, but history has recorded the name of the man who drew that important line, not "in the sand" but on a map through 175,000 sq. miles of territory with a population of 88 million. He was Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a lawyer. His only connection to India was that his eldest brother died there in battle.
Time was short, of course, and, in the words of one Goggle source , Radcliffe "was at all turns harassed and hurried by outgoing Viceroy Mountbatten, who turned out to be ill-prepared for the consequences of the Awards ". 'Radcliffe Awards' was the official name for the redistribution of territories. It was done in total secrecy: [u[ the new lines were not published until AFTER Partition went into effect.[/u]
From the conversation in Hapgood's ving room there also emerges a tentative picture of those who flocked TO the subcontinent "to be in on the kill", as Hapgood puts it, as well as of those who elected to stay on - like Bob Chambers, Perron's old officer, who is "into pharmaceuticals".
Perron returns to Bob Chambers's flat and writes about the evening in his notebook. For the reader he mentions the "oddness" not only of the "unexpected location of the house (in one of the narrow rather squalid roads in Bombay; not far, surely, from where the masage parlor had been?"), but also the "admixture of traditional and emergent Anglo-Indianism". Bathroom, bedroom and dining room are functional as per European standards and furnished in the old dependable style, but in the living room there's no place to sit.
On the living floor are imitation (!) Persian rugs; sparkling cushions from Rajputana; mattresses with durries on them or printed cotton bedspreads; a harmonium, a tamboura "probably from Bengal". The paintings on the wall are described - they are not to Perron's taste, nor is the book case and what's in it, also described in detail. This curious conglomeration makes Perron think that Bob Chambers was a little uncertain where his tastes lay. None of this matters, of course. He is leaving in the morning.
I wonder if you could share your impression of the conversation between the two men., or how it struck you.
Thank you.
Next: Arrival in Mirat
-
I can see that Hapgood may have been lonely. Mostly, though, I thought he was a bit nosey. But that could have come from loneliness - an attempt to keep Perron in conversation and hold him there longer. Perron obviously didn't want to spend a lot of time with him.
-
My apologies for keeping Guy Perron longer on the train to Mirat than he needed to be. >:(
It was a busy week here, especially the weekend, when my grandson came with his buddy Kieran. They spent the night in the tent in my backyard and needed to be fed ...
I will be back, deo volente.
-
Continuing.
The train reached Mirat two hours late. Perron was glad not to have announced the precise date of his arrival and inconvenienced a waiting party. The platform was crowded with officers, wives, mounds of luggage. Departing British. A train in the opposite direction, from Mirat to Ranpur, was expected. On the equally crowded concourse, quads of troops squatted on piles of kit-bags, smoking. The restaurant was full. Perron hailed a tonga and told the wallah to take him to the club. There was the familiar smell: an oily, spicy scent mingled with that of burning charcoal. The tonga passed white-shirted Indians on bicycles and was passed in turn by military trucks. A broad gravel road led into the club compound, which was shaded by trees and shrubs. Sprays of red and purple bougainvillaea stood out exuberantly against the dazzling white of the club's colonnaded façade.
The vestibule was empty, the desk discreetly positioned behind a pillar. A servant answered th handbell and Perron asked for the secretary. A young Indian in European clothes came into the vestibule and said the secretary was still at breakfast. Perron gave him his card, mentioned he would be in Mirat for a little while and asked whether the club might offer temporary membership including accommodations for that night. The clerk said he would speak to the secretary, then told the returning bearer to show the sahib to the terrace and serve him breakfast.
Wicker chairs and tables were arranged close to the balustrade to give guests a view on to a long sweep of lawn and flower-beds. About a dozen club-dining tables and chairs were positioned along the inner wall and, between each pair, casement doors leading to the interior. Two Indian officers and a civilian were finishing breakfast; a European woman wearing sunglasses sat at the far end of the line of wicker chairs.
The bearer, a grizzly old man, in a white uniform, sashed, barefoot, gloved and turbaned, seated Perron and immediately came back with a tray and implements to set the gleaming table. He put the menu in a silver stand. Perron leaned back, gazed at the sweep of lawn, the canna lilies, the immense earthen pots of delicately tinted and scented flowers that stood sentinel between each batch of wicker hairs and tables. India, he thought. I'm back. Really back. The bearer returned with a wooden contraption that held a folded newspaper, the [iMirat Courier[/i]. When Perron asked for The Times of Indiahe was told it would not be available until midday.
"What is Fish Soufflé Izzat Bagh? asked Perron.
"Local fish, Sahib. Caught daily in Izzat Bagh Lake. Cooked with spice and served with rice. Today not recommended."
"Oh, why?"
"Today not fresh, Sahib. Fish too long on ice. Fishermen not going out two day now." Perron ordered bacon and eggs.
"Mr. Perron?" An eldery man, short, stout, bald, stood by Perron's table. Perron stood up and offered his hand.
"Macpherson", the man said. "I'm the secretary. Please ...", but Perron remained standing until, accepting his invitation, Macpherson sat too. "I hope you're being looked after all right." Perron assured him he was, and that he had already been advised not to have the fish.
"That must be old Ghulan. Thank God for him. Staff is difficult thee days. Night train from Ranpur?" Perron nodded.
"Should have been in at seven. It gets wore every year. I see from your card you're from home. Been here long?"
"About ten days. Can you put me up for tonight?"
"For as long as you like. Nowadays we have more departures than arrivals. All the same, even for a night I'm afraid you'll have to pay temporary membership, and I'm afraid the fee's for a minimum of one calendar month. War-time rule, dating from when young officers were coming and going and being posted overnight."
"And forgetting to pay their bills?" asked Perron.
"That's about it. Still, a lot of them are dead long since, I expect. You've been here before?"
"Yes, but not for long. A couple of years during the war."
The Indian officers and the civilian had got up and were approaching. Macpherson looked up. "Everything all right,Bubli?"
There was a brief, friendly exchange.
"Nice fellow", Macpherson said when they were alone again. Gentleman. But then most of them are. Which I can't say about some of our fellows."
"How long have you been secretary, Mr. Macpherson?"
"About ten years. Mirat was my first station. Oh, years ago before he other war. Artillery. I got a chance to come back in nineteen-thirty. Jumped at it. Retired in thirty-five. Took this on. Don't regret a single day. Look forward to many more. No ties at home anyway."
Perron nodded. He understood that here was where Macpherson would prefer to die.
"I had a job, though, back in 'thirty-seven, opening membership to Indian officers. It split the committee right down the middle. But I said if a man's got the King's Commission what does it matter what his complexion is. During the war the old members agreed I was right. Damned well disgusted us. We were damed well ashamed, I mean of some of or own countrymen. Do you know what they did once? Emptied all the chamber pots from the men's room into the swimming pool, because they'd seen a couple of Indian subalterns swimming there. I marched them out pretty smartly... Sorry, Mr. Perron. Unpleasant subject. Enjoy your breakfast!"
Perron stood to acknowledge the secretary's leave-taking. "Actually, I'm in Mirat", he said, "to see Count Dmitri Bronowsky".
Perhaps I can telephone from here and leave a message that I've arrived?".
Macpherson hesitated. "Is he expecting you?"
"In general, yes." Perron explained about the telegram.
"I know he was here", said Macpherson. "I can find out easily enough. Things haven't been too good here the past week or so."
"it looked quiet enough this morning", Perron said.
"Oh, in the cantonment. But across the lake, in the city. Not so good. That's why we don't recommend Fish Soufflé Izzat Bagh.
The fishermen are Muslim. They've fished the Nawab's lake since the eighteenth century. Tradition. But they haven't dared go out the last couple of days since two of them were found drowned. They call it murder and blame the Hindus. There's a curfew
in the old city. But we can always make you comfortable here, Mr. Perron. I'll send my clerk along with the temporary members' book."
To be continued
-
I remember this bit. The discrimination and resentment at attempts to integrate are striking. The swimming pool "prank" was childish, but at least they weren't shooting people or mob lynching. The fishermen apparently weren't so lucky, but then it is a suspicion and not clear if it was an accident or murder. Nevertheless, the Hindis are getting blamed without proof.
-
Continuing
As I read this last chapter once more, the sensation of impermanence is overwhelming. After only two years, the changes jump out at Perron. Things will never be the same again. The British are clinging to the vestiges of the former glory. Partition has not yet taken place, but the withdrawal has begun. The bearer, Old Ghulam, and his impeccable service is clearly an exemplary relic of the proud past. (He reminded me of the old servant who greeted Mabel Layton respectfully when she attended the reception in the Officers' Mess in Pankot after Susan's wedding. Could it the same man?)
Waiting for his breakfast, Perron picked up the Mirat Courierof August 4. On the front page was a muddily reproduced photo of the Viceroy in Delhi with some of India's leading princes, which Perron had already seen in the previous day's Times of India. There was no reference in the accompanying article about Mirat's own prince, the Nawab, no follow-up on rumors Perron had heard about internecine fighting among Indian leaders.
The bearer brought his bacon and eggs and, looking up, Perron saw the woman in the sunglasses walking toward the exit in his direction. When she was level with him, he smiled and said "Good morning". She murmured a response. He had believed her to be middle-aged, but as she came closer he saw she was a young woman who had a good bearing and a graceful walk.
Before starting on his breakfast, Perron turned i]The Mirat Courier[/i] to its back page. There was another muddy photograph, illustrating a report headed 'Happy Occasion in Ranpur', bylined 'From our Correspondent in Ranpur'. He settled to eat and read.
The grounds of Government College in Ranpur were the setting of the happy occasion when His Excellency the Governor, Sir Leonard Perkin, opened the new technical college wing in Ranpur for a future generation of Indian engineers.
"Let us hope", Sir Leonard said, "that these young men on whose shoulders India places great responsibility, as she moves forward into a new industrial age, will look back with gratitude on the time they spent here in this handsome building."
Sir Leonard went on to recall how, just two years ago, when the future seemed less certain, his distinguished predecessor, Sir George Malcolm, laid the first stone for the new wing. Sir George was unable to be there, said Sir Leonard, but "Be assured that I shall send him an account and appropriate photographs of this splendid wing."
Among the guests wasMr. Mohammed Ali Kasim (MAK), obviously recovered from the recent chill that prevented his attendance at the Chamber of Commerce dinner two weeks ago. Until the announcement, also two weeks ago, that Mr. Trivurdi would succeed Sir Leonard Perkin, Mr. Kasim had been widely tipped as the new Governor designate. Answering your reporter's questions, Mr. Kasim said he had no plans for the immediate future, but that Mr. Trivurdi's apointment had his wholehearted approval. He declined to answer our question whether the Governorship had been offered to him first (which readers know to be a fact), and whether such a refusal was an indication that presently Mr. Kasim intends to return actively to politics in the province.
Another muddy photograph. Perron stopped eating. He pushed back his chair and took the Courier over to the stronger light near the balustrade. The face in the photograph was practically unrecognizable. The heading alone made identifiatin possible:
Lieutenant-Colonel Merrick, DSO
A moving ceremony
To be continued
-
That headline about Merrick makes the skin crawl knowing him as we do.
Sorry I haven't been in much Traude My DH has been rather ill and our time seems to be spent waiting in the specialists' rooms. Will be back whenever I'm able.
-
Gumtree, thank you so much for your post.
Seeing fewer messages from you elsewhere, I had the feeling something might be holding you back. I am sorry my assumption was correct. But I fully understand. We have to focus on what is most important, and for you that is your DH. I sincerely hope less worrisome days are ahead and send you my best wishes.
As you can see, there was a pause of more than a week in my own posts between the last one on July 26 and the resumption a few days ago. Yet some things cannot be rushed; besides, we are not on a schedule. This part of the book describes the last hurrah, the end of an era, the bloody migration of millions of people. The repercussions still resonate. I don't want to paint with too heavy a brush or use too many quotes, but give the best rendering possible. About 130 pages are left, but oh how weighty they are! We'll be here for a while longer, deo volente.
When you are free and ready to participate again, you'll be welcomed with open arms. In the meantime it is good to justfeel your presence. Again all good wishes and thank you.
-
Continuing
The same Merrick? The headline was followed by an article. Perron scanned quickly down to the small print where the chief mourners might be found.
'Supporting the widow were member and close friends of the family, Colonel John Layton, Mrs. F. Grace, Captain Nigel Rowan (AAGG) and Mrs. Rowan ...'
So, then, yes. Merrick. But who was Mrs.Rowan? Sarah? She wasn't otherwise named. And what were they all doing in Mirat?
AAGG meant assistant to the agent to the Governor-General. Was Rowan political agent? He went back to the larger print.
'Referring briefly to Colonel Merrick's skillful handling of the far from easy task entrusted to him some moths ago, the chaplain pointed out that he man they had gathered together to mourn and honor was one who had a disability that would probably have persuaded many men to feel that the period of their useful active employment had ended. "Ronnie," he said,
"never felt this. Some of you have seen, many of us have heard, how this gallant officer who had taught himself to ride again, led his detachment of States Police during times of trouble, patiently and humanely but firmly, restoring order and securing the peace of the state in whose service he was for all too short a tune."'
'"Today", he continued, "our hearts and prayers should be offered to Colonel Merrick's widow in thanksgiving for a life so well lived, so abruptly ended, so sadly lost."'
'After the singing of the hymn "Abide with Me" there was a moment's silence and then from outside the church came the clear sombre notes of the Last Post, sounded off by a bugler of the Mirat Artillery. An equally moving last touch to the simple service was made when the Chief Minister of State in Mirat, the Count Bronowsky, stepped forward and assisted the widow from the church.'
'A few days earlier a post-mortem confirmed that Colonel Merrick died as a result of injuries sustained in a riding accident. The funeral was delayed to enable the widow and other members of the family to attend. The remains were cremated.'
***
"Sahib?"
The bearer brought the tray of fresh coffee and asked whether he should place it on the breakfast table or on a verandah
table near the balustrade where Perron was leaning. Perron indicated the verandah table. He read the report again. And now the muddy photograph began to take on a sinister likeness to the Merrick he had known. He sat down and continued to study te photograph and the report.
"I didn't know," a woman's voice said, "that the local rag could be so absorbing."
Startled, he looked up. The woman in the sunglasses had come back and was sitting two tables away. Her voice was low-keyed, a bit hoarse but attractive. He smiled, put the paper away and said,"Sorry, I didn't see you."
"That's what I mean", she answered. "You are Guy Perron, aren't you?"
"Yes ---?"
"You've been expected. So I did wonder when I saw you arrive. I was nosey and took a look at the book you signed. No,
please don't move." She got up to join him. She took off the sunglasses, revealing pale eyes, blue-grey with a tinge of violet. A scar, white, about an inch long, showed clearly under the left eye. In spite of this blemish she was in a sad, rather exhausted way, beautiful.
"You won't recognize me. But you might remember me as Laura Elliott. At least Nigel told me you did."
"Yes, Laura Elliott", he said and offered his hand. "The coffee's fresh. Let me ask the bearer to bring another cup." He rang the handbell. The old man came out, saw at once what was wanted and went back in.
She was gazing at him steadily. "I thinkI remember you."
"And I you."
"I shouldn't think so", she answered, quickly replacing the sunglasses. Perhaps, Perron thought, Nigel had told her that Guy had called her stunning. She was stunning no longer.
The bearer brought another cup and another pot of coffee. She poured for both of them, then asked again why he had come to the club since Nigel had said Guy was expected at the Izzat Bagh. He explained that after a night on the train he thought it might be a good idea to have breakfast first and make sure of a bed for the night, without putting people out. He told her of his surprise at finding Nigel's name on the list of people who went to the funeral on Saturday.
"The only person I don't know about is Mrs. Nigel Rowan", he concluded.
Laura Elliott smiled.
"That's me, I'm afraid. So I was mentioned too? Nigel will be pleased. It worries him a bit that printed guest lists seldom refer to us both. But then how can they if I'm always making excuses or just don't turn up? It's Count Bronowsky who's expecting you really, isn't it? Are you going to ring him?"
"The secretary said he mightn't be in Mirat but that he could easily find out."
"Dmitri was in Mirat yesterday. He must still be", she said. "But you needn't ring. Nigel will either ring me here or come here some time this morning. You could go back with him. In any event I'll let him know you're here."
"It's well over a year since Nigel and I were in touch. How long have you been married?"
"Less than a year. But do you mind if we don't talk about it? I was always very fond of Nigel and still am, but I'm afraid his marriage has not been a success."
To be continued
-
Traude, my eyes must have glazed over on this chapter. I do not remember the Merrick funeral announcement although I do remember Perron staying at the club, etc. A riding accident? With that man's background I would have to be suspicious whether it was accidental or not. I can't believe I don't remember that bit.
-
Frybabe Thanks for your post.
Yes, it's in there. Of course it was NOT an accident. How it came about involves intrigue and is a mystery to the end. And there's a different, actually redemptive, "view" presented of Merrick, which might be seen as an attempt to make the reader think more kindly of him (!) - to understand him netter, perhaps to exonerate him ? We'll see.
The character of Laura Elliott was omitted from the Granada TV serial. We cannot ignore her because Laura IS part of Merrick's story, specifically : she was one of his chosen people, those he "owned" and manipulated - to their peril.
Now I must share with you that I have read Staying On. Pankot twenty-five years later. If ever a book deserved the Booker Prize, this is it. Only superlatives will do to describe it. But not yet.
It is no exaggeration to say that I find something new and personally enlightening every time I re-read a page. Years ago a book friend in our Virginia group asked which book(s) we'd like to have IF stranded on a remote island. She asked when she said goodbye to the group. She was Australian and her first name was Enid. Her husband had been on assignment in Washington and the family was returning home. She was totally serious and told us her choices. One was the Book of Common Prayer, I remember it well.
If I were asked the same question now, I would be ready: one choice (and I'd hope for more than one :) :) )would definitely be The Raj Quartet.
-
When we get to Staying On I will likely have more to say since I actually have the book. I think I will start reading it after we get done with the People of the Book discussion.
-
That will be great, Frybabe :)
Continuing
Studying Laura's face, momentarily turned toward the lawn, Perron studied it. He thought he saw a woman who had had a bad time and was trying to pick up the pieces. She had rejected Nigel originally for a planter in Malaya. He remembered Nigel referring to a surviving Elliott parent in Darjeeling, who had heard from Laura once, after she had ended up in a Japanese prison camp. Since there had been no divorce, presumably the planter husband had not survived. He felt he could not ask. She would not welcome a discussion about her first husband's captivity any more than she wanted to discuss her marriage to Nigel.
"Are you staying at the clubl?" he asked.
"Yes. Temporarily." She took the glasses off. "I just remember, you had a delightful but rather dotty aunt. Is she still alive>"
Perron nodded. "She is paying most of the cost for this trip. She's pulled strings that make things easy for me here."
Laura said she was glad. "People like that deserve a long life."
"People like what?"
"People who take an interest in other people, especially in young people. I felt she reacted to me as if I were a person, not just another good-looking girl."
"I'll tell her what you said."
"Oh, she won't remember me."
"But she does."
A moment of nakedness - then the glasses went back on. The sound of a telephone. "Perhaps this is Nigel ringing now,"
Perron said.
Hearing footsteps, Perron turned around. It was Macpherson.
"Ah, there you are, already introducd yourselves. Good. Hour husband is on the line, Mrs.Rowan."
She thanked Macpherson, pushed the glasses hard against the bridge of her nose, got up and left, without another word or a glance in Guy's direction. Macpheson said, "It looks as if you're in luck and I lose an overnight guest."
She did not come back. Ten minutes later the clerk brought a message from her. A car would call for Perron at mid-day to take him to the Izzat Bagh. He stayed on the verandah another half hour or so. She still did not return.
****
The car slowed as it passed through the sentry-guarded checkpoint marked End of Cantonment Limits, then headed out on to the road slightly below the level of the railway. Perron had been handed a note from Rowan.
"My dear Guy, I'm sorry I can't come to collect you personally. It's one of those pressing official mornings. I haven't had the chance to tell Dmitri you've arrived, but will. Meanwhile, the best thing is for you to come to my bungalow. It's next to the Dewani Bhavan, Dmitri's house, where you'll be staying. But a lot has happened since he wired you in Bombay and you may find dossing down with me at least a good temporary solution. You're very welcome. Laura tells me you and she met and you've seen the Courier so know something of the score.
Colonel Layton went back to Pankot this morning but Susan and her aunt are still here, staying at the palace guest house. Sarah's here too, of course, and has promised to be at my house to welcome you and see you settled in. I may have to stay at the palace for lunch but have arranged for you to have lunch at my place. I expect you'll want to relax anyway. The bungalow is tucked between the Dewani Bhavan and the bungalow that was Susan's and Ronald's ..."
There followed hints on what views lay in store on the ride.
Presently there was the palace at the other end of a dazzlig stretch of water: a rose-colored structure with little towers, and on the lake shore a white domed mosque, and the reflection of one slim minaret. To one side amidst trees a palladian-style mansion. The guest house, presumably. At this upper end of the lake there were huts and boats (beached). A detachment of armed police was patrolling the area. Banyan trees shaded the road, the car became cooler. To the left there appeared suddenly a brick wall mercilessly topped with spears of broken bottle glass. The palace grounds. The car slowed. Just ahead on the right there was a grey stucco wall, a glimpse of a substantial bungalow, the Dewani Bhavan.
The car turned, crossed a culvert, into the compound of a small bungalow, a very old, squat building with square pillars to its verandah. The compound was rough and unattended. Standing in the shadow of it was a woman in a blouse and skirt. Sarah. She had her arms folded, her hands clasping her elbows, just as he remembered.
As the car drew up, she came down the steps ahead of the servant.
To be continued
-
Continuing
"Hello, Guy," Sarah said and offered her hand. Perron could not tell whether a warmer embrace had been expected or would be welcome. The house had an uncared-for look about it, and Perron wondered whether that was Laura's fault or one of the reasons for her not living there.
The interior was dark, there was the smell of damp. Perron felt the oppressive weight of the masonry and the thick square pillars that rose from the floor up, up to the remote raftered roof. Sarah opened a door to a long room, too narrow for its length. There was the sweet heavy scent of fungus mixed with an antiseptic. A white narrow bed shrouded in a mosquito net. The only light came from the open bathroom door.
"It's rather spartan." Sarah said. "I expect Laura's told you that they haven't been here long and won't be staying."
He let that go and asked instead,"What do you think? 1830 or 1850?"
"I don't know", she said. "Closed up too long. Watch out for scorpions. I don't want to alarm you but there's also been a snake not long ago on the verandah. Nigel says snakes are very misunderstood creatures, and the thing to do if you meet one is to bow politely and ask it to go its way in peace."
"I shall probably yell the place down", he said.
She laughed, standing there in front of him, her arms folded around her elbows. He took a step toward her and placed one arm lightly around her. For a moment her hair touched his chin.
"It's nice to see you again, Guy. You always made me laugh." She turned away. The servants were bringing in his suitcase and hold-all. They went back out on the verandah. She said, "I don't think Nigel will be back for lunch but it's all organized for you.
Let's have a drink. Then I'll leave you to settle."
"Do you have to leave?"
"Yes. But I have got time for a drink."
When he offered her a cigarette she hesitated, then took one. "I've been trying to cut down," she said.
"I've come at a rather bad moment, haven't I?" he asked.
She admitted that they had all imagined his arrival to be different. Nigel, she and Ahmed would come to the station. Dmitri's idea. He liked surprising people. But he had not answered Guy's letter from home - until there was just time for a telegram to Bombay. "He couldn't very well write a letter without mentioning the fact that Nigel and I were here. And Ronald, of course."
"You were here when my letter came, then?" She nodded. "It was Susan who came down from Pankot with Aunt Fenny. Father went back this morning. He has to hand over his command at the depot.."
"And your mother?"
"Mother went home last month, house-hunting."
"So no retirement to Rose Cottage?"
"No. We moved to Commandant House a while ago and rented the cottage to people called Smalley. We can't sell it except to the army. The Smalleys will stay on for a year or two under contract to the Indian Government. He is a bit too young to retire."
Perron said, "You never got in touch with me."
"What?"
"When you were in England with your aunt Fenny."
"No."
"Nor answered my second letter."
"No. I'm sorry. But that was a long time ago."
He asked whether the visit home was a disappointment. Sarah allowed that it might have been different if Fenny had gone home for good. But she had the return passage booked and Sarah felt she needed to go back too.
"You never met her, did you?"
"No. But I know about Colonel Grace dying. I called at Queen's Road the other day and saw Mr. Hapgood."
"Hapgood?"
"The people upstairs. Captain Purvis billet."
"Oh.
She leaned back and shut her eyes. "How long ago all that seems."
"You told me once that India wasn't a place you felt you could be happy in," Guy said.
"Did I? Yes, I remember thinking that." She looked at him. "I have been very happy since."
"Has Susan been happy?"
Sarah didn't answer at once. Then she said, "At the moment she is in rather bad way, probably worse than the family realizes.
I don't remember what you knew about her history, but she has never been what is called really stable."
"Didn't Ronald Merrick give her stability?"
Again she didn't answer at once. "He's provided it now. You'll see what I mean if she talks to you about him, which is fairly likely. He is all she talks about."
"It was a successful marriage, then?"
"I expected it to be disastrous. Of course he adored the boy, and the boy adored him. By the way, I ought to warn you, Edward doesn't know Ronnie's dead."
"The boy's here?"
"Yes, Su wouldn't leave him in Pankot, which is partly why Fenny had to come. I looked after him when the others went to the funeral. It was difficult explaining to him why mummy kept crying and why they'd come all the way back to daddy's house and not seen daddy. Daddy had promised he'd still be here when their holiday in the hills was over."
"Ronald sent them back to Pankot because of trouble here?"
"Partly, but also to get them into the hills for the hot weather.Su wanted to go up to Nanoora, but Ronald said if there was more trouble Nanoora would be just as bad."
"Has there been much trouble?"
"Off and on. Quite a lot. That is why he was sent here in the first place. They were up in Rajputana. He'd become temporarily
attached to the States Police - you know? The reserve pool that sends officers and men to states where the rulers' own police forces need helping out. He packed Su and Edward back to Pankot and came down here alone.
They say he did a marvelous job. The Nawab's own police are practically all Muslims, and that was part of the problem. They took sides in communal disturbances, lashing out at Hindu crowds and mobs, and turning a blind eye when the Muslims had a go. Ronnie stopped all that. He pretended it was easy. He said all he'd had to do was make the Muslim Chief of Police see he had a duty to the whole community, but it can't have been as simple as that."
"When was all this?"
"Last December. He didn't expect the job to last long. But Dmitri was so impressed by the way he handled it he persuaded the State Police to let him stay on and help overhaul the whole Mirat Police Department and devise a new training and recruiting program. Su and he set up house early last March."
"That was the bungalow next door, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it's not nearly as dilapidated at this one. In fact he made it very comfortable and stayed with them for a while after I helped Su move down from Pankot. Now, of course, I'll have to go back with Su. Fenny can't cope with the journey alone.
And I don't know how badly Su'll take it when the reaction sets in."
"I see there was a post mortem."
"Yes." She got up. "I really must go."
Getting up too, Perron asked, "How long has Nigel been in Mirat."
"About six weeks. The Political Department sent him down to try and sort things out. Actually Dmitri asked for him. Mirat comes under the Resident of Gopalakand and things got rather difficult. Nigel will tell you all about it. I'll be in touch, Guy. Probably this evening."
The driver had returned. Just as she started down the steps, another car came into the compound. "You're in luck", she said. "Here's Nigel now."
To be continued
-
Continuing
Perron stayed on the verandah as Sarah went down to meet Rowan. Rowan was even thinner than Perron remembered.
"Hello, Guy," he said. "I'm sorry but I'm afraid I'm only here to pack a case." They shook hands.
"I'll see to the case," Sarah said. "How many nights?" "One, or two" Rowan said.
She went inside calling for someone named Tippoo. A middle-aged Indian in European clothing came out, a clerk,not a servant.
"Just a second, Guy," Rowan said and went to speak to the man.
"I do apologize," Rowan said when he came back. "We are in the middle of what you'd call a flap. I have to go up to Golapakand. Have uou got a drink? OK, Let me refresh it."
Tippoo reappeared at the door. Sarah's voice sounded inside. The telephone rang. "Back in a moment," Rowan said.
Left behind, Perron felt like the visitor he was, excluded from the mystery, the vital secret.
I have been happy since, Sarah had said, as a woman might say if she were in love. In love with whom? Nigel?
But he had been in Mirat only six weeks, and she had been here since March. Merrick? No, that was impossible. Merrick's death clearly had not disturbed her in the way the death of a loved one would have done. In love with the land itself - a strange but perhaps logical reversal of her old attitude.
"I won't apologize again," Rowan said, coming back, taking a seat opposite Perron, glancing at his watch. "I have to be off in a few minutes. Let's work out what would be best for you. There are three possibilities. You're more than welcome to stay here and could rely on Tippoo to look after you. Dmitri said to tell you that you're equally welcome to move into the Dewani Bhavan, but he's unlikely to be around much in the next few days. The other alternative is the Gymkhana Club. If you prefer that, I could take you there now because I have to collect Laura. Please don't feel that I am pushing you out ... And in spite of what I said about not apologizing again, I do."
"It's entirely my fault," Perron said. "I should have sent a wire to check if it was convenient."
"The flap would have occurred anyway," Rowan answered. "It's not inconvenient for us, we're just worried about you."
"I'd like to stay here," Perron said, "if that's all right."
"Good, that'll make it easier on Sarah, not that she's ever complained. But we all tend to load her with extra jobs."
"Tell me one thing," asked Perron, "is the Resident in Gopalakand a member of the entrenched opposition that's encouraging the princes to stand firm on their own independence?"
"Yes, fundamentally that's the problem."
"What does Dmitri want?"
"Honorable integration."
"And the Nawab?"
"I don't think the poor old man knows. After all these years he's suddenly resisting Dmitri's advice. The Resident isn't being helpful and has never been interested in Mirat. Mirat should have had its own agent long ago."
"Are you on Dmitri's side, then?"
"Let's say I agree that the only sensible course for Mirat is to accede do the new Indian Union on the three main subjects, sign the standstill agreement and get the best deal possible. Mirat's entirely surrounded by what's been British Indian territory and would overnight become Indian Union territory."
Perron nodded and said, "And how have things been for you, Nigel, these past two years?"
"I've moved around a lot. Perhaps I should have stayed in the army. It turned out to be the wrong time to come back to the Political. At the end though it would have been the same in either case. From what I've seen in the past few weeks I sometimes wonder whether the Political Department cared, as long as it can close itself down, convinced that it's upheld the principles of the relationship between the States and the Crown."
"What do you hope to achieve in Gopalakand, or is that confidential?" asked Perron.
"If I can come back with a letter from the Resident to the Nawab making it lear that Mirat's on its own - we must persuade the old chap to sign it. There's no sensible alternative."
"I'm sorry about Merrick," Guy said. "Not that I ever liked the man. Still it seems he made good in Mirat."
"Yes," Rowan said and looked at his watch.
Was there news from Harry Commer, Perron asked and added that he had found it impossible to do anything for him at his end.
Rowan replied that he had not really expected it. Also, Kumar did not want anything, he added. Perron asked how Nigel knew. And Rowan explained that he had contacted Hari at the old address he had from the late lawyer Gopal. Hari had taken his time to respond. His letter came from Ranpur. Hari wrote he was content coaching students privately, and expressed thanks for Rowan's giving him a hint or two. Perron pressed for details, but Rowan offered none.
"Will anything ever change for him in India?" asked Perron. "Isn't Harry Coomer the permanent lose end? Too English for the Indians, too Indian for the English?"
"That's Sarah's view," Rowan said. "Frankly, I think he's more interested in being his own kind of Indian."
"Have you told her you tried to help him?" Perron asked.
"Yes, but only recently."
"I supposed you never showed her a transcript of his examination..."
"Good God, no. She knows nothing about it." He lowered his voice. "Few people know about it now. except you. Everything to do with the examination was destroyed, except the orders for Kumar's release."
Perron: "To protect Merrick's reputation?"
Rowan: "The issues ranged wider than that. I imagine quite a lot of files were vetted and re-arranged. Certain sections of Congress wanted a witch hunt. But an inquiry would have raised racial tension to an intolerable degree. If it interests you as a student of history, there was no inquiry because Nehru and Wavell put a stop to it."
"And Merrick got off scot-free?"
"I think it bothered him. There were only a few individual inquiries involving senior officials, all done very quietly. One or two people got retired prematurely."
"What happened to Kasim's son, Sayed?"
"He was cashiered, That's all. He's living in Lahore, I believe, with his Muslim League sister and brother-in-law. In some kind of business."
"The splendid appointment for one of the INA heroes?"
"They were only heroes for a while. But in a way they still are folk heroes, people in a story, a legend."
Sarah came out, followed by a couple of servants with bags, and the clerk with a briefcase. Goodbyes were said and Sarah promised to ring Perron.
To be continued.
-
Continuing
Later Perron went out into the compound seeking sunshine and warmth. An untended garden stretched out in the back, the grass needed cutting; and what once must have been flower beds were overgrown. A wall divided Nigel's bungalow from Merrick's; the main trunk of an immense banyan tree on this side of the fence connected the two gardens through its aerial roots. From the other side of the wall Perron heard the voice of a child and the low-pitched voice of a woman's laughter.
"Catch, Minnie!", the child shouted. But the throw was too high. A ball sailed over but did not bounce on the rough ground. It disappeared. Perron went across the grass casting about for it and shortly found a grey, soggy tennis ball. He picked it up, turned and saw a young Indian woman and a child standing near the banyan tree. Beyond the tree a gate between the two compounds, which he hadn't noticed before, stood open.
The child made a commanding gesture to the woman, as if telling her to stay, and advanced towards Perron: a Pathan child, dressed in baggy white pantaloons and shirt sash, embroidered waistcoat and cockscomb turban. Stuck in the sash was a dagger. A miniature Red Shadow. Getting closer Perron saw that he was of course and English boy, dressed up.
His eyes were bright blue his eyelashes pale. A lick of sandy red hair escaped from the turban. He stopped and stuck his little fist round the toy dagger.
"Who are you?" the boy asked.
"I'm just a visitor. Who are you?"
"I live next door. Is that my ball?"
Perron stooped and showed it to him.
"It looks like mine. Does it have MGC on it?"
Perron inspected it and confirmed it had.
"Then it must be mine. MGC means Mirat Gymkhana Club. Mr. Macpherson always gives me used tennis balls."
Perron nodded and handed over the ball. The child spoke with the assurance of a much older boy.
"It was Minnie's falt," the boy said. "Women can't catch. Thank you for finding it. If you hadn't Minnie would have had to look for it. And she doesn't want to because she is afraid of snakes."
"Aren't you?" Perron asked.
"No. Not very afraid. There were sakes here when Uncle Nigel came. He's not my uncle really. I don't have an uncle because my father didn't have a brother and my mother only has a sister. My step-father doesn't have a brother either. I've got a stepfather because my real father was killed in the war."
"You're Edward, aren't you?"
"Yes. My full name is Edward Arthur David Bingham."
"My name is Guy. My other name is Perron."
"They're both funny names, I like Perron best. I'll call you Perron."
"Then I shall probably have to call you Bingham."
"Okay."
A minor matter satisfactorily settled. A more important one was coming up. "Can you throw, Perron?"
"Yes."
"Which arm do you use?"
"My right arm."
'I throw with my left arm," Edward said, "because I'm left-handed. My stepfather has to throw with his right arm because his left arm was cut off. But he's a very good thrower."
"What do you call your stepfather?"
"Ronald. Mostly, I do. My mother likes me to call him daddy and sometimes I do. But he likes me to call him Ronald.
"Do you know what Ronald means?"
"it means it's his name."
"Most names have meanings," said Perron. "my name means 'wide', and it also means 'wood'. So you'd better keep calling me Perron, which is probably just the place we lived once. And I'll call you Edward after all. Ronald means the same as Rex or Reginald. It means someone with power who rules. Edward means a rich guard."
"But I'm not very rich. I've only one rupee and four annas."
"I don't think it's a question of money. Anyway you are guarding the fort while Ronald's away, aren't you?"
"Yes. My mother's name is Susan. What does Susan mean?"
"It means a very beautiful flower called a lily, not the red ones you see here. White ones."
"She is quite beautiful. Except when she cries. She's crying now. That's why they sent me out to play. She may have stopped
crying though, if yo want to see her. Com one. If she's still crying we can play in our garden It's nicer than this one."
To be continued
-
****
Those banyan trees must be enormous. I became intrigue by them years ago when I read The Little Prince by Antoine Saint-Exupéry [/i]. And those aerial roots that form their own trunks! What a sight! Wonderful photographs are available on the net - sorry, as yo know I'm not good at transmitting links.
****
Continuing
Merrick's garden was indeed 'nicer'. There were recently dug flower beds in ovals, circles and rectangles. "That's where Ronald is going to grow roses", Edward said. A tennis court at the far end of the compound. The bungalow re-stuccoed and painted. The verandah an elegant white-washed colonnaded semi-circle, embracing the steps to the house. Tubs of canna lilies stood sentinel.
The little Pathan marched across the lawn towards the verandah. At the bottom step he kicked off his chappals, quickly climbed barefoot to the top and waited for Perron, legs apart, fist on the handle of the toy dagger. "Would you like to see my room first?" he asked and, when Perron said "Very much", he turned sharply right along the verandah and around the corner. On the side of the bungalow he opened a screen door and let Perron enter first.
A small room, austere, remarkably unboylike, was his first impression - until he remembered that the boy had not slept or played in it for several months. The narrow little charpoy was unmade, the mattress rolled up, the mosquito net folded.
Across the exposed webbing lay the clothes Edward had taken off earlier, diminutive khaki shorts, a shirt and socks. The door to the almirah was ajar, which suggested that taking out his Pathan outfit was the first thing Edward had done. A cane chair and a chest of drawers were the only other pieces of furniture.
"Yes, I like your room," said Perron when Edward asked. 'Where does ayah sleep?"
"There, of course," Edward said, pointing to the floor near the casement door. "Neither of us isleps here just now. We're staying at the palace guest house. I can show you the palace,, if you like. Do you like my picture?"
Above the chest of drawers hung a colored picture in a gilt frame, Perron inspected it.
"Daddy gave it to me," the boy said. "It's called "The Jewel in Her Crown" and it's about Queen Victoria."
Perron saw indeed it was: the kind of picture whose awfulness gave it a sort of distinction. Enthroned beneath a canopy, the old Queen was receiving tribute from a motley gathering of her Indian subjects, chief among them was a prince bearing a crown on a cushion. Arranged on either side of the throne were representatives of the raj in statuesque pro-consular positions. Disraeli was there, indicating a parchment. In the background, plump angels peered from behind fat clouds and looked ready to blow their long golden trumpets. The print was blemished by little brown speckles of damp.
"But it isn't the jewel in the crown the prince is holding. The jewel's India," the boy explained.
"Yes, I see", Perron said.
"It's an alle-gory."
What's an alle-gory?"
"Don't you know? It means telling a story that's really two stories. The Queen's dead now. I should think they're all dead, except the angels. Angels never die."
"So I've been told."
"Have you ever seen an angel, Perron?"
"No."
"Nor have I. Daddy says mummy saw an angel in a circle of fire once, but I mustn't talk about it because it upsets her. Come on. Let's see if she's still crying."
Reluctantly Perron followed him to a closed door. The boy opened it slightly, put his head in and listened. The silence on the other side was peculiarly oppressive. But Edward obviously found it reassuring. "I think she's stopped."
He opened the door wide. Beyond was the main entrance hall, just as encumbered with square pillars as the hall in Rowan's bungalow. The tile floor shone. A carpet had been rolled up and corded, awaiting disposal. Edward padded across the hall on his bare feet and entered a room whose door stood open. A pause, then a woman's shriek, and the more shrieks, drawn out and continuing.
The boy emerged levitated. At the same time a magenta-colored shape, the ayah, grasped him out of the air, revealing the source of the levitation: Sarah, who immediately turned back into the room. Then the shrieking stopped. Uncertain what to do, Perron slowly went toward the wide-open door and saw it was a bedroom, a very large bedroom, dominated by a bed
centrally placed on a stone-stepped daïs. Sarah was sitting on the edge of the bed cradling Susan in her arms, rocking her.
Before the daïs was an open tin trunk and scattered around were what appeared to be Ronald Merrick's relics.
Perron turned to leave. He didn't think Sarah had seen him. Just then she said,"Don't go way altogether, Guy."
*
Perron waited on the verandah. A palace limousine was parked outside. A servant came to ask whether Perron wanted anything. He shook his head. Why should she scream? It was her own son! After a while the ayah and the boy came out. Edward was wearing his ordinary clothes. His little chappals clattered. He looked what he was - a small boy, three or four years old. But when he spoke he was still the little Pathan.
"Hello, Perron,. Are you coming to the guest house?"
"Afraid not, old chap. Not today any way"
"If you do I'll show you the palace after all."
"I'd like that. Tomorrow, perhaps."
The boy offered his hand. Perron reached down and shook it.
"Goodbye, Perron," the child said and ran down the steps toward the car, the ayah hastening behind.
"I can show you the white peacock too, Perron," Edward shouted out of the open car window as the car pulled away.
"You've made a hit." Sarah had come ut and was standing behind him "The white peacock is his special secret. But why does he call you Perron?"
"We agreed to be informal. He's a remarkable boy, isn't he? How old?"
"He was three last June. I remember wondering whether he'd ever learn to talk."
"Is Susan all right now?"
'Yes, perfectly. She'd like it if you came to have a word. She may ask you to dinner at the guest house this evening. It was originally my idea. But I'd prefer it if you made an excuse. These upsets sometimes have repercussions later. I'd rather we left anything like that until tomorrow."
"What upsets her?"
Sarah, arms folded in the characteristic way, shrugged slightly without looking at him. Her manner struck him as evasive, and he realized that it was not the first time this day.
"Oh, the whole afternoon. She insisted on coming over and sorting out some of Ronald's things, so I had to come too because Aunt Fenny's not feeling well. Then Edward insisted on coming with us. it was a mistake from the start."
"Could you have dinner with me at Nigel's?
"I'd like to, but I'd better not. Let's go out riding tomorrow morning, though. I'll try and rope Ahmed in too."
"What time?"
"Could you be ready at seven? It's the best time."
"I don't have anything special to ride in."
"That doesn't matter. Let's go in. The guest house is only a few minutes away by car. The limousine will be back and I want to get Susan away before the light goes."
To be continued
-
Oh me gosh ---
I was ready to post a message when there was a sudden interruption. Everything disappeared in a flash, irretrievable. The reason is beyond my understanding.
Please let me recap
Among olther things I was asking you to bear with me because we are coming to an important part of the story: Susan's first direct utterances - and they are more a monologue than a conversation, Perron is the listener.
AND I'm in the process of preparing/presenting a shorter version, without tainting the meaning.
Thank you
-
Continuing
Susan was kneeling on the floor by the tin trunk. The light which twenty minutes before had streamed through the unshuttered windows had diminished, but what was left of it lit one side of her pretty flushed face and picked out the red-brown tones in her dark hair. She looked perfectly composed.
"We met, didn't we, Mr. Perron? That time in Pankot just after Ronnie and I became engaged. You were working with him.
Of course, you know I've lost him. My son doesn't know. It's really a question of working out how and what to tell him."
She reached out and touched Ronald's field service cap.
Sarah said, "Why don't we leave it all, Su? Khansamar will put it away. Then we could all have a drink outside while we wait for the car."
"No, I don't want a drink. But you both have one. I've still got a lot to sort out and I don't want Khansamar touching anything."
"Then I'll help you start putting things back," Sarah said and began to fold Ronald's weed jacket."
"How little there is," Susan said. "I mean when you think of the years a man spends out here. So little he would want to keep.
Will daddy have as little as this?"
"I don't expect there to be more," answered Sarah.
Susan fingered the pommel of her husband's sword. "And even the things they do have look like toys, don't they? I suppose that's because the things they play with when they're young are just small versions of the things they'll have to use later. It's different for us. A doll's house isn't at all like a real house. And a doll is not the least like a real baby. You didn't know my husband well, did you, Mr. Perron? You were hardly with him at all, were you?"
"No. A very short time."
"Ask anyone here i Mirat and hey'll tell you what a fine man he was. I don't think of him as dead."
Sarah gently drew the sword from her sister;s touch and placed it in the trunk.
"And my not being here at the time makes it seem it hasn't happened, and when I tell Edward we'll be seeing daddy again soon, that's what it seems like. That we will be seeing him. Sarah, please stop putting things back. It's all that's left of Ronald and it's not even all here."
"Oh?" Sarah said, not looking at her sister. "What's missing?"
"His arm for one thing."
Sarah pushed a hair away from her cheek and was silent.
"I mean the artificial one, Mr. Perron. His harness. But he always called it his arm. It was one of the ways we made light of it. He took it off every night. Nobody knows the discomfort he was in, from the chafing. The first time I saw his poor shoulder and his poor stump, I cried. They were so inflamed and raw. That's because he never spared himself. He learned to ride again, you know. Getting up on what he called the wrong side. He played tennis too. He called it patball because he had to serve underarm by dropping the ball and hitting it on the bounce, but he played a strong game otherwise."
Sarah got up and opened a chest of drawers. Susan said, "It's no good. i've looked in all the drawers and cupboards. I've looked everywhere, but I can't find it."
"What's this then?" Sarah held up a contraption of webbing and metal.
Without even looking up Susan said, "That's the one he couldn't wear. The new one. The one they said was much better, a much more modern design. But if you look at it you'll see it can't have been worn more than a few times."
Sarah put it back in the chest and closed the drawer.
"I hope this doesn't embarrass you Mr. Perron. Talking about his arm. But you see he never, never wore it in bed. He took it off
every night. He had to be very careful not to let the stump get too inflamed. I know what a relief it was to him to get out of the harness. and the torture it was to put it back on. He wouldn't have worn it while he was laid up after his riding accident."
Perron said, "Perhaps the accident explains why it's not here, Mrs.l Merrick. It could have been damaged and sent away for repairs."
"Oh." Se considered him gravely. "I hadn't thought of that. Ronnie was quite right. He always was. He said women have instincts, they know when something is wrong or not properly explained. But men work things out logically much better. It struck me as odd when I couldn't find it, because to put it brutally I couldn't see them putting the arm on, just to take - just to take his body to the mortuary for the post mortem.
And there had to be a post mortem because he was fund dead in bed and people thought he was getting better. I blame Dr.
Habbibullah, but daddy says I shouldn't. t He said no one can foresee a clod of blood. But why was there a clot of blood? Unless there was an internal injury from the riding accident that hadn't been diagnosed.
But all these doctors protect themselves and each other,whether they're English or Indian. And I do blame Dr. Habbibullah even though Ronnie himself once said he was one of the best doctors he'd ever seen."
Looking at Sarah, she said, "Khansamar would know about Ronnie's harness, Sarah. Whether it was damaged."
"I don't think we should worry Khansamar over a thing like that, Su". "Why?"
"Because he is a servant. When you ask servants what's happened to something it always sounds as if we're accusing them of stealing. I'll ask Dr Habbibullah if you really want me to."
"Yes, I do. But what about the other things that are missing? Where are his Pathan clothes? He was very fond of his Pathan clothes." She turned to Perron. "He had two sets but only one pugree and only one embroidered waistcoat. There's only one set here, these trousers and this shirt. The other set's missing, and so are the pugree and the waistcoat. And the sash. And the little axe."
"He probably gave them away." Sarah said "I's been years since he used them."
"Oh no. He went out in them in Mirat. With one of his spies. He had to have spies, Mr. Perron. I'm sorry if it sounds melodramatic, but his is a very melodramatic and violent country. If you're a police officer and take your obseriously you just can't sit in an office like a deputy commissioner. You have to go out into the bazaars and listen to what people are saying. You have to do all sorts of things that so-called pukka members of the raj pretend don't have to be done. ... He knew it was his duty to go out and see and hear for himself. I expect a lot of people who sing his praises now for what he did to settle Mirat would be shocked if they knew he had to go out at night dressed as an Indian servant. But he was prepared to do that for the job's sake. It was very dangerous, needless to say. That's why he never told me. But I found out. Shall I tell you how I found out, Mr. Perroln?"
"Only if you want to."
To be continued
-
Continuing
"Yes. I think I do (want to tell you). I don't know whether you know, but I haven't been very well. For quite some time. I can't sleep without taking something. He was so undestanding about that. And sometimes when there was any kind of trouble brewing or crisis or flap on, anything that kept him working late, he'd sleep in another room, so as not to disturb me, once I'd taken the pills. But the pills don't always work. And then I go through phases of not wanting to take them at all because you can't go spend the rest of your life taking pills just to go to sleep. One night I didn't take any pills, Ronnie was working late and sleeping in this other room, and I lay here trying to get to sleep naturally. It's terrible when you're so tired and can't sleep, and the night is slipping away, and you start imagining all kinds of silly ridiculous things, and there is this awful temptation to take not one or two of the pills, but enough to make you sleep forever.
So I went to Ronnie's room, it was four o'clock in the morning and his light was still on, just as if he'd stayed awake in case I needed him, and I felt terribly beholden to him. But when I opened the door, it didn't seem to be Ronnie there at all, but this terrifying Indian just standing there staring at me. But of course it was Ronnie.
That's why I lost my nerve a while ago when Edward ran in dressed just the same way. It was like seeing Ronnie again, and at that moment I was wondering where his own Pathan clothes were."
She turned to Sarah. "Can't we ask Khansamar even about the clothes?"
"No, that would be worse than asking him about the harness.
The car must be here. I'll go and see. Then we ought to be getting back. Khansamar can put all this away."
Shen Sarah had gone Susan said,"My sister isn't very intuitive."
"No?"
"No. You see, Mr. Perron, Ronnie's missing arm and Ronnie's missing clothes are like the dog that didn't bark in the night."
"Conan Doyle?" Perron asked.
She gave him a brilliant smile. "My favorite as a child. I used to read it by torchlight under the bedclothes in the school Sarah and I went to at home. The Speckled Band reminded me of India. When Aunt Fenny told me last week that Ronnie was dead, I thought first of a snake. Or of the scorpion. I've always been afraid of scorpions."
"I'm terrified of both", Perron said.
"Oh, men always say they're terrified. But they are just pretending. Rionnie wasn't afraid of anything."
"I imagine not."
"I depended on him," Mr. Perron. "You see, I've always been terrified of most everything."
To his alarm he saw that suddenly tears were falling down her cheeks. But her eyes seemed to be at a different season from the rest of her. She still smiled. She said, "I've never met a man who understands - I mean who understands me so well.
He seemed to guess things about me that no one else in he family ever guessed, not even my sister. It was like living with someone who'd lived with you always, and knew your secret life, the nice things and not so nice things about you, even things you'd forgotten or you'd dreamed about.
"it was a long time before I could help him with his arm. I mean to help him put it on and take off, with the salves and the powders. When I'd learned how to help him we became very close. He realized that. I think he realized that helping him with his arm was a way of helping me to become close to people. Which I'd never been. His arm was very important to me. I prefer to think of it as damaged, not as thrown away. Although if it was damaged in the accident I expect it has been thrown away because people don't understand the importance of symbols. Wherever we went he was admired and respected, especially here in Mirat. "You see, he never preteded. He always said what he thought so people knew where they stood with him. He wasn't always easy on people. At one time I used to get upset when he was angry or disapproving or cold. But he was angry only when he found people were cheating or lying or pretending. And it was good for me. I''m not nearly as afraid as I used to be. I don't know what happens now, though, but at least he's left me with Edward. When you look at Edward now, you'd never know what a poor miserable little boy by he was. But he grew out of that." Her tears had dried.
"Your son's certainly a friendly little boy."
"I'm glad you think so. But it's time he went home. He's very precocious. It's what happens here. And you shouldn't order people about like that. I remember doing it myself as a child. But that's because I was afraid of them."
"I don't think Edward's in the least afraid."
"No. But you can't tell. Aggression can be a sign of insecurity. Ronnie was never able to help me over that sort of thing. He was the most secure person I've ever known, and when Edward talks to servants the way he does he's just copying Ronnnie. Ronnie was always very firm. But fair. Don't misunderstand. the servants adored him.
What is it, Sarah?"
"The car's here," Sarah said from behind. Perron wondered how long she had been standing there. "We ought to go."
Perron got up and helped Susan to rise. As she stood near him he felt that he was as taut as a bent bow.
She took his elow but she had more to say:
"..... When I came from Pankot with Edward, Ronnie had the old bungalow all cleared and decorated, he furnished it, with Dmitri's help. Everything belongs to Dmitri except the hall carpet. The whole compound at the back was cleared too. Ronnnie worked to make a home for us wherever it was, however impermanent. Nobody had lived here for ages and he said it was a terrible mess. At that time he only had Khansamar. Then we had a cook, a sweeper, a bhishti, and a mali, but only temporary people. He said it was up to me to decide how permanent they should be, but I couldn't fault his choices. He had that knack of looking at people and knowing if they were going to be good or not.
But unemployment in this state is a terrible problem and I remember how week after week these young men and boys used to turn up, begging for a job. Ronald had such a good reputation for paying a fair wage and treating servants properly. You'd imagine eventually they'd have given up. But they never did."
She stopped abruptly in the dim entrance hall.
"Where are all the servants, Sarah? I've only seen Khansamar." She didn't seem to need a reply. She turned and offered her hand. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. Perron. For being so logical. For being here. For knowing Ronald."
She went quickly across the hall toward the verrandah aned the waiting car. For a moment Sarah stayed in the hall with Perron. Then she murmured, "Thank you, Guy," and went too.
To be continued
-
It sounds, Traude, that Merrick found some sort of redemption through marrying Susan.
-
In this (abridged) exchange we get a much closer look at Susan than Paul Scott has allowed us before. There are a few aha moments, but no clear answers.
* Sarah is keeping a few things from Perron, and not only about the riding accident. There WAS an accident but Merrick died in bed, as we just read.
* We'll probably never learn the underlying cause of Susan's profound insecurity, which may date back to childhood.
* She is emphatic about Merrick. About the arm. A symbol, she says at one point. A fetish for her?
She depended on him.
* He was patient and understanding, she says, more than any other man. She marvels at his intuitiveness and how well he knew her. Little does she know how Merrick came by his knowledge (by reading her private psychiatric file in Dr. Richardson's office).
* She admits to being upset when Ronnie was angry, disapproving or cold. She doesn't say if he was angry, disapproving or cold with her.
* We wonder what he did or said when she came into his room at 4 a.m. and found him in his Pathan clothes.
Did she scream then, as she did when Edward ran in to her room? (And who could blame her?)
* When she suddenly says in the hall, "Where are all the servants?" I thought of Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Merrick can no longer speak for himself. But we have stll to hear from others who were in Mirat when the accident happened.
'More soon.
Thank you
-
Hello Again!
Traude: it is so good of you to refresh our memories by posting such lengthy abridgements. Thank you once more.
One sentence jumped out at me as I read the latest instalment where Susan is speaking to Perron of Merrick and says:
He, (Merrick) was angry only when he found people were cheating, lying or pretending
It seems to me that Merrick himself was guilty of all those sins, particularly inhis relationship with Susan. She was, as Traude points out, his victim, and I see no glimmer of redemption in him through marrying Susan
when he had covertly examined her psychiatric medical notes and so knew more about her than she knew herself. I felt that he lived a life of pretence and that it was evident to the reader in his relationships and dealings with other characters, even with poor Barbie.
I agree that Susan's profound insecurity may date back to childhood
in fact I am sure that it does. Not all children respond well to boarding school -especially when the school is in another country almost half a world away. If Susan had an underlying weakness as a child being sent away for education may not have been the best thing for her. I seem to remember that at school she relied on Sarah to take the lead in everything and to make decisions Susan should have made for herself.
Ah, Traude, I always knew we were on the same wavelength! Blanche Dubois! - me too!
Your book club friend who would take The Book of Common Prayer to the desert island must have been a singular woman. Thinking about her choice I wonder whether she may have felt the need to cling to the cycle of the ecclesiastical year. Like you, I would hope for more than one choice. Perhaps Homer, the Holy Bible, Shakespeare and Churchill could keep the home fires burning while in exile. Scott is also a good choice for his insight into human nature and the fullness of his narrative. There are other novelists too - I think I would need to take a trunk.
-
Gumtree,, your post was most welcome and greatly appreciated. Thank you or our thoughtful emarks.. A trunk full of books, Oh yes :)
I have a tale about one such -- -- tomorrow, when we pick up the story.
We've had paralyzing heat and humidity during the last few days and I find it hard to concentrate now.
As always, thank you for being there.
-
To continue
Perron's preference would not have been to go riding, but he was ready before seven the next morning, waiting on the verandah of Nigel's bungalow. Not long after a jeep swept into the compound with Sarah at the wheel and a khaki-clad-figure riding shot-gun on the rear seat, a soldier. Mirat Artillery read the tab on his shoulder. He looked cheerful.
"Where's the horse?", Perron asked. Sarah merely patted the seat next to her as if it were a saddle and Perron climbed in over the low port. She too wore khaki: she had on her old WAC uniform, the tabs on the shirt removed. This was the old Sarah of Area Headquarters who knew a thing or two about getting a move-on.
Sarah set off in the direction of the lake, took several turns, then headed toward a rough road. with which she was clearly familiar. The road as bumpy, the ride smooth. The land was tawny and barren. There was no sign of habitation. Since the road was straight there seemed no reason for Sarah to slow down - until, a way ahead, Perron saw an elephant pushing something before it with rhythmic swings of its trunk. Sarah slowed to a crawl. Behind the elephant were two men; ahead of it its calf, an absurdly small creature. The animal's hide was almost black but dusted with red from the tawny earth. Just before they came level, the elephant turned off on to a side track, followed by the men. Sarah drove on.
"They're the Nawab's." she said. "They belong to his forestry department. No one can build here. A hundred years ago this was all forest."
A twist in the road brought them to rising land. On the brow of a hill were two horsemen, still like statues. Sarah pulled in behind an army truck and a closed-in van: a horse-box. Two soldiers stood on the opposite side of the road.
Getting out, Sarah said "We can watch from here", and handed Perron a pair of binoculars. "Here. Now you can see something of the old India."
Even in close focus, the horsemen stood perfectly still. Brown faces. One was turbanned, the other bare-headed.
The man with the turban was dressed in what looked like a studded leather jerkin and dark pantaloons. The younger man with the bare head (Ahmed surely?) wore a light blue shirt, breeches and riding boots. Around his raised left forearm was a leather shield that ended in a glove. On the forearm sat a hawk. The lack of movement and the intensity of concentration were extraordinary.
Suddenly, on a flighting movement of Ahmed Kasim's arm citing the hawk at its prey, the bird began its powerful, breathtaking ascent in a great arc. Sarah groped for Perron's hand, but she only wanted the binoculars. He handed them to her and gave all his attention to the aerial hunt, one that left no vapor trails but reminded him of a summer that had mapped them. Presently the hawk plummeted to the intended point of killing contact: a dark speck intent on escape. Sarah cried out, with pleasure and pain.
She gave the glasses back to Perron and said, "You must watch this". The hawk swooped down and clawed at something on ground level. The older horseman was riding in the direction of the kill. From the distance came Ahmed's voice, a sound like Tel ,Tek, Tek-Allahallahalla. Then the hawk was beating at the air again, rising, circling around Ahmed, flirting at the lure of his leathered forearm, then gently turning and coming in to alight. It ducked its head, arched its wings and allowed itself to be brought near Ahmed's face: the likeness of a kiss.
Unexpectedly, Ahmed flighted the hawk again, as if he himself were the prey. He cantered to and fro, round and round, gradually riding down the hill, and the bird flew to and fro, sometimes swooping in mock attack. It was like a game of love.
"I wish he wouldn't do this," Sarah said. "But he trusts her utterly."
Ahmed called out, and when he did the hawk seemed to turn away, spurning him, only to meet him again at the end of another swerving course. About one hundred yards from the road, Ahmed reined in. The hawk planed above him for a bit longer and then, as if breathless too and ready call it a day, came in and settled on the proffered arm. Ahmed secured he jesses. Again he brought the bird close to his face, then rode the rest of the way at a sedate pace. The falconer followed, a burlap bag slung over his shoulder. The kill.
"Hello", Ahmed called. He kicked away the stirrups, brought his right leg cross the saddle and slid down. The bird stayed rock-still on his forearm. He tickled her stomach.
"Her name is Mumtaz", Sarah said. "Come and meet her. Incidentally, don't offer to shake hands with Ahmed. She's very jealous and protective. Aren't you, Mumtaz? I'm not allowed to touch her at all; she senses that I'm female. But if Ahmed tells her it's all right, she'll allow you to tickle her throat."
Ahmed said in Urdu: Here is Perron Sahib from across the black water. He is a friend. Say hello." He stroked her breast feathers and said in English "You can touch her now, Mr. Perron."
Perron extended a finger. The bird's head turned. A glaring eye observed the finger. Risking its loss, Perron placed the finger on her breast and stroked downward. When he withdrew the finger, the hawk's wing stirred lightly.
"Ah," Sarah said. "She liked that. Ahmed, you better keep an eye on her! She's a bit of a rover."
Ahmed laughed, then, noticing her skirt, said "Aren't you going to ride?"
"No, I thought not today."
"What about you, Mr. Perron? You can have Begum here. She's still quite fresh."
"I'm more than content to watch you hawk", Peron answered.
"Oh, no more of that. I'm glad you were just in time. Come, Mumtaz, you can go to sleep now." The falconer had come up and dismounted. Rather tetchily Mumtaz hopped from Ahmed's arm to the falconer's. He took her down to the truck. Now Perron noticed that an awning was attached to the truck's side and under it a table laid for breakfast. A portable perch was set up nearby in the shade of a tree. The falconer transferred Mumtaz to it, secured her and clapped a little scarlet hood on her head.
"Come," Ahmed said. "I hope everybody is hungry."
As they sat down, Sarah asked, "Are you glad you came?"
"Not glad. Enchanted."
"I meant back to India."
"The answer is the same."
Sarah smiled.
The convoy home was headed by the army truck. The soldiers sat in the back, the falconer up front with Mumtaz Behind, Ahmed drove the jeep, Sarah sat next to him, Perron in the back seat. Bringing up the rear was the horse-box; it gradually fell behind.
Shouting over the noise of the engine Perron asked, "What do the soldiers make of the hawking?"
"I think they get a bit of a kick out of it," Sarah shouted back. "It's still quite new to them".
No one had explained the presence of the soldiers. If the hawking was quite new to them, the military escort presumably was a recent innovation. But how recent? And why was it necessary?
Sarah turned around and shouted, "We're going to the palace if that's all right. I've got to visit Shiraz, but Ahmed will take you round." Ahmed said something back to Sarah which Perron didn't catch. She laughed.
"Who's Shiraz?" Perron shouted.
"The Nawab's daughter."
Perron didn't know the Nawab had a daughter. But he noticed a special kind of empathy between Ahmed and Sarah, the kind that two people betray in small gestures and in the way they have of dealing with one another in public. Well, if that was how the land lay he could only wish her good luck, slightly deflating though it was to his own ego.
He looked at Ahmed's back. He remembered him as a pleasant but rather unsociable young man given to whiskey and women, a combination that might by now have begun to show signs of taking toll. Instead, young Kasim looked (as Uncle George would say) well set up. To Sarah he would even cut a heroic figure, mounted and flying his hawk. And she was the kind of girl who would defy the convention that a white woman didn't fall in love with an Indian.
Close to the end of the rough road, Sarah called, "Go in through the guest house entrance, Ahmed, and drop me there. I've got a few things to do. I'll join you at the palace later."
Ahmed nodded, then hooted and drew ahead of the truck, paused at the T-junction and raised his arm to indicate that the truck should turn right. He halted to make sure the driver understood. As the truck came into view, Perron saw the falconer's arm resting by the elbow on the open window, and upon the arm Mumtaz, hooded, head slightly inclined----
Comments and continuation tomorrow
Thank you
-
Commenary
Sarah had interacted (if I may use thatterm) with Ahmed in Volume 2, The Day of the Scorpion, in the morning of Susan's wedding day in Mirat, when she and Ahmed went riding together. He studiously kept his distance and made short replies to her attempts at conversation.
It would appear that they did not see each other again until the night of the Mahranee's party in Bombay, to which count Bronowsky had brought Sarah and Ahmed Kasim. Merrick, then Major, had come from Delhi, and Perron was there as emissary of Captain Purvis with a bottle of Old Sporran Scotch whiskey in hand as a gift for Aimée, the Maharanee, from Captain Purvis.
After the party broke up abruptly, Count Bronowsky gave them a lift in the Nawab's limousine.
As Sarah, Perron and Merrick were being dropped off, Perron heard Sarah talking to Ahmed. "I often think of it." she said. "And of our ride that morning. Do you still go out regularly?" Perron did not hear Ahmed's reply. Then life had thrown them together again. Their relationship seemed comfortable. But all around them things were in constant flux, plans changing, almost hour by hour.
****
After dropping Sarah off at the guest house, Ahmed took Perron first to the lake, where the boats were out that morning. "They are fishing again," Ahmed said. Then they went into the palace where Ahmed showed him the 'modern rooms' in the front. There the old Moghul passages gave way to corridors, Victorian in style, with hundreds of pictures cluttering the walls, and then - fascinating! - a kind of salon reminiscent of a Ritzy Edwardian hotel, all gilt and plush and potted palms in gilt wicker baskets, and a circular padded bench around a central marble column. Bronowsky's influence, Perron thought.
In that fin-de-siècle foyer Ahmed left him, promising to return shortly. Coffee came and the papers,
The Times of India, The Statesmen, The Mirat Courier, and The Ranpur Gazette.[/i]
The national newspapers mentioned that Jinnah, the incoming leader of Pakistan, had questioned the precise status Mountbatten would have in Karachi when he made his last appearance there as Viceroy on August 13. Two days later Jinnah would become Governor-General of the new Dominion of Pakistan. ('Moth-eaten' he had called it when he found he wasn't getting either the whole of the Punjab or the whole of Bengal - least of all Kashmir, or a corridor connecting the west with the east.)
It seemed Jinnah had been gently reminded that the Viceroy would still be Viceroy on August 13 and he himelf only Governor-General designate, just as Mountbatten was also Governor-General designate of the new Dominion of India. There was no question of Jinnah taking precedence before the date of independence.
The reports from Lahore, Amritsar and Calcutta were depressingly familiar -- of troublles with the Sikhs, of murders and arson, and equally depressing commentaries on the harrowing experiences of some of the refugees already making their way from what would be Pakistan to what would be India, and vice versa.
But the photographs in the papers showed only smiling faces.
To be continued
-
Continuing
Similar photographs were published in the Mirat Courier. The front page of the paper was taken up to preliminary details of the official program for independence day celebrations.
Perron turned do the waspish Ranpur Gazette. The editorial - a long one - was headed: Pandora's Box.
(The editorial is six printed pages long. It thoughtfully, fairly addresses first and foremost the unresolved crisis in the "pocket kingdom" of Mirat, the historic and political context, and the impending partition of India. The pre-existing conditions were mentioned here before. What follows is a shorter version; with limited direct quotes.)
"That Mirat exists at all as a separate political unit is due to the pure luck and chance of the dice of history."
After the Indian Rebellion of 1857 that began as Mutiny of sepoys, two-thirds of the subcontinent were under the direct rule of Whitehall, but the real power of the Princely India was reduced to virtual impotence. Treaties were made with the rulers of the nearly 600 widely scattered remaining states, that varied in size from mere estates to provinces the size of Ireland. These treaties were private, formal, individual contracts between ruler and crown, but they've always been part of a larger unwritten treaty: the doctrine of paramountcy.
However, that doctrine has always been illogical. This illogality is exemplified by the dual role assigned to the Viceroy. As Governor-General it has been his duty to govern and guide the British-Indian provinces toward democratic parliamentary self rule. As Representative of the Crown it has been his duty to uphold, secure, oversee and defend the autocratic rule of several hundred princes. Geographically and politically the princes cannot survive individually once the Crown abdicates and twentieth century India (or Pakistan) takes over.
Given these facts, and in view of the terrible reports of the breakdown of civil authority in the Punjab, the Viceroy, in obeying a well-meaning but ignorant British electorate, has found himself in the unenviable position
of opening Pandora's Box and letting out all the evils that afflicted the country since time began but were locked in the box under the lid by the rule of British Power and British Law.
The Nawab is faced with the problem of what action to take. Already there have been reports of indecision at the palace. And the rumor that the Nawab has not yet cooperated with representatives of the States Department of the new Indian dominion has led to the murder of Muslims in the city of Mirat and in the villages by extremist Hindus, which in turn led to the retaliatory murder of Hindus, the burning and looting of Hindu houses and shops. "The Nawab could defuse this potential bomb in an instant by taking the logical, the only practical step, which is to sign the instrument of accession to the new Dominion of India."
"One can sympathize with the Nawab. One should sympathize with any man whose traditional assurances are suddenly removed or closed to him. But it his sympathies, not our own, that are under test. So at least one must hope. Classical scholars will recall that Hope was the only thing that didn't fly out of Pandora's Box but remained obstinately at the bottom."
To be continued
-
To continue
Sarah returned, apologizing for Ahmed who had to attend to an urgent matter. But Dmitri would like to have a few words and present him to HH. Perron agreed. On the way she told him that Susan had decided to return to Pankot right away and she'd go with her. Asked what right away meant, she said "The day after tomorrow. Ahmed's looking into arrangements."
Count Bronowsky greeted Perron warmth. He said that, when he received Guy's letter from England about an upcoming visit, his first thought had been that Guy could perhaps be persuaded to lecture at the Mirat Indian College on European mercenaries and the history of the Mahrattas. But even if Perron had agreed, that was now impossible: the students were on strike and the college was temporarily closed.
With a look at the paper Guy was still holding, Brownowsky asked what he thought of it. Perron replied that he found it well argued.
To that Bronowsky said that the editor of the Ranpur Gazette, an elderly Englishman- interestingly enough, did have quite an effective style. He then added that Nigel had called earlier, he would return later in the day with the necessary letter from the Resident in Gopalakand, his mission achieved. The Resident and the Maharadaj of Gopalakand had decided for accession to the Dominion of India, whereas the Nawab was still hoping they'd encourage him to stand firm on independence.
Bronowsky added that he had not yet informed the Nawab of Nigel's call. If the Nawab were to see the article now, it would 'put his back up'. "I don't want him with his back up when I tell him the Resident is washing his hands of Mirat and that he should sign the instrument of accession if he so wishes."
Perron handed him the paper and said, "Thank you for warning me, I might have referred to it."
The count continued. Sarah is a remarkable young woman. She will be missed at the place. Shiraz is heart-broken. Sarah was the only one who could bring Shiraz out of her shell, no one had been able to achieve that. Sarah's with the Nawab now saying goodbye. He indicated a set of double doors. "I'm afraid you won't find him very communicative. He is shy with strangers. So do not be offended if I intervene quite quickly and take him through to see his petitioners. The morning audiences are a relic of the past. The real work is done by members of the council and their staffs. But the tradition is important. Sarah will take you back to Nigel's."
Sarah was waiting. They left in silence, walking past a gauntlet of servants making namaste to her. On the verandah of Nigel's bungalow, Tippoo was waiting.
Before Perron let Sarah go, he asked, "What did happen to Ronald?"
She said, "Don't ask me, Guy. Ask Nigel. Ask Dmitri. Or better still, nobody."
****
-
Friends:
My apologies for not posting sooner. Personal concerns and contemporary events were the reason for my delay, foremost the death of a good man, Senator Kennedy.
In the end, I believe, when all is said and done and all the superlatives have been used over and over, there's no greater attribute than a good man and a good woman.
Measured by \this gauge, the fictional Guy Perron was a good man. An orphan raised by doting eccentric uncles and a loving, more practically-minded, aunt, the focus of his studies became (inevitably, pehaps) the history of the British Raj in india. Refusing a commission, he served as a sergeant in Intelligence for a few months and (thanks to Aunt Charlotte's infallible connections) escaped by a hair the net in which villainous Merrick had ensnared him. Irresistibly drawn to India, he returned to witness the independence celebrations in Delhi, but nostalgia leads him first to Bombay fand, right after, to Mirat on an open invitation, as we've seen.
It's been only two years, but nothing is quite the same. His itinerary changes at every turn, friends he cherished and were cherished by him in turn are involved in a pull-back, the inevitable retreat from all they'd known with unpredictable results.
**
Following the audience with the Nawab, Sarah had taken Perron back to Nigel's bungalow. He had lunch there and then was at loose ends. He tried to sleep, dozed, and woke up a dozen times. A storm came and went. The smell of damp was overwhelming. At 4 in the afternoon Tippoo brought him tea. He considered writing to Aunt Charlotte but found the room suddenly intolerable. In search of air and sunshine he went out into the backyard. There was no sound from Merrick's compound. He looked at the majestic banyan tree, surely a hundred years old, wasn't it considered especially holy? Yet its age had not lend tranquillity to either compound in which it grew.
The gate was unlocked and Perron entered. Merrick's garden looked less well tended. The grass seemed to have grown an inch overnight. He thought briefly of walking up to the verandah - then decided not to intrude on so much absence, so much darkness, so much loss.
By nine o'clock Rowan had not returned. Sarah had not called. Tippoo persuaded him not to wait any longer. He had dinner alone, again. Afterwards he sat on the verandah with his notebook, his file of newspaper clippings, his scissors, and the day's newspapers, which Tippoo assured him Rowan wouldn't mind him cutting up. He opened the Ranpur Gazette and stared to re-read Pandora's Box. After two paragraphs he got tired of it and turned the pages in the waning light. There was no cartoon but on a back page an article by Philoctetes, with the headline Alma Mater.
Written by a reporter it described his visit to the new wing of the Indian College after the fanfare of its opening when the dignitaries had left, the noise died down; a reflection and a forward look, from the raw and uncompromising structure, to a future with so many hopes as yet unproven. The reader is left with the certain impression that Philoctetes IS in fact Hari Kumar.
The evening wore on and Perron could no longer contain himself. Late though it was, He called the guest house asking for Sarah. Aunt Fenny answered and said safrah had not returned from dinner, and yes, they would be leaving as scheduled and Mr. Kasim would come with them. "Some people called Peabody might come as wel"l but weren't quite sure, she added. Perron said he'd like to go with them.
To be continued
-
Unfortunately I lost two posts this evening - and have no idea how I did that.
Perhaps it's a lesson, an admonition to be briefer, but how can I do that when the revelations are forthcoming at long last??
Just as important, perhaps more so, I've focused on a doctor's appointment today which I'd put off too long, and dreaded. But I'm in good hands.
Thank you for your indulgence.
There's more to come.
-
Continuing.
There was no call from Sarah. After midnight a car turned into the compound. When Perron came out on to the verandah, Tippoo was opening the car door. Rowan was alone. Looking extremely tired and even thinner, but still the solicitous host, Rowan took Perron to his own room for a last chat. He poured brandy, the men raised their glasses, Perron offered congratulations. They settled in their chairs.
(A reflection. Interesting men, both sympathetic characters
They were at the elite Chillingborouth together where Rowan clearly must have shown a talent for diplomacy and a gentle "nudging" of people, or he would no have been put in charge of the younger Perron, who refused to participate in competitive sports. Rowan arranged for an alternative - rowing. He kept an eye on Perron, nothing more.
When their paths crossed again that night in the Ranpur railway station in the Nawab's private coach, their respective positions were again uneven, unequal: Perron a field sergeant, newly "requisitioned" by Merrick, and Nigel, a Captain in the Political Department, on special assignment as personal aide to Governor Malcolm. Even so, Nigel and Guy spoke as equals. Perron talked quite freely and Nigel mostly listened, all the while holding his cards close to his vest.)
Now a longer exchange was necessary.
Here is a summation of the subjects they discussed.
Sarah.
Earlier that evening she'd visited the Mirat Women's Hospital for Muslim women. She was asked to stay for supper. Over the years she had been a volunteer worker there, popular with patients and nurses. She took Shiraz to the maternity ward, the Nawab's daughter, an unprecedented event. At the palace Nigel had run into Sarah. She said she'd call Guy in the morning.
Perron said he would like to see Dmitri before leaving, and hoped he might wrangle an interview with MAK through his son, Ahmed. He had no firm plans beyond bbeing in Delhi onAugust 15.
In that case, Rowan answered, he could always come to Gopalakand. He like all British officials, including the Resident of Gopalakand, would become redundant at midnight on Aug 15, but the Maharadja, a very hospitable man, had asked him and Laura to stay on as his guests.
Lady Manners, Rowan said, would also be coming to Gopalakand because Rawalpindi ('Pindi') was becoming a part of Pakistan.
Had Nigel kept up with Lady Manners? Perron asked.
Not kept up, Nigel answered. He had visited her some months before when they were in that area. He tried to tell her what he knew about Hari, but "it's a subject she doesn't discuss. The child is still with her, an enchanting little girl who's been brought up to think of herself as an Indian."
"How did you meet Laura again?", Perron asked.
Rowan had corresponded with her mother through the years. Laura wrote to him after her release from the Japanese prison camp. Her husband, for whom she had spurned Nigel, owned a rubber plantation in Malaya. Laura and Tony were taken to separate camps. After some months Laura received his personal effects and was told he died of fever. She did not believe it. She spent some time in Singapore after the war where fellow prisoners of Tony's told her the truth. They'd killed Tony. A Japanese officer was tried and hanged for war crimes. "Poor Laura", Perron said.
Rowan nodded. "Her first marriage was not much of a success either. I gather she made it clear to you that ours hasn't been. I don't know why not. She hated it here. That's why I left her in Gopalakand today. The Residency works better for her. I was away so much of the time. She said this bungalow reminds her of the one she lived in with Tony. It was one of the things she didn't like about it. So we decided it would be better for her to stay at the club.
"One of the things?" asked Perron.
"This place is very closed in. Damp and dark. I'll be quite glad to get out of it myself. After three years in a crowded prison camp Laura doesn't mind being alone. The last straw was the snake incident."
It was Laura who found rhe snake, asleep in their bathtub. Nigel was at the palace. She shut the door and told Ronald.
Yes, Perron thought. Merrick was bound to come into the picture.
"What kind of snake?" he asked.
"A young cobra."
"Well, tell me," Perron said, "how he killed the snake."
****
-
Does Nigel have a revolver?" Merrick had asked Laura. The answer was no. "Then I'll have to go next door for a moment" , he said.
Laura went out to the back of the compound, walking back and forth, dreading what she knew had to be done, waiting for the sound of a shot.
"Well, here it is," Merrick said. She hadn't heard him coming. There he was, a kukri in his good hand, the cobra draped over the artificial one. For a moment she thought the cobra was still whole - then the head slipped out of the black glove and she cried out. Merrick later told Rowan he used his artificial arm as a lure and, when the cobra struck and sank its fangs into the gloved hand, had swung the kukri and cut it into two.
"Had Laura liked Merrick until that day?" Perron asked. "I wonder whether you ever felt he HAD CHOSEN her."
Rowan had remembered Guy's conjecture, especially when he and Laura came to Mirat and found Merrick living alone next door. Then Merrick took to turning up at the bungalow whenever Nigel was out. At first Laura made a joke of it. She said it reminded her of Malaya. When Tony would go to Kuala Lumpur or Singapore leaving her alone, all the local bachelors and grass-widowers homed in on her bungalow. Making feeble excuses, or no excuses at all, just to stare. It had made her feel like an object. Now she felt physically repulsive because of the scar under her left eye, wearing sunglasses even indoors in the presence of strangers. She thought Merrick might consider himself physically repulsive too.
One night Rowan found her in an odd mood. Over dinner she began talking about prison camp- something she'd never done. Then she asked whether Nigel didn't want to know about the scar, and why she could talk to Ronald but not to Nigel, her husband. That Ronald was the only person she'd ever met who could get her to talk the way she wanted to talk, spill out the whole awful bloody business.
"The only thing I could think of to say - and it came out quite unrehearsed - was that she couldn't talk to me about it because she knew I loved her, but she had to talk to Ronald because he had chosen her. As a victim."
Laura made no reply. Merrick was not mentioned by either of them. A few days later, Rowan found her packing, ready to go back to Gopalakand. It was the day Merrick had killed the snake. Rowan convinced her to go to the club instead.
The moment she'd gone the situation seemed absurd. There was nothing Rowan could accuse Merrick of. But every time the two men met, Merrick would harp on it, explaining, apologizing, again, unable to let go. He went to the club a few times to see Laura, but she would not. Inevitably, his unsuccessful calls at the club was noticed. Rowan asked him to stop. Merrick did, at once. At the same time he seemed pleased that people were beginning to link his and Laura's names.
"As the Other Man??" Perron asked.
"I hadn't thought of it in quite that general way," Nigel answered. "I wondered if he wasn't trying to get his own back at me: I'm positive he knew by then that Kumar had been privately examined -- examined by me. There were times when he seemed to be daring me to come out with it."
Perron asked, 'How long was he in Singapore?"
"Singapore? He WAS in Singapore. Why?"
"Could he have been involved," Perron wondered, "in the case against the Japanese officer who was hanged as a war criminal, the one who had killed Laura's husband and probably scores of others?
Rowan thought that far-fetched.
"Nothing is far-fetched with Merrick. I believe he had a photographic memory. One look was all he needed to grasp any situation,", said Perron, and then mentioned that Merrick had read Susan's private file at the psychiatris's office.
Guy asked about the Red Shadow. "The what?" Rowan asked.
"The disgusting bazaar Pathan he had trailing around with him. The one who had his hands on my wallet, the one I kicked out of my quarters."
Merrick had no personal servants after he married, Rowan told him. They had no permanent home.
"Did Merrick live in this bungalow?"[/i] Perron asked.
"Yes", Rowan said. "For a month or two when he first came before Susan joined him."
"I imagine he slept in my room -- It has a resonance ...
What did he do, Nigel? Commit suicide? Cut his wrists and die in the bath?"
****
-
First a quick vocabulary note.
The volumes of the Raj Quartet are laced with Indian terms. But finding the definition was not always easy, nor possible in all instances. But in time the reader comes to understand and identify WHO and WHAT is being described.
For example sepoy; wallah, especially tonga wallah; kukri,; also maidan, a wide open field where military parades were held (as in Mayapore in The Jewel in the Crown), and nullah,=
a gully, ditch, a dried-out creek.
**
Continuing
For some time Merrick had wanted to watch Ahmed out with Mumtaz, but Ahmed always found excuses. On the morning of the accident Merrick became upset when Sarah and Ahmed appeared at the bungalow with horses and no falcon. He
galloped off in the direction of the maidan. They say him jumping across the main nullah. When they reached him he was not seriously hurt and claimed at once someone had been lying in wait in the nullah and suddenly stood up, scaring the horse. Dr. Habbibullah, suspecting a concussion, ordered him to stay in bed. He was a bad patient. When Rowan, Sarah and Dmitri visited him, he angrily repeated the story of the imaginary man in the nullah, even adding an imaginary stone.
There was instant concern: a dead English official, or one attacked, was the last thing the Nawab or the British wanted just days before the proclamation of independence. Had Merrick wanted a confrontation? Possibly.
Rowan and Dmitri had concluded that Merrick might have wanted to pull out all stops in some kind of showdown.
So it seems would b]other people, for Merrick's death had been arranged. No one in the family but Sarah knew that Ronald had been murdered.
Rowan was the last person to see Merrick alive. He seemed perfectly all right, sitting up in bed, smoking. For once he did not mention Laura. He talked about getting a job in Calcutta or Bombay, or of offering his services to Pakistan. He was quite frank about not wanting to go home to England. What he needed, he told Rowan, was fresh air and he had made up his mind he was going to get it by watching Ahmed hawk in the morning. He pressed hard and Rowan called Sarah. She promised to bring the jeep in the morning.
Just after six, Rowan's phone rang, Khansamar asking him to come over right away. "Sahib is dead," he said. "I've locked everything up." Merrick's bedroom was in shambles. The mosquito net torn to pieces, the bedsheets ripped and stained with blood. Merrick was lying on the floor, dressed in his Pathan clothes, hacked about with his own ornamental axe, and strangled with his own sash. All over the floor were cabalistic signs; the word Bibighar was scrawled on Susan's dressing table mirror.
Dmitri saw the scene, so did the Chief ot the Mirat Police and the commander of the military police in the cantonment.
The station commanader was consulted. Every detail was properly recorded, Dr. Habibullah's real post mortem, the private inquest and the sworn statements of Rowan and Khansamar. The murder had been carefully planned and patiently seen through to the end, with the clear intention to cause disorder and social unrest. Hence Merrick's death could not be publicly announced as murder. There were rumors: too many people had to be involved to avoid them. Counteracting them was the fiction, especially in the cantonment, that Merrick had died as a result of the riding accident.
Suspicion fell first on Pandit Baba, the likely instigator. But he had been on a pilgrimage in the Himalayas for a month and had a perfect alibi. Two of the original Bibighar detainees who had stayed in Mayapore were cleared by police there. Police also tracked and found Hari Kumar, still coaching students, never leaving Ranpur. He too was in the clear. Hari's address was now available. Nigel wrote it down for Perron.
"Where are the servants?" Guy wanted to know.
"Back at Dmitrti's where they came from."
"Where're his clothes, his arm?"
"The Chief of Police. I must turn in, Guy. If you see Dmitri tomorrow, he can probably answer your question better than I."
Perron had one last question for Rowan: "Who was Philoctetes?"
Nigel rubbed his forehead. He looked exhausted and Guy regretted having asked. But Nigel had the answer:
"The great archer." "A great archer?"
"A friend of Hercules," explained Nigel, "one of the heroes of the Trojan war. Sophocles wrote a play about him. One I didn't read. They had to set him ashore, abandon him on the voyage out. On the island of Lemnos, I think."
"Why?"
"He was hurt in some way. Wounded by one of his own poisoned arrows. Or perhaps he got boils and suppurating sores
from a vitamin deficiency. They couldn't stand the smell of him so they went on and left him there."
That fitted, Perron thought. "Did he ever get to Troy?"
"Eventually. If I remember rightly, they decided they needed him after all."
______________
Isn't that a comforting thought? :)
Tomorrow Dinner with Dmitri and more revelations
-
Reflections.
Guy Perron, the (almost) omniscient narrator, has divined that Hari Kumar is subsidizing his meager earnings from teaching proper English to Indian boys by free-lancing for the Ranpur Gazette under the pen name of Philoctetes. As Philoctetes Hari had written the article Alma Mater.
So there's a least a shimmer of hope that, like the mythical Philoctetes, Hari might be accepted (and accepting!), perhaps even needed some time in the future.
Our story is coming to an end. From Guy Perron's journal notes we know that it is now Wednesday, August 6, 1947.
_______________
The pleasant morning became brighter when, to Perron's surprise, Sarah arrived at Nigel's bungalow with horses and dressed for riding. There was no Ahmed, no Mumtaz. A pleasant trot out to the maidan, where Sarah pointed out a few special sights to him, changed suddenly into a much faster, more daring ride for Sarah and left Perron behind. (It was the same fearless maneuver Sarah had performed on the morning of Susan's wedding day when Ahmed accompanied her. He too was surprised by the suddenness of her maneuver, but he kept up with her.)
At the guest house Perron met Aunt Fenny, had breakfast with family members and learned of Dmitri's change of a travel detail. They would not use the Nawab's coach which, Dmitri feared, might become a target for attack by angry Muslims feeling let down by the Nawab's decision. Instead they would travel in a first-class compartment, which sat 8 people comfortably. There would be 7 adults: Sarah, Susan, Aunt Fenny, Perron, Ahmed and the two Peabodys. With Edward and the ayah, there'd be 9.
The news of the Nawab's accession to India was trickling out and by the afternoon a crowd of Congress supporters had assembled on the maidan for speeches and cheers. Police and the military kept them away from the palace.
The dinner to which Bronowsky had invited Perron was delayed a number of times. When he arrived and found himself the only guest, he was disappointed. As if reading his mind, Bronowsky said,
"Since Sarah isn't with us I felt we'd dine alone. It's a bit selfish of me to subject you to my unadulterated company, but not entirely so. For if we had another guest or two then I couldn't tell you the things you have come to Mirat to learn about - how princes rule and live in this country. Besides I feel I deserve an evening off myself with just one sympathetic listener."
To be continued
-
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/raj1.jpg)
Join us as we continue our discussion of the Raj Quartet.
We will be reviewing and finishing Towers of Silence, the third book of the Raj Quartet.
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/Rajquartetcvr.jpg)
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/Rajtitle175.jpg) |
|
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/raj/indiapostpartition.jpg) |
Discussion Leader ~ straudetwo (traudestwo2@gmail.com)
Continuing
Perron admired the old wazir's clarity of memory, his knowledge, experience and statecraft. What will be the future of Mirat? he asked him.
Mirat will be absorbed into the provincial administration of Ranpur, ruled from Ranpur and Delhi under the control of a deputy commissioner to be sent down. The revenues will go to Government and Government in turn will accept certain responsibilities for Miratis. Mirat will become a constituency or several constituencies, able to elect and send members to the legislative assembly.
Years earlier Bronowsky had foreseen such a development and told the Nawab that if either of his two sons had political talent, there might have been a way of maintaining control (izzat) under a new dispensation. For in a world where a ruling prince becomes redundant, there should be an opportunity for one of his heirs, someone in his family, to sit not on the gaddi (=throne) but in the assembly, perhaps even a ministerial chair at the Secretariat.
Neither of the Nawab's sons had talent or wit, Bronowsky confided. That's when his eyes fell on another member of the house of Kasim. The Ranpur branch. The rebellious political branch. Ahmed. Bronowsky's intention was to arrange - withoutundue pressure - an alliance between the princely Kasims of Mirat and the political Kasims of Ranpur. That was the reason behind his grooming of Ahmed. He had even hoped that Ahmed and Shiraz would fall in love some day. But God did not dispose what Bronowsky so devoutly wished.
A servant came with a message and Bronowsky left briefly. Returning he reported "There are fires in the city. They are burning each other's shops".
Whenever he had seen a sight like that in the past eight months, he added, he was comforted by the thought that Colonel Merrick was coping with it. He missed him now. Before the war, he went on, there were no civil disturbances. In the rural areas Bronowsky toured, a Hindu or a Muslim farmer didn't have the vaguest idea of who Gandhi was, or who Jinnah was. For him the world began and ended in his fields, and with his landlord, and with the tax-collectors, and with Nawab Sahib in Mirat, Lord of the world, Giver of Grain.
Then came the war and aftermath. But by the time the Mirati gunners came back to their heroes' welcome, Congress and the League had already taken up the cudgels on behalf of the INA. When the most outspoken of the returning gunners said what they thought of Bose, they were beaten up in the bazaar. Poor Ahmed was beaten when it became known that his father, MAK, was not going to defend his other son, Sayed, which was a blessing in disguise because it stopped Ahmed from his excursions to the bazaar to see the "ladies of the night". The result was a virtual breakdown in the Mirat Police department that could not be resolved. The Nawab and Bronowsky felt they should not depend entirely on help from the British cantonment. In the end the Nawab sent Brnowsky to Delhi to plead the case to the states police. They dispatched Roland Merrick.
When Bronowsky heard WHO was coming in command of a States Police detachment and in an advisory capacity to the Nawab and himself, his first thought was no, no, no, no. This man has a controversial reputation; the last time he was in Mirat, he was subject to attention of people who seemed determined to persecute him for what he had done in Mayapore. What are they doing sending him back here? employing him again in the police? Stll, he had seen him only once before.
Merrick treated the whole thing as though it were just a silly quarrel between naughty hildren. He inspired confidence with his impartiality and his absolutely inflexible, unshakeable sense of his own authority.
When Bronowsky asked him if he was still persecuted by people making melodramatic demonstrations, throwing stones and chalking inauspicious signs on his doorstep he said, as he had in Bombay, all that had ended.
Those who had kept track of him for five years certainly had many opportunities to kill him. Why now? The obvious intention was to aggravate racial tension. But an open investigation would have caused a great deal of distress an pain for Susan. In her unstable state of mind and health it was better for her not to know under what strange and unsavory circumstances her husband died.
"Do spies come into the picture? asked Perron. Susan mentioned them."
To be contiued
-
Continuing
"Mr. Perron," Bronowsky answered, "he had no spies. Nor did he ever go out in these clothes. He might well have done it in his earlier years, disguising himself as a Pathan and going out into the bzaars, dark paint on his face. And of course in his time he must have employed spies in his department, just as our own police chief employs them.
"But Ronald and spies and Indian clothes, here in Mirat? No, no; that was mere play-acting. Khansamar never believed in spies. And if I had heard anything, I could have alerted Khansamar to be more on his guard. Then I could also have warned Ronald, though that would been a delicate task. But he may not have needed a warning. It's quite possible that he knew what was going on, in which case his murder might be seen as a form of suicide[/color]. Unfortunately I heard of 'spies' too late : when Khansamar was questioned and told us about these visitors."
"Visitors, distinct from people coming to ask for a job? That's what Susan believed." Perron said.
It's also what Khansamar believed originally, continued Bronowsky. With the benefit of hindsight it became clear that it was all part of a new, subtle form of persecution. Young men began to appear soon after Merrick moved into Nigel's bungalow, while the larger bungalow next door was being readied for Susan and the child.
None of the young men was a Mirati; the chits they carried meant nothing to Khansamar, who was illiterate. He turned them all away. One of them persisted and stood by the gate every day. Merrick looked at his references - which may or may not have been genuine - and told him there was no work to offer him. He was back the next day. He salaamed every time Merrick came in or out.
Finally Merrick told Khansamar to put the boy to work, and to work him so hard that he would give up. But he did not. He worked so well helping one of the malis clear the compound that in a day or two the tennis court was almost finished. When Merrick came to inspect, they were laying the lines for the lime-wash. He told Khansamar to next put the boy to work cutting the tall grass. And in the evening the boy worked on a new vegetable patch behind the servants' quarters.
The boy was well-mannered and respectful. His name was Aziz. The mali's wife had begun to mother him. One evening Aziz addressed Khansamar as "father", and he, who had several daughters but no sons, was moved. He assigned less strenuous work to Aziz. Then Merrick asked Khansamar whether the boy could also read and write. The answer was yes, he could read, slowly. Every night he was reading aloud from the newspapers, haltingly. So Aziz was put to the task of painting the book shelves in the bigger bungalow and transferring the books from the packing cases to the shelves, and putting them in alphabetical order by author's name.
One early evening when Khansamar walked to the room where Aziz was working to tell him it was time for the evening meal, he heard the boy laughing. Aziz was sitting on the floor, with his back to the half open door, reading a book, turning the pages --- rapidly for someone who normally read aloud with difficulty. But when Khansamar checked by the servants' quarters later, he found Aziz reading from the newspaper as usual, slowly, haltingly.
By this time Khansamar had come to regard Aziz with affection. The boy had told him he was all alone in the world, father and mother dead, he had left the village at a young age but kept up with his reading. It wasn't easy for Khansamar to admit to himself that the young man he had seen reading quickly through one of the Sahib's books and laughing was quite different from the one who had presented himself at the gate as a farmer's son. Was it possible that he was not the sort of boy he pretended to be?
Khansamar suddenly remembered that after the boy had first scythed the grass, he wore rags the next day to cover blisters on his palms and fingers. He had never complained of sore hands. At that moment something else struck Khansamar as odd: since Aziz had come, no one had appeared at the gate waving their little chits, begging to see Colonel Sahib. Unable to sleep he got up, dressed and checked the hut where Aziz slept. It was bolted from the outside.
It was a peaceful Indian night and understandable that Aziz, a strong young fellow, could have gone to the bazaar to meet a girl. Khansamar woke up the chaudikar (=gate keeper) and scolded him for sleeping on the job. Back in his quarters he waited, more awake than ever. Eventually he heard a small sound. He got up and went over. A light was on in the hut. He knocked. When Aziz opened the door, Khansamar said something like "What foolishness is this? Where have you been?" Aziz said he was relieving himself. "For two hours?" Khansamar said. "Are you ill?"
Then he noticed marks on the boy's face and that he had been bathing them. Talking like an angry father, Khansamar asked more questions. Aziz was contrite. Yes, he said, he had been in the bazaar, but he had fallen climbing over the locked gate. "Wasn't Chaudikar there to help you over?" Aziz laughed and said he was no doubt asleep as usual on the verandah. Khansamar did not believe Chaudikar would have gone to sleep again after being scolded, but he realized that, with two bungalows to look after, it would have been possible for Aziz to slip over one of the gates without being seen. So he just gave Aziz a talking off and warned him that Colonel Sahib might have to be informed.
To be continued
-
I must have been asleep when I read the last book. I don't remember much of this at all.
-
Frybabe, many thanks for your post.
Yes, these last 50-odd or 60-odd pages are truly a mini treasure trove. Now, finally, we are getting a clearer notion of Merrick, though mysteries remain. The information is conveyed in dialogue, and Bronowsky is a brilliant raconteur, among other things, and Perron the ideal attentive, knowledgeable listener. But it is Scott who invented all the voices. In Jewel in the Crown, for example, we really hear the Indian English in the detainees' confessions; we hear a more cultivated Indian English from the mouth of MAK.
Next we are going to be privy to the exchange between Khansamar and the chaudikar, narrated by Bronowsky in THEIR voices. A linguistic feat, if ever there was one. Scott makes us read each and every word (often more than once) and forces us to come to our own conclusions. It is not the plot (alone) that matters to him, rather it is (a) the epic concept and (b) the intricacy of the innumerable details.
More to come tomorrow.
-
Additional commentary.
In the conversation with Perron Bronowsky makes it clear that the returning Merrick had "certain qualities". Perron replied, crossly, "I saw only the bad side, I'm afraid."
One thing seemed new, Bronowsky added. Merrick struck him as an inwardly melancholy man. Only when he was in the company of the child did he glow with the old conviction.
"And when he was with his wife?" asked Perron.
"I am no judge, Mr. Perron. I cannot gauge the warmth between a man and a woman, a warmth I never enjoyed. One eventually withdraws, becomes insensitive. I admit that when I first met Merrick on the day of Susan's wedding, I was sensitive to what I thought might be certain tendencies. I wish now I had been more sensitive to the possibility to these tendencies having become - how shall I say - in no way lessened by his experience of marriage.
This elegant circumlocution leaves no doubt about Merrick's latent homosexuality, though the word is uttered by bronowsky only once.
Continuing
When Khansamar got up the next morning, which was always before anybody else because it was his duty to make Colonel Sahib's chota hazri (small breakfast), he first sought out the chaudikar and asked wwhether he had stayed awake and if so whether he had seen anything unusual. Chaudikar answered he had certainly stayed awake after being woken but he had seen nothing unusual.
Khansamar then asked him whether he wouldn't call it unusual to see Aziz climbing over a gate, missing his footing and falling on the gravel so heavily that he had grazed his face badly. Chaudikar agreed that would be unusual.
In which case, Khansamar said, chudikar had neglected to see something unusual because that is what happened. So he could only believe that chaudikar had fallen asleep again, and that would have to be reported to Colonel Sahib.
"I do not advise that," said chaudikar. "Colonel Sahib will think you are trying to make trouble for him.
Last night and the night before Aziz was with Colonel Sahib. I saw Aziz go in the door of the ghusl-khana just as I saw him go in the night before. The only difference was that the night before I stayed on watch, expecting him to come out like a thief, in which case I would have pounced on him. But he came out after some time by the same door and Colonel Sahib was with him, dressed in the clothes he sometimes wears when he is alone. He is a Pathan at heart and Aziz is a fine sturdy boy. It does not surprise me that Colonel Sahib has been tempted. I have seen him watching Aziz working in the compound. And when Aziz went into the bungalow again last night I thought it is none of my business. And since Colonel Sahib is not alone in the house I can nod off for a moment."
Khansamar thought it was no business of his either. But he had seen the mess that had been made of Aziz's face, and when he took in Colonel Sahib's chota hazri he found him already up, sitting in front of the dressing-table, and wearing his harness. The knuckles of his right hand were grazed. He had beaten the boy with his fist. At that moment Khansamar conceived a dislike for Merrick, a cold dislike; contempt. And he wondered why a boy like Aziz had submitted to that kind of treatment.
"Do you wonder, Mr. Perron?" "Tell me why you don't," said Perron.
It was clear, Bronowsky continued, he had been instructed. Instructed to present himself, to stand there by the gate until Merrick had seen him. Instructed also to submit without complaint to anything Merrick did once he had accepted the lure of this terrible attraction, of this terrible temptation young men like Aziz represented.
"Instructed by whom?"
"Not Pandit Baba, don't you agree?"
The Pandit was probably superseded long ago by someone with a more modern, more intelligent approach. There are always plenty of gurus waiting in the wings, and many young men are willing and reay to serve and submit and suffer in the belief that what they do is for a cause. Whoever had instructed Aziz, his predecessors and those who followed him, must have known of Merrick's tendencies. How? Possibly because of an indiscretion or lapse? In any event, it was the new form of persecution. Merrick was constantly besieged by a steady flow of young men; gradually men of steelier temperament, young men capable of taking the ultimate step when the victim was properly lulled.
Merrick sacked Aziz. He told Khansamar there was no more work for Aziz. Aziz was sent packing.
A week or two later another boy arrived, begging for a job, coming back day after day. The same kind of boy. Merrick resisted the bait. The boy gave up. Only to be replaced by another. And another. And then Susan and Sarah arrived with the child and the ayah, occupying the bigger bungalow. And still they came, these young fellows. Perhaps some of them were genuinely looking for employment. hansamar thought so because not all of them were like Aziz. But from time to time there would be one like Aziz.
And then the tactics changed.
To be continued
Thank you for being here.
-
Commentary
There is no mention in any of the glossaries I checked of the term gusl-khana, printed in the book also as as ghusl-khana. The term apparently refers to a separate entrance at the other end of the bungalow, which led to the room where Merrick worked late, and where Susan found him one night dressed in his Pathan clothes.
There is also no mention in the glossaries I checked- much less an identification- of the term Pathan. The only reference on record I found earlier is the remarkably similar evaluation (or was it perhaps a quip ?)of two colonial officers who served in India at about he same time, one Frederic Mackeson and Sir Robert Warburton. Both said Pathans were either "brave and honorable OR treacherous scoundrels. We must assume that Paul Scott' impression and/or experience were unfavorable.
Continuing
In late April when the weather was becoming oppressive, a young Pathan arrived late one night and insisted on seeing Merrick personally because he had an official, confidential message. He stayed only for a short time. What was said? What services offered, what services implied?
In May Susan, the child and the ayah returned to Pankot.
A few days later Merrick told Khansamar he was expecting a messenger, late in the day. Chaudikar shouldn't lock the gates.
The Pathan arrived just before midnight. This time he had a companion. Both were taken to Merrick's study. A short time later Merrick told Khansamar that one of the men should be given a bed for the night. The Pathan left and the chaudikar locked the gates behind him. The companion was a younger man, a boy like Aziz. He wore European clothes and had a bedroll with him. The verandah would do very well, he said. Khansamar brought him a cup of tea. The young man asked a great many questions about Mirat and Khansamar asked him why. The boy laughed, apologized and said it was a habit acquired from his work. What sort of work was that? Kansamar asked in turn. Why, confidential work for the police, what else?
Khansamar believed only half of it. But he did not worry either way. It was the Sahib's affair if he slept with boys when his wife was away. But in the morning when he took the boy some tea, he was quite innocently asleep where Khansamar had left him. He was soon washed, dressed and gone. Khansamar didn't ask Chaudikar if he had seen anything and Chaudikar volunteered nothing.
And so it continued. Every two to three weeks two young men came, one going, one staying. Sometimes the one who stayed brought the next new one. Sometimes Khansamar had not seen either boy before. None was a Mirati.
*What may have been on Merrick's mind?
*Was there some reality behind this illusion of spies?
*Or had he simply told the Pathan to procure boys for him?
*Did he put himself deliberately in the way of it?
*If so, did he see any connection between this arrangement and the earlier forms of persecution?
When the rains came the boys no longer slept on the verandah but stayed indoors in an empty room, free to go tohim at any time.
*Did they? Perhaps.
*If they went, did anything occur?
*Did they just sit there discussing the information they had pretended to collect, or actually collected for him? Perhaps.
On the night he was murdered the private drawer in his desk was forced open. Something could have been removed. But what? A dossier of real or imaginary political acativity in Mirat or scandalous activities, rel or imaginary, of Mirati police officicials?
*Had Merrick believed any of it?
*Is it possible that he simply pretended to need such information and waited for them to make clear what they were offering, then blandly ignoring every hint, every temptation?
Perron thought it possible but not very probable in view of the Aziz "business".
Bronowsky disagreed, precisely because of the Aziz business: because it revealed something to Merrick that appalled him.
"Appalled him?"
Not the revelation of his latent homosexuality amd sado-masochism, which must have been apparent to him for many years, and given some form of expression from time to time. But instead the revelation of a connection between them, and the sense of social inferiority and the grinding defensive belief in his racial superiority.
According to Bronowsky's conjecture Aziz was the first young man Merrick had made love to - which brought him a moment of profound peace - and then the instant realization that he could not acknowledge that peace because it meant discarding every belief he had. According to Bronowsky's theory, Merrick felt punished and humiliated when Aziz returned the next night.
Moreover, so Bronowky's reconstruction, Merrick invited retaliation when he beat Aziz with his fist. He knew why Aziz had arrived. In the final analysis, he sought the occasion of his death and grew impatient for it. He wanted there to be a man in the nullah. He wanted a stone thrown at his horse. He wanted what happened to happen. Perhaps he hoped that his murder would be avenged in some splendidly spectacular way ...
Yhere was no apparent difference between all the previous nights of the spies and the fatal night. Two young men came. Neither had been there before. One stayed, one went. Perhaps the one who went did not really go but came back and stayed hidden, to assist when the time came. It was a lot for one man to do between midnight and 6 in the morning. That's when Khansmar came with the chota hazri. The visitor who was to stay the night had left. Chaudikar had seen nothing, heard nothing, which doesn't necessarily mean he was asleep, for the boys could have scaled the back gate.
The real mystery is what happened in the room. Habibullah said he was strangled before he was hacked about with his ornamental axe, dressed in his Pathan clothes. Had he dressed himself? It will never be known why he was murdered on that particular night. Perhaps because it was exactly the right time for leaving a dead Englishman on our doorstep.
*********
There's one last segment in this chapter to be recapped.
Please share your thoughts on Pandora's Box.
As always, thank you.
-
Pathan is another name for the Pashtun people of Afganistan and Pakistan. The second link is most interesting as it includes pronunciation and word origins.
http://www.sabawoon.com/afghanpedia/People.Pashtun.shtm
http://www.paklinks.com/gs/all-views/88-pathan-pakhtun-pashtun-explained.html
-
Frybabe, Yes, I'm laughing. Thank you again for the information about Pashtuns and their ethnic origin.
The writer of the second reference is probably a very young "dude" himself :). Since he has friends in the Punjab, it's likely he lives in Pakistan. West Pakistan, that is. I'm so grateful we have the map in the header.
Look where East Pakistan is!! Actually, even the Punjab itself was divided, we read in one chapter of this volume, - by somebody who'd never been there. No wonder details were kept hush-hush until the very day of th Partition! What a disgrace.
Also I wonder whether the second writer meant Sanskrit.
I never heard of "Sinsicrat" and do not believe the word exists.
-
I don't know Traude, I am unable to find much information on Sinsikrat. Some old forums where they are talking about different dialects/languages mention that Sinsikrat is a form of very old language used by the Hindi people. It is no longer spoken apparently. I haven't seen anything that mentions whether there is a relationship to it and Sanskrit. I think this will require some very deep digging.
-
Thank you, Frybabe.
All I can say is that my Big Random House Dictionary does not show "Sinsicrat".
The word is not in my Encyclopedia Britannica, and Google has no definition for it. Sanskrit, on the other hand IS defined by all three sources.
Could Sinsicrat chave been a spelling error? In any event, the story about the legendary Pathan's kidnapping of a Nawab's daughter may well be apocryphal, as Mr. Khan suggests, but it's amusing nonetheless and hints at the reputation or notoriety, true or false, of the Pathans described by Paul Scott put into the Raj Quartet.
Commentary
The essential aspects of Merrick's violent death were well explained by Count Bronowsky - to the extent possible. Other questions remain, all are unanswerable.
1. Susan agreed to marry Merrick because her son needed a father and Merrick was good for Edward, good to him. Not so much Susan as Merrick and the ayah were responsible for his upbringing. Susan had leaned heavily on Sarah for years, later also on Aunt Fenny. Emotionally insecure, she had always needed the support, adoration and approval of others. We can only speculate about the direct cause of her breakdown and the period of insanity,nothing more.
2. What were Merrick's motives in marrying Susan? He planned it meticulously, certain in advance of his success. Armed with the knowledge he had gleaned from the (unauthorized) reading Dr. Richardson's private file on Susan, he asked Col. Layton for her hand.
No doubt it was a major step up on the career ladder. He was clearly attached to the child.
But isn't it possible that this carefully arranged marriage would be, and was, the perfect cover for what Bronowsky called "his ambiguous tendencies"? Was she merely clay in his hands?
There's no question he knew all her secrets, the better to manipulate her.
If that wasn't moral abuse, at the very least it was ethical abuse.
3. What reason could he have had for choosing "victims", why did he enjoy imposing his will on them and humiliating them? To prove absolute power and superiority?
4. If he knew that the young men actuallycame to bait and possibly seek to kill him, did he have a death-wish, as Brownosky suggested?
If he was impatient for his own death, could that be construed in any way as redemption?
These are only reflections.
We can now outline the last portion of the chapter.
Thank you.
-
Today I had to juggle a regularly scheduled appointment and an emergency.
All's well. Except that I'm not in top form to continue our exchange this evening.
I will be back.
-
Relax a bit. Do not much of anything. Re-energize. We'll be around when you ready.
-
The relaxation turned into an unplanned intermission, for which I apologize. But it has come to an end. I am back and ready to summarize and reflect on the ending of this masterful story. Over many months we have virtually lived with several unforgettable fictional characters. We've felt their frustration, their anxiety at being caught up in the maelstrom of a massive hasty withdrawal and violence, propelled by forces they could neither deter nor control.
No one on the platform of the Mirat railway station on that Thursday in August of 1947 could have known that the unavoidable clash between the old order and the untested, untamed new order would lead to violence on the train to Ranpur. The scene, as chronicled by Guy Perron , was noisy and crowded even where the first-class coaches stood. The usually sober British seemed determinedly cheerful and jolly, seeing friends off and being seen off. The Peabodys, Perron knew, were 'staying on' in Rawalpindi, which was going to Pakistan (and for precisely that reason Lady Manners had left 'Pindi).
The Peabodys had an immense amount of luggage. Mrs. Peabody, a tall and thin woman, expertly directed the transfer of every piece into the compartment, where Major Peabody, equally tall and thin (two beanpoles, thought Perron), ended up commandeering most of the available space. After Merrick's battered metal trunk and the rdoubled-up carpet had been carried in, one side of the compartment was totally blocked by a wall of luggage. A warning whistle sounded, all farewells were said, the passengers climbed in. The ayah followed Edward in. Mrs. Peabody looked annoyed. Ahmed got on last, carrying a briefcase, and went into the lavatory. Perron heard Mrs. Peabody draw in her breath, then slowly exhale.
To be continued
-
Continuing
The train was the regular 10 a.m. express to Ranpur, its only scheduled stop Premanagar, normally reached at 11:15.
Within half an hour of leaving Mirat the train was ambushed, after rounding a curve on to a straight level embankment. A cow was on the track. When the engineer brought the train to a stop, men ran up from both sides. Two, armed with swords, climbed on to the footplate. The others began running down the track and climbed into the carriages.
Some passengers later said he attackers were joined by men who had been on the train from Mirat and then produced knives and cudgels and joined the raiders. They went on a rampage through the third-class carriages, pulling out Muslims or killing them on the spot. One of the men who boarded the train in Mirat must have made a note of the compartment Ahmed Kasim had entered.
Ahmed sat closest to the window when the train stopped; he opened it and looked out, sizing up the situation. Ignoring Mrs. Peabody's indignant protests he ordered the windows on both sides of the compartment closed and the shutters pulled down. He told ayah to hide under the bench, and an unwilling Edward to play hide-and-seek with her. Screaming could be heard from the outside.
Then there was loud, repeated, persistent banging on the door. Glass shattered. A voice outside said, "Come on, Kasim Sahib, or do we have to break in and annoy all the sirs and ladies? Kasim? Kasim Sahib?"
Ahmed got up and said "It seems to be me they want" , opened the door and went. A turbanned head appeared at eye level. Standing on the steps, the man seemed about to come in. He had one hand on the door handle, in the other a sword. He said, "Sorry to have disturbed you, sirs and ladies. On to Ranpur, isn't it?" . With that he let himself fall away, dragging the door shut. Major Peabody lunged forward and locked it.
Then the train began to slide forward, slowly, smoothly. A signal had been given, one man had untethered the cow, the two intruders on the footplate ordered the engineer to resume the journey, then jumped off. He needed no persuasion. He did not look back. He next stopped at Premanagar.
Since the scene of horror there has been shown in the Masterpiece Theatre Production of The Jewel in the Crown. I won't dwell on i here.
The narrative leads us to conclude that the massacre was a retaliation for the killing and burning in Mirat the night before when Muslims attacked Hindus, because Mirat was going under Congress rule. And, according to Sarah's afterthoughts, Amed was marked a victim not just because he was a Muslim but because the people who killed him didn't want Muslims in the Congress, or didn't trust Muslims in Congress, and Ahmed's father was still in Congress. The Laytons' first class compartment, it turned out, was the only one attacked. It had been chalk-marked by those who wanted Ahmed Kasim killed.
The train went on to Ranpur under military guard; the remaining passenges safe.
Perron returned to Mirat on the same day.
There's only a Coda to consider and any remarks, thoughts or questions you may want to express.
-
Hi Traude,
I never say the TV production but the book narrative was gruesome enough.
I can't think of any questions or comments right now, except:
Since you will be leading the discussion for That Old Cape Magic, are you still interested in continuing with Staying On at some point? I'd like to, but there doesn't seem to be much interest. Of course, I am to blame for my lack of comments here because I didn't want to spend a few bucks to replace the set I had.
I am still betting on my Mom having it somewhere.
Oh, and I finally got Six Days in Myapore.
-
Hello, Frybabe, and thank you.
I saw the TV adaptation only once, years ago. Of the last part just summarized I remember only the scene in the Premanagar station where Sarah and Perron fetched water for the injured an dying-- probabably because it was so vivid. But there really is no substitute for the full text.
We've seen Paul Scott go to great lengths to drive home a point. However he is a master also in thedeliberate understatement, showing (rather than telling) the tension-filled scene in the compartment before and after the ambush:
the attitude of the Peabodys (who are meant to exemplify, I believe, everything that was done wrong by the British in India);
the virtual line of demarkation created by the mound of heir luggage, like a rampart from behind which the bored child shouted "bang bang" at the other passengers over and over;
the juddering of the luggage when the train came to a sudden stop;
the boy's crying and Susan's wailing before Ahmed took control.
There was no direct violence directed at the Layton's compartment, only the threat against Ahmed by the turbanned man with the sword at the door Ahmed had opened. No protests were made inside the compartment; Major Peabody lunged forward but he was too late. Ever since the reader met Ahmed in the Day of the Scorpion, Ahmed was always aloof, totally unmoved by by and uninterested in local politics, power politics and the 'business' of the Raj. Under the circumstances I daresay his self-sacrifice is a surprising act of heroism.
There's more information in the remaining pages of the "Coda", specifically about Hari Kumar, and I'll get to it.
Frybabe, we've long said we'd like to discuss Staying On afterwards. It is the logical conclusion and deserves to be read in conjunction with the quartet. It has been called a "sequel" (which it is not IMHO), and referred to as the final volume of a "quintet". Whatever its designation, this is the book that finally brought Paul Scott recognition and the Booker Prize. To me the book is part of and essential to the work.
We would first have to check whether there is interest and by how many. We must inform the SL administration and think about scheduling. True, I'll be busy in November with That Old Cape Magic but I do feel up to doing Staying On as well, all things being equal.
Thanks again for your post and you rinterest.
-
Hello Raj lovers :
So, we are nearing the end of these four volumes. What a great journey we've had since those first days of discussion. I am always astonished at how much there is in these books and how skilfully Paul Scott has peeled back the onionskins (so to speak) of all the components which make India, India - the British, British, the Raj what it was and what it left behind and then the plethora of individual characters who are drawn so vividly and so realistically.
I am still surprised by the fact that I have never read these books before and still more surprised that none of my bookie friends has read it either - at most a few have read the first volume or watched the TV series. I keep telling them what they are missing but cannot convince them to read it all.
Next year, I plan to re-read the whole quartet again from beginning to end and again in a leisurely manner. I know there will be so much more to glean from the writing and of course that reading will be in the light of having read through this discussion and Traude's brilliant summaries.
I haven't seen the TV series myself. I intended to do so early after the first volume but then decided I wanted to experience the books first so that my impressions and interpretations were not coloured by the films. Right now I'm in two minds as to whether to watch it at all - but may do so over the summer. (The Aussie summer :D )
As for Staying On I'll be ready for it whenever Traude is available. Perhaps it may be best to schedule it for January to allow plenty of time to propose it, draw in other participants and enable them to find a copy etc. But as I said Traude, whenever you're ready, I'm ready.
I can't thank you enough for what you've given me during this reading.
-
Thank you very much, Gumtree. I'm working on several things, which has never been a problem for me before. All of a sudden the day just doesn't have enough hours ! >:( But I'm on it !!
-
Here now is the follow-up to # 217, my last post.
The administration responded positively to my query about the possibility of reading Staying On at some point in the future. Our labor of love to pick up and broadly explore volumes 2 to 4 was done with permission from the administration, on a voluntary basis and not bound by the traditional discussion format and time limit.
In fact, however, Staying Onn is a new book and therefor subject to first being suggested, then proposed in the customary manner. I commit to doing that.
But first we need to talk about the final pages of the last chapter, Pandora's Box, of Volume Four, A Division of the Spoils.
You know, of course, that I would not leave you :) without thanking you with all my heart for being here with me.
Here, then, is The Coda, Ranagunj airfield (Ranpur), Saturday August 9, 1947, consisting of a report by Perron and the start of a letter to Sarah.
The plane bound for Delhit, delayed by storms for several hours, came in at midnight. A handful of passengers boarded with Perron. The original port and starboard benches of the plane had been replaced by thinly cushioned bucket seats. About ten passengers were already seated . Passengers from Mayapore. Officers. Officers' wives. A blue-rinsed woman, probably Red Cross. Two beefy-looking men in shorts and shirts turned out to be English, perhaps from the British-Indian Electric Company; their shirts black with sweat. Perron found a single seat on the port side, stowed his hand luggage, closed his eyes.
How many of the passengers from Mayapore had been in the town in 1942 at the time of the Bibighar incident? he wondered. Perhaps none. The Raj had always led a nomadic existence. These little airfields, too, were relics of the war; now they merely hastened moves from place to place. Some of the passengers were moving out for the last time.
For Perron, take-off in such an airplane had always involved a moment when the plane squared up and seemed to pause in a moment of dying intention, and then, in defiance, roared and vibrated. Each time the sensation of being no longer ground-bound came as a shock. The extraordinary thing had been achieved once again.
Perron had returned to Mirat, saw Nigel and Bronowsky at the place to which the bodies had been taken, and briefly met Ahmed's father, who had impressed him. Instead of going to Gopalakand he decided to return to Ranpur. No answer came from Sarah to a wire he had sent her offering to come to Pankot, if and when needed. So he called before taking the train back to Ranpur. He reached Sarah's father. Susan had been hospitalized but would be discharged in a day or two, the Colonel said. Meanwhile the family was staying on in the Commandant's House because the new Indian Commandant's wife would not join him for a few weeks. Perron refrained from asking what he wanted to ask: and what then? Where are you going? Back home?
On the day of his departure for Delhi, Perron decided to look up Hari Kumar. He showed the taxi driver the little piece of paper on which Nigel had written Hari's address. The taxi driver demanded more money when they came to the street which, the driver said, led to Hari's address. Taxis did not go into places like that, he said, and refused to go on. So Perron proceeded on foot - with growing apprehension. The street was very narrow. Perhaps no Englishman had ever walked down it. The smell of animal ordure and human sweat was overpowering. Several young children followed him. begging. A beggar man and three beggar women joined the children, asking for money. People called out of dirty-looking shops. Perron became appalled, and frightened. Then he reminded himself that Hari had survived here.
From the midst of this squalor a boy of twelve or fourteen emerged and offered to take him to Hari's address. He was so clean, wearing neat shorts, a clean white shirt, anxious to be of service, anxious to speak English to an Englishman, that Perron trusted him. He showed him the piece of paper. The boy walked ahead of him, saying : Come, sir, this way, sir, into a narrow stairway. It led up between two shop fronts to a kind of tenement. The walls were stained and greasy. Other people were crowding the stairs shouting in a dialect Perron did not understand. The boy stopped at the second landing.
The door was bolted outside and padlocked. A card was pinned to the jamb. Typed on it was H.Kumar. The people on the stairs were shouting at the boy, but the boy said they were telling him Kumar Sahib was out visiting a pupil. His aunt was at the market in the bazaar nd would be be back soon. Kumar Sahib would be back later. The boy said; "Please, sir, meanwhile come and have coffee, clean shop, Brahmin shop." They went down the stairs, passing through the crowd of inquisitive people. Some of them followed along. The boy gave up pressing his invitation to have coffee and offered to take him to the place where a taxi could be found. Out in the open, Perron's misgivings disappeared and he came to believe that the people had merely hoped to keep him there until Hari got back so they could offer him to Hari as a gift.
But it would have been a cruel gift, he mused, wouldn't it? His very presence was cruel. When they came to the place where the taxis were, the boy hailed one. Perron took a card out of his wallet and, after hesitating for an instant, handed it to the boy, offering him money. The boy took the card, refused the money. In the taxi back to the cntonment Perron pondered whether he had done the right thing or whether to bitterly regret it. He consoled himself with the thought that, if Hari ever needed help, he had the little rectangle of pasteboard. He imagined how, in an hour or so, the boy would describe the visitor to Hari and show him the card. The other thing Perron carried in his wallet was the essay by Philoctetes which he had cut out with Nigel's scissors. He had wanted to show it to Hari and say, "You wrote this, didn't you, Hari? He knew the passage at the end by heart.
[i]"I walk home, thinking of another place, of seemingly long endless summers and the shade of different kinds of trees, and then of winters when the branches of the trees were so bare that, recalling them now, it seems inconceivable to me that I looked at them and did not think of the summer just gone, and the spring soon to come, as illusions; as dreams never fulfilled, never to be fulfilled."[/i]
******
It is a story of profound sadness, one of piercing resonance articulated in more than a million words. A story of love and loss and two couples torn apart, Daphne Manners and Hari Kumar; Sarah Layton and Ahmed Kasim, like the return of a fugue to its tonic key. Wasn't it Yates who called artistic closure "the click of a closing box"?
Classic Urdu poetry plays an important role the Quartet in the person of the 18th century poet Gaffur, court poet of the fictional Mirat. He may well be imaginary; at least I failed to find a definitive reference to him. Whether real or imagined, Gaffur is part of the compound image of the story, given voice by his eloquent translator, the White Russian Dmitri Bronowsky.
(The reader heard of Gaffur first when Lady Manners mentioned a rare edition of his poems to Sarah. It was given to the Nawab after Susan's wedding in Mirat. The Count's fare-well present to Perron on the morning of the ill-fated train ride to Ranpur was a personally published volume of Dmitri's translations of Gaffur.
The tremendous finale of the story is the last poem Gaffur is purported to have dictated. Here it is:
Everything means something to you; dying flowers
The different times of year.
The new clothes you wear at the end of Ramadan.
A prince's trust. The way that water flows,
Too impetuous to pause, breaking over
Stones, rushing toward distant objects,
Places you can't see but which you also flow
Outward to.
Today you slept long. When you woke your old blood stirred.
This too meant something. The girl who woke you
Touched your brow.
She called you Lord. You smiled,
Put up a trembling hand. But she had gone.
As seasons go, as night-flower closes in the day,
As a hawk flies into the sun or as the cheetah runs; as
The deer pauses, sun-dapped in long grass,
But does not stay.
Fleeting moments; these are held a long time in the eye,
The blind eye of the aging poet,
So that even you, Gaffur, can imagine
In this darkening landscape
The bowman lovingly choosing his arrow,
The hawk outpacing the cheetah,
(The fountain splashing lazily in the courtyard),
The girl running with the deer.
******
The image of the "bowman choosing the arrow" also brings up the mythical Philoctetes, the archer.
******
This concludes our discussion. It has been my great pleasure to be in your company all these months. It will long linger in my memory. I'd like to warmly thank each and everyone of you. I thank the administration for giving the OK for this project and our peerless techies for their assistance.
Much gratitude all around.
-
Thanks so very much, Traude.
The poem is lovely isn't it? It has a certain melancholy that appeals to me.
I am looking forward to our future discussion of Staying On.
-
BRAVO TRAUDE !!!!!!!!!!!
-
A few last words before this discussion will be archived.
Frybabe and Gumtree, I am grateful to have had your encouragement to embark on this (perhaps unlikely) project and the knowledge of your presence throughout this discussion. The Raj Quartet is quite possibly the most masterful chronicle of the last five years of British Imperial rule in India and rightfully called a classic.
Absorbing from the first page of the first volume, the story expands in depth and breadth in every volume. There could have been no more appropriate ending than the poem by Gaffur, whose melancholic reflections so perfectly evoked the mood of the story.
I sincerely hope we'll meet again to discuss Staying On. The first step is a suggestion and a query about interest, posted in the Suggestions folder, , to be followed by a proposal , a vote, and the hope for a quorum. Since plans are well under way for the next few months, we may be looking at March of next year.
Et tempus fugit - and time flies!
Appreciatively, for the love of books,
Traude