Уильям Николсон - Motherland

Tarkhan sees with gratification the astonishment on the faces of his guests.

‘In its day the city was bigger than London,’ he says, ‘and far more magnificent. Akbar the Great ruled over a hundred million subjects, at a time when your Queen Elizabeth had barely three million.’

He leads them across the dusty square, in the centre of which is a paved cross, made of panels of red stone between bands of cream.

‘This is a pachisi court,’ he says. ‘You know the game? It’s like what you call Ludo. In Akbar’s day it was played with people serving as the playing pieces.’

‘This is extraordinary, Syed,’ says Larry. ‘How can it all still be here?’

‘The dryness, I suppose. That building there is the Diwan-i-Am, the Hall of Public Audience. The five-storey structure is the Panch Mahal, where the ladies of the court lived.’

‘How big is the city?’

‘About four square miles. But come over here. This is what I want to show you.’

He leads them to a square building with four turrets on its corners, each one holding, on four slender pillars, an ornate dome.

‘Come inside, into the shade.’

Each side of the building is pierced by a wide central door. Within there is a single space, dominated by an immense and intricately carved central pillar.

‘This is the Diwan-i-Khas,’ says Tarkhan. ‘The Hall of Private Audience. This is where Akbar held his meetings.’

Larry is studying the complex carvings at the top of the pillar. It branches out into four stone overhead walkways sustained by a cluster of snakelike brackets.

‘Remarkable,’ he murmurs.

‘I must now confess to an ulterior motive in bringing you here,’ says Tarkhan. ‘As you know, my country faces a great crisis, caused by the fears Muslims and Hindus have of each other. The terrible communal violence shows that the different faiths cannot live together. This is why there must be Pakistan. And yet, look more closely at this pillar.’

He guides their eyes with his hands.

‘The designs at the base are Muslim. A little higher, and we have Hindu symbols. The third tier is Christian. And here at the top, the designs are Buddhist. And if you look higher up still, you will see the secret place behind the pierced screen where Akbar would sit, every Thursday evening, and listen to the discussions below. Hindus, Buddhists, Roman Catholics, atheists, he invited them all to come here and talk to each other.’

‘Roman Catholics came here too?’ says Geraldine.

‘From Portugal, I believe,’ says Tarkhan. ‘Akbar wanted to formulate what he called the Din-i-Ilahi, the ultimate faith that would bring all religions together. According to the Din-i-Ilahi, there were to be no sacred scriptures or rituals, but all would take an oath to do good to all. And in his day, and for many years after, there was no hatred between the faiths.’

‘And then the British came,’ says Larry, ‘and all the toleration came to an end.’

‘No,’ says Tarkhan gently. ‘That would be too harsh. Though as you know, there are those who believe you kept control of your great empire by the policy of divide and rule. For whatever reason, now to our shame and suffering, we are divided.’

‘How difficult it all is,’ murmurs Geraldine.

‘Did you know,’ says Tarkhan, ‘that Tennyson wrote a poem about Akbar the Great? It’s called “Akbar’s Dream”. It’s rather long, but I remember two lines he gave to Akbar. “I can but lift the torch of reason, In the dusty cave of life.”’

The three walk the deserted courts of the ghost city, made thoughtful by all that Tarkhan has said. Round them rise the skeletons of past glory, as if to mock the pretensions of the present imperial race. Larry thinks of the cold grey bankrupt homeland he has left behind.

‘You say you were raised to respect the motherland,’ he says to Tarkhan. ‘How can we pretend to be the mother of any other peoples?’

‘Perhaps we all have many mothers,’ says Tarkhan.

They return to the car and take their picnic in the shade of the tree. The heat and the walking have wearied them. The Lebanese wine makes them sleepy.

‘I think it would be good to return soon,’ says Tarkhan.

On the drive back Geraldine abandons formality and falls asleep with her head in Larry’s lap. Larry himself does not sleep. His head is buzzing with new thoughts. He thinks about the claims of the different religions to ultimate truth. He watches Geraldine’s lips as they tremble with her sleep breaths. He asks himself why his own faith, that Jesus is the son of God, that His resurrection gives us promise of eternal life, should be the one true faith, and the others pale copies, or downright superstitious falsehoods. His gaze lingers on Geraldine’s soft blond hair where the curls lie on her pale brow. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ So what of other ways, and other truths? Geraldine believes as he believes, she knelt beside him at Mass, her cheek shadowed by her lace mantilla. He would like to kiss her now, on the temple, just where the locks of hair fall away. He looks towards Tarkhan, dozing in the front seat, and thinks how much he likes him. How courteously he delivered his history lesson in the abandoned city, and yet how devastating its implications. You suppose yourself to be a modern man, free of the baseless prejudices of earlier generations, and then quite unexpectedly you catch a glimpse of your true self, and find it rests on an ocean of unexamined assumptions: that as an Englishman you inherit the civilised values that others will in time acquire; that as a Christian you possess the eternal truths that others will in time acknowledge. And all the time this slender girl lies trustful in your lap, and you long to kiss her, to slip off her dress, to enjoy her naked body.

Am I such a self-deceiver? Have I grown a mask that clings so tight I no longer know my own face? For whose benefit have I done so?

For the ones who look at me. For the ones who judge me.

So many masks. The mask of the gentleman. The mask of the man of culture. The mask of the good man. All worn for the onlookers, the judges, to appease them, to win their approval. But what is it that the maskless self wants? Who am I when no one is looking? Why do I care so much for goodness?

Fear, comes the answer. Fear, and love.

I’m afraid that if I’m not good, I won’t be loved. And I want more than everything else, more than eternal life, to be loved.

This thought enters his mind in a flash, with the force of revelation. Can it be true? He thinks back to his time of terror on Dieppe beach. That was true fear, fear of extinction. That was an animal instinct that overrode any other demands he could make upon himself. But what of the shame that followed, which he has lived with ever since? That’s a different kind of fear.

I’m afraid that I don’t deserve to be loved.

If this is true, is this all it is? All man’s achievements, all acts of heroism, all acts of creation, no more than a plea to be counted worthy of love? Loved by whom?

Geraldine moves in his lap with the motion of the car, but she doesn’t wake. There’s something about her that’s so contained, so quietly sure of herself, that makes her approval desirable and hard to win. And yet there was a man she loved, Rupert said, who broke her heart.

The driver honks loudly on his horn to disperse a flock of goats on the road ahead. Geraldine wakes, and sits up.

‘Have I been lying on you? I’m so sorry. I do hope you don’t mind.’

‘No trouble at all,’ says Larry.

He can see from the way she looks at him that she knows he liked it.

‘You’re very tolerant.’

The journey still has an hour or more to go. Tarkhan sleeps in the front. This time will not come again.