Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

For the next six years Dolly and Rajkumar stayed with Uma, in her flat. The legacy of Rajkumar’s quarrel with Uma was forgotten and the baby, Jaya, became a bond linking every member of the household.

Dolly took a job with an army publications unit, translating wartime pamphlets into Burmese. Rajkumar did occasional supervisory work at sawmills and timberyards. In January 1948 Burma gained her independence. Soon after this Dolly decided that she and Rajkumar would return to Rangoon, at least for a while. In the meantime, Jaya was to be left in Calcutta, with her aunt Bela and her other grandparents.

Dolly’s eagerness to go back to Burma was due largely to the fact that Dinu had not been heard from in seven years. Dolly believed that he was still alive and she was keen to find him. Rajkumar expressed his willingness to go with her and she booked passages for both of them.

But as the day approached, it became clear that Rajkumar was very far from being certain of his own mind. Over the last six years, he had grown very attached to his orphaned grandchild. More than anyone else in the house, it was he who undertook the responsibilities of her everyday care: he sat with her through her meals, walked with her in the park, told her stories at bedtime. Dolly began to wonder whether he would be able to sustain the pain of wrenching himself away from the child.

The question was settled when Rajkumar disappeared, two days before they were due to depart for Burma. He came back after the ship had sailed. He was contrite and full of apologies; he said he had no memory of where he had been or why he’d gone. He urged Dolly to make another booking; he promised it would not happen again. In the meanwhile, Dolly had decided that it would be better to leave Rajkumar where he was — both for his own sake and Jaya’s. Uma for her part made no objection; she was content to have him stay on: he was very little trouble and often made himself useful round the house.

Dolly went back to the steamship company’s office and booked a single, one-way passage to Rangoon. She knew that Rajkumar would feel obliged to accompany her if he learnt of her plans. She decided not to tell him. She went about her daily business as usual. On the morning of her departure she cooked mohingya noodles, Rajkumar’s favourite dish. They went for a walk around the lake and afterwards Rajkumar fell asleep.

It had been arranged that Uma would go with Dolly to the Khidderpore docks. Neither of them said much on the way; there was a finality about this departure that they could not bring themselves to acknowledge. At the end, when Dolly was about to board her ship, she said to Uma: ‘I know Jaya will be fine. There are many of you to care for her. It’s Rajkumar that I’m worried about.’

‘He’ll be all right, Dolly.’

‘Will you look after him, Uma? For my sake?’

‘I will; I promise.’

At Lankasuka, Rajkumar woke to find a note on his pillow: it was written in Dolly’s careful hand. He picked up the note and smoothed it down. It said: Rajkumar — in my heart I know that Dinu is still alive and that I shall find him. After that I shall go to Sagaing as I have so long wanted to do. Know that nothing in this world will be harder to renounce than you and the memory of our love. Dolly.

He never saw her again.

As the only child in the house, Jaya had the run of Lankasuka when she was growing up. Her aunt Bela lived upstairs, inheriting the flat after her parents’ death. She never married and the everyday tasks of looking after Jaya fell mainly to her: it was in her flat that Jaya usually slept and ate.

But Rajkumar was never more than one flight of stairs away: after Dolly’s departure, he continued to live on the ground floor, in Uma’s flat. He had a small room of his own, next to the kitchen, furnished sparsely, with a narrow bed and a couple of bookshelves.

The only inessential object in Rajkumar’s room was a radio— an old-fashioned Paillard with a wooden cabinet, and a textile-covered grille. Rajkumar always took his afternoon siesta with the radio on — it was Jaya who usually turned it off, after coming home from school. The silencing of the radio would often rouse Rajkumar from his nap. He would sit up, leaning back against his pillow, settling his granddaughter beside him. When he put his arm around Jaya’s shoulders she would disappear into the crook of his elbow; his hands were huge, the skin very dark, marbled with lighter-coloured veins. The white hairs on his knuckles stood out in startling contrast. He would shut his eyes and the hollows of his face would fill with leathery creases. And then he would begin to talk; stories would come pouring out of him — of places that Jaya had never been to and never seen; of images and scenes that were so vivid as to brim over from the measuring cup of reality into an ocean of dreams. She lived in his stories.

Rajkumar’s favourite haunt was a small Buddhist temple in the centre of the city, a place that Dolly had liked to visit too, in the past. This was where Calcutta’s Burmese community forgathered, and on special occasions Rajkumar would take Jaya there with him. The temple was on the fourth floor of a tumbledown old building, in an area where the streets were clogged with traffic and the air was dense with diesel smoke. They would make their way across town on a bus and get off at the stop for the Eden Hospital. They’d climb up the grimy marble stairs and when they reached the top, they would step into a hall that seemed a world away from its surroundings: full of light, perfumed with the scent of fresh flowers, its floors shining clean. On the floor there would be rush mats, woven in distinctive patterns: different from Indian mats, although at the same time, not dissimilar.

The temple was always at its liveliest during the great Burmese festivals — Thingyan, the water festival that inaugurated the Burmese New Year; Waso, which marked the beginning of Thadin, the annual three-month period of fasting and abstinence; and Thadingyut, the festival of light, which celebrated its end.

Once, when Jaya was ten, Rajkumar took her to the temple for Thadingyut. The temple was filled with people; women were bustling about in their longyis, preparing a feast; the walls glowed with the shimmering light of hundreds of lamps and candles. Suddenly, in the midst of the noise and the bustle, there was a hush. Whispers ran around the room: ‘The Princess. . the Second Princess, she’s coming up the stairs. .’

The Princess stepped in and there was a quickening of breath, a nudging of elbows; those who knew how performed the shiko. The Princess was wearing a scarlet htamein and a kind of sash; she was in her late sixties, with her greying hair tied at the back of her head in a severe little bun. She was tiny, with a kindly face and black, twinkling eyes. She too was living in India then, in the hill-station of Kalimpong. Her circumstances were known to be extremely straitened.

The Princess exchanged a few gracious pleasantries with the people around her. Then her eyes fell on Rajkumar and her face creased into a fond, warm smile. She broke off her conversations; the crowd parted and she made her way slowly across the room. Every eye in the temple was now on Rajkumar. Jaya could feel herself swelling with pride on her grandfather’s behalf.

The Princess greeted Rajkumar warmly, in Burmese; Jaya couldn’t understand a word of their conversation, but she watched both their faces carefully, studying their changing expressions, smiling when they smiled, frowning when they were grave. Then Rajkumar introduced her: ‘And this is my granddaughter. .’