Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - Heat and Dust

"Of course you need not at all worry, Mrs. Rivers!" the Nawab likewise assured her. "Where Mr. Rivers is, there is firm control and strong action. As there must be. Otherwise these people cannot be managed at all. All must be grateful to you, Mr. Rivers, for your strong hand," he said, looking at Douglas man-to-man and not seeming to notice that Douglas did not look back at him that way.

As soon as Mr. Crawford returned from tour, he gave a dinner party at which the main topic of conversation was again the suttee. Douglas came in for much praise. Although embarrassed — he played furiously with his piece of Melba toast — he was also proud, for he highly respected his superiors and set great store by their good opinion of him. Besides Douglas and Olivia, the other guests were the Minnies and Dr. Saunders (Mrs. Saunders not well enough to come): in fact, the same people as usual, there being no other English officers in the district. The meal also was as usual the bland, soggy food the Crawfords might have eaten at home except that their Indian cook had somehow taken it a soggy stage further. However, the way it was served, by bearers in turbans and cummerbands, was rather grand. So were the plate and silver: they had been handed down to Mrs. Crawford by her grandmother who had bought them in Calcutta, at an auction of the effects of an English merchant-banker gone bankrupt.

After discussing this particular case of suttee, the diners went on to remember past incidents of the same nature. These were drawn not so much from personal experience as from a rich store-house of memories that went back several generations and was probably interesting to those who shared it. The only person there besides Olivia who did not was Dr. Saunders. He concentrated on his dinner though from time to time he contributed exasperated exclamations. The others, however, told their anecdotes with no moral comment whatsoever, even though they had to recount some hair-raising events. And not only did they keep completely cool, but they even had that little smile of tolerance, of affection, even enjoyment that Olivia was beginning to know well: like good parents, they all loved India whatever mischief she might be up to.

"Mind you," said Major Minnies, "there have been cases of wives who actually did want to be burned with their husbands."

"Don't believe a word of it! " from Dr. Saunders.

"I don't think your suttee lady was an altogether willing participant," Mr. Crawford twinkled at Douglas.

"No," said Douglas, holding in a lot more.

Olivia looked across at him and said "How do you know?" It was like a challenge and she meant it to be. He hadn't talked to her much about the suttee, wanting to spare her the details (which were indeed very painful — he was to hear that woman's screams to the end of his days). But Olivia resented being spared. "It's part of their religion, isn't it? I thought one wasn't supposed to meddle with that. " Now she looked down into her Windsor soup and not at all at Douglas; but she went on stubbornly: "And quite apart from religion, it is their culture and who are we to interfere with anyone's culture especially an ancient one like theirs. "

"Culture!" cried Dr. Saunders. "You've been talking to that bounder Horsham!" Olivia didn't know it but her words had recalled those of an English member of Parliament who had passed through the district the year before and had put everyone's back up.

But Dr. Saunders and Douglas were the only ones to be annoyed with Olivia. The others sportingly discussed her point of view as if it were one that could be taken seriously. They spoke of the sanctity of religious practices, even took into account the possibility of voluntary suttee: but came to the conclusion that, when all was said and done, it was still suicide and in a particularly gruesome form.

"I know," Olivia said miserably. She had no desire to recommend widow-burning but it was everyone else being so sure — tolerant and smiling but sure — that made her want to take another stand. "But in theory it is really, isn't it, a noble idea. In theory," she pleaded. Without daring to glance in Douglas' direction, she knew him to be sitting very upright with his thin lips held in tight and his eyes cold. She went on rather desperately: "I mean, to want to go with the person you care for most in the world. Not to want to be alive any more if he wasn't. "

"It's savagery," Dr. Saunders declared. "Like everything else in this country, plain savagery and barbarism. I've seen some sights in my hospital I wouldn't like to tell you about, not with ladies present I wouldn't. Most gruesome and horrible mutilations — and all, mind you, in the name of religion. If this is religion, then by gad!" he said, so loudly and strongly that the old head-bearer with the hennaed beard trembled' from head to foot, "I'd be proud to call myself an atheist."

But Major Minnies — perhaps out of gallantry — rallied to Olivia's side with an anecdote that partly bore out her point of view. It was not something that had happened to him personally but a hundred years earlier and to Colonel Sleeman when in charge of the district of Jabalpore. Sleeman had tried to prevent a widow from committing suttee but had been defeated by her determination to perish together with her husband's corpse.

"That really was a voluntary suttee, " Major Minnies told Olivia. "Her sons and the rest of her family joined Colonel Sleeman in attempting to prevent her, but it was no use. She was determined. She sat for four days on a rock in the river and said that if she wasn't allowed to burn herself then she'd starve herself to death. In any case she wasn't going to be left behind. In the end Sleeman had to give way — yes he lost that round but I'll tell you something — he speaks of the old lady with respect. She wasn't a fanatic, she wasn't even very dramatic about it, she just sat there quietly and waited and said no, she wanted to go with her husband. There was something noble there," said the Major — and now he wasn't being tolerant and amused, not in the least.

"Too noble for me, I fear," said Beth Crawford — as hostess, she probably felt it was time to change the tone. "Fond as I am of you, dear man," she told her husband across the table, "I don't really think I could — "

"Oh I could!" cried Olivia, and with such feeling that everyone was silent and looked at her. Douglas also looked and this time she dared raise her eyes to his: even if he was angry with her. "I'd want to. I mean, I just wouldn't want to go on living. I'd be grateful for such a custom. "

Their eyes met across the table. She saw his hard look melt away into tenderness. And she felt the same way towards him. Her feelings became so strong that she could not go on looking into his eyes. She looked down at her plate, meekly began to cut the hard piece of chicken in floury sauce that had replaced the hard piece of fried fish of the preceding course: and thought that really everything was quite easy to bear and overcome just as long as she and Douglas felt the way they did for each other.

· · · ·

30 March. I had to go to the post office so afterwards I waited as usual to go home with Inder Lal. We had got as far as the royal tombs — near the lake and Maji's hut — when we heard some strange sounds coming out of one of them. They seemed like groans. Inder Lal said "It is better to go home." But when we reached the next tomb — there is a whole cluster of them, all of one 14th century royal family — we again heard the same sound coming from behind us. It was a groan. Despite Inder Lal's protests, I turned back to investigate. I ascended the steps; although these tombs have no side-walls but are closed in by arches and lattices, they are very dark inside. At first all I could make out was the vague mass of the sarcophagi in the centre: but when the groaning noise was repeated, I noticed that it came from another shape huddled in one corner. This was human and dressed in something orange. I went up close — Inder Lal gave a warning shout from outside — and got down to peer at the groaner. I recognised him as the white sadhu, Chid, whom I had once met outside the travellers' rest-house.