Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - Heat and Dust

He hurried in with her and the door was quickly shut again. But already, even from that one moment, the desert dust lay in a thick layer on her piano and the yellow silk of her armchairs.

"Are you alone?" she asked.

He nodded. He seemed very glad to have arrived and sat with his head back and his eyes shut.

"I had to come," he said; "It was too — "

He stopped as two servants came in. They flapped vigorously at the furniture to get the dust out. Harry and Olivia were silent, waiting for the servants to go out again. By the time they did, Harry seemed to have changed his mind about what he was going to say; now he tried to sound flippant: "I was parched for the oasis."

"What's happening in Khatm?" He didn't answer but shut his eyes again. She said" I hear there are some sort of riots?" She insisted: "What's it all about? Tell me. No you must."

After a pause he said, quite fretfully: "How should I know? After all, I live in the Palace and nothing like that happens there, does it. "

"Nothing like what?"

"How should I know," he repeated. "I stayed in my room all day yesterday and this morning. What else can you do in this hideous terrible heat. Have you looked outside? Have you seen what it's like? Once these dust storms start, they go on for ever. No wonder everyone goes mad." He was silent for a while as if afraid of saying too much: but next moment he said more, talking rather fast: "I was going mad myself. Locked up in that room and thinking of what was going on. Don't ask me what! I wouldn't know. It was the same last year, and the year before. But this year, thank goodness, I had somewhere to go to. When I asked him for a car to bring me here, he said 'Certainly, certainly, my dear fellow.' Even though he was so… preoccupied, he still had time to make arrangements for me. He told the chauffeur which way to go so we wouldn't run into anything. And we didn't. Just shouting from the bazaar area but that could have been anything really, couldn't it. When I asked him would it be safe for me in the car, he said 'What, in my car?' He thought that was a great joke. Olivia, do play something. Anything."

She sat at the piano and, as she began to play more Schumann, he said "Lovely" like a man being given a cool drink. But after a time she sensed that he wasn't listening any more. She let her hands slide from the keys into her lap. He didn't even notice that she had stopped.

"Coming to think of it," he said, "it's almost worse inside' the Palace. Because of all those people coming and going, such low-class ruffians, the sort you'd never see in the Palace otherwise. But now they're walking in and out as if they owned the place, and straight into his presence as if that's their right. And he's so eager to see them and hear what they have to say, and if he likes it he embraces them like they were his brothers. You should see them, what types… Is there anyone out there?"

"I think the servants."

She peered through the glass and, sure enough, there they were squatting in a cluster as before. Instinctively aware of being watched, they got up and dispersed. She came back and sat quite close to Harry, so that he could talk in a lower voice:

"And he 's strange. I never see him like that except during these days. He is terribly excited and doesn't seem able to stay still, waiting all the time: I don't know for what. His eyes burn, they really do. And anything will set him off laughing. He rocks on his heels as he laughs." Harry shut his eyes: "He looks devastatingly handsome." He didn't say this with pleasure but as if it exhausted him..

Although Douglas came home very late that night, Harry was still there. If Douglas did not like Harry — and Olivia knew he didn't — he gave no sign of it but, on the contrary, seemed glad that he had come. He wouldn't hear of Harry going back that night but ordered the Nawab's chauffeur to take the car to Khatm without him. Harry seemed relieved: also to sit down to dinner with the two of them at their table which Olivia always made so pretty with· candles and flowers.

Harry stayed that night and the next day and the day after that. He and Olivia were very good company for each other. They didn't care about the dust storm blowing outside but just locked all the doors and windows and curled up in the yellow armchairs. Olivia played excerpts from I Pagliacci and Harry sang in an exaggerated voice, his hand on his heart. They didn't notice Mrs. Crawford come in, and when they did, she wouldn't let them stop but joined in herself with a fine contralto. "What fun," she said and laughed like the good sport she was.

She had come to talk about Simla. She said· she didn't want to nag Olivia, but she felt that perhaps Olivia didn't quite understand — here she turned to Harry as if asking him for his support.

He gave it: "You shouldn't be here through the summer, Olivia. It's unbearable. "

"If you can bear it — "

"Who said I could."

But then he was embarrassed like a person who has shown more feeling than is decent. He tried to laugh it off: "Of course a thousand plans are afoot to leave immediately for Mussoorie. We've even packed and unpacked a couple of times." He laughed again though with a nervous tremor:

"Exactly the same happened last year, and the year before… In the end we never did go. The Begum doesn't like it there so she keeps putting it off. Either she's not feeling well or the stars are not right for a journey or an owl hooted at the wrong time — it's always something or other and always at the last moment when we're all packed and ready. I've got used to it now, like everyone else. Once we really did leave, in my first year. He has a marvellous house up there — it's a Swiss chalet with a dash of Gothic cathedral, very impressive indeed. So is the view. You can look right across to — what's the name of that mountain where Siva is supposed to sit amid the eternal snows? Not that I got much time to enjoy it. A dead bat was found in — of all places — the Begum's bedroom and that of course is a terrible omen so we had to pack up and come home immediately and as soon as we got here ceremonies had to be performed for about three weeks without stop. '! Suddenly he turned to Mrs. Crawford and spoke in a rush "Mother keeps writing for me to come — she's not well and I am worried about her, she lives alone in a flat you see and it's been three years now. "

"That is long, "said Mrs. Crawford.

"It was only supposed to be six months, but whenever I mention about going home — because of Mother, mostly — he doesn't like it. He hates people leaving him. "Then he said:

"It's because he gets terribly involved with his friends, that's the reason because he's so… affectionate. Warm-hearted. He has a warm heart." He looked down at the floor.

After a while Mrs. Crawford said in her bright practical voice: "Do you know the Ross-Milbanks? He's been the D.C. over at Cawnpore. They're going on home leave now driving down to Bombay to get the P. & O. - I think it's the S.S. Maloja — on the 4th. They're spending a couple of nights with us on their way. We are looking forward to it. That really is one of the great pleasures of India, isn't it, people from all over the country dropping in on you. "

He said: "But those P. & O.s, aren't they always booked up, aren't they completely? Months ahead?"

"Oh a single berth, " Mrs. Crawford said. "And one could always send a cable to the Gibbons in Bombay… "

"Really?" Harry said — so full of glad hope that she smiled: "Really and truly," she promised him.

That night, when they were in bed together under their mosquito net, Olivia asked Douglas: "But if he's the Nawab's guest?"

"So what."·

"But the Nawab paid his fare. And has been keeping him in the lap of luxury, hasn't he, all this time. I can't see how he can just… run out on him." She added: "With Mrs. Crawford's friends. "