Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - Heat and Dust

Harry usually came quite early in the mornings, just after Douglas had left, and always in one of the Nawab's cars. He and Olivia sat in the car and drove to Khatm. Although the way was so hot and dusty, the landscape utterly flat and monotonous, Olivia learned to like these morning drives. Sometimes she glanced out of the window and then she thought well it was not so bad really — she could even see how one could learn to like it (in fact, she was learning): the vast distances, the vast sky, the dust and sun and occasional broken fort or mosque or cluster of tombs. It was so different from what one knew that it was like being not in a different part of this world but in another world altogether, in another reality.

They usually spent the day in the large drawing-room in the Palace, This was overlooked by a curtained gallery from which the ladies sometimes watched them; but Olivia never looked up. Besides the Nawab and Harry, there were the usual young men lying around in graceful attitudes. They drank, smoked, played cards, and were perfectly content to go on doing that till the Nawab told them to do something else.

One day the Nawab said "Olivia" — this was what he called her now — "Olivia, you play the piano so beautifully but you have never played mine."

"Where is it?"

She looked around the drawing-room. It was a long cool marble room furnished very sparsely with just a few pieces of European furniture between the pillars. There were carved sofas with brocade upholstery and a few little carved tables and a cocktail cabinet specially made for the Nawab out of an elephant's foot: but no piano.

The Nawab laughed: "Come, I will show you. "

He did not invite anyone else to follow him. He led her through various suites and passages. She never could find her way around the Palace: not that it was very large but it was intricate, and there were certain areas where she had never been and had no idea what went on there, if anything. He took her into an underground chamber which seemed to be a kind of store room. And what stores! There was an immense amount of camera equipment which, though already rusting, did not seem ever to have been used; some of it was still in its original packing. The same had happened to some modern sanitary equipment and an assortment of games such as a pinball machine, a croquet set, a miniature shooting gallery, meccano sets, and equipment for a hockey team. All of these things appeared to have been ordered from Europe but had taken too long to arrive for interest in them to be sustained. There was not one piano but two: a grand and an upright.

As the Nawab touched the baize cloth covering the grand piano, a small animal — it looked like a squirrel — came scurrying out and ran for its life. The Nawab did not seem surprised: "Do you like my pianos?" he asked Olivia; and added apologetically "There is no one to play them."

The keys were swollen and stuck, and when Olivia tried to play some of them, all she could get was a shrill jangle. "What a shame," she said with feeling.

" Yes, " he said. " Yes you are right. " He too was suddenly sad. He sank down on to an unopened packing-case. After a heavy silence he said "They were ordered for my wife." Olivia tried again but the sounds produced were too heart-breaking.

"Can they be mended?" he asked.

"If you can get a good tuner."

"Certainly. I will send for it immediately."

"It's a person," Olivia said. "I've been desperately wanting someone but Douglas says he has to come all the way from Bombay."

"Why didn't you tell me? Such things you must tell me.

There is so little I can do to serve my friends. Did you know I was married?"

"I've heard, "Olivia murmured.

He leaned forward: "What have you heard?" His eyes scanned her face which she kept lowered and, she hoped, expressionless. Nevertheless he seemed to have read something into it.

He said "You will hear many things about me. There are many people to give bad report. Whatever I do — there are always those who will say one thing when it is another. You know Murad?" Olivia knew him to be one of the young men who were always there, but it was difficult to distinguish one from another. "He is a spy," the Nawab said. "Oh I know it and he knows I know it, we understand each other. And he is not the only one. There are others, among the servants and everyone.” His eyes as they rested on Olivia were veiled with dark thoughts. If he suspected her too — and he probably did — she knew no way to defend herself.

But he reverted to the pianos: "If I have them repaired and brought upstairs, you will come and play for me, Olivia? It will make me so very happy. Sandy had been learning the sitar but she got tired of it so I sent for the pianos. By the time they arrived she had gone away. Please play."

"But it sounds so awful.”

"For my sake.”

He stood behind her while she tried to play a Bach Prelude. It was murder, but he nodded solemnly as if he liked it. He bent over her closely.

"I wish Sandy could have learned to play like you. I miss her very much. She was supposed to be in purdah upstairs but she often hid from everyone to come and be with me. You see, she was a modern girl, she went to school in Switzerland and all the rest. She was not like our other Indian ladies but yes, like you, Olivia. She was like you. Also beautiful like you."

Olivia had now got to some intricate trills. She played them as well as she could, but the sounds that came out were tuneless and eerie. In any case, he seemed to have lost interest in the piano music. He straightened up with a sigh and, though she was still in the middle of her piece, turned to go out. She had to break off and follow him as she did not think she could find the way back by herself.

It was about this time — the time of her growing friendship with the Nawab — that she and Douglas began to speak seriously about having children. They were both very keen on it.

Olivia felt that someone as handsome, as perfect as Douglas should be procreated many times over! She teased him about it — she said he had only married her so as to people the world with a whole lot of Douglases. Not at all, he said; it was Olivias he wanted — as many of them as possible.

"Oh but I'm unique, don't you know."

"Of course you are. Absolutely," he agreed with enthusiasm. He bent down to kiss her naked shoulder. They were getting dressed for dinner — they were expecting the two grass-widowers, Mr. Crawford and Major Minnies — and Olivia sat at her dressing-table in her cream silk slip, liberally dousing herself with lavender water.

They went on speaking about their sons. Olivia liked to think of these tall pro-consuls — one in the army, one a civilian like Douglas, perhaps a political? All of them in India of course — but she did have one doubt: "Supposing things change — I mean, what with Mr. Gandhi and these people" but she trailed off, seeing Douglas smile behind her in the mirror. He had no doubts at all, he said "They'll need us a while longer," with easy amused assurance. He was in shirtsleeves and braces and raised his chin to tie his black bow tie.

"And what about Olivia?" she asked, set at ease about her sons.

Douglas had no doubts about her either — she was going to marry into a family just like her own, to someone like her brothers, and become like-

"Mrs. Crawford?"

Douglas smiled again: "No like Olivia — I'll settle for nothing less."

"Oh Olivia's no good, " she said with sudden deep conviction, even a kind of self-disgust. He didn't notice the change of tone — he laughed and said "Good enough for me." But when he tried to kiss her shoulder again, she got up quickly and began to slip her dress over her head. "They'll be here soon," she said. "You'd better go."