Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - Heat and Dust

She had had a table carried out into the garden and arranged it very decoratively. The gentlemen appreciated all her feminine touches. Their mood became relaxed, even though it was a hot night and they of course in dinner jackets. They spoke of the absent ladies. The news from Simla was good: Honeysuckle Cottage had come up to expectations and the weather was so cool that they had even lit a fire one night! Not so much because they needed it (Mrs. Crawford had confessed) but because it was such a treat to see it roaring in the big cosy fireplace.

Major Minnies said "That's one treat we can very well do without, down here." He mopped his face which was glistening with perspiration; but nevertheless he was smiling, contented. He raised his glass to Olivia. '''We owe a toast to our hostess who has remained with us in our ordeal of fire."

"Yes indeed" and "Rather" said Mr. Crawford, also raising his glass to her. So did Douglas. Olivia saw their three faces beaming at her. "Oh nonsense," she murmured and looked down at her hand lying on the tablecloth. She felt enveloped in their admiration and gratitude. They all drank the cool wine. The moon had risen behind the house, making it look like a silhouetted stage-set; servants came out of it in procession, bearing the next course. The garden was full of the summer smells of jasmine and Queen of the Night. At its furthest end, huddled against the wall, were the servants quarters exuding muffled but incessant sounds.

"What about you, Minnies?" Mr. Crawford asked.

"When will you be deserting us for cooler climes?" When Major 'Minnies shook his head, he said sympathetically "Our Friend is still playing up, is he. Hard luck. "

"Oh I'm used to it," said Major Minnies good naturedly.

"Except I wish it hadn't all come up at this particular season. Poor Mary. We haven't had a Simla holiday together since, let me see, yes it was in '19. Two years ago of course we had the Cabobpur affair and this year — " He made a gesture, assuming they all knew what it was this year. And of course they did, only too well; except Olivia who hazarded "Is it still," in a nervous voice, "that awful Husband's Wedding Day thing?"

"No dear lady," said Major Minnies, "Husband's Wedding Day has come and gone. We got off relatively cheaply this time: only 6 killed and 43 wounded. Let us be thankful for small mercies amen — and yes let us also pray that we shall extricate ourselves from the dacoit affair without too much of a bust-up… At present, " he said, "I wouldn't like to be in that boy's shoes. "

"Which boy's shoes?" said Olivia.- She called to Douglas across the table — "Darling, what are you doing, do tell them to get the other bottle."

"Sorry sorry sorry," said Douglas, tearing himself away from the — conversation to motion to the head bearer.

"Our Friend's", said Major Minnies.

"They're taking a grave view, are they," said Mr. Crawford.

"Very much so. I've been trying to use moderate language in my reports but, dash it all, it's not easy to be moderate when you have to stand by and see a recognised ruler turning himself into a dacoit chief. "

"A dacoit chief! " cried Olivia. It came out really startled and she shot a quick look at Douglas: but he hadn't noticed, he was too indignant himself and all his attention was on Major Minnies.

"Of course we all know the fellow's bankrupt," Major Minnies said, "that's nothing new. What is new is that, having bled his unfortunate subjects white by means of more or less legitimate extortion, he is now taking to cruder methods. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, to outright robbery. "

He was silent in order to collect himself. He was genuinely outraged. The others too were silent. A bird woke up in a tree and gave a shriek. Perhaps it had been dreaming of a snake, or perhaps there really was a snake.

"I envy you chaps in the districts," Major Minnies said.

"Dealing only with banyas and peasants who can be — well what shall I say — understandable. Containable. "

"Pretty decent sorts some of them," confirmed Mr. Crawford.

"Quite," said the Major. Again he had to master some strong emotion before he could continue: "At one time I was supposed to be advising the Maharaja of Dhung. It was when he was building his new palace — perhaps you've seen it? At least you must have heard of it, it caused a great hullaballoo. The latter-day Versailles it was to be. In fact, it turned into a most hideous hotch-potch with a pepper pot roof on Doric columns, but that's not the point. The point is that, at the time HH was a-building, the monsoons failed twice in succession and Dhung along with all the surrounding districts was under threat of famine. HH was too busy to notice, or to listen to any of us. I had the heck of a time even getting to see him, he was always so busy with the people he had imported from Europe. There was an architect, and a decorator, and a tailor if you please, from Vienna (for the curtains), also a champion swimmer — female — to inaugurate the underground swimming pool… When I managed at last to pour my tale of woe into his luckless ear, he called me an old fuddy-duddy. He loved these expressions — he'd been at Eton. 'You're an old fuddy-duddy, Major,' he said. And then he grew very serious and drew himself up to his full height which was almost five feet and he said 'The trouble with you, my dear fellow, I'm sorry to tell you is you have no vision. No vision at all.' Unfonunately it turned out that I did have some — at any rate more than he — because there was a famine. You remember '12."

"Most dreadful, "said Mr. Crawford.

"One thing to be said in Dhung's favour," said Major Minnies, "he was a fool. It's worse when they're not. Like our Friend. When they are so well endowed by nature with looks, brains, personality, everything: and then to see them go to pot… What is it, dear lady? You're leaving us?"

"To your brandy and cigars. "

The three men were on their feet, watching her walk across the moonlit lawn. She went into the house but not into the drawing-room. where the servants were bringing her coffee; She went up on the terrace and leaned thoughtfully on the parapet. She could see the three men still at table down below. Probably now that she had gone they were talking more freely-about the Nawab and his mysterious misdeeds. She felt strange, strange. She looked beyond the little tableau in her garden of three Englishmen in dinner jackets blowing smoke from their cigars while the servants hovered around them with decanters: she had a moonlight view of the Saunders' house, then the spire of the little church and the graves in the cemetery, and beyond that the flat landscape she knew so well, those miles of dun earth that led to Khatm.

* * * *

12June. I keep getting letters from Chid. I was surprised on receiving the first one as I did not think he was the type to look back and remember people. The letter started off not with a personal salutation but in black letters: Jai Shiva ShanJcar! Hari Om! He wrote: "It is the light around our body that controlls our mind. A pure true un-harmfull mind is a place of perfect HAPPINESS. So it is the perfect PURE TRUE and UN-harmfull mind — that is Heaven.” It went on like that for most of the letter except that somewhere in the middle he wrote "We are here in Y Dharmsala. A Pure place except the priest who tries to cheat and rob us." And at the end there was another line: "I forgott my drinking mug send care Y Sri Krishna Maharaj Temple Dharmsala by registered post express. "

His subsequent letters conformed to the same pattern: a lot of philosophy with somewhere in the middle a couple of factual lines (usually to do with being "cheated and robbed") and at the end a request. They are interesting documents and I am keeping them, with Olivia's letters, on my little desk. They make strange company together. Olivia's handwriting is clear and graceful, even though she seems to have written very fast just as the thoughts and feelings came to her. Her letters are all addressed to Marcia, but really they sound as if she is communing with herself, they are so intensely personal. Chid's letters are absolutely impersonal. And he always writes on those impersonal post office forms which seem to constitute, along with stained and illegible postcards, the bulk of the mail that crosses from one end of India to the other. They always look as if they have been travelling great distances and passed through many hands, absorbing many stains and smells along the way. Olivia's letters — more than fifty years old — look as if they had been written yesterday. It is true, the ink is faint but this may have been the quality she used to blend with the delicate lilac colour and scent of her stationery. The scent still seems to linger. Chid's crumpled letters, on the other hand; appear soaked in all the characteristic odours of India, in spices, urine, and betel.-