ink-pots, primers, and writing-boards, did as they were bid
decorously--for the organization of Mussamat Fatma's school was
excellent, its discipline first class. The cleanliness, too, of its
primers, its pens, and its writing-boards was quite abnormal. Not
because of abnormal neatness, but because none of these things were
ever used. They were there because that was part of the game of
school, and Fatma's school was emphatically a school with the learning
left out. To be sure, the pupils chanted their letters, and asserted
the gospel that one and one make two all the world over; but, after
that, education went down the by-path of learning how to sit still and
do as you were bid. Yet somehow the wee girlies liked it well, and
their busy mothers liked it better still. In that crowded quarter of
evil repute it was something to have a _creche_, where for a few hours
the little ones with a tempting jewel or two were safe from the
avarice of any passer-by. And then Fatma's pupils gave no trouble at
home. So the school throve, and though educationally, of course, it
was a miserable sham, it gave great satisfaction to all concerned;
Fatma finding sufficient payment in the general good-will of her
neighbours, and the constant relays of nurse-maids she secured. She
had plenty of time now for the golden stars; and since Lalu, the
cripple's grandmother, had died, Fatma not only got full price for the
work she did for him, but earned something besides by cooking his
bread and doing his marketing when she did her own. An excellent plan,
said the neighbours, since Mussumat Fatma, aged fourteen, was as
sedate as a great-grandmother, and poor Lalu, for all his kind face
and clever hands, was not to be reckoned as a possible husband for any
one. The only thing over which the women shook their heads was this
lack of a husband for the girl, who, though she was a little crooked
perhaps, with hauling those big children up and down stairs, had not,
like Lalu, lost her right to be married. What excuse could that rascal
Peru offer to his conscience for his neglect of the natural guardian's
first duty? He, and Chundoo, and Hoshiaribi flaunting away in the
Badami bazar, were no better than pigs of infidels. It would serve
them right if Fatma were to appeal modestly to the elders, and let
herself go to a husband for the beggarly five _dumris_ the law
demands. Then Peru would have to support his boys, and would not even
get compensation in the price of the bride. But Fatma herself scouted
the idea. She had seen enough of husbands, and would never marry. She
had her babies and her school; and then there was always Lalu, who was
as wise as any saint, and as good as any father to the boys. She used
to leave them in his charge when she did her marketing; for this was
after hours, when her little school-maidens had gone home. And as for
Hassan Ahmad, the yellow-legged baby of two years past, if ever he
went a-missing, Fatma knew she would find him cuddled up among Lalu's
helpless legs, watching the gold thread loop itself into dainty
patterns very different from her coarse, crooked stars, and listening
contentedly to Lalu's musical voice intoning some versicle of the
Koran. He knew as many as a Moulvi, she used to say proudly; for all
that she repulsed with scorn his suggestion that she should teach some
to her pupils.
"_Ai tobak, Mian_ Lal Khan! Dost forget mine is 'primary girls'
school'? It is not a 'missen' or an 'indigenous school.' We do not
teach such things. Only letters and tables, and such like."
She did not care to confess that she herself knew none of the
versicles which even the poorest girl ought to know.
"Well, well, perhaps thou art right, Mussumat Fatma," he replied. "All
learning is good." As he sat at his work he used often to pause and
listen with a smile to the chorus of children's voices, insisting on
the fact that one and one make two. After all, it did not differ much
from the creed he had somehow extracted from the sonorous Arabic
phrases which were so constantly on his lips. What was, was; what
would be, would be.
Meanwhile life was brighter for him because of Fatma and the baby,
Hassan Ahmad cuddling close to him, and the children's chorus echoing
up the stairs. It was easier for Fatma also. When she had closed the
door at ten o'clock one night, nearly two years ago, and counted out
the money in order to buy a "Maw," she had thought of nothing but the
immediate morrow. Now, when she barred it, she closed it deliberately
against all interference. Peru, at first, had come prowling round to
see how matters went, and Hoshiaribi had sent inquiries from the
Badami bazar. Fatma had given both a cool reception. She was quite
happy, quite content. The babies did not belong to those _budzarts_;
they belonged to her. So, by degrees, they had left her to her own
devices, and for the last year she had seen or heard nothing of them.
It was a stifling afternoon in August. The dry heat which had baked
into the bricks with the June sun, had boiled out of them again with
the scanty rain of July into a sort of sodden vapour, like the hot
breath of some evil creature. The alley smelled horribly. Even the
inhabitants spat as they emerged from the dark drain of a tenement
stair, which all the sweeping in the world could not keep clean. The
very water spilled on it, as the woman carried the _chatties_ full to
their rooms, seemed to dissolve the dirt and give it greater freedom.
When those on the ground-floor sprinkled the entry for the sake of
coolness, the stench rose to the roof. And in and out the highways and
byways of the city cholera played pranks with the people--here to-day,
gone tomorrow; biding its time, till on some steamy, dull morning folk
would wake to find it in earnest.
"The sickness was at Haiyatun's yesterday," Rajjun would say to
Fajjan; "it took the cousin who came from Umritsur. The police were
burning clothes and sulphur as I went by this morning. It is tyranny
when the Lord is over all."
"Yea, and they carried Mai Jeswant's man to the hospital, and the
doctors never left him, but he died all the same. Look you, 'tis God's
will."
And the two women grinding at the mill ground on. The one might be
taken and the other left before the day was out, but the meal was
wanted for the survivors' supper. People all over the world die
silently from pluck, or pride, or piety; but not all of them die as
these do, casting no shadow of blame either on the heaven above or on
the earth beneath. One has to go to civilized lands, and to a people
who profess a faith which proclaims its triumph over the grave, before
we find the fear of infection producing a selfish panic.
Fatma, having attended the Central school during an epidemic, had
views on sanitary subjects and the procedure due to the dignity of a
primary school. She fumigated her maidens solemnly with sulphur, she
had covers to the water-pots, and confiscated melon-rinds with the
utmost rigour. This proved a vast amusement to the squatting circle.
"_Ari, Muallama!_" would come a little pipe. "Juntu hath a bit of
pumpkin in her veil; I saw it."
Then would ensue a sort of hunt the slipper, beset for each with
delicious tremors, lest, after all, the contraband morsel should be
found in your possession; until some one, seized by shyness or sudden
virtue, would give it up to be burned.
Fatma, on a sultry August afternoon, had just been playing the part
of grand inquisitor over a gnawed fragment of cucumber, when a big
heavy-browed woman pushed her way unceremoniously into the room, and
sat down on the bed with an air of possession. It was Chundoo. Fatma
had last seen her gossiping on the palazzo steps, and something told
the girl the visit boded no good. Her heart gave a throb, her usual
courage seemed to leave her.
"So this is thy school," began her sister-in-law. "Lord, what a farce!
But that is over. I have come for thee because thy wedding is settled
at last. The dates will be brought to-morrow, so thou hadst as well
return with me to-night. 'Twill save trouble."
The studiously careless tone of undoubted authority had its effect.
There was nothing incredible in it. Marriage in Fatma's world meant
coercion. She had seen most of her contemporaries handed over to a
husband without even a pretence of consulting their wishes.
"I--I--want no husband," she faltered, utterly taken aback.
Chundoo laughed--a nasty laugh.
"_Wah illah!_ So girls say ever. 'Tis pretty behaviour, and thou hast
said it. The thing is settled."
"By Peru?" asked the girl, quickly.
"By Peru; who else? Look you, the scoundrel is in jail. Nay, why
shouldst start? It was his appointed end, and serve him right, wasting
my substance to a shadow. He robbed a peasant in the _serai_, treating
him with liquor, after '_Englis fassen_.' Well, he is there for two
years, and hath repented him of the evil and bethought him of his
duty. So I have found thee a husband--honourable, if somewhat old. But
thou, God knows, art a grandmother, so that matters not. And he can
afford to pay for a young wife, and keep her in plenty. So send these
brats away, and the woman I have downstairs will take them to
Hoshiaribi. Their father being in jail, they are her charge, not mine.
Come, chicken, there is no time to lose."
She laid her hand on the girl's arm as Fatma stood stupidly staring at
her. The touch seemed to make her realize the situation, for she
darted with a cry to where her babies sat in the charge of the first
class.
Perhaps the little nurses, gazing with that stolid, wide-eyed dislike
at the strange woman who spoke so roughly to their teacher, thought
that the latter sought their protection. They gave it anyhow. In a
second, Chundoo was surrounded by a mob of twenty mites, full of
shrill cries and ineffectual beatings of tiny hands--ineffectual, till
the tiniest, giving way to the natural Eve, slipped down and
deliberately bit the enemy in the calf. Chundoo, yelling with pain,
slapped right and left. Fatma, her fear gone before this attack on her
pupils, flew to the rescue. Such a scene had not been enacted within
those walls for two years. Before five minutes passed even the stairs
were blocked by infuriated mothers.
When Chundoo had been dragged off the Kotwal, followed by half the
matrons in the alley, Fatma sat down, dazed and dry-eyed, between her
two charges. That bite had saved her; she would not have to go that
evening, perhaps not even to-morrow. But afterwards? Girls had to be
married, and Peru could marry her to any one he chose. Even the
neighbours, when they heard about the husband, would side against her.
And it would be of no use to beg mercy of Peru in jail. That was the
very reason why they had thought of marrying her. The money would be
useful to keep Chundoo comfortable, and yet she would not be bothered
with the boys, as she would have been had Peru been free. Now
Hoshiaribi, their mother, must keep them, but Chundoo would get the
dowry. What did it matter who got it, if she must marry?--and if Peru
said she must, she must. There was no help; even the neighbours would
side against her.
A rapping on the floor above reminded her that she had forgotten
Lalu's dinner. Poor Lalu! Who would look after him when she was gone?
Drearily and still dry-eyed, she hitched the two-year-old on her hip,
and with a pile of dough-cakes and pease porridge in her hand toiled
up the stair behind Hassan Ahmad, who climbed the high brick steps on
all-fours, slowly, methodically.
It was almost dark in the room above, and Lalu's voice came kindly
from a shadowy corner.
"Trouble no further, Mussumat Fatma. I was loath to knock, yet knew
thou wouldst be vexed to forget. Set the food down--so. Sure thou hast
enough to-day without my service."
She gave way to tears then, and crouched down on the floor suddenly,
an image of forlorn, crushing grief.
"O Lalu, Lalu! Peru is going to marry me, and what will become of my
school? And what will become of my babies? And what will become of
you, O Lalu?"
Hassan Ahmad had toddled over to the cripple's helpless knee, and
Mohammed Ali, half asleep, buried his head on the girl's thin breast.
There was no sound in the room save her sobbing, and a passing rustle
as if something in the shadows had tried to move and sank back to the
old position again. After a time the response came feebly:
"_Ai_, my sister, cry not. Marriage is good. It is the Lord's will,
and Peru hath the right."
Perhaps for the first time the cripple hesitated in his creed. To say
sooth, it seemed odd to put Peru on the Lord's side.
"Yes, he hath the right. Therefore I cry, Lalu. Is there nothing to be
done, Lalu? Canst thou not help at all?"
Lalu, in the shadows, looked down at his dexterous hands, then covered
his face with them. They were good for nothing else. A girl must marry
where she was bidden, and even had the rest of him been as face and
hands, there would have been nothing to be done, nothing to be said.
What chance had a cripple, a girl, and two babies, against the will of
the Lord represented by law backed up by principalities and powers, by
custom and chief courts, by wisdom and civilization?
"Cry not, my sister, cry not. Marriage is honourable in all."
So by degrees Fatma's sobs ceased before the inevitable.
"Come, Hassan Ahmad," she cried; "it grows late. 'Tis time for sleep."
"He sleeps already," replied the voice from the shadows; "'twere pity
to wake him, sister."
"I will carry Mohammed Ali first and then come back." Her old decision
and motherliness showed even through her utter dejection.
Lalu gathered the boy closer and half mechanically hummed the chorus
he had so often heard Fatma use as a lullaby. Yes, one and one made
two, and two and two made four. But only if God willed it so; not
otherwise.
"Stoop down, little mother, and I will lift the boy to thee," he said,
when Fatma, feeling her way through the dark, paused as her fingers
touched Lalu's knee. She felt his fine hands linger as he drew them
from the burden he laid in her arms--linger almost caressingly.
"One and one, and two and two, are what He chooses to make them.
Remember that, my sister."
"Not so, Lalu. In school they are ever the same. The big teacher said
so. One and one is two all the world over."
He sighed, sitting crouched up in the dark; then he called after her,
"Peace go with thee, Mussumat Fatma."
"And peace be thine, Lalu," echoed back from the stairs.
The next morning the whole alley was being censed. A group of
policemen were standing round a bonfire of beds and clothes over which
the flames licked blue and clear as the brimstone was scattered on it.
Fatma's room was empty, so was Lalu's. So were several others in the
high pestilential tenements of the quarter. The cholera had grown
tired of playing at school. It had taken arithmetic and education and
creeds and customs all into its own hands and settled the problem its
own way. Two and two were not four, but none; and only Chundoo called
Heaven to witness that she had been defrauded of the remuneration
justly due to those who possess a marriageable female relation. The
rest of the neighbours said it was God's will.
IN A CITRON GARDEN.
This is a very idle tale--only the record of five minutes in a citron
garden. Not a terraced patch set like a puzzle with toy trees, such as
one sees on the Riviera, but a vast scented shade, unpruned by greed
of gain, where sweet limes, mandarins, shaddocks, and blood-oranges
blended flower and fruit and leaf into one all-sufficing shelter from
the sun. There are many such gardens in India, lingering round the
ruined palaces or tombs of bygone kings. This particular one hid in
its perfumed heart a white marble mausoleum, where the red and green
parrots inlaid themselves like mosaic among the tracery. For they
are decorative birds, and, being untrammelled by prejudice regarding
the position of their heads, lend themselves to many a graceful,
topsy-turvy pattern. Girding the garden was a wall twenty feet high,
bastioned like a fort, but, despite its thickness, crumbling here and
there from sheer old age; invisible, too, for all its height from
within, by reason of the tall thickets of wild lemon on its inner
edge. Four broad alleys, sentinelled by broken fountains, converged to
the mausoleum, high above a marble reservoir where the water still
lingered, hiding its stagnation beneath a carpet of lotus-leaves. From
these, again, narrower paths mapped the garden into squares, each
concealed by the dense foliage from the next. It was a maze of shadowy
ways edged by little runnels of water and bordered by roses and
jasmine, with here and there a huge white draecena usurping the path.
Day and night the water ran clear and cool, to flood each square in
turn, till it showed a shining lake, wherein the roof of fruit and
blossom lay reflected as in a mirror.
A Garden of Eden; like it, tenanted by a woman and a snake; famous,
also, for its forbidden fruit.
Nowhere did shaddocks grow so regardless of possible danger to the
world. The green-gold globes weighed the branches to the ground; the
massive flowers burdened the air with perfume. For all their solid,
somewhat stolid look, they are fragile flowers. Gather a spray as
gently as you can, and only the buds remain; the perfect flower has
fallen. So, in a citron garden it is well to purge the soul from
"_karma_" or desire, in order to reach the "_nirvana_" of content in
which--so say the Buddhists--lies the full perfection of possession.
Naraini, the gardener's granddaughter, had different views. She stood,
at the beginning of the five minutes, beneath a citron-tree. One
dimpled brown hand held the branch above her, and, as she swayed her
body to and fro leisurely, the flowers dropped into her stretched
veil. She was not unlike a citron-blossom herself. Like them, arrayed
boldly in saffron and white; like them, looking the world in the face
with calm consciousness that she was worth a look in return. Finally,
her world was theirs--that is to say, these few acres of scented
shade. As yet Naraini knew no other, though the next day she was to
leave it and her childhood in order to follow the unknown bridegroom
to whom she had been married for twelve years.
The incessant throbbing of a tom-tom, the occasional blare of a
horrible horn in the ruined arcade which was all that remained of a
royal rest-house, proclaimed that the marriage festivities were even
now going on beyond the crumbling walls. From all this Naraini being
necessarily excluded, she had spent the morning in receiving the
female visitors with simulated tears, in order to impress them
with her admirable culture; thereinafter relapsing, with them, to
shrill-voiced feminine chatter until the heat of noon stilled even the
women's tongues. Then, driven by an odd unrest, she had slipped away
to the cool alleys she knew so well; even there busying herself with
preparations, since the flowers she gathered would be needed to strew
the bridal bed. It was no new task. Every year an old distiller came,
in blossom-time, to set up his still beside the well. Then, in the
dewy dawns, she and the old grandmother beat down the blossoms, and
when sunset brought respite from the heat Naraini used to watch while
the flowers were crushed into the pan, and luted down with clay as if
into a grave. And a grave it was to beauty. The first time she saw the
yellow mash which was left after the sweetness had trickled into the
odd assortment of bottles the old distiller brought with him, she had
cried bitterly. But a whole bottle of orange-flower water as her very
own had been consoling, and the fact that the label proclaimed her
treasure to be "_Genuine, Old, Unsweetened Gin_" did not disturb her
ignorance.
Every year afterwards the old man had given her another bottle, and as
she had always chosen a fresh label, she had quite an assortment of
them in the shed which served her as a play-room. And now, being
nearly sixteen, she was about to leave other things besides that row
of bottles labelled "_Encore_," "_Dry Monopole_," "_Heidsiecker_," and
"_Chloric Ether Bitters!_"
She was not alarmed. She had taken a peep at her future husband that
morning and satisfied herself that he had the requisite number of
eyes, legs, and arms. For the rest, men were kind to pretty girls, and
she knew herself to be a very pretty girl. It is hard to convey any
impression of the girl's state of mind to English ears, simply because
marriage had never been presented to her as an occasion for personal
choice. She had been happy hitherto; the possession of a husband ought
to increase that happiness, if Fate sent her a pleasant mother-in-law.
The man himself was a trifle, since men were always kind to pretty
girls. That, formulated so plainly as to rob it of all offence, was
Naraini's first and last argument for content.
As she stood swaying in the shadow, some one came down the alley. She
recognized him at once. It was the bridegroom; and the demon of
mischief, which enters into Eastern girlhood as causelessly as it does
into Western, suggested that she had him at an advantage. He had not
seen her since she was three years old--could not possibly recognize
her. Besides, what brought him there? An intolerable curiosity,
mingled with a pleasant conviction, made her stand her ground. Perhaps
she knew that the spot occupied by her was the only one visible from
the roof of the arcade, and drew her own conclusions. Perhaps she did
not. It was true nevertheless, and the bridegroom, having caught a
glimpse of something attractive, had taken advantage of the general
sleepiness to climb over the ruined wall for a closer view; for he was
of those who are very kind indeed to pretty faces. He, it must be
remembered, had caught no consolatory glimpse of his bride. People
told him she was beautiful, but that was always said: but here was
undoubted good looks; so, despite his wedding-day on the morrow, he
slipped into the citron garden intent on a lark. No more refined word
expresses his mood so clearly.
Naraini, however, neither shrieked nor giggled at the sight of a
stranger. She simply drew her veil closer, and went on gathering
citron-blossoms. He paused, uncertain of everything save her
entrancing grace. Was she only a servant, or did he run risks in
venturing closer? Naraini, meanwhile, behind her veil, gurgled with
soft laughter, pleased at being able to test the value of her beauty
on the man she meant to rule by it. So they stood--she in the shadow
at one end of the alley, he in the shadow at the other; between them
the scented path bordered by the runnels of water slipping by to bring
a deluge to some portion of that little world. Some might have called
it a pretty scene, instinct with the joy of youth; others might have
turned their heads away, praying to be delivered from the world, the
flesh, and the devil. Naraini thought of nothing save her own
laughter.
The garden seemed asleep save for those two, as, with the cruelty of a
chase waking in him, as in a cat stalking a mouse, the cruelty of
success waking in her as in a snake charming a bird, the distance
between them lessened.
Suddenly, with a burst of high, childish laughter, the veil full of
citron-blossoms was flung in his face, and Naraini was off down the
alleys, while he, with anger added to admiration, was after her.
The walls echoed to the soft thud of their flying feet--down one path,
up another, round by the tomb, scaring the parrots to a screaming
wheel. Confident in her superior knowledge, she paused on the topmost
step, ere scudding across the causeway, to fling back a handful of
flowers lingering in a fold. He set his teeth hard. If she tried short
cuts, so could he; and he was round the next square so fast, that she
gave a little shriek and dived into the thickest part of the garden,
whither the water was flowing, and where the beasts and birds and
creeping things innumerable found a cool, damp refuge. His blood was
up--the jade must be caught and kissed, if only in revenge! The
flutter of her saffron skirt at the opposite side of a square made him
try strategy. He crept into the thickest undergrowth and waited.
Something else waited, not a footfall off, but he did not see it. His
eyes were on that saffron flutter, pausing, advancing, retreating,
pausing again. Naraini had lost the bearings of her pursuer, and, like
a child playing "I spy," was on the alert for a surprise.
Suddenly came a cry as she caught sight of him, a shout as he bounded
out; both lost in a yell arresting her flight and his, as if it had
turned them to stone. He stood with the wide nostrils and fixed eyes
of ghastly fear, clinging for support to the branch above him, whence
the flowers fell pattering to the ground. On his ankle two spots of
blood, bright against the brown skin. Across the path a big, black
rope of a thing, curving swiftly to the roses beyond.
"Snake! snake!"
Her cry echoed his, as she ran back to him; but he struck at her with
clenched hand.
"Go, woman--she-devil! Thou hast killed me. Curse thee! oh, curse thee
for beguiling me! It has bitten me. Holy Gunga, I am dead! and I was
the bridegroom. 'Tis thy fault. I was the bridegroom." He had sunk to
the ground clasping his ankle, and rocked himself backward and
forward, moaning and shuddering in impotent fear. Naraini stood by
him. There was no hope: the big, black rope of a thing did its work
well; yet, even so, anger was her first thought.
"It was a lie! 'Tis not my fault! Why didst come? Why didst follow?
And if thou art the bridegroom, was not I the bride?" Then something
leaped to memory. She threw her hands above her head and beat them
wildly in passionate despair and horror.
"He is dead! he is dead! And I am the bride."
The words rang through the garden, and pierced even his grovelling
fear. As he turned to fly, he clutched at her skirts, and dragged
himself to her fiercely.
"The bride? Then the widow! my widow! Thou hast killed me, but thou
canst not escape me. A widow! a widow! a widow!"
His face was terrible in its fear, its regret, its revenge. She fought
against him desperately, but his hands held fast, shifting to her
waist, till he forced her down to the dust beside him, where she
crouched silent, like a young animal terrified into acquiescence.
"Thou shalt see me die--'tis thy fault--thou shalt see me die!" he
muttered again and again.