In the Shadow of a Dream (20 page)

‘Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.’

‘I know you won’t. I wouldn’t go out of my way, if I had the slightest doubt.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘I wanted to hear you say that.’ Har Prasad looked at Dusty steadily. The smile on his face turned into a slight frown. ‘There’s something else, Dustoor. Relax. Do sit down. This is an off-duty matter.’ He opened a desk drawer. Took out an envelope, then he drew a chair and sat down facing Dusty. He took a deep breath and held out his hand. Dusty took it hesitantly. The Colonel gripped his firmly. ‘It’s sad news, I’m afraid. The letter was addressed to me, as you can see, to the Commandant. It’s from someone called Muriel and came five days ago. She didn’t want you to be distracted from important work. I was asked to choose the best time to tell you.’

‘Oh my God! It’s Sam. My Guardian.’

Har Prasad nodded. ‘Her letter to me was short and formal. But there’s also one for you; unopened, as you can see. Did you, or do you know this lady?’

Dusty nodded. ‘Briefly, sir. She taught Geography in my school…but took early retirement.’

The Colonel stood up and went back to the chair behind his desk. ‘And from her surname I assumed she’s your Guardian’s wife.’

‘Yes, sir. Not for long. They married in Scotland, while I was in Tejpore.’ Dusty opened his letter. “Dear Dusty, Sam died, suddenly but peacefully; a happy death, at home, in my arms, after tea, yesterday at 7 p.m. It was heart failure but painless. You will get this news late because I’ve asked your CO to save it till you get back. I saw no reason for you to be told at once, or I would have cabled you.” He looked for the date of the letter. ‘It’ll be twelve days since he died,’ he looked up. The Colonel did not answer. Dusty read on: “I realise that your course and career are of paramount importance and obviously you’ve kept yourself busy. Your last letter to Sam was three months ago!! He never forgot you. In that time he wrote three letters and a card to you. I know, because I pointed it out to him. He told me not to be harsh. That you were single-minded and young and that but for you we would not be together. I did thank you at the time. But right now, I am overcome by my deep loss and feel I’ve every right to be angry; and the better because of that anger. I think your behaviour inconsiderate and callous. This was a hard letter to write. I’m sorry if I’m harsh. But I loved that beautiful man dearly. So, please allow me this space to rage and rant. I know, one day, I’ll find time to write you a happier note. Till then, and with every good wish, Muriel.” Again he looked up, pale and a little shaken.

‘You haven’t turned the sheet,’ the Colonel said. ‘I see some writing on the back.’

Dusty turned the sheet. “PS. In my rage I forgot to say the most important thing. Sam was cremated, as he wished. And the ashes are with me. He did say, sometime ago that the ashes should eventually go back to India and to you. But he never talked about it again, certainly not after we married. I’m at a loss what to do. Write. There’s no hurry. Of one thing I’m certain. He wants no communication with his own family. I haven’t informed them. I’ll leave it to you to decide what to do. M”

Dusty folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. Slowly he rose from his chair. ‘I’ll write to her.’ He was barely audible.

‘Good,’ said Har Prasad. ‘Then she’ll know I’ve passed the news on to you.’

‘I should’ve kept in touch. Do I have your permission to leave, sir?’

‘Yes. And take the leave you’re entitled to. More, if you need, on compassionate grounds. I just wanted to hear you say the right things. I have.’

‘I won’t need leave, sir. Just the afternoon off. Just time to write to Muriel.’

‘Take tomorrow off too…’ He looked at the calendar. “Today’s Thursday. I don’t want to see you on parade before Monday. Accept my condolences.’

Dusty saluted and returned to Mahijit Niwas, which was once the residence of a Maharaja and now the Officers’ Mess. It was a palatial, Jacobean mansion of red and yellow sandstone. Five of its six bedrooms were refurbished to quarter unmarried or single officers but two of its grandest rooms, the dining-room and red drawing-room, retained their original splendour. In the latter, the Rathore Lancers Regimental Silver were proudly displayed on highly polished tables next to glass cabinets filled with exquisite Delft ware china and Venetian glass. Dusty entered the dining-room and called out: ‘
Kohee hai
? Anyone there?’

There was a sound of shuffling feet and a moment later the rotund figure of Juma, the Wine Waiter waddled in, adjusting as he did, the red, blue and gold striped band that ran diagonally across his immaculate turban. He was proud of the Regimental colours and had every reason to be so, for Juma had dedicated his life to the Rathore Lancers. His father had served the Lancers from shortly after it was founded in 1901 by Major Stephen Jacob of Lucknow, and as a boy ran errands for his hero “Stiffen Sahib” who in his legacy left him a pension for life. He married, after Stephen Jacob died, when he was fifty-two, but for some obscure reason Juma’s date of birth was not recorded, so that his age remains a mystery. However, his earliest memories are of a time with of the Regiment that go back to 1925, when the Lancers moved from Poona to Karnal in the Punjab. Juma, of course was not his name. Some tipsy officer in a moment of light banter referred to him as Man Friday, and as Juma is Urdu for Friday, and as he himself raised no objection, the name stayed.

Juma bowed over an open hand, in a salutation reminiscent of the Mughal Court. “Sahib,
hookum
?” The man was a consummate actor.

Dusty ordered coffee, went upstairs to his room and sat in front of a writing table. Through the open window he stared, without seeing, at a row of flowering laburnum. He sighed, bent forward and buried his face in his hands. ‘Oh Sam! Sam forgive me! Dear, dear Sam, forgive me. Forgive me for the tears I cannot shed.’ He bit his lips and shook his head. ‘You know I cared. In my own way I cared.’ He stayed bent over his desk, till there was a discreet knock on the door. He sat up. ‘Come in! Oh, it’s you Juma. Yes, coffee, yes, I forgot.’

Juma placed a tray on the writing desk. ‘Cup, hot coffee and biskoots,’ he said. He turned to leave then hesitated. ‘Is sahib well?’

‘Yes’. Dusty shook his head. ‘I mean no, Juma. I’ve had sad news.’

‘I knowing,’ Juma nodded solemnly. ‘I putting a little brandy in coffee.’

Dusty sipped the coffee gratefully. ‘You’re a wonder, Juma. Thank you.’

‘Sahib, rest in bed, Take good sleep.’

Dusty shook his head. ‘No, Juma, sahib must write
chitty
. Letter, you know.’

‘Then sahib is not in. I not disturbing. I collect
teray
tomorrow.’

After Juma left the room, Dusty covered his face with his hands and collected his thoughts, then, drawing out a note pad, began his letter to Muriel. Twice he revised it, before honing it down to this. “Dear Muriel, To lose Sam so shortly after marriage is deeply unfair. I understand your hurt and what you saw as heartless behaviour on my part. Let it comfort you to know that Sam would not have seen it that way, as I think you know. He never minded my rather odd and peculiar letter writing habit and off-hand style, nor saw in it ingratitude or unfeeling. Our relationship was unique. In the strange circumstances of the junction of our lives it had to be so. We were never father and son. We knew that could never be. I was a poor village boy, and great as his generosity was, it was motivated by curiosity and tempered by a strong element of caution. At first, the gulf between us was too much even to expect equality, let alone affection. I was simply a low object, a curiosity, an experiment. I was sent to an orphanage and only after I was presentable, mentally and physically, was Sam prepared to draw closer. It took years to bridge the gulf and although, in the last few years, we wanted to be like father and son, I knew, and I think he realised it too, any attempt to make me his legal heir would have caused immense problems with his family—his property was tied by his father’s will to the family, and that was irrevocable. Also by then I wanted to go my own way and I knew I could make my own living. Yet we lived side by side, happily enjoying each other’s company on, largely, a mental plane. Our proximity touched his heart and I will always remember he gave of his own money, over which his family had no sway, generously. But if he had not, that too would not have mattered to me. If it did, would I have pressed him to go to you? His money, less the funds he left in my bank account, is all yours now, as it should be. I don’t envy that or you. Sam knew that though we were close and tied by mutual respect, yes even by a kind of loving, I wanted to be separate and independent, and under obligation to no one. When there arose a chance to discover my parental background, I begged him not to pursue it. Sam and I understood each other. In my own way I mourn and bless his memory. We were alike in many ways. He once said, our armorial motto could be “Look only ahead”. So allow me this. I want not to look back.

“About the ashes. Here I can prove how well I knew Sam. He was an Anglophile. He loved England and he loved you. So his ashes are in the best possible place, and where he wanted to be. With regards, Dusty.”

Muriel replied sooner than he expected. On a double folded notepaper, she wrote: “Dear Dusty, I thank you for your letter and apologise for my earlier rather peevish one. Your letter was well written, very mature, and politely showed me up. But may I pick up one point where I think you do Sam an injustice. (Having married Sam, I feel, I have some right to do so). To look ahead is to view from a platform. That platform is the past. The past gives experience and experience is something from which to learn and build on. Don’t let this trouble you. In this world there’s room for all kinds of thinking. Right or wrong, somehow we manage to live our lives with a measure of contentment, and it is not for any of us to claim the truth. Plato asked: how do we know what we think is true. There’s no answer to that. The important thing is to think. Live the questions, as Rilke the poet suggests. It matters to know where we are. I couldn’t be an amateur archaeologist or even a site-seer without admitting that. History is not bunk—as Henry Ford is reputed to have said, and I don’t believe he meant it—history matters. Truly it does.

“Thank you for letting me keep the ashes. They will go with me to my grave. Yes, I like the idea of burial, of becoming part of this world. Sam and I, our time together, short as it was, was full of love and deeply happy. Keep in touch. With love, M.”

Dusty put the letter down. It did unsettle him, not for long, because he refused to let it. There was nothing more he wanted to say or do and resolved to move on into the present. In the fortnight since he wrote to Muriel, he had fully immersed himself in the routine of Regimental life. The new responsibility of commanding B Troop kept him preoccupied. If the past mattered, it mattered emotionally and, therefore, not for him. History was for politicians and politics was not for him. It was different with Military History? Lessons learnt were for tactics, military tactics to be used and adapted by leaders in battle. Yes, he concluded, he was an existentialist. Life is like fiction, unfolding a story as one lives it. What’s past is best forgotten. No use, he constantly told himself, since he first learned what it meant, to cry over spilt milk. He went to the window and stared down at the palace lawn. On a cane chair Captain Kishan Lamba sat sipping his cup of tea. He looked up and they waved to each other. Kishan mumbled something.

‘What did you say, Kish? I couldn’t hear?’

‘I said’, Kishan shouted back, ‘why don’t you join me?’

‘I’ve had tea. Will join you later, in the Mess, for a drink.’ Dusty turned away. He walked back to the desk. The envelope, in which Muriel’s letter had arrived, lay on the floor. He picked it up and discovered he had missed an enclosed card on which she had written: “Sam’s money does not matter to me either. He had arranged for an amount to go into your bank account. You’ll get that when I’ve sorted things here. Before coming here he settled property matters, re his father’s will, with Dinshaw. Thank heavens I’m spared that and from having to travel to Bombay. They are so different. Sam very English, Dinshaw so like a Yank, his Aunt—I forget her name—a very traditional Parsee!! Keep in touch only when you wish to. M”

Dusty sighed with relief. She had thrown him a lifeline. He did wonder how to acknowledge Muriel’s letter without encouraging a to and fro correspondence. But the card was not without its sting. She knew more about him than he realised. It was astutely chosen. For the picture on the card was
Stalker’s Castle
! And as he looked memories came flooding in; and hard as he tried he could not dismiss them. A jig-saw puzzle of Stalker’s Castle was Sam’s first birthday present to him. Sam would have told her. Of course, no one knew Dusty’s actual date of birth. In 1948 St Peter’s Orphanage opted for New Year’s Day 1940, and made out a School Certificate accordingly. Three years later, New Year 1951, Sam came to collect him and to say: ‘You’re going to live with me from now on. Not just for a Saturday and Sunday as before, but for every day, and I’ve got you a birthday present.’ That day, all the way to Sam’s home there were questions he was dying to ask but said nothing. If he was watchful and patient, he would quickly find the answers for himself. He recalled looking up to see Sam smiling down at him and prompted by a feeling of well-being, he had put his hand into Sam’s. It was not a memory he wanted to cherish because something of that moment left him with a sense of vulnerability, and he resented it. There and then he resolved to be independent and in control, but from that moment on, kindness had a face. It was Sam’s, as he remembered it, smiling down at him.