Free A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee Page B

ask herself, instead choosing to pin her hopes on the interpreter and even on Iris Shepherd who had boasted she could hold a
conversation in Hindi and understand some rudimentary Urdu.
    The room, or rather, the enormous hall where the meeting was going to take place was similarly perfumed, from a mixture of incense, attar , and the rose petals which had been strewn
everywhere. The English ladies had tried to imagine what the insides of an Indian palace would be like; they had even read or been told about the ostentation of wealth and artistry in these
palaces, but nothing had prepared them for this sumptuous feast of grandeur which made the senses swoon and assaulted them from so many quarters – the viscous fragrances, the monotone of the
threnody being played on some mournful stringed instrument by a hidden player, the sea of colours, fabrics, jewels, ornaments, tapestry, curtains, rugs, pillars, chandeliers – that there
wasn’t very much else to do except to obscure large sections of it in order not to drown in this gilded and marbled symphony of excess.
    The Indian women, eleven in all – Miss Gilby had done a swift count while the seating formalities were being taken care of by the interpreter – were seated on piles of velvet
cushions and fabrics arranged on the marble floor into a separate section of the room. Two chaise longues and four elaborate chowpaya s, all blue silk and gold embroidery and carved wood, had
been arranged opposite this so that the two contingents of women faced each other. Between them, rose petals lying like wounds on the white marble, above them, the frozen crystal fountain of a
chandelier. And the interpreter, somewhere out of sight, in one of the many shadows which stalked and lingered in the room despite the profusion of mirrors, chandeliers, candelabra, the fractured
brilliance of glasswork.
    For a while, all of Miss Gilby’s attention was taken by the flash and fire of the jewels on the Indian women. Even their clothes were heavy with gold threads and wires, teeth of pearl,
their fingers and hands dipped into the heart of Hindustan’s treasures and just withdrawn. There was gold around their necks – chokers, collars, necklaces and chains, which fell in
solid waves down their fronts, sometimes to their waists. They wore gold flowers on their toes, paisley-shaped earrings that covered their entire ears, and when they moved their hands, diamonds
would carelessly catch a stray beam of light and send out an angry flare as if to remind everyone of their presence. And on the dark black skin of the women the metals and stones came into secret
lives of their own which they hid from other, paler people. It was almost as if the darkness had put on a special fireworks show for the visitors – the jewellery accentuated their black skin
while the fire of stones and metals made the skin a darker shade of night.
    Miss Gilby hoped she hadn’t stared rudely at these decorated women for that was exactly what they were doing, unabashed, unashamed. Eleven pairs of huge, dark eyes stared unblinking at
the English women as though they were exotic or mythical birds they had heard about all their lives and which had just been put up on captive display.
    Dazzled, literally, by the jewels, Miss Gilby came late to the realization that one of the princesses, hardly more than a girl, eleven or twelve maybe, was giggling shamelessly at the
foreigners while a stately queen, perhaps some dowager maharani, maybe even Her Highness herself, was trying to shut her up.
    ‘ Hanso mat ,’ she ordered, her kohl-lined eyes flashing fire. This was a woman born to command, her lazy, cushion-propped body breathing arrogance and majesty through every
pore.
    ‘Don’t laugh,’ the interpreter dutifully translated, either unaware of the parties involved in that short exchange or untutored in the rules of interpreting.
    The elderly woman now broke out into her own language clearly directed at the minister