Free Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Page B

Douglas’ direction, she knew him to be sitting very upright with his thin lips held in tight and his eyes cold. She went on rather desperately: “I mean, to want to go with the person you care for most in the world. Not to want to be alive any more if he wasn’t.”
    â€œIt’s savagery,” Dr. Saunders declared. “Like everything else in this country, plain savagery and barbarism. I’ve seen some sights in my hospital I wouldn’t like to tell you about, not with ladies present I wouldn’t. Most gruesome and horrible mutilations – and all, mind you, in the name of religion. If this is religion, then by gad!” he said, so loudly and strongly that the old head-bearer with the hennaed beard trembled from head to foot, “I’d be proud to call myself an atheist.”
    But Major Minnies – perhaps out of gallantry – rallied to Olivia’s side with an anecdote that partly bore out her point of view. It was not something that had happened to himpersonally but a hundred years earlier and to Colonel Sleeman when in charge of the district of Jabalpore. Sleeman had tried to prevent a widow from committing suttee but had been defeated by her determination to perish together with her husband’s corpse.
    â€œThat really was a voluntary suttee,” Major Minnies told Olivia. “Her sons and the rest of her family joined Colonel Sleeman in attempting to prevent her, but it was no use. She was determined. She sat for four days on a rock in the river and said that if she wasn’t allowed to burn herself then she’d starve herself to death. In any case she wasn’t going to be left behind. In the end Sleeman had to give way – yes he lost that round but I’ll tell you something – he speaks of the old lady with respect. She wasn’t a fanatic, she wasn’t even very dramatic about it, she just sat there quietly and waited and said no, she wanted to go with her husband. There was something noble there,” said the Major – and now he wasn’t being tolerant and amused, not in the least.
    â€œToo noble for me, I fear,” said Beth Crawford – as hostess, she probably felt it was time to change the tone. “Fond as I am of you, dear man,” she told her husband across the table, “I don’t really think I could –”
    â€œOh I could!” cried Olivia, and with such feeling that everyone was silent and looked at her. Douglas also looked – and this time she dared raise her eyes to his: even if he was angry with her. “I’d want to. I mean, I just wouldn’t want to go on living. I’d be grateful for such a custom.”
    Their eyes met across the table. She saw his hard look melt away into tenderness. And she felt the same way towards him. Her feelings became so strong that she could not go on looking into his eyes. She looked down at her plate, meekly began to cut the hard piece of chicken in floury sauce thathad replaced the hard piece of fried fish of the preceding course: and thought that really everything was quite easy to bear and overcome just as long as she and Douglas felt the way they did for each other.

    30 March.     I had to go to the post office so afterwards I waited as usual to go home with Inder Lal. We had got as far as the royal tombs – near the lake and Maji’s hut – when we heard some strange sounds coming out of one of them. They seemed like groans. Inder Lal said “It is better to go home.” But when we reached the next tomb – there is a whole cluster of them, all of one 14th century royal family – we again heard the same sound coming from behind us. It was a groan. Despite Inder Lal’s protests, I turned back to investigate. I ascended the steps; although these tombs have no side-walls but are closed in by arches and lattices, they are very dark inside. At first all I could make out was the vague mass of the