The Mountain of Light (39 page)

“I used to have great fun trying to persuade all of you to speak to me in Hindustani,” I say.

A quick smile flashes on Bhajan's brown face. He sits where the tepid rays of the sun fall into the room, a rolled-up ball of shawls and a gleaming white turban. Bhajan has wanted to come to England for as long as I have, but he is uneasy here. The almost constant gray gloom, even as we approach July, has drained life out of him. He is fascinated by the movement and bustle outside, but afraid to stay on the streets too long, lest one of the carriages flashing by runs over him, or his foot.

“You did, your Highness,” he says. “By pretending to be deaf when one of us called out to you, which forced us to speak louder, and then to switch to an Indian language.”

I grin, remembering. The money I collected from the “fines,” I sent to one of my charities.

“Should I read this book, Bhajan?”

He scuttles on his haunches to move into the light as the sun climbs in the sky, reverently dragging the Old Testament along with him. “You should. There must be other biographies, court documents, but they're in Persian, perhaps Hindustani. You cannot read those; you've forgotten the languages, but this one you can.”

The frontispiece is a sketch of an Akali soldier from my father's army, with his towering turban, his fierce expression, his circle of a quoit.

“I caution you, your Highness,” Bhajan says, his words faltering, “to not believe everything you read in there. It was written . . . to be read, and must lack the honesty of something more private, like correspondence.”

“Even the praise of my father?”

“Especially that, your Highness. There's no better way to tame a lion than to feed him tainted meat.”

•  •  •

Paris, 1893:
Sophia makes an omelet for lunch, dots its golden surface with the cheese she bought in the morning. They sit by the window again, shutters pulled close; the day is cool. The dull light glitters off the
hukkah
vase; the hyacinth is a splatter of bright purple and creamy lilac.

She looks around, points her fork in the air. “Why do you live here, Papa? Why not a hotel? You can surely afford it.”

He smiles, coughs as a piece of bread sticks in his throat. “Not anymore, my child. They watch me, you know. I
thought that in this garret I could hide from the British government.”

“Really?” Her well-shaped eyebrows rise into her hairline. She's beautiful, this daughter of his. Her mother was comely enough, but this girl has the nose of the Lion of the Punjab, his gray eyes, a tint to her skin that makes a red blush rosy. He has eight children, from two wives, and none have ever before shown any interest in the past, in their grandfather, or in India. They're all English, their accents, their manners, their clothing. But this one, to whom he gave her grandmother's name—she's Bamba Sophia Jindan—has come to visit him in Paris. She spends the whole day with him, every day that she is here, is not irritated by his slowness, his coughing, his forays down the lanes of history in search of shining moments he cannot hope to re-create. Anymore.

There's a brilliance about Sophia, something he hasn't noticed before. A man, he thinks, who has captured her heart. So, she glows. She shimmers. She laughs from her heart. Even here, in this dismal studio, which he has decorated with relics—a sword, a
hukkah,
a shawl and a veil, the pearls his father wore in a distant land. If he had the Kohinoor, it too would be here on the rue de la Trémoille in Paris.

“Who?”

“Aimée.”

“The charwoman? Oh, Papa, she couldn't possibly be a spy.”

He expects to be disbelieved. Pushing open the shutters, he indicates the man with the violin on the street corner. “Him. He's there every day.”

“It's how he makes his living, Papa.”

“Yes,” he agrees, “it is how he makes his living.” And they're talking of different things.

She clears the table, and he helps her, limping to the sink
in the corner of the room, pouring water from a mug onto the plates and the forks to rinse them. Aimée will come again, tomorrow, to clean the dishes.

“Did you like the Queen, Papa? I mean, when you first met her?” For she knows that it has been many years since her father has met the Queen, talked to her. His letters are unanswered, or at most there's a polite, distant note from one of the secretaries saying that her Majesty is too busy right now.

“You'll see.”

•  •  •

July 1, 1854:
Surely, this is the most glorious of days! I wake to the rumble of the cleaners' carts on the street, the sweet sound of water sluiced on the cobblestones, leaving them glittering in the early sunlight. In the outer rooms, Mir Kheema lays out my clothes and polishes my jewels. And then he comes in with a tray, which holds a pot of hot chocolate, a cup, and a dish of digestive biscuits.

“What am I wearing?”

“Your pearls, your Highness,” he says, approaching the bed and bowing. Then, kneeling upon the carpets, he lays his head lightly on my bedcovers. “The diamond and emerald aigrette for your turban. The diamond bracelets and four rings, also in emerald. I have chosen”—he raises his eyes to mine—“all green in your stones to go better with the embroidery in your black velvet coat and your trousers. It would befit you, as a king meeting . . . another, to wear the silk pajamas under your
kurta
instead of your English trousers?” This last is said wistfully.

I run my hand over my night wear. “Only to sleep, Mir. I have given off that part of the native dress, as you well know.”

“Certainly, your Highness.” He is reflective now. “At
another time, you would not have appeared in public without that glorious stone upon your arm, but now . . .” He touches his forehead in salaam, and backs out of the room.

Lord Dalhousie annexed the Punjab, and he gave the Kohinoor to the Queen. He did not ask me for permission. As with so much else in my father's Toshakhana, the Kohinoor, which Mir Kheema dares not call by its name, found its way to England four years ago. I remember so little about the last Treaty of Lahore that Sikh chieftains signed on my behalf with the British. I signed it also, but without understanding most of its clauses. I was only ten years old at the time. But it was agreed to in my name—as the reigning king of the Punjab—and I will stand by its terms. But I wonder if Lord Dalhousie knows, or guesses, what it means to me. The possessor of the diamond is the supreme ruler of all South Asia—in that fistful of stone is strength, power, glory, all the brilliance and opulence of royalty. It isn't just a piece of rock.

I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth, bathe and breakfast. It is futile to think of what is not mine any longer—especially today, when I go to meet my sovereign. For she is
my
Queen also—the Punjab Empire has been fragmented, shattered, some of its pieces sold off, and what remains is now under the crown of Queen Victoria.

Lord and Lady Login accompany me to Buckingham Palace around noon, and there we are met by a few of the Company's directors and Sir Charles Trevelyan from the Treasury.

The Grand Staircase is encased in reds, golds, and whites. Portraits of past monarchs look down upon us, though they never lived here, I am told by an equerry as we ascend; the Queen is the first to take up residence.

The equerry cannot walk in front of me, so he makes small movements by my side—first here, a right there, a left after another right. If I am abandoned in this place, I will not find my way out. And then, finally, we are at the
Throne Room. The doors are flung open and my presence announced. “The Maharajah of the Punjab, Maharajah Duleep Singh Bahadur!”

I mumble, “My name is Maharajah
Dalip
Singh Bahadur.”

The equerry's backward look is one of a startled squirrel, eyes huge in his angular face. I have heard my name mispronounced so many times before, but I don't want the Queen to not know how or what to call me.

A huddle of men and women at the far end break apart to watch my progress across the lush red carpets. In the center of that group, not sitting upon the throne but standing, waiting, is a slight woman, her hair combed sensibly back into a bun, her neck festooned in diamonds, her arms bare, her gown of some glittering silver material.

She comes forward; the others bow and curtsy. The Queen puts out her hand, and I run the last few steps up to take her hand in mine.

“Maharajah, this is such a pleasure. Welcome to England. I hope, I so dearly hope that your stay here will be a pleasant one.”

I bow. I kiss her hand. Prince Albert comes forward to shake my hand and add his compliments. He is handsome, with trimmed sideburns; his vest, his jacket, his pants all impeccably neat. That last word describes the two of them perfectly. The Queen is economical in all of her movements; even her smile is small, but one of such pure pleasure when she looks at me that I glow with happiness.

“Tell me about yourself,” she says. “Was your journey a good one?”

“Very much so, your Majesty.”

“You must feel yourself at home in England.” She turns to the Company's officials who stand behind. “We must make the Maharajah welcome; he must not regret his decision to leave India.”

I gulp. “I could hardly feel that, your Majesty.”

“Come.” And with a light touch on my arm, she pulls me to a side of the room where there are two chairs close together. “Talk to me. I am elated you are here after hearing so much about you.” She gazes at me for a long time. “You are such a striking boy. I hope you will not mind my saying so; I feel as though I could be your mother, in age, of course, and I would very much like you to be a part of my family.”

I cannot speak. To be accorded such an honor from her, the woman for whose well-being we have prayed every Sunday at church both in India and here, who has always seemed so distant, so magnificent. I had expected some minor notice, something done gracefully and then forgotten, but this much . . . I glance around at Lady Login. She quakes with delight. Lord Login's mouth twitches at the ends.

“You are very gracious, your Majesty.”

“I had heard of your embracing the Christian faith”—and now an anxious furrow on her brow—“it was done with your full consent, I hope? You have wanted this, believed in God, knew Him to be your savior?”

“I and no one else, your Majesty.”

She leans back. “I was worried, I will admit, when I heard of it, coming as it did so soon after the annexation of the Punjab. You were very young then, and I was adamant that things be done right by you. Lord and Lady Login have been good guardians? You are happy? If you are not, you must tell me.”

“I could not wish for anything more, your Majesty.” But there is that small memory of my conversation with Mir Kheema; I nudge it away.

She chatters as the others wait in the corners of the room. She does not say this in so many words, but I think she has been against the annexation, and would have preferred a more minor British hand in the Punjab, akin to that after the First Anglo-Sikh War, when Henry Lawrence was sent as Resident. I don't tell her that the terms of that earlier treaty
gave Lawrence more or less full ruling rights over the Punjab, even with the nominal guidance of my Sikh Council. And that I have been, for a long while now, a king only in name, not in deed, not in fact. But this she must have known.

She is so different from Lord Dalhousie. He had come to the Punjab as a conqueror, with very little of the respect that one king grants another, even a vanquished one. But then—and now I realize the fact—Dalhousie is merely a Governor-General; his real sovereign is before me.

A while later, the Queen beckons to a girl, introduces her to me. “This is my goddaughter, Maharajah. Her name is also Victoria and she is the Princess of Coorg. You will have much in common with each other and must be friends.”

It is the Miss Victoria of my first dinner party! She's quietly sophisticated, at ease—because Lady Hartford, her guardian, is not here.

“How lucky you are to have them,” she says, nodding toward Lord and Lady Login. “I hate mine, that woman Hartford.”

“When did you come to England?”

“A few years ago. My father brought me; he's left now and this is to be my home.”

This Victoria Gouramma had been baptized at St. James's Cathedral—a
tamasha,
Lord Dalhousie had called it while writing to Lord Login about my own, quieter baptism. The Raja of Coorg had traveled to England with his daughter, left her there to marry an English nobleman, and duped the Queen into taking an interest in the girl. Grumble. Grumble. Grumble. The native kings were being made too much of at Home—if only they could see them in India as they truly were, they would not be thought worthy of all the attention.

We have something in common then, Victoria and I, a loathing for Lord Dalhousie. She is, suddenly, more interesting than she had been at the dinner party.

I tumble into bed late that night, so exhausted that I sleep
as soon as I lie down. Mir Kheema takes off my clothes, puts away the jewels, rubs my face with a damp cloth.

I did not see the Kohinoor diamond. It has been sent to Amsterdam to be recut and reset. My father never touched the stone after he acquired it from Shah Shuja; he did, though, reset it twice, but he had always thought its cut and its appearance were flawless.

•  •  •

July 4, 1854:
Once I have been received by the Queen, invitations flood in for dinners, picnics, and at homes! The whole of London wants to meet me. But they don't know where I fit in society. Am I an Eastern potentate? A European royal? What am I?

Tonight is the dinner at Sir Charles Inglis's home. Where I am invited, I meet Victoria Gouramma also. Lady Login says nothing, merely flings her in my way. Perhaps the Queen herself wants this—two Christians, two Indians; we could be a perfect couple.