Authors: Sangeeta Bhargava
Papa pulled out his watch from his pocket, looked at it and then at her. ‘Good
evening
, Rachael. Did you have a good day?’ he asked pointedly.
‘Yes, Papa, I …’ she cleared her throat. He didn’t look angry. Maybe he didn’t know that she had gone riding by herself to the forest and been escorted back by the nabob’s son.
‘Oh yes, I know,’ he said, reading her face, a twisted smile marring his sculpted features. ‘How old are you?’
‘Umm … eighteen?’
‘Exactly. You’re now an adult, Rachael, and I’ve decided not to treat you as a child anymore. Even though you insist on acting like one.’
Crinkling up her nose, Rachael looked out of the carriage window. She had managed to wriggle out of mass and tea at the Wilsons’ that afternoon by feigning a headache. So she had done something childish again. But how could she have said ‘no’ to such an exhilarating prospect? Besides, she’d do anything for music. Even if it meant invoking Papa’s wrath. Or suffering the presence of that arrogant prince.
She watched as the carriage passed through the Kaiserbagh gateway. It was intricately sculpted with mermaids and fishes. She marvelled at how the tiles placed on the low wall and the wavy lines on the parapet made it appear as though the mermaids were frolicking in the sea. The entire complex looked like a tent city.
‘Pray tell me, what is it called?’ she asked Daima, as they passed a building which looked like an airy tent in concrete. Its eight towers looked like pegs holding the tent to the ground.
‘Lanka,’ Daima replied. ‘It’s a theatre.’
Rachael was speechless. She had never seen such elegant structures, not even in England. The carriage soon halted. With Daima’s help, she wrapped the long silk chador around her, before stepping out of the carriage. She followed the elderly woman excitedly as she led her down a long corridor. She had never been inside a palace before. It was very quiet. Except for the occasional beating of the long khus mats that hung over the archways, against the walls, in the hot summer breeze.
She stopped to look through one of the small arched windows on the outer wall and gasped in disbelief – she could see for over a hundred yards through that little peephole, beyond the courtyard and the palace gates, right into the marketplace. It was like looking through a pair of binoculars.
Daima tapped her shoulder and gestured they had better be moving. They passed a door to what seemed like a hall. Two female guards stood at the door in a state of lethargy. Rachael looked at Daima questioningly.
‘Zenana,’ Daima replied. ‘We better not be seen here … Otherwise lot of questions getting asked.’
Footsteps echoed through the corridors as someone called out to Daima. ‘Don’t stop … Keep walking,’ she whispered to Rachael in clipped tones.
Rachael tripped over the chador and had to stop to wrap it around herself. She bit her lip as Daima gave her an exasperated look. A flight of high, narrow stone steps led them into a spacious front room. The floor was covered with white marble. There were small latticed windows along the walls.
‘Thank you, Daima.’ Rachael heard a voice behind her. It was the prince. She could recognise that deep authoritative voice anywhere.
‘I shall take your leave now, Chote Nawab.’ Daima bowed slightly and left the room.
Rachael turned towards the prince. She played with the soft ends of the chador before taking it off and shaking her hair. ‘Thank you for your magnanimous offer to teach me Hindustani music,’ she said.
‘I did not expect to hear from you. Not after vexing you by killing that tigress,’ Salim replied, watching her.
‘Sir, who am I to question what you choose to do in your spare time? I have come here to learn music, that’s all.’ She looked around, noticing the low wooden platform covered with white sheets, the oblong pillows with red silk pillow covers, the chandelier, the silver lamps, the qatat hanging on the wall and the pitcher that stood in a corner. Biting her forefinger, she asked, ‘May I be so bold as to enquire whether this is your apartment?’
‘So it is. If it’s not up to her ladyship’s standards, we can go to another room, or maybe another palace?’ Salim taunted.
‘Pray, will the others not wonder why a woman is in your apartments and not in the zenana?’
‘They’ll simply assume you’re someone I’ve taken a fancy to.’ He grinned and winked at her, twirling the quill pen that he held in his hand, his eyes noting every detail of her body.
Rachael was taken aback by his impertinence. ‘Is that what they think? That I’m a nautch girl?’
The prince came close to her and whispered huskily, ‘Does it matter what they think?’ Again those eyes – teasing, mocking, weighing, challenging.
Lowering her gaze, Rachael played with a lock of hair that had come loose, fuming inwardly. The arrogance! Papa would have his head for speaking to his daughter like that.
‘Shall we, then?’ the prince asked, holding a door open for her. He bowed slightly and added, ‘After you, ma’am.’
Rachael sauntered into a hall – it was a music room. Her eyes lit up like Mother’s did whenever a parcel of her favourite ham arrived from back home in England. She covered her mouth with her hands as she exclaimed, ‘Oh my goodness!’
The room was full of every plausible Hindustani, as well as Western, musical instrument that she could think of. There was the sarod, sitar, veena, harmonium, tabla, sarangi, rebab, dhol, santoor … Why, there was even an old piano that stood by itself, a little conspicuously, in the west end of the room.
‘Our small collection,’ the prince said humbly, the tone and the look on his face belying modesty. ‘Is there any particular instrument that you wish to learn?’
Rachael strummed the strings on the sitar, then the veena. Then she picked up a trumpet and blew hard into it.
‘Oh please, it sounds like a donkey being strangulated.’ The prince covered his ears, lines creasing his forehead.
Laughing, Rachael turned to face him, then blew into the trumpet again.
‘Ma’am, kindly desist molesting the qurna,’ he said as he snatched the trumpet from her hand and put it down.
Rachael licked her lips. ‘I fear I have no idea where to start.’
‘Since you play the piano – and very well, if I may add – I think we should start with the harmonium. Please be seated.’
She sat down on the Persian carpet, playing with the tassel of an oblong pillow.
‘The octave do-re-me-fa … becomes sa-re-ga-ma … in Hindustani. Now listen.’
Rachael watched as the prince’s right hand moved elegantly over the keys of the harmonium while the left hand pumped the bellows.
‘You play with perfection!’
‘When you have Ustad Junaid Ali Khan as your teacher, you cannot but play perfectly. He once threw the tabla at me when I was out of tune.’
‘No! Pray tell me it did not hurt?’
‘Not really,’ the prince grinned. ‘I ducked just in time. But the poor tabla broke into pi—’ He stopped speaking as he heard footsteps outside the hall. ‘I hope it’s not Abba Huzoor,’ he whispered.
Rachael looked towards the door. It was a servant. He placed two silver bowls containing melons before them, bowed and swayed out of the room.
The prince picked one bowl and handed it to her. As she slowly ate the cool refreshing fruit, he started strumming a sitar. ‘I composed a new tune yesterday. Let me play it for you.’
Rachael watched him play. She noticed his fingernails were square, practical, unlike her thin, tapering, artistic ones, with all the moons visible. ‘Play the last stanza a scale higher,’ she said after a while.
‘All right, let’s try doing that … Ya Ali, you’re right, ma’am. It heightens the climax.’ Salim put down the sitar with a satisfied smile.
‘Not “ma’am” – Rachael.’
‘Ray … Chal,’ Salim drawled.
Rachael smiled. She liked the way he said her name – Ray Chal, like two separate words; two happy notes of a lilting song. Or the sound of a brook bubbling over pebbles. Ray Chal Ray Chal …
‘All right, your turn now,’ said the prince.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘May I remind you of your promise? To teach the piano?’
Walking over to the piano, Rachael tried to play, but it was in vain. Some of the keys were dead, others were off-key.
‘Well, in that case, you can teach me in your home.’
‘Home?’ She looked hastily at the clock that stood along the wall. ‘Oh goodness, it’s four o’clock. I had better leave if I wish to sneak back before Mother and Papa get back home.’
She hurriedly wrapped the chador around her.
Salim was on his feet in a trice and sprang before her. ‘Wait, you cannot leave so soon. We’d only just started.’
‘I must. I don’t have my parents’ permission. But do not vex yourself. I’m going to coax Papa to let you teach me Hindustani music. I’m sure he’ll say yes. He has a soft spot for me, you know.’
‘Who wouldn’t?’ Salim mumbled.
Scrunching up her nose, Rachael looked at him, not sure she had heard right. He looked back at her with a straight face but his eyes were laughing.
She thanked him and hastened through the hall and down the stairs. In her hurry, she did not realise she had dropped the bracelet that Christopher had given her last Christmas.
Papa was strolling through the front garden, speaking intently to a sepoy, when Rachael alighted from the carriage. Her teeth sparkled as she flashed him a quick smile and tried to look demure. Papa dismissed the sepoy and turned towards her. He did not say anything. Merely took the pipe out from his mouth and raised a single brow questioningly. He looked funny whenever he did that. He had thick eyebrows – straight rather than curved. And when he raised them, they looked like caterpillars marching up a hill.
Be serious, Rachael, she chided herself as she flashed him another smile and covered the distance between them. ‘Papa, don’t worry,’ she said as she straightened the creases on her dress. ‘I’ve been responsible. I didn’t go to Chowk or any such place.’
A hint of a smile flitted across Papa’s face. ‘But you went out without a chaperone. Where’s Sudha?’
Rachael gave a sigh of relief. Papa seemed a little distracted. He had forgotten she was supposed to be home nursing a headache. ‘I have some good news,’ she piped as she put her arm through his.
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve found my music teacher.’
‘And she is?’
‘He’s … he’s good.’ She clutched his sleeve and looked him in the eye. ‘Oh Papa, pray do let him teach me. He’s a perfect gentleman.’
Papa looked at her thoughtfully as he put the pipe back in his mouth. ‘Oh well … as long as it stops you from gallivanting off to places like the Chowk. But the lessons must take place here, and only after I have spoken to …’ He waved the pipe in the air looking for the right word. ‘Your … err … teacher. And approved of him.’
‘Oh thank you, thank you, my sweet Papa,’ Rachael exclaimed and planted a kiss on his cheek before running off indoors, the footman running after her with the chador.
Chapter Nine
S
ALIM
Salim followed Ram Singh as he led him to Colonel Felix Bristow’s study. The door was open. He entered the room apprehensively as Ram Singh stepped aside to let him pass. He wondered why the colonel wanted to see him. Did it have something to do with RayChal coming to his palace yesterday without permission?
He squared his shoulders as he looked at the colonel. He was seated behind a huge oak desk immersed in some papers. Not a single hair on the top of his head was out of place. Each hair stood exactly as the other – like a row of soldiers standing at attention. Salim swallowed. There was something about that man that made his nerves rattle. He coughed slightly. Colonel Bristow looked up. ‘Good morning, sir,’ Salim said, extending his hand to the colonel.
The colonel ignored his hand and brusquely replied, ‘Morning. Do be seated.’
The chair made a scraping sound as Salim pulled it back and sat down gingerly.
‘So you want to teach my daughter music?’ the colonel asked as he lit his pipe.
Oh, so that’s why he wanted to see him, Salim thought with a sigh of relief. ‘Sir, with your kind permission,’ he replied.
He shifted uncomfortably as the colonel looked him over. The smell of tobacco made him yearn for his hookah. He turned his gaze to the bookcases that lined three walls of the room. They were made of dark wood and lent a sombre atmosphere to the room.
The colonel finally spoke. ‘I was expecting someone older. What instruments can you play?’
‘Sir, I can play most Hindustani instruments – tabla, dhol, sarod, sitar, harmoni—’
‘That’ll do. You speak good English for a native.’
‘I was sent to Calcutta when I was little, for my education.’
‘Who’s your father?’
Just then the swishing of skirts distracted Salim and he looked towards the door. It was Rachael. She was frantically waving her finger and mouthing the word ‘no’.
Puzzled, Salim turned back to the colonel and said, ‘Umm … my father …’ He again looked at Rachael. She shook her head from side to side and mouthed ‘no’.
The colonel raised his brow. ‘It takes you that long to remember your father’s name?’
‘H-he’s,’ Salim stammered as perspiration ran down his face. ‘Ustad Junaid Ali Khan,’ he concluded as relief spread over his face. ‘He taught me all I know about music.’
‘That settles it, then,’ said the colonel, putting his pipe in his mouth. ‘You can start after two months, when we get back from Mussorie. I shall buy whatever instruments you need.’
‘How you spoil her, Mr Bristow,’ said a thin sharp voice. Salim almost jumped. He had not noticed the frail woman sitting upright behind him, near the window. It was Mrs Bristow.
‘She’s all I have,’ the colonel said dryly. ‘If I had sons …’ He looked at Mrs Bristow with a cynical smile.
Mrs Bristow pushed back her chair, her lips a straight thin line, and left the room.
A little perplexed by this strange exchange of conversation, Salim stared at her receding back, then at the colonel. The colonel had gone back to his papers. ‘I shall take your leave now,’ Salim said hastily as he sprang to his feet. Bowing slightly, he left the room.