A Far Horizon by Meira Chand

you bringing?’ Govindram asked in sudden alarm.
    ‘Do you understand nothing? For the custody of Sati, of course. If Rita and Demonteguy get custody, how will Sati inherit my things? They will take everything from her.’ Her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘My daughter is not a fit mother. Everyone knows that. Sati is happy with me.’
    Govindram remained silent. Some parts of Jaya’s tale began to clarify, yet he doubted she would be considered in White Town more suited to have custody of Sati than Rita. Whenever Govindram looked at Jaya now it was in fascinated horror that beauty could implode so conclusively. His own wife had merely faded andthickened, the process so gradual that he only now and then looked at her in mild disbelief.
    ‘I knew no good would come from that marriage of Rita’s,’ Jaya burst out.
    ‘You encouraged it,’ Govindram reminded her.
    ‘That Demonteguy is a sahib. I too, you remember, only married English sahibs,’ Jaya argued.
    Govindram refrained from reminding her that she had married common soldiers. One might even, he remembered, have been a sailor. And Rita’s father was a half-caste Portuguese. How many other uncertain liaisons there might have been between his cousin’s marriages he could not say. Such low-class men were not sahibs.
    ‘Yes, Demonteguy is a sahib,’ he sighed.
    He had no wish to be reminded of Jaya’s life story. All her troubles since he settled in Bengal had come to rest upon him. As children they had played together, brought up for a time in the same house in Delhi. Their families were not poor, but neither were they rich. Large dowries were out of the question. Jaya’s great beauty had been used to secure her a widower husband of substantial wealth. The man had grown sons of Jaya’s age, any of whom would have been more suitable as a husband. Jaya did not see her bridegroom until her wedding night and was shocked at the wizened man who came to her bed. He resembled an old dog at the end of a long bout of mange. Nobody else seemed to feel this way. They spoke of Jaya’s luck at finding a rich husband. After the wedding, Jaya left with her husband for his home in Dacca.
    Soon after this, Govindram had also married and left Delhi in the company of Omichand, for whom he already worked. In those early days the fat merchant was a seller of dried fruits and almonds and wished to try his luck in Bengal. Eventually they settled in Calcutta. After some time news reached Govindram in a roundabout way that Jaya’s husband had ordered her from his house, divorced and destitute. She had been discovered in the arms of one of her stepsons. So shamed was Jaya’s father by her behaviour that herefused to take her back. It was rumoured she had sought the protection of a famous singer. Next it was said she had entered the zenana of a nobleman in Murshidabad, sold into concubinage by the famous singer.
    Govindram had already been in Calcutta some years when he found Jaya one day on his doorstep, already several times married and widowed. She had come to hear of him through the growing reputation of Omichand, and sobbed at the sight of him. He too had wiped his eyes in shock, for Jaya was greatly changed. The excesses of flesh and ravishment were already well in place. She had been the only woman to escape from the palace of Murshidabad during a bloody battle. Every woman in the nobleman’s zenana had been slaughtered while Jaya hid in a chest of beaten silver. She had returned to the entertainment area of Calcutta and eventually married an English soldier of the lowest rank. From the moment she rediscovered him, Govindram had enabled her to escape her demeaning existence and live with dignity.
    ‘Demonteguy did not want to make use of my Rita without marriage‚’ Jaya reminded Govindram.
    ‘In this she is lucky,’ Govindram agreed. After the death of Sati’s father, Rita had lived on her own, hiring herself out as companion to several elderly ladies in White Town. Her