forced to look constantly over her shoulder. She had never felt so exposed. Yet each time her eyes settled on Sati, the urgency of the matter overwhelmed her. There was nothing else in her life she could do for the girl. She looked up to the heavens as if for help, but saw only the white crescent of a waning moon in the still bright sky.
*
Sati sat down once more beside Govindram and met his solemn gaze. She saw her grandmother had been crying, although she had managed to finish the sherbet and the small plates of food set before her. On the wall above them two adjutant storks now perched where the monkeys had been chased away. There was comfort in the Black Town clamour, with its teeming lanes raw with stench and the odour of cooking between the closely packed houses. There was the soft shooting of greenery everywhere: bamboo, plaintain, mango and the pliant pampas grass. About cool ponds urchins splashed, women scrubbed laundry, and old men gossiped in the evening stretched out on string beds under the trees. Here kingfishers dived for minnows;goats and buffalo came to drink. Lepers wailed for alms, women oiled their hair under the sun, shaking out a polished mass. Everywhere the press of bodies thronging the narrow serpentine lanes held Sati’s life together. She could never be part of White Town; each step she took within that place threw her back upon herself. The pulse of Black Town throbbed deep in her veins, even if she was not to its liking.
She knew then that it was here she must stay. Although the blood of both towns ran in her veins, she saw that a choice was before her. Her mother, by marriage, had crossed a line to settle uneasily in an alien world. Yet wherever she went, whatever she did, however miscast, Rita carried the certainty of a past identity. She did not, like Sati, tread the soil of Black Town or White Town seeking a name with which to empower herself. She did not search for healing.
It came to Sati suddenly then. Just as she had been born where two lines met upon the ocean, so, where the seam of two cultures joined, there must be a crack. Thin as a hair, it ran right through her, denying her real wholeness. Yet it was through this crack, absent in those who grew all of a piece, that Durga squeezed. And in this place, like those cracks in the earth where springs take life, was something indestructible. Along that fault line within herself was a secret place of transformation. In that place she might at last be born, deep within herself. She looked up at the sky and saw the sun had set and the moon was but a sliver. Soon it too would roll from the earth to return again, reborn.
CHAPTER SIX
T he Great Hall of the Durbar and its surrounding courtyard was ablaze with light. About the crowded place candelabra were massed like an exploding galaxy. Their radiance dispelled the night, tut could not illuminate the dwindling life of Alivardi Khan.
‘See, he lies upon a bed,’ Drake observed. ‘It cannot be long.’
‘This will be a last public view of the old man,’ Holwell agreed, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the shrivelled figure. Life flamed within the jewels upon the dying nawab.
‘He is much shrunken,’ Drake remarked. The old man resembled a mummified corpse he had once seen in Egypt.
‘Any amount of pomp cannot amend that which must come to all men,’ the Chief Magistrate observed.
‘Nevertheless, he is a poor sight.’
‘But an exceptional reign,’ Holwell answered, unable to overcome a begrudging respect for Alivardi. ‘Not like your other Moors; one wife and no drink or concubines. His zenana, they say, is filled with old women and the harems of those he has conquered. He touches none, but only offers sanctuary. For a Moor such behaviour is highly eccentric.’
‘Not a life the grandson follows, for sure,’ the Governor replied.
They stood within the huge courtyard, the precious inlay upon its walls agleam in the light of flares. The colonnaded hall, its arched
*
Sati sat down once more beside Govindram and met his solemn gaze. She saw her grandmother had been crying, although she had managed to finish the sherbet and the small plates of food set before her. On the wall above them two adjutant storks now perched where the monkeys had been chased away. There was comfort in the Black Town clamour, with its teeming lanes raw with stench and the odour of cooking between the closely packed houses. There was the soft shooting of greenery everywhere: bamboo, plaintain, mango and the pliant pampas grass. About cool ponds urchins splashed, women scrubbed laundry, and old men gossiped in the evening stretched out on string beds under the trees. Here kingfishers dived for minnows;goats and buffalo came to drink. Lepers wailed for alms, women oiled their hair under the sun, shaking out a polished mass. Everywhere the press of bodies thronging the narrow serpentine lanes held Sati’s life together. She could never be part of White Town; each step she took within that place threw her back upon herself. The pulse of Black Town throbbed deep in her veins, even if she was not to its liking.
She knew then that it was here she must stay. Although the blood of both towns ran in her veins, she saw that a choice was before her. Her mother, by marriage, had crossed a line to settle uneasily in an alien world. Yet wherever she went, whatever she did, however miscast, Rita carried the certainty of a past identity. She did not, like Sati, tread the soil of Black Town or White Town seeking a name with which to empower herself. She did not search for healing.
It came to Sati suddenly then. Just as she had been born where two lines met upon the ocean, so, where the seam of two cultures joined, there must be a crack. Thin as a hair, it ran right through her, denying her real wholeness. Yet it was through this crack, absent in those who grew all of a piece, that Durga squeezed. And in this place, like those cracks in the earth where springs take life, was something indestructible. Along that fault line within herself was a secret place of transformation. In that place she might at last be born, deep within herself. She looked up at the sky and saw the sun had set and the moon was but a sliver. Soon it too would roll from the earth to return again, reborn.
CHAPTER SIX
T he Great Hall of the Durbar and its surrounding courtyard was ablaze with light. About the crowded place candelabra were massed like an exploding galaxy. Their radiance dispelled the night, tut could not illuminate the dwindling life of Alivardi Khan.
‘See, he lies upon a bed,’ Drake observed. ‘It cannot be long.’
‘This will be a last public view of the old man,’ Holwell agreed, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the shrivelled figure. Life flamed within the jewels upon the dying nawab.
‘He is much shrunken,’ Drake remarked. The old man resembled a mummified corpse he had once seen in Egypt.
‘Any amount of pomp cannot amend that which must come to all men,’ the Chief Magistrate observed.
‘Nevertheless, he is a poor sight.’
‘But an exceptional reign,’ Holwell answered, unable to overcome a begrudging respect for Alivardi. ‘Not like your other Moors; one wife and no drink or concubines. His zenana, they say, is filled with old women and the harems of those he has conquered. He touches none, but only offers sanctuary. For a Moor such behaviour is highly eccentric.’
‘Not a life the grandson follows, for sure,’ the Governor replied.
They stood within the huge courtyard, the precious inlay upon its walls agleam in the light of flares. The colonnaded hall, its arched
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