In the City of Gold and Silver by Kenizé Mourad, Anne Mathai in collaboration with Marie-Louise Naville

and courtesans’ houses. Hazrat Mahal cannot believe her eyes, all the doors are shut and the balconies, previously full of flowers, where languishing young beauties stood fanning themselves, are now deserted and overgrown with weeds. Where once chimes of laughter, song and poetry rang out, there now reigns a deathly silence. Finally, the palanquin
 
comes to a halt at the end of the street in front of Amman and Imamam’s stately house.
    They have to wait several minutes before the heavy door opens slightly, revealing an old lady wrapped in a black shawl.
    â€œWhat is it?” she asks suspiciously.
    â€œThis is the house belonging to the ladies Amman and Imaman, is it not?” enquires Mammoo, disconcerted by this unexpected apparition. “Do they still live here?”
    â€œWhat is your business with them?”
    â€œNow there, old woman, watch your tongue! Go immediately and inform them that my mistress, the very noble and respected Begum Hazrat Mahal, wife of our King Wajid Ali Shah, has come to visit.”
    A good fifteen minutes pass before hurried footsteps and exclamations are heard, and suddenly the main door is thrown wide open to allow the palanquin to enter.
    â€œMuhammadi! May Allah be praised! What a surprise!”
    Drawing aside the curtains, two plump, white-haired women hurry to help Hazrat Mahal descend. The latter hesitates for a moment . . . Is it possible that these two old ladies are Amman and Imaman? She remembers majestic women, not beautiful but imposing, with their copper-coloured hair, painted lips, eyes outlined with
kohl
, always dressed in expensive clothes. How could they have changed so much? It is not only the wrinkles but a general air of neglect in their appearance, which no longer seems to matter to them.
    The same air of neglect is evident everywhere as she enters the house. The furniture is covered with dust, the large crystal chandeliers and the copper objects are tarnished, the carpets do not seem to have been cleaned in months and the silk on the huge sofas is creased, even torn in places. The house looks abandoned.
    Two hastily summoned servants dust and plump up the cushions, they spread a white sheet on the carpet, while a third brings sherbet. The two sisters apologize profusely:
    â€œWe do not even have any sweets to offer you! Ah, if only we had known you were coming! No one has visited us in months and we have had to send all our boarders away.”
    â€œBut why?”
    â€œIf you only knew! It has been a disaster! Since the government confiscated the taluqdars’
 
villages and raised taxes, our clients, the cream of Awadh’s aristocracy, have been ruined. And the few who have something left are so worried, they do not have the heart to enjoy themselves. All the respectable houses in the Chowk have closed. Only a handful of second-class establishments still remain to cater to the Angrez military or the nouveaux riches, who made a fortune buying up for a song the land distributed to the farmers.”
    â€œThe farmers are selling their land instead of cultivating it?”
    â€œClearly you know nothing of what is happening in this country!” retorts Amman bitterly. “I have a young cousin staying here. She has come from the countryside with her children. She will tell you what is going on.”
    Offended by this lack of consideration—something she is no longer accustomed to—Hazrat Mahal falls silent, leaving Mammoo and Imaman to exchange a flood of courtesies in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.
    She treats me as she did when I was thirteen and I was one of her boarders! But do I prefer it when people make fun of me and speak ill behind my back, as they do at Court? In fact, I am no longer used to being spoken to frankly. She is right; I am too cut off from the world
. . .
A world that is changing so fast . . .
    Calm and poised again, she welcomes Amman’s relative with a big smile.