—65—
Channan was deeply unwell for several days after the night of ten thousand stars. She sent word that I should explore as I wished, and eat well, and paint to my heart’s content. Tanveer had business in Lucknow and traveled with Gurdaya.
So, indeed, the palace was mine to explore.
I wandered without restraint, finding vast empty rooms meant for state functions or balls, and intimate little parlors decorated with lush rugs and draperies.
I got lost in courtyards and then could not find them again.
I explored rooms where ceilings had fallen down and birds roosted.
There were many cats of many colors. Some appeared to be pets, very friendly and companionable.
I made particular friends with a hefty black beauty with yellow eyes and extra toes.
Others were more like barn cats and not interested in human companionship.
They skittered away if I came close. I began to carry small bits of meat in my pockets for them.
One afternoon, I sketched in the sunshine of a courtyard. Something about the sun on my feet made me think of my ayah with a sudden and piercing sense of longing. Was she still alive?
I paused my drawing, remembering. A cat came from a hidden place, pale yellow with long fur, and I sat up. “Topaz! Is that you?”
He turned toward me for a long minute, and we studied each other. Perhaps this was not Topaz himself, but a descendant. But I called him anyway. “Topaz, come here, kitty. Psh psh psh.” I held out my hand. “Do you remember me?”
All at once he mewped with excitement and trotted toward me, meowing all the way.
He leapt up into my lap, and when I laughed, putting aside my sketchbook, he butted his head against my chin.
“I am so happy to see you!” He purred and meowed an entire conversation. “You’ve grown into quite a big cat.”
I held him close and bent my face into his fur, thinking what a life of adventure he’d lived, from the killing fields of France to England, to the palace.
He followed me back to my room and jumped on the bed as if he belonged there, watching while I sketched a great rolling storm moving in with towers of clouds and lightning shooting across the landscape.
His presence seemed a little miracle. A small wonder, to be sure.
July 16, 1926
Talwarpur, India
Dear Mother,
I hope this finds you well and continuing the pleasure of your life in Taos.
I write this from Talwarpur Palace, where I have come to paint a portrait of the maharaja and maharani, at the request of the maharani.
It has been deeply enjoyable so far. Channan, for she has insisted I call her that, is a charming and gracious woman, and I am greatly looking forward to painting her.
I find myself coming alive in a way I had forgotten. Cairo is lovely, and I love the desert, but Egypt is not India. I wept when I saw Bombay from the ship. Every minute since has been more of the same joy.
Peter and I have struggled in our marriage, as I think you know. This time will give us an opportunity to—
I paused. What did I mean here? An opportunity to think things over?
An opportunity to heal? No. What I felt in my gut was that I would never return.
I would find some way to live in India. Gurdaya had contacts in the art world in Bombay, and perhaps I could make a living as an art teacher in finer schools, to supplement whatever I could earn from my paintings.
Perhaps, if the commission of the maharani was beautiful enough, I might attract more such portraits.
—discover a new arrangement for ourselves.
His shell shock combined with drink creates a violence that is untenable.
I have tried to find solutions, but as long as he continues blunting his wounds with gin, I do not feel safe.
While I have little hope I would be granted a divorce, I can choose to live apart from him.
I know how fond you are of him, but please understand this is not something I have undertaken lightly.
Always your loving daughter,
Elsie
After three days, I was hungry for companionship and asked an older servant woman, someone who appeared to be in charge of things, if the maharani was too ill for company.
She shook her head and gestured for me to follow her.
I remembered the last time I visited the palace, there had been armies of servants in corridors and gardens, sweeping parlors and cleaning tiles and carting things from place to place with an air of purpose.
Now I spied one girl in the courtyard, sweeping, and could hear the sound of people in the kitchen. A guard at the gate.
Very few.
In my girlhood, the palace had overflowed with people, the wives and all the children of Tanveer’s father, who had clearly not followed the usual Sikh practice of only one wife, but took four or maybe even five by the end.
I thought of him at the ball in London, virile and charming, a man who’d made his own way, navigating between the Hindi and Muslim majorities in India, and manipulating the British as well, his small principality doing well over time.
I knew from Tanveer’s letters that drought and plague had diminished the entire Punjab since the war, and when the population revolted, they’d been crushed by the British, more than once.
The worst, of course, had been the attack at Jallianwala Bagh, but there had been others.
The emptiness now in the palace seemed lonely. I was quite sure when Gurdaya and her family visited, it could be as noisy and colorful as when Tanveer was a boy, but now it was so quiet I could hear my slippered feet on the swept floors.
The servant opened Channan’s door and went in. I waited in the corridor, book in hand. Within, I heard an exchange in Punjabi, and then the woman was back, waving me in. “I will bring tea, memsahib,” she said in Hindustani. “Would you like cake?”
“Oh, please!” I answered and then left the shadows for a sunny room that faced south.
Tiny Channan sat on a chaise, legs covered with a blanket.
Her hair was braided in a long fall over her shoulder, and she wore a simple dressing gown in a soft peach shade, with ribbons in red.
Without her veil, I could see the uneven terrain of her hairline.
A tiny black cat curled in a ball at her ankles, opening one eye as I came in.
I bowed in deference to her status. “Hello, Maharani Sahiba.”
She shook her head slowly. “I have already said we shall dispense with titles, my dear. Please, come sit with me.”
I took a comfortable chair nearby the chaise. “I did try to leave you alone,” I said, smiling, “but I admit my mother always said that, when I was a little girl, I so required conversation that I made up names for teapots and dishes and had conversations with them.”
She laughed lightly. It made her cough, and she pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and spit into it. “Forgive me,” she said, touching her chest. “I have weak lungs.”
“I shall endeavor not to make you laugh, then,” I replied.
“Oh, please, I’d rather laugh and cough than not laugh at all.” She measured me for a moment. “You are much invigorated after your long sleep.”
I laughed. I’d almost forgotten that I’d slept for two days upon arrival. “I am so sorry I slept through your welcome dinner and our morning appointment. Will you forgive me?”
“Nothing to forgive. You looked quite wan when you arrived.” She inclined her head. “Is it being back in India at last that enlivens you? Or”—a sideways glance—“have you left your husband, then?”
Startled, I gaped at her. “I—er—”
“I have been told I speak my mind too frankly,” she said, “but life has taught me that the things we think matter so much are not the right things at all.”
I met her straightforward gaze, feeling humbled. “I welcome your frankness. It has sometimes been a flaw of mine, as well.”
“You say flaw when I believe you mean virtue.”
I chuckled. “Yes.”
“So, have you left him?”
I took a breath. “Yes. He is a decent man when he’s not drinking, but he’s very cruel when he is.”
“Did he hurt you?”
A sting of tears made me look away. “He did,” I said at last. “But I would ask that knowledge remain between us.”
She nodded, reaching for my hand. I tugged my chair closer so that I could easily hold it. “Your truth is my secret.”
“Thank you.”
“My husband said you watched the meteor shower together the other night.”
“It was so beautiful. I’m sure you’ve seen it.”
“Once or twice. I am not terribly fit for stairs, and there are a great many to the roof.”
I nodded, but in fact, my fingers were itching with the need to sketch her. I took my sketchbook from my deep pocket. “Do you mind if I sketch you as we talk?”
“Not at all.”
“Do you have family nearby?” I asked, drawing a line from the top of her head to her toes, then back up.
“No, they live quite far away, near Udaipur. I sometimes see my sister in Jaipur, but—” She spread her fingers. “They find it hard to look upon me. Without Gurdaya, I would be quite lost.”
I absorbed the shape of her chin, the angle of her neck. “Must Tanveer travel often?”
“Yes, but—oh, it is not the company of a man I long for. I miss my sisters.”
“I do not have sisters, aside from the time I spent with Gurdaya.” Sketching the line of her shoulder, the shape of fabric over it, I said, “How many do you have?”
“Three, but one died in childbirth. I was still a child, so I do not remember her well. Gurdaya has been a comfort to me, certainly. She is a very lively companion.”
“She is, indeed. She has fashioned a life that suits her very well.” I sketched the shape of the cat at her ankle. “I am sorry you’re deprived of your sisters.”
“Oh, no. Do not misunderstand. I do not complain about my lot. I am very fortunate that Tanveer agreed to marry me and bring me here. Else I would have spent my life on the edges of my father’s court, pitied and ignored.
At least this way we do entertain, and I have some social intercourse. When I am well enough.”
I nodded. With a light hand, I suggested the scars on her face, with a heavier hand, made her eyes black as a new moon. “You have beautiful eyes.”
“May I see?”
“Of course.” I held up the drawing and she stared at it for a long moment.
“You’ve made me beautiful.”
“I have only drawn what I see.”
The servant came in with a tray of tea and cakes and settled it on an inlaid table at Channan’s elbow. The woman spoke in Punjabi, and Channan dismissed her. “Will you serve, Elsie?”
I set my book aside. “I feel you must have spent a great deal of time with the British.”
“Yes. My father wanted us all to know your manners and customs. He believed we should understand our enemy.” She smiled, taking a delicate cup.
“Like your husband,” I said.
“Exactly. They met through politics, after the Amritsar massacre.”
That had been the moment Tanveer had recognized a marriage between the two of us would never be possible if he were to accomplish the goals he’d set for his life. The memory clanged a dull gong in my chest.
“Have I said something wrong?”
“No.” I shook off the selfish memory. “I was just remembering how terrible it was.”
She leaned back, as if suddenly exhausted. “It was, indeed.”
“Shall I read, Channan? I’ve brought a novel I have found very enjoyable.”
“That would be lovely.”
So we had tea and I had cakes and I read Agatha Christie. The rains moved in hard late in the day, and I wandered back to my rooms where I sketched whatever crossed my mind—the kittens around the palace; Gurdaya in her rose-colored sari, the look of the train compartment, and Channan, fast asleep.
I had feared I might resent the woman who had married Tanveer, but instead I found in her a friend.
What a surprise she was. What a surprise all of it was.