The prince had somehow found his way on to the laps of the queens and was now being cuddled, patted and stroked by three of them while the two giggling girls stood apart, looking on. There was a whole chorus of discordant chattering in progress. Before long, the boy had been convinced to take his former place again. The Maharani shushed loudly for silence, then appeared to speak harsh words to no one in particular in her camp, followed by words directed at Prince Krishna.
The boy began singing again, Jane Fearfield tried to hide her snorting by pretending to sniff into her handkerchief in the most unbecoming manner, while Miss Gilby gave up all attempts to decipher which English song it was this time. Iris Shepherd leaned sideways and rudely whispered, ‘Little Star, Little Star’.
Yes, so it was. At the line ‘In the pretty sky so blue’, which the prince managed to leave relatively unmangled, Miss Gilby realized the truth of Iris Shepherd’s recognition. The boy reached the ascendant — ‘Little Star! O tell me, pray / Where you hide yourself all day’, Miss Gilby giving the words their proper enunciation in her head — when he stopped, gulped, repeated ‘O tell me, pray’ three times, stopped again, cast around pathetic glances, looked at the floor, took a deep breath and started the song from the beginning again.
He had forgotten the rest of the song.
This time, he reached ‘In the pretty sky so blue’ and slipped; he was progressively forgetting more and more of the song. His voice had a tremor in it somewhere and the harder he tried to swallow it the more it defeated him. Then Miss Gilby noticed his lower lip quivering, his chin wobbling: the inevitable was about to happen. The boy rushed away, wrapped himself around his ayah’s legs and started sobbing. Then, to the courteous minds of the English, the inconceivable happened: a roar of derisive laughter went up in the Indian camp accompanied by what appeared to be the native version of booing and catcalls. Miss Gilby was shocked by this naked display of cruelty. Iris Shepherd stood up in outrage and was evidently composing herself to say something and protest at this bad behaviour. Miss Gilby stood up too. The two girls who had been tittering and giggling earlier were now unimpeded in their laughing triumph.
But before either Miss Gilby or Iris Shepherd could bring themselves to voice their concern, the Maharani and two older women decided to take things in hand: they chided the girls, shouted at the mocking women, demanded silence, even compassion and understanding for the hapless boy, and eventually imposed some semblance of order.
Miss Gilby spoke out. ‘We are delighted at the prince’s performance. And surprised, too. Well done, young man. It was very. . brave.’ She started applauding. Iris Shepherd and Jane Fearfield joined in with such vigour that after an embarrassing lag some of the Indian women joined in too, drowning out the translation the interpreter was trotting out. There was entreaty for the boy to be brought to them. The ayah pushed him in their direction but the prince clung to her legs. She bent down, whisperedafew wordsinhis ear,even pointedto the English ladies and pushed him again. This time he ran across, his head held firmly down, ran straight into the Maharani’s gold- and jewel-encrusted bosom, buried his head there and refused to budge. The Maharani kissed and coddled him, spoke words in his ear, and passed him around to the other women who all did the same.
At a sharpish rasp of words from one of the queens, the ayah too went up to the royal enclosure, gathered up the now puzzled prince and departed, keeping to the shadows at the edge of the room.
Another long silence ensued.
One of the girls said something out loud at which most of the other women tittered and laughed.
The interpreter’s voice droned, ‘They ask why you have arms which are being so white they look uncooked and what are the funny things on your head.’
In the silence after his words something beyond language passed like an invisible electric current between the three points of contact. Both Indian and British camps realized that the interpreter had translated words that were meant to be private and each was waiting for the other side to react.
The seconds ticked away, each one seemed of far longer duration than normal. Then Miss Gilby held her head up, laughed, and said, ‘These are hats.’
TWO
Gavin tries to be dismissive every time Ritwik tells him about his life in Calcutta. Ritwik supposes it is posturing on his part, an attempt to appear cool and unfazed by what he hears. Perhaps that is as it should be. Besides, Ritwik doesn’t really tell him everything, only bits here and there; there are a lot of things he elides, mostly out of a sense of shame and embarrassment. He hopes Gavin isn’t going to ask him searching questions which would lead to all those things he passes over in silence. Sometimes he is not so lucky.
‘Why did they send you to that Catholic school?’ he asks one day, after Ritwik tells him about the time Shivaji Jana was beaten up so badly by Miss Lewis, in junior school, that he had a ‘dislocated kidney’. Ritwik heard that Shivaji’s father had been in to see the Principal, not to complain or rage, but just to say that his son wouldn’t be attending that school any more. Ashoke’s mother had seen him come out of Father Paul’s office. He had gone up to her and suddenly started sobbing like a little child. ‘My only son, he’s in hospital, Mrs Biswas,’ he had said between sobs, and shuffled out.
‘It had a great reputation,’ Ritwik answers.
Gavin snorts. ‘For general buggery and torture! Jeee-sus!’ Ritwik notices he says ‘Sheeesus.’
‘No, no, it was a good school. English-medium, as we call it in India. That alone raises it to the first bracket. The education was top quality. These things run solely on reputation, you know. By the time the negative things start making a general mark on public consciousness, the school will have done twenty more years of brisk business.’
Gavin rolls his eyes, as if it were Ritwik’s fault somehow that he went to Don Bosco School in Park Circus, Calcutta. ‘Did no one complain?’ he asks, starting to roll a joint.
‘You couldn’t. They were too powerful. Anyone whose parents complained would be victimized by the teachers. He would eventually have to leave. Anyway, for every complaint, there would be fifty endorsements from the brown-nose lobby of parents. Or plain scared parents. They didn’t want to risk their boys’ well-being or even their place in a school of such repute by supporting complaints.’ He suddenly feels a wave of fury at this remembered powerlessness.
‘God, the Catholics,’ Gavin says, with another of his exasperated looks. ‘They are the bloody same everywhere. They are a disease.’
‘Also, there were sons of police commissioners, businessmen, ministers in the school,’ Ritwik continues. ‘Those powerful men would have protected the school from any slur.’
The joint is ready. They stand near the window of Gavin’s shoebox room and exhale outside. At least Ritwik’s room looks out onto gardens and a giant horse chestnut. Gavin’s fronts a square of brutalist student blocks built in the sixties. There isn’t a thread of green anywhere in sight.
For a few minutes, they are quiet. Gavin instinctively understands this culture of microcorruption and vested interests. ‘It’s the same in my country,’ he says.
‘They were a subset of Catholics,’ Ritwik tells Gavin. ‘Salesians.’
‘You mean like Jesuits?’ Gavin asks.
‘Followers of Francis de la Sale. The school’s foundation wisdom was “Give me a boy and I’ll give you a man.”’