The ritual of commemoration enveloped him, but when the formal prayers were over and he was left once more to his memories and the sharp pangs of grief they evoked, he felt an intense and urgent need to be alone. Leaving the tomb, he walked swiftly back towards the southern gateway whose white marble chattris stood out pale in the moonlight. He did not pause as the guards stood to attention but continued down to the riverbank where his barge was moored. The crew, who had not been expecting the emperor so soon, ran to lower the gilded gangplank. ‘Take me to the gardens opposite,’ he commanded.
While Mumtaz’s tomb had still been only half built, he had had his gardeners create him a mahtab bagh, a moonlight garden, planted with heavily scented night-flowering shrubs, on land directly across the Jumna from the Taj Mahal where his great-great-grandfather Babur had once laid out a pleasure ground. Now it was his private retreat where he could walk and think as he contemplated the mausoleum.
Although the barge swayed a little in the Jumna’s swirling current, Shah Jahan remained standing. As soon as the boatman nosed the prow on to the bank, he stepped ashore without waiting for the gangplank and made his way into the garden to a small marble pavilion overlooking the river. Sitting down, he leaned his back against one of the pillars and closed his eyes. The only sound was the gentle lapping of the water.
For a while his only thoughts were of Mumtaz. He would never forget the look on her face that night as she realised she was dying — or her courage in those final moments they had shared together … It sometimes seemed to him that only then, at the moment of parting, had he truly and fully understood the woman he had loved so intensely. In all their years of marriage he had taken her unconditional love for granted — drawing strength from it in the darkest of times. Her beauty and sweet temperament had sustained him like meat and drink, but had he really appreciated her selflessness and fortitude? Her final thoughts had been for him and their children. And there, perhaps, he was failing her. She had been the beating heart of their family … the one to whom their children revealed their thoughts and feelings. Empathy had come naturally to her. Why couldn’t he be the same? Sometimes he felt his children were strangers to him. Was it because his relations with his own father had become so strained? Or was the reason simply that as emperor he must necessarily become distant and preoccupied with the affairs of the empire, a father and a figurehead to his people with less time for his own offspring?
Times of crisis had united the family, of course. During the long, anxious months of Jahanara’s recovery from the fire, he had drawn comfort from the presence of his children. Yet over the years since then they had seldom all been together — not even at the annual urs for Mumtaz. As a result, how well did he really know some of them, especially his sons? Thirty-two-year-old Dara was his frequent companion, seldom absent from court, but what about Shah Shuja, a mere fifteen months younger? He had come to Agra for the urs but was clearly eager to return to his governorship of Bengal. If his behaviour in Agra these past weeks was anything to go by, it was probably because he enjoyed the freedom of being far from court — and his father — rather than because he relished responsibility or nurtured ambitions for the betterment of his province. To Shah Jahan’s critical paternal eye he remained indolent and pleasure-seeking. Yet weren’t those the usual vices that afflicted wealthy high-born young men, although they had not been his own?
Shah Jahan frowned. His third son was a greater puzzle, even if no one could accuse him of frivolity. Aurangzeb, now nearly thirty, had returned from the Deccan even more intense and self-contained, seldom sharing his thoughts although Shah Jahan suspected he had plenty. He spent hours reading or discussing religious points with members of the ulama, and praying. He ate and drank sparingly, never touching alcohol, and spending his energies honing his military skills. Such an austere, disciplined life, though hard to criticise, seemed almost unnatural in a young man. It was a pity Aurangzeb didn’t have more of Dara’s engaging manner. Both were interested in religion and philosophy but while Dara was open and curious — ever ready to debate ideas with those who disagreed with him and even to change his opinions — Aurangzeb seemed to prefer the company of those whose stern view of the world mirrored his own.
His son’s detachment — coldness even — was disconcerting. Though he found it easy to talk to Dara he never knew quite what to say to the taciturn, serious-minded Aurangzeb. Perhaps it was because he saw less of him; Aurangzeb was as eager as Shah Shuja — though probably for very different reasons — to leave Agra as soon as possible. Shah Jahan had agreed he could go. Yet on reflection it might be better for him to remain at court a while longer and learn the art of pleasing others that seemed to come more naturally to his eldest brother.
Suddenly Shah Jahan heard approaching footsteps and opened his eyes. ‘Who’s there?’
‘Only me, Father.’ He heard Jahanara’s voice, then saw her pale figure emerge from the darkness and further behind her, some soldiers. ‘I saw you leave the tomb through the women’s screen. I was worried about you.’
‘Did you come alone?’
‘Roshanara offered to accompany me but I told her there was no need. I crossed with some of my attendants and some of your guards.’
‘Ask them to withdraw to a distance. Please …’ he added, suspecting she was about to remonstrate with him.
‘But you will let me stay with you, won’t you?’
Shah Jahan hesitated, then nodded. Jahanara hurried back down the path to speak to her escort, then returned and sat down.
‘I was just thinking about you and your brothers and sisters … How things have changed since your mother died.’
‘We were so young then — Dara and I barely grown up, the rest just children.’
‘And now you are men and women and I’m getting older. When I was young time seemed to stretch out for ever — a summer was a lifetime. Now the seasons are always on the turn. Even the fruits on these trees I had planted here seem to form, ripen and fall in the blink of an eye.’
Jahanara said nothing, but drew her shawl a little closer around her as a cool breeze blew from the river.
‘Perhaps it’s time I decided where I should be buried,’ Shah Jahan continued.
‘Father, please …’
‘Why not talk about it? Death claims us all. I’ve often thought of building a tomb identical to your mother’s here in this moonlight garden but of black marble, not white. I’ve even sometimes contemplated a silver bridge to connect the two across the Jumna so that at night my soul could rise up and cross the bridge to be with her … But perhaps that would be too fantastical even for a Moghul emperor.’
Jahanara looked at him, wondering whether he was serious. It was sometimes hard to tell these days. At times he was still the pragmatic, decisive, dominating figure she remembered from her childhood, at others a whimsical melancholy seemed to cloud his mind. She had long ago found it in her heart truly to forgive — if not entirely forget — the incident in which she had been burned and over the years they had grown closer again. Now as she watched him, visibly ageing as well as mentally troubled, her eyes filled with tears. If only he could become his true self again.
‘I need your opinion, Father. I think my builders have done a good job but there is still time to make changes.’
‘I’ll come this afternoon. You should too, Aurangzeb. It’ll be your last chance to see Dara’s new mansion before you return to the Deccan.’