Holder of the World - Bharati Mukherjee [51]
“I do not know of their beauty,” replied Martha Ruxton. Martha boasted that she had never scrutinized a young Indian man’s or woman’s face. Too close an inspection, she felt, might engender uncharitable thoughts.
“Have you never really looked at Bhagmati?” Hannah persisted. “Do you find her beautiful?”
“It was all right for a bachelor like the late Mr. Hedges to hire that maid,” Sarah answered for Martha. “In my household she would be inappropriate.”
Martha Ruxton’s instructions and Sarah Higginbottham’s confessions stunned Hannah. These women, the only women she could call friends here, accepted cups of tea and biscuits from Bhagmati without seeing her. Bhagmati was invisible to the women of White Town. This explained why Martha knew—and refused to know—that her husband, the good doctor, had a sizable family from his bibi, accumulated over the years. Some of his children were ten and twelve, and already married. Little mongrel curs, Gabriel had joked to Hannah, whom the doctor shooed away from his compound with a cane.
Martha’s teaching was indirect. Black bibis know their place, so a wife’s safety lies in assigning them a place that is harmless. Perverse pleasures could be demanded of them and satisfied without harm to anybody. Accommodation was synonymous with expatriate femininity. Mating happened fast on peninsulas at the world’s edge. These bibis had only a few months in them—they didn’t retain their desirability through the years like Englishwomen. The swift deterioration of their charms had to do with the flora and fauna surrounding them, with their spicy diets and gaudy garments, with their summer-scorched, monsoon-drenched climate. India heated up the senses. Every glance and nod smoldered into overtures of carnality. Men and women succumbed to primordial impulses. And when instinct subsided, sober single Englishmen and women tied the knot; adulterous Englishmen and women stalked their prey.
Sarah the realist’s lesson was dour. Her lesson had to do with the unpleasant inescapability of death in the tropics. No one could say if he or she would be alive next week. India was a permanent plague, and the possibility of death sharpened everyone’s drives.
“And did the late Mr. Hedges have a bibi?” Hannah asked in all innocence.
Martha Ruxton bowed her head. “Mr. Hedges’ acumen was doubted on—”
Sarah Higginbotham objected. “His reputation was impeccable.”
“But in the matter of furniture? In the matter of finery? In such matters was his acumen not—”
“I heard it said that Mr. Hedges had been a voluptuary,” Sarah conceded.
“But not in the carnal sense,” Martha added.
Hannah asked, “What other sense is there?”
“When you have been here longer, you will not have to ask. There are as many occasions for sin as there are birds in the trees. Or trees in the jungle. Or monkeys—”
“A voluptuary,” said Sarah, “according to my husband, is a man distracted from the Company’s business by the lure of personal pleasure.”
“Look about you.” Martha laughed. “Is this dwelling not popish?”
“Mr. Higginbottham likens this dwelling to the Sun King’s summer palace.” Then Sarah grew suddenly serious, reaching out to clasp Hannah’s hand. “I should not wish to live here, not if Mr. Higginbottham were away as much as Mr. Legge appears to be.”
Martha dropped her voice. “This house is said to have hauntings. Tell me, do you hear a gentleman’s feet on the roof? He is not an Englishman. Many have seen a gentleman in Mughal robes smoke his huqqa and pace