The Museum of Final Journeys_ A Novella - Anita Desai [7]
At this he first closed his eyes as if in weariness, then opened them wide with a radiant gaze, and cried out, 'Sir, this is my dearest wish! Come, please come and visit us, advise me what to do! I am old now, as you see, and I do not know what will become of it once I am gone. Already people—visitors, perhaps even members of our own staff who have learned there are no guards, no security—have been removing some small objects. I have myself seen these things appearing in markets here and there. The only way open to me to keep it intact is to request the government, the sarkar, take it over and maintain it. If you come and see it for yourself, you will see how great the need is for security and support. Without it—' He broke off, as if the alternative was unthinkable, and mopped his face with a cloth he withdrew from his pocket.
But was there no alternative? Did the errant son not return to his ancestral property? What of Srimati Sarita Devi, his mother? What were her wishes in the matter? I tried to probetactfully.
'Sir,' the unhappy man confessed, 'she left us with no instructions.'
This seemed vague to me. Had she died and 'left for her heavenly abode' as they say in the classified columns of our newspapers? Or moved out of the museum/mausoleum and left it to him? He seemed strangely unwilling to say. He had come to the end of his narrative and had, he seemed to indicate, no more to say. 'The collection' was all that was left at the end of it.
My own enthusiasm came to an abrupt halt as if it had met with an obstruction, a speed break. I began to see only too well the tangle of legal problems ahead. Not at all what I had imagined, although I should have done so. I felt let down by the realisation that it all came down to practicalities, legal and administrative. Just as if I hadn't had my fill of these. While others dreamt dreams and lived lives of imagination and adventure, my role was only to take care of the mess left by them.
My curiosity about the museum and my desire to see it were quickly evaporating. But, if they afforded me a break from the daily routine of office and courtroom in this oppressively limited outpost, why not accept? I told him I would have my driver bring me, asked for directions, and found a suitable date. His gratitude made him practically bow before me—a display of obsequiousness that was more than I could bear. I turned my head and went in to my dinner, leaving him to find his own way out.
I should have known better than to expect some miraculous Xanadu. As my jeep bumped and bounced its way along the mudbank that passed for a road between flattened fields of stubble with only an occasional coconut tree or grove of bananas beside a stagnant pond to break the monotony of a landscape bleached of colour, my expectations dwindled and sobered. The last stretch ended at what no doubt had been an imposing gateway, but now consisted of two pillars of brick with parasitic trees growing out of the cracks, and only some rusty hinges left to show where the wrought-iron gates had hung.
Ahead of us lay what had probably been the driveway but was now a grassy field in which a few skeletal cows grazed, watched over by a cowherd with a staff. He stood with one foot resting against the knee of the other leg like a flamingo blackened by the sun. His face did register some astonishment at seeing a motor vehicle make its way over the hummocky grass, but other than that he made no acknowledgement of our intrusion. And the cows merely switched their tails and flicked their ears at our passing and a few cattle egrets took off from their flanks with lazy flaps of their wings.
Having traversed the length of the field we came to what had to be 'the palace' I had come to see. What did I expect? There was a broad flight of stairs with grass growing between the flagstones, and beyond it the mournful remains of what I had been assured was once