A Passage to India · Part II · Chapter 22 (2/2)

“I shall attend your marriage, but not your trial,” she informed them, tapping her knee; she had become very restless, and rather ungraceful. “Then I shall go to England.”

“You can’t go to England in May, as you agreed.”

“I have changed my mind.”

“Well, we’d better end this unexpected wrangle,” said the young man, striding about. “You appear to want to be left out of everything, and that’s enough.”

“My body, my miserable body,” she sighed. “Why isn’t it strong? Oh, why can’t I walk away and be gone? Why can’t I finish my duties and be gone? Why do I get headaches and puff when I walk? And all the time this to do and that to do and this to do in your way and that to do in her way, and everything sympathy and confusion and bearing one another’s burdens. Why can’t this be done and that be done in my way and they be done and I at peace? Why has anything to be done, I cannot see. Why all this marriage, marriage?⁠ ⁠… The human race would have become a single person centuries ago if marriage was any use. And all this rubbish about love, love in a church, love in a cave, as if there is the least difference, and I held up from my business over such trifles!”

“What do you want?” he said, exasperated. “Can you state it in simple language? If so, do.”

“I want my pack of patience cards.”

“Very well, get them.”

He found, as he expected, that the poor girl was crying. And, as always, an Indian close outside the window, a mali in this case, picking up sounds. Much upset, he sat silent for a moment, thinking over his mother and her senile intrusions. He wished he had never asked her to visit India, or become under any obligation to her.

“Well, my dear girl, this isn’t much of a homecoming,” he said at last. “I had no idea she had this up her sleeve.”

Adela had stopped crying. An extraordinary expression was on her face, half relief, half horror. She repeated, “Aziz, Aziz.”

They all avoided mentioning that name. It had become synonymous with the power of evil. He was “the prisoner,” “the person in question,” “the defence,” and the sound of it now rang out like the first note of new symphony.

“Aziz⁠ ⁠… have I made a mistake?”

“You’re overtired,” he cried, not much surprised.

“Ronny, he’s innocent; I made an awful mistake.”

“Well, sit down anyhow.” He looked round the room, but only two sparrows were chasing one another. She obeyed and took hold of his hand. He stroked it and she smiled, and gasped as if she had risen to the surface of the water, then touched her ear.

“My echo’s better.”

“That’s good. You’ll be perfectly well in a few days, but you must save yourself up for the trial. Das is a very good fellow, we shall all be with you.”

“But Ronny, dear Ronny, perhaps there oughtn’t to be any trial.”

“I don’t quite know what you’re saying, and I don’t think you do.”

“If Dr. Aziz never did it he ought to be let out.”

A shiver like impending death passed over Ronny. He said hurriedly, “He was let out⁠—until the Mohurram riot, when he had to be put in again.” To divert her, he told her the story, which was held to be amusing. Nureddin had stolen the Nawab Bahadur’s car and driven Aziz into a ditch in the dark. Both of them had fallen out, and Nureddin had cut his face open. Their wailing had been drowned by the cries of the faithful, and it was quite a time before they were rescued by the police. Nureddin was taken to the Minto Hospital, Aziz restored to prison, with an additional charge against him of disturbing the public peace. “Half a minute,” he remarked when the anecdote was over, and went to the telephone to ask Callendar to look in as soon as he found it convenient, because she hadn’t borne the journey well.

When he returned, she was in a nervous crisis, but it took a different form⁠—she clung to him, and sobbed, “Help me to do what I ought. Aziz is good. You heard your mother say so.”

“Heard what?”

“He’s good; I’ve been so wrong to accuse him.”

“Mother never said so.”

“Didn’t she?” she asked, quite reasonable, open to every suggestion anyway.

“She never mentioned that name once.”

“But, Ronny, I heard her.”

“Pure illusion. You can’t be quite well, can you, to make up a thing like that.”

“I suppose I can’t. How amazing of me!”

“I was listening to all she said, as far as it could be listened to; she gets very incoherent.”

“When her voice dropped she said it⁠—towards the end, when she talked about love⁠—love⁠—I couldn’t follow, but just then she said: ‘Doctor Aziz never did it.’ ”

“Those words?”

“The idea more than the words.”

“Never, never, my dear girl. Complete illusion. His name was not mentioned by anyone. Look here⁠—you are confusing this with Fielding’s letter.”

“That’s it, that’s it,” she cried, greatly relieved. “I knew I’d heard his name somewhere. I am so grateful to you for clearing this up⁠—it’s the sort of mistake that worries me, and proves I’m neurotic.”

“So you won’t go saying he’s innocent again, will you? for every servant I’ve got is a spy.” He went to the window. The mali had gone, or rather had turned into two small children⁠—impossible they should know English, but he sent them packing. “They all hate us,” he explained. “It’ll be all right after the verdict, for I will say this for them, they do accept the accomplished fact; but at present they’re pouring out money like water to catch us tripping, and a remark like yours is the very thing they look out for. It would enable them to say it was a put-up job on the part of us officials. You see what I mean.”

Mrs. Moore came back, with the same air of ill-temper, and sat down with a flump by the card-table. To clear the confusion up, Ronny asked her point-blank whether she had mentioned the prisoner. She could not understand the question and the reason of it had to be explained. She replied: “I never said his name,” and began to play patience.

“I thought you said, ‘Aziz is an innocent man,’ but it was in Mr. Fielding’s letter.”

“Of course he is innocent,” she answered indifferently: it was the first time she had expressed an opinion on the point.

“You see, Ronny, I was right,” said the girl.

“You were not right, she never said it.”

“But she thinks it.”

“Who cares what she thinks?”

“Red nine on black ten⁠—” from the card-table.

“She can think, and Fielding too, but there’s such a thing as evidence, I suppose.”

“I know, but⁠—”

“Is it again my duty to talk?” asked Mrs. Moore, looking up. “Apparently, as you keep interrupting me.”

“Only if you have anything sensible to say.”

“Oh, how tedious⁠ ⁠… trivial⁠ ⁠…” and as when she had scoffed at love, love, love, her mind seemed to move towards them from a great distance and out of darkness. “Oh, why is everything still my duty? when shall I be free from your fuss? Was he in the cave and were you in the cave and on and on⁠ ⁠… and Unto us a Son is born, unto us a Child is given⁠ ⁠… and am I good and is he bad and are we saved?⁠ ⁠… and ending everything the echo.”

“I don’t hear it so much,” said Adela, moving towards her. “You send it away, you do nothing but good, you are so good.”

“I am not good, no, bad.” She spoke more calmly and resumed her cards, saying as she turned them up, “A bad old woman, bad, bad, detestable. I used to be good with the children growing up, also I meet this young man in his mosque, I wanted him to be happy. Good, happy, small people. They do not exist, they were a dream.⁠ ⁠… But I will not help you to torture him for what he never did. There are different ways of evil and I prefer mine to yours.”

“Have you any evidence in the prisoner’s favour?” said Ronny in the tones of the just official. “If so, it is your bounden duty to go into the witness-box for him instead of for us. No one will stop you.”

“One knows people’s characters, as you call them,” she retorted disdainfully, as if she really knew more than character but could not impart it. “I have heard both English and Indians speak well of him, and I felt it isn’t the sort of thing he would do.”

“Feeble, mother, feeble.”

“Most feeble.”

“And most inconsiderate to Adela.”

Adela said: “It would be so appalling if I was wrong. I should take my own life.”

He turned on her with: “What was I warning you just now? You know you’re right, and the whole station knows it.”

“Yes, he⁠ ⁠… This is very, very awful. I’m as certain as ever he followed me⁠ ⁠… only, wouldn’t it be possible to withdraw the case? I dread the idea of giving evidence more and more, and you are all so good to women here and you have so much more power than in England⁠—look at Miss Derek’s motorcar. Oh, of course it’s out of the question, I’m ashamed to have mentioned it; please forgive me.”

“That’s all right,” he said inadequately. “Of course I forgive you, as you call it. But the case has to come before a magistrate now; it really must, the machinery has started.”

“She has started the machinery; it will work to its end.”

Adela inclined towards tears in consequence of this unkind remark, and Ronny picked up the list of steamship sailings with an excellent notion in his head. His mother ought to leave India at once: she was doing no good to herself or to anyone else there.