They had been sitting and talking for only a few minutes when two panic-stricken young maidservants rushed into the room and, without making even the usual salutation, gasped out: ‘The police – the police are here.’
They then burst into tears and became so incoherent that it was impossible to get any sense out of them.
Zainab managed to calm one of them down a little, and asked her what the police were doing.
‘They have come to take over the house,’ said the girl with a fresh bout of sobbing.
Everyone looked aghast at the wretched girl, who was wiping her eyes with her sleeve.
‘Hai, hai!’ cried an aunt in pitiable distress, and began weeping. ‘What will we do? There is no one in the house.’
Zainab, though shocked at the sudden turn of events, thought of what her mother would have done if there had been no one – that is, no men – in the house.
After she had partially recovered from the shock, she shot a few quick questions at the maidservant: ‘Where are they – the police? Are they actually in the house? What are the servants doing? And where is Murtaza Ali? Why do they want to take over the house? Munni, sit up and don’t sob. I can’t make any sense out of what you are saying.’ She shook and consoled the girl alternately.
All that Zainab could ascertain was that young Murtaza Ali, her father’s personal secretary, was standing at the far end of the lawn in front of Baitar House desperately trying to dissuade the police from carrying out their orders. The maidservant was particularly terrified because the group of policemen was headed by a Sikh officer.
‘Munni, listen,’ said Zainab. ‘I want to talk to Murtaza.’
‘But –’
‘Now go and tell Ghulam Rusool or some other manservant to tell Murtaza Ali that I want to talk to him immediately.’
Her aunts stared at her, appalled.
‘And, yes, take this note to Rusool to give to the Inspector or whoever it is who is in charge of the police. Make sure that it gets to him.’
Zainab wrote a short note in English as follows:
Dear Inspector Sahib,
My father, the Nawab of Baitar, is not at home, and since no legitimate action should be taken without intimating him first, I must ask you not to proceed further in this matter. I would like to speak to Mr Murtaza Ali, my father’s personal secretary, immediately, and request you to make him available. I would also ask you to note that this is the hour of evening prayer, and that any incursion into our ancestral house at a time when the occupants are at prayer will be deeply injurious to all people of good faith.
Sincerely,
Zainab Khan
Munni took the note and left the room, still snivelling but no longer panic-stricken. Zainab avoided her aunts’ glances, and told the other girl, who had calmed down a little as well, to make sure that Hassan and Abbas had not been woken up by the commotion. ‘
5.13
WHEN the Deputy Superintendent of Police who was in charge of the contingent that had come to take over Baitar House read the note, he flushed red, shrugged his shoulders, had a few words with the Nawab Sahib’s private secretary, and – quickly glancing at his watch – said: ‘All right, then, half an hour.’
His duty was clear and there was no getting around it, but he believed in firmness rather than brutality, and half an hour’s delay was acceptable.
Zainab had got the two young maidservants to open the doorway that led from the zenana to the mardana, and to stretch a sheet across it. Then, despite the unbelieving ‘tobas’ and other pious exclamations of her aunts, she told Munni to tell a manservant to tell Murtaza Ali to stand on the other side of it. The young man, crimson-faced with embarrassment and shame, stood close by the door which he had never imagined he would ever even approach in his lifetime.
‘Murtaza Sahib, I must apologize for your embarrassment – and my own,’ said Zainab softly in elegant and unornate Urdu. ‘I know you are a modest man and I understand your qualms. Please forgive me. I too feel I have been driven to this recourse. But this is an emergency, and I know that it will not be taken amiss.’
She unconsciously used the first person plural rather than the singular that she was used to. Both were colloquially acceptable, but since the plural was invariant with respect to gender, it defused to some small extent the tension across the geographical line that lay between the mardana and zenana quarters, the breach of which had so shocked her aunts. Besides, there was implicit in the plural a mild sense of command, and this helped set a tone that enabled the exchange not merely of embarrassment – which was unavoidable – but of information as well.
In equally cultured but slightly ornate Urdu young Murtaza Ali replied: ‘There is nothing to forgive, believe me, Begum Sahiba. I am only sorry that I was fated to be the messenger of such news.’