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‘But if it be a girl?’‘Lord of my life, it cannot be. I have prayed for so many nights, and sent gifts to Sheikh Badl’s shrine so often, that I know God will give us a son—a man-child that shall grow into a man. Think of this and be glad. My mother shall be his mother till I can take him again, and the mullah of the Pattan mosque shall cast his nativity—God send he be born in an auspicious hour!—and then, and then thou wilt never weary of me, thy slave.’ |
This is from “Without Benefit of Clergy” collected in Life’s Handicap (1891). John Holden leads a double life. To his colleagues in the civil service he is a bachelor, living in spartan bachelor quarters, and sometimes neglecting his work. But he has set up a young Muslim girl, Ameera, in a little house on the edge of the old city. She is the love of his life, and he of hers. They are idyllically happy together, and when she gives birth to a baby boy, Tota, their happiness is complete. When Tota dies of fever, they are distraught. Then Ameera is stricken with cholera and dies in Holden’s arms. He is left desolate, and the house is soon pulled down. The idyll is over as if it had never been. |
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