Now, with the Moghuls deposed as the result of a just ended rebellion, and the new Viceroy casting around for what allies he could find, it was safe to display the wealth that had so carefully been accumulated. Its lord was engaged in a program of building, a new wing finished in granite and marble, new gardens, a reflecting pool, and a new wall to enclose all of this. The balcony that he would later use to observe his daughter’s play was just being designed, then, as Gayatri remembered it well, did not look out from an opulent room on to opulent gardens, but through a much more modest window, with no glass, on a dusty road that ran all the way up to a decaying gate. Clouds of dust were raised as goods came and went, as petitioners came and went. The clouds had become thick with the comings and goings of workers, delivery of materials - that lay seemingly scattered for hundreds of yards in every direction. Traditionally the clouds had died to nothing during the great heat of the day. But now Englishmen, officials of the Raj, merchants, workers, soldiers, came and went through out the day. They seemed to take no notice of the sun. Gayatri had heard that mad dogs and englishmen went out in the noon day sun, but she had never seen a dog mad enough to do it, and rather suspected that they had more sense than that.
On this particular day, the heat had not yet arrived. And in the distance, beyond the scraggly trees, and scratchy fields - there was a great movement and an attending great cloud of dust. Gayatri stood with her father, looking out on it, and asked
“Dearest father, what is that?”
“It is a gift. An elephant, a white elephant.”
“Why such a gift?”
Her father did not even glance at her, though she could tell that he stood a bit higher, elevating himself on his toes just a fraction - he was tall, but not quite so tall as to tower over others, and had developed the habit to gain just that fraction of advantage when he wished to explain something.
“It is meant to break my back. It is meant, honestly, as a way of draining off some of the family’s wealth.”
“I do not understand.”
“Ah, this is a story that even the Englishmen know, as they know of Suttee - in an exagerated form, but with the essence correct. I must keep the elephant, and not let it work. It must be adorned and kept as a prince. It is meant to be a gift that is a weapon, so expensive as to hobble my ambitions.”
She looked upward at her father, and saw from the firm confident cast to his face that this was not what he intended to have happen.
“What shall you do?”
He chuckled softly and turned away from the window, and walked into the coolness of the room. The breeze rustled the tapestry of a tiger hunt that hung on the far wall, giving it an animation. The luridly portrayed feline was in the far corner, and seemed to ripple with energy and musculature - while the hunters in the top seemed to be almost shivering with fear, so little did they move back and forth. His personal symbol was the tiger, and the tapestry was a reminder to him. He took a deep breath inward, and reminded himself “that it must be the hunter who becomes the hunted” - his personal private motto.
“Oh, I shall keep it. And I shall construct a magnificent place for it, and for many other animals. And I shall charge the English visitors to see it, and use it to impress the officials of the Raj how I am enlightened - by which they really mean Englightened - and scientific. All this by keeping for study, at my expense, the exotic animals of In-dya -” using an exagerated sounding of the syllables on that word “for zoological purposes. In this way I shall gain at least sufficent money for the elephant’s upkeep, and far more prestige than whatever small deficit that remains could possibly buy on the open market.”
She looked at her father - she could see herself in her minds eye, as she had spent many hours looking in a mirror, wondering when she would be grown - her later beauty was flowering in her face, with eyes that were still wide and childish, but with the rest of her face catching up, and assuming the cast of womanhood. She admired his skill, and wanted ever so much to possess it, and be in every way equal to the boy that her mother had told her every day she should have been.
“That is the lesson my little swan, always make use of gifts, and always give gifts that will come back to you.”
She pondered this for a moment, he had paused to give her that space to ponder, and then continued.
“On that note, what should we give your mother-in-law as a gift.”
Gayatri took the words a bit too literally, and spoke perhaps a little too quickly. The air that came in was cool, but tinged with the comfort of early air, before it would become oppressive and hot.
“Dearest father, we should give her a gift of fine paper, I’ve heard it called vellum, for writing letters.” The word had appealed to her when she had seen it in a book. She did not know what it meant.
He smiled. “Good, but not quite enough. We should give her an English style desk, and an English style set of inks and quills, and vellum stationery, force her to act all of a piece. Now, why do you think I approve?”
Gayatri thought “Well first, it will be a pleasure to receive letters on such fine paper.”
“Yes, that is why I like the idea, but not why I approve of it.”
Gayatri thought, and the whiteness of paper made her think of the elephant, at which point she reasoned the puzzle out.
“Because, once she has started sending correspondence on such paper, she will have to do so always, because otherwise everyone will think she has become poorer. “
“Exactly. Now why the whole set?”
“To make it so that everyone knows. It will be seen in the house, it will be an object of pride for her, but also an anchor to a ship, she cannot later fail to follow through.” She had, at the time underestimated the determination of a dowager who smells gold, and the resiliance of one who has a challenge thrown down before her, but her father had not.
“Well done my swan. Well done.”
He turned and looked at that face, which held so many memories of her mother, but so many marks of himself. She would be horrified at the creature she was becoming - assertive, wily, self-controlled. She would also be proud, for having chafed at the strictures that this time and place put upon her, she had dreamt of how to overcome them. But she could not see how, and had spent many long days crying in bed, away from the world - while he would return at night and comfort her by reading poetry and bringing her flowers, and telling her how she was the most precious thing in the world. Which was almost true - Gayatri had, from her birth, been the most precious thing in the world to him. It was moments like this which confirmed it.
He smiled. “Good, let it be so.”
- And so it was done, and she came bearing such gifts with her when she went to live in her husband’s house, each chosen in the same way. What she had not known, for her father had not told her, was that vellum was made of animal hide - it would not fall apart in weather or water, and it was immediately distinguishable by touch. It was also very expensive. As a result, her mother in law had used it quite sparingly, fearing to have to replace it. But it meant that every word she ever sent to the lord himself was preserved away, every word she had sent to her most important agents was preserved. This was invaluable because Gayatri’s father carefully procured the letters the old woman sent to her supposedly secret captains, filled with plots and secret instructions, and he hid them quite away.
At that moment, Gayatri remembered staring at the black and white inlay on the floor, which is something she knew she had not done at that moment, because the inlay was in a room that was not yet finished.