Page 110 of A Thousand Painted Hours

Tanveer

Weddings and Pyramids

1920–24

England and Cairo

—57—

For several years after the war, parts of me were so crushed that I could not find my painterly voice. In the shed at Nina’s, I painted my memories but more as sketches of all that was lost than works of finished art. I piled them up, canvas after canvas of small domestic things I was unwilling to show the world. My confidence disappeared. I was adrift and unhappy and drinking in the evenings with our small band of survivors. We all drank too much. Our souls had been twisted and tortured, and we took refuge in gin while we desultorily played backgammon and rummy and bezique.

It was during those long winter evenings in ’20 and ’21 that Peter and I became friends. He, too, had suffered badly in the war, as a prisoner of war in the desert, but he’d found a place in the diplomatic corps with Jonathan, and often accompanied him down from London at the weekend, sometimes with one or two others from the office. Rations had ceased, so we poured too much sugar into our tea and feasted on decadent cakes.

Or more truthfully, we pretended to feast, just as we pretended to return to ordinary days.

August 8, 1922

Talwarpur Palace

[In Urdu]

Dear Elsie,

I have important news to share. My pen hovers over the page, as I know how hard this will land with you, but there is no other way to say it:

I am to be married. My bride shall bring a dowry to replenish the starved coffers of Talwarpur, and, of course, that is much required. She is the daughter of a local raja with far more land than we enjoy, and the savvy to manage it. We share a view of the future, and our unity will be politically smart. At another time, she would have been a brilliant catch, and I could not have hoped to negotiate a marriage to her, for she was much in demand.

Two years ago, she was attacked by robbers on the way to Lahore. Her servants were killed, and she was brutally beaten, then left by the side of the road. Her health understandably has suffered, and her injuries left her unmarriageable. She is quite intelligent and well educated, and has a clever sense of humor.

I do not marry her out of pity, but out of a need to make an alliance with someone I can trust to be honest, and with whom I can be entirely myself. I have been as honest with her as I am able, Elsie, about our long friendship. I have not told her everything, of course, for that is our private treasure, and I shall keep it for my own.

It was always going to come to this. I am grateful for your wisdom in this matter, but I also pray thatyou do not desert this good friendship between us, for I do not know how I would live without it.

Your friend eternally,

Tanveer

Although I had known it was coming, I was utterly crushed by the news of Tanveer’s marriage. In some bizarre twist of alliances, the only person I wished to share my grief with was Tanveer himself, which, of course, was impossible.

Instead, I walked endlessly, for miles and miles on the public footpaths that looped across the entire countryside. I wept and walked and walked and cursed. I was raw and exhausted, completely dependent upon Nina for a roof over my head. Peter and I gave each other comfort at times, sex halting for an hour the darkness of both our memories. He was a surprisingly skilled and imaginative lover, and the pleasure gave me a kind of hope I hadn’t anticipated.

Peter first phrased his proposals with that in mind, mutual solace and pleasure, as well as a path out of my dilemma. I refused, for months. What could he possibly gain from such a match?

After a time, he changed his suit, saying he would happily gain a beautiful wife for the enjoyment of seeing me paint and find myself again.

I was by then nearly twenty-seven. The only man I’d wanted was married to another woman. In another era, I would have been declared a spinster, but there were so few men and so many women my age that the usual shame associated with that status had been nullified.

It was a desire for children that swayed me in the end, and a desire to see to the support of my mother, who’d also been left penniless with my brother’s death. I wanted shelter, craved hope, for both of us.

And yet, I feared he would mistake my motives. “You know I don’t love you.”

“I know. I like to think you might over time.”

“What if I don’t?”

He laughed. “Well, then, we’ll just be another British couple, making do.”

In the end, he was given a posting to Cairo. He made one last bid for marriage, offering me studio space wherever we lived, and full support of my mother.