Equality: In the Year 2000

Chapter Thirteen The Year 1949

The nightmare was not a new one. It was as vivid as any of the others, though not so upsetting as the war dreams.

The event which came back to him had taken place when he was about fifteen, a teenager. His parents had died in the racing crash only the year before, and his uncle, who had taken over the raising of the heir to the West Enterprises fortune, had suggested a world cruise to take his mind off the tragedy.

The luxury cruise ship had traveled east from New York, and the early weeks of the trip weren’t of particular interest to the young Julian. He had been to Europe many times, many times he had sailed in the Mediterranean. However, once they passed through the Suez Canal and entered the Red Sea, he was in new territory. From Aden, at that time as British as Gibraltar, they had taken off across the Arabian Sea for Bombay, their first Indian port.

He took one of the passenger launches from the ship to the harbor landing before the Gateway to India.

He sat in the bow looking at the harbor with its myriad strange-looking craft. He had never seen lateen sails before, let alone outriggers. The vessels were a study in contrasts, ranging from such ultra-modern ships as their own Scandinavian steamer, to Arab dhows. The guide who had accompanied them from the ship to show them the city, explained that the dhows sailed all the way from Africa, during the monsoon season, and had been doing so since before the days of the Roman Empire.

Julian was one of the first off the launch. As a result, he was the first to be accosted by the beggars. There were at least a dozen of them, barefoot, ragged, dirty; the women all had at least one child, usually naked. Julian winced, being a sensitive boy at this point in his life, but he hadn’t as yet changed any money and carried only traveller’s checks. He had never seem a grimier lot, all thin to the point of emaciation.

He made his way through them as best he could, by looking up at the massive edifice, the Gateway of India, a Victorian arch of stone. The guide was saying that it served as a place of reception on important ceremonial occasions.

Leaving the others, Julian made his way through the arch to the large square beyond. There were more beggars here, each more ragged and dirty than the last. He looked about and spotted what appeared to be a police officer: a tall, handsome man with a thick black beard which was gathered up in a little net, and a white turban. He was in uniform and carried a swagger stick. He wore an iron-handled knife at his belt and an iron bangle on his left wrist. Julian was to find out later that the man was a Sikh.

He approached and said, “I beg your pardon. Could you direct me to the Taj Mahal Hotel?”

The other touched his turban in an easygoing salute, and pointed. “That is the Taj, right over there, sir.”

It was only a few hundred yards away, and as Julian walked toward it he could see that it was a large building, undoubtedly built in the old Victorian days of the Empire. It reminded him of a Gothic British railway station. There were two turbaned men at the door. One of them opened it at Julian’s approach, bowing in servile fashion.

The reception hall beyond was as one might have expected from the exterior, and Julian could have been in one of the older London hotels had it not been for the fact that all of the employees wore white turbans and had very dark complexions.

He went to the desk, receiving another servile bow, and said, “I wish to see Edward Fitz-James.”

“Yes, sir. Sir Edward is not in his suite, sir. Only a few minutes ago I saw him ascend to the lounge on the second floor.” The clerk indicated a large, red-carpeted stairway.

“Thank you,” Julian said, evidently somewhat to the man’s surprise.

He ascended the stairs and found another turbaned Indian at its head. There seemed to be a multitude of employees in this hotel.

“Could you point out Edward Fitz-James to me, please?”

The other blinked at the please, bowed and said, “That is Sir Edward over there at the small table near the window, sahib.”

Sir Edward, yet. Julian hadn’t known the man he was seeking held a title. Fitz-James had once had business dealings with his father, and had become somewhat of a friend of the Wild Wests. Julian had been given an introduction by his uncle, who had evidently either written or cabled ahead, since Julian had received a radiogram arranging for a get-together.

Julian approached and asked politely, “Sir Edward Fitz-James?” The man who looked up at him stiffly was a stereotype of the bluff Britisher: possibly fifty-five, maybe thirty pounds overweight, too red in the face, with a toothbrush mustache. He wore white shorts to the knee, a white shirt, heavy walking shoes and white woolen socks almost up to the knee.

He stood up. “You must be Julian West, I wouldn’t wonder. Resemble your father a bit.” He put out a beefy hand to shake and said, “Do sit down, dear boy.”

“Thank you, sir,” Julian said, and took an overstuffed leather chair across from the Englishman.

Sir Edward said jovially, “I say, if you walked over from the gate, you must already be bloody hot. Terrible climate here, isn’t it? Do have a lime squash.”

Then Julian noticed that he had a tall glass before him, well frosted, which contained a slightly greenish beverage. He turned and snapped his fingers imperiously at the nearest Indian, who hurried over.

“Another lime squash,” Sir Edward commanded. “And put a move into it.”

“Yes, Sir Edward,” the man said and hurried away.

“Beggars are slow as turtles,” the Britisher commented in a voice loud enough to carry to the man and half the other waiters in the lounge. “You have to learn the drill here. Keep the niggers in their place, don’t you know?”

Julian couldn’t think of anything to say to that so he kept his peace. He found the other a bit on the overwhelming side.

“Read about your father and mother,” Sir Edward said. He puffed out his cheeks in what he probably thought was an expression of sympathy. “Bloody shame. Charming chap, your father. Mother a beautiful woman. One of the most vivacious women I’ve met, I wouldn’t wonder.”

“Thank you, sir. My uncle Albert said that you used to race with father, on the Riviera.”

“Jolly well told. Never forget the first time I saw him. Just brought in a Jaguar, a quarter mile ahead of his nearest opponent. I thought to meself, now there’s a sharp chap. Before the day was out we made friends.”

Julian’s lime squash had come. He lifted it up.

Sir Edward said, raising his own glass in a toast, “All the best, dear boy.”

What was the British toast? “Cheers, sir.” He tried the drink and found it to be possibly the best soft drink he’d ever had. It was something like lemonade, except that it had soda in it rather than water, and, of course, it was made with limes not lemons.

Sir Edward grimaced. “Could use a spot of gin. Bloody beggars have prohibition now. Damned nuisance.”

Julian said carefully, almost apologetically, “If you don’t like it here, sir, why do you remain?”

Sir Edward grunted his equivalent of a laugh. “No use mucking around with the answer to that, dear boy. This is where the action is, as you Yankees say. When the Indians gained their bloody independence, His Majesty’s governmental officials returned to England, don’t you know? But we British businessmen didn’t. We stayed on. In fact, there are more English in India today than during the days of the Raj.”

He looked at his watch. “But, I say, suppose we mosey along and see a bit of the town? Bit interesting for you, I wouldn’t wonder. First trip to India and all that rot.”

They left the hotel and started up Colaba Road. Even in this Europeanized area, Julian couldn’t help but note the teeming multitudes of Indians. He had never seen such diversity of colorful costume.

“Bloody mess of the bounders, eh?” the Englishman said. “Pushing half a billion in all. More than four million in Bombay alone, I shouldn’t wonder. Jolly well too many of them. I’d jolly well like to go through the countryside and sterilize every other male, don’t you know?”

Julian said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so crowded except Times Square on New Year’s Eve.”

They had turned up Mahatma Gandhi Road.

“Son of a bitch, as you Yankees say,” Sir Edward commented about Gandhi. “Caused us ever so much trouble, but I suppose you can’t hold it against a chap for trying to get his own way, now can you?”

“I suppose not,” Julian said. “They certainly do have a great many different styles of clothes, don’t they?”

The Englishman turned guide. “Way you can tell the bloody bounders apart,” he said. “’See that one over there? The better dressed one? That’s a Brahman.” He sneered. “The nigger equivalent of an aristocrat. They wear a sacred thread over one shoulder and have a mark of one of the Hindu gods chalked on their forehead, rising from the bridge of the nose like two thin white horns. That’s one of the marks of Vishnu, the Preserver. Ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“What kind is that one?”

“Moslem. You can usually tell them from a Hindu because they wear a black fur cap. She’s a Moslem too. They wear that enveloping chadar or burqa. Looks like an animated tent, don’t you think?”

Most of the women, other than the occasional European, wore what Julian knew was called a sari, but there were a double score of styles.

“That’s a Bengali,” Sir Edward said. “He’s wearing what they call the dhoti. All-purpose white garment. Sometimes it hangs almost to the ground like a sarong, or sometimes they tuck it up like that chap, like a loincloth. Sometimes the bounders wear a waistcoat with it, sometimes a shirt with the tails flopping outside. Silly-looking bunch of monkeys, don’t you think?”

A girl whom Julian would have thought no more than ten years of age came alongside and clawed at his arm. In spite of her age, she was carrying a baby. She was grubby, barefoot, and wore a single dirty rag.

She whined, “No mama, no papa. Hungry, hungry, hungry. Money, money, money.”

Julian stared at her, even as they continued to walk.

“Ignore the bloody little bitch,” Sir Edward commanded.

“But she looks like she’s half starving,” Julian said.

“Jolly well be better if she did, you know. Professional. Whole caste of them here in India. Parents were beggars, grandparents, all the way back to the days of Alexander the Great or whoever, don’t you know? See that baby? She probably rented it this morning.”

The child was still tagging along with her burden. “No mama, no papa…” Julian was embarrassed, and looked out of the side of his eyes to see how the passersby were taking the scene.

“Rented it?” he said.

“Why, yes. And sometimes beggar parents take their children and maim them. Twist their legs or arms around, blind them, or whatever, to gain sympathy. Bloody heathens.”

Julian felt slightly nauseated at the idea. He had changed a twenty-dollar traveler’s check at the hotel, and now had a pocketful of rupees and naye paise. He had gotten nearly five rupees to the dollar, to the Englishman’s disgust, and had been informed that on the black market, which Sir Edward offered to direct him to, he could have gotten half again as much. Julian had told him that it wasn’t important.

But, at any rate, he was now in a position to give the ten-year-old a coin or so.

Sir Edward snickered. “You think she is starving? Look at that gold ring in her ear. She’s a professional beggar, specializing in we whites. Some of the other beggars specialize in pilgrims and hang around the temples. Supposedly, the pilgrims gain merit in the eyes of the gods by giving to them. And they usually give one naye paise, about one twentieth of one of your Yankee cents.”

The child beggar followed them at least three or four blocks. In spite of his embarrassment, Julian continued to ignore her. After she dropped away, back into the teeming mob of pedestrians, another beggar, an unbelievably old man, took up the pursuit, whining in some language Julian had never heard before.

The Englishman snorted cynically. “That’s the end of her beat, dear boy. If she continued to follow us, the others would give her a bit of a show at the end of the day. Do you know what would happen if you gave this bloody nigger something?”

Julian said, “Well, no, but he seems to be very old.”

“He’d pass the information along, don’t you know, to his, ah, colleagues. Within ten minutes, you’d have half a dozen of the blighters trailing you.”

Before them reared an enormous Indian building, as large as a cathedral. It must have cost millions, Julian decided, but somehow, for him, it lacked beauty in a country so rich in beggars.

“Mumbadevi Temple,” his guide said. “The town’s jolly well overrun with temples. Hindu temples, Moslem temples, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Jain-ian… I dare say there are hundreds in all. The Zoroastrians have an interesting bit. They don’t believe in either burial or cremation. Up in the Hanging Gardens they have several of what they call Towers of Silence. When one of them dies, his body is put on the top of one of the towers and buzzards come and eat the corpse. After a week or so of exposure, the bones are taken down and thrown into the tower’s well. Bloody gruesome, eh? You can watch the buzzards at work from a nearby hill.”

Julian’s nausea was not diminishing. “I… I don’t think I’d like that.”

He looked at the ornate, towering temple.

A cadaverously thin, barefooted, ragged man who seemingly was about to enter the temple gate suddenly staggered, his eyes popping in horror. Blood gushed from his mouth, spewing out onto the sidewalk. He staggered again, fell forward onto his face.

Julian automatically started forward.

Sir Edward quickly took his arm. “He’s beyond help, dear boy. Probably dead by now. The meat wagon will undoubtedly be along shortly. Besides, how would you like to catch whatever he had?”

The other pedestrians walked around the fallen man, ignoring him.

“Meat wagon?” Julian repeated, unable to keep his eyes from the body. He had never seen a person die before. It was all he could do to keep from vomiting.

Sir Edward hurried him on. “Every night, several hundred of the street people die. City trucks come around and pick up the bodies, don’t you know?” He added musingly, “Fewer seem to die during the day hours, but you see the corpses around from time to time.”

“Street people?”

“I dare say there are some half a million niggers here in Bombay that have no homes. They live on the streets, sleep on the streets at night. There are more than six-hundred thousand in Calcutta.”

The boy was appalled. “Can’t the government do something about them?”

“Dear boy, between a third and a half of the population of India goes to bed hungry every night. Probably some fifty million are starving to death, at a greater or slower pace. What would you expect the government to do? It’s deeply in debt as it is. My own concern is selling them tanks and armored cars, and most of it has to go on the cuff, as you Yankees call it.”

The Britisher indicated a smaller street. “We can cut through here to the Crawford Market. Largest in town, I wouldn’t wonder. What do the tourist ads always say? Picturesque and all that rot.”

They were in little more than an alley with tiny shacks on each side. Colored saris hung from some of the windows to dry and a few of the dwellings had plants suspended from the walls in old tin cans.

Halfway down the alley, Julian came to a halt. In a broken wheelbarrow were two tiny children, breathing heavily, their eyes very round. Both were naked, with arms and legs so thin as to be not much thicker than a piece of chalk; both had bellies swollen up to the size of watermelons.

He looked wildly at his companion, “Have they been abandoned by their parents?”

The other took him by the arm to lead him on. “Possibly. Come, there’s nothing you can do.”

Julian pulled away. “We can take them… take them to a hospital. See they’re fed. Have a doctor—”

Sir Edward said impatiently, “I told you there were some fifty million starving in India at any one time. You could drop the whole West fortune into this bottomless pit, and it wouldn’t have any noticeable effect whatsoever.”

He took Julian by the arm again and led him to the end of the alleyway and the wider street beyond.

Julian wrenched his arm away once more. “I… I don’t want to see any more. I want to go back to the ship.”

The other was miffed. He looked at his watch. “Very well. I had planned to take you to lunch. Charming restaurant called The Other Room, at the Ambassador Hotel, don’t you know? European cuisine, none of this bloody nigger stuff.”

The boy looked at him. “How many of these Indians could eat on what it would cost us there for a single meal?”

The other laughed his short, humorless laugh. “Hundreds of them, I shouldn’t wonder. Dear boy, the average Indian doesn’t spend in a year what it would cost us to lunch at The Other Room.”

Julian shook his head. “I’m going back to the ship.”

“Very well. No point in mucking around. Just head down this street. You’ll come out on the Frere Road. Turn right for about a mile and you’ll come to the Old Customs House and the government dockyard. You’ll be able to rent a boat there to return you to the cruise ship, I wouldn’t wonder.” Sir Edward was obviously mildly irritated.

Julian extended his hand. “Thank you very much, sir.”

“Oh, I say, not at all, dear boy. Give my regards to your uncle when the trip is over.”

Although the directions had seemed very simple, Julian managed to lose his way. After a time, he found himself in a slum street, not much different than the alleyway in which he had seen the starving children.

From a dark doorway a voice hissed at him, “Sahib?”

He came to a halt, frowning. He could make out an Indian woman in a pink sari, a caste mark on her forehead. She had by the hand a child of possibly four or five, with its own small sari. It was a beautiful child.

Julian came closer and said, “Yes?”

The woman beckoned to him, but he still didn’t understand. “What do you want?” he asked.

She reached down and lifted the child’s sari.

Julian blanched. At this point in his life, he had never had sexual relations, but there was no misunderstanding the gesture. He was being offered the child’s body. The woman was attempting to sell the little girl sexually. Her own daughter? Probably, he thought numbly.

It was at this point that he awoke, the horror still with him.

As he lay there, the rest of the experience came back. He had returned to the ship, after getting directions from another Sikh police officer, and had remained on it for the balance of the stay in India. He had not gone ashore again until they reached Hong Kong, and then only to take an airplane back to the States.

Spending the whole West fortune would not have been a drop in the bottomless pit of India’s poverty, according to Sir Edward Fitz-James. But when he had finally come into his inheritance, couldn’t he have done something, maybe set up a foundation to at least help out? Perhaps some hospitals, or orphanages?

But no, he told himself now, he hadn’t done a thing. Like his fellows, he had looked at philanthropy largely as a tax dodge. Born to wealth, he had been contemptuous of those who didn’t have it; it was a God-given privilege that he enjoyed because of his innate right to enjoy it. The only foundations West Enterprises had ever endowed had in one manner or another profited him, including the one set up for Dr. Pillsbury in return for putting him into stasis.

But the poverty of India had distressed him as a boy. Looking backward now, he couldn’t dismiss the poverty pockets in his own supposedly wealthy country. He had seen slums in Washington, D.C. not half a mile from the White House that were nearly as bad as those of Bombay. He had seen slums in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, possibly the three richest cities of the time, that were unbelievable.