‘That’s what I’m intending to do. It is illegal but that doesn’t mean it is at an end. The people know the British will be reluctant to intervene if they choose remote locations.’
The sun, now directly overhead, beat down on a bleached landscape that had turned menacing in its emptiness. On the brink of tears, Eliza wished herself anywhere but there.
‘Look, Eliza,’ Jay was saying, ‘I warned you the old rituals had gone underground. This is what we’re up against.’
‘But burning a woman alive!’
‘Nothing changes overnight.’
As Jay rode on in silence Eliza gazed out at the stark beauty of the fringes of the desert, feeling sick inside. Then, a little later, the sound of drums alerted them to the fact that they were drawing closer.
As Jay climbed down, Eliza made a move too.
‘No, stay. We may already be too late.’
‘I’m coming.’
He paused for a fraction of a second only. ‘Very well, but we’ll have to run.’
Though December was considered the Rajputana winter, it could still become hotter than an English summer. This day was no exception, and Eliza’s forehead was already beading with sweat.
‘Cover your head with your scarf and as much of your face as you can.’
As they neared the gathering, the sound of the drums and a kind of chanting took over.
‘What’s happening now?’
He paused and stood still for a moment. ‘See over there behind that building, by the scant river bed?’
Eliza twisted to see a large group of people partly obscured from view.
‘I need to skirt around, but I want you to stay back here. There’s nothing you can do, but if I tell them who I am I might be able to stop this.’
This time Eliza did hold back and she waited, at least for a short while; but after a few minutes, when Jay had disappeared from view and the chanting hadn’t stopped, she began to shiver. She ran after him until she reached a spot just past the building, where she knew at once that the drumming had been an invocation of death.
At first she saw Jay shaking his head and, with voice raised, arguing with a group of men. Eliza couldn’t see the girl but about twenty yards away a priest, standing beside the funeral pyre, was swinging a large object filled with incense. Another was ringing a bell that was audible even above the drumming, while two other men poured oil from earthenware jugs on to hardwood logs. When another man lit a torch, then touched it to the prepared wood, small flames struck out at the air instantly and then died down. When she heard a terrible high-pitched keening she finally saw the girl being dragged forward.
Eliza took a step forward and shouted, but no one even glanced her way. All eyes were on the slight figure being hauled on to the pyre. Everything seemed to go still, and Eliza was horrified that although the girl’s hands were tied together, for a moment it seemed as if she had accepted her fate. But then everything changed, as Jay turned his back on the men and raced towards the girl, where, pushing and fighting his way, he broke through the cordon of men.
From a low crackle and spit, suddenly the fire was fully ablaze. Eliza’s heart almost stopped as Jay caught hold of the girl’s hands and began pulling her away from the flames. Seconds passed and Eliza smelt the girl’s fear in her own nostrils, felt the terror on her own shivering skin. Jay struggled to drag the girl away and for a moment it looked as if he might be burned to death as well, but then three men grabbed hold of him and pulled him off the girl. He fought to escape their grip and launch himself at her again, but they held him tight. Now the flames sprang up around the edges, enclosing the girl in the centre, from where she was still trying to break through. She screamed repeatedly as a larger group of men and one older woman surrounded the pyre, again pushing her back, but this time with long sticks, on to a supine body wrapped in white.
And yet the girl managed to whip round and run to one side, where the flames were weakest. A man raised his sword to strike her so she was forced to shrink back into the flames. Beyond her a huge crowd stood silently watching. Eliza longed to run over to the fire and drag the girl away, but then Jay broke free and once again attempted to reach the girl. He was too late, as in that instant yellow flames licked at the young woman’s feet; her skirt caught alight, then her scarf and finally her hair, the colour so bright and sharp Eliza could barely look. As an inferno engulfed the girl, Eliza couldn’t see Jay but the screaming continued, sounding more and more desperate.
A pitiless cloud of black smoke rose into the air and with it a smell Eliza knew she would not forget as long as she lived. The wind got up and the flames leapt higher, swirling and dancing as they carried the girl’s screams up into the blue, blue sky.
Eliza staggered backwards and then began to run wildly from the terrible scene. And when the girl stopped screaming, all Eliza could hear was the crackling of the fire. In deep shock she doubled over, and with tears blinding her she felt Jay’s arms around her, pulling her further from the smell of burning flesh.
‘You shouldn’t have seen this,’ he said.
She twisted away from him and began to beat him on the chest with her fists. ‘Why did it have to happen? Why?’
He held her again, only tighter this time, and she saw that one of his hands was burnt.
‘You’re hurt.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘I saw what you tried to do.’
