Page 105 of A Thousand Painted Hours

I nodded, lungs emptying as the truth set in. Inheriting the title and everything that went with it also meant the end of the future we’d imagined for ourselves, living between England and India. I waited for him to know it, too.

“How quickly can you be ready to close the house?” he asked. “We’ll go to London to find transport.”

I only gazed at him.

His face sobered. “You will not come with me.”

“Think, Tanveer. How can I? You shall need to find a proper wife, an Indian wife, someone to help you forge the alliances you need.”

He shook his head. “No. You are well versed in these things. You have studied beside me. We shall create a new kind of world.”

Tears welled in my throat as I saw the vision he spun, but my heart still felt the weight of truth. “I so wish that could be true,mere rooh ke saathi.”

“Will you so quickly give up?” he cried. “You will still do your art, and I will still help create a true democracy for India. We can travel between England and India, just as we said.”

“We could have done that if you were a second son, a prince. We cannot if you are the maharaja. There is no money in your father’s estate. Now it is your responsibility. You will need a wealthy wife.”

“No.” He narrowed his eyes, hands in fists on his thighs. “I shall not marry. It would be cruel to that wife, and cruel to you, and I shall not do it.”

I looked at my bare fingers. “It is not only that. You said it yourself, years ago. How can a man who wants to create freedom for his country marry the daughter of the colonizers?”

I saw the knowledge land. He stood and strode from the room.

For three days, we debated the situation. Three days of debate and arguments and presentations, of making love and declarations, of fiercely trying to find solutions.

In the end, I held the line when he could not. He insisted we could marry and find ways to build a life in India. I knew my mother had been right all those years before. He would need a wife who could bring money into the principality. I was not that woman, and however that grieved me, my first vow to him had been to support his happiness over my own. I would uphold that vow, no matter how it shredded me.

He was angry with me as he gathered his papers and books and packed his meager wardrobe. I watched with the blood running out of my body, leaving me cold and lost. How would I bear it? How could I possibly let him go?

But in the end, he knew the truth of my stance, and met me in the bedroom we had shared for many months, dreaming of better things. We held each other and mourned. “Why give us a glimpse of this thing we cannot have?” he whispered. “Why shred our hearts over and over?”

I pressed my face into his chest, my body into his side, memorizing the feel of him, so precious and now so fleeting. My grief was too deep for tears, and in truth, I didn’t know how I would live after his departure. “I will miss you always.”

“We should not write letters for a year,” he said.

“A year!”

“That will give us time to adjust to the loss.”

I would not adjust, but in time, this would be the choice that would lead to his happiness.

“One year,” I agreed.

A Single Spoonful of Jam

Autumn 1940

London

—55—

We had a few days’ lull in the bombing, giving me a chance to rest deeply. After the third day of actually sleeping through the night, I realized how foggy I’d become without it. My mood was better, and I even found myself humming under my breath as I made toast for breakfast, drizzling the tiniest bit of honey over the finished product.

When I checked on Mother, she was still sleeping. A blessing, both for her and for me, for her sense of time had slipped so much that I did not think she was aware of time and place more than a few minutes at a time.

And who could blame her? Between her failing body and the endless bombings, the current world was hardly worth occupying. I smoothed her blankets. Cold November light came in through the window, illuminating the fading sight of her. Each day a little less, her skin more translucent, the underlying muscle and fat all but disappeared, so she was simply a skeleton draped with flesh. Her hair remained beautiful. I glanced at the painting above her bed, of the house in Nainital and the three children on the steps. I wondered if she would mind if I moved it to Nina’s. It was one I would desperately hate to lose.

She will never even notice,a voice said in my mind. And while I knew it was true, I couldn’t bring myself to take it down.