As Prescribed by His Majesty

Ceiling fans stirred the gin-flavoured air above wicker chairs where starched collars dug into sunburned necks. Beyond the rattan blinds, Calcutta pulsed like a fever dream—bazaar lanterns gilding the edges of saris that drifted just outside the compound walls. No native men dared approach since Curzon’s ordinance; only their women moved through the violet dark, carrying baskets of marigolds they couldn’t afford to worship with.

A bearer refilled your whiskey soda with hands that didn’t tremble—this one was new, likely some zamindar's third daughter sent to repay his grain debts. Her anklet bells shivered when she bent to wipe condensation from your glass, the scent of her coconut hair oil cutting through cigar smoke. Near the gatehouse, a pair of nurses fresh off the Shimla train lingered under a banyan tree, their starched aprons stark against the gloom. One kept adjusting the fall of her pleated skirt, though no breeze touched the heavy evening.

From the card room drifted laughter and the wet click of ivory chips—Frobisher boasting again about his ‘collection’ of Kashmiri shawls bought for sixpence and a wink. Out in the garden, something darker unfolded: the rustle of silk against hedge grass as a figure crouched to retrieve a dropped glove, her nape exposed where the parting in her hair gleamed with smuggled sindoor. Everywhere you looked, the Empire’s arithmetic played out in lowered lashes and accidentally undone buttons. The heat did funny things to a woman’s modesty. Or perhaps it was the hunger.

Beneath himalayan lilies wilting in their crystal vases, the girls moved like chess pieces—each calculated drift of hip or dip of shoulder calibrated for maximum visibility. A teacup clinked too sharply as a maid's fingers brushed the saucer longer than necessary; her dupatta slipped just far enough to reveal the hollow where a mangalsutra pendant would've hung if her husband hadn't swung from a tamarind tree last winter. Over by the potted palms, two convent-educated sisters pretended fascination with their embroidery hoops while angling their knees toward the veranda's lamplight—identical pearl buttons glinting at each throat, identical widow-white saris pooling around waists that still remembered wedding feasts.

From his perch near the whisky cabinet, Dr. McAllister watched them all through rheumy eyes and murmured to no one in particular: "Funny how cholera takes the men but leaves the women standing."

"Cholera and the hangman, this country's two great purifiers." Laughs Jenkins.