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Chapter Eleven
The Khajuraho Temple
9:20 AM
Upon approach, the Khajuraho temple looked a bit like a wedding cake – tiered, glowing
white, and ornamented with any amount of bric a brac. The whole effect struck Emma as vanilla
frosting, slathered on in great swirls and rosettes.
They were expected, thanks entirely to Gerry. She had spent her evening at the Byculla
Club doing exactly what she did best – talking to the other old ladies and finding out the background
story on all the particulars of the case. Before they had been called into dinner, she had spent an hour
in confidence with the same Mrs. Morrow who Trevor had so enjoyed meeting, and Mrs. Morrow, it
seemed, knew all there was to know about the Khajuraho temple.
It was not currently in use as a Hindu house of worship. This would have been clear
even without Mrs. Morrow’s help, for as they were escorted inside the entryway, Trevor, Emma, and
Gerry saw that the interior of the building was in complete disrepair. How apt, Emma thought. What
a perfect metaphor for the Raj. From the outside, it all looks quite the fortress – even beautiful if
your tastes run toward the fanciful – but once inside, you can immediately see that it is falling
apart.
Mrs. Morrow had informed Geraldine that the English in Bombay would have loved to
see the temple fall apart even further, for it was the site of some rather infamous mosaics. Whether
these mosaics were examples of art or pornography depended upon the eye of their beholder;
opinions were split between those who argued that these particular temple walls – situated
disconcertingly near the main road and thus visible to anyone foolish enough to pass that way –
should be razed as a moral danger or preserved as an archeological marvel.
Further complicating the issue was the placement of an orphanage within the temple
property. Years ago, when a wealthy Englishwoman had purchased the grounds, she had rather
indulgently allowed a missionary friend of hers to use part of the property as a girls home for children
who had been sired by British fathers and born to Indian mothers. The result of liaisons which their
fathers viewed as temporary dalliances and their mothers believed to be legal marriages, these girls
were welcomed by neither the whites nor the natives and existed in a sort of nether world, living
reminders of the perpetual mistrust between the two cultures.
The wealthy patroness soon died in one of the cholera epidemics which at times
threatened even the most prosperous sections of Bombay, leaving her ultimate plans for the property
unclear. There were those who argued convincingly that her intention was to have the Khajuraho
temple and all its vulgarities wiped from the face of the earth. There were others who argued, just as
convincingly, that the orphanage had taken root and was the source of good work and so now, decades
after the death of the patroness, the girls school bearing her name still stood, shielded by these
crumbling and controversial walls.
“More good sleuthing, Geraldine,” Trevor had said, as Gerry had related all this to them
in Mrs. Tucker’s carriage on the bumpy ride over. “And the current headmistress has agreed to see
us?”
“She is most certainly looking for patrons,” Geraldine had answered. “The upper class
of the Raj has shunned her because of where the school stands and I get the impression from Mrs.