My Mother — Page 137
Miscellaneous 137 ‘I would not mind the discomfort. I must be with you. ’ I imagined she was impelled both by a spirit of adventure and a desire to share in any possible risk, though of risk there was none. Sir Fazal-i-Husain died in mid-1936. His eldest son, Nasim Husain, was a very close friend of mine. He was an Ahmadi and Mother was very fond of him. Sometime after the death of his revered father, he came to Simla on some business, and as he was to leave the same day, we had only a few minutes together. After he had left, Mother asked me, ‘How is Nasim bearing up?’ I told her that we had not had much time in which to talk, but I gathered that he was bearing up well. I added, ‘I was particularly pleased with one thing he told me. He said he was determined that he would be to his mother exactly as I am to you. ’ Mother remarked, ‘That would be good of him. That is how it should be between mother and son. ’ Some time later, Nasim Husain came for another hurried visit. He appeared anxious and told me: ‘I am afraid things are not working out as well between Mother and us as we could have wished. My wife and I try to study her comfort and convenience in every respect, but nothing seems to make her think kindly of us or of the children. You know we have a large, comfortable, mainly single storied, well-furnished house in an excellent locality in Lahore. Everything is provided for on the ground floor. There are only two rooms and a bathroom on the first floor. Even during the intense heat of the summer, the rooms on the ground floor keep cool. We have vacated the whole of the ground floor for Mother, and have transferred ourselves to the first floor, where—apart from the lack of certain amenities—during the greater part of the day the temperatures are unbearably high. Though the children