Motherland

by William Nicholson

  The meeting then breaks up, to be resumed next day. Mountbatten calls a staff meeting to report progress.

  ‘Bloody Jinnah,’ he says wearily. ‘I shall have to see him alone.’

  The other hold-out is Gandhi, who is due at Viceroy’s House shortly.

  ‘He’s never going to buy partition,’ says V.P. Menon.

  ‘He doesn’t have to buy it,’ says Mountbatten. ‘Just so long as he doesn’t speak against it.’

  Gandhi comes, and says nothing at all. It turns out that he is observing one of his periodic days of silence. Instead of speaking he scribbles notes on scraps of paper.

  I know you don’t want me to break my silence.

  Have I said one word against you during my speeches?

  No one knows what this means. Mountbatten, incurably optimistic, deeply relieved not to have run into the stone wall that is Gandhi’s conscience, says, ‘He’s letting out rope. He’s giving me some space to try to pull it off.’

  Jinnah then returns for his private session. He continues to insist that he can make no decision on his own.

  ‘Delay now,’ Mountbatten tells him, ‘and Congress will withhold their acceptance of the plan too. Chaos will follow, and you’ll lose your Pakistan.’

  ‘What must be, must be,’ says Jinnah.

  Mountbatten gazes into Jinnah’s implacable eyes.

  ‘Mr Jinnah,’ he says, ‘this is what I’m going to do. Tomorrow, when we all meet again, I will ask the others formally if they accept the plan. They will say yes. I will then turn to you. I will say that I am satisfied with the assurances you have given me. I require you to say nothing. By that means, if your council so requires, you can deny later that you gave your acceptance. However, I have one condition. When I say, “Mr Jinnah has given me assurances which I have accepted and which satisfy me,” you will not contradict me, and when I look towards you, you will nod your head.’

  Jinnah gives this a moment of careful thought, then he nods his head.

  The next day the conference resumes. The frustrated press photographers are allowed in, to record the historic meeting. The room is then cleared, and Mountbatten asks for formal acceptance of the plan. One by one the leaders accept. Jinnah gives his agreed nod of the head. Mountbatten then produces a thirty-four-page staff paper, raises it high above his head, and bangs it down on the table.

  ‘This paper,’ he says, ‘is headed “The Administrative Consequences of Partition”. You will find when you read it that time is of the essence. The longer we delay, the more the uncertainty will translate into unrest. I have therefore determined that the transfer of power will take place on August the fifteenth of this year. In ten weeks’ time.’

  The leaders are silent with shock.

  Immediately after this bombshell the press staff go into battle stations, to distribute the right texts to the right people at the right time, and to avoid news leaking out in a manner that might provoke riots on the streets. Larry goes with Alan, accompanying Mountbatten in the viceregal Rolls-Royce, to All-India Radio. A group of orange-capped sadhus shout out slogans as they enter the building, protesting against any possible betrayal of the Hindu cause. Larry sees to the newsreel men while Alan attends Mountbatten in his broadcast. When the speech is done, Mountbatten comes through to the studio to repeat it for the cameras. A recording of the radio broadcast is played, and Mountbatten moves his lips to fit the words as the cameras run.

  As the filming is completed, Nehru begins his own radio address. They stop to listen.

  ‘We are little men serving great causes,’ says Nehru. ‘But because the cause is great, something of that greatness falls upon us also.’

  Returning in the Rolls, Mountbatten, utterly exhausted, says, ‘I never want to go through all that again.’ Then he adds, ‘I do truly believe that Pandit Nehru is a very great man.’

  *

  After the shock announcement of the date for Indian independence, Mountbatten has calendars printed and distributed to all staff. On each day is printed a number indicating the days left to transfer of power. The viceroy and his senior staff, including Alan Campbell-Johnson, then fly to London for consultations while the India Independence Bill passes through Parliament.

  For those left behind, the pressure of work eases. Geraldine Blundell announces her intention to do some sightseeing, and reminds Larry of his promise to show her Fatehpur Sikri. Syed Tarkhan, hearing them speaking, reveals that he is knowledgeable on Mughal history, and would be happy to show them the sights. Rupert Blundell agrees to join them, but when he learns the trip involves four hours in a car each way, with no facilities for guests at the destination, he changes his mind.

  ‘Too damn hot,’ he says. ‘You’ll regret it.’

  But Geraldine is smilingly stubborn.

  ‘I want to see the deserted city,’ she says. ‘I may not get another chance.’

  *

  On Tarkhan’s advice they set off early, leaving Delhi at seven in the morning. They take with them a picnic lunch, a canteen of water, and a bottle of Lebanese wine. Tarkhan, in his capacity as guide and leader, sits in the front beside the driver. Larry and Geraldine sit in the back.

  In anticipation of the great heat, Geraldine wears a light cotton dress that leaves her arms and her lower legs bare. Larry, sitting beside her, is acutely aware of the nearness of her golden skin. He finds himself remembering Nell, naked in the Life Room at Camberwell, and later naked in his arms in the green light of his digs. Geraldine looks out of the window as they drive, and asks Tarkhan constant questions about what she sees, but Larry has the feeling that she senses the physicality of his thoughts. There’s something in the way she moves her hands, from time to time smoothing her dress over her knees, that seems to be a response to his nearness.

  ‘Those women with baskets on their heads,’ she says to Tarkhan, ‘how far will they walk?’

  ‘For miles,’ says Tarkhan. ‘Perhaps all day. They’re taking fruit to sell. They go on until they sell it.’

  At one point a young man on a bicycle dashes out from behind a house right into the road before them, and the car hits him, sending him flying. The driver stops at once and jumps out.

  ‘The poor boy!’ says Geraldine. ‘Is he all right?’

  They see the driver haul the bike rider off the road and proceed to cuff him sharply about the head.

  ‘No!’ cries Geraldine.

  ‘Don’t interfere,’ says Tarkhan.

  The driver returns, shaking his head.

  ‘Bloody fool should look where he’s going,’ he says. ‘My apologies, Sahibs.’

  ‘But is the boy hurt?’ says Geraldine as they drive on.

  They see him climbing back on his bicycle.

  ‘This is India,’ says Tarkhan.

  Geraldine says nothing for a while. When she speaks at last it’s clear she’s been pondering the meaning of this minor accident.

  ‘I wonder if we’ve really been all that good for India,’ she says. ‘I wonder what sort of a country it would be now if we’d never come.’

  ‘That is a question we can never answer,’ says Tarkhan from the front seat.

  ‘You think we should be quitting India, don’t you, Syed?’ says Larry.

  ‘Without a doubt,’ says Tarkhan. ‘But you know, for many of us it will also be a sad day. I am a navy man. I’ve been raised in a family that has deep respect for the motherland. It’s not so easy to throw off such things overnight. Then again, when I hear the British saying they are graciously giving us our freedom, I want to say, Excuse me, sir, by what right did you take our freedom in the first place?’

  ‘There was never any right,’ says Larry. ‘Only power.’

  They are driving now between sunburned fields of brown earth, broken here and there by clusters of small green trees. The temperature has risen, and the air that rushes in at the open window is dusty and hot.

  ‘I don’t understand about power,’ says Geraldine. ‘I don’t understand about war, either. Isn’
t there enough suffering in the world already?’

  ‘You will see, when we get to Fatehpur Sikri,’ says Tarkhan, ‘there’s a saying of Jesus inscribed on the victory arch: “The world is a bridge. Pass over it, but build no houses on it.”’

  ‘Where does Jesus say that?’ says Geraldine.

  ‘I thought Akbar the Great was a Muslim,’ says Larry.

  ‘So he was.’

  He says no more. Geraldine falls into a doze, and as the car lurches on over the rough road her bare right arm comes to rest against Larry’s left side. He feels its slight pressure there, and from time to time glances at Geraldine’s face. Her eyes are closed, her lips very slightly parted. Somehow even in the heat of the car she manages to look fresh and lovely.

  The last part of the journey is over a road that is cracked and fissured by the sun. The sharp jolting of the car wakes Geraldine.

  ‘Almost there,’ says Larry.

  The car comes to a stop in the shade of a sheltering ashoka tree. Tarkhan, Larry and Geraldine step out into the burning noon. Geraldine puts on her straw hat and sunglasses and looks like a film star. Before them the track leads on to a gap in a ruined wall. An elderly man in a faded khaki shirt comes hobbling towards them and speaks with Tarkhan, bobbing his head repeatedly. Then he goes again.

  ‘We’re the only ones here,’ says Tarkhan. ‘We’re the brave ones, he says.’

  He leads them up the rising track through the gap in the wall, and there before them, quite suddenly, is the abandoned city. Its palaces are built of the same red sandstone on which it stands, and stripped of all life as they are, seem to be sculpted from the land. Domes and turrets reach skywards on spindly pillars, atop vast structures that are themselves so pierced and open to the sky that they seem to be light and insubstantial.

  Tarkhan sees with gratification the astonishment on the faces of his guests.

  ‘In its day the city was bigger than London,’ he says, ‘and far more magnificent. Akbar the Great ruled over a hundred million subjects, at a time when your Queen Elizabeth had barely three million.’

  He leads them across the dusty square, in the centre of which is a paved cross, made of panels of red stone between bands of cream.

  ‘This is a pachisi court,’ he says. ‘You know the game? It’s like what you call Ludo. In Akbar’s day it was played with people serving as the playing pieces.’

  ‘This is extraordinary, Syed,’ says Larry. ‘How can it all still be here?’

  ‘The dryness, I suppose. That building there is the Diwan-i-Am, the Hall of Public Audience. The five-storey structure is the Panch Mahal, where the ladies of the court lived.’

  ‘How big is the city?’

  ‘About four square miles. But come over here. This is what I want to show you.’

  He leads them to a square building with four turrets on its corners, each one holding, on four slender pillars, an ornate dome.

  ‘Come inside, into the shade.’

  Each side of the building is pierced by a wide central door. Within there is a single space, dominated by an immense and intricately carved central pillar.

  ‘This is the Diwan-i-Khas,’ says Tarkhan. ‘The Hall of Private Audience. This is where Akbar held his meetings.’

  Larry is studying the complex carvings at the top of the pillar. It branches out into four stone overhead walkways sustained by a cluster of snakelike brackets.

  ‘Remarkable,’ he murmurs.

  ‘I must now confess to an ulterior motive in bringing you here,’ says Tarkhan. ‘As you know, my country faces a great crisis, caused by the fears Muslims and Hindus have of each other. The terrible communal violence shows that the different faiths cannot live together. This is why there must be Pakistan. And yet, look more closely at this pillar.’

  He guides their eyes with his hands.

  ‘The designs at the base are Muslim. A little higher, and we have Hindu symbols. The third tier is Christian. And here at the top, the designs are Buddhist. And if you look higher up still, you will see the secret place behind the pierced screen where Akbar would sit, every Thursday evening, and listen to the discussions below. Hindus, Buddhists, Roman Catholics, atheists, he invited them all to come here and talk to each other.’

  ‘Roman Catholics came here too?’ says Geraldine.

  ‘From Portugal, I believe,’ says Tarkhan. ‘Akbar wanted to formulate what he called the Din-i-Ilahi, the ultimate faith that would bring all religions together. According to the Din-i-Ilahi, there were to be no sacred scriptures or rituals, but all would take an oath to do good to all. And in his day, and for many years after, there was no hatred between the faiths.’

  ‘And then the British came,’ says Larry, ‘and all the toleration came to an end.’

  ‘No,’ says Tarkhan gently. ‘That would be too harsh. Though as you know, there are those who believe you kept control of your great empire by the policy of divide and rule. For whatever reason, now to our shame and suffering, we are divided.’

  ‘How difficult it all is,’ murmurs Geraldine.

  ‘Did you know,’ says Tarkhan, ‘that Tennyson wrote a poem about Akbar the Great? It’s called “Akbar’s Dream”. It’s rather long, but I remember two lines he gave to Akbar. “I can but lift the torch of reason, In the dusty cave of life.”’

  The three walk the deserted courts of the ghost city, made thoughtful by all that Tarkhan has said. Round them rise the skeletons of past glory, as if to mock the pretensions of the present imperial race. Larry thinks of the cold grey bankrupt homeland he has left behind.

  ‘You say you were raised to respect the motherland,’ he says to Tarkhan. ‘How can we pretend to be the mother of any other peoples?’

  ‘Perhaps we all have many mothers,’ says Tarkhan.

  They return to the car and take their picnic in the shade of the tree. The heat and the walking have wearied them. The Lebanese wine makes them sleepy.

  ‘I think it would be good to return soon,’ says Tarkhan.

  On the drive back Geraldine abandons formality and falls asleep with her head in Larry’s lap. Larry himself does not sleep. His head is buzzing with new thoughts. He thinks about the claims of the different religions to ultimate truth. He watches Geraldine’s lips as they tremble with her sleep breaths. He asks himself why his own faith, that Jesus is the son of God, that His resurrection gives us promise of eternal life, should be the one true faith, and the others pale copies, or downright superstitious falsehoods. His gaze lingers on Geraldine’s soft blond hair where the curls lie on her pale brow. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ So what of other ways, and other truths? Geraldine believes as he believes, she knelt beside him at Mass, her cheek shadowed by her lace mantilla. He would like to kiss her now, on the temple, just where the locks of hair fall away. He looks towards Tarkhan, dozing in the front seat, and thinks how much he likes him. How courteously he delivered his history lesson in the abandoned city, and yet how devastating its implications. You suppose yourself to be a modern man, free of the baseless prejudices of earlier generations, and then quite unexpectedly you catch a glimpse of your true self, and find it rests on an ocean of unexamined assumptions: that as an Englishman you inherit the civilised values that others will in time acquire; that as a Christian you possess the eternal truths that others will in time acknowledge. And all the time this slender girl lies trustful in your lap, and you long to kiss her, to slip off her dress, to enjoy her naked body.

  Am I such a self-deceiver? Have I grown a mask that clings so tight I no longer know my own face? For whose benefit have I done so?

  For the ones who look at me. For the ones who judge me.

  So many masks. The mask of the gentleman. The mask of the man of culture. The mask of the good man. All worn for the onlookers, the judges, to appease them, to win their approval. But what is it that the maskless self wants? Who am I when no one is looking? Why do I care so much for goodness?

  Fear, comes the answer. Fear, and love.
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  I’m afraid that if I’m not good, I won’t be loved. And I want more than everything else, more than eternal life, to be loved.

  This thought enters his mind in a flash, with the force of revelation. Can it be true? He thinks back to his time of terror on Dieppe beach. That was true fear, fear of extinction. That was an animal instinct that overrode any other demands he could make upon himself. But what of the shame that followed, which he has lived with ever since? That’s a different kind of fear.

  I’m afraid that I don’t deserve to be loved.

  If this is true, is this all it is? All man’s achievements, all acts of heroism, all acts of creation, no more than a plea to be counted worthy of love? Loved by whom?

  Geraldine moves in his lap with the motion of the car, but she doesn’t wake. There’s something about her that’s so contained, so quietly sure of herself, that makes her approval desirable and hard to win. And yet there was a man she loved, Rupert said, who broke her heart.

  The driver honks loudly on his horn to disperse a flock of goats on the road ahead. Geraldine wakes, and sits up.

  ‘Have I been lying on you? I’m so sorry. I do hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘No trouble at all,’ says Larry.

  He can see from the way she looks at him that she knows he liked it.

  ‘You’re very tolerant.’

  The journey still has an hour or more to go. Tarkhan sleeps in the front. This time will not come again.

  ‘You asked me why I came here,’ Larry says. ‘I came out to India because the girl I was in love with went off with another man. It seemed to be the end of the world then. Now it seems of no importance at all.’

  ‘Why do you tell me that?’ she says.

  ‘I don’t know, really.’

  ‘It was the same for me,’ she says. ‘There was a man I loved very much. I thought we were going to be married. Then he told me he was going away. He never said why.’