Under the Jeweled Sky

by Alison McQueen

  In one swift move, her mother crossed the floor and struck her hard across the face, knocking her to the ground.

  • • •

  Veronica Schofield locked herself in the bathroom and cried like a broken woman. She cried until she could no longer see, eyes swollen shut. Then, steadying herself against the washbasin, she threw cold water over her face and stared at her reflection in the mirror, a puffy red-eyed mess, cursing the day she had met George Schofield. The humiliation of it still clawed at her insides whenever she thought of it, the way her mother had pushed her at him, going out of her way to see to it that they ended up together, and Veronica had gone along with it because that was what she had been told to do. She had learned while young always to do as her mother said. Hers was the kind of mother who knew how to instill discipline, and there was only one kind of discipline handed out at Ranmore.

  Veronica’s mother had told her to marry the doctor, so that was what Veronica had done. But nobody had told her what marriage would be like, that she would be expected to submit to him without complaint. It had filled her with bile, his nakedness repulsive to her, and not once had she removed her nightgown in the few years they had shared a bed. She found every reason she could to avoid his overtures, making excuses or skillfully igniting an argument late in the evening before insisting he sleep in another room. On those occasions when he would not be put off, she would lie there passively, her head turned away as he did what he needed to do before rolling aside and turning his back on her. And then she had found herself expecting Sophie, and she was forced to parade her shame in public, women smiling at her in the street when she passed by, her swollen figure testament to her husband’s actions. She had wanted the ground to swallow her up. But that was nothing compared to the shame she was put through as she lay back, knees open, while the doctor put his hands on her and looked at her there. Each time it happened, she had gone home and wept furious tears. How dare anyone make her expose herself like that, like it was nothing? It had made her sick to the pit of her stomach, and when the baby was born, she had told her husband outright that she would never again subject herself to such degradation. He had looked pained when she told him, but she didn’t care. He didn’t know the meaning of the word pain. No man did. Not even the ones who had lost limbs on the battlefields. Only a woman who had given birth knew what pain was, and Veronica Schofield would never subject herself to it again.

  Amid her anger, she knew that her husband was right. They must send Sophie away from here as quickly as possible, somewhere nobody would know her and no one would care. Everybody knew that there were places where disgraced girls could be sent for their confinement, where they would be put to work to teach them a lesson for their easy ways. Sophie would be punished for the sin she had committed. She would finally be forced to suffer the way her mother had, and then she would know what it was to be a woman. And why shouldn’t she? She might as well learn now that a woman’s lot was filled with pain and humiliation; then at least she would know what to expect from her life. Veronica had tried her best with her daughter, to bring her up in the fear of God, seeing to it that she was not spoiled, unlike those insufferable mothers who went around hugging their children and boasting about how damned marvelous they were.

  If anyone had failed Sophie as a parent, it was her father. He had no idea how to raise a child, and once he knew that Sophie was the only one he was going to get, he had fawned over her like a simpleton, allowing her to twist him around her little finger. Well, they were welcome to each other, as far as Veronica was concerned. Had he adopted her own parenting methods rather than undoing her good work at every turn, this would never have happened. It was his fault, and his fault only, and now it would be his responsibility, for she would have nothing to do with it. He could damn well make the arrangements himself and get Sophie out of her sight right now. It was too late to do anything else about it. That had been her first thought, her first demand from her husband despite the horror of his response: to get it out of her, that disgusting black thing. But that was out of the question now. It was beyond removal. The only thing that mattered now was that nobody should ever know.

  But the palace already knew. The whisper had traveled through every wall, across every corridor, into every chamber, passed along from lip to lip, the laughter from the zenana audible for miles.

  13

  Jag picked his way to the top of the ruined ramparts and surveyed the devastation that stretched out before him as far as the eye could see. Why he insisted on coming here each morning, as though expecting to be greeted by something else, he didn’t know. It was as though he could never quite take it in. Across the ragged, scarred landscape lay a scene of biblical catastrophe, an ocean of human misery in all its degradation and filth, punctuated by the flames of the funeral pyres that never ceased, ash and smoke blowing through every distant corner of the camp, a smoldering battleground awash with the wreckage of mankind, a sea of wandering souls. An eerie stillness seemed to hang over it, the countless thousands with little left of their once peaceful lives. People amassed around the few crowded wells. Elsewhere, long queues snaked into the distance from the distribution points, waiting patiently to be given handouts from ever-diminishing rations. There was no arguing among them, no fighting, the only sounds being those necessary for survival, to live from one hour to the next.

  This was not the way it was supposed to have been, the rebirth of their ancient and honorable country, the longed-for freedom that so many had sacrificed their lives to secure and welcomed with such joy. There was no joy here. Nothing but misery and death. Where were the songs of celebration? The fireworks? Instead, now the nights were lit up by the fires of destruction that scorched the far horizon, setting the sky ablaze. And his father, struck mute by the horror as they leaped from the train when the mob attacked. They had scrambled beneath it, clinging to the underside of the wagon as the screams of terror rang out around them, pressing their faces into the filthy ironwork, flattening themselves against the foul-smelling oil-caked structure, blood dripping through the floor of the carriage above.

  Over a hundred and fifty miles they had walked, joining one of the human caravans that stretched endlessly ahead of and behind them, most of their belongings stolen or discarded, their clothes soaked in grime. Jag’s father had not uttered a single word after their escape from the train. Gone were the stories he used to tell of his beautiful home city, describing for his son the life that awaited them there, the people that he had not seen for years, and the ones he had yet to meet.

  Jag wished that his father would talk to him again, so that he might feel less alone. When they had first set out, his father had shared the old tales with him, his anger toward his son softening a little. As he spoke, he had smiled and remembered his childhood, the way the sun came up over the lake and how his mother would sing as she ground rice in the stone quern he liked to clean for her in the evenings. They would look to the future now with open hearts, and his son would come to know the family that had longed to greet him. They would choose for him a beautiful girl who would become his wife, and she would bear him a son to carry his name.

  Jag and his father had walked in silence, and when the silence became too much, Jag had taken up the story, this time his own. He told his father of how he had been raised in a palace by a brave man who had left his home many years ago after taking a wife, and of how that brave man came to be the personal bearer of a maharaja. He described how he had learned to steal around the palace as a child, hidden in the walls, after discovering a long-forgotten door. He said that his father was a great man, and that he had encouraged his son to learn everything he could, and to grow up to be good, like him, in honor of the memory of the mother he had not known. Although he had never seen a picture of her, Jag knew her just as he knew his father. He described his mother’s delicate face, her sweet voice, her devotion to her husband. He said that she had been rebirthed as a bird and that she watched over t
hem always, circling high up above them where she could not be seen, filling the air they breathed with her love. She was watching over them now, he said, protecting them, guiding them homeward.

  On they walked, day after day, week after week, until one evening the exhausted caravan reached the crest of a hill and looked down upon this unimaginable scene of human tragedy. A vast refugee camp, with barely a patch of land visible between the inadequate, haphazard tented dwellings. They could walk no further, their exhaustion all-consuming. His father had just stood there, then dropped to his bony haunches and put his head in his hands.

  • • •

  Jag returned to where he had left his father in the shade of their shelter, a thin piece of worn sacking propped up on sticks, offering little protection from the daily sun and nightly cold. He found him sitting there, unmoving, exactly as he had left him.

  “Father,” he said, crouching beside him. “Lie down and rest. The well is less busy now. I will go and fetch water.” Gently he took his father’s shoulders and lowered him to the ground.

  It had taken Jag hours to remove all the stones from their patch, scraping at the dry earth until his fingers bled, determined to fashion at least one small place upon which his father could lie without rocks digging into his diminishing flesh. He had become so thin that there was precious little of it left to protect his aching bones.

  “Come,” Jag said, rolling his blanket into a pillow. “First I will bring water, then I will go and queue for food. There are a lot of people waiting, so I may be gone a while. Best for you to sleep now.” His father’s eyes remained open as he allowed his son to lay him down. “Here,” said Jag, and began massaging his father’s limbs. “Your joints will get stiff. We have to keep them moving a little bit. We don’t want them getting sore.” The old man accepted his son’s therapy passively, his foot limp in Jag’s hand as he supported his leg and gently rotated his ankle. “When we enter your city, you will want to stand tall and walk right in! It is your home, after all. And now it will be my home too. We will find a nice cozy house to live in, in the same district as Mother’s family. Can you imagine how happy they will be to see you?” Jag switched to the other foot, shuffling along the ground beneath the thin canopy. “They have probably already decided where we are going to live,” he thought aloud. “I expect they’re waiting for us now, but we shouldn’t worry. They will know that we are here, waiting our turn like everyone else.”

  News in the camp was virtually nonexistent, merely stories passed from mouth to mouth so that people might have something to talk about. The dispatches that did the rounds were nothing more than speculative whispers drifting through on the wind.

  A flash of color caught the corner of Jag’s eye. Foot still in his lap, he turned from his father to see a man squatting at the edge of their tiny patch, his head wrapped in a red turban, peering at them from beneath the canopy.

  “How is your father today?” he asked. Jag looked away.

  “He will be fine. He just needs to rest.”

  “Here.” The man offered him a small bundle. “He must eat. And so must you.”

  Jag looked at the bundle, a corner of dry roti peeping through the cloth.

  “No,” he said. “You have your own family to look after.” He recognized the man, a Sikh, whose family occupied the small patch of ground behind them.

  “Please,” the man implored him. “My wife and I will not eat unless you do. We will feed our children, but not a grain of rice shall pass our lips unless our neighbor is eating too.”

  Jag continued rubbing his father’s legs.

  “No,” he said. “We cannot take your food.”

  A small sound escaped from his father, like a gasp for air. Quickly Jag leaned forward, his ear close to his father’s mouth. The old man tried to speak, but no sound came, just thin flecks of movement as he moved his dry lips. Jag felt something on his side, and looked down to see his father’s hand clutching for his loose clothing.

  “What is it?” Jag asked softly, urgently. His father’s eyes pleaded with him silently. His mouth opened and closed. Then his head fell to one side, exhausted. Jag turned to his neighbor. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, and for a moment he thought he might weep. The man crawled in beside him.

  “Eat.” He pressed the bundle on him. “Eat something. You have to keep your strength up, otherwise what good will you be to your father?”

  Jag opened the bundle and broke off a piece of bread. He pushed it into his mouth, so guilty at his hunger that his tongue refused to move. Forcing himself to chew, he felt the skin tightening across his jaw, his eyes stinging with tears.

  “That’s good,” the man said. He reached out and placed a hand of concern on Jag’s shoulder. “You must do whatever you have to to survive this. We all must.” He took up Jag’s father’s foot and placed it in his own lap, and began massaging his calf as Jag had done.

  “My wife thinks that we will be going home soon.” Jag’s neighbor shook his head sadly. “She keeps asking me every day, when are we going back? I tell her that we shall never go back, but she refuses to believe it. All she sees is that we have left everything. Our home, our livelihood.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “A village near Lahore. My wife asked our neighbor to look after the house for us. I expect it has been burned to the ground by now, or that another family has moved in and taken it over.”

  “Our train was attacked,” Jag said quietly. “My father has not spoken since.”

  They fell silent for a while before the man spoke again. “I don’t think any of us believed it could happen, but gradually things started to get worse all around us, and then the radio reported that Pakistan was to be formed. It began to dawn on us that we would have to leave, all of us, the whole village.” He stopped massaging and laid Jag’s father’s foot down gently. “Then the mobs started attacking.” He paused to drink a little water. ’We thought that we would be able to get to the border in fifteen days, so we took enough rations. Flour, ghee, and other eatables. There was no time to be choosy. They were watching us, and as we packed up and moved out, we saw them flooding into our village to ransack our properties and take the cattle.”

  From the man’s dark expression, it seemed as though he had been waiting a long time to unburden himself. “Fifteen days,” he whispered to himself. “It took us almost two months. There was no road to speak of; most of the way it was just mud. Our convoy moved at a snail’s pace. Other villages joined us along the way. I think we stretched for more than fifty miles. The rations ran down quickly and the cattle needed green fodder, but all along the path, thugs were looking to loot us and would not allow us to get anything from the farms. Then we heard that Balloki Bridge was broken. That was a terrible moment for all of us.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jag said, ashamed of the way he had dismissed his neighbor’s offers of help, refusing his aid day after day.

  “Water was a big problem,” the man went on. “At first we would drink from a small stream that ran alongside the muddy route, but when we saw what was in it, my wife refused to touch it. If there was a Persian well on the way, we would take water from that, but people were so thirsty that they would use it all up too quickly and the water would run dry and dirty within half an hour. Nobody was prepared to wait for it to fill up again. Many continued to drink from the stream.” He looked at Jag grimly. “There would be dead people floating in it, one bloated body passing by after another. There was nothing else to do except to wait for the bodies to pass before filling the water vessels.”

  Jag watched the man quietly, the heaviness upon him seeming to drag him into the dry ground.

  “You were lucky to get out alive,” he said. The man nodded.

  “Finally we heard that the bridge had been repaired and our convoy moved on again. We were met at Khem Karan by the Gurkha army, who escorted us over the border. They di
d as much as they could, feeding our remaining animals, but everyone was so exhausted.”

  “I hate the Moslems,” Jag said.

  “Do not ever say that.” The man looked at him sharply. “Most of the harm is being done by looters and bad elements, and they are godless, no matter what they claim. Godless people without heart or conscience. We had Moslem friends once. They were good people. On Eid, they would invite us into their homes and share food with us, although we only ever took dry fruits because we were not allowed anything else. As children, we were always coming in and out of each other’s houses. All people are made by the same God, so we are sons of the same God, no matter what we call ourselves. The new border is an artificial boundary. It does not exist in the eyes of God, only in the eyes of men who have been blinded by the pride of controlling politicians.”

  “Do you not seek revenge?”

  “No,” he said. “There will be no peace until the vengeance stops. First come the attacks, then the reprisals, and the circle feeds upon itself like a hungry bird until there is no one left.” He shook his head sadly. “There is nothing in my religion that says that a non-Sikh is my enemy. My faith teaches universal brotherhood, and the respect of all religions as equal. My father was one of the village elders, a wise man who would not allow any Moslem to be molested if he could prevent it.”

  “Where is your father?”

  The man looked at Jag. “They killed him. Cut off his head. I didn’t see it happen, but some of the villagers did. They said that he tried to put his head back on, that his body sat up and his hands searched in the dirt for it before he fell down dead, but I don’t believe it.” A terrible silence hung over them for a while. “Now eat,” he said to Jag. “Then you can go and fetch food. The queues are long. I will stay here and look after your father.”

  14

  Christmas lunch was one of the few occasions when servants were excused from the ADC’s formal dining room, a spacious marble affair with a long teak table, set aside for high days and holidays and now festooned with colorful paper chains and Chinese lanterns. The carving of the goose was an honor awarded to the longest-serving Britisher, who for the last two years had been Dr. Reeves. The table groaned with dish after delicious dish, the classic trimmings of Christmas lunch given an exotic twist here and there with the addition of cloves to the red cabbage, black mustard seeds in the potatoes, a hint of cardamom lacing the gravy. The plum pudding, provided this year by Mrs. Ripperton, had been made to her mother’s recipe, a complicated rigmarole of fruit, spices, and suet handed down through generations, tinkered with on occasion to take into account wartime shortages and the odd ingredient missing altogether, in this case the vital suet. There was none to be had anywhere, so nobody was quite sure how this season’s effort would turn out. Nevertheless, Mrs. Ripperton had taken the bowl around the offices so that everyone could have a good stir of the mixture to bring them luck for the following year.