by Pema Donyo
She shook her head. This situation—this man!—was impossible. She undid the earring clasps and clenched her fists around the jewels. She could sell this jewelry later; her brother and his friends needed all the money they could get to fund their activities. “Can’t you tell me the information first?”
“That’s not how this arrangement works. First, lead us to Lucknow.”
If she actually could pass along the information he had gathered from his mission, her brother could use the view to refocus his revolutionary group’s efforts. In the early days, Raj hadn’t even realized that the British Army was aware of the revolutionary activities of the villagers. She still remembered all the late nights her brother had stayed up planning armory raids, peering over elaborate maps and discussing escape routes … only to discover the armories were already depleted. He’d returned at such late hours with nothing but a defeated expression and a voice full of disappointment.
She sighed, feeling a wave of defeat wash over her. “Why do you need to go to Lucknow?”
“That is for me to know and you to find out on your own, pagal ladki.”
“Crazy girl?” Parineeta scoffed. Of course, he would only know insulting Hindi phrases.
He stepped around her, ignoring her words as he pushed his way into the jungle.
How dare he force her into such situations! She scowled at his retreating figure. “Who’s the one who will guide us both? I am not crazy!”
“Then prove it to me by getting me out of this godforsaken jungle,” he replied over his shoulder.
Parineeta narrowed her eyes but continued after him. She hardly had a choice. Return back to her brother with a failed mission and live with the guilt of losing an opportunity to serve her country … or guide this crazy American to Lucknow.
Bhagwan, of all the madmen to be trapped with!
Chapter Five
“I’m not so bad, am I?”
“Ravana, the ten-headed king, did not seem so bad. Then he kidnapped Sita and forced Rama to go into exile.”
He scratched his chin. He’d heard the epic tale of Rama and Sita once before. Rama was an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, and his wife had been named Sita. Hold on, hadn’t Ravana been the king of demons?
Instead of clarifying which story hero he possibly was, she lifted her cupped hands to her lips and drank the water that pooled in the small crevice. Warren turned away and stretched, scanning the bay, where small fishing boats were tied to even more antiquated wooden posts, swaying next to the dock and creating ripples in the water. A light patter of rain fell onto the floating vessels, filling them slowly.
He craned his neck. Sleeping on jungle ground for the past few days hadn’t been safe, but it sure seemed a lot better than being captured by British hands. The monsoon air hung over their heads, sticky and inescapable. His hand swatted at a fly buzzing at the back of his neck, his palm running against the beads of sweat on his upper back in the process.
How to return to America? He’d heard of the activities of the Indian National Congress, but he somehow doubted the nationalist organization would assist an agent sent to collect fingerprints of the Indian anarchists. The rules that the NBCI had given him were simple: create Bertillon records, jot down some notes, determine how much Raj Singh’s anarchist influence might influence the United States, then find another agent to pass along the documents and get the hell out.
Not that the government wanted any civilians to know that the US feared global influences. Last he’d heard, everyone was convinced that the bureau was just a domestic organization. In truth, he was certain that the US would prefer to end any international threat that could influence Americans.
He patted his left pocket. Crumpled notes of information on Raj Singh were tucked away, ready to be sent to the United States. But what if those weren’t the rules of the FBI? Would this new organization that the NBCI had folded into want him to stay? He groaned in frustration. No point in questioning. First, find the other agent in Lucknow.
He turned his head to address Parineeta. “How far is the walk from here?”
“You cannot walk all the way. Soon we will travel by train.”
He thrust his right hand into an empty pocket. “We have no money.”
“The passage will be free.”
“Free?” Perhaps the heat was getting to him. He wiped off the sweat dripping from the side of his forehead with the back of his shirt sleeve. He’d abandoned his coat and tie long ago in favor of the white shirt he wore underneath.
“I know some of the passengers.” She paused. “They will be willing to pay for us.”
“I guess you already know other people headed to Lucknow, then. Who do you know on the train?”
“My brother and his friends.” Parineeta picked up the clay pot back on the dock and filled the container. She’d changed back into a traditional sari once they'd reached the nearby market. She'd also been the one to buy their food and drink after Warren had made the mistake of accompanying her into a market in a previous village. He hadn’t realized it was possible to catch the judgmental attention of so many strangers until that day.
“Your brother?” He raised a brow. Why would that anarchist be headed to Lucknow?
She smirked.
That’s not an answer. Still, he figured it was better not to press the issue. He was at the mercy of wherever this enchanting former spy guided him. No use in denying a free ride, no matter how it came about. And they weren’t accomplishing anything standing around like this, even if his stiff joints protested in movement this morning.
He walked toward her, the muscles in his legs stretching with the strain. His limbs could use a lift by locomotive. He’d grown accustomed to riding horses, and he’d gained experience driving cars … walking for long distances was an entirely different story.
“So then you agree to take the train?”
Worry tied Warren’s stomach in knots. “What? What’s so funny?”
She tucked a stray lock of brown hair back into her thick braid, winding down one side of her shoulder and peeking out of her sari. “This is no ordinary train ride.”
“I know, we’re running from British soldiers.” He wished she’d stop looking so damn amused for no reason. The sight was even more unsettling than the strange looks he received in the village. He’d been surprised at how adept she had been in knowing where to go; even with a blasted map he wouldn’t have been able to cover this much ground on his own. If someone were racking up a debt between them, he was much more indebted to her.
Parineeta’s smirk widened into a grin. She was the one with power now, not him. “We are going to join my brother’s train robbery.”
• • •
“We need to make our fire earlier next time. It’s not safe to be on the move this late.”
“Perhaps if you had gathered more firewood like I asked of you…” Who would have thought pretend generals would be so bossy even after their covers were blown?
“I know how to construct an automobile from spare parts, I can fluently speak and read thirteen languages, I am trained in seven different kinds of martial arts forms…”
“…but you do not know how to build a fire in this jungle,” Parineeta finished. “And you do not know the proper price when haggling for samosas. And you do not know which way it is to Lucknow.”
Warren’s shoulders slumped. “They don’t teach you those things during training.”
“It seems my upbringing has made me better prepared for your mission than you are.” It was almost endearing, how much he tried to make himself seem useful for their journey. She stoked the fire, poking the medium-sized stick into the flames. The fire was fine; she just found herself enjoying teasing this man. It was the least torture she could inflict upon him, considering the ultimatum he’d given her a few days before, though he had agreed to help in the robbery. She hadn’t expected him to agree as soon as he had. She pushed her braid away from her collarbone and out of the fire’s way. Unless he had
changed his mind.
“You are still willing to help in the train robbery, you said?”
Warren shrugged. “Do I have a choice?”
“Not if you want to be in Lucknow before the British find you,” she quipped. She pursed her lips. “But you seem willing.”
“Maybe I am.”
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she set down the stick she had been using to stoke the fire on a nearby rock. “We can stop with the mysteries now.”
He snorted. “We? I hide nothing. You are the one who remains a mystery.”
She stared into the fire, watching the amber flames dance before her eyes without focusing on anything in particular. Crickets chirped in the background while the firewood singed and crackled under the orange heat. How annoying. This man could tell when she still possessed secrets to keep. “How am I a mystery?”
“How did you become involved in the independence movement?”
She looked up from the flames and directly into Warren’s gaze. He’d taken off his button-up shirt in the heat of the day; his skin seemed more bronzed by firelight. She wished he'd kept on his evening wear for the party. If not for the flames between them blocking the image of his chest, Parineeta would have surely looked away. “Why are you so curious about the revolutionaries?”
“See what I mean? I know nothing about you.” Warren threw up his hands. “You’re more of a mystery than me.”
“No.” She glanced at the foliage behind him. The large, flat leaves of the jungle trees covered them on all sides, shielding their forms—and the fire, she hoped—from prying eyes. For the moment, she felt safe.
“Let me guess: Is it another secret you don’t want me to know?”
She sighed. It would be hours until dawn. There was no other way to pass the time than answer the pestering questions. Perhaps if she satisfied his fleeting curiosity, he would trust her with more information. “My brother was the first in my family to be involved with the revolutionaries. He told me about Gandhi’s noncooperation movement. Then he and his friends from another village joined another independence group.”
“How does one become involved in this group, anyway?” He stood up and stretched his arms above him. The hard muscles of his bare chest gleamed by the flames. She resented the way her heart raced at the sight. Too distracting. Couldn’t he put on a shirt? Or at least a scarf around his neck to cover his chest, like the other men in her village did. Even a vest would have been fine.
She tried to concentrate on the heat from the flame and not the heat emanating from her cheeks. She’d seen plenty of shirtless men laboring in the fields before. None of the rest had ever caused her lips to pucker and her palms to perspire. “Word of mouth.”
Warren sat next to her. She could feel the intensity of his eyes upon her. “But surely there must have been some event or some idea that triggered everyone to begin meeting.”
“It’s all just a matter of who understands and who doesn’t.” The crackle of the flames was interrupted by the low baying of a wolf somewhere far off behind her. Goosebumps rose on her arm. Even a warm fire couldn’t protect someone from the world. Nowhere was safe, the wolf seemed to say.
“Understands what?”
“The Jallianwala Bagh massacre.” A lump rose in her throat. Parineeta swore she heard the screams of the fallen in her head as she gazed into the fire. “A peaceful group of men, women, and children met to protest the arrest of two community leaders. They went against the recent rule of a curfew for all Indians. A general ordered his soldiers to fire onto the crowd.” She bit her lip until she tasted blood. “None were armed. They had no way of escaping or fighting back.”
Silence descended between the two for several seconds.
“I cannot even imagine.”
She felt a lump form within her throat. “Sometimes I can. Hindustanis of all different ages. Grandmothers and babies. None were spared. The soldiers cornered them against walls and gates and shot at them.” Her voice cracked, in spite of how hard she sought to control her tone. “Some jumped into wells.” She heard the cries of women and children as they splashed into watery depths, favoring death by drowning over death by bullets. She could see the desperate few who remained alive clinging to the metal gates, begging those outside to open up until they, too, became riddled with bullets. She heard the cry of her own mother.
It wasn’t until Warren had placed one hand over hers that she realized she’d been clutching at her sari skirt. She jerked her hands away, releasing the crumpled fabric.
“The reports say 370 died,” he said softly.
Parineeta glared at him. As much he could try to empathize, he would never understand. His perspective was too clouded by privilege. “Your reports are wrong. Locals say close to 1,000 people died that day.” She swallowed hard as she wiped away the tears welling up in her eyes. No. She would not cry in front of him. “My mother was visiting a friend in Amritsar at the time of the massacre. She never came home.”
Whenever she tried to picture what happened, she always imagined her mother in different positions, in one vision running toward the gates until a bullet gunned her in the back, in another vision leaping into a well and drowning at the bottom, in another… She couldn’t hold back anymore. The dam broke, causing tear-stained paths to stream down her cheeks. “Do your people not see us as humans?”
“I heard that the brigadier general who gave the orders didn’t know that Jallianwala Bagh was in a closed space. He thought the protestors would be able to leave.”
And outrun bullets aimed at their backs? “Oh, yes, now it makes everything so much more understandable to know he opened fire in an area he knew little about.” She swallowed hard. “Are we worth so little that we can be shot down for no reason?”
Warren brushed his thumb against her cheek, swiping at the trail of tears. His soft touch contrasted the tightness in his voice. “You’re worth ten times the lot of them. And I’m sure your mother was, too. The brigadier general who gave the command was removed from India.”
“And … will that resurrect my mother? Or the lives of the others who perished that day?”
“Of course not.” He stroked the top of her hair. “None of those people deserved their fate.”
“I don’t believe in fate.” She laughed, hollow and bitter. How many times had she blamed herself for what happened? If only she’d prevented her mother from visiting Amritsar, if only she hadn’t told her mother about how much she believed in the power of protesting. But none of the guilt would change anything. She could only try to stop such an event from happening again. “I believe in revenge. But don’t worry.” Parineeta clasped her hands together in her lap and looked down at her laced fingers. “This is not your fight.”
“It will be when I step on that train.”
She smiled at his readiness to accept the challenge. “Not that many British officers are expected to be on the train. My brother and his friends are sure they will successfully gain the money for arms. You will be fine.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Nothing an undercover agent cannot handle, if that is who you say you are.” She looked up from her hands and into his eyes. “What about you? How did you get started in the…”
“The Bureau?” He twisted his mouth into a wistful expression. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Spies?”
Warren picked up the stick she had set down. He began stoking the fire, avoiding her gaze. “We prefer ‘information collectors.’ Wasn’t born in America, but it’s the land I’ve been serving. I came out of university in the States and planned to be a lawyer but quit my first job after it all became too repetitive. A buddy offered me cash to help him with a project.”
“What project?”
“I had to go undercover and collect Bertillon records. Heard of those?”
She tilted her head to the side. “I believe so.”
“Measurements of the head, body, all sorts of information for criminal identificat
ion.” He opened his mouth to say something else, then promptly closed it.
“Why did you come out of university in America? You said you were not born there.” Words tumbled from her lips in an effort to break down the walls that shut her out. “Where were you born?”
“In India, actually.”
Parineeta frowned. “Then how did you end up back …”
“It’s a long story.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “I have time, Mr. Warren.” Her eyes widened. Warren what? “I do not even know your true identity.”
“It’s not important right now.” He stood and pulled his shirt back on, stretching his arm into the starched sleeves. Parineeta had expected him to continue, but instead he remained silent while he pushed each button carefully through the holes, clearly ignoring her.
She thought about protesting, but a rustling in the bushes made her think twice about making any sound. Holding her breath, she put out the fire with as little noise as possible.
Warren leaned against the thick tree trunk that hid them from one angle and craned his neck. Jungle leaves surrounded them on all sides, but suddenly the protection felt lacking. Parineeta backed up against a nearby tree trunk and watched his hand fall to his pocket, where she knew one of the pistols still lay. She began to hear sounds from the other side of the trunk. Maybe it was just an animal.
But as the noises continued, they grew in clarity until it sounded like chatter. Voices. Clearly British voices. Now she could hear the stomping of heavy boots. She knew British soldiers sometimes patrolled villages in the early morning but never dense jungles in the middle of the night.
“Heard there’s a general on the run. Don’t know why though,” one of the men said. The closer his boots swung toward the direction of their alcove, the louder Parineeta could hear her own heartbeat roaring within her ears. “Lieutenant colonel said they’d be somewhere in this bloody jungle. Do you know anything about the general?”
