Bhowani Junction

by John Masters

  ‘I know, Patrick,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the tie on now.’ I had. It has blue, yellow, and violet stripes. She said, ‘But—things are going to change, aren’t they? They are changing…’

  She spoke quite vehemently all of a sudden. She told us that the past was gone, the present going. She remembered what it had been like living here with us, but now she had seen us from the outside. All the same she was still one of us. I noticed she always said ‘we’.

  She said, ‘We think God fixed everything in India so it can’t alter. The English despise us but need us. We despise the Indians, but we need them. So it’s all been fixed—the English say where the trains are to go to, we take them there, and the Indians pay for them and travel in them.’

  Now she was getting excited, and her eyes sparkled, and she didn’t talk la-di-da, she talked the way we do. She said, ‘I’ve been four years among only Englishmen and Indians. Do you realize that they hardly know there is such a thing as an Anglo-Indian community? Once I heard an old English colonel talking to an Indian—he was a young fellow, a financial adviser. The colonel said, “What are you going to do about the Anglo-Indians when we leave?” “We’re not going to do anything, Colonel,” the Indian said. “Their fate is in their own hands. They’ve just got to look around and see where they are and who they are—after you’ve gone.”’

  Now I wasn’t going to be sidetracked by that. Victoria talked as if we Anglo-Indians could change, but we couldn’t. This business of St Thomas’s explained exactly what I felt. The Presidency Education Trust, which was over a hundred years old, was a group of English businessmen who had got up funds to help give a good education to us Anglo-Indians and our children. Mind, we paid too, as much as we could. In 1887 the Trust built St Thomas’s, a boarding school for boys, at Gondwara. Besides St Thomas’s they ran day-schools in Bombay, Calcutta, and Cawnpore. What the Trust was saying to us now, in 1946, was this: ‘St Thomas’s doesn’t pay its way. It only survives because the Provincial Government gives it more help from provincial funds than it’s really entitled to, considering the number of boys it educates. An Indian government will come to power soon. Is it likely that they will continue to give special help to the education of Anglo-Indians? Of course not! So sooner or later you’ll have to sell out. But there’s a boom on now, and now is the time to sell St Thomas’s. With the money, you’ll be in a position to keep the day-schools open, at least, whatever happens.’

  All that made sense, I suppose, but what those Englishmen in Bombay didn’t realize was that we couldn’t sell St Thomas’s, because it was in our hearts. It, the idea of it, was part of us. Without it we’d just be Wogs like everybody else. They might just as well have said we couldn’t afford trousers or topis, or told us to turn our skins black instead of khaki.

  So I lost my temper with Victoria and shouted, ‘You want the Trust to sell our school now!’

  ‘It’s their school, not ours, Patrick,’ she said. ‘They bought it.’

  ‘We can buy it back then!’ I bawled. ‘We have the money. We can run it ourselves. We——’

  Then Victoria shouted, ‘We only have the money because there is this boom and we’ve all been employed during the war and pay has gone up. Do you think an Indian government, a Congress government, is going to keep on holding jobs open especially for us on the railways and telegraphs? Colonel McIntyre said——’

  Then I shouted, ‘Oh, to hell with Colonel McIntyre! I am sorry, Mrs Jones—but, Victoria, what does your Colonel McIntyre know about St Thomas’s? Was he there? He was at Eton School, I bet!’

  Victoria said, ‘He knows nothing about St Thomas’s! But he thinks the English will leave India very soon,’ and I shouted, ‘They won’t leave, man! How can they leave, with the bloody Mohammedans and the bloody Hindus cutting each other’s bloody throats every day?’

  Rose Mary screamed at Victoria, ‘Of course they won’t leave. They can’t. You talk as if you want the Congress to become our government!’

  Then I banged my fist on the table. I shouted, ‘My God, if they leave I will go Home with them.’

  Victoria sat up with a jerk, very pale, and she screamed, ‘Home? Where is your home, man? England? Then you fell into the Black Sea on your way out? I don’t want to see the Congress ruling here, but I am only asking you, what else is there that can happen? I am only asking you to think, man!’ She pushed back her chair and ran out of the dining-room.

  I sat there, feeling a little sick. That last thing I had said, about going Home, was mere foolishness, and I knew it. The whole point that made it impossible to give way, even to argue, was that we couldn’t go Home. We couldn’t become English, because we were half Indian. We couldn’t become Indian, because we were half English. We could only stay where we were and be what we were. Here Colonel McIntyre was right too. The English would go any time now and leave us to the Wogs.

  Rose Mary said something to me, but I shook my head, and after a time I heard her leave the house. Mrs Jones disappeared, God knows where. The wireless in Number 3 next door was playing music.

  I had to get up and go to Victoria. I went to her room and knocked very gently on the door. She did not answer. I knocked again and whispered, ‘Victoria—Victoria? I am sorry. Let me come in.’

  ‘Come in then,’ she said after a time.

  I opened the door cautiously. She was lying on her back on the bed, her hands over her eyes. I stood shuffling my feet and looking at her.

  She put her hands down and said, ‘Well?’

  I tried to tell her what I had been thinking, about how we had no choice and how we must use our hearts, not our brains. She was calm by then. She put her hand on mine and said, ‘Do you think I am just trying to run away from you all? My dear, I would be running away from myself, wouldn’t I?’

  I couldn’t speak. She kneaded my hand under hers and said, ‘It is my heart that makes me disagree with you, Patrick, as well as my head. There are other ways to live, and I’ve seen them. You don’t realize how fresh and free it is to be English—or Indian. Why must we torture ourselves with ideas that we are better than some people and worse than others? Why don’t we put on dhotis or saris if we want to, and marry Indians? I don’t despise anyone now, and I don’t fear anyone. I’m just me, but I’m not in a cage any more, like I think you are.’

  My God, she was beautiful then, with the wet shining in her big eyes and her hair all out over the pillow. She was like a doe in the forest that wants to love the leopard and admire the green grass and do no harm to anyone. But, I thought, she will learn that the leopard can’t live unless it eats her, and she can’t live unless she eats the green grass, and she can’t really love anything except another deer.

  Then I realized something very important. To her, now, nothing was inevitable. Being a cheechee wasn’t inevitable. I wasn’t inevitable. I had thought, we are in love, we are practically engaged, now we will get married, there’s really nothing else either of us can do. But she didn’t think like that any more. I realized I would have to make her want to marry me. The idea, coming suddenly, frightened me so much that the first thing I did was try to make love to her, just then and there.

  I pushed the door shut with my foot and knelt down and took her hand where it lay at her side. I whispered, ‘Your arms are so smooth.’ It sounds as if I was putting it on, but by God it was true, and I loved her. I kissed her arm. She closed her eyes and began to cry. She really did like me, and everything inside her was upset. She did not want to hurt me, I think. All our shouting and thinking and worrying had made her like some girls always are, damp and clinging and loosened up. I kissed her shoulder.

  I whispered all the time how beautiful she was. I slipped my hand inside her blouse, and the little ends were standing up. I whispered, ‘Do you love me?’

  She did not answer and did not move. I think she could not. Suddenly she groaned and put out her arms and held me tightly round the neck. It was too much for me. Oh God, she was lovely.

  Then
I said, ‘Victoria, darling—may I?’ I loved her and thought so highly of her that I had to ask. I waited a fraction of a second, and then I knew I had thrown it all away.

  She pushed my hand away and said quite gently, ‘No, dear.’

  I began to argue and plead, but in my heart I knew it was no good, and I knew it was my fault. Here I was, trying to prove that this thing of us loving and marrying had to be, and then I went and asked her! I was her stag all right, and she was my doe. But perhaps she had seen a beautiful leopard. Her heart was running about trying to make the world bigger than it is. She was discontented, but not in a sulky way—just the opposite. I’d have to show her. It would be difficult, because I loved her so much.

  And then, thank God, the telephone rang in the hall. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and then I got up slowly and went out to answer it.

  THREE

  It was the Collector on the phone, Govindaswami, the head man of the Bhowani civil district, the Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate and God knows what else besides, and the first Indian we’d ever had as Deputy Commissioner in Bhowani. It’s an old custom to call the D.C. the Collector there, so that’s what we always called him—the Collector.

  He wanted to see me about the derailment right away. I grumbled that I’d been going to the pictures with Victoria, but that was because I didn’t like Govindaswami. I didn’t think Victoria would still want to come to the pictures with me. Govindaswami said I could bring Victoria along with me to his bungalow. It turned out that Victoria did want to go to the pictures after all, so we set off to the Collector’s.

  The Collector’s bungalow in Bhowani is an old place, built before the Mutiny. It’s on the east side of the Pike in about six acres of gardens. The military cantonments across from it are all fairly new, but the Collector’s bungalow is old and low, and it sits squarely on the ground like a sleepy lion. It’s built of stone and always kept whitewashed. My Norton sounded funny there, so I went quietly for a bit. Then I thought, Why the hell should I go quietly for Govindaswami? So I revved up and raced the engine before cutting off. There were a couple of cars and a bicycle there in front of the steps under the carriage porch.

  On the veranda a chuprassi in a scarlet achkan took our names and went inside. When he came back Govindaswami was with him. Govindaswami held out his hand to Victoria. ‘Miss Jones?’ he said in his la-di-da Oxford voice. ‘Or Miss Victoria Jones?’

  I didn’t know what the hell he meant. Nor did Victoria. She shook his hand, half smiling but puzzled. He said, ‘I mean, are you the eldest sister?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Miss Victoria Jones, then, for formal introducrions. I have to know. So nice of you to spare me some of your time, Mr Taylor. Won’t you come in?’

  I can’t stand people who talk like that when they know perfectly well you’ve got to do what they ask you to. We followed him in. I’d never been in there before. A District Traffic Superintendent is not important as far as government goes, and the Collector of Bhowani is, even if he’s as black as your boot.

  Govindaswami stopped at a closed door behind which we heard people talking. Victoria said quickly, ‘Where do you want me to wait, Mr Govindaswami?’ He told her to come along in, unless she thought she’d be bored.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said.

  ‘Come on then,’ he said.

  There were two men already in there—Williams of our Railway Police, and Lanson, the Deputy Superintendent of Police—the ordinary civil police, that is. Williams was youngish, tallish, fattish. He was one of us, an Anglo-Indian. He was the fellow Sir Meredith Sullivan was going to stay with, because of his wife. Lanson was a typical square Englishman. He had a moustache and spoke gruffly. He was the Collector’s right-hand man.

  I’d better describe Govindaswami. He had a bony forehead, the bones sticking out over his eyes, which were black. His cheeks seemed hollow because his cheekbones stuck out. He had thick lips and a thatch of grey hair. He was slightly built, and his hands were thin and his fingers long. He always wore radier narrow white duck trousers and a white coat and a white shirt, all freshly starched and ironed, and a black bow tie. Those white clothes dazzled you, and then, as your eye went up—bonk! It was like being hit in the face when you saw that his skin was deep purple-black. He was a Madrassi. Everyone said he was the son of an untouchable down there who’d found a diamond in a village dung-heap and used the money to educate him. I don’t know. If he had any religion no one ever found out what it was.

  We four men began to talk while Victoria sat and listened, and very interested she was. The Collector first of all asked Williams what he thought about the derailment at Pathoda. Williams thought it was sabotage, but he didn’t know who’d done it. The only people who might have seen it done, he said, were some of the women who always hung around the Pathoda well, the same as women hang around every well in India. But everybody in Pathoda said they’d seen nothing.

  The Collector said, ‘It’s probably true then. They are not a revolutionary crowd in Pathoda. And you haven’t got a clue, George?’

  Lanson shook his head. ‘Not a clue. That’s the right phrase.’

  Then Govindaswami asked Williams whether the stationmaster at Pathoda—Bhansi Lall—was a Congress man.

  ‘He can’t be,’ Williams said. ‘Railway officials are not allowed to take part in politics.’

  Govindaswami said he knew that—but was he? Neither Lanson nor Williams knew. Bhansi Lall wasn’t on any of their lists. And then Lanson said what I’d been waiting for. He said, ‘Why do you ask, Collector? Do you think Gandhi’s going to pull another nineteen forty-two on us?’

  The point is that in 1942 that sanctimonious little bastard Gandhi had decided he’d rather have the Japs than the British. Rather, he said that if the Indians all sat down and were non-violent the British would go away. The Japs might come, he said, but they would only raise their hats, say, ‘So sorry,’ and go away again. What Gandhi’s non-violence turned out to mean was derailing trains all over the country, and pouring petrol over village policemen and setting them on fire, and dragging people out of trains to beat them to death. I’d been through that time, so you can see why I was sitting on the edge of my chair. I didn’t want 1942 again.

  Govindaswami didn’t answer at once. He rubbed his bony black face and turned to me. ‘And your new assistant—Mr Kasel—what about him? Is he a secret Congress man?’

  I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. He might be. He is a cheeky beggar.’ I wanted to be fair to Kasel. In fact I was damned positive he Was a Congress wallah.

  Govindaswami said soapily, ‘I see, I see.’ Then he told us he was going to let us in on some secrets. He flashed his teeth at Victoria (he had a gold tooth in front, upper; all the rest were big and dazzling white, like an advertisement) and told her to be sure not to talk about what she was going to hear.

  Then he said, ‘I have recently attended a Governor’s conference, as some of you know. The Government of India think trouble is brewing—industrial trouble, railway trouble, and perhaps worse. They think the situation will be much the same as in nineteen forty-two. That is, the Congress high command will recommend a campaign of non-violent non-co-operation, with the object of hurrying the British out of the country. The degree of non-violence will depend, as it did in 1942, on the nature of the local Congress men, and on whether they are of the Right or Left wing of the party. The high command will merely say, “Don’t co-operate.” Mr Surabhai, as the local Congress leader here, might then say, “Don’t give the Collector any petrol for his car.” But the man at the garage might say, “Better still, why not pour the petrol over the Collector—and throw away my bidi at the same time?”’

  Govindaswami went on to tell us that these huge campaigns of non-violence were always uncontrollable even when everyone in the lower ranks had exactly the same idea as the leaders. And they hadn’t, he said.

  He went on. ‘Some Congress men genuinely believe a social revolution is the way
to get rid of the British. But some people in Congress want revolution for quite another reason—to make it impossible for the Congress itself to rule after the British go.’

  Victoria was so interested that she interrupted. She said, ‘But who do they think is going to rule then? What do they want?’

  Govindaswami looked solemnly at her. ‘They want a complete revolution,’ he said. ‘Their masters, and their minds, are in Moscow. The thing they must prevent is an orderly handover to Congress and an orderly advance under Congress, or under any genuine local rule. Everything must fail so that the people have only one hope, only one friend they can turn to. And these men will make sure they know who that “friend” is.’

  I didn’t believe a word of this. It was all just making excuses. The truth is that the Wogs wanted to kill us first, and then they’d kill all the other Wogs who didn’t think the same way they did.

  Govindaswami went on. ‘So we have to keep a particularly close watch on Congress, for its own good. They don’t know who among their own people are really traitors to them. Their intelligence service is not as good as ours.’

  ‘What do you mean, “ours”?’ I burst out. I couldn’t stand that chap talking about ‘our’ this and ‘our’ that, when he meant things that we, the English people and their descendants, had done and made.

  He said, ‘Of or pertaining to the constitutional government of my country, Mr Taylor.’ I was furious, but what could I say? He went on. ‘As I was saying, Congress don’t always know, and when they do know they often dare not act, for political reasons. For instance, K. P. Roy may be in hiding in this district.’

  K. P. Roy had been a Congress man. Now he was an out-and-out terrorist, but I could see why the Congress couldn’t act openly against him. He was a sort of Frankenstein to them. They’d created him, and made a lot of Indians think he was a hero, so now that he had run off the rails the Congress couldn’t openly attack him.