by John Masters
‘Have either of you ever seen this man recently, here in Bhowani?’ Govindaswami asked carelessly.
‘No, I’ve never seen this man,’ Ranjit said and handed back the print. He carefully kept his eyes on the Collector, so as not to look at me.
‘And you, Miss Jones?’ Govindaswami said.
I was ready and did not hesitate, but answered at once. ‘No, I’ve never seen him either.’
Govindaswami put the print away. He said, ‘Well, he’s about, and he is a real danger to what we have agreed that we want. Perhaps you think he’s just one nihilist with a few crazy followers, and what difference can it make to the future of India if he does blow up a train—or ten trains, for that matter. Have you been thinking that, Ranjit?’
‘I don’t think it is right to kill people and do damage, of course,’ Ranjit said. ‘But yes, I don’t see how Roy can really do great harm—great political harm, and that is all that is important now.’
Govindaswami returned to his blotter and got out a plain outline map of India. On it several large areas had been shaded with red pencil strokes, and in a few places there were red circles and the names of cities or towns. He said, Those are the areas and the cities where revolutionary groups that stand far to the left of the Socialists, for instance, are waiting to see whether what K. P. Roy told them is true or not—whether they can do on a large scale what Roy is doing on a small scale and almost by himself. Whether it is feasible and practicable to disrupt government and communication by terrorism—all government, any government. The R.I.N. mutiny, coinciding with the railway strike, was to be the first big bang, leading to a wider, ever-spreading train of explosions. But the mutiny failed. The derailment of this troop train is, I think, Roy’s first effort to show that the rest of the plan need not be abandoned. By this act he is saying, “Look, it can still be done.”’
Ranjit looked at the map, shook his head, and said, ‘It is very interesting.’
Govindaswami said, ‘Your mother was associated during the nineteen twenties with men and women who we know are now in K. P. Roy’s group. That’s all I wanted to tell you, Ranjit. Think it over. You, Miss Jones—I wanted you to be here because you have made it clear that you are changing worlds, as I did when I went to Cheltenham. You will be seeing your new world with new eyes. I want you to use those eyes and help me, for India’s sake and your own. Try and persuade Mr Surabhai to help me. I don’t want him to stop being a Congress man. I want him and others like him to examine their friends carefully at this time, and sniff the air, and make sure there isn’t a rat i’ the arras. What do you think Mr Surabhai would do if he knew another Congress man, or a friend of Congress, was going to derail a troop train?’
He shot the question at me suddenly. I started and looked at him with surprise and said, ‘What?’ He repeated his question.
I said, ‘I think he’d try first to persuade the man not to do it’
‘And if he failed to persuade the man?’ Govindaswami said.
I said, ‘I’m sure he’d give you or the police all the information he had.’
‘Do you agree with that, Ranjit?’ Govindaswami asked.
Ranjit was unhappy. He mumbled, ‘Yes, I think so. I don’t know. Mr Surabhai is not a murderer.’
Govindaswami said, ‘No. But it would hurt him just as much to send a patriot, even a misguided one, to jail or to the gallows—wouldn’t it?’
His tone insisted on an answer, and we had to give it. We had to agree. He said no more then, but apologized for keeping us so long—it had not been long—and showed us out and stood on his verandah while we bicycled side by side down his long drive.
As soon as a bank of azalea bushes hid him Ranjit said, ‘We must talk.’
I asked him where we should go.
He said, ‘Down to the river. This way.’ He turned to the right off the Pike, and we pedalled along a rutted causeway that soon brought us to the bank of the Cheetah. The grass was long and patchy and broken up by outcropping stones and a few thorn bushes. The river was running, at that time of year, in several shallow streams scattered over its wide, almost empty bed. We heard a bugle call quite close. Kabul Lines were not far off, beyond a row of big dark trees.
We laid our bicycles on the grass and slowly walked forward to the bank. I sat down on a low boulder, and Ranjit sat at my feet.
I said, ‘I thought that picture was Ghanshyam.’
Ranjit had found a stick and was busy scratching in the earth as he answered, ‘It was quite like him.’
I looked down on the top of his puggaree and wondered what to say. I was sure—almost sure. I thought Ranjit didn’t want to be sure, didn’t even want to talk about it. But I couldn’t get close to him if I hid my thoughts from him, or he his from me. I said, ‘Ranjit, you know it was Ghanshyam. Why didn’t you tell the Collector?’
He muttered, ‘I don’t know. It was very like.’
I said, ‘You do know. Why didn’t you say so?’
He threw away his stick and looked up into my face. He said, ‘If they catch him—Ghanshyam—he will tell the truth about Lieutenant Macaulay.’
I said, ‘That will be unpleasant, Ranjit, but it’s not serious enough to make us hide K. P. Roy. They won’t hang me, you know.
Ranjit said slowly, ‘They will arrest my mother.’
I was silent. I had got to the bottom of Ranjit’s thought then. I wanted to say something like, What does that matter? or, What does she have to fear if she’s innocent?—but obviously Ranjit thought she wasn’t innocent. I didn’t see how she could be innocent.
Ranjit began to speak in a tense, low voice. He said, ‘My mother has fought the British for twenty-six years. She’s been to jail five times—nineteen twenty-one, nineteen twenty-five, nineteen thirty, nineteen thirty-one, nineteen thirty-seven. She’s not a revolutionary, she’s a patriot—but they’d put her in jail again. I don’t agree with everything she says, but I can’t blame her. She’s seen too much, fought too hard. Besides, she may not know that Ghanshyam is K. P. Roy.’
‘You can tell her,’ I said.
Ranjit lifted his shoulders and dropped them in a sudden gesture of hopelessness. He said, ‘I was trying to deceive myself. If he is K. P. Roy, she knows it very well. But that doesn’t mean Mr Govindaswami is right. He says Roy is doing all this, but how do we know he is telling the truth? How do we know someone else, some other group isn’t responsible and the British are only trying to put the blame on Roy so that they can hang him, because they know he is a man who could unify India against them? How do we know? I’d rather trust my mother than Mr Govindaswami. Why should we believe any Indian who joins the Indian Civil Service and serves the British so faithfully they make him a Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire? Two empires! You can’t be more imperialist than that.’
Neither of us had mentioned Mr Surabhai and what he had said that night about derailing a troop train. He had said it was justifiable. But he would be in a terrible quandary—of the spirit—if someone he admired and respected had determined to do it. I thought of asking Ranjit what, if anything, we ought to say to Mr Surabhai, but I decided not to. The problem was really much bigger. What were we going to do?
I opened my bag, got out my cigarette case, and lit a cigarette. Ranjit was looking at me with his face sad and strained and his eyes puckered at the corners as though he was on the edge of tears. I dragged the smoke into my lungs and said, ‘What are we going to do, then?’
He broke into a smile that lit his face, and lay back on his side, propping himself up on one elbow. He said, ‘I shall never get over seeing you pull out a cigarette and just smoke it, Victoria.’
‘In a sari, you mean?’ I said, smiling at him.
He said, ‘Yes. All the ordinary Indian ladies will have a fit when they see you. Mrs Surabhai will give you a severe lecture.’
‘What about your mother?’ I asked.
Ranjit became serious at once and said, �
�My mother won’t mind. She is not ordinary.’
I wanted to catch again the butterfly lightness that had linked us just then. I flipped open the case, offered it to him, and said, ‘Have a coffin nail yourself.’
He shook his head and said, ‘I don’t smoke.’
I asked him if he didn’t like the taste. He said he’d never tried.
I said, ‘But you’re not a Sikh—I mean by religion? Didn’t you tell me your mother persuaded you to give it up?’
He said, ‘In nineteen thirty-five. But I’ve never wanted to smoke, and——’ He stood up quickly, dusting off his clothes. ‘I think I’m going back. Back to my religion. I tell myself it is ridiculous, but I can’t help it. I am feeling more lost every day. I think I will go to see the guru here soon and ask if I can go back. Will you mind?’
I said slowly, thinking as I spoke, ‘I don’t mind, Ranjit. You won’t want me to become a Sikh if—if we get married, not at once, will you? Not till I understand more about it?’
There, I’d said right out that I was thinking of marrying him. It was what I’d agreed to do, take the lead, when we talked by the signal that night. But I didn’t like it. Why couldn’t he take some of the weight of responsibility off me, some of this perpetual having to think and decide?
He said, ‘I would like you to become a Sikh, of course, Victoria—if you marry me. You would have another name then. Victoria is not a good name for an Indian.’
I laughed and shook my head and said, ‘No,’ but I was thinking, Victoria is my name, and I will always call myself Victoria; I don’t see how I can help it.
Ranjit took my hand and brushed his lips across it. He said, ‘It is not as important as marrying you, though. Do you think you will marry me, Victoria?’ He was so docile and spoke as though he were asking me whether I meant to have a permanent wave soon.
I held his hand tight and said, ‘I don’t know, Ranjit. I wish it could all be arranged for us. Whenever I think about it I get afraid that I will make you unhappy. I get afraid that I will be unhappy myself, for a time. Then I wonder—for how long a time?’
Ranjit said, ‘I will wait.’
He stood beside me, and our hands were joined, his left with my right. Even holding my hand made him nervous because Indians don’t do it in public, but he had forced himself to come that far toward me. We faced west where the sun was low over the hills of the State of Lalkot. It was a quiet sun sinking in a quiet evening, a warm red sun settling into long sheets of pink and green silk.
An engine whistled long and shrill from the city behind us. I knew without looking at my watch that it was 97 Down Express whistling for the Kishanpur road crossing. A bugle blew a short call, like an order in brass, from the barracks. I knew the call was the ‘Orderly Havildars’ of the First Thirteenth Gurkha Rifles. I knew Ghanshyam was K. P. Roy. I knew K. P. Roy was a murderer and a train-wrecker. But he was an Indian. For me there would be no floating in a boat, on a calm tide, to a sheltered shore.
I said, ‘We’d better get back.’
TWENTY-ONE
I wore the saris from then onward. Pater had seen me in them once or twice, but he had said nothing. He didn’t show astonishment, not even the first time, so Rose Mary must have warned him. He didn’t show anger either, which probably meant he was taking thought about what he should do.
It wasn’t many days, though, before he called me to the parlour one evening after supper. Rose Mary was in there, talking sweet to him, obviously intending to join in the attack on me. When Pater asked her to leave the room she grumbled but flounced out and left the house as well. Mater was in somewhere, but she didn’t come near the parlour. She never did normally, unless Pater told her to, and this time I thought Pater had definitely told her to keep away.
Pater was sitting in the big armchair on the right of the grate. He was having trouble lighting his pipe, and I sank into the chak opposite, watching and loving him but prepared to fight him, while he lit a dozen matches and at last got the pipe going. Then he said, ‘I want to talk with you, Victoria.’
I said, ‘Yes, Pater?’
He said, ‘You know what it is about. That!’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at my sari. ‘Why are you wearing those clothes now? Aren’t the clothes your mother and sister wear good enough for you? What is the matter? Please tell me, girl.’
I took a deep slow breath. I said, ‘I don’t mean to hurt you, Pater. I don’t think it’s any of your business, actually, but I will tell you. We are half Indian.’ Pater moved uncomfortably in his chair. I went on, ‘Well, we are, aren’t we? But there’s not going to be any place for half-Indians soon. I can’t make myself a whole Indian, but I can show that I don’t think of myself as whole-English. I can show that I think India is my home.’
Pater shook his head obstinately. He said, ‘Of course I believe there is some Indian blood in our family. Very good blood, too. There is a rumour that my grandmother, Mrs Duck, was a princess. But even if the rumour is true—and of course it is nothing like as much as half Indian that we are—it is stepping down to pretend to be an Indian. Indians are dirty and lazy, Victoria. They will run around like chickens with their heads cut off if the English Government ever leave them to their own devices. God forbid! I hear you are great friends with Kasel. Now, he is not a bad fellow at all—mind you, I like lots of Indians very much—but have you thought that Kasel wipes his bottom with his hand, with nothing but water on it? That is the hand you shake, man!’
I said, ‘No, it isn’t. They use their left hands.’ I was short with him because I thought of just that, more than once. What Pater chose to ignore was that Mater did the same thing when she thought she wouldn’t be caught out. And I said so.
Pater banged his open palm down on the arm of his chair and cried, ‘I won’t have you saying such a horrible thing, Victoria! That is your own mother you are speaking of! What is the matter with you, girl? Do you hate us, all of a sudden? What would he think of you? He was a fine man.’ Pater pointed at the Sergeant’s empty, silly face.
‘You’ve just said he married an Indian,’ I answered.
Pater said, “Yes, but he didn’t take off his trousers and put on a dhoti, my God! He raised ber to his level, he did not sink down into all the Indian ways and use water instead of Bromo, and pick his nose and eat it, and belch after his meal, and go crawling on his stomach in front of the idols in the temples, and keep filthy statues in his room and worship them.’ He ran out of breath, then frowned at me as an idea came to him. He said, much more sharply, ‘You are not thinking of marrying an Indian, are you?’
I said, ‘I’m twenty-eight, Pater. Surely I can marry whoever I want to. And how does a sergeant raise a princess to his level?’
I had got him sidetracked for the moment. He said, ‘How, you ask me? By being an English gentleman, that’s how. Well, my grandfather was not a real English gentleman, as a matter of fact, like Colonel Savage. He was only a sergeant, but he was a fine and upright man, and he raised my grandmother to behave decently. Oh, Victoria, for God’s sake tell me you are not thinking of marrying Kasel!’
I said, ‘Why shouldn’t I, if he asks me and I want to?’
There it was again. Now Pater was pushing me along Why didn’t he ask, instead, whether Ranjit was thinking of marrying me? Why were all the decisions left to me? The more he pushed one way, the more I would go the other.
He said, ‘You are a beautiful girl, Victoria. You can do better for yourself than that. Oh, I know some of our girls have married Indians—just one or two that I have heard of—but it has always been unhappy, a terrible mistake. You are not getting any younger, but you could marry anyone. If you don’t put it off too long you could even marry one of the officers of the Gurkhas.’
‘Like Lieutenant Macaulay?’ I snapped.
Pater shook his head and said, ‘That man would not have asked you to marry him, Victoria. He would only have taken your affection and then cast you away like an old shoe. He was not a gentleman. He was not a
s much of a gentleman as my grandfather, who was only a sergeant. But I don’t like to speak badly of the dead. I hear he is missing. They think he has been murdered?’
I said, ‘Yes.’
Pater shook his head and relit his pipe. When he next looked at me I saw that his eyes were damp, and immediately my own eyes began to water. When he spoke, his voice was low and trembly. He said, ‘I am not really a fool, Victoria, like you think. I know I am only a cheechee engine driver, and my grandmother was not a princess at all; she was nobody—she may have been a loose woman, even. I know as well as you do that a high-caste Indian girl would not marry a sergeant, not in those days. But that is exactly why we have to fight so hard, that is why we must pretend and keep our self-respect, even if we shut our eyes like ostriches to do it. Because that is what we will go back to if we don’t. You don’t realize that if the English had not helped us and given us jobs, and if we had not held on to our self-respect, we would have been worse than outcasts. We would be lower than our grandmothers. And now you talk of going back, stepping down. You are throwing away what we have taken a very long time to build. I shall never go Home, but you could. You say there will be changes in India, and I am afraid it is true—but you don’t have to see them.’
He pulled out a big handkerchief and dabbed his eyes. He said, ‘I think I know how badly you feel sometimes about this. But don’t you realize you could set yourself to marry a British officer, and then you could go Home and never see us or think of us again? You could live at Home in a big cantonment all your life and have an English butler. No one will know what you are. You can say you are partly Spanish. That is what Jimmy D’Souza’s girl did. She wrote secretly once and said it was fine. In England no one cares, she said; no one even suspects, unless they have been to India. You could have all that instead of this.’ He waved his arm round the pokey little parlour—at my sari, at Sergeant Duck, at the glaring road and the barren barrack-like little houses.
