The Secrets of the Tea Garden

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  In daylight, she noticed that there were two pictures hanging on the wall beyond the simple cupboard. One was a photograph of some people at a religious festival – or perhaps a political rally – and Libby peered at it more closely. At the forefront was an attractive woman in uniform, wearing a dark beret and helping Ghulam hold up a banner. Libby’s insides clenched. Could this be the woman that Fatima had told her about, the only woman Ghulam had really loved and whose photograph he still kept?

  She turned away from it, uncomfortable with the thought, and looked at the other picture. It was a sketch attached to the wall with drawing pins. On closer inspection, Libby blushed to see it was her cartoon of Ghulam as a grumpy tiger. She laughed out loud that he had not only kept it but displayed it on his bedroom wall.

  Libby went to the water closet and then padded along to the sitting room, hoping to find Ghulam. The room was empty and the bedroll gone from the floor. The clock on the desk showed it was already late morning. A note on the table bore her name. She unfolded it.

  Dear Goddess

  Both of us have gone to work. Take the day to rest and recover from your ordeal. Fatima doesn’t want you to put yourself at any more risk – and I have to agree with her. We’ll talk tonight. Make yourself at home.

  Ghulam

  Libby grinned at the reference to goddess; it was the only hint at their lovers’ conversation of the previous night. Otherwise the note was friendly but not over-familiar, no doubt not wanting to draw Fatima’s suspicion. She felt a renewed yearning in the pit of her stomach. The day would drag until she saw him again.

  A moment later Sitara appeared with a breakfast tray of tea, fruit and boiled eggs. Libby smiled and thanked her, frustrated that her lack of Hindustani would not allow for more than a few basic words. Her childhood fluency in the language had long been forgotten. She eyed the servant, wondering if she could have heard anything in the night. But Sitara didn’t linger and Libby was left alone to eat.

  She was ravenous and devoured all the food on the tray. She glanced through the books on the bookcase and chose one at random. It was about the archaeology of Taxila by some nineteenth-century traveller. She wondered whether it was Ghulam or Fatima who was interested in the ancient site near Rawalpindi; she decided it must be Fatima. Ghulam had no patience for the past; he was a man firmly anchored in the present but always hankering after a better future for the world.

  Later, as the temperature climbed again, Libby went for a wash. Returning to Ghulam’s bedroom, she found her river-soaked clothes of the day before on the chair. They had been washed, pressed and neatly folded. She blushed to think that Sitara probably missed nothing that went on in the Khan household.

  Libby dressed in her own clothes, brushed out her wet hair and settled back in the sitting room to read. Sitara brought her more food and drink, which made her sleepy. She went and lay down on Ghulam’s bed and was soon fast asleep.

  Libby woke with a start. There was shouting in the street below. Someone was screaming. She scrambled out of bed and ran to the window, throwing open the shutters. It was already dark outside. How long had she been asleep? She couldn’t see anything distinctly – a few shadowy figures, people running, a woman in a luminous sari bending over – but she could hear the commotion. The woman was wailing in distress. In the distance she heard the sound of a bell – perhaps from a police van – and more yelling.

  Libby’s heart pounded. Then lamplight spilled out from an opening door below and she could see more clearly. A man was trying to pull the woman away, remonstrating with her. As they did so, Libby saw a person crumpled on the ground at the woman’s feet, his white clothing stained with what looked like blood. Had he been attacked? Was he dead? Something terrible had happened. They needed help. She ran to the door and then stopped. Panic caught in her throat. What if it was dangerous? What could she do? There might be a gang of goondas. They might turn on her. They wouldn’t see in the dark that she was British . . .

  Libby leant against the door gasping for breath. She couldn’t move. She stood like that for what seemed an age, paralysed by fear. And yet she wasn’t even down in the street. What was happening to the distraught woman? Who was lying on the ground? What if it was Ghulam?

  Hot shame at her cowardice flooded through her. With shaking hands, Libby threw open the door and lurched up the corridor. The sitting room was empty; neither Fatima nor Ghulam were back from work. Her heart thumped in alarm. As she fumbled with putting on shoes, she heard the pounding of footsteps on the stairway beyond the flat.

  The door flew open. Ghulam’s anxious face caught sight of her.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he demanded.

  She felt dizzy with relief to see him.

  ‘Yes. What’s happened? I heard the noise. Has someone been hurt?’

  ‘There’s been a stabbing, right on our doorstep,’ he said. ‘I was frightened the attackers might have been in the building too.’

  She rose and went to him, throwing her arms around him and bursting into tears. Ghulam clasped her tightly and stroked her hair.

  ‘Is he dead?’ she whimpered.

  He swallowed. ‘I think so. They were carrying him away just as I arrived.’

  ‘I was so afraid it was you,’ she sobbed. ‘I was going to see . . .’

  ‘You were going out there?’ he asked, horrified.

  ‘I should have gone sooner but I was too afraid.’

  ‘Thank God you didn’t, Libby.’

  ‘But I should have.’

  He grasped her by the shoulders and frowned. ‘My God, woman! How am I supposed to keep you safe if you keep rushing straight towards trouble?’

  ‘But what about that poor woman?’

  ‘She’s being looked after,’ said Ghulam.

  ‘Was she his wife?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said distractedly. ‘She was Hindu like him, so probably.’

  ‘So was it a Muslim gang who did this?’

  He gave her a bleak look. ‘It could have been a quarrel between neighbours – but whether it was or not, the Hindus will seek revenge.’

  ‘Oh, Ghulam!’ she cried, holding on to him.

  ‘That’s why I came straight here to make sure you and Fatima were safe.’

  ‘But your sister isn’t home yet,’ Libby gasped. ‘What if she gets caught up . . . ?’

  Ghulam looked around him, for the first time seeming to notice that his sister was not there.

  ‘I must go and look for her,’ he said at once, dropping his hold and turning for the door.

  ‘Then I’m coming with you,’ Libby insisted.

  ‘Certainly not!’ he ordered. ‘You’ll stay here and keep the door bolted.’

  ‘Ghulam, please—’

  He rounded on her in exasperation, his expression grim. ‘Stay out of this, Libby. It’s not your fight and I’ve got enough to worry about.’

  She recoiled from his words and the hard look in his eyes. She watched him go.

  ‘Lock the door behind me.’ Those were the last words he said to her before he disappeared back into the dark stairwell and clattered away out of sight.

  Libby, heart hammering, retreated into the flat and did as he said.

  The waiting was interminable. Sitara appeared and Libby gestured for the old widow to stay and sit with her. The clock on the desk ticked on into the evening and no one came. Libby’s mind was filled with every horror she could imagine: Fatima had been caught up in the fracas, dragged off into a dark side alley and violated; or Ghulam had been ambushed by vengeful Hindus and was now lying mutilated and dying, his blood seeping into the gutter . . .

  Libby was nauseated by her thoughts. She couldn’t sit still and kept pacing to the door and back. Sitara tried to calm her with soothing words that she didn’t understand and pressed her to drink tea.

  ‘I know you’re trying to be kind,’ said Libby, knowing that the woman probably didn’t understand her either, ‘and you must be as worried as I am – but I’m going ou
t of my mind. What’s happened to them? Why hasn’t Ghulam returned by now?’

  She thought of going up on to the roof to try and see if she could spot them returning, or find out what was happening below. But that would mean leaving the door unlocked and Sitara vulnerable. Ghulam would be furious with her for disobeying him.

  ‘Oh, Ghulam! Where are you?’ she cried aloud.

  Then doubts beset her. The words he’d flung at her came back to taunt her. Stay out of this, Libby. It’s not your fight. How it wounded her to be told that despite all she had been through in the past couple of days, Ghulam still did not see her as one of his kind. This was a matter for real Indians not the Indian-born British like her. She was already an irrelevance in this land.

  Not only that, she was a burden to the Khans. To them, the violence in Calcutta was a real and ever-present danger. They were Muslims – albeit non-practising ones – who would be in a vulnerable minority should the city be parcelled off to West Bengal and India after Independence. It struck Libby how brave they were, carrying on their work amid the ferment of a divided city, as well as volunteering to help refugees from the opposing community. Not that either Ghulam or Fatima saw the fleeing East Bengali Hindus as their opponents. They were simply fellow Indians in extremis who needed their help.

  Libby sat down and buried her face in her hands. In contrast, she had done so little for ordinary Indians since returning to the land of her birth. For all her talk about freedom for India and anti-colonialism, what had she done that had been of any practical use? At best she had dabbled in playing the bountiful memsahib – a couple of days volunteering in a canteen and doling out blankets. Her Aunt Helena had done far more in her role as a Girl Guide leader and yet Libby had been scornful of her aunt, not prepared to see beyond the bossy memsahib exterior.

  Libby dug her nails into her palms as she was beset with self-criticism. What was she doing here? Her obsession with Ghulam had controlled her every thought and action. She had pursued him for her own gratification, not stopping to think what effect it might have on his life. She wanted him so much that she didn’t care if it was short-term, that she might soon be leaving for England, never to see him again. She felt a stab of pain at the thought. But that was the reality. She had her family in Newcastle waiting for her to join them; the future might look dull and colourless after India but it would be safe and secure.

  Whereas Ghulam faced a future fraught with danger and uncertainty. As a Muslim, would he keep his job after Independence? Would he stay in Calcutta or be forced to flee to East Bengal, where the new East Pakistan was being created? What about Rafi and the rest of the Khan family cut off in the part of the Punjab that was shortly to become West Pakistan? Would they be safe and would Ghulam ever see them again?

  In the light of such turmoil, no wonder Ghulam had rounded on her. Daily, he must feel anxiety in the pit of his stomach, worrying about his sister and the days ahead. Libby was only adding to his worry. Only now did it dawn on her how selfish was her desire to be with him. His instincts had warned him to resist becoming involved with her emotionally – Fatima had also cautioned her against a relationship with Ghulam – but Libby had ignored the advice and gone after him. She was the one who had pressed him to come to her party, had encouraged a correspondence between them and had urged him to go to bed with her. She had turned his world upside down.

  He had shown last night that he enjoyed intimacy with her – relished it even – but it could only be a temporary affair. They both knew that they lived in very different worlds and that once she left Calcutta they were unlikely to see each other again. Libby felt winded by the thought. However much it would devastate her to be parted from Ghulam, she couldn’t stay here; it wasn’t fair on Ghulam and it was probably causing Fatima embarrassment. The doctor was liberal-minded about many things but Libby suspected she was a prude when it came to sex outside of marriage, let alone between people of different races.

  Please just let them be all right! Libby began to pray in her head. Let them be safe, please, God! Then I promise I will leave them alone.

  A few minutes after the clock chimed ten, Libby heard footsteps outside and a knock on the door. She leapt up, heart hammering.

  ‘Libby, it’s me.’ Ghulam called. ‘Open up.’

  Libby scrabbled with the bolts and unlocked the door. To her relief, Ghulam stood there with an exhausted-looking Fatima. Libby flung her arms around the doctor, who almost lost her footing in surprise.

  ‘Thank goodness you’re both safe!’ Libby cried. ‘I’ve been so worried.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Fatima, gently disengaging herself. ‘Just tired.’

  As Ghulam locked the door behind them, he said, ‘I found her at the hospital working late.’

  ‘There’s been a string of attacks across the city,’ Fatima said, her look harrowed. ‘Knife wounds mainly. Even children.’

  ‘Oh, how horrendous!’ exclaimed Libby.

  She wanted to ask more but the warning look Ghulam gave silenced her. Fatima sank into a chair and closed her eyes. Sitara hurried back into the room with fresh tea and hot samosas.

  They ate without speaking. Eventually Libby couldn’t bear the silence any longer.

  ‘What is happening out there? Why the sudden increase in violence?’

  When Fatima said nothing, Ghulam answered. ‘It may be because of the news that Gandhiji is about to arrive in the city. Gangs are settling their scores before he comes. But who knows? There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the killing.’

  ‘What will you do?’ asked Libby. ‘Is it safe for you to stay here? Perhaps I could arrange for you to take rooms in New House. Alipore is safe.’

  Ghulam gave her a sad smile – the first tender look since he’d returned – and said, ‘That’s kind of you but it doesn’t really solve anything. We still have to go to work in the city and it would be a longer journey home after dark.’

  ‘So are you going to just carry on as if nothing happened outside here tonight?’ she asked.

  Ghulam glanced at his sister and she nodded for him to speak.

  ‘No we are not. Fatima is going to live in at the hospital for the next few weeks until things settle down,’ he said. ‘It’ll be safer there.’

  ‘And you?’ Libby pressed him.

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ he said. ‘If things get worse I know I will be welcome at Sanjeev’s or with another of my Hindu friends.’

  ‘Can’t I do anything to help?’ she asked, hating the feeling of helplessness.

  Fatima spoke up. ‘You have done more than enough,’ she said. ‘You saved a little girl’s life and we’ll never forget that. But you’re not safe staying here, Libby. We can’t look after you and guarantee no harm comes to you when we are struggling to do that for ourselves.’

  ‘I understand that,’ Libby replied. ‘I’ll go back to Alipore.’

  Ghulam frowned. ‘I don’t think you should stay in Calcutta on your own. I think you should go to Belgooree as soon as you can.’

  Libby felt pained by his haste to see her gone.

  ‘I agree,’ said Fatima. ‘You’ll be safer in the Khasia Hills away from the violence. Ghulam says that you’ve promised Sophie you’ll be there for the celebrations on the fifteenth. I’m so glad you’ll be able to keep her company while Rafi’s away in the Punjab – it’ll help keep her spirits up.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll try.’ Libby nodded, feeling a lump form in her throat.

  ‘Is there anyone you can travel with?’ Fatima asked. ‘I’d be concerned about you making the journey alone.’

  ‘I can stick to the first-class memsahibs’ carriage,’ Libby said with a mock smile. ‘The only danger there is the blocks of ice running out.’

  They didn’t laugh at her feeble joke.

  ‘Perhaps Flowers would travel with you again?’ suggested Ghulam.

  ‘I don’t think she’ll be rushing back to the hills in a hurry,’ said Libby. ‘She found up-country life very dull.’ On the spur of t
he moment she added, ‘Maybe Clarrie Robson’s nephew, George Brewis, might want a trip up to Belgooree. He hasn’t been to see his aunt yet.’

  She saw Ghulam’s jaw darken. He flashed her a look. Libby glanced away. Perhaps it was best if he thought she was still in touch with George; it would make it easier for him to banish her from his thoughts.

  ‘That would be a good idea,’ said Fatima with a smile of approval. ‘Now I think we should all get some sleep. It sounded like you had a disturbed one last night.’

  Libby flushed. She didn’t dare look at Ghulam. ‘I was a little bit sick.’

  Fatima frowned in concern. ‘You should have come and told me.’

  ‘I didn’t want to bother you,’ said Libby. ‘And I felt better soon after.’ Libby stood up and glanced at Ghulam. ‘I don’t want to turf you out of your room for a second night,’ she said. ‘I’ll sleep in here.’

  Ghulam gave her a perplexed look. ‘I don’t mind . . .’

  ‘But I do,’ said Libby. She couldn’t bear to lie sleepless and alone in a bed where she had known such ecstasy just a few hours ago – or have to look again at that photo of the beautiful revolutionary that Ghulam kept on his wall. He clearly wanted her gone as soon as possible.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, his expression tightening. He left the room to fetch the spare bedroll.

  Fatima said softly, ‘I’m sorry it has to be this way – I know you are fond of my brother – but I think it’s for the best.’

  Ghulam returned before Libby had time to question Fatima on what she meant was for the best. Probably that Libby went quickly and got out of her brother’s life. In her heart she knew that the doctor saw no future for Libby with Ghulam.

  After a night of fitful sleep in which Libby had to restrain herself from creeping along the corridor to Ghulam’s bedroom, she rose early. Tidying away the bedroll, she scribbled a note of thanks and left as dawn broke.

  The city, awash with pearly light, was waking to a chorus of birds, calls to prayer and the stirrings of shopkeepers opening up their stalls. It was as if the violence in the night had been a bad dream. Yet as Libby stepped out into the lane, she saw where someone had attempted to wash away blood from where the stricken man had lain. Nauseated, she thought pityingly of the distraught widow and prayed fervently that there would be no repercussions.