“But it seems there was always warning. We always knew when they were coming, even if it was only a few minutes.”
I continue packing.
“This feels different. So unexpected. So surprising. It’s almost . . . unseemly.”
“Bombs are rarely seemly, Mother,” Margaret says, appearing in the doorway.
“You know what I mean,” she says.
“Have they told you anything?” Margaret asks, leaning against the wardrobe. “The policemen? I want to know who did this! I want to know who the bastards are who tried to kill Daddy, who hurt that little boy—” She cuts herself off, angry tears welling in her eyes. She wipes them quickly away with the back of her hand.
“Darling—” Her mother pats the cover on the bed, inviting Margaret to sit. But Margaret shakes her head.
Mrs. Darnsley rises from the bed and moves toward her daughter. “You’ve had a shock, Margaret.”
“We’ve all had a shock!” Margaret cries. “And that poor boy has had his leg all botched to pieces if he’s even still alive and I want to know who . . . ” She crosses her arms, stares at the ceiling, unable to finish. I stare at my hands, wish there was more I could do. Wish there was some reassurance I could give them.
“My Margaret.” Mrs. Darnsley strokes her daughter’s hair. “Always such fire. Anu, did you know that most of the children were removed from London during the worst of the bombing? Thousands of them carted away on trains to live in country homes. We almost sent Meggie, but she was just old enough to remain. And she was so brave. Insisted on staying, didn’t you, poppet?”
Margaret doesn’t seem to be listening. “When do we go?” she asks in defeat, her face buried in her mother’s shoulder, voice muffled. She is done being brave now.
“She wanted to do her bit,” Mrs. Darnsley says to me. “There were loads of things girls did. Meggie volunteered with the Red Cross, isn’t that right?”
“Father must be halfway to Delhi by now,” Margaret says instead of answering, drawing back from her mother, wiping her nose. I feel out of place here, listening to them talk around each other. It seems too private somehow.
“Of course she met that man and, well, we all know how that turned out,” Mrs. Darnsley says. “And then we ended up here.”
Margaret goes still, closes her eyes, and then opens them. And she is different now, like one of the vanara from the Rama stories who can change their shapes at will. “Well done, Mother. It only took you a few hours to blame a bombing here in the Punjab on my indiscretions in London.”
But Mrs. Darnsley doesn’t want to fight. She simply reaches back out and pulls her daughter in, wrapping her in a slow embrace, the cigarette still in her fingers. Margaret’s eyes lock on mine, the wisp of smoke curls up from behind her.
She looks away first.
“We go tomorrow,” her mother says finally. “When Daddy arrives in Delhi this evening and hears what has happened, he’ll send the car straight back for us. We’ll make for Delhi as soon as it returns. Once there, we’ll hop on the first aeroplane we can.”
“We won’t have to stay longer while they sort out who did this?” Margaret asks, pushing away.
Mrs. Darnsley shakes her head and crosses to the dressing table. She refills the glass and drinks it down at a gulp.
“How much have you had?” Margaret asks.
Her mother doesn’t answer, just smiles, crosses back to her daughter, and adjusts one of her curls.
Margaret turns to me, as if I am somehow responsible. “How much has she had?”
This time I look away.
She gives up, asks her first question again: “We don’t have to stay until the police find out who left the bomb?”
Her mother sounds sleepy. “That might take ages. And if we stay longer, they may try again.”
“Then why don’t we go tonight?” Margaret asks quickly. “Isn’t there an overnight train to Delhi?”
Her mother hesitates and seems to look sideways at me before speaking. “The trains have shut down,” she says.
I flinch, pictures I don’t want to see flashing into my mind. The trains. My cousins. My uncle and auntie.
“How does the whole bleeding railway shut down?” Margaret asks.
My legs won’t hold me up, turning into kheer. I grab the bedpost to steady myself. Bleeding. I’ve always managed to somehow only picture Papaji’s brother and family as sort of quietly dead. Sleeping almost. But there would have been blood. So much of it. Everywhere.
Mrs. Darnsley is looking at me, curious, concerned. She knows. But how? Papaji told the guard when he brought me back that day. But how did it work its way back to her? “There were troubles with some of the trains. Some attacks by the highwaymen or—”
“Dacoits,” I say, just so she’ll think I’m all right. We call train robbers dacoits. At least we used to when they were just little bands of desperate men looking to line their pockets, not great mobs of Muslim men looking to attack trains full of Sikhs and Hindus coming out of the north, or mobs of Sikh men attacking Muslim trains going the other way. Dacoit seems too simple a word now for what they are.
“Thank you, Anu,” Mrs. Darnsley says softly. She looks sorry to have to talk about all this. But Margaret doesn’t seem to notice.
“Can’t we round up another car?”
“Not on such short notice. Besides, the police captain promised he’d supply a dozen extra guards until we’ve gone. Whoever it was won’t try anything with so many policemen about.”
“How can he be sure?”
She shrugs. “We can’t. But we’re safer in here for now. Whoever left that bomb couldn’t even get it inside the compound. We’re lucky.”
And I think to myself that they are. They are able to leave this place, go back to London, where safety and home await them, while the rest of us remain here, trying to dig both out of the rubble.
CHAPTER 22
* * *
MARGARET
I’ve given up asking after the little boy, but I can’t stop thinking about him. Can’t stop thinking about what I did.
Anu didn’t know his name, and I’ve seen almost nothing of Tariq since he carried the poor child to his mother, but I doubt he knows him either. None of the officers seem to even care. But I can hardly stand it—I need to know. If only I had listened to Father, if only I hadn’t been leaving gifts for him, then he might not have been the one to find the bomb. Even Anu told me not to do it, but did I listen? Fool! A little boy, just a little boy, is hurt, and it’s in part, yes, it is, my fault. Fool!
Even when I try to do something good, it all goes pear shaped. First Alec. Now the little boy. And I can’t find a way to make up for it.
Below stairs, the policemen still loiter in the halls and rooms, still inventing reasons to question Mother, the servants, me. They’re all over the courtyard. Some question the porters and staff, while others check every nook and cranny of the compound for other hidden explosives. I wonder absently if they’ll find my cigarette stash.
It’s queer, this feeling. Nothing at all like the bombs in London going off. Those were dropped from airplanes, falling from thousands of feet in areas Jerry guessed would do the most damage. They likely had little notion of the people the bombs fell on, the gardens or churches or homes they destroyed that were near enough to the factories or other spots that were their intended targets.
But this bomb, though it was small, though it only blasted through a wall and broke some glass in the back windows of a house that will sit empty again in a day’s time, is strangely more frightening. It was deliberate. Someone wanted to kill Father. Or us. And maybe they merely wanted to sink a knife in the back of the empire as we packed up and hurried away from the Crown Jewel, but all the same, it was left at our house.
I slip into the little parlor. Anu and Shibani have already cleaned up all the broken glass off the floor. I stand at the back window, now just a jagged hole without the panes in place, and look down at the spot where the bomb
went off. Odd they’d choose the rear of the compound, and our trash heap, to teach us a lesson. All the same, I’m grateful they weren’t any bolder.
I pull away from the window and go back to my room. I’ll make myself barmy staring at the spot, thinking of that poor little boy. . . .
I have to keep busy, so I take up again with packing my things. My wardrobe is nearly done, and I’ve asked Anu to see if she can send someone out to find a crate to ship my harmonium in. I start gathering up the bottles on my dressing table when I see Tariq framed in the mirror behind me.
He’s jumpy, hands pulling at the hem of his kurta, usually pressed to perfection. He’s not nervous and sweet like before, but panicked. Good, I think, let the tosser stew a bit.
“What?” I ask without turning round.
He hesitates, glances into the hall before stepping into the room. “Your mother sent me to see if you have any baggage for me to carry below stairs yet.”
I look now, examining his reflection. He’s still handsome, but this strange jitteriness that seems to have settled on him highlights his faults somehow. His cheeks are marked with spotty little scars, a telling reminder that he may have once been more awkward and ungainly than he is now. The underarms of his shirt are dark with perspiration; one of his front teeth has a corner chipped away. I wonder that I didn’t see it before.
His accent is back in force, like he can’t hold it in the way he has the last couple of months. And his words aren’t as smooth as they once seemed to my ear, his voice rising and cracking halfway through his announcement. And they don’t ring true, either.
“Mother knows I haven’t finished packing anything,” I say, twisting on the stool to face him, folding my arms across my chest.
He opens his mouth as if he will say more, but stops. He takes another step into the room, craning his neck to get a look out my window. “She—” he begins before I cut him short.
“You’re lying,” I say to him, enjoying at last the feeling of my own strength, of being rid of the spell of him.
He forgets to argue as he stares out the window at the street. I follow his eye to the space beyond the wall, the corner of the lane across from the compound.
“What do you want?” I ask him, even enjoying the fact that I feel annoyed by his presence, annoyed by his odd behavior, his anxiety. I reckon it means I am truly free of him.
“You can see from here,” he says to himself, skin going grey like cold ashes from the end of a cigarette.
I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I’m relishing how the tables have turned. After nearly two months of finding myself the uncertain schoolgirl where he’s been concerned, I like feeling that for once I have the upper hand.
“Of course I can,” I say. “My father gave me the room with the best view.”
He points at the harmonium in front of the window, still waiting to be packed. “You sit here and play. But you watch me,” he says, looking at me now, accusing.
I straighten my shoulders. “There is damned little else to watch for,” I say, adding quickly, “take care not to flatter yourself. I’ve seen better.”
He doesn’t seem to be really hearing me. “But now you will not look at me. Now you seem to hate the sight of me.” He’s not asking a question. More that he’s piecing something together—only, I don’t know what it is. Like when I used to sit at Mother’s feet on the floor as she did her needlework. From my point of view, what was inside the hoop was a tangle of knots and crossed threads, but when she’d turn it to show me, the picture of a bluebird on a nest was neat and clean and perfect.
Only, now I’m annoyed enough at not knowing what he’s driving at to pretend that I do. And maybe I do. Maybe he understands what I know of his kindness toward me running parallel with his desperation to reach England.
“And why wouldn’t I, after what you’ve tried to pull?” I say sharply.
His eyes widen with terror. “You know?”
“Of course I know!” I spit, springing up from the stool and clearing some ground between us. He’s too close all of a sudden. “Do you think I’m a total duffer?”
He’s too panicked to realize he should tell me otherwise.
“You must help me,” he begs, taking a step forward.
I back away sharply. “Help you? After what you’ve done? You’re barmy!”
“But you know,” he begs, taking another careful step toward me. “You know I didn’t mean to. It was all a terrible coincidence . . . you must understand—”
“Understand?” I say, realizing the word shot free with more emotion than I wanted to show him. More than he deserved. I look to the door to make sure Mother hasn’t heard, isn’t coming to investigate.
“Are you quite finished?” I ask him, lowering my voice. But now he looks at me as quizzically as I did him a moment ago.
“But you told no one. . . . ” He drifts off, confused.
I hesitate. Are we talking about the same thing?
“You could have told the police,” he goes on.
I laugh. “Tell them what? That you’ve been pretending to fancy me so you might woo your way to London? Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not so easy you can have me for some old poems or a pack of smokes and a lousy nib of chocolate!”
He slumps against the window, lets loose a stream of Punjabi, eyes shut tight against my words, my face, my existence. I do not know what he says, but I hear the word Allah repeated often enough to think he might be praying. And I wonder, Is he asking for forgiveness? And shouldn’t he be asking me?
“Sod off,” I whisper, turning away from him to find Mother standing in the hall outside my room. Her eyes settle on mine, fix there and study me. It’s the same stare she gave me when she first learned of Alec. And I know she’s heard. Maybe not every word, but the important bits at least.
“What my daughter means, young man, is that it is most definitely time for you to get back to work,” Mother says, taking a step into the room. Her appearance pulls Tariq up and away from the window, his mutterings ending in something like a sob. His eyes widen as she draws nearer. But in spite of his fear, his gaze snaps back to me, and I see that he has not finished asking me questions. Is not finished trying to suss out what I might have seen from my window.
Why does he care what I saw? After what he’s tried to pull on me? After someone has tried to kill Daddy? Has hurt or killed that little boy?
“Go and help Anupreet clean up the mess behind the compound.” Mother sways a little on her feet, but her voice is steely, removed, in the way that she sometimes speaks to servants at home who suffer the misfortune of irritating her. As if she will not dignify them by imbuing them with emotion of any sort. “Now,” she adds, listing a bit with the command. I wonder how far into the bottle she’s gotten.
Tariq takes a breath, bows his head, and scurries for the door. Mother is still standing just inside the room, her eyes finding mine now. But she doesn’t move, instead forcing upon Tariq the humiliation of pressing himself against the wall and edging out the door behind her.
We listen as his footsteps echo down the stairs, followed by the sound of the door off the kitchen creaking open, the slam of it shutting. I wonder if he’ll crawl through the hole to attend to Mother’s orders, or if he’ll run around to the front of the house and use the gate. And I hate that part of me still wants to hurry to the back windows to see if I can see him there. But Mother’s words bring me back to myself.
“Up to your old tricks again, Margaret?” she asks, tone unchanged from her orders for Tariq. And it’s a credit to her strength that I can’t think of a single thing to say back.
CHAPTER 23
* * *
TARIQ
She doesn’t know.
At least not yet. I can’t believe it. Can’t believe she didn’t see me bring the package into the compound, take it behind the house. She doesn’t know.
Not that it matters much. I’m finished.
Even if no one ever finds out that I broug
ht the bomb inside, even if they believe me that I didn’t know what it was, it’s still over. All of it.
My grandfather would tell me not to give up, I suppose. But Abbu was right. Daadaa was old. He was a dreamer.
But I’m a chutiyaa. I’ve been such an idiot, thinking I could make this all work to my advantage. And now I’m stuck here. Alone.
All that’s left for me to do is to try to find my family. I haven’t heard from them since they left. And the trains haven’t been running since the massacre near Amritsar. I’ll have to go on foot.
I don’t want to wait, but I can’t run now; the police already suspect me. If I bolt, they’ll have all the reasons they need to blame me. And there’s no guarantee they won’t find me before I cross the border.
No. I’ll wait. As soon as the Darnsleys leave Jalandhar and the police give up on finding the bomber, I’ll go. Not even the porter knows that the package I collected from him was the bomb that blew up the back wall. No one knows except Sameer, and I can avoid him until I leave.
I just have to hang on a bit longer. Survive.
For the moment that means obeying Mrs. Darnsley. So I head for the alley to clean up the mess.
The back gate is already boarded over, the portion of the wall that held it destroyed by the blast. I go to the front, where I run the gauntlet of policemen, who glare at me, sure I had some part in this because I am Muslim. Allah knows I look guilty enough for it, but they’ve asked me their questions and seemed fine with my answers. For now. But I know. They’re Sikh, most of them, and eager for a scapegoat.
Maybe I should tell them about Sameer. No. They’ll never believe I didn’t have something more to do with it. Even if they caught him, Sameer would probably manage to convince them that it was my idea. And that’s if they caught him. He’s too smart to let himself get caught. Not like me.
Stupid, stupid me.
I run past the policemen to the side lane to reach the rear of the compound.
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