Daughters of India

by Jill McGivering

  Isabel looked over the faces. The crowd stamped and murmured. Someone sent up a cry of: ‘Home Rule!’ It ran on for a while, then died back as Baba Satya began again to speak.

  ‘Brothers, sisters, how can we believe their words? They mean to keep us in servitude. Believe that only! Let them lose their war and learn bitter lessons from it. Their Empire is dying! Change is sweeping the world, bringing new order, new hope. And with that change only will India again be independent!’

  Baba Satya raised both hands high and his robes fell in folds about his body. The crowd, intoxicated, roared and pressed forward. Isabel took a step backwards, moving instinctively away from the restless audience. She turned and looked again to the police lines.

  John Hargreaves was there, mounted on horseback, his arm raised. In his helmet and uniform, he had the hard, unyielding look of a statue. The sunlight glinted on the gun in his hand.

  Baba Satya ended his speech. He stood, encased in white, his arms reaching for the heavens. A chant rose from within the crowd and spread quickly through it. A rallying cry that was already familiar. ‘Jai Hindustan Ki! Victory to India!’

  The sound burst against the sky and scattered in echoes across the belly of the cloud. The birds rose from the surrounding trees and swooped, cawing, in a black flurry across the lawns towards India Gate.

  A shot rang out. Even as she turned, the police horses bolted forward. For an instant, time seemed suspended. The men’s mouths hung open, their chants silenced. They stared at the approaching horses, hooves flailing, at the mounted police officers with their lathis held high. Then the moment of stillness burst and the men, shouting, scattered and ran, tumbling past each other, arms groping as the horses bore down on them, the lathis chopping and cutting through the air to left and right, cracking against skulls, shoulders and fingers.

  The men at the front roared, then too began to flee, knocking Isabel and the watching women as they hurtled past. Isabel pushed through the stream to the trees and stood with her back pressed against a trunk, unable to tear her eyes from the scene.

  As the crowd scattered, the police constables on foot charged after them, beating heads and shoulders and backs. The fire engine rumbled forward down one side of the park, forcing those in its path to throw themselves out of its way. The officers waited until they were almost level with the raised platform before unwinding their hoses and letting loose an arc of water.

  The force knocked the men on the platform off their feet. Hair, beards and clothes were soaked in an instant. The men on either side of Baba Satya dropped the canopy to grasp him by the arms and steady him, struggling against the storm of water as they led him, step by step, away from the front of the platform and down a narrow flight of wooden steps at the side. The gay streamers lay limp and sodden round the poles.

  A girl screamed. The older woman, who earlier refused to speak to Isabel, lay on the ground, her daughter pulling at her arms as men pressed round them. Isabel ran to help and together they lifted the woman clear of the kicking boots and chappals and sat her, dazed, against the tree.

  The lawn was a mess of panic. Many had already vanished. Others ran to and fro in confusion, trying to dodge turning, rearing horses and the lathis. Some, ready to fight, grappled with the police, wrestling them or punching and kicking. A young boy, perhaps five or six years old, stood screaming in the chaos.

  Across the grass, Baba Satya was being marched away by police, his wrists cuffed. One of the officers had his hand on Baba Satya’s head, forcing it down towards his chest. He stumbled as they propelled him forwards. A dark streak of blood ran down the side of his face. To one side, Hargreaves sat tall on his horse, his face impassive.

  ‘Is she alright?’

  The daughter didn’t answer. She sat with her arm round her mother’s shoulders, her head cradled against her. The woman sat with her eyes closed but her breathing was calm.

  ‘I’ll stay with you,’ Isabel said. ‘Help you home.’

  The daughter shook her head. ‘We are not wanting your help.’

  Isabel leant against the far side of the tree. Sodden debris lay strewn over the grass. The lawn, usually so tranquil, had the look of a battlefield. Men groaned. Others curled silently, drawing their legs to their stomachs. A sole chappal stuck up in the mud. The sun picked out a lonely scrap of blue, a scarf perhaps, forgotten.

  To the side of the platform, protesters huddled together, penned in by a tight circle of police officers. A lathi swung, catching one of the prisoners across the side of the head. Another followed. The men, powerless to escape, ducked and cringed as blows fell. Faces twisted and turned.

  ‘Rahul?’ She pushed upright. Her feet began to carry her across the ground towards them. Was it Rahul? The face fell back into the melee. The police officers, many bruised and bloody themselves, panted with exertion as they struck out.

  ‘Rahul!’

  There he was, she knew him, she was sure, older now, his cheeks fuller, the skin around his eyes lined and weathered, but Rahul, just the same, that same boy she’d known as a child, that same young man she visited at his uncle’s mithai shop.

  ‘Not him.’ She was pointing, shouting, wild. Eyes turned to stare. ‘Let him go. I know him.’

  ‘Isabel!’ Hargreaves, lofty on horseback, looked disapproving. ‘What on earth? Go home. Don’t you know—’

  She tilted up to look him full in the face. ‘This man.’ She pointed. Rahul turned his face away. ‘He’s not one of them. He’s done nothing wrong. Please, I know him.’

  Hargreaves shook his head. ‘Really, Isabel. What would your father—’

  ‘My father knows him too. He’d say the same. Please.’ Her words tumbled out, barely coherent. ‘I’ll take him with me. I’ve a tonga waiting.’

  The police officers goggled, listening without understanding. Finally Hargreaves blew out his cheeks and pointed with bad humour.

  ‘This man. Let him out. Tie the rest.’

  Rahul was ejected from the group. He stumbled out, looked back as the line again tightened. Isabel seized him by the arm and started to pull him away.

  ‘Come on.’ She tugged, half-dragging him as the police officers herded the other men into two lines and began to rope them together.

  She didn’t expect the tonga to be still there but it was, a solid, comforting shape, which grew on the distant edge of the grass once they emerged from the trees. The tonga-wallah stood by his horse, one arm protectively round its neck. He looked out through narrowed eyes as they approached.

  ‘So much of trouble,’ he said. ‘So many fellows saying: take me. Ladies also. No, I said. Not possible. Madam is coming.’

  ‘Shukriah. You did well.’ She would pay him handsomely, he needn’t worry. She climbed into the tonga, her legs suddenly shaking. Rahul hesitated, then finally, reluctantly, climbed up beside her. He looked back across the vanishing ground as the tonga-wallah pulled up the horse’s head and slapped its flank with his switch.

  They sat stiffly. She looked ahead at the horse’s bobbing back, its bony rump, the long line of its mane and tossing ears. How many years must it be since she and Rahul last saw each other, sitting in the dusty courtyard behind the shop, drinking chai and nibbling sweets as Sangeeta swept and their baby son played in the dirt? Jonathan was there, that last time, eager to court her. How long ago it all seemed. How little she’d understood.

  She wanted to turn to him, to say: What did they do to you in prison? Do you forgive me for being British, is it possible we could still be friends? But she was afraid. He seemed unwilling to look at her.

  The tonga-wallah set him down at last, on the far side of the Civil Lines. He climbed out and, for a moment, he seemed ready to let her drive away without a word.

  ‘Thank you.’ He struggled to say it.

  ‘Don’t.’ She shook her head. ‘We know each other better than that, don’t we?’

  He stood there by the wheel, all awkwardness, his eyes on the ground.

  ‘You can’
t think—’ She broke off. She didn’t know what to say. The horse shook its head and the bridle jangled. She reached down towards him.

  ‘Rahul, come and visit me at the bungalow, won’t you? Bring Sangeeta and your son. How about next week?’ She was babbling, trying to find a way of reaching him. ‘Abdul’s still with us. Come on Wednesday afternoon. Please.’

  She turned abruptly to the tonga-wallah and urged him on before Rahul could refuse.

  At home, she bathed and sat alone on the verandah in the warmth of the afternoon sun, all thoughts of The Club now abandoned. Rahul looked older. It shocked her. A middle-aged man with a tired face and slackening skin. He had been such a sharp-eyed, energetic boy, then a handsome young husband. She put her hand to her face, reading the changes there too.

  She would find ways of helping his son, of proving herself to them both. He could show his boy where he’d lived as a child. It was modernised now and given over to Abdul’s family. The bushes where they’d played hide-and-seek and the mango trees where they used to gorge themselves in the hot season and the old magnolia, with its low-lying branches, where he’d taught her to climb to the top of the world, to see into the past and the future.

  She hesitated, remembering his stiffness. She had no idea if he would even come.

  Her father sent a chit.

  Her mother, waiting to tell Cook to serve dinner, looked vexed.

  ‘Well, really.’ She shook her head, peered at Isabel over her reading spectacles. ‘I do wish he’d give a little more notice.’

  Isabel shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose he can.’

  Her mother set down her book.

  ‘We’ll have to dine without him.’ She reached for the servants’ bell and rang for Abdul. ‘He seems to have no idea when he’ll be back.’

  Isabel went to her mother’s side to escort her into the dining room. Her mother wore one of her old-fashioned gowns with a high neck and it rustled as they walked.

  ‘We’re not the only households managing without men,’ she said. ‘England’s full of them, apparently.’

  Her mother seemed preoccupied. After dinner, she retired early to bed, claiming a headache.

  Isabel sat alone in the sitting room, a book open on her lap, waiting for her father to come home. Her eyes ranged over the print without seeing it. She wondered how long it would take her letter to reach Edward. They shifted camp so often, he said. Perhaps it would never find him.

  Gradually her mind drifted to the events of the early afternoon. Baba Satya and his supporters would be in jail now. She imagined the mothers and wives and children who must now be waiting, as Sangeeta once had, with little hope of their men’s return. Rahul at least was with his family. She was glad. Hargreaves might complain to her father about her but she didn’t care.

  It was almost eleven when her father’s footsteps finally sounded in the hall. He pushed open the door and she put down her book.

  ‘My dear.’

  His thinning hair stood in furrows where he’d raked it with his fingers.

  ‘You’re very late.’ She got to her feet, kissed him on the cheek. ‘Are you hungry?’

  He sank heavily into his armchair. ‘Have you heard the news?’

  ‘Baba Satya?’

  He shook his head. His skin looked grey. My poor father. He is old now, too old for this. Edward and the other young men should come home from this wretched war and let him retire, before it’s too late.

  ‘You haven’t heard, then.’ He lifted a hand to gesture to the evening drinks’ tray. She poured him a Scotch and added soda, then perched on the arm of his chair as he took it. His hands had a slight tremor and his wedding ring rattled against the cut glass. He let out a long sigh. She sat still, suddenly afraid, and waited.

  ‘Singapore.’ He spoke at last. ‘The Japanese, you see. It’s fallen.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Asha

  ‘The tide is turning.’

  Asha sat cross-legged on the floor, her fingers alternately pleating and smoothing the edge of her dupatta in her lap. The young man had fire in his eyes. He paced up and down in the dim, airless room as if the world were too small a place to contain him.

  He made the older men, the familiar faces who usually attended the meetings, look tame and comfortable. Those others, slack-jawed now, knew her from her childhood when they crept to and fro in the twilight to visit with Sanjay Krishna’s uncle, then with Sanjay himself, in those early Delhi years. They petted her like fathers and would help her if she needed them. None, she felt, took her seriously.

  ‘You understand?’ The eyes ranged across the room and, when they came her way, she lifted her head and looked straight back at him, showing she was not afraid.

  ‘The Britishers never thought Hong Kong would fall. But it fell,’ he said. ‘The Britishers thought it was impossible to take Singapore. But the Japanese outwitted them. Now that too has fallen. Our British masters are shaking in their smart leather boots. The Japanese are at their door. They feel Japan’s breath on their necks.’

  Anil, they called him. He only came to Delhi recently. He was in prison in Bombay for years, people said. A political prisoner, some told. A murderer, whispered others.

  At her side, Rahul shifted his weight, then scratched his neck. He seemed bored and she pulled away from him, regretting bringing him here.

  ‘Already our brothers are holding talks with the Japanese.’ Anil lowered his voice. ‘Believe me, they want our help. They will take India and with our help, the fall will be easier and faster.’

  A thin man with wire spectacles said: ‘What do we get in return?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Anil opened his arms wide. The room sang with his energy. ‘Once the war ends, they set us free.’

  An older man said: ‘What about Baba Satya? And our comrades? Is there news?’

  Anil stood to one side and another fighter rose to answer. Forty-seven men had been brought before a magistrate that morning, he said, Baba Satya among them. They faced all manner of charges, including sedition. The trials would be quick, with little chance of justice.

  The conversation moved on. Asha’s eyes stayed on Anil, standing now to one side. His body was sleek with muscle. He reminded her of Sanjay Krishna in his youth. He had the same courage, the same vitality. There were some men who rose above the rest. I had thought freedom would come in my lifetime, Sanjay said to her as he lay dying. Now perhaps it may come in yours.

  The men around her stirred and started to creep away. Their meetings were always short. Every minute added to the risk.

  Rahul rubbed at his ankles like an old man. He leant forward: ‘I don’t know, Asha.’

  He made such a contrast with Anil that, for a moment, she despised him for being so ordinary. ‘What?’

  He whispered: ‘We don’t trust the Britishers to keep their promises and give us freedom after this war. Why should we trust the Japanese?’

  She turned away, embarrassed. Where were his guts? Sanjay Krishna faced death alone in a dark, dismal cave, he gave his life for the struggle, for the freedom of others. She wouldn’t betray his memory.

  ‘You do as you like.’ Her tone was sharper than she intended. ‘There are always people who let others fight and die in their name, nah? Then reap the benefit.’

  Rahul looked stung. ‘I didn’t say—’

  She brushed him away. She wanted to go home, to lie quietly with her own thoughts in the darkness, as the women and children slept around her. Anil had stirred too many feelings in her, feelings she thought had already died.

  Rahul parted from her in the heart of the slum and she walked on alone, tense and alert to danger. As she turned into a dark alley, close to their shack, she sensed cautious movement behind her. She pulled herself into a doorway and waited, straining to hear every sound. Her heart throbbed. Silence. She waited a while longer. Nothing, after all. Her blood settled and calmed. She stepped out.

  ‘Ha!’

  She let out a cry. Anil. His
teeth glinting as he smiled, lying in wait in the shadows.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, little sister.’

  ‘I’m not.’ She scowled. At least it was dark. Her cheeks burnt and she was glad he couldn’t see. ‘And don’t call me that.’

  He looked amused. ‘I remember someone who used to call you that.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘You do?’

  He raised a bidi to his lips and lit it. He blew out a plume of pungent smoke.

  ‘You don’t remember me, do you? I was a scrawny boy then, a chai-wallah. Sanjay Krishna was my hero too. I heard what happened to your baba. And what you did in the islands. I salute you.’

  She shook her head, confused. Had he really known her in those days, known her baba, known Sanjay? ‘I must go.’

  He settled himself on a rough stone wall, patted the place beside him. ‘Sit with me a while. I want to talk to you.’

  She hesitated. ‘Is that why you followed me home like a stray dog?’

  He lifted his hand. ‘Be careful what you say.’

  Something in his tone frightened her. She went at once to sit beside him. The stone was cool and the stench of the gutter, of rotting rubbish and waste, rose around them.

  ‘He was a great man,’ he said. ‘He and his uncle also. We must think often of them in the coming days. We must be worthy of them.’

  She looked down through the darkness at the shape of her hands in her lap. It was her own thought, of course. He seemed to know her.

  ‘Our friends tonight, they say all the right words.’ He spoke in a low voice, his mouth so close that his smoky breath warmed her cheek. ‘But I wonder how much courage they really have. This is a time for heroes. For strong men to carve their names in our country’s history.’ He paused. ‘And strong women also.’

  She couldn’t speak. He drew on his bidi and the end glowed red in the darkness. Behind them, on the far side of the wall, claws scuttled. A rat, perhaps.

  ‘What about you, little sister? Will India remember you?’