The heat would steadily worsen for weeks yet before they could hope to see the monsoon. The fighting season. That’s what her father called it. The time of year when tempers were short and the slightest quarrels, between husband and wife, between brothers, between colleagues, turned quickly to violence. And this year, with the Japanese closing in and political arguments furious, tensions were already high.
The traffic was unusually spare that morning. It was a relief to be out and alone. The lines of the first checkpoint came into view in the distance as she cycled down the grand, straight avenue of Rajpath, through India Gate and past the broad stretches of lawn where Baba Satya’s protest was disrupted. Barricades made a low metal wall, looping round the entrance. Three or four army trucks stood to one side, with covered troop vehicles. The soldiers were watchful as she approached. Shards of light splintered on their weapons.
To one side, a group of Indian men sat cross-legged, staring out along the road without expression. Day-labourers, she thought, waiting for work. She drew closer. No, they had a determined air. A protest then. She dismounted and wheeled her bicycle for the final stretch, going first to the Indians. The cool eyes of the soldiers ranged over them all.
‘Namaste.’ She put her hands together.
There were seven or eight men, lean and muscular, dressed all in white. The leader, seated in the centre, had a weathered face.
‘Kia ho raha hai?’ she said. ‘What’s happening?’
He hesitated, looking her up and down, taking in the headscarf, the neatly pressed blouse, the smart slacks pinned at the ankles by cycling clips.
‘A dharna?’
He nodded.
‘Why?’
A young man answered in English. ‘Until now Baba Satya and so many fellows are staying in prison, madam. This dharna is for their release. Please be telling.’ He nodded his head back towards the blank windows of the government building.
‘Are you fasting as well?’
He shook his head. She dipped into her basket and pulled out the box of miniature cakes, resting the bicycle against her hip. Cook had sent a dozen and she offered them now but the leader, suspicious, shook his head.
She lifted one to her mouth and bit into it. Soft, sweet cake, crisp at the edges, iced in pink rounds. She offered again. Still the leader refused. She licked the crumbs off the tips of her fingers and tucked the box back in her basket.
‘See you again.’
As she approached the barricade, the young British officer stepped forward to stop her. ‘Miss?’
‘Hello. All quiet?’
He shrugged, unfriendly.
‘Mrs Isabel Whyte.’ She lifted a hand from the handlebars but he didn’t move to take it. ‘DO Winthorpe’s daughter. I’ve brought his tiffin.’ She pointed to her basket and he raised his chin to see inside, then nodded, gestured to the Indian jawans to move aside and waved her through.
She secured her bicycle and entered the hushed cool of the building, crossed the atrium to the staircase, the tiffin carrier and cakes in her hands. The wood of the banister was smooth with wear. Sun filtered in through long stained-glass windows, bathing the marble walls and floors in a surreal, underwater light. A nineteenth-century portrait hung on the first landing and the eyes of a forgotten British commander followed her to the next floor.
The door to her father’s office was ajar. Male voices murmured within. As she approached, his personal secretary, a Sikh with an imposing turban and thick beard, appeared in the corridor and nodded to her.
Inside, her father sat behind his voluminous desk. It was stacked with cardboard files of typed paper, faded by the sun and loosely tied round with string, which he was gradually moving from one side to another as he read and signed the documents inside.
‘You forgot this.’ She set the tiffin carrier and the cardboard box on top of a polished wooden cabinet. ‘Cook sent cakes. He seemed to think you’d need them.’
A map of Delhi was fixed to the wall, studded with coloured pins. She leant in closer to look.
‘Everything alright at home?’ He spoke without looking up from his papers. His pen was poised in his hand, ready to signal amendments.
The government office was easy to find on the map. Three long rectangles, arranged in a horseshoe, set close to the circle of Parliament. She traced her route home along Rajpath with her eye and entered the Civil Lines, looking for their bungalow.
‘Did you really need to call out the army?’
Her father closed one file with a sigh of paper and reached for the next. Thin pages crinkled in the stir from the ceiling fan.
‘There could be fifty protesters by evening,’ he said. ‘Besides, it sends a signal. That we mean business.’
She crossed behind him and stood at the window, looking down at the front gate. From above, the protesters shrank to dark, seated dots.
‘What’s Baba Satya like?’
‘A hothead. A troublemaker. London wants me to set him free but I can’t say I agree. He’s better behind bars.’
‘They’re impatient, that’s all. They want independence and they don’t trust us. I’m not sure I blame them.’
‘Isabel.’ He twisted round, frowned. His expression shifted as they looked at each other. His eyes softened from stern to concerned.
‘Darling, I’m glad you’ve come. We need to have a talk. I was going to wait until things were a little clearer but perhaps…’
His tone alerted her at once. Bad news. She lifted her hand to the window ledge to steady herself. Tom, perhaps. His luck had run out. She stood very still. Perhaps Edward too. Her panic fixed itself on the polished swirls of her father’s desk. For a moment, she didn’t breathe.
Her father pointed to a chair near the wall. ‘Maybe you should sit down.’
The quietness in his voice made it worse.
‘Is it Tom?’
‘Not exactly. Well, yes.’ He made no sense. ‘I mean, I’m getting reports from there. Rangoon, you see. Well, it sounds as if it’s lost.’
‘Lost?’
‘Fallen to the Japanese.’ His eyes were on hers. His hand set down his pen.
‘So where’s Tom?’ And Edward, she thought.
He sighed. ‘The army’s moved north, apparently. I have to say, it’s not looking good.’
No wonder Edward’s last letter had been harried.
‘Will they make it out?’
‘It’s all very confused, frankly.’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘It’s not just the army, you see. People are pouring out of Burma in their thousands, tens of thousands, and not in good shape. Indians, I mean, you know, road workers and so on.’ He tapped one of the files on his desk. ‘We’re setting up camps for them. Heaven knows, there’s precious little food as it is.’
She sat very still. Gunfire, bursting through the jungle, shattering the stillness. Bloodshed. Men, wounded, lying in the mud. Edward. Her hands grasped each other in her lap.
‘As for Tom …’ Her father’s eyes were sad. ‘Well, I don’t know.’ He paused, watching her. ‘You must think how to tell Sarah.’
He picked up his pen and turned his eyes back to his work. A tap at the door. The office chai-wallah carried in a tray of tea. He set out cups and saucers, teaspoons, a plate of yellow biscuits, bending over the low table, then crept away.
Her father, his tone falsely bright, said: ‘Have a biscuit, darling. Or a cake, if you like.’
The tea was thick. The milk, boiled to white streaks, swam across the surface. The rich, sweet smell sickened her. She closed her eyes. She seemed to pitch forwards, falling into nothingness. Edward was gone, then. And Tom. The Japanese were storming across Asia. They were unstoppable. India would be next.
She forced herself to open her eyes, to focus. Her father’s head was tilted forward over his papers. His crown showed a mottled brown and pink where his hair had thinned. She had trusted him, since she was a child, to look after them all, to guard his own small corner of the Empire. Now he seemed suddenly fr
ail and rather lost, an ageing man whose time had already passed.
‘We must be ready for them.’
Her father murmured, deep in his papers. He didn’t look up.
‘We must pull together. It’s our only chance.’ She got to her feet, leant forward and planted her hands squarely on the edge of her father’s desk. ‘Don’t you see?’
He looked up. ‘See what?’
‘Let me talk to Baba Satya.’
His eyes widened. ‘What on earth—?’
‘We need to stand firm. British and Indians together. He must understand.’ She nodded, trying to convince them both. ‘Don’t you see? He doesn’t trust you. And he won’t lose face. But talking to a woman. It might be different.’
Her father shook his head and frowned. ‘Darling, I really couldn’t—’
‘Why not?’ She pushed back from the desk and turned towards the door. ‘What on earth is there left to lose?’
The empty police van that took her through the centre of Delhi to police headquarters was stale with rancid milk and the smell of constables’ feet. The building looked more austere than she remembered. The watchtowers and rounds of barbed wire gave it the look of a fortress.
John Hargreaves came down to the main entrance to meet her, acting under her father’s orders. His face was sullen. Last time she had seen him there, she was with Jonathan, pleading for Rahul’s release, and he was a recent recruit. Now he was Delhi’s Superintendent of Police.
‘Was he always here?’
He shook his head. ‘Transferred last week.’
He led her down chipped stairs to the basement and along a dank stone corridor. An Indian constable kept a respectful distance behind them. She blinked, adjusting to the gloom. An unpleasant fug of sour air and human waste. The men’s boots and her lighter shoes slapped on the floor as they walked and the sound awakened noises ahead, high cries and low murmurs. Pale fronds waved in the half-light. They came into focus as they grew nearer. Hands, stuck out through the bars of cells, reaching. Her stomach tightened.
Hargreaves stopped at the furthest cell. The constable stepped forward to unlock the gate. She stepped in smartly and the lock clicked shut behind her. She stood still for a moment. Blood thudded in her ears. The bars made a metal wall at her back.
A low murmur of chanting. The darkness swam and shapes emerged from it. He was hunched on the ground in the far corner. His legs were crossed in a position of Hindu meditation, his heels close to his body. His elbows balanced lightly on bent knees, his hands rested, one in the open palm of the other, in his lap. His robes, once so white, were streaked with dirt and his beard looked unkempt. His eyes were closed. She thought of the imposing figure she’d seen on the platform on a sunlit lawn and wondered if this diminished creature could really be the same. The low incantation ran on and she stood, motionless, and bathed in its rhythm.
When it finally stopped, the cell fell silent.
‘Is Rahul Chaudhary your spy?’ His eyes stayed closed.
She was startled. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Why did you rescue him? Why pull him from the crowd that day?’
‘He’s like a brother to me.’
‘An Indian brother?’ He snorted.
She lowered herself to sit beside him, her back against the wall and legs crossed in front of her. The ground was warm and unpleasantly moist.
‘Why are you coming here?’ His voice was cold. ‘This is, I am thinking, an official visit?’
‘If it were, would they send a woman?’
‘Perhaps.’ He seemed to soften a little. ‘They are full of trickery.’
‘You men see yourself as different from each other, don’t you? Indian and British. But to me, you’re much the same. Pride first, common sense afterwards.’
Silence. His face was calm. She couldn’t tell if he were listening. She shifted her weight on the hard floor.
‘I love this country. I want to grow old here and, when my time comes, to be buried here, however different it may be in the future.’
She spoke carefully and deliberately. ‘India will have independence. Everyone knows it. The questions are when and how.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Mr Churchill needs to find a compromise. He’s sending an envoy. Have you heard? Sir Stafford Cripps. A sensible man, people say. He’ll be here in a few weeks.
‘So how will you meet him? Here, dirty, in rags, in a damp cell? Or clean and well fed, at a negotiating table, meeting as equals? Which, do you think, shows you in a better light? More importantly, which will bring the better deal for India?’
He opened his eyes slowly and looked her full in the face. His expression was alert.
‘All you need do is tell them you won’t stir up trouble,’ she went on. ‘No agitation. No fiery speeches. Stay within the law. They want to release you, don’t you see? Make it possible for them.’
He looked at her closely. ‘Your husband should keep you in check, madam.’
‘My husband was murdered in the service of his country, sir. And yours too.’
Baba Satya spread his hands in his lap. His head was bowed, his eyes on his hands. The veins at his wrists were prominent and swollen. Her father was right, then. She was wasting her time.
Finally he lifted his head. ‘I don’t need a woman to tell me about this man’s visit. I doubt he has anything of interest to say. But if Gandhi-ji and Nehru-ji and others agree to meet him, so do I. I see no reason to urge my people to violence until we know what message he brings from London.’
He paused and, even in that small, dark cell, he seemed to swell for a moment into the charismatic figure she saw earlier when he addressed the open crowd.
‘But be aware. If this man comes empty-handed and stirs up hope for nothing, you will pay the price. Indians already fight shoulder to shoulder with the Japanese. And with every British lie, every piece of deceit, more are driven to join them.’ He smiled, his teeth catching the glister of light. ‘Have you counted, madam, how many we are, we Indians?’
She got to her feet. Steps sounded in the shadows of the corridor as the constable came forward to unlock the gate for her.
As she stepped through it, his voice followed her.
‘Rahul Chaudhary should take care. Tell him that. He has a wife and child.’
She walked down the dim passage with Hargreaves by her side. Outside, in the fortified courtyard, he handed her back into the police van without a word.
Chapter Forty-One
Asha
Asha’s body was slick with sweat as she walked home. It was late afternoon and the May heat pressed down on her head, her limbs, with the weight of the dead. Her feet were swollen and dusty in her sandals.
School would break for the holidays in another week and already the children suffered. They sat listlessly at their desks, too hot to concentrate and too thirsty also. The windows stood wide open but there was little stirring of air. All that flooded in were smells and sounds of the slum.
Sushil came pounding round the corner, arms flapping, and banged into her.
‘Asha Auntie!’ He was breathless and red-faced.
‘What is it?’ There was no normal reason to race about in this heat.
‘Uncles are back!’
She stared. ‘Uncles?’ Was it possible? ‘Who said such a thing?’
‘They sent word. Now Mama and the other aunties are sweeping, crying, talking. They said to fetch you quick-quick.’
She wiped down her forehead with the end of her dupatta and quickened her pace.
The shack was in disarray. One of the aunties sat outside, blowing on the embers of the cooking fire. Her face was speckled with drifting ash. A pot sat ready by her side with a handful of chopped vegetables swimming in water. She looked up as Asha approached and covered her face with her scarf.
Inside, the other aunties huddled together on the floor, bent forward as they rocked, wailing and ululating.
Asha took one of them by the shoulder and shook her. ‘What?’
They wailed all the more.
‘Tell me. Are they here?’
Finally one of the older aunties wiped off her eyes and mouth and managed to say: ‘A boy came, just now. Ramesh and Kumar and Sunil are shifted to a government camp, outside Delhi. Food is there and medicines also.’ She shook her head. Ramesh took four sons with him to Burma, all leaving wives behind and children also. She had named only two. ‘He gave no word of the others.’
‘The boy, where is he? Can he take me to this camp?’
She blew her nose on her scarf, pointed outside the shack.
‘Please,’ she said, grasping at Asha’s hand. ‘Bring them home.’
They hitched a ride on a cart to the outskirts of the city, then walked north-west, following a road through the wheat fields, which gradually shrank to a dirt track. The first harvest had just been gathered in, snatched from the threat of the coming monsoon. Now the fields looked bald and dirty with spilt dust.
From time to time, she glanced at the boy. He was a half-baked child, thin and shy. His shirt hung in shreds, revealing a back striped with scars. He seemed too afraid of life to be a trickster but she wondered, all the same, if his story were true.
The sun was falling. She stopped to catch her breath, wipe off her face and neck, shielded her eyes to look out across the endless fields, hazy with sun, dotted with the last labourers who tied sheaves and threw wheat onto carts and urged tired water buffaloes into motion.
She turned again to the boy. ‘How much further?’
‘Soon.’ He pointed forward, as he always did. ‘Here only.’
She sighed and pushed herself on.
A black stain appeared on the horizon, blotting out the gold of wheat. The boy turned, nodded, pointed. He too seemed relieved.
As they approached, dark shapes started to take form. Unstable, ugly homes, thrown together from wooden staves and sheets of sacking and discarded metal sheets. They stretched far back from the track, covering half a dozen fields. All across this land, stolen from farming, hunched figures were building shelters from the sun. Their movements were dull as if they were on the seabed, weighed down by an ocean of water. Children sat, bellies distended, staring vacantly at their drowning parents. The air was still but the whole scene was eerily quiet. The children lacked the energy even to play.
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