Page 44 of A Shimla Affair
‘The Shimla Circle has been planning his death for years. Then the three of you will follow me and Ratan Babu through theservants’ passage, and to Sood in the forest. He will take us from there, and will have your passports and guide you through the hills.’
Sood, in turn, smiled with reassurance. ‘I will be waiting for you all.’
‘And what if we can’t make it?’
‘That won’t happen.’
Later, when I was practising, Sood came up to me. I was conscious of his presence, unable to get my aim. He stepped closer and asked me if he may help me set the gun right. I nodded, and he put his arms around the rifle. I could hear his even breaths. He turned and looked right at me, gave a smile, and, without aiming, shot. It was perfect, and I gasped in surprise.
‘How did you come into the Shimla Circle, Mr Sood?’
A pause followed my question. ‘Years ago, a group of traders came here, eager to meet the requirements of the new English settlers. My father was a loyal servant to them and his shop was meeting their needs. But I want to live in a free land, Naliniji, I want to be rich and powerful and strong on my own terms.’
I nodded, impressed by his ambition.
‘And I hear from your sister that you sometimes mention wanting to be in the talkies … why is that? It’s not a profession for good women.’
‘Shh,’ I said, looking around for Noor, who was always rather impatient with the topic. Now, when Sood asked me, it felt as if it had been so long since I had allowed myself to dream of the possibility of the talkies.
‘I always wanted to enjoy the lives different people lead, while still being me. I want to know and see and feel how it is to be a washerwoman down by the river, a princess with a thousand men at her feet, a wife widowed as soon as she was married, a mother who would die for her child … it’s hard to be all thesepeople in one life. But, when one is acting, one can, even for some moments, be anything. Isn’t that a liberating idea?’
He stared at me intensely and I almost had to look away. ‘Maybe that’s liberation, or perhaps escape? Are you trying to run away from who youactuallyare, Miss Mistry? Or who you have to be? Sometimes, we are afraid to face ourselves, so we run away, always in search of something else.’
I felt quite offended at his insinuation, and it clearly showed on my face for he laughed. ‘Don’t take me too seriously. Like you, I too plan to live many lives in this one life. If things go right, perhaps our paths will cross again and we can do it together.’
He walked away with a smile. It was almost offensive what he said. How uncouth of him to suggest to a young, unmarried woman, that she could live many lives with him. I could complain to Ratan Babu about Sood’s manner of speaking, but I didn’t want him to think the fighting arena was unsuitable for me. For the first time, my blood ran hot and fast; it was starting to dawn on me that what we were about to do would have far-reaching consequences.
I closed my left eye, aimed at the point marked on the tree trunk, imagining a faceless head there, a head that that represented all that came between us and the light. I shot, and the others, who had joined me by then, beamed at my aim. I grinned at my gun, now holding it with respect.
16
More than eighty years ago, when Shimla was coming to life as the summer capital of the British Indian government, an enterprising businessman from France decided to build a chalet at the back of Summer Hill. But his dream project faced protests from the hill tribe that still lived in the surroundings: their chieftain had been buried at the site and they refused to give up the land, no matter how much the British coerced them. The tribe’s men and women tied themselves to the ground, willing to die to protect their chieftain’s resting place. Some of them did die, until a clever Englishman negotiated a compromise: the chalet would be built but the chieftain’s resting place would stay in the garden. Every Tuesday, a sadhu from the tribe would come into every room while holding incense, a lemon and green chillies to ward off evil spirits. The second part was non-negotiable: if the chalet were to be built without more bloodshed, the sadhu had to be allowed entry every Tuesday, so the spirits may remain at rest.
The chalet was built, and over time, the Frenchman left. Then the British took over the house, turning it into the residence of the Commander-in-Chief’s aide. By this point, it was evenharder to get rid of the superstition. Word had spread that, if the sadhu missed his weekly cleansing of the house, the whole town would be cursed and the mountains would send rocks hurtling down, destroying every human and house that stood on the land. The sadhu was annoying but necessary, and nobody wanted to upset the order of things. So, the ritual continued.
Accordingly, every Tuesday, like clockwork, the sadhu would go around the chalet several times chanting mantras, the smoke and smell of burning chillies making people tear up. So, when he arrived in the afternoon, all the doors and windows in the chalet were thrown open.
When Begum Jaan put her informants on the trail of the mysterious new arrival from London, eventually, they found out about a meeting that only three people were invited to. The meeting would be held at Lord Beeson’s residence, the chalet, and not the Viceroy’s offices.
As luck would have it, this meeting was scheduled for a Tuesday, presenting our one and only hope to listen in, thanks to the sadhu.
The meeting was two hours after the sadhu’s cleansing, so we had no choice but to take the opportunity to gain entry into the house and wait it out. It came down to Afreen and I to step up—me because I was the smallest and the most agile and Afreen, because I could not be left alone. Noor and Begum Jaan would help us exit, throwing a rope so we could climb over the six feet high fence surrounding the chalet grounds.
‘Don’t be impatient,’ Noor said, tensely tucking the ends of my sari into my petticoat. ‘And tie your hair tightly, for the love of God, the next thing you know you’ve knocked down something and blown your cover.’
She pulled us both down to the ground, holding our hands, squeezing them. ‘Act smart, listen carefully and tread with caution. You two always beat me at hide-and-seek, while Isearched for hours. Tap into those skills, do your best anddon’tget caught. But no matter what, I promise I will bail you out.’
Afreen told her not to worry, and I nodded with determination, praying to God that my thumping heart would not give us away.
I had been worried that getting inside the house would be the hard part, that one of the servants would see us as we snaked past the garden and in through the front doors. But this was the easiest, as everybody unsuspectingly just went about their business and let the sadhu come in and do his job. Entering the house and then hiding behind the large corner sideboard in the drawing room was relatively easy. But it wasn’t so easy staying put.
Afreen and I held hands as we sat on the floor, which was adorned by an exquisite Persian carpet. At first, the sound of footsteps pushed my heart into my mouth, but as I got used to the servants roaming about near us, without any knowledge that Afreen and I were crouched only some feet away from them, I began to relax, even getting bored. It was a good thing Lord Beeson was not married—it would have been much harder to sneak around his house under the watchful eye of a wife.
The servants were sweeping the floor and dusting, putting the house in order before Beeson returned with the others for the meeting. I heard one of them hum an oldpahadisong as she went about cleaning, and another man yell out to her to stop wasting time. Then the room was quiet, but I could still hear the hustle and bustle outside.
‘The dining room is getting set up,’ Afreen whispered. We overheard that the study needed to be prepared, as the meeting would happen there, so we knew we needed to somehow start moving.
I was stiff from crouching in the same spot for what seemed like more than an hour. It seemed quieter outside. Now was thetime to sneak into the study, before they started to prepare for Beeson’s arrival. Afreen and I gave each other one last squeeze and crawled behind the sofas, trying to chart out the route to the study.
