Page 51 of A Shimla Affair
‘Nalini—’
I couldn’t respond. The picture-perfect image of my family sitting together on the table imprinted itself on my mind.Charles was who I loved, but I could be certain that this scene would never include the two of us together—sitting with my family to enjoy a simple dinner.
‘It’s fine … he wants more answers, but he’s not pushing it for now.’
‘What? No, it can’t be that simple!’ Ratan Babu looked at me questioningly. ‘Still, we cannot be safe. Now he suspects something, I wouldn’t be surprised if—’
I interrupted, looking directly at Noor, ‘The ship, the freighter—you know it’s the one with goods not people—the SSNapier, that day—’
Noor’s face switched from confusion to concern. She stepped forward and held my hands tightly. ‘What about it?’
‘The one he was on, father … wasn’t he?’
‘That’s what he said in the letter,’ said Afreen, also coming closer.
‘Are we sure he was on the ship? It carried things, not people.’
‘He had done it before,’ Noor said. ‘Remember, he wasn’t allowed to leave Bombay. He used to get in the cargo ferries to Karachi, secretly I suppose, but that day, he told us he would be on it.’
I broke down. ‘The ship didn’t sink! It was set on fire, there were explosives. He was killed! He was killed by the British, because they knew he was on the ship and they murdered him!’
18
Iremembered my father’s wrinkled, hopeful eyes that always seemed to look far out into the future, that seemed to hold a vision much beyond what any of us could fathom. I remembered his bright smile that renewed itself every morning, no matter what passed in the day. But most of all, I remembered his words of encouragement, because they gave me the feeling that I could lean back and relax and that everything would be all right.
I called on memories to remind myself how luck and fate had conspired to bring us to the point at which we now stood. Yet, I knew that no matter how differently it might appear, depending on which angle one might look at, we had had no choice anyway. Just as someone would not, or should not, turn away from a bleeding, injured life, we could not look away knowing that in our hands was the wand that might turn the tide for India. The revelation of our father’s murder had ignited in us the spark of vengeance that no threat of danger could extinguish.
Destiny had brought my family to the crossroads that called for action, and our only choice was to embrace what we had been handed out. All we had to do was remember that beyond fear lies more fear, but beyond that is a little bit of luck, and once you getto that luck, even the worlds of men could be conquered. So, we devoted all our energies into making it possible that the day of the Summer Jubilee Ball would spell out to be the last day of the tyranny otherwise known as the Raj.
There were a few weeks still to the ball, after which we were expected to start wrapping up our business at the hotel. Noor ran the hotel fiercely, perhaps thinking if she could only keep the flag of Royal Hotel Shimla shining high and then use it to bring about the downfall of the establishment that had father murdered, she could in some way make up for the injustice being meted out.
The Shimla Circle gave us our instructions: separate the Viceroy from the rest of the group, hand him over to Guruji who’d be dressed as a servant, flee the hotel before Guruji shot the Viceroy, and get out of town with Sood.
‘Taking the Viceroy to the bunkers for opium,’ Sood suggested, ‘is the only way to separate him.’
‘It’s true,’ Ratan Babu added, ‘and we would still have Wagner to deal with, who will certainly follow him there. We would need to confront them in the bunkers and completely surround the Viceroy. Despite all this planning, it could go any way.’
‘Not if we play it right, son … not if we play it right.’
Noor had reservations about what came after the Viceroy was killed. Would the government really fall? Would the takeover of Delhi and Calcutta go ahead as planned? And how long before our family would be allowed to see the light of the day? How long before our lives would have a semblance of normalcy again? How long before we could get back our beloved hotel?
Afreen turned snappier than usual and spent all her time in finding ways to safeguard the hotel. She hid weapons in clandestine spots, spent long hours in the forest perfecting her aim and sketched extremely detailed maps of the hotel that we were ordered to memorize by heart—right down to knowingwhich three legs of our three-legged table were still standing so we didn’t knock it over while running away in a frenzy, just in case things go wrong.
‘But maybe nothing will go wrong,’ I said, trying to calm her down.
Afreen patted my head in a way that seemed to suggest that I didn’t know the ways of the world. ‘It’s the big lesson of life, little sister. Thingsalwaysgo wrong.’
I didn’t mind memorizing the hotel by heart, for it held memories that came rushing back at the thought of having to leave forever. The servants’ halls and passageways were where we played hide-and-seek the most, and, while I often managed to outstrip Noor, Afreen would catch me. The staircase at the back was where I had once fallen and broken my knee. Behind the bookcase in the library was the spot where I had hidden for a whole day after Noor had slapped me for not finishing my homework. Out in the gardens, the three of us had spent sunny spring days reading, eating oranges, and being the objects of curiosity of the Shimla guests who wondered about the hotel owner’s motherless children. As none of our governesses ever knew about the bunkers, it had always been a safe spot away from them, although the darkness and dampness inside frightened me.
I remembered my father’s wide, tired smile whenever he brought us to the hotel. I remembered standing next to him, holding on to his arm, and Afreen on the other side, sullen that she had been made to wear a sari. Most of our relatives had refrained from keeping much contact with us after father had started acting against the British, but I remember them too, looking at us from a distance.
Could any of us have anticipated back then, the shape our lives would take? That we’d be standing in this very spot, signingaway the life of the Viceroy and his empire, the empire that had killed our father?
As the big day drew closer, a feeling of foreboding settled upon me.
Pacing up and down repeatedly wasn’t calming anybody’s nerves, but I couldn’t help doing it. It wasn’t just me though: Afreen fanatically went through her sketches, Ratan Babu’s hands stayed balled into fists as he muttered ‘Inquilaab’ under his breath, and Noor recited everything like a maniac.
Once again, on the day before the ball, Guruji and Sood went over the order of events as they should ideally happen.
