Page 52 of A Shimla Affair
‘Noor will invite the Viceroy to the bunkers for opium, “the best opium one can find on the subcontinent”. She will take him down there, along with the others who wish to join him. Meanwhile, Nalini will bring me to the bunkers. Ratan Babu and I will come in and take hold of the Viceroy. If Wagner doesn’t step back, we shoot him. If anyone interferes, we get them out of the way, too.
‘Then, it will be up to me to bring him outside and take him away. Nalini and Noor will lock the rest of the people in the bunkers and quickly make to leave for Sood. During this this time, Afreen will be upstairs, keeping an eye on the ball.’
I nodded.
‘This, of course, will be the ideal plan,’ Sood said, ‘But, for whatever reason, if things don’t go to plan or the guards intervene: we must get the Viceroy in the gallery of room eighteen, if not the room itself. Guruji will position himself in the gallery if he cannot get to the Viceroy in the bunkers. From there, he will leave the hotel. And then, once Guruji is gone—’
‘In the forest, Azad Bhai will join me, and we will take the Viceroy to the border, where the Bhagat Fauj awaits,’ said Guruji.
‘I will also wait for you four in the forest, but on the other side,’ Sood said, looking at us. ‘Don’t wait too long. Just a few minutes. And from there, we will immediately make our way through Kasumpti Bazaar, towards the mountains.’
Just hearing their words sent goosebumps up my spine, and I wondered how it would feel.
‘Everything is ready,’ Guruji said, sounding more tender than he ever had. ‘If you carry out the plan tomorrow, we could be waking up to a new India, a free India. It’s my life’s work.’
‘But there’s one more thing.’ Sood asked everyone to gather around him and handed us little packages of cloth. By the texture, its insides could have been rock salt, or ground jaggery.
‘Potassium cyanide,’ he said, before any of us had a chance to ask. ‘Causes death within a few minutes. I pray to God that nobody needs to use it, but if any of you are in a situation where death seems better …’
I held my package in fear, eager to get as far away from it as soon as possible. Guruji handed me the photograph of him and my father, and I clutched it tightly with hope, the currents of karmic justice threatening to catch up with me.
Khushilalji set up dinner for everyone, and we went on to have a rare good evening. Under the starry night sky, it seemed as if nothing mattered, except the moment at hand.
Maybe it was the fact of our last evening at our home, or a glimpse of what life could be, that got me a little sentimental.What if we could spend the rest of our days like this? In love and friendship, beauty and laughter?
Ratan Babu hummed a soft tune that was the same as the one Afreen talked about that day when we were hidden inside Beeson’s residence.
‘Ekla cholo, ekla cholo, ekla cholo re,’ he hummed, his voice shy and trembling at first, but gaining confidence as he held Afreen’s hand. He wasn’t loud; in fact, he sang almost in whispers, but I felt the song touch a part of me I didn’t even know existed, and something in my chest heaved, brining tears to my eyes. The others seemed to feel much the same, as they joined by clapping along lightly, and I saw more tears and melancholy reflected in my sisters’ eyes.
Noor filled in when Ratan Babu’s voice finally broke: ‘Jodi shobai fire jae, ore ore o obhaga … ekla cholo re …’
The moment was heavy and tense, but also relieving; perhaps we were finally letting ourselves feel the pain that we had denied so well in the tension and excitement of the last days. It was for the first time that I was face to face with the enormity of what we were about to do, of all the consequences it might have.
‘Our father used to sing it all the time,’ Noor said, a faraway look in her eyes, and I tried to imagine him singing. I couldn’t recall his voice, and tried to make it up, wondering how it would crack under the weight of this song.
Sood and Ratan Babu put their arms around each other, as Guruji watched them smiling. As the men drank more, they took on the appearance of old comrades-in-arms who had reunited after several years. They skipped along the room, humming. We smiled as we watched them, sure they would wake up the entire hotel.
Afreen held my hand and we smiled. I held on to her hand tightly and prayed to God to give me some of her strength. She was born fearless, just like our father, and I felt like he would behappy, felt like he might be finally proud. Mr Sood came and sat besides us.
‘So, you won’t be a part of all the action tomorrow inside the hotel?’ I asked him.
He shook his head. ‘No, I must stay outside, watch our post in town and wait for you.’
‘Will Dr Bannerjee also not be at the post tomorrow?’ Afreen asked.
‘Yes, sure,’ Sood said waving his hand, ‘But when something must be carefully watched, the old idiom is truly accurate, ek aur ek gyarah.’
My ears rang with his words, and I stared at him. It seemed I had never seen him this closely before. His beard was scruffy, his eyes dark. The shawl that he wore around himself looked regal. His lips were dry and parched, his fingers full of rings. I had never realized how husky his voice was, or that he pronounced words in a peculiar accent.
I didn’t feel like smiling any more. A blackness seemed to take over the room, and a ringing noise played in my ear, refusing to stop. My father’s voice began echoing back to me, and I could imagine him on the boat, not a soul in sight, flailing about as everything exploded and sank.
Afreen’s hand gripped me, bringing me back. When I looked at her, I saw my fear reflected in her eyes. She had realized in the same moment as I. She knew it.
The air suddenly felt chilly, and I felt myself shiver. Sood asked us if we were all right.
‘Just a bit worried about tomorrow,’ I heard myself answer dryly.
‘There’s no need,’ he said, looking at the sky. ‘It’s the start of a big adventure.’
