Page 69 of A Shimla Affair
And yet, my heart ached to trust him.
No matter which sides we were on, after what I had told him, I didn’t want to believe that he would do something to directly harm us. He wanted this madness to stop, but he wouldn’t mislead me into doing something that would get us shot. I knew there was love behind the stoniness and hurt in his eyes, and I knew that it was real.
I may have betrayed him, but I knew he would not do the same to me. I wanted my freedom more than he wanted his government to be right. And so, my transgressions were more justified than ever. I held on to that thought, said a quick prayer to the Lord and, with my eyes shut tight, nodded.
Khushilalji took my place behind the Viceroy and I sprinted down to the foyer doors and opened them. Guns were steadied and pulled so rapidly and in such synchronization that the collective noise reminded me how precarious my life was. My arms were immediately in the air, holding the file high. An order to stop bellowed on the horn, and I did.
‘Nalini,’ Noor yelled, ‘What are you doing?!’
‘I have something that Lord Ripon might find interesting,’ I yelled back. I watched Ripon take a couple of steps towards me before halting. He said something to my sisters that I couldn’t hear.
I was aware that a hundred guns pointed in my direction, that one bad move, one word from the Lord Commander, and they could blow me up into so many pieces that even the wind wouldn’t be able to scatter them all away. And yet here I was, standing, still alive. The knowledge of it kept me going. I raised my arms further, as high up as I could, and took a few small steps towards them, close enough that they would be able to hear me clearly.
‘What a productive meeting you all had, Lord Commander,’ I tried to keep my voice from trembling, sweating profusely. But the weight of life and death rested on my shoulders. ‘Riots between the Hindus and Muslims across major cities in India, leading to a civil war. A very likely turn of events. This situation of emergency would enable you to use the worst of your powers, ban every political party or enemy, withdraw any rights or laws, to do with India as you must. Do they know, back in Britain, that English leadership in India is willing to do whatever it takes to retain their fascist control of India, with the Prime Minister’s assent? Even create a civil war? Do you think they would like to hear it from the German news? How would that make Britain look in the world?’
Did Ripon even know about this plan? He looked contemplative, choosing not to betray his shock over our knowledge. Perhaps that’s what I hated the most about him that, unlike the Viceroy, he did not let his emotions get the better of him.
I shook the file I held in the air. ‘Copies have been mailed to Delhi, Lord Ripon, from where they will be sent to Berlin. You make one wrong move to hurt us, and your face will be plastered on the front page of every British and German newspaper—the minutes of this meeting next to it. Whether you were the one to plan it wouldn’t matter’
He put up a hand to get his soldiers to lower their guns. ‘What do you want?’
‘Noor, hand the briefcase back to Lord Ripon gently, step away and head back inside the hotel. You two, follow her.’
It was a testament to how things had changed over the last few months that they obeyed me immediately, trusting in the wisdom of my drastic action.
Noor took a few steps back, towards me, and Afreen too shuffled closer. I kept my eyes on Lord Ripon and my handsaround the file. There are some moments in life that terrify you so much that the only way forward is to surrender yourself to the flow of events. And surrender I did.
Noor and Afreen now stood next to me, and I took a step forward in front of them, still holding the file as if it was an infallible shield against bullets.
‘Ratan Babu, come along!’
Ratan Babu gazed at Lord Ripon intensely for a second, and suddenly did something unimaginably stupid—but I guess, when a man has to know, he has to know. In a flash of a second, he picked up the briefcase and flung it far towards the emptier side of the garden. The briefcase exploded with a bang that deafened my ears, although unable to find any victims in its fold. Noor grabbed both of us in a huddle, pulling us back, although there was no way the explosion could have touched us.
The soldiers in the distance called for Lord Ripon to give the order, pleaded for us to be shot right on spot, that they had excellent aims and that it would take less than two seconds. Yet Ripon remained immobile, and Ratan Babu made sure to glance at him disparagingly before walking to us. We held hands and began to move backwards.
We let our pride get the better of us, and turned our backs on to what we thought was a job well done. We should have not turned our backs on Ripon. The second we could not quite see him any more, he too let his emotions guide him, and instead of calculating another move, he drew a breath in anger.
We heard him before he even heard himself, saw it before even a single breath propelled it into action, and feared it before the sound of terror settled upon us like a blanket of smoke.
‘Fire!’ Lord Ripon yelled, and I felt the violent push of Noor’s hands against my back. I stumbled across the steps and fell flat against the foyer, bashing my face on the floor. A volley of bullets rained on us, just as the others stumbled inside, tripping overme. Ratan Babu somehow managed to shut the doors, but some of the bullets pierced right through. We crawled as far as we could manage, until I saw a trail of blood on the floor and looked around in fear.
Noor’s sari was covered in a pool of red as Afreen yelled in anguish.
25
‘Once you reveal what is at stake, they will try to push your limits, see what they can do. If you don’t match their action with a reaction, they will know they can push more, and they will push until no more space is left for you. Just as in a game of cards, if the stakes have been raised, you cannot play a lower hand. You must match that or go higher. Because if you don’t, you are out of the game.’
I trembled on seeing how quickly blood spurted out and covered everything around it in red, reminding us of our transgressions. Noor seemed so small and fragile here like this, destroyed so easily, barely conscious. The thought scared me more than anything else; all through life, she had been our rock, a steady home, a protective shield of love that would never leave our side. Seeing her hurt and crumpled like this opened my eyes in a way that nothing else did, that told me to roll up my sleeves and get to work, for now we were in the real world.
The bullet had grazed past the top of Noor’s shoulder and taken off a chunk of her muscle and skin. While it had not hit her head or neck or heart or any of the places where it would have killed her within seconds or minutes, it did make her bleedprofusely. If we didn’t stop the flow of blood and properly treat the wound, she would die. We immediately placed her on the sofa and held together her wound with a cloth, applying pressure on it to stem the flow of blood. Afreen hurried to get warm clean wipes and bandages.
I took Noor in my arms. She was breathing heavily and her eyes began to close. I called out her name incessantly until she woke up again.
Khushilalji and Afreen slowly managed to close the wound, as Charles kept Noor steady and Ratan Babu managed the hostages. Noor looked upon Charles’ face and gave the smallest of smiles.
‘You saved us,’ she said, barely managing to get the words out. I implored her not to strain herself. But she was right; Charles had saved us.
‘They would have let the bomb do its job, and taken a chance that Nalini and whoever else inside wouldn’t be able to handle the situation.’
