Page 73 of A Shimla Affair
‘We will leave him here,’ Ratan Babu said, casting him a disparaging glance, ‘Let the British do their justice with him, as they please.’ Guruji did not appear to like that idea one bit.
‘Khushilalji, let’s get ready, fast.’ The old man, on hearing Afreen’s commanding but kind voice, quickly started to settle the remaining hostages in place. As the others grabbed what we might need, I went to Charles.
‘Come with us,’ I said, holding him by the shoulders. ‘What goes for the Viceroy will also go for you. They will know that you have helped us, they will send you to prison, or kill you. Come and be with me, somewhere far away … be with your child.’
For a moment he was shook. His eyes lit up with love, inspiring in me that unquenchable flame that somehow always found a way to come alive near him, that inspired in me hope despite our insurmountable odds. He looked at me with longing, and in that moment, he seemed so innocent and sweet that it was impossible that he could have been pointing a gun at my face hours before. But he had also saved my life, my family’s lives, more than once. He almost nodded, but then—
‘No, I will stay here,’ he said.
‘But why?’
‘To buy you time. To make sure they don’t bomb the place and kill all the other hostages. To mislead them about your whereabouts, to confuse them about what actually happened in here.’
Tears sprang to my eyes, as I realized once again that there was something between us. He put his own life at stake to save us against his own people, refusing to come with me, even knowing I would be the mother to his child—if I got the chance to get out of here alive.
‘But that was not the plan—’
He smiled. ‘The universe laughs at your plans, Nalini. You say you will go one way, and life shakes its head and drags you toanother. Perhaps the best one can do, or the only thing one can do, is surrender himself to its vagaries and uncertainties.’
‘Charles—’
‘It’s time to go home, Dorothy,’ he said, smiling as he held my hands. ‘There’s no place like it.’
An eternity passed in that moment between us, when we got to look into each other’s eyes, which in the chaos and the death that surrounded us, felt like an ocean of love.
He would stand at the entrance to the hotel, waiting for them to storm in, willing to protect us, to save us. So, in the end, he did understand, perhaps even too well, what I stood for, what I felt, what I wanted.
As I took my hands away from his, waves of repentance and helplessness washed over me. What had we done? What had I done? This was all that home was, the hotel, the town; Noor was barely alive, and Charles …
They pulled me away from him and, turning my back, I followed the others in a daze. It seemed like the end of the world as I knew it, when it should have felt like the beginning.
27
‘When you need to get out, come through the bunkers and I will lead you through the tunnels and away from Shimla. We will hide in the hills for a while before things calm down, and then make our way down to Kalka with some Muslim friends. We will travel in secrecy, hide in Punjab, and then it would be up to you. You can never be who you were again, at least until India is free. But perhaps thanks to you, it won’t be chained for long. Take the exit when you have the need, and we will be there.’
We made for an odd group: the Viceroy with his hands bound tight, right behind Afreen who led the group. They were followed by Ratan Babu who carried Noor. Reluctant, I was ushered forward by Khushilalji, who had taken our escape and duty as his personal dharma. I had to smile at him, he who had been with us since we were little girls, who was willing to give up everything—whohadgiven up everything—just for us.
Without the usual lamps we lit, the bunkers were dark as night and we had to rely on little slivers of light that somehowmanaged to make their way in. Afreen reached the trapdoor that led to the tunnels, the tunnels we had earlier cleared up by blasting away the debris that had caved it for years. She tried to push but the door wouldn’t budge.
‘Push harder!’ Ratan Babu called out.
‘I am! It doesn’t move!’
He helped Noor lean against me and Khushilalji and went forward to help Afreen. But even with their combined strength, the door wouldn’t move. Ratan Babu made us move back and ran at it with the full force of his side, and turned to us when it still did not open. ‘What’s happening?’ he muttered.
We all took our turn at the door, before Noor voiced out what we feared. ‘It’s blocked.’
We knew she was right. The trapdoor was blocked from the outside, we had no way to leave. I stood shaking, the knot inside my stomach twisting harder with every passing minute, barely able to see the others in the darkness but still able to hear the fear in their voices.
‘Only Begum Jaan knew about it,’ I heard Afreen say, her voice hoarse from the betrayal. ‘She blocked the door. She has trapped us in here.’
Blood rushed to my ears, as Ratan Babu tried to argue in vain against what was now an obvious fact: she had blocked our exit. My mind scrambled to find other reasons for this turn of events, hoping to see something, anything that could explain what was going on.
Begum Jaan was the one who had encouraged us not to give up on the plan after we discovered Sood’s double crossing and Guruji’s true intentions, the hypocrisies that unknowingly lay at the root of our undertaking. She had found this way out for us, orchestrated it, supported it, for what we all thought to be the greater good. If fear had made her back out, although she wasn’tthe sort, she could have just not helped us through the tunnels, but why would she block us in the hotel?
‘We have to go back to the foyer,’ Noor said, and her voice brought me back.
‘She’s right! Come on, let’s go back!’ I said, leading the way. We led a puzzled Viceroy back to the place of his captivity, trying to fight the blankness that threatened to drown us. We retreated through the servant’s passage back up to the ballroom, finding the hostages leaning up against each other, Charles helping them with water.
