The Glass Palace (46 page)

The first question she blurted out was the one that was uppermost in her mind. ‘Kishan Singh,' she said, ‘are you married?'

‘Yes,' he said gravely. ‘And I have a little son. Just one year old.'

‘How old were you when you were married?'

‘It was four years ago,' he said. ‘So I must have been sixteen.'

‘And your wife,' she said, ‘what is she like?'

‘She's from the village next to mine.'

‘And where is your village?'

‘It's up north—a long way from here. It's near Kurukshetra— where the great battle of the Mahabharata was fought. That is why the men of our district make good soldiers—that's what people say.'

‘And did you always want to be a soldier?'

‘No.' He laughed. ‘Not at all—but I had no choice.'

The men in his family had always lived by soldiering, he explained. His father, his grandfather, his uncles—they had all served in the 1/1 Jats. His grandfather had died at Passchendaele, in the Great War. The day before his death he had dictated a
letter that was to be sent to his family, filled with instructions about the crops in the fields and what was to be planted and when they were to sow and when to harvest. They next day he had gone over the top of his trench, to save his wounded
afsar
, an English captain whose batman he had been for five years and whom he honoured above all men. For this he had been awarded, posthumously, the Indian Distinguished Service Medal, which his family had kept, in their
haveli
, in a glass box.

‘And to this day the afsar's family send us money—not because we ask, nor from charity, but out of love of my grandfather, and to honour what he did for their son . . .'

Bela hung upon his words, drinking in every movement of the muscles of his face. ‘Go on.'

His father had served in the army too, he said. He had been wounded in Malaya, at the time of a rebellion. A stab wound had ripped open his side and pierced his colon. The army doctors had done what they could for him, but the wound had burdened him with chronic, crippling stomach pains. He'd travelled far afield, visiting experts in Ayurveda and other systems of medicine; the expense had forced him to barter away his share of the family land. He hadn't wanted a fate like that for his Kishan Singh; he'd wanted his son to go to college and understand things; he himself had travelled the world—Malaya, Burma, China, East Africa—and had understood nothing.

Kishan Singh too would have liked to go to college, but when he was fourteen his father died. After that the option of school was no longer open: the family had needed money. His relatives urged him to report to the local recruitment office; they said that he was lucky to have been born into a caste that was allowed to enroll in the English sarkar's army.

‘That was why you joined?'

He nodded. ‘Yes.'

‘And the women in your village,' she said, ‘what are they like?'

‘Not like you.'

She was hurt by this. ‘Why? What do you mean?'

‘In a way,' he said, ‘they are soldiers too. From the time they are little they begin to learn what it means to be widowed early; to bring up children without their men; to spend their lives with husbands who are maimed and crippled.'

Just then she heard her mother calling her name, and went running out of the room.

For the duration of the wedding, Rajkumar and his family were staying at the Great Eastern Hotel. (It was unthinkable, in light of their past hostilities, for Rajkumar to stay with Uma, as Dolly usually did.) It had been agreed upon, however, that Neel and Manju would spend their wedding night—their last in Calcutta—in Lankasuka, in Uma's flat.

When the day came, Uma and Dolly prepared the bridal bedroom themselves. They went early to the flower market at Kalighat and came back with dozens of loaded baskets. They spent the morning draping the wedding bed with garlands of flowers—hundreds of them. While working, they reminisced about their own weddings and how very different they'd been. In the afternoon they were joined by the Second Princess, who'd made a special trip from Kalimpong: this completed the circle.

It was hot and they were quickly drenched in sweat. ‘I've had enough,' said Dolly. ‘My wedding was easier.'

‘Remember Mrs Khambatta—with the camera?'

They sat on the floor, laughing at the memory.

As the day progressed, a hundred minor crises accumulated. Mainly they concerned odds and ends that someone had forgotten to buy: yet another dhoti for the purohit; a fresh handful of
durba
grass; a sari for a forgotten aunt—small but essential items. In the late afternoon Arjun was told to organise a quick shopping expedition in the family Jowett. Dinu, Uma and Bela were to go with him, each armed with a shopping list.

Arjun brought the Jowett into the courtyard and the others climbed in.

‘Where exactly are we going?' Uma asked.

‘To the market at Kalighat,' Arjun said.

‘Well, you'll have to be quick then,' said Uma.

‘Why?'

‘There's a big demonstration today—we could get cut off.'

‘A demonstration?' Arjun was taken by surprise. ‘What on earth is it about this time?'

This annoyed Uma. ‘Don't you ever read the papers, Arjun?' she said. ‘It's an anti-war march. We in the Congress believe that in the event of another war Britain can't expect our support unless they're willing to provide a guarantee of Indian independence.'

‘Oh I see.' Arjun shrugged. ‘Well, we're safe then—it'll take them a long time to get through all of that . . .'

Dinu laughed.

It took just fifteen minutes to get to the market, and within half an hour their shopping was done. They were on their way back, when they turned into a wide avenue and spotted the first of the demonstrators, approaching from a distance.

‘Nothing to worry about,' Arjun said calmly. ‘We're a long way ahead. They won't box us in.' But even as he was speaking the Jowett's engine had begun to splutter. And then suddenly the car went dead.

‘Do something, Arjun!' Uma snapped. ‘We can't stop here.'

‘The spark plug,' Arjun muttered incredulously. ‘I knew I should have cleaned it this morning.'

‘Can't you fix it?'

‘It's going to take a few minutes.'

‘A few minutes!' Uma said. ‘But they'll be all around us. Arjun, how could you allow this?'

‘These things happen . . .'

Dinu and Arjun went around to the front and propped the hood open. The Jowett had been idling a good while in the courtyard and the engine was very hot. By the time the plug was fixed, the demonstration had closed around them. Marchers
were flowing past on every side, some of them breaking ranks to stare at the stalled car and the two men standing beside the open hood. Arjun and Dinu got back into the car: there was nothing to do but sit and wait until the last demonstrators were past.

A marcher dropped a pamphlet through the car window. Arjun picked it up and glanced down at the front page. There were quotations from Mahatma Gandhi and a passage that said: ‘Why should India, in the name of freedom, come to the defence of this Satanic Empire which is itself the greatest menace to liberty that the world has ever known?'

Arjun was extremely irritated by this time and he made an angry, spitting noise. ‘Idiots,' he said. ‘I wish I could stuff this down their throats. You'd think they'd have better things to do than march about in the hot sun . . .'

‘Watch what you say, Arjun,' Uma said sharply, from the back seat. ‘I hope you know that I was meant to be in that march too. I don't think you should be calling them idiots. After all what do you know about these things?'

‘Oh, well . . .' Arjun was about to shrug this off when Dinu spoke up, unexpectedly, in his defence.

‘I think Arjun's right,' he said. ‘Those people
are
idiots . . .'

‘What?' said Uma. ‘What are you talking about, Dinu?'

‘I'm talking about Fascism,' Dinu said, ‘and why the most important thing right now is to fight it. Because if war does break out, it won't be like any other war . . . Hitler and Mussolini are among the most tyrannical and destructive leaders in all of human history . . . They're grotesque, they're monsters . . . If they succeed in imposing their will on the world, we'll all be doomed. Look at what they believe in . . . their whole ideology is about the superiority of certain races and the inferiority of others . . . Look at what they're doing to Jews . . . And if they have their way they'll destroy the working-class movement everywhere in the world . . . Their rule will be the most violent and despotic you can imagine, with some races at the bottom and some at the top . . . And don't imagine for a moment that India and Burma will be better off
if the British are defeated . . . The Germans' plan is simply to take over the Empire and rule in their place . . . And think of what'll happen in Asia . . . The Japanese are already aspiring to an Empire, like the Nazis and Fascists . . . Last year, in Nanking, they murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people . . . The last we heard from Saya John, he said that many of his wife's relatives had been killed . . . Lined up against walls and shot . . . Men, women, children . . . Do you think that if the Japanese army reached India they wouldn't do the same thing here? If you do, you're wrong . . . They would . . . They're imperialists and racialists of the worst order . . . If they succeed, it'll be the worst catastrophe in all of human history.'

Uma responded calmly. ‘Dinu,' she said, ‘you must not think for one moment that I, or anyone in the Congress, has an iota of sympathy for the Nazis and Fascists. Absolutely not: they are exactly what you say—monstrous, grotesque. As Mahatma Gandhi has said, many times, they represent the exact opposite of everything we stand for. But as I see it, we are caught between two scourges: two sources of absolute evil. The question for us is, why should we pick one over the other? You say that Nazism will rule through violence and conquest, that it will institutionalize racialism, that it will commit unspeakable atrocities. All of this is true: I don't dispute it for a moment. But think of the evils you have listed: racialism, rule through aggression and conquest. Is the Empire not guilty of all of this? How many tens of millions of people have perished in the process of this Empire's conquest of the world— in its appropriation of entire continents? I don't think there could ever be an accounting of the numbers. Worse still, the Empire has become the ideal of national success—a model for all nations to aspire to. Think of the Belgians, racing off to seize the Congo—they killed ten or eleven million people there. And what was it they wanted, other than to create a version of this Empire? Isn't that what Japan and Germany want today—empires of their own?'

Bela leant over the seat, trying to break in. ‘We have to get
back,' she cried. ‘We can't just sit here, arguing. It's Manju's wedding night.'

The last of the demonstrators were now past. Arjun started the car and turned it round. They went speeding down the road, towards Lankasuka.

But the argument was not over so far as Dinu was concerned. He turned round in his seat. ‘Aunt Uma,' he said, ‘you're always talking about the evils of Empire and what the British have done to India . . . But do you think that terrible things weren't happening here before they came? Look at the way women are treated even today, look at the caste system, untouchability, widow-burning . . . all these terrible, terrible things.'

Uma retorted sharply: ‘Let me be the first to admit the horrors of our own society—as a woman I assure you that I am even more aware of them than you are. Mahatma Gandhi has always said that our struggle for independence cannot be separated from our struggle for reform. But having said this, let me add that we must
not
be deceived by the idea that imperialism is an enterprise of reform. Colonialists would like us to believe this, but there is a simple and clear refutation. It is true that India is riven with evils such as those you describe— caste, the mistreatment of women, ignorance, illiteracy. But take the example of your own country, Burma—they had no caste system there. On the contrary the Burmese were very egalitarian. Women had a high standing—probably more so than in the West. There was universal literacy. But Burma was conquered too, and subjugated. In some ways they fared even worse than we did at the hands of the Empire. It is simply mistaken to imagine that colonialists sit down and ponder the rights and wrongs of the societies they want to conquer: that is not why empires are built.'

Dinu gave a hoarse laugh. ‘Here you are, so full of indignation about the British. And yet you use the English language more often than not . . .'

‘That's neither here nor there,' Uma shot back. ‘Many great Jewish writers write in German. Do you think that prevents them from recognising the truth?'
From the driver's seat, Arjun gave a shout: ‘Hold on!' He threw the car into a steep turn, taking it through the gates of Lankasuka. As they were getting out, they were met by the sound of ululations and the trumpeting of conch-shells. They went racing upstairs to find Neel and Manju walking around the fire, his dhoti joined to her sari by a knot.