A Division Of The Spoils (Raj Quartet 4) (30 page)

‘But you think I need to unbend more than I do, sir?’

‘It might help. The English manner is a formidable obstacle to mutual understanding between the races. As a young man of your age I used to believe precisely the opposite. But I was confusing mutual understanding with mutual respect and lack of understanding with lack of respect. Take young Thackeray.’

‘In what way?’

‘He’s an awfully kind-hearted boy. Full of fun. Splendid with visiting brass from Eastern Command or
GHQ
and with young Indian officers like Bunny Mehta. But put him with a handful of senior Indian civilians, any distinguished Indian who’s not in uniform, and he’s a different fellow. Actually he’s terrified of upsetting them or putting a foot wrong. But they don’t know that. They look at what to me and you is his rather touching but sometimes exasperating expression of boyish concentration and they interpret it as one of a fully mature sense of racial and class superiority. I don’t honestly think he feels that. But the English manner has never been much of a medium for communicating feeling. Sometimes I think that’s at the bottom of half our troubles. Wavell’s a good example. One of the sincerest and best disposed men who’s ever held that wretched post. But also one of the most silent and unbending and outwardly austere. It’s the English manner come to perfection. It won’t do. And the irony is, Nigel, that at home it’s been going out of fashion for years. Rather like one of those strains of indigenous plants that turns out to flower more profusely abroad and withers away in its home soil. Anyway. It’s worth bearing in mind.’

He began moving away from the desk to the centre of the room. Level with the sofa table he came to a halt.

‘One other thing. This girl in Pankot young Thackeray assured me would make a few days up there quite an attractive proposition for you. Miss Layton.’

‘Miss Layton. Yes.’

‘The same Miss Layton?’

Rowan nodded.

‘Have you heard from her recently?’

‘Actually we were on the phone this evening.’

‘Anything to do with a havildar of her father’s regiment who went over to Bose in Germany?’

‘No, sir?’

‘He’s now with a batch of prisoners that came over from Bordeaux, in a camp near Delhi. General Crawford has a letter from Colonel Layton asking to be allowed to see him. Apparently he’s the son of a Pankot Rifles Subedar who won the vc in the last war.’

‘No, she said nothing about that.’

‘Did she refer at all to our friend Merrick?’

‘Only in passing. He was in Bombay when she was. I don’t know why or for how long.’

‘Has Colonel Layton met him?’

‘She didn’t say so. I imagine he must have done.’

‘Is Merrick still in the department that’s working up these
INA
cases?’

‘Yes. He hadn’t been in it long when she told me about it. That’s only six weeks ago. And she and Merrick were at a party in Bombay last week. Ahmed Kasim was there. Merrick told her not to let Ahmed know he was connected in any way with the brother’s case.’

‘Ah. Well that’s one thing. The other thing is Merrick’s bound to know about the Pankot Rifles havildar too, presumably. Is he sufficiently in with the family to want to help Colonel Layton have an interview with the man?’

‘Probably. In with the family, yes. I don’t know about the other thing.’

‘No. Perhaps Layton’s letter to Crawford indicates he’s tried that string and Merrick wouldn’t play. Perhaps you’d try to find out. Crawford was going to write back and say there was nothing doing but I’ve asked him to sit on it for a few days. If Merrick’s playing along and pulling strings, let me know. We could pull a few from here. If he’s not there isn’t a hope. But in that case tell her how sorry I am her father can’t see his havildar. He may appreciate knowing that I’ve been consulted personally by Crawford.’

‘Right, sir.’

Malcolm hesitated.

‘Is young Thackeray barking up the wrong tree? Perhaps I shouldn’t ask. But I can’t help wondering. The only times you’ve mentioned her to me have been to pass on what she’s told you about Merrick. Very helpful on that first occasion.
Interesting on the second. But I’ve assumed your interest in her was, what, limited to that subject? The way Thackeray spoke made me feel I’ve been insensitive.’

‘I can’t think why you should feel that.’

‘No. Well. How much have you told her – about our view of Merrick?’

‘Nothing, sir. Nothing specific.’

‘Well, that would be difficult. Even if one disregards the element of doubt. But what impression do you have of her attitude?’

‘I know she believes he made a mistake in the Kumar case.’

‘How did the subject come up?’

‘I asked her how the chap she’d visited in hospital was. And she told me he was all right and had gone to Delhi to deal with the
INA
cases –’

‘Yes, I remember that. We were both struck by the idea of Merrick conducting a whole series of interrogations. How did she happen to mention the Kumar case?’

‘She said she hoped he wouldn’t start every examination of
INA
men with a preconceived conviction of the man’s guilt. We went on from there.’

‘Did you tell her you knew Kumar?’

‘I only mentioned the school part of it. It interested her because her father went to the same one. She knew Kumar had been brought up and educated in England but hadn’t heard definitely where.’

‘Why is she so interested in Kumar?’

Rowan had asked himself the same question. He did not know the answer. He could only base an answer on Gopal’s: that Kumar was really an English boy with a brown skin and that the combination was hopeless.

‘I think she sees him as a man who couldn’t have existed without our help and deliberate encouragement. I should say that in quite an impersonal way she thinks of him as a charge to our account – guilty or not guilty. But believing him not guilty makes the charge heavier.’

‘She sounds an unusually thoughtful person.’

‘Yes, I think she is.’

‘Did you tell her he’s free?’

‘No.’

‘So she doesn’t know you keep an eye.’

‘No.’

‘I imagine she’d approve? Well –,’ Malcolm smiled, ‘– I expect you have more than one reason for hiding that particular light. I take it Kumar remains in ignorance too?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Does he still suspect Gopal’s man of being
CID
?’

‘That, or one of Pandit Baba’s creatures.’

‘The
CID
still keeps tabs, presumably?’

‘Very much so. On Gopal’s man, too.’

‘Does he mind?’

‘Gopal says not.’

‘What will you do when you’ve left Ranpur? Leave everything to Gopal?’

‘I shall have to. There’s not much to leave.’

‘Yes, well, it’s a minor matter. How are things with him though?’

‘He lives much as you’d expect. Coaching a few students at a few rupees a time.’

‘How is the aunt?’

‘She still looks after him.’

‘Is he as devoted as she deserves?’

‘According to Gopal’s man, yes.’

‘Good.’ Malcolm paused. ‘I hope we did the right thing, that’s all.’

The car, which had been sent first to pick up Vallabhai Ramaswamy Gopal at his home, reached Government House a few minutes after eleven-thirty. Rowan had retrieved the envelope from the Signals Office and had it packed in his case. As he got into the car the old man said, ‘Keep away, Nigel. I have a cold you see.’ There was a smell of eucalyptus. Having spoken, Gopal clamped a square-folded handkerchief to his nose. He was wearing a grey flannel suit and had a woollen scarf round his neck.

‘How did you manage that,
VR
?’

‘I am catching cold easily nowadays. My wife tells me to keep an onion in my pocket. She has these outdated ideas.’

‘How is Mrs Gopal?’

Gopal jerked his head. ‘Okay. Very angry because I am not taking her to Pankot. She says what is the use of being married to a man who is always rushing off.’

‘Are you always rushing off?’

‘It is what I ask. When was I rushing off last? To Puri, isn’t it, two years ago and who was that with me? But it is useless to talk fact and logic to Lila when she is angry. Please excuse me for bringing so many things.’

Mr Gopal’s feet were hidden behind an assortment of luggage and oddments; among them an aluminium tiffin set. Outside on the roof rack he had already noticed a bed-roll and a wooden chest. His own suitcase was being put on.

‘While she quarrels with me also she gets the servant to pack this and that. It is best not to argue.’

Rowan had visited the house once. The Gopals’ quarrelling was not to be taken seriously. Jaiprakash announced through the open window that the suitcase was safely stowed. As the driver got in Mr Gopal spoke to someone on the other side of the car: a youth. He got in too and sat next to the driver.

‘It is my nephew Ashok coming to see me off. Making sure for Lila I am not rushing somewhere I shouldn’t be. Ashok, say how do you do to Captain Rowan.’

The boy turned round, ducked his head shyly but formally.

‘Ashok is doing his
BA
here, isn’t it, Ashok? But now he is talking of going to Calcutta for
BSC.
’

‘Why Calcutta?’

‘It is what we are asking. From Government College he can get
BSC
also, but no, he is insisting Calcutta. Ashok, tell Captain Rowan what you told Auntie Lila.’

Judging that the boy was too embarrassed to speak Rowan said, ‘Perhaps the real question is why not Calcutta?’

‘No, no, the question was definitely why Calcutta.’ Mr Gopal sometimes took a very literal line. ‘And the answer is for physics. Isn’t it, Ashok? In Ranpur he tells his Auntie there is no decent teacher in physics. For the past few days it has been physics, physics. You know what the trouble is with him, Nigel? He wishes to be the first Indian to make an
atomic bomb. He says only for power and energy but I know what is in his mind. He will blow us all up. And only last week it was Wordsworth and daffodils.’

They were through the west gate heading for the Mall and the western arm of Old Fort Road which would take them the longer but less congested way to the station. The car was now accompanied by two motor-cycle outriders – military police who had been waiting one hundred yards beyond the gate.

‘Look Ashok, what a story you will tell your mother and father. Driving from Government House with a motor-cycle escort.’ He turned to Rowan. ‘Lila said I should not bring him but I said you would not mind.’

‘Of course not. But what about getting back?’

‘He lives near the station. He is Lila’s sister’s youngest boy. He was only visiting us. It is a lift home for him very nearly, otherwise I would not have brought him.’

‘It’s very late.’

‘I’m often out as late as this, sir,’ the boy said, turning round. ‘I shall be perfectly all right.’

Rowan glanced at Gopal, but Gopal had the squared handkerchief covering the lower part of his face.

‘You speak English very well, Ashok.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ He faced front. Again Rowan glanced at Gopal who jerked his head slightly, an affirmative answer to Rowan’s unspoken question. ‘He has found a very good coach and visits him two three times a week after classes. Other evenings he is attending
YMCA
and doing Ju-Jitsu.
Mens sana in corpore sano.
Ashok? You know the meaning of this?’

‘Yes, uncle.’

‘What a bright boy. Now physics. What will be the use of mind or body if you blow us all up? Will your physics cure my cold? What a state we are in. In one pocket the formula for splitting the atom and in the other an onion.’

‘Do you know the English cure for cramp,
VR
?’

‘No?’

‘A raw potato in the bed.’

Gopal laughed. Ashok looked round, smiling. Rowan thought: I unbend easily enough with Gopal.

He looked out of the window. He remembered the time when neither of them had quite trusted the other. Now they
were friends. Before that Rowan had known of him only as a shrewd and conscientious civil servant who was said to owe his position in the Department for Home and Law to Mohammed Ali Kasim. A member of the uncovenanted provincial civil service his advancement might otherwise have been blocked by the preference given to British and Indian members of the august
ICS.
Rowan didn’t know in just what way he had caught
MAK
’s eye when
MAK
was chief minister but he had been a good choice for the senior position he now held in the secretariat.

They had turned off Old Fort Road and were headed south down the ill-lit Upper Tank Road with the barrack-like
PWD
buildings in darkness on their left and on their right the grounds of Government College – the principal’s bungalow, the playing field, the building-site for the Chakravarti extension, and finally, at the intersection with the brightly lit thoroughfare of Elphinstone Road, the old Victorian Gothic building of the College itself.

The car turned right into Elphinstone Road and was filled with sliding slanting bars of light and shadow. The motorcycle escort shortened the distance between themselves and the car to mother it through the crowds that walked freely on the road. At the Lux Cinema they were still showing
Jawab.

‘Did you know old Mahsood well,
VR
?’

‘He was not so old. He came to see us when
MAK
was released from Premanagar and sent to Nanoora in Mirat. He was very upset because he wanted to go too, and Mrs Kasim would not take him because she was afraid he would tell Kasim how ill she had been. When he went Lila said “He says Mrs Kasim is ill, but he is ill also.” Then of course Kasim sent for him, so he closed the house up and joined them.’

‘He lived in the Kasim household didn’t he?’

‘Since many years. He was never married. “What do I need with wife and children?” he used to say to Lila. “
MAK
and Mrs
MAK
are like brother and sister to me and Sayed and Ahmed are like sons or nephews.” It was from Mahsood that Lila and I first heard about Sayed and
INA.
He said he suspected
MAK
would not forgive the boy and that this would be terrible for Mrs Kasim.’