Burnt Shadows Part 5

'I don't mean what is literally left of them,' Sajjad said, without mockery. 'My ancestors were soldiers in the armies of the Mamluks I believe your English historians call them the Slave Kings. The Qutb Minar is the greatest remaining monument of those kings.'

'Slave Kings?' Against her will, she was intrigued. 'I a.s.sume they weren't really slaves.'

'Oh, yes. They were the first dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. Thirteenth century, Christian calendar. Qutb-ud-din Aibak, after whom the Qutb Minar is named, was the first ruler he was a slave who rose to the position of general. His son-in-law, Altamash, also a former slave, was the second ruler. He's buried there.' He waved his hands somewhere behind the ruins of the great mosque. It struck him as he did so that this was how things should be he, an Indian, introducing the English to the history of India, which was his history and not theirs. It was a surprising thought, and something in it made him uneasy. He had thought the world would change around him but his own life would stay unaffected.

'India and all its invaders,' Elizabeth said. Her eyes followed a pale-winged b.u.t.terfly which flew out between the stone pillars and then reeled back, staggered by the heat. 'How will all of us fit back into that little island now that you're casting us out? So small, England, so very small. In so many ways.'

Sajjad looked at Elizabeth, leaning against a pillar, her body angled towards the figures near the Qutb Minar. Was it James or Hiroko who she looked at with such sadness? Or was she also thinking of her son? He thought for a moment of Henry Burton and sighed. He hadn't realised how much he'd been looking forward to the boy's return until James had mentioned offhandedly, as though it were not really a matter of concern to Sajjad that Henry would stay in England this summer. It will have devastated her, he thought, continuing to look at Elizabeth Burton and her phrasing of 'you're casting us out' conferred on him a sense of responsibility and authority which allowed him, for once, to address her in a moment when she clearly had her mind on other matters.

'In fact, the story of the Slave Dynasty which I most love is that of Altamash's daughter, Razia Sultana.'

'Some tragic love story?' Elizabeth's tone conveyed something of her grat.i.tude at being drawn out of her musings on the symbolic significance of the wasteland that filled the s.p.a.ce between her and James.

'Women do have roles in other kinds of stories,' he said, a fountain of lines springing out from the corner of his eyes as he smiled. She gestured to him to come and stand in the covered corridor with her, out of the sun, and he accepted with a nod of grat.i.tude. This sudden cordiality was unexpected, but welcome. 'No, Razia Sultana was the most capable of Altamash's children, far more so than any of his sons. So he named her his heir. Of course, when Altamash died one of the sons seized the throne, but Razia soon defeated him. She was an amazing woman a brilliant administrator, a glorious fighter.' Almost bashfully, he added, 'If I ever have a daughter I'll name her Razia.'

It was a moment of surprising intimacy. For the duration of a heartbeat Elizabeth allowed it to linger in the air between them, and then she gestured towards James and Hiroko.

'Let's join those two. You can give us all a history lesson about the tower.'

'Minaret.'

'That's lesson number one. Do you know I've been here at least a dozen times, but I've never known anything about who built it or why.'

'My history is your picnic ground,' he said, but there was no accusation in the comment, only a wryness which she responded to with a smile.

James watched Elizabeth and Sajjad walk towards him with a sense of relief. Hiroko was acting very strangely he almost thought he'd done something to offend her in organising this surprise picnic and leading her ahead of the other two to point out personally the highlights of the Qutb complex. Here she was, not walking around the great tower so much as prowling. He'd thought of her as a wounded bird when she first came to stay, but now he saw something more feral in her.

I have to get away, I have to get away, Hiroko thought, circling the minaret. She was nothing in this world. It was clear now. Better even to be a hibakusha than nothing. Last evening, when James Burton had whispered, 'Tomorrow morning we're all going to see Sajjad's Delhi,' she had felt her face stretch into a smile that didn't seem possible. His world wasn't closed to outsiders! The Burtons weren't entirely resistant to entering an India outside the Raj! And she, Hiroko Tanaka, was the one to show both Sajjad and the Burtons that there was no need to imagine such walls between their worlds. Konrad had been right to say barriers were made of metal that could turn fluid when touched simultaneously by people on either side.

But when Sajjad had arrived on his bicycle, not quite looking at her, she knew he wasn't taking them to his moholla. And James Burton seemed entirely to have forgotten that this trip had anything to do with Sajjad as he walked her through the complex with its crumbling structures, pointing out the stretch of ground favoured by polo players, the metallurgical significance of an ancient iron pillar.

She could feel her mind twist away from the inescapable conclusion she knew she'd soon have to face: she had to return to j.a.pan.

'James!' Elizabeth said, coming to stand beside her husband. 'Did you know Sajjad's family came here from Turkey seven centuries ago?'

'Young Turk, are you?' James smiled at Sajjad.

'No, Mr Burton,' Sajjad said, not understanding the reference. 'I'm Indian.' He glanced at Hiroko, who had her back to all three of them, looking up at the Arabic inscriptions on the minaret. She was offended, he knew, but what could he do about it? He looked at James, as though considering something that had never occurred to him before. 'Why have the English remained so English? Throughout India's history conquerors have come from elsewhere, and all of them Turk, Arab, Hun, Mongol, Persian have become Indian. If when this Pakistan happens, those Muslims who leave Delhi and Lucknow and Hyderabad to go there, they will be leaving their homes. But when the English leave, they'll be going home.'

Hiroko turned towards Sajjad, surprised and acutely self-conscious. She had been speaking to him of Konrad's interest in the foreigners who made their homes in Nagasaki, and now she saw her words filtering into his thoughts and becoming part of the way he saw the world.

'Henry thinks of India as home,' Elizabeth said, seeing how wounded James was by Sajjad's unexpected attack, and wanting to deflect it.

'Yes.' There was a tightening of Sajjad's voice. 'He does.' And you sent him away because of it, he wanted to say, the sense of offence which had started as an act to impress Hiroko no longer feigned. He recalled it very well, the day her opposition to the idea of boarding school ended. He had been playing cricket in the garden with Henry when Elizabeth came out and told her son he was 'such a young Englishman'. Henry had scowled, and backed up towards Sajjad. 'I'm Indian,' he'd said. The next day James Burton had told Sajjad how relieved he was that his wife had suddenly decided to withdraw all her 'sentimental' objections to sending Henry to boarding school.

'Something you want to say, Sajjad?'

'No, Mrs Burton. Only that I don't suppose he'll continue to think of India that way for much longer.'

'For the best,' Elizabeth said, looking around her, feeling something that was almost sorrow to think the descendants of the English would not come to the churches and monuments of British India seven centuries from now and say this is a reminder of when my family history and India's history entered the same stream irrevocably and for ever.

'Why is it for the best?' Sajjad's voice was as near angry as anyone had ever heard it. It was hard to say if Elizabeth or Sajjad was more surprised at his tone after eight years during which he used only excessive politeness as a weapon against her. But they were both aware that this would not have happened if Hiroko hadn't been standing there, disrupting all hierarchies.

'Steady on,' James said in a warning tone, and Sajjad turned very red and looked away with a mumbled apology.

Elizabeth wanted to catch Sajjad by the collar and shake him. I was made to leave Berlin when I was just a little younger than him I know the pain of it. What do you know of leaving, you whose family has lived in Delhi for centuries? I was made to leave Berlin when I was just a little younger than him I know the pain of it. What do you know of leaving, you whose family has lived in Delhi for centuries? But beneath that anger there was something that felt a great deal like hurt. We were just starting to get on, that place beneath anger wanted to say. But beneath that anger there was something that felt a great deal like hurt. We were just starting to get on, that place beneath anger wanted to say.

'Sajjad.' Hiroko tugged at his sleeve. Her own rage was forgotten behind the need to stop the awfulness of the anger pulsing between these two people who had come to mean so much to her. 'Come, look. I found a word I recognise.' She pointed to some part of the Arabic inscription on the minaret, and Sajjad moved closer to her to better see where she was directing his attention, their two dark heads almost touching.

The ease of their proximity struck Elizabeth much as it had Lala Buksh on the day of Hiroko's arrival. She saw the quick glance Sajjad directed at Hiroko and understood more about what it meant than Sajjad did. She did not stop to think of how Hiroko might feel about it or to wonder how long it had been true she only knew that at last she had found a way to get past that armour of charm and indifference that had allowed Sajjad Ali Ashraf to win over everyone else in her household while remaining impervious to all she ever said and did.

'Sajjad and I were just having a chat,' she said loudly, putting an arm around James's waist in an attempt at casualness which almost made him jump back in surprise. 'He was telling me the name he has in mind for his first daughter.'

James kissed the side of her head, allowing his lips to linger while he took in her scent. His fingers covered hers at his waist. She was almost distracted from her purpose, almost on the verge of turning to James and whispering that they should reacquaint themselves with the recessed archways built into the walls of the covered pa.s.sageway, where, in happier times, they had sometimes slipped away during polo games on the adjoining fields to seek refuge from the sun and other onlookers. But then she heard Sajjad say something in Urdu which made Hiroko blush. What he'd said was, 'Before you know it I'll have to come to you for lessons in my language,' but Elizabeth only saw that Hiroko was drifting away from her towards Sajjad, as James and Henry had already done.

'So, Sajjad,' she said casually. 'How are your marital plans shaping up? James told me you said you'll need to take a few days off for your wedding before the end of the year.'

There was the briefest moment in which there was only antic.i.p.ation of what might follow, and then Hiroko turned sharply on her heels and started to walk back towards the car.

'What . . .?' James said, surprised by the resoluteness with which she was striding away.

'The heat. It's not good for her.' Elizabeth's childhood self felt the ghosts of those attached to the world by remorse press their hot mouths against her skin in initiation. 'We should leave.'

'Oh, all right.' James looked regretfully towards the covered hallway. 'Sajjad, come along.'

'I'll find my own way home, thank you, Mr Burton.'

'Come on, James!'

James looked uncertainly at Sajjad, who waved him towards the car.

'I will walk among the ruins and compose great poems about my ancestors, Mr Burton. Please don't worry about me.'

Sajjad watched as the Bentley drove off, unsettling both pigeons and dust, and only when it was out of view did he lean back against the great minaret and look up to the whitening sky for some explanation of why his heart was racing so madly.

7.

Civil Lines was aflame with gulmohar trees in bloom as Sajjad pedalled to work the next morning, each fiery flower-cl.u.s.ter reminding him of Hiroko stalking away across a barren tract of land with collapsing monuments strewn around, a smear of red on the back of her dress as though her heart had bled all the way through.

For an instant he had thought there could be only one explanation for her response to news of his wedding but he quickly saw the vanity, the absurdity, of that thought. Of course she was angry with him; why wouldn't she be? She had spoken to him of the death of Konrad Weiss, and what had he told her of his own life in return? Nothing but superficialities. And so it fell to Elizabeth Burton casually to announce news that one friend had no reason to keep from another.

A woman friend. Sajjad shook his head in amazement to think such a thing had entered his life. A j.a.panese woman friend. The bicycle wheels whirred and the seat creaked as he pedalled faster, then slower, much slower, then faster again. Could he invite her to his wedding? What would his wife whoever she might turn out to be say to know there was a woman outside the family who he counted among his friends; a woman who wore trousers and low-cut necklines, and smoked cigarettes, and would never dream of allowing anyone else to choose her husband, and who was beautiful. No, perhaps it was better after all not to consider inviting her to his wedding.

And yet he could see her there. Could see her standing just a little apart from the women of his family, her eyes teasingly on him in that moment before he looked down into the mirror which would show him, for the first time, the face of the woman sitting beside him who he had just married.

No, no, she could not, must not, come to his wedding.

When he dismounted in the Burton driveway Lala Buksh was waiting for him. Sajjad nodded to him as he leaned his cycle against the wall. In all the years he'd been coming here he and Lala Buksh had barely spoken to each other beyond Sajjad conveying some request of James's to his bearer or wis.h.i.+ng him a perfunctory Eid Mubarak Eid Mubarak. But in the last few weeks, as riots continued and the creation of a new state seemed increasingly likely, the two men had started to drink a cup of tea together in the morning while discussing what news the previous day had brought with it of death and politics and freedom.

Lala Buksh handed Sajjad a steaming cup, and they walked towards the kitchen entrance, where Sajjad sat on the step leading inside while Lala Buksh squatted on the ground as he would never do in the presence of the English.

'I am going,' Lala Buksh said bluntly. Sajjad looked at him quizzically, distracted by the thought that he would see Hiroko in a few minutes and had no idea of what he would say to her. 'To this country for Muslims. I will go.'

Sajjad leaned his head back against the screen door.

'The English are here for another year. Why don't you wait to see what the situation is in '48? Already things are much calmer than last month.'

Lala Buksh looked at his hands as they curled into fists, watching them as a scientist might watch some awful and brilliant weapon of his own creation begin to take form.

'By '48, I don't know what I'll have become.'

Unlike Sajjad, Lala Buksh lived in a neighbourhood that wasn't predominantly Muslim. He was there only on Fridays, when he had a day off from working for the Burtons, but he confessed to Sajjad that on those Fridays when his family poured out a week's worth of stories from the Punjab, of Muslim men slaughtered, Muslim shops set on fire, Muslim women abducted he had to force himself to stay at home because if he went out and saw a single Hindu his eyes would reveal what was in his heart, and it would get him killed. Or else, a Hindu's eyes would reveal what was in his his heart, and then . . . heart, and then . . .

Sajjad sipped his tea, not knowing how to respond to that. For years he'd watched Lala Buksh joke with the Burtons' cook, Vijay, and flirt with Henry's ayah, Rani, and sometimes he'd walk into the kitchen to find the three of them grumbling amiably about the Burtons. Now the only break Lala Buksh took from his duties was this one, with Sajjad. In talking to Lala Buksh, Sajjad realised that atrocities committed on Muslims touched him far more deeply than atrocities committed by Muslims he knew this to be as wrong as it was true.

As Sajjad finished his tea in one large gulp and stood up, Lala Buksh said, 'You didn't come back with them from Qutb Minar yesterday.' Sajjad made a non-committal gesture. 'She was very upset about something.' He picked up Sajjad's cup and went into the kitchen.

Hiroko, on the verandah, heard the squeal of the kitchen's screen door and knew it meant Sajjad was about to walk around to the back garden. She wasn't sure she could look at him without revealing her envy.

She had tried so hard the previous night to bring Konrad's face to mind but he felt so far away. He felt like another life. In this life there was simply desire for more more than a memory of his fingers tracing the veins of her wrist, more than a memory of his tongue surprising hers. But though Konrad grew more distant the harder she tried to summon him that thing that had started to happen in her body when she slipped on her mother's silk kimono had reawoken. Lying in the bath last night, she had slid her hand along her naked body (except it wasn't her hand, it wasn't her body it was Sajjad's hand and his wife's body even in fantasy she could not allow herself to believe her body could be the location of such caresses from any man) and as the hand moved lower her body had jerked, slamming her hip against the porcelain, and terrified her into pulling out the bath-plug and getting into bed, where she clenched her hands into fists and kept them resolutely away from the rest of her.

'Good morning,' Sajjad said, walking towards the verandah. 'I hope you're feeling better today.'

'Yes, thank you.' She looked at him and wondered how it must feel to watch Sajjad Ali Ashraf approach you and know that his body was yours to touch. The look she gave him was lightly accusing. 'Why didn't you tell me about her?'

'Who?'

'Your fiancee.'

'Oh.' Sajjad scrunched up his face. 'No, no. Nothing's settled yet. My mother and sisters-in-law have someone in mind, but I don't even know her name. It could all be nothing.' He placed his hand on the table, touching the spine of the book on which her fingers were resting.

She nodded, tried to ignore the strange feeling of hopefulness mingled with despair.

'You must be considered very eligible. Though . . . can I ask you something?'

'Of course. Anything.'

'You told me once that you're going to be a lawyer. But you spend your days playing chess with James Burton. I know you want more from the world.'

In all this time she had been the first person ever to say this to him.

'Without James Burton, I'd be working with my family, hating it. So as long as he wants me to play chess, I will. But he's said, he's promised, there will always be a place in his law firm for me. He said just the other day, when the British leave there'll be so many vacancies. I can wait. He lets me take law books from his libraries and read them at home. I'm not wasting my time. I'm learning. I'm getting ready.'

'I didn't mean to imply you were wasting your time. I think you'd make a wonderful lawyer.' She could see this was a compliment that truly mattered to him, though she couldn't help wondering whether it was really possible to be a lawyer without some kind of professional qualification.

'Can I ask you something now? Does it seem strange to you? That I'll marry someone I've never met? I know the Burtons think it very . . . backward.'

'I'm not the Burtons, Sajjad. It seems to me that I could find more in your world which resembles j.a.panese traditions than I can in this world of the English.' She said it almost accusingly, before smiling in acknowledgement of how little interest she had in tradition. 'Arranged marriages used to be quite common in j.a.pan. I've always thought they must require more courage than I possess.'

Sajjad didn't feel very courageous.

'It's how things happen.' He traced the lettering on the book's spine and avoided looking at her. 'When you marry it'll be the English way?'

'I'll never marry.'

Sajjad flinched at his own insensitivity.

'I'm sorry. I know Mr Konrad . . . I'm sorry. This is none of my business.'

'I'll never marry,' she repeated. 'But it isn't because of Konrad.'

Sajjad nodded. And then shook his head.

'Then why?'

Hiroko did not stop to think if she wanted confirmation or denial from him of the truth she'd recognised in a Tokyo hospital when she heard the hardened doctor's horrified gasp as he looked at her lying on her stomach. Instead, she stood up and turned her back to him.

'Because of this.' She started to undo the b.u.t.tons at the back of her blouse, exposing her bare flesh.

With a quick cry of shock, Sajjad turned his face away.

'Please. What are you doing?'

Hiroko tugged at the fabric that covered her back, parting the blouse as though it were stage curtains.

'This is just one more thing the bomb took away from me. Look at me.'

'No. b.u.t.ton your s.h.i.+rt.'

'Sajjad.'

The flatness of her voice made him turn towards her. Whatever he had been about to say remained for ever unsaid. She had stepped out of the shadow of the roof's overhang and into the harsh sunlight so there could be no mistaking the three charcoal-coloured bird-shaped burns on her back, the first below her shoulder blade, the second halfway down her spine, intersected by her bra, the third just above her waist.

She could not see the tears that collected in Sajjad's eyes as he looked at her charred and puckered skin, and so it was left to her to interpret his silence.

'You can read this diagonal script, can't you? Any man could. It says, "Stay away. This isn't what you want." '

Her pain shattered every defence he'd unknowingly constructed since that moment he'd looked at the mole beneath her eye and wanted to touch it. In a few quick steps he was next to her, his hands touching the s.p.a.ce between the two lower burns, then pulling away as she shuddered.

'Does it hurt?' he whispered.

'No.' Her voice was even quieter than his.