City of Ghosts (24 page)

He leaped towards her, ready to cut her into tiny pieces for the second time, but he found himself slashing at thin air, then lost his balance and landed in a pool of blood and gore. He turned round to find her standing above him, holding back the snarling and salivating
dog. It looked into his eyes for a moment, then drew back its lips to reveal a fearsome set of fangs. Heera let it go and stood back. The dog howled into the darkness of the night and a hundred mangy, hungry strays emerged from the shadows.

‘Feast well,' whispered Heera before heading back to the house.

The dogs waited a moment before pouncing.

‘Who
are
you?' asked Sohni, her eyes full of fear, her hands trembling.

Heera smiled. She looked across to Gurdial, who nodded. It was time. ‘I am your mother,' she revealed.

Sohni shook her head vigorously. ‘No!' she cried out. ‘
No!
'

‘Yes,' replied Heera.

Sohni looked at Gurdial, searching his face for the truth.

‘It's true,' he told her.

She looked back at her mother. ‘How can you be
alive
?'

Heera shrugged. ‘I'm
not
alive. I'm a ghost.'

Gurdial caught Sohni before she fell to the floor. He helped her into a chair, then took hold of her hands and whispered soothing words, calming her down.

‘I came back to help
you
,' continued Heera. ‘To watch out for you and protect you from your father.'

A sudden gust of wind threw open the kitchen door
and Sohni turned in fear, half-expecting to see her father at the threshold.

‘He won't be coming back,' Heera told her daughter. ‘You are safe now.'

Sohni nodded. ‘I don't believe in ghosts,' she said.

‘Well, you should, my daughter. Amritsar is full of ghosts, and there will be many more to come.'

‘But—'

‘Both of you know at least one other like me, I can guarantee it,' Heera insisted.

‘How long have you been . . .?'Sohni began, only to realize that she didn't know how to finish her sentence. What was she supposed to say to a woman she knew to be dead but was standing in front of her, looking alive and well?

‘Many years,' Heera told her. ‘Mohni told me everything about you.'

‘He knew?'

Heera nodded, looking down at her blood-soaked clothing for a few seconds and remembering the old man's smile. A smile she hoped to see again very soon.

Gurdial cleared his throat to speak. He let go of Sohni's hands and crouched beside her, running a hand through her hair.

‘Where do we go from here?' he asked Heera.

‘Wherever you wish, my son,' she replied. ‘Tomorrow is Vaisakhi – the dawning of a new life for both of you.'

‘But what about you?' Sohni asked. ‘I don't know anything about you . . .'

Heera smiled. ‘I will be around.'

‘But what if I need you? What if I don't want you to go?'

Heera sighed. ‘I can't stay for ever,
beteh
,' she told her daughter. ‘As much as it breaks my heart, one day I will have to leave. But until then, just stand in the garden and call out my name and I'll come.'

‘There are so many things I want to ask you.'

‘And you will be able to ask me them all,' replied Heera.

Gurdial frowned. ‘What about Gulbaru and Darshana?' he asked. ‘People will want to know where they have gone.'

A dark cloud seemed to pass over Heera's face. She waited a moment before replying. ‘Tomorrow there will be a gathering at Jallianwalla Bagh,' she told him. ‘By the time the sun has set you will know how to explain their absence . . .'

Gurdial wondered what she meant and Heera saw the question in his eyes.

‘You must trust me,' she ordered. ‘Whatever you do, do
not
go to the Bagh, I beg you.'

‘Why?' asked Sohni.

‘I cannot tell you. Life and Fate must play themselves out. There is so much I wish I could say but I can't. Just heed my words, and when things become what they must become,
remember
that I couldn't tell you.'

Gurdial, who had become used to Heera's cryptic words, nodded his acceptance, as did Sohni.

‘I must go,' Heera told them. ‘But if you need me, just call to me and I'll come.'

‘As you wish,' Gurdial replied.

‘Oh,' added Heera. ‘I nearly forgot . . .'She pulled out an envelope and handed it to Gurdial. He studied it carefully. It was addressed to Bissen Singh.

‘What is this?' he asked, shocked. ‘And how do you know of my friend?'

Heera smiled. ‘You should know me by now, my son,' she joked. ‘The letter is a gift for your friend. Make sure he gets it tomorrow – but do not tell him where it came from. The poor soul has been searching for happiness for so long that he deserves to find it before . . .'

‘Before what?' Gurdial asked.

‘Nothing.'

Gurdial nodded. ‘A gift from whom?'

‘It is from the ghosts. Please make sure he gets it – and look after my daughter.'

‘I will,' he promised.

Heera walked over to Sohni and took her hand. ‘You grew up to be such a beautiful woman,' she told her. ‘I wish I could have told you sooner.'

Sohni raised her face, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Don't go,' she pleaded.

‘I must. But I'll return soon – I promise.'

With that she let go of her daughter and left the house without looking back. Behind her the scent of mangoes and cream lingered long into the night.

BISSEN SINGH WAS
woken by the sound of a young soldier crying out for his mother. He sat up in bed, forgetting for a few moments the injury that had nearly destroyed his right leg. But immediately the intense pain returned. He bit down on his tongue, closed his eyes and let the convulsion pass. As soon as he could bear it, he opened his eyes again and looked around. The hospital ward was in darkness, save for a light at the far end. He gazed up at the intricately carved ceiling and wondered for the umpteenth time how the British could use such a beautiful building as a hospital. Was the country he had fought for so rich that such wondrous rooms could be turned into wards for the sick and the dying?

The soldier whose cries had woken Bissen now sobbed quietly. He was three beds away. Bissen's own bed was at the end, as far from the doorway as it was possible to be. Not that Bissen minded; he couldn't walk unaided yet and wasn't likely to want to take a stroll in the gardens. And besides, his
bed was right next to a large window with a view of the east lawns of the pavilion. He could watch the Muslim soldiers praying, and beyond them the steady streams of curious English people come to have a look at the darkies.

Bissen had been in the hospital for many weeks: he had arrived from the battlefields around Neuve Chapelle in a morphine-induced fog with most of his right buttock blown away and his leg in a bloody, twisted mess. Yet very quickly he'd realized just how lucky he had been. Although the grenade had taken off chunks of his flesh, it hadn't done enough to destroy his leg entirely. As the Hindu doctor had told him, he was very, very fortunate.

‘Last week I had to remove both the legs of one soldier,
bhai
,' he'd said. ‘The poor bastard cried and cried all night. The next day his friend gave him a revolver with which to blow his brains out.'

Small beads of sweat appeared on Bissen's brow as he wondered how many more of his fellow Indians had lost limbs. He knew of three on his ward alone. Then there were the blinded and those who'd lost all reason and fallen into madness. One man who had been in the bed next to Bissen's for two weeks and seemed fine had suddenly started smearing himself with his own dirt and babbling like a baboon. He had not returned. Bissen's thoughts dragged him back to France and to the moments before the explosion. He thought about the devastated village, empty of civilians, and the scratching sound he'd dismissed as a cat. And then, for some reason he couldn't fathom, the image of the church settled in his mind. It had been utterly destroyed, yet in the middle, like a beacon, the tall wooden cross had
remained untouched. He remembered thinking of it as a sign of God and smiled to himself.

A low moan broke into his thoughts. It was coming from the next bed: its latest occupant was a Muslim called Gauhar Ali.

Bissen called out to him, ‘Do you need something,
bhai
?'

Gauhar coughed before speaking. ‘I'm fine,' he replied. ‘It's the pain . . .'

Bissen told him to try and sleep. He understood very well the dull, throbbing, insistent agony; he'd been through it himself and it hadn't got any better. It just became easier to deal with. ‘Tell the doctor in the morning,' he advised. ‘He'll increase your morphine dose.'

Gauhar thanked him and fell silent. Bissen listened to his breathing for a few minutes before settling down and closing his own eyes.

The following morning Bissen watched Dr Chopra making his rounds. He lay still, having finished his breakfast of bread, jam and tea. The doctor was a portly man with a balding head and a large, jowly chin covered in shaving cuts. His eyes were huge and he reminded Bissen of an owl. Accompanying him were two nurses and an English officer called Peters, who was in charge of the patients. As Bissen was the last patient on the round, he picked up a three-dayold copy of
The Times
, given to him by Dr Chopra, and tried to make sense of it. His spoken English had been passable when he'd joined up and was now better. But reading the print and making sense of it was still a struggle.

The first story to capture his attention concerned a
thirteen-year-old boy who had attempted to kill himself. Wilfrid Sidney Thomas had jumped into a river in Maidenhead, only to be rescued by a passing Belgian. Bissen had trouble making out the Belgian's name but read on anyway. From what he could understand, the boy had written to the police beforehand, blaming his mother. He was now being charged with attempted suicide. The next story was about a naval deserter who had jumped from a train near a town called Nuneaton; above that, an African donkey was being advertised for sale. As his thoughts wandered from the boy to the donkey and then on to the deserter, Bissen wondered about the country he found himself in. The boy was being charged and would probably face jail; the deserter, if caught, would no doubt face the firing squad. Was this really the country he had almost given his life for? And what exactly was an African donkey doing in England?

Dr Chopra's cough brought Bissen out of his daydream.

‘And how are you today?' the doctor asked in his thick accent.

‘Getting along,' replied Bissen, in his even thicker accent.

Dr Chopra turned to the nurses. ‘Check the wounds and change his dressing,' he said.

Bissen looked at the nurses, both of them English. One of them was tall, only a couple of inches shorter that himself, with blonde hair and strong, chiselled features. The other was shorter, with wide hips and brown hair. They seemed surprisingly young. Bissen had only ever seen older women in such roles, both here and in India. As Dr Chopra spoke
to Captain Peters, both nurses paid close attention, neither of them looking at Bissen. But as soon as the doctor had finished speaking, the shorter woman looked up. Something sent Bissen's heart into a pounding frenzy. He had seen many nurses since arriving at the hospital but none of them had charmed him. This one, however – she shone out. He looked away and then back again, unable to help himself. Her eyes were bright blue, shimmering like the waters that surrounded the Golden Temple in Amritsar on a sunny day. Her lips were full; her face perfectly symmetrical, almost feline.

‘Hello,' she said.

Bissen coughed and went red. He waited a moment and cleared his throat. ‘Hello,' he replied.

‘And what's your name?' asked the nurse as her companions walked off.

‘Bissen Singh, madam,' Bissen said, a bit too quickly.

The nurse giggled.

‘Something is funny?' asked Bissen.

‘It's just that you called me madam. I'm just a miss.'

Bissen apologized.

‘No need to say sorry,' she told him. ‘Now, let's take a look at those dressings . . .'

She asked Bissen to turn carefully onto his left side. The right leg of Bissen's pyjama bottoms was slit from his hip to his ankle, which allowed the medical staff to treat his wounds without undressing him.

‘They look like they should have been changed days ago,' she said. ‘Let's hope there's no infection.'

She pulled a pair of scissors from the pocket of her dress
and began to cut away the bandages. Bissen winced as she did so.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, stopping immediately, her face full of concern.

‘Its not your fault,' Bissen reassured her. ‘Just the pain . . .'