The Day of the Scorpion (71 page)

An old man emerged, grasped the young officer’s arm and slowly straightened. Light from the veranda revealed sunken eyes wide open with the shock of transition to a strange environment. With his free hand the old man shaded them.

‘Ahmed? Ahmed? Is that you?’ The voice did not belong to the old man. It was his father’s voice. The officer stood away and Ahmed felt his left arm taken in both the old man’s hands.

‘Ahmed?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Your mother, Ahmed. Your mother. What news of your mother?’

‘She’s well, you’ll see her very soon.’

‘They let the Mahatma out. Poor Kasturba was dead.’

‘I know. But there’s nothing like that.’

‘Then God is good to me.’ He clung to him. Ahmed felt him trembling. The officer turned his back.

‘Come and sit,’ Ahmed said.

Presently the old man released him and stood back, looking suspiciously towards the house. ‘Who is there?’

‘An officer on the Governor’s staff and two others I don’t know.’

‘So many people? But there is a room where I can be alone?’

‘We can talk on the veranda.’

‘No. Please ask for a room. I must be alone for a few minutes, then we must talk. After that I will see them. Not before. Ask this officer to go and tell them.’

‘I’ll go myself. Wait here.’

The room he entered was barely furnished. Rowan and the others were standing round a deal table. He spoke to Rowan, ignoring the Commissioner and the policeman.

‘My father asks for a room where he can be alone for a while.’

Rowan turned to the Commissioner. ‘Is there another room, sir?’

‘There’s one at the end, where Mr Kasim was sitting. It’s not locked.’

‘Is it for devotional use?’ Rowan asked, looking in Ahmed’s direction.

‘Apparently no one at the Fort bothered to reassure him my mother was neither ill nor dying. He’s been expecting to hear the worst. So he’s not yet ready to talk to anyone.’

‘The Fort commander would have had the minimum instructions necessary, but I regret any worry he’s been caused.’ Again he spoke to the Commissioner. ‘I think it would be better if we made this room available to Mr Kasim and wait in the other one ourselves. Is there a way to it other than along the veranda?’

The Commissioner mumbled and led them out through a back door. Ahmed waited until the sounds they made were no longer audible, then went back to his father. He found him sitting in the car. He helped him out and up the steps. Inside the room, in the glare of the light, the physical toll exacted by nearly two years in prison was fully revealed. The long-skirted high-necked coat that had once shown up a comfortable thickness of body, hung loosely. The flesh of the thickened jowls was fallen, the fringe of hair was wholly grey. The white cap of Congress seemed too big. The hawk-like nose had a hungry questing look.

‘I’ll leave this with you, Father.’ He gave him the envelope which contained his mother’s letter. ‘It’s from Mother. She wrote it a few hours ago.’

‘Is she near by?’

‘Not far. Let me know when you want me.’

For the first time since entering the room his father looked at him.

‘No, I am all right. Stay here. We must talk. You are taller. And broader. How long has it been?’

‘Nearly three years.’

‘You have your full growth. You quite dwarf me. Quite dwarf me.’

The moment was over then. In the few seconds sitting in the car his father had recovered and put back up the barriers.

‘They told me nothing until five o’clock yesterday, and then only to pack my things and get a few hours sleep. Am I free, or on my way to another jail?’

‘You are free,’ Ahmed said; but he had hesitated.

‘On what conditions? Is there an amnesty? No – don’t answer. Let me read your mother’s letter. Sit down.’ His father sat at the table. Ahmed chose a seat near the door, which was still open. The room was very warm. The fan was not working. Unhurriedly his father brought out his spectacle case and put the spectacles on. A slight tremor of the hands was the only sign that his composure was incomplete. The letter was very short but he lingered over it with the concentration Ahmed remembered as characteristic. Briefs, minutes, resolutions, correspondence: they had all been subjected to this slow searching analysis. Why does he take so long? Ahmed had once asked. His mother replied: He reads between the lines.

Kasim folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. He took his spectacles off, returned them to the case and the case to his pocket.

‘Your mother says she hopes I will agree but that I’m not to be swayed by emotional or private considerations. You had better tell me what I’m being asked to agree to. All I gather otherwise is that she is on her way to Nanoora to stay with my kinsman, the Nawab, and that this could be the scene of our immediate reunion. I too am invited to Mirat?

‘Yes.’

‘As a guest of the Nawab?’

‘Yes. They call it – under his protection.’

‘I see.’ Kasim sat back. ‘While in the sovereign state of
Mirat I would be free to enjoy my rights as a private citizen, providing I did nothing to embarrass my host, which means nothing that incurs the displeasure of the Indian Government. Should I set foot outside the State on the other hand, and go back to Ranpur, then I should probably be arrested.’

‘They haven’t said so, Father.’

‘They?’

‘The Governor in Ranpur.’

‘You’ve seen the Governor?’

‘Not personally. Neither has Mother. But he sent representatives. One of them is here tonight.’

‘On whose instigation did he send representatives? On the Viceroy’s? From newspapers and letters received I gather Wavell is anxious to break the political deadlock of the past two years. Who else is being released into this kind of protection? Nehru?’

‘The Viceroy knows, but the initiative’s been with Malcolm. It’s not a general arrangement.’

‘I am the only Congressman of any importance being paroled?’

‘Yes, Father. So far as I know, you’re the only one.’

‘Why?’

The question was snapped. In the past such a tone and such a whiplash of a word had entangled perjured witnesses and intimidated honest ones. There was no way round the truth.

‘Because of my brother.’

A pause.

There is news of Sayed, then?’ Kasim asked calmly. ‘Yes.’

‘Of his death? He has died in prison camp?’

‘No, Father. He’s been captured.’

‘I know he was captured. He was captured by the Japanese in Kuala Lumpur in 1942. It is a long time since we had any word.’

But the old man seemed suddenly older. ‘We’ve had word now,’ Ahmed said. His father might never forgive him for saying what he had to say. Sayed had always been the favourite son, the one in whom hope had been placed, whose life had not been a source of disappointment. It should have been Sayed who sat here. The old man would then not have
looked so old. ‘Sayed was captured a month ago in Manipur,’ he went on. ‘We don’t know where he is except in a prison camp in India with some of the others. Directly the army knew who he was they told the civil authorities in Calcutta and those authorities told the authorities in Ranpur. Malcolm invited Mother to Government House, but didn’t say why. She refused to go so he sent someone to the house. Then she wrote to me in Mirat. She said she’d suspected for some time that Sayed had joined the INA. About six months ago she had an anonymous letter delivered by hand, telling her Sayed sent his love and would see her soon. I think I know who might have sent it, but that doesn’t matter. And previously one of Mother’s friends told her they thought they’d recognized Sayed’s voice on the Japanese radio.’

‘The INA—?’

‘The Indian National Army.’

‘I know what the initials stand for. I was about to say – the INA? Sayed? The old man smiled. ‘Captured in Manipur? Yes. Perhaps a man with this name, Lieutenant Sayed Kasim.’

‘He was Major Kasim.’

‘There you are then. Prisoners of war don’t get promoted.’

‘Major is his rank in the INA.’

‘Rank? His
rank
in the INA? Is there such a thing? No. Sayed is not a major in the INA. He is Lieutenant Kasim and his regiment is the Ranpur Rifles. Why have you believed this ridiculous story? Someone has made a mistake, a ridiculous mistake, as a result of all this feeble propaganda which the British have rightly tried to scotch. Now they are believing it themselves, it seems. The Indian National Army? What can that be? A handful of madmen led by that other madman, Subhas Chandra Bose, who was never any good to Congress. He always had delusions of grandeur. First he escapes from India, then turns up in Berlin and then in Tokyo. He sets up an absurd paper government-in-exile and perhaps a few Indians living in Malaya put on a uniform and help him kowtow to the Japanese, fooling themselves that if the Japanese ever defeat India they will allow Subhas to set up his paper-government in Delhi. But it is all wishful thinking and propaganda, there is no Indian National Army
deserving of the name. If a Major Kasim was captured in Manipur he would be some unlucky fellow who foolishly accompanied the Japanese as an observer for Bose. He would not be Sayed. And Sayed would not be fighting and killing Indians. He would not be helping the Japanese to invade his own country.’

There were thousands of Indians taken prisoner in Burma and Malaya. A lot of them felt they’d been deserted by their British officers. There were tales of a white road out and a black road out.’

‘You are speaking up for them? You think your brother is one of them? You are calling your brother a traitor?’ Kasim got up, Ahmed felt it obligatory to rise too. But they came no closer to one another. ‘You forget that Sayed is an Indian officer. He holds, unless he is dead, the King-Emperor’s commission. It was his choice. He was a good officer, the first Indian officer in his chosen regiment. It concerned me that he should choose to take a commission, but then I am a politician. He wished to be a soldier. I said to him once, Do you regret it? He only laughed. In the mess he said they were all equal, that there was only one standard and if you measured up to it you were accepted. To me it all seemed simple and naïve, but Sayed
was
naïve. He was naïve, he could never have made a success of politics, but he did not have it in him to be a traitor. In 1939 he said to me, “You are a minister of state, I am an officer in the Indian army. We are both necessary people.’ He had no complaints, he encountered no difficulties. It was I who encountered difficulties because a son of mine had taken the King’s commission. But I did not see them as difficulties. The world is full of fools who don’t see an inch in front of their noses. What kind of independence will it be when we get it if we can’t defend it? And how shall we be able to defend it if there aren’t boys like Sayed willing to train and discipline themselves faithfully and steadfastly to inherit that side of our national responsibility? What are we living in, a jungle? When the British invited Indians to take the King’s commission they were proving what my father called their sincerity. You do not hand your armed forces over to the command of men who will turn it against you. What kind of an army will it be if its
officers think of their commissions as meaningless bits of paper? It is a contract, a contract. All of Muslim law is based on the sanctity of contract, of one man’s word to another. You must be prepared to suffer and die for it. It is written. It is revealed. It is in our hearts. What are you telling me? That it is not in Sayed’s? That he is not a man to keep his contract? That he is an opportunist? A cowardly scoundrel? Without a thought for his own honour or for mine, or his mother’s, or for yours? Are you telling me this is the kind of India I have gone to prison for? If you are, you had better leave me here. I do not know that kind of India. I do not know that kind of man. He is not Sayed. He is not my son.’

‘We’ve had a letter, Father. He’s written to Mother.’

‘A forgery.’

‘He says you will help him.’

‘Does he?’

‘Eventually there’ll be court-martials.’

‘Will there?’

‘In his letter he says he refused to join until they told him you’d been arrested.’

‘Well?’

‘He asked us to give you his love. He’s sorry he failed.’

‘Failed?’

‘Failed to complete the march on Delhi.’

His father’s mouth was working. ‘The march on Delhi? What is that? Some city on the moon? Or do you march nowadays on your own capital? He thinks perhaps the Moghul empire still exists and has been ravaged by barbarians? And that I languish in some medieval dungeon, clanking my chains, crying out to my son to muster an army and ride to my rescue? God save me from such a deliverance. I would fear for my life. Such a son would strike me down. He would drag me from prison and have me trampled to death. I don’t accept his love. I don’t listen to his apology.’

The old man’s voice had strengthened and risen to the pitch that had swayed juries, brought order to a noisy Legislative Assembly and sent ministers scuttling at midnight through the corridors of the Secretariat. Ahmed closed the door. The action calmed him and hardened his resolution. He could not escape involvement. He had to speak out.

‘I’ve closed the door because it would be better if they don’t hear. There
is
an Indian National Army and it isn’t just a few madmen. It would suit the British very well if every Congressman said what you’ve just said. But do you think they will? A dozen Indian officers helping the Japanese would have no political significance. The British could shoot them for treachery and no one would need to raise a finger in protest. But hundreds of officers and thousands of men do have political significance. Whatever the members of your party feel individually, collectively you’re going to have to stand by them, because the ordinary Indian won’t see any difference between men like these who grabbed rifles and marched up through Burma with the Japanese and men who said the Indians had no quarrel with the Japanese and called on the whole country to sabotage the British war effort. Except that the young men who grabbed rifles and marched will look more heroic than the old men who went to jail and suffered nothing but personal inconvenience.’