The Girl From the Tea Garden

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘Pressure to do what?’ Adela asked.

  ‘They want changes like abolishing the old serfdom,’ explained Boz, ‘where the rajas’ people have tae work for free so many months a year.’

  ‘Sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Aye.’ Boz dropped his voice to a murmur. ‘But the government doesnae like anything that rocks the boat with the princely states. We like to have good relations wi’ them.’

  Adela gave him a knowing look. ‘So you can extract their timber and employ their coolies I suppose.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Boz agreed.

  Adela gazed down at the covert activity; she could just make out the Ganj, the open area in the heart of the bazaar, where a platform was being decorated. ‘Will it be quite a spectacle? We weren’t allowed to go anywhere near it when I was at school.’

  ‘I’ve never been,’ said Boz. ‘It’s frowned upon for government servants to be seen there – CID keep an eye on who goes to listen. You’d better steer clear, in case Bracknall gets tae hear about it. That’ll be the end of your wee job at the office.’

  ‘Well, no one can stop me,’ Fluffy declared, ‘from going to listen to the speeches.’

  Adela hadn’t intended to go – it was a raw day with a biting wind and flurries of sleet – but returning at lunchtime for tiffin, she found Fluffy on the point of leaving for the Ganj.

  ‘You’re not going on your own.’ Adela was firm.

  ‘I don’t want to get you into trouble, my dear,’ Fluffy was anxious.

  ‘I sort out camp beds and file post.’ Adela laughed. ‘No one’s going to worry about a minion like me.’

  They skirted the Mall, taking the steep steps opposite the theatre down to the Lower Bazaar. They could hear the demonstration before they saw it, a cacophony of drumming, singing, shouting and horns. The streets were crammed with Indians come to take part or watch the procession along the lower road. A phalanx of young men and a few women (dressed in homespun cotton under woollen jackets that marked them out as Gandhi’s followers) carried aloft the tricolour flags of the Congress Party, while behind them pressed scores of hills men in their bright caps. Many of the town’s porters and a smattering of office workers swelled the crowd too.

  ‘It’s a bit of a scrum,’ Fluffy faltered.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go on, Auntie?’

  ‘I’m still keen to hear the speeches.’

  ‘Come on then; we’ll just stay for a little longer.’ Adela linked her arm protectively through her guardian’s and they jostled forward towards the Ganj.

  They couldn’t get near enough to hear what the speakers were saying, apart from a few snatched words of Hindustani about swaraj, which Adela knew to mean freedom, and how soon the Britishers must leave India to the Indians. Adela saw a stocky youngish man take to the stage dressed in simple Punjabi shalwar kameez and a black beret.

  ‘Looks like a communist,’ Fluffy surmised.

  He raised his fist in the air and saluted the crowd, his face animated. He shouted above the hubbub and soon they were cheering and repeating his slogans. There was something oddly familiar about him, but Adela couldn’t possibly know him.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Fluffy said, tugging on her arm. ‘Looks like trouble.’

  Adela tore her gaze away from the speaker and his mesmerising performance and looked round. Blocking the steps from where they’d come were dozens of police armed with their long baton-like lathis. Her stomach tensed. Abruptly the officer in charge raised a loudhailer and bellowed out commands in Hindustani for the crowds to disperse. He repeated them in Urdu.

  ‘Go home! Your demonstration is over. This meeting is breaking the law. Go home now and no one will get hurt!’

  The fiery speaker made some riposte, standing his ground, but at the sight of ranks of police, the crowd began to break up. The other activists on the stage spoke urgently to the communist, who remonstrated with the police in their attempts to close down the meeting. But soon his supporters were bundling him off the stage.

  At this the police officer barked an order, and his men began to push forward, cutting a line through the melee towards the stage. Adela and Fluffy were elbowed and shoved as people tried to get out of the way. Pandemonium broke out.

  ‘They’re after that man,’ gasped Fluffy.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ Adela cried over the shouting and confusion.

  But they were being carried by the tide of people in the opposite direction to the steps, caught in the crush. Adela seized Fluffy’s arm and held on for all she was worth. There was nothing to be done but let themselves be carried along. Tugged and jostled, Fluffy cried out, ‘My shoe – it’s come off!’

  ‘Don’t stop, Auntie,’ Adela screamed, heart banging with fear. ‘Hold on tight.’

  Suddenly a man wrapped in a cloak grabbed Fluffy’s other arm and pulled.

  ‘Let go of her!’ Adela shouted.

  ‘This way, memsa’b,’ he urged. ‘In here.’

  ‘Noor?’ Fluffy gasped as the cloak fell back from her bearer’s face. ‘How . . . ?’

  He didn’t answer, but hurried them into an alleyway and then through a low door. All at once they were out of the mayhem, standing in the back kitchen of a food stall, a large vat of steaming dal cooking on an open fire. The skinny boy who was tending it, gaped at them in astonishment. Noor said something to him that Adela didn’t understand, except for the word ‘chai’; the boy nodded and disappeared behind a curtain. Outside they could hear shouting and police whistles. Fluffy let out a gasp of relief.

  ‘Please sit, memsa’bs.’ Noor indicated a couple of low stools. ‘We will wait for men to go.’

  The boy reappeared with a metal tray of small glasses filled with tea and handed them round. Adela sipped gratefully at the sweet, milky chai, the pounding of her heart slowing. Fluffy was grey-faced, her hat askew and a shoe gone; her stockinged foot filthy.

  She trembled. ‘Noor, how did you come to be there?’

  ‘I followed you, memsa’b.’ Noor’s lean face smiled. ‘In case there was trouble.’

  Fluffy’s eyes welled with tears. ‘Thank you. You are my guardian angel.’

  ‘Do you know who that last speaker was?’ Adela asked.

  Noor shook his head. ‘Someone from the city, not local.’

  ‘What was he saying?’

  ‘Something about the Praja Mandal,’ Noor said, glancing round as if fearing he might be overheard, ‘and bad things about the hill rajas.’

  ‘The police knew him,’ said Fluffy. ‘That’s what seemed to set them off.’

  ‘Yes,’ Adela murmured, thinking of the passionate speaker so full of energy and rage. ‘I wonder if he got away.’ Silently she hoped he had evaded a beating from the police sticks.

  They waited half an hour and then Noor summoned a rickshaw. Rain had set in again. The bazaar was strangely deserted and quiet, the Congress flags torn down and trampled in the mud. The women sat in silence as they were pulled back up the slope to the Ridge and Jakko Hill. Noor ordered hot water for baths and more tea with cake.

  ‘I’m so grateful, Noor,’ said Fluffy, ‘and feel terrible for putting you and Adela at risk.’

  Noor shook his head. Adela felt full of bravado now they were safely home. ‘I’m glad I went – it was a great piece of theatre.’

  Fluffy gave an impatient tut. ‘It’s not play-acting for the Indians,’ she said. ‘For some people the cause of swaraj is a matter of life or death.’

  The next day Adela scanned the newspaper for any mention of the meeting or the scuffles with the police, but there was none. She talked it over with Boz, who was cross that she had gone.

  ‘Lassie, I warned you to stay away. I hope no one saw you.’

  ‘They weren’t interested in me,’ she retorted. ‘Who do you think the man in the beret was?’

  ‘Some hothead by the sounds of it. There’s real trouble brewing in the Hill States – Dharmi in particular – and the government is trying to keep
a lid on it.’

  ‘But surely it’s up to the hill chiefs whether they decide to hand over more power to the – what do you call them? – Praja Mandal.’

  Boz sighed. ‘Aye, you’re right, and many of us are sympathetic to their aims, but we don’t want unrest spreading or things falling into the hands of extremists like the communists.’

  They talked no more about it, but it preyed on Adela’s mind. Up until now she had taken little interest in politics, preferring to read the magazines that Cousin Jane sent her from England rather than the piles of newspapers that Fluffy waded through each day. She knew more about what was happening in Hollywood than New Delhi, let alone the Hill States that bordered Simla.

  Yet she liked the tribal women she had met through Fatima’s clinics and felt ashamed that she had not been more curious about their lives beyond the daily humdrum. She wondered what Sam’s opinion would be of those who came from outside the region agitating for change. Did they make life difficult for him in his mission in the hills, or did he support them? She had a vague memory that he had discussed such things at her birthday supper, but she had taken none of it in, except to steal glances at his handsome animated face.

  Oh, Sam! Had he really come seeking her out just a few days before she returned from Assam, or had it just been a social call to Fluffy? Adela could not stop thinking about him. While far away in Belgooree having a busy social time with her family, she had suppressed her feelings. She had even promised herself that this coming season she would look for a romantic friendship among the many young beaux in Simla society who would come up from the hot plains in search of love. She would be eighteen in a few short months and was impatient for romance. Captain Maitland’s robust kisses the previous summer had whetted her appetite for physical love, and Adela wanted to go further.

  Thoughts of Sam made her discontented, and the incident at the Ganj spurred her on to seek out Fatima. She would volunteer for the clinics again. Better to be helping the hill women than rearranging camping equipment for the umpteenth time. Besides, her parents had given her a small allowance so that she could stay on in Simla until June without relying on a job at the Forest Office.

  At the hospital they told her that Fatima was ill and hadn’t been in for a couple of days. Concerned, Adela went straight round to the doctor’s third-storey flat in Lakkar Bazaar, mounting the dark stairway and knocking on the door. No one came. Adela’s alarm mounted. Perhaps she was too sick to come to the door. Surely her housekeeper, Sitara, a low-caste Hindu widow who had come with the doctor from Lahore, would answer. She knocked again harder and called out, ‘Dr Fatima, it’s me, Adela. Are you all right?’

  To her relief she heard the soft tread of bare feet and the door being unlocked. It opened a fraction. Fatima peered out.

  ‘Are you okay? They told me at the hospital that you were unwell.’

  Fatima hesitated. ‘I am fine thank you.’

  ‘Can I come in? I want to talk to you about helping out at the clinics again. I know you’ll start going up into the hills soon,’ gabbled Adela, ‘and I’d like to help. There’s too little to do in the office, and I’m driving Boz mad asking for jobs.’

  Again Fatima hesitated, glancing over her shoulder and then back at Adela. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Yes—’

  ‘Come in quickly.’ Fatima opened the door just enough to pull Adela through it, close and lock it. Fatima appeared nervous; Adela had never seen her like this before. Adela respectfully took off her shoes, then wondered if she should stay. The doctor forced a smile. ‘I’m sorry; I’m being a bad hostess. Take a seat please. I’ll see if Sitara can make us tea.’

  While Fatima disappeared into the next room, Adela went and sat at the table in the bay window, with its plummeting view over Lakkar Bazaar. The wooden houses and open-fronted shops seemed to defy gravity, pegged to the slope by occasional trees. The day was dank and the buildings drab in the steel-grey light of the late January day.

  The room was high-ceilinged and plainly furnished with the bare essentials: a table and two chairs; a large desk and reading lamp; a bookcase jammed with textbooks; an armchair; a locked medical chest; and cushions against the far wall, where Fatima preferred to sit when she didn’t have company. The cushions were still rumpled. There was something amiss. A cigarette, hastily stubbed out, was still half burning in a brass ashtray on the floor. Fatima didn’t smoke.

  Adela stifled an amused gasp. Had the prim doctor been entertaining someone when she’d called unexpectedly? No wonder Fatima had been flustered. If so, the man must be hiding in the back or have slipped out some other way. It can’t have been Sundar, for he didn’t smoke. Suddenly Adela had a jealous thought that it might be Sam. She couldn’t bear it to be Sam. Adela jumped out of her seat and rushed to the far door; she had to see for herself.

  They looked around, startled – three figures crammed into the tiny kitchen. Fatima, the dark-skinned Sitara, and a man. Adela stared back. It was the communist speaker she had last seen being chased by police.

  The man was the first to speak. He came forward, his look assessing. He didn’t extend his hand in greeting but gave a fleeting smile.

  ‘I’m Ghulam, Fatima’s brother. You are Miss Robson, the Britisher she told me about who helps on the purdah ward.’

  Adela nodded and blurted out, ‘You’re the man who spoke at the rally. I knew you were familiar. You look like Uncle Rafi.’

  Fatima gasped, ‘You were at the demonstration?’

  ‘Yes, with Auntie.’

  Sister and brother looked at each other and said something rapidly in Punjabi, which Adela didn’t understand. He shrugged.

  ‘Let’s go into the sitting room,’ Fatima said, taking charge again, ‘now that the cat is out of the bag.’

  Adela couldn’t help glancing at Ghulam; this was the notorious younger brother who had been to prison for setting fire to the governor’s car in Lahore. Like Rafi, he was an outcast from the rest of the family – apart from Fatima, who appeared to stand by her brothers whatever they did. Ghulam was shorter and stockier than Rafi, and not as handsome – he was square-jawed and his nose was squint, as if it had been broken – yet he had the same startlingly green eyes as his brother. He moved with a quick restlessness and pent-up energy.

  ‘Why do you call my brother, Uncle?’ Ghulam asked, squatting back down on the cushions. Adela joined him, tucking her legs and stockinged feet under her woollen skirt.

  ‘Because he’s married to my mother’s friend Sophie – she’s a pretend auntie.’

  ‘I’ve never met her,’ Ghulam said, ‘though my sister tells me she’s beautiful.’

  ‘Very. Like a film star.’ Adela smiled.

  ‘I admire her for defying her own kind to marry my brother. Especially as your days here are numbered.’

  ‘Ghulam,’ Fatima warned.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Adela bristled. ‘India is my country just as much as yours.’

  ‘No, Miss Robson, it is not. Your family may have been here for a couple of generations; mine have been here for centuries. Yours are imperialists who reap the benefits of India’s wealth – tea, I believe – while we Indians are supposed to be grateful for menial jobs as coolies and tea pickers.’

  Adela wanted to shout out that her great-grandmother was Indian, but feared that he might be just as contemptuous of Anglo-Indians. Besides, it was none of his business.

  ‘My parents do their best to provide for their workers,’ Adela defended. ‘My mother grew up among them, as did I.’

  ‘Do you know how much they get paid? Or where they all come from?’

  ‘Well, not exactly—’

  ‘No, I didn’t think so. It’s not your fault, Miss Robson, it’s the system. People like your parents are no doubt kind in a patriarchal way, but their efforts are just tinkering at the edges. The whole colonial machine of oppression must be broken up. We have been crushed by it for far too long.’

  ‘Is that what you were saying
at the demonstration?’

  Ghulam gave a bitter smile. ‘They don’t need telling about their oppression – they experience it daily. I was giving the workers heart to press ahead with the demands for social and political change in the princely states, where they are kept like medieval serfs. But then you have been there with Fatima and know their conditions.’

  ‘Enough, Brother,’ Fatima interrupted. ‘You are not on your soapbox now, and you say too much.’ She gave Adela an anxious look. ‘You mustn’t speak of this to anyone.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Adela said, affronted that she might think she would betray them.

  ‘Ghulam has done nothing wrong,’ Fatima insisted, ‘but there are those who would like to see him back behind bars. So far the police have not made the connection between my brother and me, but he cannot stay here long in case they do.’

  They paused as Sitara brought in tea and gingerbread. Ghulam lit another cigarette. Adela tried to control her nervousness and act normally, as if she were not sharing afternoon tea with a hunted activist.

  ‘Oh, my favourite. Thank you, Sitara,’ said Adela, biting into the moist cake. ‘Delicious.’ The dark-skinned woman smiled.

  ‘Tea and cake,’ Ghulam said, his look mocking. ‘So very British.’

  ‘And Indian,’ Adela sparked back. ‘India’s consumption of tea is catching up with Britain’s – and as for cake, I bet your tooth is as sweet as mine.’

  This made Fatima laugh. ‘You are right. Ghulam was always the plump one for eating too many sweets.’

  Adela was pleased to see his face darken in a blush. He drew heavily on his cigarette.

  ‘So, Miss Robson, what brings you to my sister’s door?’

  ‘You do, Mr Khan, in a sort of roundabout way.’ Ghulam’s eyes widened. ‘Your campaign to improve things for the hill people – it made me guilty that I’ve neglected the clinic these past few months. I’ve had a job at the Forest Office, you see, and I’m very involved in the theatre here.’ She turned to Fatima. ‘But I want to help out more this year – at least before I go to England.’