Revolutionary Hearts

by Pema Donyo

  The girl nodded.

  “Good. I am documenting a … project of sorts.” Should he trust her with his mission? Oh, not the spying part, of course, but could he ask her straight out? Moving too quickly on the first day could arouse her suspicions … or it could be the first step toward a treasure trove of information for the bureau—damn, the FBI. Still, it was worth the risk.

  “I need your help documenting what the Indians think of British colonization.”

  “Pardon?”

  Warren set down the pen and massaged his temples with his thumb and forefinger. “I need your help, I’m afraid. None of the other servants will talk to me about the conditions of the Indians here. I need to give the report back to my field marshal in the British Army so that they have a better understanding of the effects of long-term colonialism.” It was half-true. Replace “British” with “American” and he’d be able to swear the honesty of his words to a priest.

  “I do not understand. Why would you want my opinion?” Panic settled in the girl’s expression. She tilted up her chin in a brave front, but he could detect the uncertainty.

  “Because I am working on a research project.” Warren adjusted his high, starched collar, tugging at the end of it to increase the space between his neck and the cloth. He would never get used to the discomfort of British uniforms.

  “Why would you need my opinion?”

  He clasped his hands together over the paper. “For one, your English is flawless. I doubt any ideas will be lost in translation.” And damn it all, her English ability led to his best chance at having enough information to report to the bureau. If he wanted a job with the new FBI, it wouldn’t help to have never completed his mission with now-defunct NBCI. “You are my servant and, therefore, my employee. That is how you will serve me in this house. Is that all right?”

  The girl’s eyes suddenly widened. “No!”

  “No? I am trying to work with you, not…” He pushed his chair back when she stood up. Parineeta had one hand clasped over her mouth and the other hand pointed in the direction of his window. He followed the direction of her gaze to a man outside.

  He gasped. Several of his soldiers were beating Raj.

  “What in the devil…” He swung back around at the sound of a bang. The oak door still swung from where Parineeta had flung it open. Only the back of her sari was visible as she dashed down the hall, her footsteps clattering across the blue tile.

  Chapter Three

  Parineeta’s bare feet slapped against the dirt, causing plumes of fine dust to rise up with each step she took. “Roko! Stop, please stop!”

  The British soldiers continued to strike Raj, using their fists to cause her brother to stagger backward into another group of waiting soldiers behind him. Red liquid streamed out of his smashed nose. The soldiers’ beige uniforms were stained crimson with his blood, covering their brass buttons with a lethal paint.

  Her cries remained unheard. She launched herself at one of the soldiers and tried to pry his arms off her brother. In a moment, she found herself flung backward. The heavy blows continued. Kicks and cries became lost in the dangerous dust. “Roko!”

  The last time her brother had returned home bashed and bruised, it was because he’d been struck by club-wielding police during an event that had begun as a nonviolent protest. One of his friends had died from head injuries. Parineeta had thanked the gods that her brother had remained all right, but he’d since turned away from nonviolent methods. Had he used his fists against these soldiers?

  Before she could fling herself into the fray again, a long shadow swept over the ground, covering her own figure and the shapes of some of the soldiers. The man behind her was tall, broad-shouldered, and…

  “That’s enough!”

  Her shoulders drooped at the sound of the voice. Without warning, her heart started hammering against her ribcage. Why was he here?

  The soldiers dropped Raj. Her brother fell to the ground with another cry and doubled over in pain. She rushed forward, grabbing his limp form and rocking him against her chest. Blood trickled out of both nostrils. His upper lip had already begun to swell, and she could make out the beginning of a nasty bruise on his cheek. Yet he was still conscious. No sign of a head wound, either. A sigh of relief escaped her lips.

  “Who said you could beat this man? This man works for me, just as you do.” General Carton barked out the scolding at his soldiers. “Now tell me why you took it upon yourselves to harm him!” His expression grew dark as he shouted his command at the men.

  Parineeta had never seen men in uniform look so frightened. Their formerly brazen stances and behavior were replaced by slumped shoulders and downcast looks. He seemed to make them shake inside their polished boots.

  One of the men stepped forward. “The … the darkie asked for it, sir. He called us his jailers.”

  “It does not matter what he calls you.” The general scowled. The bright sun rested behind him, framing his outline in a burst of white light as he stood there. “Extra practice for all of you at sunrise. No one harms my workers; is that clear?”

  The men nodded. A collective gulp could be heard.

  “I said, is that clear?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” the men all chanted in unison. They saluted and then marched away from the general, postures squared and heads hung low.

  Parineeta felt her brother’s weak body flagging in her arms as his weight sank against her. “Raj!” She tried to shake him, but there was no response. His head lolled back against the top of her forearm.

  “Go get him treated.”

  As she peered up at him, his fists remained clenched at his sides, but his expression seemed calm once again. All traces of the fearsome general had vanished. The man possessed two completely different sides. “Why did you help him?”

  He frowned, as if the answer was obvious. “I couldn’t stand around and watch a defenseless man nearly die.”

  “Most British officers would.”

  Their eyes locked, a steel blue-green gaze fixed onto hers. Against her will, her heart skipped a beat. “I can assure you I’m not like most officers.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You have nothing to thank me for.” The general started to walk away but then stopped suddenly and looked over his shoulder. The man ran one hand through his black, wavy hair and raised his other hand to point at her. “Tomorrow. My study. Meet at the same time.”

  “Yes, sir.” She didn’t understand him. Any other British master would not have cared about the welfare of one servant. She’d even heard of other generals encouraging their soldiers to beat their servants. How could he be so different? Then again, she’d never met another general who asked his servants about their opinions on the world.

  To think she and Raj had assumed she would be a maid! She’d never separated one white man from another before; she’d viewed them all as treacherous. Raj had told her so many stories of how all generals were the same cold-hearted men who believed Indians to be inferior … would her brother believe her if she told him the man they worked for was different?

  She took a deep breath and held her brother closer to her chest. One act of kindness didn’t change who the general was or the institution his soldiers enforced. She was still a freedom fighter; he was still the enemy.

  • • •

  Colonel Curzon? No, too obvious. The grudge-holding Curzon had hated his guts ever since Warren called off Curzon’s attack on the Indian village. That was nearly a year ago. If Curzon suspected he was a spy, he would have acted by now.

  Colonel Leighworth? No, too spineless. Leighworth wouldn’t hurt a fly. His troops barely respected him; there was no way he could gather enough courage to investigate covert activities of his superior officers.

  Who else could have suspected his identity?

  A sharp rap at the door interrupted his thoughts. The floorboards creaked beneath a veiled figure standing in the doorway.

  “Ah, Miss Singh!” Warren picked up hi
s fountain pen and shifted the paper on his desk closer to him. “Please sit down. Close the door behind you.”

  As soon as the door clicked shut, the girl removed her veil from around her head. The soft fabric gathered at the base of her shoulders. “What is it you wish to speak to me about?”

  He shifted his weight in his seat. Time to try a new angle this time before she suspected it was an interrogation. “How is Raj?”

  “Recovering.” She looked down into her lap. “We cannot thank you enough for stepping in yesterday.”

  “Glad to hear it. Any rational man would do the same.” He cleared his throat. “I assume your brother will be resting for a few days?”

  “Today, yes.” He watched her bite her bottom lip, then lift her widened eyes. “Though he wishes to return to his gardening duties as soon as possible.”

  “Give him time.” So no anarchist activities for the time being. “How is your life at home?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

  A politician’s response, countering his question with one of her own. “I believe the soldiers yesterday said Raj called them his ‘jailers,’ correct? Is this a sentiment held by both you and your brother in your house, or singular to his perspective?”

  “I believe my brother is only echoing sentiments he’s heard within our village.”

  “How do the Indian villagers view the British colonization? I understand there have been several attempts at a noncooperative movement by Gandhi recently. Swaraj, I believe you call it…”

  Her clipped tone cut him off. “Yes. We have no desire to be told how to run our own country.”

  “We?”

  A blush swept across her cheeks. “The freedom fighters have no desire to be told. Not I.”

  He clucked his tongue. “Really? And how do you feel your country is being run by the British?”

  “Inefficiently.”

  “In what ways?” His pen began to scribble over the piece of paper in front of him, noting her observations.

  “Several of the railroads have caused misallocation of food and created famine. Indians are cut off from proper jobs and education, reduced to aspiring to be servants. We are given no say in how our government should be run.”

  He’d heard of her information before. Many of the British officers knew of the Deccan Riots … not that they cared to discuss the cause of such riots among themselves. The local farmers in western India had protested against rising taxes and farmers being forced to grow cotton. The cotton had been profitable, yet the plant had destroyed the soil and caused agricultural hardship. But that was nearly a generation ago. He hadn’t realized that the British economic system still caused such harm. “Did you not have a caste system heavily imposed before we arrived?”

  “Not all Hindustanis agreed with the caste system. Even then, we never committed deliberate violence against members of the lowest class, such as the British do to us. The racial superiority is worst. We are told that we matter less in this world simply because we are Indian.”

  He paused his writing. “Surely most Indians do not agree.”

  “No, we do not; many of us wish to fight for a new government. We fight for basic liberties.”

  A government? Not a system of anarchy? “The British government is not so terrible.”

  “And the Rowlatt Act was not?”

  He set down his pen. The act had allowed the British government to imprison anyone suspected of terrorism in the Raj without a fair trial. In his opinion, it hadn’t been too different from Roosevelt’s crackdown on anarchists. He’d read that the Rowlatt Act had been so unpopular in India that even the British couldn’t deny it. “The act’s been repealed.”

  “Yet it was still imposed.” He watched her eyes narrow. “As are all the other laws the British Raj puts in place.”

  “Self-rule takes time. What is so urgent about replacing one form of government for another?”

  “One cannot replace lentils with stones. Even your British government cannot ignore the better political representation my Hindustanis can…” The flow of her words stopped, as if a wooden cork had prevented the words from overflowing. Her downcast gaze flicked up to meet his. “You wish to know about the details of our rebellion.”

  He bit back a laugh. The woman was good. “It is difficult to believe you were never formally educated, Miss Singh. Your vocabulary is impeccable.”

  “Do not change the subject, sir.” Her tone was scathing. “Is it our rebellion you wish to know the details of?”

  “Possibly.” He nodded. “Not that your rebellion is much worry to speak of thus far.”

  “I would not say so, sir. I would say it should cause you much worry.”

  He’d never seen eyes as expressive as Parineeta’s. They were full of questions and intelligence, yet there was something furtive about her glance at the same time. It was as if no matter how much information she shared with him, there was always something she held back.

  “I have heard there are several revolutionaries living in the nearby villages.”

  She sniffed. “I know nothing of it.”

  A response too quick to be truth.

  Warren gritted his teeth. He’d spent enough time as an operative to know when a woman was telling a lie. “I believe you do know, Miss Singh.”

  “I assure you that I do not.”

  He rubbed his jaw and swallowed down his frustration. Their conversation was starting to run in circles, tracing the same path and arriving nowhere significant. He had not invested a year undercover only to return empty-handed. So she wouldn’t answer him directly, would she? Maybe not in so interrogative a setting.

  Warren glanced around his office. The steel filing cabinets behind Parineeta loomed over her head. Diplomas and trophies the NBCI had supplied him with lined the many oak shelves, adding an aura of authority and intimidation to the room. Even if inauthentic, the memorabilia likely did nothing to calm her nerves. Maybe all she needed was a less pressuring environment.

  A look of wariness filled her eyes and her shoulders stiffened. She certainly wasn’t going to admit anything about the Indian revolutionaries now. He needed her trust. His fingers drummed against the table. She’s the best information source about Raj that I’ll be able to find. He had to find a way for her to open up to him.

  “I appreciate you being able to speak with me so candidly,” Warren backpedaled. He wracked his brain, searching for an opportunity. “Perhaps we can talk again tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Her lips pressed into a fine line. If her words had flowed like water down a river before, they were as rare as dry ground during the monsoon now. “I do not think so.”

  He chuckled. “No, no, nothing of that sort. I am organizing a small gathering for some guests tonight in my ballroom. I would love for you to attend.”

  “A party?” She shook her head. Dark tendrils that she’d gathered behind her shoulders fell forward, framing her high cheekbones and curling around her chin. “You must be mistaken. I am a...”

  A pregnant pause filled the air. Warren watched her gaze flicker to her lap once more, as if confirming her skin color. A what, he wondered. A half-caste? An Indian?

  She cleared her throat. “I would not be welcome.”

  “It is my party, after all. It is a chance to meet some other people in the region.” And a chance to try to figure out who knows my identity. “You must come. I will introduce you as a woman who is helping me with my research.”

  “A half-Indian maid assisting you with research?”

  The idea did sound better in his head. But what other choice did he have? “I want you to trust me, Parineeta.” Before he could stop himself, her name rolled off his tongue like honey. He studied her expression as he spoke, hoping the look of fear would melt away. “I must insist. You are not just a maid. You are helping me with a very important project of mine.”

  She opened her mouth to protest. Doubt warred across her conflicted expression for a moment. Then she nodded.
“Yes. Yes, I will go.”

  “Then it’s settled! You’ll be there tonight.” His heart lifted as he clapped his hands. The brass buttons at the edge of his sleeve cuffs clinked together. “That is all for today. You may leave now.”

  “We have finished for the day so quickly?”

  “It seems we have.” Maybe he could bribe her to trust him. Who didn’t like shortened tasks? “Considering you will be spending a few extra hours at my party tonight, I would say your day’s work will still be the same as normal.”

  Parineeta raised an eyebrow. If she suspected anything, she didn’t voice her suspicions. The ends of her skirt dragged across the floorboards as she stood up from her chair. Golden bangles clinked down her wrists as she opened the door and left the room.

  As soon as the door closed, Warren stood from his own chair. This girl expected him to believe she knew nothing of the independence movement? He would have sooner believed Calvin Coolidge was the Queen of England!

  He waited for her to stroll to the end of the hall before he followed after her. His leather shoes fell against the marble tile as quietly as he could manage, but her bare feet slapped against the tile and hurried away so fast that he doubted she would hear him even if he ran behind her.

  He traced her path out the door, down the winding walkway, past the gardens, and across the dirt road leading away from the gates of his house. She headed toward a cluster of houses next to the gardens, right before the gate entrance, where some of the gardeners lived and a few of the soldiers went to smoke. He’d seen his soldiers hanging around the area a few times after drills, but he’d never seen a woman there before.

  He ducked behind a tree as soon as he saw her stop. He leaned his head out from behind the trunk to watch her figure. She stood in place for a few moments, scanning the houses before her. Warren cautiously stepped forward. A large twig snapped beneath his right shoe. Damn. He whipped his head back behind the tree and waited for his breath to even out. It had been a while since he’d had to do field work.

  He waited a few seconds and then risked looking back again. She was walking to the end of one of the white walls, where she knocked on a door three times.