Bhowani Junction

by John Masters

  The head of the procession was close. Mr Surabhai carried a huge Congress flag. To-day his suspenders were blue and his socks yellow. His eyes flashed, and he marched like a soldier, sticking out his chest and throwing his feet forward so that the brown and white co-respondent shoes twinkled. As he marched he shouted, ‘Jai Hind!’ and, ‘Long live our brothers the sailors!’ Two policemen marched on each side of him, their brass buttons flashing and the brass tips of their lathis swinging steadily on their shoulders. There were other policemen down the sides of the procession, eight or ten in all. There were a couple of hundred people in the procession itself, with a forest of placards and flags. The people watching it all were crowded in the gutters and in the shops, clapping their hands.

  As I passed the Blue Lane turning I saw down there the head of the other procession. That one too had music and banners, but its banners were dark green and lettered in white in the Arabic script that looks so beautifully curved and graceful, and they had only forty or fifty marchers with five police. Just about there they were due to turn left up a street parallel to Suttees. Two policemen were standing in Blue Lane near them, ready to direct the turn. The six-by-six, its armed driver, the Sten gun and the face at the canvas, they were here by my left side.

  I ran into the door of the house where Savage and Govindaswami stood on the roof six storeys up. It was too late for them to move trucks or troops now. I was among a thick crowd of Indians. I found the Sirdarni-sahiba at my side and smiled at her. She said, ‘The two processions are going to unite, to show that all Indians are united in this struggle.’

  At the corner of Blue Lane Mr Surabhai suddenly swung his flag, like an officer with the Colours on parade, and shrieked, ‘Follow me!’ The policemen struggled with him, holding their lathis across to prevent him from turning, but he dodged them, hopping about like a dancer, while his followers surged round and past. The policemen could not stop them and were swept along like driftwood in a river. I saw a fist come up and box a policeman’s ear, a hand tear off another turban, but that was all. The Congress men chanted and shouted, but they were not in a violent mood. The Gurkha face peered at them out of the back canvas of the Dodge, and they shouted insults and jeered at it, but no more. The Moslem procession had stopped where it was supposed to turn. Its band was playing and its leader haranguing it, his back to Mr Surabhai and the Congress men as they dashed on towards him.

  I was roaring with excited laughter—it was really very funny. The crowd was laughing. It was coming off exactly right—not with any beastly violence, but just making the British and the police look foolish.

  ‘Now!’ the Sirdarni said in my ear.

  I scrambled up on a table and stood on tiptoe to see over the crowd. The two processions met.

  Mr Surabhai flung his arms round the leader of the Moslems. The big Congress flag hovered and swept down and round, Mr Surabhai made such large generous movements. The top of the pole hit the Moslem banner, which a man with spectacles was carrying immediately behind the Moslem leader. The Congress flag knocked the Moslem League flag down. Both flags fell into the dirt. The other man’s spectacles were knocked off.

  Mr Surabhai stood back and flung out his arms. I heard him cry, his voice cracked with emotion, ‘We are brothers for freedom!’

  A terrific shouting began. A lemonade bottle flashed in the sun and hit Mr Surabhai on the side of the head. Somebody shouted, ‘They are trampling on our flag!’ Mr Surabhai and the Moslem stooped to pick up the flags. They fell or were pushed. They disappeared, and the shouting suddenly changed pitch. Green flags mingled with striped flags, Arabic with English; sticks and stones flew, and an awful roaring filled the lane.

  I said aloud, ‘Oh no! Oh, no!’ I found my hands up and my cheeks dry and burning. ‘Oh, no!’ I whispered.

  Boots clattered down the steps behind me, and a hard hand pushed me to one side. ‘Out of the way!’ Colonel Savage snarled in Hindustani and ran into the street, followed by Govindaswami, Birkhe, and the head constable. Simultaneously the ten Gurkhas arrived at the double from the station. He must have signalled to them from the housetop.

  I was in front of the crowd by then, and I heard Savage say, ‘I’ll get them lined up here, facing down Blue Lane.’

  Govindaswami said, ‘Good. Keep a tight hold.’ He and the head constable moved forward, but the Congress men had their backs to him and could hear nothing of his orders. Savage signalled with his hand, and the useless six-by-six backed out of the way and went to the station yard. Savage nodded his head, and two buglers, side by side, blew a short loud call. The ten Gurkhas stood in a row, at ease.

  In the part of the crowd nearest Govindaswami and the Gurkhas, the people turned round, saw, and began to run away. But they had nowhere to run. The struggling mass of Congress men and Moslem Leaguers was in front of them, filling the street from side to side. The Gurkhas were behind them. Govindaswami shouted, beckoned, and pointed to one side, showing them that they could get out past the end of the row of Gurkhas.

  At my side the Sirdarni shouted in a deep dear voice, in Hindi, ‘Charge them! They are few!’

  Before I could think, let alone speak, Savage whipped round and threw his carbine into my hands and snarled, ‘You, shoot that woman the next time she opens her mouth!’ He turned back to watch Govindaswami and the crowd.

  ‘Please!’ I whispered to the Sirdarni. ‘Don’t tell them to charge Beji. Not now. The Collector’s trying to get them out without a panic.’

  The carbine wavered in my hands. I would only have to pull the trigger. Savage always kept it loaded. The queer uneasy thing was that I wouldn’t have minded. If the people did what the Sirdarni was inciting them to, there’d be another massacre like the Jallianwala Bagh. And—I didn’t like her. She was like Savage.

  I do not know what I would have done, but the Sirdarni said, ‘He’s cunning, that colonel. I wouldn’t stop for him. Or for you—or for that—if it was really important.’ She wrapped her sari round the lower part of her face and struggled out and away through the back of the shop.

  Gradually Govindaswami began to make an impression on the crowd in front of him. Gradually the people heard him, turned, saw the line of Gurkhas, began to panic, were calmed down and waved at, and filed away along the side of the street. When Govindaswami reached the Moslems it was easier for him because they were already facing him. They saw the Gurkhas at once, and they only had to turn round to get away down Blue Lane. At last there were only three groaning men, a pale woman being sick, and Mr Surabhai lying flat in the filth, face up.

  Govindaswami knelt down beside Mr Surabhai and shook him gently. A woman came out of a house with water, Mr Surabhai sat up, held his head in his hands, looked at the Collector, looked around, and climbed slowly to his feet. Govindaswami, immaculately black and white, tried to help him, but Mr Surabhai shook him off and picked up his big Congress flag and limped slowly away up the Street of Suttees. I saw tears glistening in the corners of his big eyes and a puckering round his mouth as he passed me. He had a big bruise between his right ear and eye.

  Savage and Govindaswami were talking together. The carbine was burning my hands. Oh, he was a quick, cunning swine to give me that, then. I gave it back to him and crept away from them in the crowd, walked to the station yard, got on my bicycle, and went slowly back to Number 4 Collett Road.

  EIGHTEEN

  That was a Friday, and, as the normal duty rosters were working again, Peter was not in. He had left early in the afternoon to take 98 Up to Gondwara.

  At supper I noticed that Mater was wearing her purple satin evening dress embroidered with large white flowers. I thought she must be going over to drink tea with Mr Williams’ mother. That was an occasional invitation for which Mater always put on her best dress. But after supper Rose Mary knocked on the wall between our rooms and called, ‘Victoria! Hooks, please!’

  I said, ‘Do it yourself.’ Rose Mary had a nerve, after the things she’d said to me last night. But then I thought, O
h well, we’re always quarrelling but we have to be hooked into tight dresses just the same, so I went through and found Rose Mary standing ready by the mirror, her white organdie gaping at the back.

  I fastened the hooks and couldn’t resist telling Rose Mary she ought to wear a brassiere with that dress. She hadn’t any panties on either. I was disgusted, but I wondered whether she was hoping Patrick would do something. Then I got angry and for a moment wished I had a man. Savage’s face, and the way his wrists looked as they lay on his office table, came suddenly into my mind and then I had to admit to myself for the first time that, simply as a man, he was terrifyingly attractive. I was furious with myself and with him.

  I watched Rose Mary shrug and wriggle and tug, and, to get the thoughts out of my mind, I said, ‘Where are you going?’

  Rose Mary sat down and began to put on a thick coat of pale cream powder. ‘To the Empire Day social and dance at the Institute, of course,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t be coming to that, of course. You will be chewing betel nut with Kasel.’

  The family expected me to keep away from the Institute because I’d had tea at Ranjit’s house and gone to the cinema with him. I said, ‘Of course. I almost forgot. I’m coming.’

  Rose Mary looked at me in the mirror, sniffed, and said, ‘You won’t have a good time.’

  I went to my own room and began to change. I had a pale green long dress and two short ones, a white dress and a dotted red and white one. And there was the old white organdie, the twin of Rose Mary’s. Mater had bought the two together many years ago, thinking we would look nice dressed as sisters. I put that one on. Soon I was able to call out, ‘Rose Mary! Hooks, please.’

  Rose Mary came in and stopped in the door, crying shrilly, ‘You’re not going to wear that?’

  I said, ‘Why not? I’ve got it on.’

  She cried, ‘I won’t hook you into that! Oh, you are a beast!’ She stormed out, slamming the door behind her. I went to Mater and got myself hooked up. Mater said, ‘That is good. Rose Mary and you, you will look like sisters.’

  We walked together to the Institute, Mater in the middle, Rose Mary tripping sulkily on five-inch heels.

  The big hall was hung with red, white, and blue bunting and dozens of Union Jacks. I saw at once that we girls would be in our usual majority of at least two to one—more when it came to dancing. Many of the men were on duty, and others would not leave the bar or the billiard room the whole evening.

  Two groups of older ladies had already settled down to whist with their glasses of port-and-lemon beside them. There was no band. Bill Fitzpatrick and his girl friend stood beside the big gramophone on the dais and fed it with records. The Institute had no loudspeakers, so the music sounded faint and tinny in the far corners. Two girls were dancing together, giggling. Mr and Mrs Williams walked on to the floor to dance as we arrived. Mr Williams’ old mother was sitting on a chak against the opposite wall, her gloved hands folded in her lap.

  Mater said, ‘We will sit there, near Mrs Williams,’ and shuffled flatfooted across the dance floor; and we followed her obediently. We sat down in a row. Mrs Williams said, ‘Good evening, Mrs Jones,’ and Mater answered, ‘Good evening, Mrs Williams.’ Rose Mary flipped open her fan and began to fan herself, glancing to right and left. I sat with my hands in my lap, feeling that I must look exactly like old Mrs Williams.

  Patrick appeared from the direction of the Gents’ and stood on the edge of the floor opposite us, fingering the knot of his Old St Thomasian’s tie. I met his eyes as he looked about, and quickly turned away. Rose Mary waved her fan, and then Patrick walked over to us. He asked Rose Mary to dance with him, and she accepted.

  Mater talked comfortably with old Mrs Williams. I watched Patrick and Rose Mary but turned away whenever either of them might see me. At the gramophone Fitzpatrick mixed polkas, foxtrots, waltzes, two-steps, and rumbas with no pauses between. Many people were dancing by then, about half of them girls with girls. Rose Mary and Patrick left the floor but did not come back to our chairs. I forced myself not to watch them to see where they were going.

  After three-quarters of an hour I went to the Ladies’ and stayed there for nearly twenty minutes. A girl I knew well came in to mend a broken shoulder strap with a safety-pin. She glanced at me but did not say anything and quickly went out again.

  I set my face to look calm and confident, and lifted my shoulders and walked slowly back to the dance floor. The first person I saw was Colonel Savage sitting at a little table where two old drivers were plying him with whisky. He saw me but gave no sign that he knew who I was. Nearly next to him, the Dunphys were sitting together—Ted, the young driver who had always been fond of me, and Mary, his sister. When Mary was a child I often used to look after her, sometimes taking her out in the pram. She was seven years younger than I. I had taught her to dance.

  I walked over to them. Ted Dunphy got up quickly, blushing hard. I think he was really in love with me. I smiled at him and said, ‘I know you don’t like dancing, Ted, but I do. Mary, let’s dance.’

  Mary Dunphy said, ‘I don’t feel like dancing.’ She went red as she spoke. I had seen her dancing earlier in the evening. She had even made Ted dance with her, she wanted so much to dance. I stared at her. Obviously she didn’t want to dance with me. Obviously the proper thing for me to do was to take the hint and not press her any more. If Savage had asked me to dance then—he was sitting there behind me—I would have accepted. But Savage said nothing.

  I said to Mary, ‘You do feel like dancing. I’ve been watching you.’

  ‘No, I don’t, a bit,’ she said breathlessly.

  At my shoulder Patrick said, ‘She does not want to dance with you, that’s the God’s truth.’ He’d had several beers, and his voice was hoarse. Rose Mary was with him. Everyone at the end of the hall must have heard us.

  I did not turn round. I said to Mary Dunphy, ‘Well? Are you going to dance with me?’

  ‘No. I don’t want to dance with you,’ Mary said with a sneer. She was braver then, because of Patrick being close and on her side.

  ‘Nobody wants to,’ Patrick said triumphantly.

  ‘Yes, they do. I do,’ Ted Dunphy said. He was on his feet still; he’d been standing there all the time since I came up. His face was scarlet, and he was rubbing his hands against his trousers.

  Patrick said, ‘No you don’t, Ted. You stop him, Mary. Don’t let him. Why doesn’t she go over to the Indian Institute? They have jolly good dances there, I must say.’

  Colonel Savage laughed.

  Ted Dunphy turned to me and said, ‘Will you please dance with me, Victoria?’

  I put my hand on his arm and said, ‘Thank you, Ted. Thank you very much. But it is time I went. Let me know if you want to see Doctor Faiz Ali again, Mary.’

  Mary jumped up, her fists clenched. I turned my back and walked out, across the middle of the floor and out through the middle of the wide centre doors into the hot close night. I walked down Limit Road, watching the moths that were so thick round the bright yard lamps. I came to the line, turned left, and walked along it.

  Mary Dunphy was a little bitch! She had lost her virginity when she was sixteen, to a Scottish private in the Royal Engineers—right here, under a wagon, during an Institute dance like this. And got pregnant, and tried to kill herself by leaving a sigri on all night in a closed bedroom. For her sake I had gone to an Indian doctor and begged him to help. He had thought it was me at first.

  And Colonel Savage laughed, when I was standing there without a friend among my own people, when I was an officer serving with his regiment, when he could have done so much for me at so little cost. Oh God, however much I thought I hated him, God knows what I would not have done for him if he had used his rank and his being English to freeze those cheechees the way he could, and in front of all of them asked me to dance with him. He must have known all that, and he laughed. My insides knotted together, I hated him so much.

  I stopped, holding up my wide skirts t
hat crackled as I walked. I found I was more than half-way to the station. They’d driven me out as if I’d already had an illegitimate brown baby, and I was walking aimlessly, thinking black angry thoughts. They couldn’t beat me down like that.

  I turned right, passed behind the Loco Sheds, crossed the branch line, and waited in the street until a tonga came. I told the driver to take me to the Sirdarni-sahiba Kasel’s house.

  The moon had not come up yet, so it was very dark, and when the tonga stopped in front of the door I hesitated about paying the driver off. But I could not stand there for long in my white organdie in the dim alley, so I paid him and knocked on the door as the horse clopped away. I waited for two minutes; then the door opened.

  ‘Miss Jones! Victoria!’ Ranjit said, his large eyes wide and anxious. ‘What is the matter, what has happened?’

  ‘I haven’t——’ I began to say, I haven’t killed anyone this time, but I stopped in time. I said, ‘I would like your mother to help me choose a sari, several saris.’

  ‘Now?’ Ranjit said. We were still standing in the doorway, and I asked if I could come in for a minute.

  He said, ‘Oh, yes, please. I am sorry.’ He followed me up the stairs. On the way he said, ‘My mother is out. That is why I hesitated just now. There is only Mr Surabhai and myself here.’ He opened the door of the big room for me and stood aside.

  Mr Surabhai got up hurriedly, holding a small cake in his hand. Plaster in the shape of a big X on the side of his forehead made him look like a cartoon of a man who has been in a fight.

  Ranjit said, ‘Miss Jones wanted my mother to help her buy some saris.’

  Mr Surabhai, whose expression had been dejected and hang-dog, came to me with both his arms outstretched. He cried, ‘Miss Jones! That is quite wonderful. You have genuinely decided to don the national garb? Oh, I say, this is grand!’ He clasped my hands in his, popping the cake into his mouth just in time, and squeezed my fingers hard. He said, with his mouth full, ‘We must order my wife to be present here at once, and she will choose the most suitable saris that exist in Bhowani.’