This, on sighting Ishaan’s exposed torso.
He grins up at her lopsidedly.
‘Yuh … are … Bihar or east UP, no?’ he asks as her tantalizing perfume assails his nostrils. ‘You don’t talk … you sing.’
Her winged eyebrows fly up.
‘Quite the flirt aren’t you, dearie?’
Ishaan’s grin widens. ‘You started it. Are you … a proper doctor?’
She throws back her head and laughs. A rich, strong laugh. The silver streak in her hair tumbles forward, and she has to tuck it behind her ear.
‘No!’
‘I like your hair,’ he says next. The shot of rum she’d given him to dull the pain has taken full effect by now. He feels like he’s floating on a cloud of candyfloss.
‘Thank you.’ But her voice is distracted. She feels around his wound with quick, cool fingers, her touch oddly soothing.
‘It isn’t infected, is it?’ Maddy asks worriedly from behind her.
‘No no.’ She raises her large doe eyes to meet Shaanu’s. ‘You washed it?’
He nods. ‘In cold water, several times, just like they taught us in the commando course.’
‘Good boy!’
‘I want to see,’ Maddy demands.
She sighs. ‘Have a peek then.’
Maddy pushes his way in and peers down at the exposed wound.
‘Ugh.’ His face goes an unhealthy white. ‘Baaz, brother, I…’
He backs away quickly, his expression queasy.
‘Wimp,’ she scoffs. ‘Run away if you can’t handle it.’
‘I’ll stay.’ Maddy sets his jaw.
‘It doesn’t hurt that badly.’ Shaanu struggles to sit up and stares down at his wound critically. ‘It looks like the cakes my sisters turned out when they just started baking – kind of cracked and uncooked and oozing in the middle.’
‘Well, that’s put me off cake for life.’ Maddy looks green now.
‘Hold the tray steady.’ Her rich voice is calm but commanding. ‘Can you feel something in there, dearie?’
Shaanu nods.
‘Shrapnel. A chunk of Sabre fuselage, I think. I couldn’t get it out.’
‘But I can.’ She feels around the wound, palpating it, and snaps her fingers together. ‘Tongs.’
Maddy stares down at her ‘instruments’ tray and doubtfully holds up something that looks suspiciously like a chapati turner.
‘This?’
She nods and reaches for it.
‘Yes.’
Maddy wards her off.
‘Promise me you’re not living out your doctor-doctor fantasies by using my friend as a guinea pig.’
Her dark eyes snap.
‘Give that to me!’
But he holds it away, out of her reach.
‘You heard what he said! My one best friend’s already badly injured. Baaz is the only other best friend I’ve got left.’
She leans in, all earnest sympathy. ‘I’ll fix him. And your other friend will recover too, inshallah. We’re wasting time. Give me the cheemta.’
‘I knew it was just a bloody cheemta,’ Maddy says, handing it over. ‘Tongs, indeed!’
‘Thank you.’
She takes it, bends down and looks into Shaanu’s pain-glazed grey eyes, her own liquid and luminous. Her husky voice, which was surely made for saying far sexier things, whispers, ‘Dearie, your tissues have already started growing around this thing, so this will hurt. Be brave now…’
• • •
Shaanu wakes up with a start to the sound of a loud crackling, followed by an equally loud clearing of the throat, and then the sonorous call of the muezzin rings out with full vim and vigour in his ears. Clearly there is a mosque right next door.
He groans, raises himself up on one elbow and looks around the tiny room drowsily.
It is a spartan little space. Early morning sunshine slants in through the latticed window high up in the wall, highlighting the grey Young India underwear drying on a washing line running diagonally across the room. There is a stove on the floor, in the corner. Next to it lies a cloth bag, lumpy with onion and potatoes. A tin, dusted with flour around the rim. And at the foot of Shaanu’s bed, a prone figure, sprawled out face down on a cotton gadda.
Maddy.
Thank God the bugger’s alive and okay.
Even as Shaanu gazes down at his friend with a full heart sending up this heartfelt prayer of thanks to the Almighty, Maddy stirs, farts and covers his head with his ratty, grime-stained pillow.
‘Man, how deaf are the faithful?’ he grumbles. ‘This guy’s gonna burst my eardrums one of these days.’
The muezzin probably hears this complaint through the paper-thin walls, because the azaan cranks up a notch, now becoming so loud and high-pitched that Ishaan can feel his back teeth rattle.
‘What the hell.’ He sits up. ‘How long will this go on?’
‘Oh, he stops and starts and stops and starts the whole blessed day,’ Maddy says. ‘Just get used to it. How’re you feeling, buddy?’
Shaanu thinks about his injury for the first time since he woke up.
‘Good,’ he reports in surprise. ‘The pain’s kind of dull now. Not stabbing through me, like before.’
‘Excellent!’ Maddy’s brown face lights up with relief. ‘Now sit up and have some tea.’
Ishaan looks at his friend questioningly, there’s no tea in sight – but then footsteps sound on the stairs and a large, fat man in a white kurta and no pyjamas appears in the doorway. He is carrying a tray on which are three chipped enamel mugs, brimming with tea. Smiling gently, ruddy cheeks glowing, he holds it out to Shaanu.
‘Shukriya.’ Ishaan takes the tea, privately thinking that the man looks exactly like Santa Claus. Or Guru Nanak, for that matter.
‘Who’s he?’ he asks Maddy, as they both sip their tea a little later, sitting in a patch of sunshine. The pyjama-less man has wandered away to wring out wet clothes from a bucket and hang them on a wire stretched across the terrace.
Maddy scratches his head. ‘I think he’s a bit retarded,’ he says finally. ‘Everybody calls him Front Room – because he lives in the front room downstairs, opposite the dispensary. Sometimes he comes out in the evening to light crackers with the street kids.’
‘He looks Afghani,’ Shaanu says. ‘A full kabuliwallah. Or Russian or something – what is this place anyway? A dawakhana or a safe house for Muktis?’
Maddy sips his tea.
‘Both, I think.’
There’s a pause.
‘Maybe Raks is getting better?’ Maddy’s voice is determinedly cheerful as he returns to the topic that has been troubling him all night. ‘I mean, you thought I was dead, and here I am, safe and sound! Maybe the AMC guys are taking too grim a view of his condition?’
His soft dark eyes probe Shaanu’s painfully.
Shaanu looks away.
He thinks of Raka, still and waxen. And Juhi, her eyes glazed and fevered, sitting by his bed. A shiver runs through him, despite the warm winter sunshine beating down on his back.
‘Maybe.’
‘When I get back, we’ll get him the best treatment,’ Maddy declares in the same doggedly cheerful voice. ‘I’ll make my dad cough up the dough! Forget the Base Hospital, we’ll fly him to the best centre, in Bombay, abroad, in London, even!’ A thought strikes him. ‘Arrey, what am I saying? When he sees I’m alive and well, he’ll be so happy he’ll recover at once! Like you did, right, Baaz?’
‘Uh, right.’ Ishaan shifts restlessly. He doesn’t want to talk about Raka. ‘Listen, tell me what happened with you, yaar. All we heard was that your Caribou got hit while it was dropping off a team of paras.’
Maddy puts down his mug, immediately distracted.
‘Yes, that’s what happened,’ he says. ‘And I had a scenic little ride down – except that I had to inhale the aroma of Macho da’s armpits all the way, which sort of marred the beauty of the experience a bit. But whatever! We landed, unhurt. And
then things started to get strange.’
Shaanu’s eyes narrow. ‘Matlab?’
‘Matlab Macho da guided the paras to where 14 Punjab was holed up, all right and tight. Then he told me he had a secret mission in Dacca and that I should accompany him to help fulfil it. He says he’s my commanding officer now.’
Shaanu’s jaw drops.
‘What the hell! You could’ve seen such great action with the paras! Those guys are the best!’
‘No, Baaz.’ Maddy shakes his head. ‘Macho da’s right, he is the senior officer, and he says that his business in Dacca is extremely vital to the cause and that I should help him achieve it.’
Ishaan looks dubious. ‘What cause?’
‘The cause!’
‘Didn’t he tell you what it is?’
‘He will, eventually. But not now because he says we might get captured and reveal it to the enemy, under torture.’
Shaanu throws back his head. ‘What a load of war movie crap!’ he says in disbelief.
‘War movies aren’t crap.’ The deep drawl makes them both turn around. Macho da is standing in the stairwell, dressed for prayer, in an exquisite chikankari kurta pyjama, a white namazi cap perched on the back of his head. ‘Most of them are based on real events. And reality is mostly stranger than fiction. Coming to this particular situation, I saved your friend’s life. I saved your life too – that isn’t an exaggeration. My doctor tells me your wound would’ve turned gangrenous if it hadn’t been attended to. Why not trust me a little?’
His eyes, revealed to be bulgy, thin-lashed and honey-brown now that he’s no longer wearing dark glasses, bore into Ishaan’s.
‘I’m not ungrateful, sir,’ Ishaan says steadily. ‘But our loyalty is to the Indian Armed Forces. The Mukti Bahini is a separate, independent outfit…’
‘Working in tandem with the Indian Army,’ Macho da reminds him. ‘We’ve joined forces. Together, we’re now called the Mitro Bahini, remember.’
Shaanu continues to look doubtful. ‘Yeah, but—’
‘Can you repair wireless radios?’ Macho da changes the subject abruptly.
Ishaan shakes his head, surprised. ‘No, sir, I can’t. Is yours giving trouble?’
The Mukti’s expression stays unchanged, but Shaanu gets the sense that he’s disappointed.
‘Never mind. Hopefully I’ll get hold of a new mechanic today. I have to go say my namaaz now. We’ll talk later.’
He jerks his head at the pyjama-less Front Room, then turns around and goes down the steps. Front Room smiles his saintly smile at Maddy and Shaanu, scoops up the enamel mugs and exits too, his empty bucket slapping against his bare legs. Ishaan stares after them.
‘When did Macho da get so namaazi?’
Maddy shrugs. ‘I think he always was.’
Shaanu continues to look sceptical.
‘And what happened to the old radio op?’
‘They had to shoot him. He was a traitor.’
Shaanu’s jaw drops.
‘What the fuck!’
Maddy grins. ‘Just kidding. The guy went AWOL.’
‘What does he need a wireless radio for, anyway? Is he spying on the Paki radio chatter?’
‘I guess,’ Maddy replies. ‘Maybe that’s part of the mission.’
When Shaanu says nothing, he adds, his voice slightly pleading, ‘She’s nice though. I like her, she has a certain…’
‘… je ne sais quoi,’ Shaanu completes the sentence automatically, his accent honed by years of practice. He looks at his friend, and his frustrated expression changes to a fond one. ‘You’ll never change, will you, bastard? But yes, for once, I agree, she’s lovely. But is she a proper doctor?’
‘What’s proper?’ Maddy’s expression grows dreamy. ‘My thoughts about her are highly improper!’
‘A quack, then?’
Maddy frowns at his friend. ‘She’s a BAMS,’ he says with great dignity.
Ishaan throws up his hands.
‘Matlab? Whamz Bamz, thank you maamz?’
‘A Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicinal Science,’ Maddy rattles off glibly. ‘A five-year degree, including a one-year internship.’
‘Tujhe bada pata hai,’ Shaanu smirks.
Maddy flushes.
‘Nothing like that, yaar. She’s with Macho da, anyway. I think.’
He shoots Shaanu a speculative sideways glance.
‘How about you?’
Ishaan looks away.
‘What about me?’ he repeats truculently.
Maddy glares.
‘Tinka about you!’
‘I don’t fancy the lady doctor, if that’s what you’re worried about!’ Shaanu sweeps on, ignoring this interjection. ‘She’s all yours, and she likes you, I can tell!’
But Maddy refuses to be distracted, even by this delicious bait. ‘What about Tinka, Baaz? She’s in Dacca – you know that, right?’
‘Is she?’ Shaanu says indifferently.
Maddy sneaks him another sideways look and says, with careful casualness, ‘In the designated neutral Red Cross zone. She wrote a piece on our Caribou bombing an orphanage. Did you see it?’
Shaanu’s lean cheeks flush. ‘No. And anyway, that doesn’t sound like she’s sympathetic towards India.’
‘Tinka is the most sympathetic person I know,’ Maddy replies, a little surprised.
The blood starts to throb inside Shaanu’s ears.
‘Yeah, you two got along so well,’ he hears himself say. ‘Both so rich and so educated and such great readers and writers and cultureds.’
Maddy looks at him uncomprehendingly.
‘Baaz,’ he says finally. ‘Whatchu saying, brother? There’s nothing like tha—’
‘Let’s drop it!’ Shaanu interrupts him, suddenly very fed-up. ‘I’m not interested in girls. There’s a bloody war going on, and a mysterious mission, and a muezzin going ballistic behind us. Let’s just focus on that, shall we?’
• • •
‘Balls I’ll leave the country,’ Tinka says the next morning. ‘Why should I leave the country? Who does that pig Nikka think he is?’
‘Call me old-fashioned, but I find the sound of a woman swearing deeply unattractive,’ Julian says, clinging onto the brace handle at the back of the bumpy taxi with all his might. ‘Do desist, my dear. Please.’
‘You are old-fashioned,’ she returns darkly from the front seat. ‘Sexism! Chauvinism! Pathanism! All men are snakes.’
‘What’s with this constantly recurring all-men-are-snakes motif, huh?’ Leo speaks up from the back. ‘What is bothering you so much, Tinka?’
But she just wraps her arms tighter over her chest and doesn’t reply.
The taxi hurtles on for another twenty minutes or so, then comes to an abrupt stop at a seedy street in Dacca’s old town.
‘Oh Lordy.’ Julian peers out of the grimy window. ‘English Road. Indeed! There doesn’t seem to be anything very English about it – remind me again why we’re here, Ivan?’
Leo rolls his eyes and fiddles with his camera.
‘Ask her.’
But Tinka has already wrapped a shawl over her head and shoulders, leapt out of the cab and headed down the street like a woman with a purpose.
‘Harry Rose?’ She grabs a lounging rickshaw-puller by the arm. ‘Harry Rose Dawakhana? Kothai?’
He points wordlessly. Tinka thanks him and moves on. Julian and Leo attempt to follow in her wake but are swamped by a crowd of half-cajoling half-threatening pimps, each one insisting the goras visit their house for a heavenly ride at the princely rate of ten rupees each. They call out to Tinka, but she continues to pick her way through the thickening press of pigs, people, policemen and garbage.
‘Damn the wench!’ Julian says when they finally break loose, dishevelled and rattled, from the clutches of the pimp army. ‘I’ve no idea which way she went. Do you?’
‘No.’ Leo shakes his head, letting his camera arm sag. ‘All these lanes look alike – wait, there she is!’
<
br /> They scramble down the lane to catch up with her. Together, all three of them turn into a narrow sidelane and stop in front of a dilapidated two-storeyed house with a broken iron gate.
‘Cures for sterility, impotence and premature ejaculation.’ Leo scans the various posters as they enter the shabby premises of the Dawakhana. ‘You’ve come to the right place, grandfather!’
But Julian is too out of breath to come up with a response.
Leo purses his lips tactfully, places a hand under the older man’s elbow and propels him into the reception area.
‘So how did you track down the legendary Harry Rose?’ Julian demands of Tinka once they’re all seated. ‘I’d begun to think he didn’t exist.’
Tinka shrugs. ‘I chatted up the waiters, who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew Harry. I sent across a cutting of my last three articles and I was granted an audience. That’s it, really.’
They sit bolt-upright the bench, staring at the metal door opposite. Tinka gets the feeling they’re being watched.
‘I was told to meet the compounder,’ she says after a while. ‘But there’s nobody here…’
‘Sambadik?’
Tinka springs to her feet. ‘Yes!’
It’s a small, dishevelled boy, not more than twelve years old. He nods, opens the iron door in the wall opposite and announces in a high-pitched voice, ‘Sambadik.’
‘Oh and by the way,’ Tinka tells the other two as they enter the office. ‘Harry’s a she.’
‘Hullo, dearie.’
The voice is rich and earthy. Tinka blinks, eyes adjusting to the gloom, and beholds the wonder that is Harry Rose.
Her first thought is one of intense regret – if only Nikka Khan’s minions hadn’t broken her camera!
Harry Rose had floored Shaanu by night and she is no less fabulous by day. Dressed all in red and black, her gorgeous hair cascading all about her, she is busily decapitating a huge mound of bright orange flowers, tossing the heads into a bowl on her lap and discarding the leaves and stems on the floor. The acrid, slightly astringent scent of flowers fills the room and makes everybody’s heads swim a little.
‘Woof,’ moans Leo from behind Tinka longingly. ‘Woof woof.’
‘Shut up,’ Tinka whispers. ‘Hullo, I’m Tehmina.’
‘I’m Harry.’ She smiles, showing slightly chipped teeth. ‘Who are these two, Tehmina?’
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