‘Hmmm.’ Nikka’s face twitches like he’s smelt something fishy. In a distinctly silky voice he murmurs, ‘You know what, Hussain, it’s the most vexing thing, I seem to have forgotten your CO’s name…’
‘I won’t tell him you forgot, sir,’ Shaanu reassures him. ‘It would be too much of a blow to his vanity.’
But Nikka isn’t to be deflected so easily. From under his peak of over-dyed black hair, his small pouchy eyes bore into Ishaan’s frank ones.
‘What was his name again?’
There is a horrible, almost one-second-long pause.
‘It’s…’ Shaanu begins, then stops.
Nikka’s too-black eyebrows snap together.
‘It’s…?’
Ishaan’s grey eyes have started to sparkle, a strange, cool, fuck-you sparkle. He locks gazes with the Butcher of Bengal, clearly enjoying himself.
‘It’s…?’ Ishaan Faujdaar says outrageously.
‘Wing Commander Iqbal Farooqi,’ a dulcet voice speaks up from behind them. ‘Such a charming man. Pity his airfield got bombed out from under him.’
It is Tinka, of course. Ignoring Ishaan, she extends a hand towards Nikka, smiling brilliantly, her tousled cap of hair shining like a knob of silk skeins beneath the chandeliers, her eyes limpid pools of hero worship as she gazes up breathlessly at the older man.
Well, well, who’s this tall drink of water, thinks the general as he licks his lips. And why does she look vaguely familiar?
‘Have we met before, ma’am?’ He bows gallantly.
For a moment Tinka is tempted to say no. Then her eyes flicker to the ADC standing behind Nikka. He has clearly recognized her, she can tell. Besides, she has to do her best to deflect attention from the clearly suicidal Ishaan Faujdaar.
She gives a tinkling little laugh.
‘We met just yesterday, gennerrul,’ she says, her American twang suddenly prominent. ‘One of these muscular gentlemen standing behind you broke my camera into itsy-bitsy bits.’
Nikka Khan looks confused, then amazed. But not at all suspicious.
Tinka continues smoothly, ‘I’m a special correspondent with WWS. I’m sorrry I was so insensitive yesturrday. Do grrant my publication an exclusive, one-on-one innerrview?’
With great alacrity, Nikka reaches for this bathed-and-beautiful Tinka with both hands.
‘On the contrary, I am sorry I was so boorish yesterday,’ he says smoothly. ‘It’s not often that I meet a journalist who goes to the core of the issue, to the source of the suffering so unerringly. You saw, with your searing woman’s gaze, the pain that lies at the centre of my soul, and I, poor brute, lashed out like the animal I am. But today, granted a second chance, I will do better!’
Bollocks, you horny old goat, thinks Julian Arnott, from the sidelines. You’ve realized the girl is beautiful today, so you’ve changed your tune! The pain at the centre of your soul is just your throbbing hard-on. Suddenly, Julian wishes he were fifty years younger and could put the oily bastard out of commission by punching him in the nose.
And while he was at it, he would punch that fool Leo Stepanov till he was out of commission too! What was the moron thinking, dangling Tinka’s laddie under Nikka Khan’s suspicious nose?
‘Wonderful!’ Tinka breathes, holding onto the Butcher’s hands determinedly and staring deep into his eyes. Which is pointless, really, thinks the harassed Julian, because his focus is on her breasts beneath the silver stuff of her high-necked, sleeveless gown.
‘So, can we set up a tête-à-tête?’
‘Certaihn-ly, certaihn-ly, my dear!’ Nikka is all suave graciousness. ‘Let’s have some fun, one on one!’ He seems ready to say more, but Julian Arnott breaks into the conversation, his quavering old voice determinedly commanding attention.
‘General Khan, the BBC would like you to appear in our radio series Great Generals through History. We’ve done Julius Caesar and Napoleon, and now we want to do you.’
Nikka’s gaze flickers away from Tinka for a moment. ‘Great generals, eh? Why not?’
‘Step this way, please, and we can discuss it,’ chimes in Leo who has finally got with the plot.
Nikka lets go of Tinka’s hands with obvious regret. ‘Why wait till tomorrow? We can talk tonight itself – say, in half-an-hour, when the party wraps?’
Tinka gives a purr that makes the hair at the back of Julian’s neck stand on end. What the hell is she playing at?
‘You don’t beat about the bush, generrul!’ she says.
‘No, I don’t.’ Nikka grins with grotesque playfulness. ‘Ask the East Bengalis.’
‘General Khan?’ Leo’s voice is firm.
‘Yes yes…’ And Nikka allows himself to be led away.
Shaanu and Tinka, left alone, eye each other warily.
‘Thank you,’ he says finally.
‘Fuck you.’ Her voice is shaking.
For the very first time ever, she sees his usually smiling grey eyes smoulder with anger.
‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ he says grimly. ‘Get out of here before that old dog comes back for you!’
She snorts.
‘You get out of here before they recognize you for the fraud you are!’
‘Tinka…’ He moves in closer, his voice urgent. ‘I’m not a fraud.’
‘Spare me. I owed you, so I saved you there. Now we’re even.’
He ignores this and says, his tone insistent, ‘Please, you have to believe me! I didn’t even know about that engagement – it was all Chimman’s doing!’
She tosses her head. ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’
Shaanu steps back, confused. ‘I thought you were angry with me because you found out I was engaged. Aren’t you?’
His eyes scan her face anxiously.
She stares at him in disbelief.
‘Is that why you’ve come here?’ she asks finally. ‘Into this … this den of Pakistanis? Just to tell me you’re not engaged? What if they catch you?’
He grins. ‘They won’t. And den is a bit harsh, don’t you think? Matlab, this place is classy. The snacks are good.’
He spears another kebab from a passing bearer and pops it into his mouth.
Tinka watches him chew, trying to deny the queer, wild gladness in her heart. But she can’t.
He’s alive, she thinks. He’s engaged, he’s cocky, he’s crazy – but he’s alive, and so, I’m alive too.
He catches her staring and smiles. She flushes and looks away.
‘Well, technically I am engaged,’ he clarifies. ‘But it happened behind my back and I don’t plan to go through with it.’
‘Please, spare me the update on every event of your little life,’ she says haughtily. ‘And it comes as no surprise to me that your family fixed your engagement. I know that’s how marriages are arranged in the,’ her voice grow deliberately withering, ‘dusty backward village you come from.’
‘Chakkahera is not a village,’ he says, hurt.
She sniffs.
‘If you say so. The jeweller’s unlettered daughter and you will suit each other very well, I’m sure.’
‘Really?’ he drawls. ‘And how do you know her father’s a jeweller?’
Tinka flushes. Shaanu grins.
‘Oh, fine then,’ she says in a furious little rush. ‘I admit it, I read the piece. And I thought, aaaah, so that’s where he got that vulgar gold chain!’
His wound has started to throb again, the pain an unrelenting pulse beating through his entire body, but Shaanu ignores it.
‘Look, you’re jealous and hurt,’ he says. ‘It’s justified, I suppose. But there’s a very simple explanation. And it is not that all men are dogs.’
Tinka, who is starting to feel a little ashamed of herself, starts to give a half-hearted retort, dismissing the accusation of jealousy as both baseless and laughable, then stops abruptly.
‘Dogs?’ she frowns. ‘Were you listening to me at Harry Rose’s door?’
He reddens self-consciously. ‘Something like that. Well, actually, I was…’
But Tinka is no longer listening. Instead, she is sniffing the air. Cautiously, then openly, inching closer to him, her eyes widening.
‘Calendula!’
‘What?’ He looks at her blankly.
‘Oh my God, she was preparing the poultice for you.’ She draws in her breath sharply and clutches his arm. ‘Ishaan,’ she says in an entirely altered voice. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘Ma’am.’ He draws away, his eyes reproachful. ‘The name’s Hussain. Bilawal Hussain.’
She pushes her hair off her face with a trembling hand, looking about the room with anxious eyes and a brilliant smile.
‘Tell me!’
‘Whenever you say my name, I get this peculiar swooping sensation inside my stomach,’ he responds, his voice wavering unsteadily. ‘Like I’m long-jumping across an open well.’
‘Only a complete moron would jump across an open well,’ she says, her voice even more unsteady than his. Tears have sprung to her eyes. ‘Why are you swaying like that? Are you wounded?’
‘No biggie.’ His voice is a little faint. Running a hand over his shoulder, he grins at her crookedly. ‘I’m gonna have a very sexy scar. Would you like to see it?’
He pitches forward as he says this and she has to put a hand to his chest to steady him.
‘Whooophf.’ Shaanu’s eyes close. ‘The painkiller must be wearing off.’ He opens them and looks interestedly around the banquet hall. ‘Wow, this is a revolving ballroom. I didn’t know they had those in Dacca.’
‘They don’t.’ Her voice is teary. ‘Could you please stand up straight? Nikka’s looking right at you.’
‘He’s looking right at you, the horny old toad!’ Shaanu struggles upright, wincing.
‘Shushhh!’ Tinka hisses, moving forward hastily to cover him from Nikka Khan’s suspicious gaze. ‘Take this.’
She slides something into his hand.
Ishaan looks down at the embossed brass key and his eyebrows fly up. ‘Miss Tell-me-na Dadyseth!’ he drawls. ‘How very forward of you. Slipping your key into the hands of a stranger you’ve just met!’
‘Run along, Bilawal,’ she tells him, her eyes scanning the ballroom like it’s a battlefield. ‘Just go. I’ll come up as soon as I can.’
• • •
Tinka spends twenty minutes more at the party, mingling, sparkling, talking feverishly to as many people as she can. Then she hurries out, kicking off her shoes so she can run faster up the stairs, stumbling as she rushes down the corridor, flat-palming her way into her room, flipping on the lights and coming to a dead halt at the sickening sight of Ishaan Faujdaar passed out cold across the bed.
She drops to her knees, her heart in her mouth.
‘Ishaan!’ Her voice is a sob. ‘Ishaan.’
Wanting to shake him but not very sure where his injury is, she looks wildly about his body and settles for slapping him briskly on both cheeks.
Shaanu winces and opens his eyes.
‘Painkillers … in my right … pocket,’ he replies through clenched teeth, before his eyes shutter over again.
‘Good boy.’ Almost weeping with relief, she reaches for his pocket.
‘Your room’s so fancy,’ he sighs, stretching out more comfortably on the crisp white sheets. ‘So rich! Like Freedom.’ Bringing up his hands and waving them from side to side, he hums, ‘Freedom is a rich girl, daddy’s pretty sweet girl, Freedom is a sunny day…’
‘It’s a hotel room,’ she replies. ‘Not mine. My room in Bombay is very basic, believe me. Pull yourself up a bit, or you’ll fall off the bed.’
His hand closes over hers on his chest. She can feel his heart thudding through his overalls. His eyes open suddenly, curiously alight, glazed over with pain.
‘Freedom what would you do, if I said I loved you, Freedom would you run away?’
Tinka has to fight back tears as she pries her hand out of his to retrieve the tablets.
‘Swallow this,’ she says firmly, once she’s got hold of them. ‘Here’s the water, quickly now.’
He swallows the tablet obediently, chases it down with the water and lies back again, his eyes fluttering shut.
Outside, the wail of the siren signals the start of the four-hour ceasefire.
‘You should never have come here,’ she says wretchedly. ‘It was a stupid stupid thing to do!’
There is no response from the figure on the bed.
‘How bad is this wound?’ she asks. ‘Where is it?’
But Ishaan seems to be asleep, his chest rising and falling evenly.
Cursing the complicated PAF overalls, she undoes as many buttons as she can and slips her hands inside to feel for his injury. Harry Rose had mentioned a flesh wound, and from the way Shaanu had lurched forward downstairs, she suspects it is somewhere on his chest or shoulder.
Shaanu stirs under the pressure of her searching fingers.
‘Are you outraging the modesty of a serving officer?’ His voice is faint.
‘I need to find this wound. No arguments, okay?’
He chuckles. It is a ghost of a chuckle.
‘Be … my … guest.’
Her head comes up, her eyes blazing with frustration.
‘You could tell me where it is!’
‘But this is much … more … fun.’
She gives a despairing little laugh, and then, finally, her fingers find the rough texture of the crepe bandage. It feels dry and firmly tied.
‘I’m okay, Dadyseth,’ Ishaan murmurs. ‘Harry Rose fixed me up good.’
‘Thank God,’ she sighs with relief. Then she wriggles out of her clinging dress, snuggles in next to him, rests her head on his good shoulder and, for the first time in a fortnight, falls into a deep, dreamless, healing sleep.
FOURTEEN
Downstairs in the Crystal Ballroom, General Nikka Khan is smouldering like a lecherous bomb whose fuse has been lit. He props himself against the bar, smoothens back his hair and covertly rakes the gathering for the namkeen journalist who had solicited an interview with him earlier in the evening. His gun-toting guards lurk behind him, trying (but failing) to look inconspicuous. The air around them buzzes with talk of war, peace and intrigue.
‘He’s increasingly being isolated,’ a Red Cross official whispers to a colleague as they both eye the restless general. ‘Yahya Khan and Zulfikar Bhutto have virtually washed their hands off him! They’ve left him – and East Pakistan – to sink or swim alone. The poor bastard’s slow-roasting on a spit, only he doesn’t know it yet.’
Blissfully oblivious to this talk, Nikka sips his scotch and pursues his own chain of thought.
How unerringly she put her finger on the root cause of his pain, he marvels. She knew that behind his tough exterior he was but a puddle of mush!
He would order his soldiers to light a fire in his chambers, sweep her back there in his motorcade like a silvery trophy and spend the ceasefire telling her of his sufferings during the Partition – the death of his mother and the rape of his sisters. Ah, how many women he has seduced with those stories! He would describe the carnage he had unleashed in retaliation in a bid to quench his pain – that always got women horny. While he spoke of all this, and so eloquently, in a combination of fine English and mellifluous Urdu, her eyes would soften with sympathy and adulation, her silver gown would ride up her thighs and, seduced by his machismo, his suffering and his power, she would surrender herself to him – like Balochistan, like Bangladesh, he would have mastery over her!
Definitely one of those eager young sluts who can’t resist a man in uniform, thinks Nikka, giving the medals on his chest a self-satisfied pat and smiling blandly at the clutch of VIPs around him. I’ll put her out of her misery, give her what she’s clearly asking for with that tight dress and those moist lips, and those frantic, restless hands that had clung to mine so tight!
Sshviccck!
She had talked to the Sabre pilot for a whil
e – he’d clearly been trying to snow her, but she hadn’t been impressed, snubbing him so hard that he’d actually left the party. Then she had joined those two foreign journalists – that old British fool and the rude Russian – and after that she had gone … where?
Behind him, a bespectacled lady in a violently pink burqa castigates her husband in a hoarse voice.
‘Seven pieces of reshmi kebab! Fried in pure ghee! You might as well eat poison and die!’
The harassed husband, a very senior bureaucrat, replies softly but stoutly, ‘But the waiter keeps coming around. I can’t resist.’
His wife crumples up a paper napkin violently.
‘Cultivate some self-restraint! And don’t blame the waiter! He’s just doing his duty!’
The senior bureaucrat sticks to his guns. He has a toothpick in his hand and is clearly looking for something to spear it into.
‘It’s too tempting. So plump and juicy. My hand reaches out automatically. I can’t control.’
The pink lady’s eyes well up with angry tears.
‘This is the reason we women are in purdah!’ she declares bitterly. ‘Because men can’t control! I suppose reshmi kebabs should also simper sweatily behind burqas at parties? So that hungry animals like you don’t leap up and rape them? Hullo, General Saab, I believe Squadron Leader Bilawal Hussain has been found?’
Startled at being included so abruptly in the conversation, Nikka nods stiffly.
‘Yes yes, it appears that Hussain has indeed survived his crash. He’s claiming a kill too – a Gnat, or a Hawker Hunter, I forget which.’
The pink lady’s tears, already in position, now start to fall fast.
‘He’s my nephew,’ she sniffles proudly. ‘My brother’s wife’s sister’s son! A darling boy! With a heart of a lion and,’ she looks pointedly at her husband, ‘so much discipline and self-control! Somebody told me he is here tonight?’
Nikka meets her eager gaze with a sour smile.
‘He is. But I entreat you to curb your excitement, madam, we haven’t verified his report yet. This downed Gnat may very well turn out to be a figment of his imagination. Besides, one downed Gnat does not a summer make! These PAF jokers have been absolutely decimated here in the East.’
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