Дэвид Даунинг - The Dark Clouds Shining

“It’s all in your head,” McColl had told her half seriously when she first mentioned it.

She had felt like kicking him, and apparently it had shown.

“When all you can see is the eyes,” he’d remarked, “it’s amazing how expressive they are.”

They were passing through the Queen’s Gardens now, gigantic palm fronds swaying above the tonga. “This is beautiful,” she murmured in Russian. As McColl had pointed out, two many Indians understood English for them to use it in public.

“Make the most of it,” he replied. “You may be stuck indoors for several days.”

“I know,” she said tersely. He had already explained that here in Delhi women—whether Hindu or Muslim—rarely went out alone. Even veiled, she would stick out like a sore thumb. “I sometimes think,” she added tartly, “that there’s a man inside you that likes the idea of the woman imprisoned at home.”

“You don’t believe that,” he said equably. “I just know how much trouble you have pretending to be someone you’re not. An admirable trait in itself but not a very useful one in these circumstances.”

“All right,” she said grudgingly. “Tell me more about where we’re going. Is it a big house? Who else lives in it?”

“It’s huge. And probably home to at least twenty people once you include the servants. Both of Harry’s parents died in the flu epidemic in 1919, and he’s the eldest of four brothers. They all live there, and at least three of them are married with children. As head of the family, Harry’s like a minor dictator—what he says goes, and no one would question his authority. Men or women.” McColl gave her a sideways glance. “I hope you’re not planning a full-scale agitation.”

“Not immediately,” she told him with a smile.

They drove past the Town Hall and into the bedlam of Chandni Chowk. On Caitlin’s side of the street, a line of customers in various stages of lathering, like frames from a moving picture, were awaiting a barber’s further attention. A man walked across the street in front of their tonga, holding two children with great delicacy, just a finger and thumb on each child’s wrist, guiding rather than pulling. She watched as they were swallowed by the throng on the sidewalk, fascinated. Such gentleness seemed more alien than any sight or smell.

“Your friend,” she asked McColl, “is he a member of the Indian National Congress?”

“Yes.”

“And he is rich. A lawyer, you said. Educated at an English school?”

“Winchester.”

“This National Congress party—is it an anti-imperialist party?”

“That depends on what you mean by anti-imperialist. They don’t like the empire they’re in.”

“Mmm. And are all the leaders rich people educated in England?”

“I don’t know,” McColl replied. “I don’t suppose there are many peasants and workers in the leadership, but most of those will be far too busy trying to keep their heads above water to attend conferences. From what I saw in Moscow, the Asian delegates at the Hotel Lux were mostly intellectuals from well-to-do families.”

“I suppose so,” she agreed. They had turned down a narrower street, past a row of shops whose insides glittered and shone.

“Goldsmiths,” McColl explained unnecessarily. “This is the Dariba Kalan.”

The name meant nothing to her. Their driver edged the tonga past a cow that was idly nosing through a pile of refuse, then continued down the narrow lane with its high walls and carved wooden doorways. Bright eyes in dark faces lifted to watch them go by, then returned to the business at hand.

McColl stopped the tonga at the end of the cul-de-sac and paid off the driver. Sinha was waiting in the outer courtyard, still dressed in the European suit, looking more than a little anxious. He was, Caitlin thought, extraordinarily handsome.

He closed the gate behind them before going through the process of a formal greeting, shaking McColl’s hand and offering Caitlin a namaskar , hands held together as if in prayer. “Some supper is being prepared,” he said. “But first let me show you your room.”

He led them through the archway, and up some winding stairs to a veranda that overlooked another courtyard, in which several seats were surrounded by a circle of tropical plants. An oil lamp above one doorway suffused the space with golden light, turning it into a mysterious grotto.

“What a lovely place,” Caitlin murmured.

“That is the women’s courtyard,” Sinha told her.

They reached the room. It was large, but the only items of furniture were a huge double bed and an old chest of drawers. A basin of water sat on the chest, and two towels had been laid out on the embroidered coverlet. Overlapping rugs in Asian styles covered the wooden floor.

“If there’s anything else you want…” Sinha said, looking first at McColl and then at Caitlin.

“Nothing,” Caitlin told him. “And thank you for taking us in.” If you’re ever in Brooklyn, she felt like adding, but first she had to be there herself. “I would be honored to meet your wife,” she added. “Whenever it is convenient.”

Sinha smiled and said he thought that would be possible on the following day.

Another thing occurred to her. “Have you any objections to my wearing Western dress while I’m here?”

“None at all,” Sinha said. “As you see, I wear it myself. Caitlin… I’m sorry, but Jack hasn’t told me your surname.”

“Hanley,” she said, because it required no explanation. And, she knew, because that was who she was again.

“Well, Caitlin. There are those in my country who wish to beat the English at their own game, and there are those who would rather go back to the game we played before they came. I am in the former camp,” he concluded with a smile. “And much as I like my wife in a sari, I also like her in a dress.” He turned to McColl. “Perhaps we could talk in the morning, before I leave for work?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’ll leave you to get settled in.”

Soon thereafter, food arrived: an enormous tray with at least a dozen different dishes. Once they’d eaten, different servants showed them to the bathing quarters. Caitlin threw water over herself with more energy than she’d known she had, and returned to their room to find a gorgeous red-and-blue sari draped across the bed.

Having slowly but surely mastered the art of putting one on over the last few weeks, she couldn’t resist the temptation.

“You look like a princess out of the Arabian Nights ,” McColl said from the doorway.

She raised her eyebrows. “You wouldn’t be thinking yourself a sultan?”

“I wouldn’t presume.”

“Very wise,” she said. “If you think of yourself as a servant, you could come over here and unwrap me.”

Some time later she snuggledup into his shoulder, one arm draped across his stomach. “Jack,” she began, “tell me again—why are we here?”

“In this house? I thought—”

“No, in Delhi. In India. I know we’ve talked about this,” she said. “I just need to be clear.” Though whether it was clarity or certainty she needed, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps, in this instance, they were one and the same.

He was silent for several moments. “To stop them is the obvious answer.”

“And why is that important to you?”

Another pause. “Because I like and admire Mohandas Gandhi and because saving his life seems a thing worth doing. Because I loathe the people who set this thing in motion. The sort of people who thought naming this operation after some homicidal general’s remark was a clever joke.” He sighed. “And, I suppose, because I feel I owe it to Cumming and Komarov,” he added, thinking how appalled the two men would be to find themselves sharing a cause.