Уильям Николсон - Motherland

Jinnah gives this a moment of careful thought, then he nods his head.

The next day the conference resumes. The frustrated press photographers are allowed in, to record the historic meeting. The room is then cleared, and Mountbatten asks for formal acceptance of the plan. One by one the leaders accept. Jinnah gives his agreed nod of the head. Mountbatten then produces a thirty-four-page staff paper, raises it high above his head, and bangs it down on the table.

‘This paper,’ he says, ‘is headed “The Administrative Consequences of Partition”. You will find when you read it that time is of the essence. The longer we delay, the more the uncertainty will translate into unrest. I have therefore determined that the transfer of power will take place on August the fifteenth of this year. In ten weeks’ time.’

The leaders are silent with shock.

Immediately after this bombshell the press staff go into battle stations, to distribute the right texts to the right people at the right time, and to avoid news leaking out in a manner that might provoke riots on the streets. Larry goes with Alan, accompanying Mountbatten in the viceregal Rolls-Royce, to All-India Radio. A group of orange-capped sadhus shout out slogans as they enter the building, protesting against any possible betrayal of the Hindu cause. Larry sees to the newsreel men while Alan attends Mountbatten in his broadcast. When the speech is done, Mountbatten comes through to the studio to repeat it for the cameras. A recording of the radio broadcast is played, and Mountbatten moves his lips to fit the words as the cameras run.

As the filming is completed, Nehru begins his own radio address. They stop to listen.

‘We are little men serving great causes,’ says Nehru. ‘But because the cause is great, something of that greatness falls upon us also.’

Returning in the Rolls, Mountbatten, utterly exhausted, says, ‘I never want to go through all that again.’ Then he adds, ‘I do truly believe that Pandit Nehru is a very great man.’

After the shock announcement of the date for Indian independence, Mountbatten has calendars printed and distributed to all staff. On each day is printed a number indicating the days left to transfer of power. The viceroy and his senior staff, including Alan Campbell-Johnson, then fly to London for consultations while the India Independence Bill passes through Parliament.

For those left behind, the pressure of work eases. Geraldine Blundell announces her intention to do some sightseeing, and reminds Larry of his promise to show her Fatehpur Sikri. Syed Tarkhan, hearing them speaking, reveals that he is knowledgeable on Mughal history, and would be happy to show them the sights. Rupert Blundell agrees to join them, but when he learns the trip involves four hours in a car each way, with no facilities for guests at the destination, he changes his mind.

‘Too damn hot,’ he says. ‘You’ll regret it.’

But Geraldine is smilingly stubborn.

‘I want to see the deserted city,’ she says. ‘I may not get another chance.’

On Tarkhan’s advice they set off early, leaving Delhi at seven in the morning. They take with them a picnic lunch, a canteen of water, and a bottle of Lebanese wine. Tarkhan, in his capacity as guide and leader, sits in the front beside the driver. Larry and Geraldine sit in the back.

In anticipation of the great heat, Geraldine wears a light cotton dress that leaves her arms and her lower legs bare. Larry, sitting beside her, is acutely aware of the nearness of her golden skin. He finds himself remembering Nell, naked in the Life Room at Camberwell, and later naked in his arms in the green light of his digs. Geraldine looks out of the window as they drive, and asks Tarkhan constant questions about what she sees, but Larry has the feeling that she senses the physicality of his thoughts. There’s something in the way she moves her hands, from time to time smoothing her dress over her knees, that seems to be a response to his nearness.

‘Those women with baskets on their heads,’ she says to Tarkhan, ‘how far will they walk?’

‘For miles,’ says Tarkhan. ‘Perhaps all day. They’re taking fruit to sell. They go on until they sell it.’

At one point a young man on a bicycle dashes out from behind a house right into the road before them, and the car hits him, sending him flying. The driver stops at once and jumps out.

‘The poor boy!’ says Geraldine. ‘Is he all right?’

They see the driver haul the bike rider off the road and proceed to cuff him sharply about the head.

‘No!’ cries Geraldine.

‘Don’t interfere,’ says Tarkhan.

The driver returns, shaking his head.

‘Bloody fool should look where he’s going,’ he says. ‘My apologies, Sahibs.’

‘But is the boy hurt?’ says Geraldine as they drive on.

They see him climbing back on his bicycle.

‘This is India,’ says Tarkhan.

Geraldine says nothing for a while. When she speaks at last it’s clear she’s been pondering the meaning of this minor accident.

‘I wonder if we’ve really been all that good for India,’ she says. ‘I wonder what sort of a country it would be now if we’d never come.’

‘That is a question we can never answer,’ says Tarkhan from the front seat.

‘You think we should be quitting India, don’t you, Syed?’ says Larry.

‘Without a doubt,’ says Tarkhan. ‘But you know, for many of us it will also be a sad day. I am a navy man. I’ve been raised in a family that has deep respect for the motherland. It’s not so easy to throw off such things overnight. Then again, when I hear the British saying they are graciously giving us our freedom, I want to say, Excuse me, sir, by what right did you take our freedom in the first place?’

‘There was never any right,’ says Larry. ‘Only power.’

They are driving now between sunburned fields of brown earth, broken here and there by clusters of small green trees. The temperature has risen, and the air that rushes in at the open window is dusty and hot.

‘I don’t understand about power,’ says Geraldine. ‘I don’t understand about war, either. Isn’t there enough suffering in the world already?’

‘You will see, when we get to Fatehpur Sikri,’ says Tarkhan, ‘there’s a saying of Jesus inscribed on the victory arch: “The world is a bridge. Pass over it, but build no houses on it.”’

‘Where does Jesus say that?’ says Geraldine.

‘I thought Akbar the Great was a Muslim,’ says Larry.

‘So he was.’

He says no more. Geraldine falls into a doze, and as the car lurches on over the rough road her bare right arm comes to rest against Larry’s left side. He feels its slight pressure there, and from time to time glances at Geraldine’s face. Her eyes are closed, her lips very slightly parted. Somehow even in the heat of the car she manages to look fresh and lovely.

The last part of the journey is over a road that is cracked and fissured by the sun. The sharp jolting of the car wakes Geraldine.

‘Almost there,’ says Larry.

The car comes to a stop in the shade of a sheltering ashoka tree. Tarkhan, Larry and Geraldine step out into the burning noon. Geraldine puts on her straw hat and sunglasses and looks like a film star. Before them the track leads on to a gap in a ruined wall. An elderly man in a faded khaki shirt comes hobbling towards them and speaks with Tarkhan, bobbing his head repeatedly. Then he goes again.

‘We’re the only ones here,’ says Tarkhan. ‘We’re the brave ones, he says.’

He leads them up the rising track through the gap in the wall, and there before them, quite suddenly, is the abandoned city. Its palaces are built of the same red sandstone on which it stands, and stripped of all life as they are, seem to be sculpted from the land. Domes and turrets reach skywards on spindly pillars, atop vast structures that are themselves so pierced and open to the sky that they seem to be light and insubstantial.