Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

Here, Dolly, who had been growing increasingly puzzled, broke in. ‘But, Uma,’ she said, ‘if what you’re telling me is true, then why have I never heard of the League? The papers are always full of Mahatma Gandhi, but no one ever speaks of your group.’

‘The reason for that, Dolly,’ said Uma, ‘is that Mr Gandhi heads the loyal opposition. Like many other Indians he’s chosen to deal with the Empire’s velvet glove instead of striking at its iron fist. He cannot see that the Empire will always remain secure while its Indian soldiers remain loyal. The Indian army will always put down opposition wherever it occurs — not just in India, but also in Burma, Malaya, East Africa, no matter where. And of course, the Empire does everything possible to keep these soldiers in hand: only certain castes of men are recruited; they’re completely shut off from politics and the wider society; they’re given land and their children are assured jobs.’

‘What do you hope to do then?’ Dolly asked.

‘To open the soldiers’ eyes. It’s not as difficult as you might think. Many of the League’s leaders are old soldiers. Giani Amreek Singh for instance — do you remember him? He was the distinguished Sikh Giani who came to the pier today, remember?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll tell you a story about him. I first met him in California, many years ago. He’s an old military man himself: he’d risen to the rank of a junior NCO in the British Indian army before deserting. The first time I heard him speak, he talked about the necessity of opening the eyes of Indian soldiers. After a while I said to him: “But Gianiji, you served in this army yourself; why did it take you so long to understand that you were being used to conquer others like yourself?”’

‘And what did he say?’ Dolly asked.

‘He said: “You don’t understand. We never thought that we were being used to conquer people. Not at all: we thought the opposite. We were told that we were freeing those people. That is what they said — that we were going to set those people free from their bad kings or their evil customs or some such thing. We believed it because they believed it too. It took us a long time to understand that in their eyes freedom exists wherever they rule.”’

Dolly acknowledged this with a smile and a nod. ‘But what else, Uma? Did you ever meet anyone? A man? Did you never talk of anything but politics with your revolutionaries?’

Uma gave her a wan smile. ‘I met many men, Dolly. But we were always like brothers and sisters — that’s how we spoke to one another, bhai and bahen. As for me, because they knew that I was a widow, I think the men looked to me to be a kind of ideal woman, a symbol of purity — and to tell you the truth, I didn’t much mind. That’s the thing about politics— once you get involved in it, it pushes everything else out of your life.’

Uma woke the next morning to find that breakfast had been served on a veranda that looked down the slope of the mountain, towards the brilliant blue of the Andaman Sea. Neel and Timmy were leaning on the balcony’s rail, talking about cars. Alison and Dinu were listening without joining in. Looking at them, it occurred to Uma that even until the day before, she would not have known them if she’d passed them in the street. Yet now, in their faces, she could see inscribed the history of her friendships and the lives of her friends — the stories and trajectories that had brought Elsa’s life into conjuction with Matthew’s, Dolly’s with Rajkumar’s, Malacca with New York, Burma with India.

‘The children’—here they were, standing in front of her: a day had gone by and she had not said a single word to any of them. In San Francisco, before boarding, she’d gone into a shop to buy presents and had ended up wandering off in the direction of the baby clothes and rattles and silver cups. It was with a jolt that she’d recalled that ‘the children’ were almost adults now — that Neel was twenty or thereabouts, that Dinu and Alison were sixteen and Timmy just two years younger. It occurred to her that if she’d had children of her own, they would have been of the same age, they would all have been friends — the canvas of a lifetime’s connections would have acquired the patina of another generation. But that was not to be, and now, listening to her friends’ children as they bantered in the shorthand of their youth, Uma felt oddly shy: trying to think of things to say to them, she realised that she had no idea what they did with their time, the things they thought about, the books they read.

She felt herself slipping into a silence that would become, she knew, irremediable if it were allowed to persist. So, because she was the kind of person she was, she did exactly what she would have done at a political meeting: rising to her feet, she called them to order: ‘I have something to say, so please listen. I feel I must talk to each of you on your own, or I’ll never know what to say to any of you. .’

Their eyes widened as they turned to look at her. She thought to herself: what have I done? I’ve scared them off; I’ve lost them for ever. But then, as the meaning of what she’d said dawned on them, they began to smile; she had the impression that no adult had ever spoken to them like this before; no grown-up had ever thought to seek them out for their company.

‘All right then, Alison, let’s go for a walk.’

From then on, it was easy: they seemed to want to show her round the estate, to go with her for walks. They called her ‘Auntie’ and this was oddly pleasing too. Soon they were not just ‘the children’ any more; each was someone she could recognise: Timmy was the confident one, who knew exactly what he intended to do: he wanted to go to America, to study, just as Matthew had, and then he wanted to go into business, on his own. Neel was a blunter and softer version of Rajkumar: she could see his father in him, quite clearly, but overlaid by a generation of wealth and comfort. Alison was a bit of an enigma, sometimes quiet and moody, but on occasion, wildly exuberant, full of laughter and sharp, intelligent conversation.

Dinu was the only one who left Uma feeling at a complete loss. Every time she tried to talk to him he seemed sullen, dour, and such observations as he occasionally had to offer were usually tart to the point of sourness. When he spoke, it was in odd staccato bursts, swallowing half his words and shooting out the rest: a manner of speech that made her afraid of saying anything, for fear that she might appear to be interrupting him. It was only when Dinu had a camera in his hands that he seemed to relax a little: but of course it was impossible to talk to someone who had no mind for anything but his viewfinder.

One morning, Alison said to Uma, ‘There’s something I want to show you. Can I take you for a drive?’

‘By all means.’

Dinu was well within earshot and the invitation was extended in such a way as clearly to include him. But Alison’s offer seemed to cast the boy into an agony of shyness. He began to back away, making a great show of dragging his right foot behind him.

‘Dinu, won’t you come with us?’ Alison said.

‘I don’t know. .’ He went pale and began to mumble in confusion.

Uma was watching him closely and she knew suddenly that the boy was secretly infatuated with Alison. She was tempted to smile. Nothing would come of it, she could tell: they were as different as could be, he a creature of the shadows, she an animal that craved the spotlight. He would spend his life nurturing unuttered yearnings. Uma was tempted to grip him by the shoulders, to shake him awake.