Kamila Shamsie - Burnt Shadows

‘Slave Kings?’ Against her will, she was intrigued. ‘I assume they weren’t really slaves.’

‘Oh, yes. They were the first dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. Thirteenth century, Christian calendar. Qutb-ud-din Aibak, after whom the Qutb Minar is named, was the first ruler — he was a slave who rose to the position of general. His son-in-law, Altamash, also a former slave, was the second ruler. He’s buried there.’ He waved his hands somewhere behind the ruins of the great mosque. It struck him as he did so that this was how things should be — he, an Indian, introducing the English to the history of India, which was his history and not theirs. It was a surprising thought, and something in it made him uneasy. He had thought the world would change around him but his own life would stay unaffected.

‘India and all its invaders,’ Elizabeth said. Her eyes followed a pale-winged butterfly which flew out between the stone pillars and then reeled back, staggered by the heat. ‘How will all of us fit back into that little island now that you’re casting us out? So small, England, so very small. In so many ways.’

Sajjad looked at Elizabeth, leaning against a pillar, her body angled towards the figures near the Qutb Minar. Was it James or Hiroko who she looked at with such sadness? Or was she also thinking of her son? He thought for a moment of Henry Burton and sighed. He hadn’t realised how much he’d been looking forward to the boy’s return until James had mentioned — offhandedly, as though it were not really a matter of concern to Sajjad — that Henry would stay in England this summer. It will have devastated her, he thought, continuing to look at Elizabeth Burton — and her phrasing of ‘you’re casting us out’ conferred on him a sense of responsibility and authority which allowed him, for once, to address her in a moment when she clearly had her mind on other matters.

‘In fact, the story of the Slave Dynasty which I most love is that of Altamash’s daughter, Razia Sultana.’

‘Some tragic love story?’ Elizabeth’s tone conveyed something of her gratitude at being drawn out of her musings on the symbolic significance of the wasteland that filled the space between her and James.

‘Women do have roles in other kinds of stories,’ he said, a fountain of lines springing out from the corner of his eyes as he smiled. She gestured to him to come and stand in the covered corridor with her, out of the sun, and he accepted with a nod of gratitude. This sudden cordiality was unexpected, but welcome. ‘No, Razia Sultana was the most capable of Altamash’s children, far more so than any of his sons. So he named her his heir. Of course, when Altamash died one of the sons seized the throne, but Razia soon defeated him. She was an amazing woman — a brilliant administrator, a glorious fighter.’ Almost bashfully, he added, ‘If I ever have a daughter I’ll name her Razia.’

It was a moment of surprising intimacy. For the duration of a heartbeat Elizabeth allowed it to linger in the air between them, and then she gestured towards James and Hiroko.

‘Let’s join those two. You can give us all a history lesson about the tower.’

‘Minaret.’

‘That’s lesson number one. Do you know I’ve been here at least a dozen times, but I’ve never known anything about who built it or why.’

‘My history is your picnic ground,’ he said, but there was no accusation in the comment, only a wryness which she responded to with a smile.

James watched Elizabeth and Sajjad walk towards him with a sense of relief. Hiroko was acting very strangely — he almost thought he’d done something to offend her in organising this surprise picnic and leading her ahead of the other two to point out personally the highlights of the Qutb complex. Here she was, not walking around the great tower so much as prowling. He’d thought of her as a wounded bird when she first came to stay, but now he saw something more feral in her.

I have to get away, I have to get away, Hiroko thought, circling the minaret. She was nothing in this world. It was clear now. Better even to be a hibakusha than nothing. Last evening, when James Burton had whispered, ‘Tomorrow morning we’re all going to see Sajjad’s Delhi,’ she had felt her face stretch into a smile that didn’t seem possible. His world wasn’t closed to outsiders! The Burtons weren’t entirely resistant to entering an India outside the Raj! And she, Hiroko Tanaka, was the one to show both Sajjad and the Burtons that there was no need to imagine such walls between their worlds. Konrad had been right to say barriers were made of metal that could turn fluid when touched simultaneously by people on either side.

But when Sajjad had arrived on his bicycle, not quite looking at her, she knew he wasn’t taking them to his moholla. And James Burton seemed entirely to have forgotten that this trip had anything to do with Sajjad as he walked her through the complex with its crumbling structures, pointing out the stretch of ground favoured by polo players, the metallurgical significance of an ancient iron pillar.

She could feel her mind twist away from the inescapable conclusion she knew she’d soon have to face: she had to return to Japan.

‘James!’ Elizabeth said, coming to stand beside her husband. ‘Did you know Sajjad’s family came here from Turkey seven centuries ago?’

‘Young Turk, are you?’ James smiled at Sajjad.

‘No, Mr Burton,’ Sajjad said, not understanding the reference. ‘I’m Indian.’ He glanced at Hiroko, who had her back to all three of them, looking up at the Arabic inscriptions on the minaret. She was offended, he knew, but what could he do about it? He looked at James, as though considering something that had never occurred to him before. ‘Why have the English remained so English? Throughout India’s history conquerors have come from elsewhere, and all of them — Turk, Arab, Hun, Mongol, Persian — have become Indian. If — when — this Pakistan happens, those Muslims who leave Delhi and Lucknow and Hyderabad to go there, they will be leaving their homes. But when the English leave, they’ll be going home.’

Hiroko turned towards Sajjad, surprised and acutely self-conscious. She had been speaking to him of Konrad’s interest in the foreigners who made their homes in Nagasaki, and now she saw her words filtering into his thoughts and becoming part of the way he saw the world.

‘Henry thinks of India as home,’ Elizabeth said, seeing how wounded James was by Sajjad’s unexpected attack, and wanting to deflect it.

‘Yes.’ There was a tightening of Sajjad’s voice. ‘He does.’ And you sent him away because of it, he wanted to say, the sense of offence which had started as an act to impress Hiroko no longer feigned. He recalled it very well, the day her opposition to the idea of boarding school ended. He had been playing cricket in the garden with Henry when Elizabeth came out and told her son he was ‘such a young Englishman’. Henry had scowled, and backed up towards Sajjad. ‘I’m Indian,’ he’d said. The next day James Burton had told Sajjad how relieved he was that his wife had suddenly decided to withdraw all her ‘sentimental’ objections to sending Henry to boarding school.

‘Something you want to say, Sajjad?’

‘No, Mrs Burton. Only that I don’t suppose he’ll continue to think of India that way for much longer.’

‘For the best,’ Elizabeth said, looking around her, feeling something that was almost sorrow to think the descendants of the English would not come to the churches and monuments of British India seven centuries from now and say this is a reminder of when my family history and India’s history entered the same stream irrevocably and for ever.

‘Why is it for the best?’ Sajjad’s voice was as near angry as anyone had ever heard it. It was hard to say if Elizabeth or Sajjad was more surprised at his tone after eight years during which he used only excessive politeness as a weapon against her. But they were both aware that this would not have happened if Hiroko hadn’t been standing there, disrupting all hierarchies.