City of Ghosts (20 page)

He turned to look at the crucifix once more, still amazed that it had remained standing when everything around had
been reduced to nothing. He wondered at its significance – if it meant anything at all. As far back as he could remember – in his native village – his half-crazed grandmother had told him tales. There were signs of God in everything, she said: in the warmth of a stranger's smile, and the flight of birds and the taste of a mango. In the waves of butterflies that erupted during the spring, and in the fat, life-giving droplets of rain that soaked you to the skin and made the gulleys and paths run with water. But she hadn't meant this literally. The crucifix was supposed to be a sign of God. It was literal.

‘When a man is happy,' his grandmother had told him, ‘he will not seek God. He will not see God, nor will he listen to his teachings or abide by his signs. But when a man is in strife, when he is in peril, then God will seek that man out. He will show him his signs, make them clear . . . Do you understand, little one?'

Bissen recalled shaking his head in confusion.

‘Man does not always have faith in the Lord,' his grandmother had explained. ‘But our Lord will never lose his faith in Man. One day, when you are older, you will understand. Man is the lover who takes his wife for granted. God is the wife, forever holding onto her faith in Man—'

‘What nonsense are you teaching the boy?' Bissen remembered his grandfather shouting.

‘What would
you
know?' his grandmother had yelled in reply.

‘God is the
wife
? That kind of blasphemy will send you to hell, you foul hag.'

‘Better a foul hag than a demented fool,' his grandmother had countered.

Bissen smiled to himself as he recalled her words. The crazy, wizened old woman who had always carried the odour of rotting onions and sour milk – the stench of a death not yet met, she'd called it, and . . .

Rotting onions . . .

Bissen heard the blast before he felt it. A grenade, launched by hand, from the storeroom where the cat had been hiding. It sent him hurtling onto a mound of rubble. He landed awkwardly, and the right side of his body went completely numb. The ringing in his ears returned. Blood thumped in his head . . .

The German was upon him quickly, sobbing and screaming. He stabbed down at Bissen with his bayonet. Again and again . . . Bissen felt nothing. There was no pain. This must be what death feels like, he told himself. From somewhere he heard the muffled report of a rifle, and then another. The German stopped screaming and slumped to the ground. Bissen heard other voices, shouting in Punjabi. He felt a hand on his head. Heard Atar Khan's voice . . .

As Bissen Singh faded, his grandmother's voice rang loudest in his head and told him again about signs from God . . .

GURDIAL SAT ON
an upturned wooden crate in the centre of the market, searching the faces of everyone who passed by. It had been nearly two months since Sohni's father had set him his task. Two months, and he was no nearer to discovering what the most valuable thing in India was. And if he didn't know what it was, how could he possibly know where to look? Now he was desperate – and fully aware that, on the eve of Vaisakhi, he was about to fail. There was no time left in which to do anything at all. All he could do was sit and stare at the crowds – a sad, solitary, pathetic failure.

All around him Amritsar seethed with tension and rage. The anti-British protestors were agitating for all they were worth and the British were responding in kind. But as the revolutionary tumult gathered pace, Gurdial could only sit and wonder. He had not seen Sohni for over two weeks, heeding her warnings about
them being discovered, and he missed her. His chest felt hollow and his head frayed around the edges. He slept when he was hungry and ate when he felt tired and nothing seemed to fit into anything else.

And added to all that was an unshakeable feeling that something was wrong with the world. Deep inside, he sensed that there was a great evil at large, an evil so powerful that it would destroy all that it touched. But through the long, lonely hours when he should have been sleeping, he couldn't work out what that evil was or where it was coming from. It was just there, and it was coming closer.

Darshana watched the Chinaman as he swirled water around a wooden bowl in the early morning light. They had been in the garden watching the water go round for more than fifteen minutes and Darshana was becoming increasingly impatient.

‘What do you see?' she asked again.

‘Ssshhh!' replied the Chinaman. ‘I must concentrate.'

‘You've been saying that since you began!' spat Darshana.

The Chinaman grinned at her. ‘There is much that you must learn about the dark arts. You cannot rush these things.'

He began to rotate the wooden bowl once more as Darshana looked at his long, bony fingers and claw-like, yellowing nails. This time, within seconds, he began to see something. ‘It's coming,' he told her.

‘Hurry up and tell me what you see!'

‘Trees . . . I see trees and a clearing. A stream . . . They are both there.'

Darshana peered into the bowl and saw nothing but water. ‘Sohni is there?' she asked.

‘Yes,' he replied.

‘And the boy?'

‘He is there too – I can see him clearly . . .'

Darshana peered in again. ‘What are they doing?'

The Chinaman cackled. ‘They are doing what all animals do in the springtime. What you once did, long before you were married, with more than one man—'

‘How dare you speak to me like that!' she shouted.

‘I dare because I can,' he told her quietly. ‘I dare because you asked me to help you with your troubles. If I can see into the souls of your husband and your stepdaughter, then I can see into yours too.'

‘I was young,' she said, attempting to excuse her past.

‘It is of no consequence. You do not pay me to judge you.'

Darshana nodded. ‘What else do you see?' she asked.

‘I see butterflies coloured like the summer sky,' he continued, ‘and toads sitting by the stream—'

Suddenly he cried out in horror and threw down the bowl. It hit the ground and smashed into three equal pieces.

‘
What?
' demanded Darshana.

The Chinaman looked up at her, his face pale.

‘What did you see?' she asked again.

He shook his head slowly. ‘Danger,' he told her.

And then, without another word, he took a knife from his pocket and used it to cut two straight lines into his left forearm. They began to ooze blood immediately.

‘What on earth are you doing, you crazy old dog?' asked Darshana.

‘Protecting myself,' he replied. ‘And you too . . . Trust me.'

Darshana shook her head and went back inside, ignoring the old fool. She had much to tell her husband.

Gulbaru was standing at the entrance to the kitchen sucking an orange.

‘It is as you feared,' she told him.

‘What are you on about, you stupid woman?'

She ignored him and thought about the day she would be free of him; a day that was fast approaching. ‘Your daughter has been cavorting with the orphan,' she told him with a sneer. ‘That which she should have held onto has been given away . . .'

The orange dropped from Gulbaru's hand and rolled away across the dusty floor. ‘You are sure?' he said in a whisper.

‘The Chinaman has just seen it with his own eyes,' she replied, without explaining how.

Gulbaru felt the rage as it began to swell inside him like a tornado. His eyes glazed over and his cheeks began to burn. He threw out a fist and knocked his wife sideways.

‘
She dies!
' he yelled as Darshana steadied herself.

‘I'll do it,' she offered, tasting the blood he had drawn with his punch. And then, she thought to herself, as you sleep I'll cut your throat from ear to ear.

Gulbaru looked at her and shrugged. ‘And when you've finished with her, get rid of the Chinaman too.'

‘But he is helping us,' she replied.

‘He's helping his own pockets,' Gulbaru insisted. ‘No more!'

‘As you wish,' said Darshana.

But there was no way she was going to kill the Chinaman. He was her most loyal ally. She resolved instead to rid herself of Gulbaru and inherit his wealth.

‘The bitch first,' she said out loud.

‘Did you say something?' asked Gulbaru.

‘No,' she told him. ‘It was nothing.'

The marketplace was packed as usual, buzzing with people. The woman stood by the fruit stall with Mohni. She was watching Gurdial as he made his way along the street.

‘Things are beginning to come to a head,' she warned the old man, ‘and there will be danger.'

‘I understand,' replied Mohni. ‘What would you have me do?'

The woman took his hand. ‘You have always been my father – even when I
had
a father. Now you must be a father to Sohni.'

Mohni shrugged. ‘I am that already,' he said softly.

‘They plot to kill her today,' she told him. ‘It will be the witch and the Chinaman who come for her . . .'

The colour drained from Mohni's face and his hands grew cold. ‘Are you certain?'

‘I am
absolutely
certain,' the woman reiterated. ‘They will do it this evening. I will be back before then but in the meantime you
must
protect her.'

‘I shall,' replied Mohni. ‘No harm will come to her – you have my word.'

‘I knew I could trust you. But you are in grave danger too, and you must watch your own back as well as Sohni's.'

Mohni nodded. ‘I promise.'

‘I will not be long.'

‘Don't worry,' said Mohni. ‘Sohni is the only reason I have for being alive and I will honour the promise I made to her mother.'

A tear fell down the woman's left cheek – a tear so bittersweet that it would have tasted of ginger root and sugarcane juice. ‘You have been good to Sohni and good to the memory of her mother. You are truly one in a million men.'

‘No, no,' replied Mohni. ‘I am just an old goat with too much time on his hands.'

‘I will return as soon as I can,' the woman said. ‘Now go – keep watch till I return . . .'

Mohni waved goodbye and turned to go back to the house. He had to find a way of getting Sohni out of there. When he looked round for the woman once more,
she was gone. And further into the marketplace, the boy had vanished too.

The woman stood in front of Gurdial and waved a mango in his face. The fruit looked ripe; its skin orange and red with patches of yellow. Gurdial studied it before staring into the woman's face. How could she have a ripe mango at this time of year?

‘It looks delicious, doesn't it?' she said to him.

Gurdial nodded. The woman had pale skin like that of a white woman. Her eyes were amber jewels and her smile made Gurdial long for his mother. She wore a white
salwaar kameez
and a black shawl over her head. There was an air about her – a sense of calm. Gurdial found himself smiling at her.

‘Would you like me to cut you a slice?' she asked, returning his smile.

Gurdial nodded and watched as she produced a small knife from nowhere. His eyes searched her clothes for pockets but found none. The woman cut away a juicy wedge of mango flesh and held it out to him.

‘Here,' she said. ‘Take it.'

Gurdial took the slice. The sweet juice ran through his fingers and dripped to the ground. He held it up and bit into it. The tasty sap flooded into his mouth – so much nectar from such a small piece of fruit . . . He looked up at the woman and wiped his lips on his forearm. She mocked him gently with her smile.

‘It is the best mango I have ever tasted,' he told her truthfully. ‘Where did you get it?'

She shook her head. ‘It's not about where it came from,' she said mysteriously. ‘It's about how much you wanted it . . .'

Gurdial gave her a quizzical look. ‘I don't understand . . .'

‘Mango is your favourite fruit. You always long for the new season to begin, do you not?'

He nodded in amazement. How had she known?

‘Perhaps then, if you were to say what the most precious thing in the whole of India is, for you it would be a mango?'

Gurdial got down from his perch with a start. ‘But how do you—?' he began, only for the woman to interrupt him.

‘There is
much
that I know,' she told him. ‘And very much more that
you
do not, Gurdial.'

As the poor boy's eyes bulged from their sockets, the woman smiled, clicked her fingers and made the marketplace vanish.

Gurdial saw that he was standing on a beach. Not that he knew it was a beach, for he'd never seen one before and did not know what it was called. He looked out to sea and saw small boats moving towards the shore, their sails puffed out with the breeze. The sun rode high in the sky and its heat made Gurdial feel light-headed. He turned, sensing that the woman was close, and found
her sitting on the sand with the mango still in her hands. For some reason, instead of feeling panic, Gurdial felt calm, as though some inner peace had descended upon him.