‘Harry Coomer? Yes, I remember him, sir.’
‘He would have been a year or two your junior, I suppose? Did you know him closely? Closely enough to have learned much about his attitudes and interests?’
Perron was thinking back, attempting an image of the young Indian. The way Coomer came into focus was in white flannels making one of those sweeps to leg which even Perron who had been bored by cricket and played it badly recognized as elegant. The boy’s actual presence was otherwise misty. Only an ambiance remained; and a detail or two.
‘Actually,’ Perron said, ‘I don’t remember him being interested in anything much except cricket.’
He was about to add, Why, sir? Do you know him? But the answer was self-evident.
Perron had not thought of Coomer for years. He realized he had not even thought of him when he came out to India, perhaps because at school he had never really thought of Coomer in connection with any place but Chillingborough. Only a brown skin had distinguished him from the several hundred other boys undergoing the Chillingborough experience. Everything else, manners, behaviour, had so far as Perron could remember been utterly commonplace. Perron could not even recall Coomer speaking English with an Indian accent. What he did recall was asking Coomer a question about the difference between karma and dharma and being told politely that Coomer was afraid he didn’t know because although born in India he had grown up in England and couldn’t remember a thing about it and didn’t know anything about its peculiar customs and odd ideas.
‘Cricket,’ the officer said, smiling at last. ‘I’m afraid that his range of interests began to extend beyond cricket once he got back to this country. That expensive education turned out to be pretty much a waste. As so often happens in such cases. Did you know anything of his background?’
‘Nothing at all, sir. Nothing I can remember.’
‘No, well, I suppose you wouldn’t. Not being a close friend of his.’
Perron’s officer came back.
‘We’ve unearthed your driver,’ he said. ‘He’s waiting outside. I’m trying to whistle up some char. Would you like a mug before you tootle off?’
‘No, thank you. And thank you for your help this evening. I’m sorry the havildar was so unforthcoming. It would have been more interesting for you if he’d been one of the talkative ones. But the object of the exercise was achieved from my point of view.’ He seemed about to say goodnight and go but then stood his ground, as if thinking something out.
‘It’s interesting,’ he began, and turned to Perron. ‘There you have the havildar, whose father got a posthumous VC in the last war, and who I dare say was brought up to have his father’s example rammed down his throat day after day. One thing it will be worth finding out is how he behaved in action, when it came to it. My guess is he showed up badly and couldn’t face being shut in behind barbed wire for the rest of the war with men who’d seen how frightened he was. What do you think, sergeant? Psychologically, could it work that way?’
‘I think it could, sir.’
‘Well Kumar couldn’t face it either. I mean face the fact that he wasn’t what his father tried to make him and had led him to believe he was. You know nothing of this?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘When did you reach India?’
‘In 1943, sir.’
‘Ah well. It happened the year before. But I’m glad he wasn’t a close friend of yours. He kept pretty poor company out here. He and five of his disreputable friends were arrested in ’42 on a very serious criminal charge. They wriggled out of that, but we got them under the Defence of India Rules and locked them up as political detenus.’
As he spoke the officer kept his eyes firmly on Perron. And now continued so, as though demanding a comment or a question. The only thing Perron could think of to say was: ‘Was it you who arrested him, sir?’
‘Yes. It was. It was indeed.’
He nodded at Perron, and saluted Perron’s officer by touching his cap with the swagger cane; and went.
Perron returned his officer’s glance. He said, ‘Who was that, sir?’
‘Name’s Merrick. Described himself as involved at a high level with this INA tamasha. Frosty sort of bugger, wasn’t he?’
It was this man whom Perron saw first on re-entering the Maharanee’s living-room.
*
He was, however, under observation by three. As well as the one-armed Punjab officer there was a tall elderly white man in white ducks who leant on an ebony cane and whose left eye was hidden by a black patch secured by a strip of elastic round his head, and – the only man of the three not suffering from any physical disability – a good-looking young Indian in well-cut civilian clothes.
Sometimes, since the night on the docks, in the moment before sleeping, the last conscious image in the blackness behind his lids had been of Coomer, driving, sweeping, cutting or blocking a rapid and relentless stream of deliveries from an invisible bowler, in an empty field that was green, sunstruck and elm-shaded; devoid of sound. The boy’s face was never clear. The images conveyed little except a melancholy idea that they were a reproach of some kind, and by morning he had usually forgotten them. But the sight of the young Indian, combined with the shock of coming face to face with the Punjab officer, brought them back and for an instant he had an absurd notion that the young Indian was Coomer.
His hesitation on entering had been marked enough to be interpreted by the elderly man in the white ducks as shyness. The man smiled and said, ‘Come in.’
Approaching them, avoiding a direct glance at the Punjab officer, Perron said good-evening and then, ‘I’m afraid I’m an interloper. An officer sent me with a package for the Maharanee and she’s very kindly invited me to stay for the party. My name’s Perron. Sergeant Perron.’
‘Perron? Perron? That is a most interesting name. Any ancient connection with the Sergeant Perron who became a general and Governor of Hindustan under Daulat Rao Sindia?’
Perron smiled. It was rarely that the question was asked.
‘No, sir. In any case the Perron who served under Daulat Rao was really Pierre-Cuiller. Perron was his nickname.’
‘That I either did not know or have forgotten. Anyway, Mr Perron, at Aimee’s parties what you call interlopers are the rule rather than the exception. For instance I am the only one of us here with a personal invitation. But Aimee likes one to bring people along.’ The accent was un-English but Perron could not place it.
‘So let me initiate introductions,’ the man continued. He placed a skeletal hand on his breast, indicating himself and bowing slightly. ‘Dmitri Bronowsky. This is Mr Ronald Merrick, actually of the Indian Police but at the moment as you see employed as a major in the Punjab Regiment. And this is my secretary, Mr Ahmed Kasim, younger son of Mr Mohammed Ali Kasim, of whom you may have heard.’ Bronowsky put a hand on Perron’s shoulder, turned him round an inch or two, to read the shoulder tab. ‘Ah, now what does this mean, A E C?’
‘Army Education Corps, sir.’
The slight twisting of his shoulder enabled him to look directly at Major Merrick. In this harsh light the scar-tissue that disfigured the left side of the man’s face was revealed more unkindly than it had been in the shed on the docks, and the blue of the eyes – now recollected – was intensified. The look Perron got in return gave nothing away.
Bronowsky’s hand was still on Perron’s shoulder. Letting him free now he said, ‘How does one educate an army?’
‘It’s not so much a case of educating it, sir, but of finding ways of stopping it being bored.’
‘Nevertheless, you need teaching qualifications?’
‘Not always, sir.’
‘But you have such qualifications?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘A degree?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Bronowsky asked in what subject. Perron told him. The bearer entered their midst with a tray of drinks but this did not halt the old man’s catechism. Which university? Which college? Before
that what school had he attended?
‘A place called Chillingborough, sir.’
‘Indeed?’ Bronowsky hesitated. ‘How interesting. And what will you do after the war, Mr Perron? Go on to a course of post-graduate studies?’
Perron nodded. But the flow of questions could not be stemmed. In what subject? What aspect of Indian history? Why that one? Perron attempted to deflect the question and open the conversation out with a general comment about the narrowing range and increasingly esoteric nature of study in the post-graduate field but Bronowsky was not to be put off.
‘That is its charm and logic, surely. I expect you have found that being in India has encouraged you in your choice. Have you thought of staying on for a while after the war?’
‘Not really, sir. One tends to lose ground so quickly. The academic world is as competitive as any other.’
‘That is so. But one should perhaps sometimes ignore the professional competition and arrange matters in a way most advantageous to the scholar in oneself. You would easily find a temporary post in a university here and have plenty of opportunity to do original research. Either in a university or in one of the colleges. Our own college in the little state of Mirat is always short of well qualified teachers. In history, for instance.’
‘Are you its principal, sir?’
Major Merrick interrupted.
‘Count Bronowsky is Chief Minister to the ruler, the Nawab of Mirat.’
‘But emotionally I’m very attached to the college and always anxious to foster its interests because it was one of my first innovations. When I went to Mirat to advise Nawab Sahib, nearly a quarter of a century ago, there was no place of higher education in the state where clever young Hindus could go. There was only the Muslim Academy which taught boys to pray and recite the Koran and which turned out tax-collectors – if Ahmed here will forgive me for saying so, although he did not personally undergo such a traditional Islamic training, did you, Ahmed?’
‘What?’
‘Incorrigible!’ Bronowsky exclaimed, but laughed and put three fingers of the hand that held the ebony cane on the young man’s shoulder. ‘He seldom listens to conversations. He comes to parties only to drink as much whisky as he can and to make up to the prettiest girls. That apart, as a secretary he is quite efficient. And here are two very pretty girls. Aneila, my dear, was I in error in supposing your aunt said seven-thirty on? Are we as conspicuously early as we feel?’
‘Oh, no. Auntie’s parties begin when the first people arrive. Have I omitted anything? Auntie will be very cross if I have, so please tell me. Oh! Nobody is smoking! What a bad beginning. Please help yourselves. I will tell Auntie to hurry.’
She ran out, and in the passage called instructions presumably to some of the servants. Perron, the only guest who knew without looking where the cigarettes were, picked up the box and went first to Miss Layton who was now standing next to Major Merrick. He arrived at her side a few seconds behind the bearer with the tray of drinks. He noted the gleam of her unfussily set fair hair and then her dress which was not the one she had on when they met outside the block of flats on the Oval, but was not obviously labelled ‘party only’. A bag hung in the crook of her arm. The left hand was raised. She wore no engagement ring. She chose a gimlet and then, seeing the box, smiled at him and shook her head.
‘Thank you, not just now.’
Merrick declined too. He made no attempt at an introduction. Perron passed on to Bronowsky. ‘I always smoke these.’ Bronowsky said, opening a gold case and showing the contents: a row of oval-shaped pink gold-tipped cigarettes.
‘But only in the evening,’ Miss Layton said, from behind Perron.
‘Ah, so you remember my little anecdote. By the way you know Mr Perron of the Education Corps?’
‘Yes,’ came her voice, ‘we introduced ourselves in the hall.’
Perron offered the box to Ahmed Kasim but he declined. Bronowsky moved across to Miss Layton and Major Merrick, Perron put the box down, retrieved his drink and set about trying to make conversation with the young Indian.
‘Your father must be the Congress statesman, MAK.’
Kasim nodded, then reapplied himself to his glass of whisky. So far as Perron knew it was the first time he had spoken to an Indian whose father had been imprisoned by the raj. He did not know quite what to say to him. He could hardly apologize. He would have liked to ask what truth there had been in newspaper reports that Mr Kasim senior was realigning himself politically, abandoning Congress in favour of the League and Jinnah’s mad, divisive dream of a separate state for Muslims: Pakistan; but that was a tricky subject too. He wondered what on earth a son of a politician like MAK was doing acting as secretary to the Chief Minister to the Nawab of Mirat. There was generally no love lost between Congress and the autocratic rulers of the Princely states. But he could not ask that question either. He fell back on small talk.
‘Are you in Bombay for long?’
‘A few days.’
‘It must be interesting working for a Nawab’s Chief Minister.’
Ahmed Kasim nodded, but his attention was elsewhere. Hearing voices Perron glanced round. A group of English officers had come in, but they were obviously not the object of Mr Kasim’s study. A stunningly attractive Eurasian girl and two pretty Indian girls had come in too and were talking excitedly to Aneila. Two more bearers joined the one already in the room. After a few seconds Perron turned back to Kasim.
‘Is Mirat in relationship with the Crown through a Resident or through a provincial government?’
‘A Resident. Except that he isn’t.’
‘A non-resident Resident.’
‘It used to be through the provincial government but all that was altered some time ago.’
‘Generally, or just in Mirat’s case?’
‘I think generally. Something to do with the federal scheme. But that’s fallen through. Things do in this country.’
‘Where does the non-resident Resident reside?’
‘In Gopalakand.’
‘Is that far from Mirat?’
‘Far enough.’
‘Is that a good thing, then?’
Mr Kasim looked into his glass.
‘I’m sorry,’ Perron said. ‘Undiplomatic question. Is Count Bronowsky what we used to call a White Russian? A member of the emigration from the revolution?’
‘Yes.’
‘A soldier?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘I wondered about his loss of an eye.’
‘He says his carriage was blown up by a revolutionary when he was on his way to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. He’s lame in the left leg for the same reason.’
‘He mentioned being in Mirat for twenty-five years. Was he Chief Minister from the beginning?’
‘Not officially. Not until the Political Department was mollified.’
‘How was it mollified?’
‘I believe when they saw he was a good influence on the Nawab. Then they allowed the appointment. Dmitri says that nowadays some of the senior members of the Political Department behave as if they invented him themselves. Before he came the state was quite feudal.’
‘Does Miss Layton have any connection with Mirat? She and the Count seem quite old friends.’
‘She visited once. Her sister got married there. They stayed at the Palace guest house’.
‘She lives in Bombay?’
‘No, in Pankot.’
‘Pankot?’
‘You know it?’
‘Of it. Anyway, of its regiment, the Pankot Rifles.’
‘Her father was co of the 1st battalion. She’s in Bombay to meet him. He’s been a prisoner-of-war in Germany.’
Perron moved so that he could see her. Her back was to him. She stood in a group consisting of Count Bronowsky, two of the English officers, and Merrick. Merrick was watching him, still with that expression of giving nothing away although Perron fancied he now read into it an understanding that Miss Layton’s name ha
d just been mentioned and a warning to give nothing away himself, as if they both had something to hide: Perron his real identity and Merrick – what? Just the fact that they had met before or, primarily, the circumstances of that meeting? The interrogation of the Pankot Rifles havildar? Sarah Layton was one of Colonel Sahib’s daughters. Although he now recognized the name Sarah in this connection he could not remember the name of the other daughter – the one presumably married in Mirat. Merrick had referred to them both when questioning the havildar. Sarah mem and – mem.
He turned back to Kasim.
‘Is Colonel Layton back in India yet?’
Mr Kasim had to incline his head and ask him to repeat the question, but before he could do so there was a cry, ‘Ahmed, darling!’ and an elderly Indian woman in a green and gold saree brushed them apart to embrace the young man. ‘What are you doing in Bombay? Is your father here? I wrote to him after the Simla fiasco but he never replied.’
Perron stood back to give them more room. She ignored him. ‘Is it true what Lodi told me about your poor brother Sayed?’ she shouted. Perron moved away and did not hear Kasim’s reply. Gramophone music started up and the stunning Eurasian girl began dancing with one of the two Indian girls who had come in with her. The other rather reluctantly accepted a young English officer as a partner but talked to the Eurasian girl as they moved round in the limited space available. So far the services were represented entirely by officers. Perron was the only non-commissioned man in the room. Four Indian women, neither young nor handsome, had settled themselves on a long settee and were in conversation of the kind that did not invite interruption. The servants had multiplied and the room was quite full. There was still no sign of the Maharanee.
He made his way through the room towards the hall. At the door he stood aside to let in a middle-aged, portly, red-faced English civilian in open-necked shirt, white duck trousers and black cummerbund. The civilian said, ‘Hello, Sergeant, where’s the bloody bar, then?’ and looked ready to talk but Perron, indicating the direction, went through. There were more people in the hall. A servant stood at the front door staring at the wall above it where there was what looked like a bell-box, which in a sense it turned out to be because an orange bulb inside it suddenly lit up and the servant promptly opened the door and admitted two more guests. Perhaps the same sort of signal was given in the servants’ quarters. Perhaps there was a bell-light watcher on the staff. Perhaps the Maharanee didn’t like the sound of bells ringing. He was glad to have the question basically cleared up.