The Wheel of Surya. Jamila Gavin

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      So Marvinder pushed and pushed till her arms ached. Edith would have let her push forever but, exhausted, Marvinder finally stopped and went back to twisting flowers by the hedge.

      ‘Are you going?’ asked Edith petulantly.

      Marvinder shrugged a ‘maybe’.

      ‘Would you like a turn?’ asked Edith, instinctively bargaining to keep her new companion.

      Marvinder looked at her with a big grin and ran over to the swing. But when Edith pushed her, she pushed with such ferocity that Marvinder began to feel afraid. She could feel the hands thudding into the small of her back. She could hear the hissing of her breath and the enraged grunt which accompanied each push of the swing. She wanted to get off.

      ‘Stop! I’ve had enough!’ cried Marvinder.

      At first, Edith took no notice. She thrust the swing forward as hard as she could, sometimes tugging at the rope to make it twist and spin. Marvinder thought she would be flung off.

      ‘Stop! Please stop!’ Her voice rose in panic.

      As if awoken from a dream, Edith stopped.

      Marvinder dragged her feet on the ground to slow herself down, then jumped off. The two girls stared at each other, like strangers, unsure of themselves. Marvinder lowered her gaze. ‘I’m going back to my ma,’ she murmured, and walked away.

      ‘Goodbye then,’ said Edith coldly. She eased herself back on to the swing, and began her fruitless wriggling as she tried to get it going on her own.

      Somewhere across the compound, the dove continued its soulless cooing. ‘Cru croo, cru croo, cru croo.’

FIVE

       Govind

      One day, Govind returned home unexpectedly. They already knew in the village that he had arrived. Someone had seen him getting off the train, and then another noticed that instead of coming straight home, he had first called in at the Chadwick bungalow. At last, when he did appear at his father’s door, it was, he said, with important news.

      Everyone waited till evening, when his older brothers got home from the fields, the buffaloes had been milked and supper eaten.

      Then they congregated round his father’s charpoy, which had been pulled out into the courtyard. The old man, Chet Singh, sat in the middle of the bed solemnly sucking on his hookah. Madanjit Kaur took up a position of importance, cross-legged on the top right-hand corner of the bed. Govind was made to sit at the foot, while his brothers and their wives squatted in a semicircle on the ground chewing betel nuts and waiting with curiosity.

      Only Jhoti preferred to stand. Rocking Jaspal in her arms, she looked on from outside the circle. Her face had an anxious expression as if she dreaded what she might hear.

      Marvinder watched them from the edge of the pond. She had been washing dishes; but although her hand automatically dipped into the little hollowed-out crater of charcoal ash, which she smeared and scoured round the metal plates and pans, her eyes were fixed on Govind’s unsmiling face.

      What was he going to tell them?

      Feverishly, she scooped up the water, sluicing the dishes clean, anxious to be finished so that she could creep nearer and listen.

      ‘I am going to England,’ she heard him say.

      Marvinder didn’t know where England was, but judging by the consternation his words produced, she knew that it was somewhere extraordinary.

      At first there was a babble of excited voices, while everyone talked at once. Jhoti stopped rocking her baby and looked dazed. Marvinder gathered up the clean dishes and carried them to the kitchen, her eyes hardly leaving her father’s face as she went. Then she came back and stood by her mother. ‘Ma!’ she whispered. ‘Where is England?’

      ‘It’s where the Chadwicks come from,’ Jhoti replied.

      ‘Mr Chadwick sahib always wanted me to go, you know,’ Govind continued. ‘I didn’t say anything before, because I didn’t want you thinking too much when it all depended on my getting a B. A. in law.’

      ‘B. A? What is B. A?’ asked one of his brothers.

      ‘A degree,’ replied Chet Singh, knowledgeably, although he wasn’t quite sure what that was.

      ‘Yes, that’s right,’ nodded Govind proudly. ‘I now have a B. A. from Punjab University. In fact, I came top in my year.’ He spread out his hands with triumph, but when he saw their blank faces, and knew that his family had no understanding at all of his achievement, he dropped them helplessly to his side.

      ‘Look! I have something to show you.’ He opened up his worn and battered attaché case, which had lain at his feet, and carefully drew out a large, framed photograph.

      Everyone craned forward with fascination. No one in the family had ever been in a photograph before.

      ‘Govind, is that you, Govind?’ they cried in amazement.

      Staring out of the picture, with a look of stiff importance, was Govind. His turban was neatly bound and his beard waxed and shaped into his jawline. Instead of white, cotton, Indian pyjamas and waistcoat, he wore a smart, western-style suit with shirt and tie, and flowing over the top was a black academic gown edged with ermine. In his hands, which he held prominently up to his chest, was a rolled-up scroll, tied with a ribbon.

      He pointed triumphantly. ‘That’s my degree! With that, I will be able to get a good job and earn a lot of money,’ he said.

      Madanjit Kaur couldn’t resist a regretful glance at Jhoti, as though she thought, Huh, we married Govind off too soon. A man with a B. A. might have got himself a much higher wife than her.

      ‘Then why do you need to go to England?’ asked his father.

      Govind leant forward, his face flushed pink with enthusiasm. ‘You must know what’s going on in the country. You must know that very soon, in a year or two, we’re going to kick the Britishers out and we will be independent. Armritsar and Lahore are seething with it, I tell you. The whole of India is seething with it. There is even talk of new homelands. Perhaps we Sikhs will get the Punjab back as our homeland. This man Tara Singh – you should hear him! What ideas he has, I tell you. And then there is the Muslim League! It is talking about a new country for Muslims which they will call Pakistan. They march around shouting, “Pakistan Zindabad!” The Britishers send out troops to crush riots, and hundreds of people are in prison, but it’s no use. We’re going to throw them out!’

      ‘What kind of rubbish is all this?’ demanded old Chet Singh, frowning. ‘Is this what you have been learning in the cities with all your books and education? What use is a B. A. if you are going to tear the country apart?’

      ‘India was full of separate kingdoms once!’ retorted Govind. ‘It was just the British who forced us all into one piece just to suit themselves. Now we have to kick them out and do what’s best for us.’

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ