CHAPTER 10

The Midnapore bazaar was a cacophony of the whole of India concentrated into a restricted space. The high yells of hawkers pierced Gene’s ears, the low grumbling of hagglers answering in turn. The din reverberated off the cement of the British-built structures, softening as it reached the mud walls and roofs of villagers’ huts. Malnourished horses waited outside the stalls, flies humming around festering sores on their backs. Iron pots clanked together as vendors cooked gulab jamuns and jelabies, the ghee swirling noxiously with the syrup. And folded into the center of it all was the pounding sound of rice-husking machines, their mechanical heartbeats pumping life from private chambers throughout the veiny network of streets.

The smell of mud mixed with cow dung stuck in the boys’ clothes. Mr. Hinton always joked that if he went to the bazaar and didn’t buy anything, he’d still come back with the smell of manure. Gene could usually tolerate it, sometimes not even notice it, but today all the smells and bodies and carts in the streets seemed exceptionally irritating to him. He flicked the bell on his handlebar several times, but its cheerful ding ding! made no headway. To his side, Lee had hopped off his bike and was walking it through the narrow street.

Gene got off his bike, too, and stepped over the shallow puddles of unidentifiable fluids. Damp hay marked where droppings lay. He smelled the bitter aroma of tea leaves, and up ahead he could see a tea stall, old and blackened with smoke, with a squatting shopkeeper straining tea through a dirty cloth next to his foot. The shopkeeper held the cup out to the boys as they passed by, and when they did not take it, the old man tipped it back and enjoyed it himself.

They flowed with the river of people until at last they reached the newsstand. At the dizzying sight of the newsprint, Gene realized with a sinking stomach that this was going to be harder than he’d thought. Mr. and Mrs. Hinton read the Bengali papers and often left them lying around the house, but Gene could not decipher the wayward tendrils of the characters the way his parents and even his brothers could. He couldn’t read it, and he knew how to say only a few phrases. It hadn’t mattered that much—their boarding school taught in English, and their parents knew enough Bengali to get them by without Gene ever needing to learn it himself. He wiped a bead of sweat from his temple and cursed himself that he had never picked it up even with his whole life spent here in Bengal.

He rummaged through the English papers instead, searching among the block letters for headlines of Simla. As he lost himself in the lines of text, the sounds around him melted together until he couldn’t make out anything from the muddle streaming through his mind. It was the heat, too, that blurred his vision as he skimmed each page, his gaze snaking up and down and over the words. Prince. Policeman. Punjab. Frustrated, he flipped the page over and scanned the photographs, Gandhi taking up the spread, Nehru on the next. This ship arrived carrying this official; that train arrived carrying that actress. He paused on a photograph from New York, with long lines of men dressed in heavy, wool pants. One man looked at the camera, his worried face frowning up at Gene from the page.

Suddenly, a hiss came to his ear. “Angrez!”

Gene whirled around and straightened as he clutched his handlebars with both hands, crushing the newspaper around the curve of the metal. He scanned the crowd but did not see a face that conceivably matched the voice he had just heard. People were milling about the streets, pushing against each other and crowding around this stall and that. Everything looked ordinary.

He had never heard the word spoken to him, but he knew what it meant. Telling himself it was nothing, he looked away and straightened out the paper in his hand.

“I went through that one already,” Lee said, grabbing it from him and placing it back on the stand. “Try this one.”

“But it’s today’s,” Gene said, grabbing it back.

At this, Lee sighed and threw his paper down in the dirt. Sweat showed under his armpits as he raised his arms in exasperation. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “Why’d we come all this way again?”

“You didn’t have to come,” Gene shot back.

“Then why’d you ask me?”

At that moment, Gene hated Lee for his immovable sense of logic. There was no winning arguments with him because everything he did was right. He noticed the way Lee’s bicycle leaned purposely against him, his hip jutted out just so to prop it up, leaving both hands free.

The overflowing crowd jammed every available outlet. A massive oxcart waited outside the tea stall of the old man—the whole street stopped for the driver’s tea. It would be impossible to get through again, especially going against the current this time.

Lee read Gene’s face. “We’ll just get an officer to escort us,” he said.

Gene peered as far as he could down the street, but not a single British topi bobbed over the heads of the people. It was the same in the opposite direction.

“There aren’t any,” he said. The crowd had taken on a strange sense of order, all faced the same way down the street away from them. He looked at the people straining over shoulders and heads to see what had drawn everyone’s attention. In the distance he could see signs with Bengali words but couldn’t make them out.

“Something’s happening,” Gene said.

“I don’t think we should be here,” Lee said.

The beating of the rice-husking machines sank under the roar of chanting voices and stomping feet. Gene climbed onto his bicycle pedals for a better view. As he craned his neck toward the source, the shrill ding-ding! of his bicycle bell startled him and he lost balance, stepping a foot down. An Indian boy as scrawny and dirty as the old tea seller stood in front of him, flicking the bell ding! ding! ding! and cackling at the sound.

Out of the crowd stepped two more boys, larger and older. One had long, ruffled hair covered in dust, a drooping dhoti too big for him, and a clear outline of his protruding sternum. The other had wide eyes and blinked often, almost continually; Gene did not like to look at them. One of them slapped the boy’s hand and the incessant ringing stopped. The boy with the wide eyes walked around Gene’s bike, reached out, and slid his hand over the padded, leather bike seat and the wicker basket on the front.

Gene hoped someone in the crowd would notice, but the wall of people paid no attention. He should have shouted something but did not.

The boy with the large eyes stopped and crossed his arms, blinking firmly at the bike. He glanced up at the other older boy and gave a quick nod. Suddenly he seized the handlebars and flung an elbow at Gene’s head, striking him on the ear and knocking him to the ground. Gene could only watch as the other boy lunged for Lee’s bike and shook it violently as Lee tried to hold on but failed.

“Hey!” Gene finally broke out, his voice barely audible over the chanting. “Help! Thieves!”

No one turned around. There was no end to the chanting. The younger boy gave his raspy cackle again, hunching over as if the spastic motion of laughing hurt him.

Lee reached out for the bike, caught in a ridiculous tug of war, holding tight to the back wheel as the Indian boy grasped the front and pulled. Then the Indian boy swung his fist into Lee’s eye and sent him staggering to the ground. The other one stepped toward him and kicked him in the back.

“No!” Gene cried out. “He’s the minister’s son! Padre Sahib ka beta!”

Scrabbling through the dirt, he tugged at the thief’s ankle. It was slippery with sweat, so he dug his nails into the skin. The boy whirled around and smacked him in the face. As he pulled back for another blow, a hand reached out from the crowd, grabbed the arm, and held it back. Next came a sack of potatoes swung forcefully into the boy’s chest.

The cackling boy had stopped now and yelled something in Bengali. The thieves grabbed the bikes and pushed through the crowd until it swallowed them.

“Please, sahib,” came a familiar voice.

“Arthur!” Gene almost cried. There his savior stood, braced against the current of people. Arthur extended a bony elbow toward Gene—all he could offer as his hands were full with bags.

“We’ve got to stop them!” Gene said, refusing the elbow.

Arthur dropped the sacks of groceries and knelt where Lee lay crumpled up. “Lee-sahib!”

Lee groaned and rolled onto his back. Gene saw for the first time his brother’s swollen eye, the bruise deepening quickly, and the blood trickling from a gash in his eyebrow. Lee coughed into the swirling dust and grimaced. He reached to his back, and Gene placed his own hand on it, only to make Lee flinch away at the touch.

“He’s not well,” Gene said to Arthur. “We must get him home. Can you walk, Lee?”

Lee groaned again. Taking this for the answer, Gene slipped his arm around him and attempted to pull him up but lost his grip. Lee’s body felt like a tub of bathwater, limbs wet with sweat sloshing this way and that. Arthur grabbed an arm and raised the boy to his feet. Gene marveled at the servant’s strength. He picked up the fallen produce, and the three of them hobbled toward a side street.

“Wait,” Lee panted after only a few steps.

“He can’t walk,” Gene said.

“No. The newspaper.”

“What?”

“I dropped it in the dirt. We should pay for it. Or at least put it back.”

Gene was speechless. He couldn’t believe Lee wanted to do something so ridiculous when all he could think about was getting out of here. But he knew his brother.

“Arthur, please do it,” Lee said.

The servant appeared torn between obeying and saving them. He took a deep breath, his face grim, and surveyed the crowd. “Sahib, we must go now. It is getting more dangerous.”

“Please.”

“Please, sahib!”

The crowd had started to move with considerable force, jostling around them in an unstoppable tide. If they stayed any longer, they would be trampled. A cluster of protesters with arms linked, bodies tight together, was coming their way. There was no time to argue. No longer caring about the newspaper, Gene tossed it aside and heaved his brother backward, reeling under his weight. His head was locked in the crook of Lee’s elbow, and he couldn’t turn to see where he was taking them. He could only look back at Arthur as he snatched the paper out of the dirt just as the linked protesters stepped between them. When they had passed, Arthur was no longer there.

The boys continued back toward the edge of the street, making their way through the crowd. With all the jostling, their pith helmets had fallen into the depths, but they carried on until they were backed up against a wall. Gene looked around the corner down a side alley. It was empty. Just a few more paces and they were out of it, washed up from the moving body of people.

Gene listened to the muffled sound of the chanting. Sinking against a wall, he wiped the sweat off his brow and flung it to the ground.

“Do you see Arthur coming back yet?” Lee said.

“No,” Gene breathed. “How do you think he found us?”

“Dunno. But don’t you get the feeling he’s always looking after us?” Lee sounded calm despite the purple shadows seeping to the surface of his skin. Gene examined him closely. Even though they were streaked with dust, Lee’s socks were still pulled up to his knees.

Gene didn’t know how to answer. For as long as he could remember, Arthur was always just there, so much a part of their lives as the very house they lived in. But it never occurred to Gene that Arthur cared about them or thought of them as anything other than his employers. At least, it never occurred to him until the judge arrived.

They waited in the alley for hours. But as the sun sunk below the rooftops and Arthur still didn’t appear, the small relief of being free from the rally—and escaping the thieves—began to fade. Gene shook Lee’s shoulder to make sure he was still conscious.

“Mm?” Lee murmured, not opening his eyes.

“He’s not coming back,” Gene said. “We should move on. How are we going to get home?”

“We’ll get a rickshaw.”

“We have no money.”

“People know us.” Lee pushed himself up and blinked his good eye open. “They’ll help us.”

“Lee, look around. Do you see anyone?”

Gene looked down the empty street and saw the outline of a woman sweeping her porch, clearing her home after the storm of people. He watched her swaying figure as it moved back and forth, the shook shook shook of the broom like echoes of the chanting. But she was there for only a moment. Like an apparition, she disappeared around the bend, the sound of the sweeping following her.

“There’s got to be someone here who will help us.” Lee shifted and winced. “Start knocking on doors. Someone will answer.”

“You’d better come with me. If they see your eye, they’ll be more likely to help.” Even as he said this, Gene thought of all the crippled beggars and orphans whom no one batted an eye at, whom even he had ignored. People were too skeptical or too embittered by the suffering in India to care about it at all—there was so much of it. How foolish of him to believe help would come so easily; who should care about two American boys who had never begged for anything in their lives, or slept on newspapers at the train station, or picked up half-eaten morsels from the gutter to ease their aching stomachs? After each unanswered knock, Gene wished more and more for Arthur to appear, even more than for his parents or for Uncle Ellis.

“Uncle Ellis!” His voice echoed off the closed door in front of them. “Did he leave this morning? Do you remember?”

“His car was still in the drive.”

“But he could have left after us, right? Which way to the club? He could be there! He was in and out of that place the whole first week here. And remember that woman we saw? If she’s a new guest, I bet he’ll want to get away from her. And where would he go?”

“The club,” Lee said. “But they’d never let us in.”

“They will if we mention Uncle Ellis.” Gene turned and faced back toward the route of the rally. The dirt lane was trampled with footprints, and everywhere scraps of paper littered the ground and scattered in the wind. Gene slung Lee’s arm over his shoulder and pulled him a few steps forward, then reached down and plucked one of the papers out of the dirt. He folded it and stuffed it into his back pocket.

“I know you know where it is,” Gene said. “Just tell me where to go.”

The British Officers Club of Midnapore was barely a tenth the size or luxury of the one Gene had glimpsed in Calcutta, but its wide steps and pristine white-cement walls were still enough to intimidate him as they approached. Hobbling step by step under the weight of his brother, he made slow progress up the drive and wished that it were after dark so people wouldn’t be around to stare. He knew he and his brother were out of place; he didn’t need the curious faces of the valets and the departing guests to confirm it. He searched among the cars for the judge’s, but they all looked the same. Continuing on, he kept his eyes on the murky light spilling from the windows and did not stop until he reached the entrance.

Two doormen in white kurtas and red pagris opened the doors for them, their faces registering no opinion whatsoever on the boys’ appearances. Gene realized, for the first time, what a kindness it was to open doors for other people. He was greeted by the smell of tobacco mingled with perfume, a sickly combination that made his head ache. Straightaway he settled Lee on a couch in the foyer and checked that he was still breathing. He tried to open one of Lee’s eyes to be sure someone was still there behind them, but Lee batted his hand away.

“Get up from there!”

A short, stout man at the front desk frowned at them. Gene managed a smile. “It’s all right,” he said. He regretted his American accent. Thinking it would be proper to shake the man’s hand as his father would, he walked over, wiped his palm on his shorts, and extended it. The man blinked.

“You’re not members,” he stated with no sign of a question.

“No,” Gene said, trying to peek through the glass doors into the parlor, but potted palms everywhere blocked the guests. “But if we could just step in there for a moment—”

“I can’t allow you to do that. Members only. And get him off of there. Both of you are filthy.”

Gene glared at the man. Was he new to India? Everyone knew there was always some degree of filth everywhere and on everyone. Even this man’s shirt collar was dampened with sweat, and bits of gravel were scattered on the entry rug from the drive. But that wasn’t the point.

“He’s injured,” Gene said, careful to keep his voice level. “There’s been trouble in the bazaar. We came looking for our uncle. You know him. Everyone knows him. Mr. Ellis, the judge.”

The man raised his eyebrows and glanced toward the parlor, then back at Gene. The sweat outline grew larger. He stepped around the desk. “One moment, please,” he said. He disappeared into the parlor, and Gene rushed to its door. The room was long and lined with plush sofas and low tables laden with teacups steaming in the evening heat. Servants manned the punkahs, fanning the guests in a synchronized rhythm. Down toward the end, the man had come to a stop before a seated gentleman facing away. The man murmured something. The judge made no movement. The man bowed low and spoke again. This time, the judge started and, turning in his chair, looked at Gene. He fired off a remark at the man and in no time was out of his chair and striding toward the door. As he came closer, Gene couldn’t help but notice how at home the judge looked here in the parlor of the club, the smoke swirling around him with each step, his small, blue eyes sparkling amid all the crystal and ladies’ jewelry.

“Good God, what’s happened to you?” the judge said, taking in Gene’s dirtied clothes. Then he caught sight of Lee, who looked as though he’d roll off the cushions at any moment. “Bloody hell!”

“There was a riot,” Gene said. “Some boys stole our bikes.”

“Did you report this to the police?” the judge said. He pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed at Lee’s brow, but the blood had dried. “Never mind. We’ll call a doctor straightaway.”

“No, it’s all right,” Lee insisted. “Nothing’s broken, I don’t think.”

“That’s it,” said the judge. “You can’t let a bunch of ruffians weaken you. Carry on like a man; very good, Lee.” Even so, he pulled Lee to his feet and guided him to the door, getting dust all over his suit.

Outside, Gene made out a gleaming, black car waiting in the drive, headlights glowing through the dying daylight. He saw the red turban of an Afghan soldier in the driver’s seat. He and the judge eased Lee into the back, and Gene slid in after. As the car roared to life and rolled down the road, Gene thought of the stolen bicycles and their pith helmets left behind. There was nothing to be done; he leaned against the door and shut his eyes. His legs stuck to the soft leather of the seats, the smoothest he had ever felt. He looked at the judge next to him, examining his evening suit with the finely tailored jacket and pressed shirt, white as the Himalayas. Gold cuff links peeked out from his sleeves. Though the judge was not exactly fat (despite the weight he’d put on), he commanded a huge presence within the cab. Gene never thought of him as someone who could keep a low profile.

Gene no longer wanted to know the truth about where Uncle Ellis had been before arriving in Midnapore. In fact, he thought, perhaps the judge hadn’t been lying at all.

“They called us Angrez,” he said to the judge. He glanced at the driver, who kept his eyes on the road.

“Who?” the judge said.

“I couldn’t see. Someone in the crowd. But why would they call us that? English? We are American.”

The car took a sharp turn around a corner and at last was out of the city, the silhouette of the hills rising before them against an orange, tiger-striped sky. The judge wound down the window, and the whapping sound of air pouring through the narrow slit filled Gene’s ears. But he still heard the judge’s answer.

“They don’t care if you’re American or British. You’re white, is what matters.”