Revolutionary Hearts (7 page)

“It’s all just a matter of who understands and who doesn’t.” The crackle of the flames was interrupted by the low baying of a wolf somewhere far off behind her. Goosebumps rose on her arm. Even a warm fire couldn’t protect someone from the world.
Nowhere was safe
, the wolf seemed to say.

“Understands what?”

“The Jallianwala Bagh massacre.” A lump rose in her throat. Parineeta swore she heard the screams of the fallen in her head as she gazed into the fire. “A peaceful group of men, women, and children met to protest the arrest of two community leaders. They went against the recent rule of a curfew for all Indians. A general ordered his soldiers to fire onto the crowd.” She bit her lip until she tasted blood. “None were armed. They had no way of escaping or fighting back.”

Silence descended between the two for several seconds.

“I cannot even imagine.”

She felt a lump form within her throat. “Sometimes I can. Hindustanis of all different ages. Grandmothers and babies. None were spared. The soldiers cornered them against walls and gates and shot at them.” Her voice cracked, in spite of how hard she sought to control her tone. “Some jumped into wells.” She heard the cries of women and children as they splashed into watery depths, favoring death by drowning over death by bullets. She could see the desperate few who remained alive clinging to the metal gates, begging those outside to open up until they, too, became riddled with bullets. She heard the cry of her own mother.

It wasn’t until Warren had placed one hand over hers that she realized she’d been clutching at her sari skirt. She jerked her hands away, releasing the crumpled fabric.

“The reports say 370 died,” he said softly.

Parineeta glared at him. As much he could try to empathize, he would never understand. His perspective was too clouded by privilege. “Your reports are wrong. Locals say close to 1,000 people died that day.” She swallowed hard as she wiped away the tears welling up in her eyes.
No.
She would not cry in front of him. “My mother was visiting a friend in Amritsar at the time of the massacre. She never came home.”

Whenever she tried to picture what happened, she always imagined her mother in different positions, in one vision running toward the gates until a bullet gunned her in the back, in another vision leaping into a well and drowning at the bottom, in another… She couldn’t hold back anymore. The dam broke, causing tear-stained paths to stream down her cheeks. “Do your people not see us as humans?”

“I heard that the brigadier general who gave the orders didn’t know that Jallianwala Bagh was in a closed space. He thought the protestors would be able to leave.”

And outrun bullets aimed at their backs? “Oh, yes, now it makes everything so much more understandable to know he opened fire in an area he knew little about.” She swallowed hard. “Are we worth so little that we can be shot down for no reason?”

Warren brushed his thumb against her cheek, swiping at the trail of tears. His soft touch contrasted the tightness in his voice. “You’re worth ten times the lot of them. And I’m sure your mother was, too. The brigadier general who gave the command was removed from India.”

“And … will that resurrect my mother? Or the lives of the others who perished that day?”

“Of course not.” He stroked the top of her hair. “None of those people deserved their fate.”

“I don’t believe in fate.” She laughed, hollow and bitter. How many times had she blamed herself for what happened? If only she’d prevented her mother from visiting Amritsar, if only she hadn’t told her mother about how much she believed in the power of protesting. But none of the guilt would change anything. She could only try to stop such an event from happening again. “I believe in revenge. But don’t worry.” Parineeta clasped her hands together in her lap and looked down at her laced fingers. “This is not your fight.”

“It will be when I step on that train.”

She smiled at his readiness to accept the challenge. “Not that many British officers are expected to be on the train. My brother and his friends are sure they will successfully gain the money for arms. You will be fine.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Nothing an undercover agent cannot handle, if that is who you say you are.” She looked up from her hands and into his eyes. “What about you? How did you get started in the…”

“The Bureau?” He twisted his mouth into a wistful expression. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Spies?”

Warren picked up the stick she had set down. He began stoking the fire, avoiding her gaze. “We prefer ‘information collectors.’ Wasn’t born in America, but it’s the land I’ve been serving. I came out of university in the States and planned to be a lawyer but quit my first job after it all became too repetitive. A buddy offered me cash to help him with a project.”

“What project?”

“I had to go undercover and collect Bertillon records. Heard of those?”

She tilted her head to the side. “I believe so.”

“Measurements of the head, body, all sorts of information for criminal identification.” He opened his mouth to say something else, then promptly closed it.

“Why did you come out of university in America? You said you were not born there.” Words tumbled from her lips in an effort to break down the walls that shut her out. “Where were you born?”

“In India, actually.”

Parineeta frowned. “Then how did you end up back …”

“It’s a long story.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “I have time, Mr. Warren.” Her eyes widened. Warren what? “I do not even know your true identity.”

“It’s not important right now.” He stood and pulled his shirt back on, stretching his arm into the starched sleeves. Parineeta had expected him to continue, but instead he remained silent while he pushed each button carefully through the holes, clearly ignoring her.

She thought about protesting, but a rustling in the bushes made her think twice about making any sound. Holding her breath, she put out the fire with as little noise as possible.

Warren leaned against the thick tree trunk that hid them from one angle and craned his neck. Jungle leaves surrounded them on all sides, but suddenly the protection felt lacking. Parineeta backed up against a nearby tree trunk and watched his hand fall to his pocket, where she knew one of the pistols still lay. She began to hear sounds from the other side of the trunk. Maybe it was just an animal.

But as the noises continued, they grew in clarity until it sounded like chatter. Voices. Clearly British voices. Now she could hear the stomping of heavy boots. She knew British soldiers sometimes patrolled villages in the early morning but never dense jungles in the middle of the night.

“Heard there’s a general on the run. Don’t know why though,” one of the men said. The closer his boots swung toward the direction of their alcove, the louder Parineeta could hear her own heartbeat roaring within her ears. “Lieutenant colonel said they’d be somewhere in this bloody jungle. Do you know anything about the general?”

“Took his secret Indian darkie wife with him, the tale goes. Load of rubbish, if you ask me.” The other man seemed to be stepping in the opposite direction. “No respectable gent would dare marry a half-blood coolie.”

“Can’t be marriage.”

The other man snickered. “You’re right. Probably just wanted a little fun.”

She clenched her fists. It took everything within her to remain silent at the derogatory terms. As if her race did not possess any feeling! As if she were any less of a human than the rest of them!

The men continued to march in silence, and after a few minutes even the sounds of their footsteps faded away. Parineeta couldn’t imagine that she would have felt much worse had they actually discovered them.

Warren breathed an audible sigh of relief. “That was close. We need to get out of here.” He finished buttoning the top of his shirt. “We’ll try to find the nearest town and stay there for…” His voice trailed off. “Are you all right?”

She remained silent, mulling over the men’s words.
No one would dare marry a half-blood coolie
.
No one.

“I said, are you all right?” He placed a heavy hand on the top of her shoulder. “Is it because of what those men said?”

Perhaps.
She remained silent.

“They are wrong, you know. I’ve never approved of that word.”

It was strange how a simple phrase could cause a greater ache than a physical wound. “It wasn’t the word; it was the way they used it.”

“That no one would ever marry you?” He spoke aloud the words echoing in her mind. “What are you talking about? You’re beautiful. You’re smarter than any woman I’ve ever met. Why wouldn’t someone marry you?”

The surge of hope and surprise at his compliment was quickly smothered by the reality she recognized within the reply. He was only saying such things to comfort her. “A smart mouth has little value in my village. I am a half-caste, Warren. I do not belong with white men, but no Indian man will ever have me either. All my other friends are married. No respectable family wants to marry a daughter of dirty blood.”

“Dirty blood? That's ridiculous.” His kindness toward her was a special form of torture. The more he gave, the more Parineeta realized she could never have, not for long, in any case.

“Everyone does.” She clenched her fists so the tears would not fall again. She could not count all the times she’d wished her mother had married an Indian man instead of falling for a British soldier. She wished her mother had guarded her heart away, far from the man who wanted nothing to do with her after she fell pregnant. At least her daughter would have had an identity then, instead of an absent father. “The more the tension between the British and Hindustanis grows, the more I am ignored in my village. Raj is my only real friend anymore, and he talks to me because I’m his sister.”

“Am I not your friend?” Warren lifted her chin with his thumb and forefinger. Strands of dark hair fell across his forehead, and he swiped it back with his other hand. “I think trusting our lives with one another qualifies us enough to be friends.”

Parineeta smiled in spite of herself. She supposed they were. “Yes, we are friends.”

“Good.” He let go of her chin but remained close. “Do not allow anyone’s opinion to cause you to doubt your own worth. Your race determines nothing about who you are.”

She nodded. “Of course. It’s just difficult when you know there is something about you that you can never change. And everyone seems to think it’s all you are. It defines your entire identity.”

“It doesn’t define a thing. I’ve only known you for a few days, but I can already tell you are … you are…”

For a single moment, she saw a flicker of desire in his gaze. He leaned forward, his head inclined in her direction. Her heart lurched. She stood still, waiting for his next move.

Then as quickly as she’d seen the look, the longing vanished. He turned his head away from her. Warm air filled the growing space between them, and she felt her heart plummet. Warren cleared his throat as he dusted off the length of his shirt. “We had better get going. There could be other soldiers behind the ones we just heard.”

Parineeta stepped back, stunned. Had she only imagined that moment?

Harsh voices cut through the night. “There they are! That has to be them!”

Warren grabbed her hand and started running forward. “And we better get going
now!
”

Her feet sprang into action. They sprinted through the foliage, gripping onto one another’s hand. The footsteps behind them grew louder, and so did the voices. She brushed the low-hanging
haldu
leaves in her way as she ran, jumping over each gnarled root of the gigantic tree as her body hurtled through the air. She didn’t dare to turn around, fearful of the consequences from slowing down.

“Get them!” a clear, loud voice called out again.

“Duck!” Warren hissed. She followed his lead and moved her head beneath a low, thick branch before leaping to the other side of the tree. She heard several thumps against the branch behind her as well as low curses. No doubt the men had not followed the same advice Warren had offered her.

The dense vegetation of the teak and
haldu
trees soon gave way to a smooth dirt clearing before a village. No one else wandered the outskirts of the village at this time, with the exception of a motor scooter crossing the road every now and then. Even if the two British soldiers were on a special patrol for her and Warren, at least there didn’t seem to be any other soldiers here to back them up. The heavy footsteps and the cries of continued marching could still be heard behind them. Several of the houses before them were lit by lanterns propped up in each of the windowsills.

Parineeta’s eyes widened in recognition. “I know this place!” She pointed to a house in the distance, nestled at the end of the road. The town of Bhargain marked a halfway point between her village of Hathras and the train station of Shahjahanpur, but she hadn’t anticipated stumbling into it. “My aunt lives there.”

“Then that’s where we’re headed for the night.” He ran over to a motorcycle riding by and waved his arms in front of the rider. The vehicle slowed to a bumpy halt. As soon as it stopped, Warren pushed the man off the bike and climbed onto the seat. He motioned for her to sit behind him. “Get on!”

“Sorry!” she called to the rider as she stepped onto the bike behind Warren. Her arms wrapped around his broad chest, and her hands clasped together as she held on tightly.

Once the bike started speeding forward, Parineeta dared to look behind her. The soldiers finally emerged from the forest. She grinned in triumph when they caught her gaze.
You cannot catch us now!

Her smile faded as soon as she saw them knocking off other motorcycle riders on the same road. Curse their luck! It was uncommon enough for
one
motorcycle to be on the road at such a time at night, much less three! Before the drivers could get back on their bikes, two of the soldiers jumped onto the cycles and sped after Warren. They met her gaze this time with smiles of their own.

She whipped her head back around, pulling her loose tendrils behind her shoulder as the wind whipped at her curls. “Warren! They’re still following us!”