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Authors: Shauna Singh Baldwin
Tags: Historical
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training at Wanborough and saw bombers flying towards the Channel, I worried my Armand was in their path. Three long years without even our secret meetings, and only two postcards to Miss Noor Khan care of the Sufi Music Centre, London, and I had learned of myself that Armand was as water to the root of a plant, as necessary as sun for growth. There have been loves like ours over the centuries: Nizami sang of Laila and Majnu, the bards of Abelard and Héloïse. But our love was ours and, to me, unique
.
Mother counselled never to love someone of another religion, someone different. She said nothing but confusion and pain come of mixing blood and religions, that she had often regretted taking the steamer out of Boston Harbor to follow Abbajaan
.
But I did what my mother did before me, then deserted my love when he most needed me
.
Abbajaan said we are being judged, all the time, by our Divine Selves. My Divine Self had judged me and already found me inadequate
.
CHAPTER 5
London, England
Monday, June
14, 1943
U MBRELLA AND FANY CAP tucked beneath her arm, breathless from running up Clarges Street, Noor surveyed expanses of cream-clothed tables at Pinetto’s. Too late to hope Miss Atkins wouldn’t notice her being “on Indian time.”
Miss Atkins was at a table in the far corner, sitting tall as if at her Baker Street desk. A cardboard-looking piece of whatever was passing for food today lay untouched on the plate before her. An overflowing ashtray and a mimeographed copy of
Tidbits
, the internal dispatch of the SOE , sat beside the silver cutlery.
Noor slipped into the vacant seat, smoothing her skirt over her knees. In England, being late was construed as disrespectful, much more than in France.
“Sorry, marm.” She launched into explanation: the tube had come to a halt at an air-raid warning.
“You’re here now.”
Miss Atkins let a man limping on his cane pass out of earshot. A waiter hovered. Miss Atkins ordered for Noor.
“Well, Nora, still sure you’re up to it?”
“Indeed, marm.”
“I should tell you we have received some rather alarming reports.”
“Alarming, marm?”
“In fact, two reports from your accompanying officers. Seems they don’t believe you’re quite the right material.”
A flush warmed Noor’s face. Being “the right material” could mean anything from the schools she’d attended to the shoes she wore. Miss Atkins seemed to be searching for flaws.
“May I ask why, marm?”
“Nothing specific, just that they feel you don’t react quite as expected.”
Days she’d spent on the range flashed to mind, hours before the looking glass—turn, draw, shoot. “I have very swift reactions.”
But Miss Atkins didn’t mean physical reactions. Couldn’t any woman, Indian or French, experience the need to act, act against tyranny and injustice against all people, not just Europeans, not only Gentiles? Was she to sing “Rule Britannia” and wave the Union Jack? Rave that she had experienced a call of duty to the SOE or England? Even without a siren call, it didn’t mean she wasn’t the right material.
“Perhaps the problem is their expectations,” she said.
A quizzical look came over Miss Atkins’s face. She leaned forward. “Perhaps. They do say you were most keen to take a French assignment, which makes them wonder—why? Why not Holland or Belgium, where no one would recognize you?”
“I speak no Dutch or Flemish. I’ve always wanted to learn Dutch, but somehow—”
“There is also the little matter of your War Office interview.”
Noor kept her face neutral.
Seven months ago, after the first interview at Baker Street, came a second before a board of bulbous-nosed, bewhiskered gentlemen—a retired Indian inspector general, a district collector and two deputy commissioners. What did she think about Indian independence? asked one. A vague question to which she answered that it was unconscionable that Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Nehru and thousands of others were
.
Mother counselled never to love someone of another religion, someone different. She said nothing but confusion and pain come of mixing blood and religions, that she had often regretted taking the steamer out of Boston Harbor to follow Abbajaan
.
But I did what my mother did before me, then deserted my love when he most needed me
.
Abbajaan said we are being judged, all the time, by our Divine Selves. My Divine Self had judged me and already found me inadequate
.
CHAPTER 5
London, England
Monday, June
14, 1943
U MBRELLA AND FANY CAP tucked beneath her arm, breathless from running up Clarges Street, Noor surveyed expanses of cream-clothed tables at Pinetto’s. Too late to hope Miss Atkins wouldn’t notice her being “on Indian time.”
Miss Atkins was at a table in the far corner, sitting tall as if at her Baker Street desk. A cardboard-looking piece of whatever was passing for food today lay untouched on the plate before her. An overflowing ashtray and a mimeographed copy of
Tidbits
, the internal dispatch of the SOE , sat beside the silver cutlery.
Noor slipped into the vacant seat, smoothing her skirt over her knees. In England, being late was construed as disrespectful, much more than in France.
“Sorry, marm.” She launched into explanation: the tube had come to a halt at an air-raid warning.
“You’re here now.”
Miss Atkins let a man limping on his cane pass out of earshot. A waiter hovered. Miss Atkins ordered for Noor.
“Well, Nora, still sure you’re up to it?”
“Indeed, marm.”
“I should tell you we have received some rather alarming reports.”
“Alarming, marm?”
“In fact, two reports from your accompanying officers. Seems they don’t believe you’re quite the right material.”
A flush warmed Noor’s face. Being “the right material” could mean anything from the schools she’d attended to the shoes she wore. Miss Atkins seemed to be searching for flaws.
“May I ask why, marm?”
“Nothing specific, just that they feel you don’t react quite as expected.”
Days she’d spent on the range flashed to mind, hours before the looking glass—turn, draw, shoot. “I have very swift reactions.”
But Miss Atkins didn’t mean physical reactions. Couldn’t any woman, Indian or French, experience the need to act, act against tyranny and injustice against all people, not just Europeans, not only Gentiles? Was she to sing “Rule Britannia” and wave the Union Jack? Rave that she had experienced a call of duty to the SOE or England? Even without a siren call, it didn’t mean she wasn’t the right material.
“Perhaps the problem is their expectations,” she said.
A quizzical look came over Miss Atkins’s face. She leaned forward. “Perhaps. They do say you were most keen to take a French assignment, which makes them wonder—why? Why not Holland or Belgium, where no one would recognize you?”
“I speak no Dutch or Flemish. I’ve always wanted to learn Dutch, but somehow—”
“There is also the little matter of your War Office interview.”
Noor kept her face neutral.
Seven months ago, after the first interview at Baker Street, came a second before a board of bulbous-nosed, bewhiskered gentlemen—a retired Indian inspector general, a district collector and two deputy commissioners. What did she think about Indian independence? asked one. A vague question to which she answered that it was unconscionable that Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Nehru and thousands of others were
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