Rosie Raja by Sufiya Ahmed

Author:Sufiya Ahmed
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Chapter Sixteen

We sit down to breakfast together the next morning.

Maggie joins us. She is looking better than before. Her eyes are no longer so swollen from crying and her nose has returned to its normal colour.

“Peter, I think you should inform London today,” Papa says. “They need to know.”

Maggie looks up from the coffee she’s stirring. “Why haven’t they been told already?”

“I wanted us to settle in first,” Papa says. “We don’t know if there are any countryside Maquis that are secret collaborators. If the radio signals get picked up, then it will be the end for us.”

“Oh.” Maggie returns to stirring her coffee.

I don’t think she’s going to drink it. It’s either really bad, or she doesn’t have the appetite. Grief sometimes stops people from eating and drinking.

I couldn’t eat for days after Mama passed. In the end, Rani-K ordered a mango plate from the servants and fed me the pieces of fruit herself.

“I miss her too,” she’d said, tears streaming down her own face. “But we have to carry on living.”

Papa’s voice brings me back from that awful, sad time.

“Make sure you get some distance from the farm,” he instructs Peter. “We don’t want signals identified by the Nazis.”

“There are no Nazis here,” Marie says. “Not for miles.”

“It is better to be safe,” Papa says.

Marie nods. “Whatever you think is right.”

Peter takes a bite of his bacon. “I’ll climb a tree out in some field.”

“There’s a barn about half a mile away,” Marie says. “It’s empty now. Maybe you could use that. It will give you better coverage than tree branches.”

“That’s a good idea,” Papa agrees. “I don’t want my only radio operator falling out of a tree.”

Everyone laughs.

Later, when I’ve helped Marie clean the breakfast away, I go in search of Peter. I catch him by the farm gate, Leon’s baguette basket in hand.

“Can I come with you?” I ask.

Peter looks surprised. “Why?”

“Because I’d love to see you in action.”

Peter shrugs. “No harm, I guess. Come on.”

We cross the field side by side.

“What did you do before the war?” I ask.

“I was an officer for the Raj,” Peter replies. “Based in Bombay City.”

“Oh.” My mouth falls open in surprise. I had no idea Peter lived in India. He certainly gave no hint of it before.

“You look shocked,” he laughs.

“I am.”

“Were you recalled like Papa?”

He shakes his head. “I requested a transfer. Fighting Hitler seemed more important than trying to keep the Raj in place.”

“What do you mean?”

“My family are in England,” he says. “My parents and my sisters and their children. I didn’t want Germans ruling them, so I came back to defend my country.”

“Did you like India?”

He nods. “I think of it as home, but I don’t think the people there think of me as one of them.”

“That’s because you rule over them.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Will you return after the war?”

“Who knows,” he says. “Let’s just get through it first.”

“Did you know Papa before the war?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Your kingdom is in the north. Bombay is in the west.

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