Ever so discreetly, Claire pushed the newspaper closer to Antonia’s chair, so that she might happen to spot it.

Erasure

1966
London, United Kingdom

The man looked up from the maps he had been poring over. His hands were clammy, partly from the heat but mostly from the enormity of the task he had been assigned. He mopped the sweat off his brow. Then, Cyril Radcliffe picked up his pen, drew a deep breath—and started to write.

Dear Dickie,

I regret to inform you that I cannot draw this line—especially not in the manner and time frame that you have asked. My conscience will not allow it. Not even for Crown or country. Because, before all else, I am answerable to myself.

Yours truly,

Cyril Radcliffe

He set the pen down. There. The deed was done.

He felt lighter. Afloat almost.

‘Cyril, it’s time for supper,’ said Antonia, as she gently shook him awake.

Radcliffe opened his eyes, now almost completely clouded with cataracts, to see his wife standing next to his armchair. He sat up with a start.

‘Is everything all right, dear?’ Antonia asked.

Radcliffe nodded absently. He slowly stood up and shuffled to the window.

The sun was setting. There was nothing half-hearted about the autumn. A luminous sapphire sky framed a canopy of scarlet leaves. Radcliffe watched a solitary leaf languidly drift and finally settle on the ground, adding to the burgundy patchwork quilt that covered the earth. It would be winter soon. Followed by spring. The colours of nature erasing what was written before.

Cyril Radcliffe stood at the window, looking out into the fading light of dusk.

If only all lines could be erased.

If only.

Author’s Note

This book probably started writing itself many years ago, owing to an unspoken conversation. One that I wish I’d had but didn’t.

I was about ten years old, and as we always did over the school holidays, my parents, my brother and I journeyed from Kolkata to my grandparents’ farm in a little village in north India. At the time, I didn’t know that my grandparents had spent their childhood and youth in Rawalpindi, Lahore and Sargodha. I didn’t know that they had arrived in New Delhi as refugees in 1947, alongside millions of others, with just the clothes on their back, having lost loved ones in an upheaval so deeply traumatic that it never found mention in our conversations. Except, perhaps, that one time—had I stayed and spoken.

Afternoons at the farm were sweltering—too hot for tractor rides or skimming stones on the canal or splashing around in the tube well, which is what my brother and I would usually spend the rest of the day doing. So, our afternoon ritual was to laze around on the divan in my grandfather’s study, with the bamboo blinds lowered and the air-cooler blowing khus-khus scented breeze our way. Some days, my grandfather would ask us to select a book from his huge collection of Urdu novels and poetry, and then he would read to us. Having grown up in Rawalpindi, he was fluent in Urdu but couldn’t read Hindi. I couldn’t read Urdu
but could understand it enough to get by, so this arrangement worked pretty well for me; although, my brother, who was younger, would usually wander off to play with our cook’s son instead.