A meeting had been organized by the Praja Socialist Party in Makum. Dropping Mei Lin at her father’s house, Pulok went there. After the meeting, the people planned to take out a procession. Pulok, however, had decided to return home with his wife.

In the kitchen of the Chinese school, boarders between six and twelve years of age sat in rows to have lunch. The puja holidays were almost over. Not one of them had gone home. By now they had understood that something was very wrong. Cha Mu was supervising the boarders cheerfully. She could not reveal her anxiety before the children. Every night, Cha Mu became a mother to seven-year-old Ho Yin, who would squeeze into her arms and sleep feeling safe. In fact, she was now mothering all these children and it was the first time in her lonely and difficult life that she was happy to be alive.

At the ringing of a bicycle bell the children became alert. It was the familiar sound of the postman’s arrival.

‘Letters from home!’

The boys stood up.

‘I’ll go and see. You finish your food or else sir will get angry,’ Cha Mu said and went out.

She was not worried for herself; she had no one in this world from whom she could expect a letter.

Her parents sold her when she was still a child. It was a long story of suffering. Finally, she met Ho Yen Kee in Hong Kong, who eventually brought her to Makum and engaged her as a cook in the hostel.

‘Cha Mu ache, look at the number of letters today!’ the headmaster said. ‘Bring the children over to my room.’

When Cha Mu entered the headmaster’s office with the boarders, all the teachers seated there wore worried faces.

Someone had opened their letters! It was the work of the CID for sure. They suspected the Chinese of Makum. They suspected there might be secret messages in the letters.

Everyone sat silently. It would not be wise to speak before the children.

The headmaster called little Ho Yin, who was holding on tightly to Cha Mu’s clothes. Distributing the letters to the older boys, he opened Ho Yin’s letter. A teacher started reading the letter aloud to him as Ho Yin had not yet learned to read Assamese well.

‘My dear Ho Yin,