Her teacher, Madam Grover, sat behind her desk and gazed out the window with the glazed eyes of a lost child. Her hair was pulled back in a loose bun. Her wide-framed glasses dangled at the end of her nose. She seemed not to notice they were about to fall off. She was much younger than the Sisters who ran the school and, according to the rumors, wore men’s pants and danced holding hands with male partners—just like the Americans. Usually Madam Grover only pretended to be strict. Her scowling at misbehaving students often turned into the kind of laughter she failed to mute with the pallu of her sari. Sadness seemed to have settled over her lately, though. Deepa found herself wondering whether the reason she excused herself to the toilet so frequently throughout the day was to cry.

Deepa twirled her pen, wiggled back into the seat. She read over her completed assignment once more, flipped the paper over. Her classmates continued to scribble.

The clock’s ticking served as a metronome for the sighs of students. She glanced at its face. Five more minutes. She picked up a fresh sheet of paper, started a letter. Dear John Uncle and Nora Aunty, she wrote. If you’re reading this, you’ve reached Bangalore safely. She strummed her fingers along her desk. We’re doing our best without you.

The same day Deepa met Amir and Laila at the market, John and Nora received a disturbing note attached to their door.

Quit India like the British or you will pay for it. The note detailed John and Nora’s routines, the days they’d shopped, the times they’d entered and exited the clinic, descriptions of the clothes they’d worn. Her beloved Aunty and Uncle were being stalked. And because they didn’t want to risk the safety of Deepa’s family or their patients, they decided to hurriedly leave Delhi.

On their last morning in Delhi, before making the nearly twoday train ride to Bangalore, they came to the house to say their goodbyes. John begged Papa-ji to temporarily close the clinic.

“We’ll be fine,” Papa-ji insisted. “We’ll see you in a few weeks, when the worst has passed.”

In their absence, the precise, clockwork routine of the clinic quickly unraveled. Patients spilled out in the street, unfinished paperwork draped every surface. Account balance sheets and inventory ledgers were neglected. Refugees from Punjab and the North-West Frontier filled their small waiting room. Deepa culled and updated what she could from the boxes of files her parents brought home and dumped on the floor, but she couldn’t keep up. She needed to be there, in person.

Patri, a new girl who had just started at St. Magdalene a few weeks earlier, nudged Deepa with her elbow and slipped her a note before shifting away.

Poetry is boring, it read.