A group of men whizzed by with jugs of water. Deepa rose, bolted to the front of the crowd.

“Help me,” Deepa screamed. “Somebody help me! Please! My father may be inside!” She tried to drag a few people toward the clinic. Flames shot within inches of her face, seared her skin. “Please,” she begged. “Please, help my Papa-ji!”

“Deepa,” a man yelled. Anil rushed toward her. Blood trailed from a cut on his forehead. “Thank God!” he said. “Where were you? Your mother and I were looking for you!”

“What? I don’t understand? Where’s Mummy-ji now? Where’s Papa-ji?”

“I drove your mother here. She was trying to find you. I was waiting by the car for her, just down the road, when I heard the explosion. I tried to get to them but I couldn’t.”

The ground quaked beneath them. Glass shattered. The clinic’s roof caved in. The fire, finally freed, roared toward the sky. The crowd dropped back, set down their buckets. Their arms fell to their sides.

Deepa clutched his face. “Did she come back out? Did she or Papa-ji come out?”

His eyes widened. “I don’t know, Deepa.”

The police arrived, cordoned off the crowd. She abandoned Anil, rushed toward them. “My Mummy-ji and Papa-ji! Please, help them. They may be inside!” One of the officers gripped her shoulders. “Nothing we can do now, beta. Hopefully they made it out. Tell me their names and we’ll look for them.”

“But they’re trapped!”

For she knew it now. Amid the black smoke and the stench of charred wood, the nightmarish narrative had taken shape. Mummy-ji would have searched for Deepa in the house, in the garden. She would have realized Deepa had gone to the clinic to convince her father not to send her away. She would have slipped on her shoes, ran behind the house to Anil, sleeping in his car. She would have woken him, instructed him to drive her to the clinic straight away. They would have beaten her to the clinic.

They would have arrived a good ten minutes before Deepa.

“Please,” Deepa cried. “You have to go get Mummy-ji and Papa-ji!” She knocked the officer’s hands off her shoulders, dashed to the side of the clinic, searched for some opening she could force her way through. Blazes erupted out of every orifice. Shards, splinters, floated through the air.

Another explosion knocked her backward, to the earth. The last thing she saw were streaks in the sky lighting up like fireworks.

CHAPTER FIVE

June 30, 1947

Fingertips brushed Deepa’s face, trailed warmth from her forehead to her ear. She inhaled the scent of cumin. A weight depressed the side of her bed. She rolled away from it, pulled the sheet up to her chin.

“Deepa, please. You must eat and drink. I’ve prepared chai and paratha,” Bala coaxed. “Just a little bit, beta.”