The Pledge Read Free Page A

realities of that other place, if they were realities, were quite meaningless here.
    Mrs. Chatterjee, who had been sitting quietly, now wondered why Bruce had not tasted his cake. “They are quite good, you know. Almost like besan barfi.”
    â€œYes, I’ll try it,” Bruce said, “thank you,” wondering what besan barfi were. Some marvelous treat that they had been saving for a guest like himself. Of course. The trouble was that, in the face of the famine, he was eating very little. Food mixed itself with guilt, which made no sense, as he admitted to himself, but still his appetite had shrunk away almost to nothing. He blamed it on the wet, oppressive heat; he was without hunger, but now he bit into the small confection, sweet, delicious.
    â€œVery good.”
    The conversation had paused, and they were watching him. “Chickpeas and sugar and spices,” Mrs. Chatterjee explained. What would have been impolite and embarrassing at home was quite different here. Bruce had been watching Professor Chatterjee. Bruce was yet to encounter air conditioning anywhere in this sweltering city, but overhead fans pervaded the place. There was one here, turning slowly, and at times it would drive an insect down on Chatterjee’s dhoti, not a mosquito but a smaller bug, and when that occurred, Chatterjee would gently lift the bug and drop it to the floor.
    Bruce forced himself to take another minimal bite of the confection.
    Chatterjee was not insensitive. “I know how hard our sad city is for you, Mr. Bacon. When I was a young man, I made a trip to America with a grant I had won from a foundation set up by your Mr. Rockefeller. It was not much money, but it paid for my passage and for two weeks in America, so I have memories of that wonderful place where there is no famine ever. It put some reality into my dream of democracy and freedom.” He paused suddenly and closed his eyes. Seconds ticked past, and then suddenly, without preamble, “Three months ago, this famine was at its height. My wife and I were sitting at that small table, there by the window, having our dinner, a bowl of rice and a pickled cucumber, and outside our window there was a family of eight people. We could see them in the moonlight and we heard their moans. They looked like the pictures in our press of the Jews you liberated from the German concentration camps. In the morning, three were dead. A British truck came and took away the three dead bodies. Those living clung to the truck and with their last bit of strength ran after it and then they fell in the roadway. The British stopped the truck and the soldiers came back to the bodies that lay in the roadway. Three of them were young children. They were alive, and the British soldiers lifted them out of the roadway and laid them on the grass. At least they would not be run over by the traffic in the roadway. The other two were either dead or close to it, out of the effort of running after the truck. The British put their bodies in the truck. The point I am making, Mr. Bacon, is that we did not do what you certainly would have done.”
    After a long moment of silence, Bruce asked, “And what is that, Professor Chatterjee?”
    â€œWould you have given your dinner to those starving people?”
    Bruce was tempted to say “Yes, of course,” but swallowed the words. The people in the room were silent. Finally, Bruce said, “I have never been hungry — I mean, not hungry the way starving people are hungry.”
    â€œYou are very honest. No, we did not give them our food. We had barely enough. If we had given them ten times as much, it would not have saved their lives. We ate our food. We must survive. Only if we survive will there be people who can force the British out and heal our poor broken land.”
    Silence again. Bruce felt it was incumbent upon him to say something, and he observed that their hatred for the British must be beyond measure.