The next morning, the light over Lahore was already sharp when Bilal started again.
You're stalling, he said.
I am working, Jinnah replied, folding a brief. This city did not pause because my lungs wheeze.
Exactly, Bilal said. The city won't pause when they fail either. You promised Fatima. You gave your word to Evelyn. Go to a doctor. A proper examination. Not five minutes in a corridor.
Jinnah's jaw tightened.
You nag worse than my sister, he said.
Your sister can't follow you into your own head, Bilal replied. I can. Health. Examination. Today. No more excuses.
He rang the bell.
"Tell the clerk," he said aloud, when the boy appeared, "to cancel the afternoon conference with Mr. Malik. Reschedule it for tomorrow. I shall be out."
"Yes, Sir."
"And ask Mr. Shah," he added, "to send me the name of the most competent physician in this city who is neither a fool nor a gossip. Preferably one who understands lungs better than slogans."
"Yes, Sir."
The Doctor in Anarkali
By late morning, he was sitting in a panelled room above Anarkali, in a private practice recommended by Shah: Dr. Aziz, an Indian physician trained in London, with the professional calm of someone who had seen too many rich men believe themselves immortal.
"Mr. Jinnah," Aziz said, after the initial pleasantries. "I have heard of your arguments. I confess I did not expect to have your chest under my stethoscope."
"Nobody does," Jinnah replied. "Until the chest reminds one that it exists."
"Let us make certain it continues to exist," Aziz said dryly. "Kindly remove your coat and waistcoat. Shirt open at the collar."
He listened carefully — front, back, left, right — his brow furrowing slightly at the prolonged wheeze in one lung.
"Breathe in," he said. "Deeper. Hold. Now out."
He put the stethoscope aside.
"You smoke," Aziz said. It was not a question.
"Less than I used to," Jinnah said.
"But still far more than your lungs can tolerate," Aziz replied. "You have chronic weakness here—" he tapped a spot lightly "—possibly early fibrotic changes. Nothing catastrophic yet, but the trend is not friendly."
He returned to the desk.
"Tell me," he said, "about your workday. Waking to sleep."
Jinnah sketched it: mornings in court, afternoons in chambers, evenings with files, late nights thinking, irregular meals, cigarettes more punctual than lunches.
Aziz listened, expression growing more disapproving.
"Very well," he said at last. "I shall put it plainly. If you continue as you have done the last ten years, you will not see the end of the next decade in anything resembling useful condition. Perhaps you will not see it at all. Your lungs cannot keep pace with your ambitions."
He is more blunt than the Bombay man, Bilal said approvingly.
Bluntness is useful, Jinnah replied. If only more politicians had it.
"What," Jinnah asked aloud, "do you prescribe, Doctor? Beyond the usual sermons about rest and moderation."
Aziz folded his hands.
"Some of the sermon is unavoidable," he said. "Less tobacco. More regular food. Some sleep at hours when sane men sleep. The move to Lahore is sensible. The canal air in Montgomery may help if you avoid dust storms. But the most important change is one you are least likely to make voluntarily."
"And that is?" Jinnah asked.
"You must cease treating your own body as a poorly paid clerk," Aziz said. "It is not there to be bullied into obedience. You require structure: meals at fixed hours, medicines taken regularly, someone to ensure that when you say you will rest, you actually lie down instead of simply changing from one pile of papers to another."
A handler, Bilal translated. He's saying you need a handler.
"I am not," Jinnah said, "accustomed to being supervised like a schoolboy."
"Then you must become accustomed," Aziz said calmly. "You are not eighteen in Lincoln's Inn now. You are forty-something in a body that has paid for every late night three times over. You need a nurse — a private one — and a house helper who can coordinate basic routines. Otherwise, all my advice will end up where most advice to famous men goes: in the wastepaper basket of their vanity."
There was a small silence.
He is right, Bilal said quietly. You are brilliant at discipline in courts and chaos at discipline with your own health. You need a human reminder you can't ignore.
Jinnah's jaw unclenched a fraction.
"Very well," he said. "Let us suppose I accept this prescription. Can you recommend someone? Nurse, I mean. Competent, discreet, capable of managing a… difficult patient."
Aziz gave a thin smile.
"I have in mind," he said, "a nurse who has worked with TB patients and obstetric cases. Anglo-Indian. Firm hands, no nonsense, not easily cowed by reputations. She has just finished an engagement with a retired judge's household which ended well — the judge is not dead, which counts as a professional success."
"A sense of humour in a physician," Jinnah said. "That is rare."
"It keeps us from joining our patients in their graves out of frustration," Aziz replied. "If you wish, I can send word to her. She can meet you at your house and decide if you are worth the trouble."
"Send word," Jinnah said. "And as for the house helper…?"
"A good physician," Aziz said, "does not pretend to know everything. For house help, ask your own networks. But choose someone who does not worship you. Worshippers are useless for practical matters."
He wrote a prescription — tonics, inhalations, some pills.
"As to the medicines," he said, "you will not, I think, take them regularly on your own. So yes, you will need that nurse. I shall write to her today."
He signed, then looked up.
"And Mr. Jinnah," he added, "if you treat this as another brief to be argued against, you might as well start dictating your will now. Your lungs will not accept cross-examination."
Jinnah inclined his head.
"I have been warned," he said.
The Nurse and the Terms
Three evenings later, in the new Lahore house, there was a knock at the front door. The clerk showed in a woman in her late twenties: hair plaited in a practical style, sari pinned neatly, a nurse's satchel over one shoulder.
"Mr. Jinnah?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "You are—?"
"Mary D'Souza," she said. "Doctor Aziz sent for me. He tells me you are a very important man who treats his own health like a court peon's lunch break."
I like her already, Bilal said.
So do I, Jinnah replied inwardly.
Aloud, he said, "Doctor Aziz has an uncharitable way with metaphors. Please, sit."
She did, back straight but not rigid.
"I have looked after TB men," she said. "Judges, a colonel, two bankers, and one poet. The poet was the worst. They all believed their words mattered more than their lungs. I am told you are the same type."
"Your references," Jinnah said, "are certainly… unusual."
"You want someone to remind you to eat and take pills," Mary said. "I will do that. I will also tell you when you look like death warmed over, whether you like it or not. If you ignore me, I will inform your doctor, your sister if you give me the address, and your household. I do not take positions where I am expected to watch someone kill himself quietly and say nothing."
"Direct," Jinnah said. "Almost insolent. Good."
He steepled his fingers.
"The arrangement," he said, "would be as follows: you will reside in this house duty timings, in a room of your own. You will be responsible for ensuring I take prescribed medicines on time, that meals are regular, and that my work schedule does not completely erase sleep. At the estate in Montgomery, you will accompany me when needed. You will coordinate with Dr. Cartwright on medical matters. Your authority in matters of my health will be respected. You will not be treated as a servant, but as a professional. Is that acceptable?"
She studied him, weighing tone as much as words.
"Salary?" she asked.
He named a figure above the usual rate.
Mary blinked, then recovered.
"Duties," she said, "will also include occasionally telling political visitors that 'Sahib is resting' even when he is scowling at files, and meaning it. And dealing with any staff who think a woman giving orders is a joke."
"You will have my backing in that," Jinnah said. "If anyone in this house disregards your instructions in medical matters, their employment will end swiftly."
She nodded.
"Then I will accept," she said. "On one condition."
"Name it," he said.
"You give me permission," she replied, "to be rude to you twice a week."
"Rude?" he repeated.
"Yes," she said simply. "If I see you throw away your own health for some avoidable stupidity — skipped meals, midnight cigarettes after a coughing fit — I will scold you. Some men need blunt words more than polite hints."
"Doctor Aziz and I," Jinnah said, "appear to be surrounded by the same type of nurse."
"Good," Mary replied. "It means you might live long enough to be worth all this paperwork you're doing."
She stood.
"I'll move in tomorrow," she said. "I'll also have a list of things the kitchen must stock. I cannot feed you on cigarettes and arguments."
We've hired a health Farabi, Bilal said. Excellent.
The Man from the "Wrong" Caste
That same evening, Imran knocked on the study door.
"Sir?" he said. "The man for the house-help position is here."
"Send him in," Jinnah said.
The man who entered was lean, dark, with calloused hands and a posture that hovered between respect and wariness. His dhoti was clean but worn. His shirt had been carefully washed, though a tear near the shoulder betrayed old work.
He kept his eyes slightly lowered.
"What is your name?" Jinnah asked.
"Ram Lal, Sahib," the man said. "From a village near Ludhiana. Now in Lahore some years."
"Family?" Jinnah asked.
"Wife, Sahib," Ram Lal said. "No children. We both work. She does housework for memsahibs in Anarkali. I carry loads, sweep yards, whatever comes."
"Your caste?" The word tasted unpleasant, but in this world it mattered for how others would treat the man.
Ram Lal hesitated, then answered quietly.
"Shudra, Sahib," he said. "Chamaar caste. Leather work before. Now… anything."
He braced himself, as if expecting a flinch or a disgusted frown.
Jinnah's expression did not change.
"What I require," he said, "is a house helper who can keep a house clean, carry messages, run errands, and who is willing to move between Lahore and Montgomery as my work demands. I do not require his ancestors' profession. Can you read or write?"
"A little, Sahib," Ram Lal said. "My wife reads better. She taught me to sign my name. I can recognise numbers."
"You drink?" Jinnah asked.
"Only on festivals, Sahib," he said quickly. "And if you say no drink, then no drink."
"Gambling?"
"No, Sahib," he said. "Coins are too hard to get to throw away."
A simple, accurate answer, Bilal noted. No performance.
"And," Jinnah said, "you are willing to move with your wife? She will have work as well?"
"Yes, Sahib," Ram Lal said. "Where I go, she comes. If there is work for her, she will work. If not, she will help in the house. We have no land tying us. Only the basti. And basti has only debt."
"Others," Shah said quietly from the side, "may object, Sir, to a Chamaar in this position. Some visitors—"
Jinnah cut him off with a look.
"If visitors," he said, "object to a man cleaning their plate who is of so-called low caste, they can clean their own plate or not visit. I am not running a temple dining hall."
Ram Lal's eyes flickered up, startled.
"You will be paid properly," Jinnah continued. "You and your wife will have a small room at the back, and regular food. You will be expected to keep the house in order, assist the nurse when she requires simple help, and accompany me to the estate when necessary. There will be no beating in this house. If you make a mistake, you will be told so in words; if you repeat it too often, you will be sent away. That is all."
Tears sprang, unbidden, to Ram Lal's eyes, but he blinked them back.
"I will not trouble you, Sahib," he said. "We will work hard. If you say go to Montgomery, we go. If you say come back, we come."
"Good," Jinnah said. "Report tomorrow. Bring your wife. The nurse will coordinate household routines. You will listen to her instructions. She is not lower than you because she is a woman. In this house, work decides authority."
"Yes, Sahib," Ram Lal said, almost whispering.
When he left, Bilal spoke.
You realise," he said, "that for this man, this is going to be like being lifted onto a different planet."
For him, Jinnah replied, and for those who watch. If we cannot begin dismantling these little tyrannies in one house, we have no business talking about nations.
Planning the Journey
The next day, in chambers, Evelyn arrived with her notebook.
"Well?" she asked. "Is your body now under more supervision than your briefs?"
"I have acquired," Jinnah said, "a nurse who has already informed me that my breakfast habits are a crime, and a house helper who will likely stare at you in awe the first week and listen to you better than half the ICS."
"Good," Evelyn said. "Then we can discuss Montgomery."
They spread Harrington's map on the desk again.
"I propose," Jinnah said, "we go up next week. You, myself, and a small advance party: one of the Anglo-Indian wireless candidates Macready has recommended, and perhaps Ram Lal to begin learning the geography. Harrington has already suggested I meet a selection of tenants. I intend to do so."
"We'll need basic medical supplies for the visit," Evelyn said. "Even if the clinic isn't set up yet. If people see a doctor arrive and leave having done nothing but talk to the important men, they will write me off as another decorative memsahib. I want to treat a few real cases. Fevers. Wounds. Pregnant women close to term."
"You will have what you need," Jinnah said. "Send me a list. Instruments you cannot carry yourself, I will have sourced in Lahore."
"And the meetings?" she asked. "You plan to see the villagers separately?"
"Yes," he said. "First the elders from Bhagatpur, then from Chak 17-M, then a separate gathering at the station hamlet. I want to hear their grievances before I announce anything. We shall use the Canal Bungalow as temporary headquarters; Harrington has offered it as such."
"It has walls," Evelyn said. "That's a start. Keeps out dust and some of the foolishness."
HQ, Bilal said, satisfied. Doctor, nurse, house help, junior, commissioner, villagers. The cast is assembling.
Yes, Jinnah replied inwardly. Now we shall see whether your "game" truly allows for different endings — or whether we simply die in a better-furnished act.