Excerpt from Moth by Melody Razak, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"When these meat-eaters learn their place," retorts Mr. Viamika.

The students stop eating, one or two of them smirk. A boy named Arun throws a cup of water at Mohammed Ghualam and hoots with laughter when the water splashes the teacher's robes. "Pakistan murdabad," Arun shouts mockingly, lighting an imported cigarette and smoking it with defiant pleasure.

Mohammed Ghualam pushes his tin thali aside. He spits and walks away. "I resign," he shouts back.

* * *

Bappu, home earlier than usual, the last class of the day cancelled, sits on the swing with Ma. He tells her about the tension in the canteen and the resignation of Mohammed Ghualam. "Soon there will be no Muslim teachers left," he says.

"I know, my love," she replies. She takes Bappu's hand, squeezes his fingers, and wraps her arm around him. The heat from his body is a tonic and she could lose herself in it. She presses her nose to his neck.

"Alma asked me if the troubles in Punjab would come to Delhi. I said no," says Bappu. "Was I wrong?"

"What else could you say? How do you put into words what we feel, what we smell is coming?"

Bappu nods and cleans his glasses; they are always so dirty, the air so dusty. "Can you smell it too then?"

She nods. "Sometimes, I sit in the courtyard, I try to read but I'm distracted by the cumin frying in the kitchen, and the gutters overflowing outside, hot milk and my own sweat and all of it feels so close, and then there is the radio always in the background and the news never good. There is no peace anymore."

"I can't work out where the tide is swelling, but I know it's growing faster than there is space to hold it. India will collapse and Independence will come too late." Bappu rubs his eyes, so she takes his hand, presses it to her mouth.

Ma pushes her bare toes against the low teak table. The swing sways, backwards and forwards in a soothing, cooling rhythm. Her anklets chime and she picks star-shaped jasmine from the tree behind them, crushes the white flower between her finger and thumb. "Smell this," she says to Bappu, and he does. "Some things will always be constant. Jasmine will always smell sweet, and when it is pushed to your nose like this, you would almost forget the gutters outside. Listen to this, my love, and tell me who wrote it: 'If your prayers are potent, Mullah, move this mosque my way. Else have a drink or two with me and we'll see its minarets sway.'"

"A Shayaris by Mirza Ghalib."

"With poetry like that, how can hate prevail?" she says to reassure and reward him.

Bappu remembers the day he met her. Her rose-dipped voice. She had rubies and pearls in her ears. The stones of sorrow, his twin had said.

"I haven't the heart to discuss wedding plans tonight," he admits.

"Nor I. Lakshmi will be here soon. She will help."

"Thank god for my twin," says Bappu.

He agitates the branch behind them. Star-shaped blossoms fall across Ma's shoulders and face and she lifts her head, laughs at the tickle on her skin.

* * *

Alma and Roop skip around Bappu at least once a day, pleading for his attention. Bappu, me! No me! I am the favourite. I am the eldest. They pinch each other out of the way.

Roop, who likes the jingle of the radio adverts, hears that Horlicks Overcomes Weakness and that the Lovely Leela Chitnis uses Lux soap. She runs to Dilchain-ji demanding that both be purchased at once. "Dilchain-ji, please," she pleads, "we need them for the state of the nation. You know there might be an actual war soon—Sister Ignatius said so—with rationing! Well then, let's go to Chandni Chowk, let's go! That's where all the important things are sold." Dilchain-ji is busy and shoos her off, so Roop runs to her ayah, Fatima Begum, who always agrees.

Alma likes to listen to the news with Bappu. After school one day, wedged next to him on the swing, her leg in his, she asks outright if he is a communist.

Excerpted from Moth by Melody Razak. Copyright © 2022 by Melody Razak. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.