The evening light over Malabar Hill was softer now, turning the sea beyond into a sheet of dull silver. Inside, the house had shifted to its evening rhythm: lamps lit, curtains drawn against the night, the clink of crockery and murmurs from the kitchen drifting up from the lower floor.
Fatima Jinnah sat on the sofa in the drawing room, spectacles perched low on her nose, reading. A book lay open in her lap, but her attention was divided between the pages and the sound of her brother's footsteps approaching.
Jinnah paused in the doorway for a heartbeat, hand resting on the frame.
You do not like these conversations, Bilal observed quietly. The personal ones.
I prefer clarity, Jinnah replied inwardly. Personal matters rarely allow it.
"Fati," he said aloud, his voice smooth but a shade softer than usual.
She looked up immediately, marking her page with a thin finger. "Yes, Bhai? You look tired. Sit, please."
He walked over, lowering himself into the armchair opposite her with controlled care. He noticed — with that precise, observational mind — the way her eyes flicked to his face, then his hands, then his chest. A doctor sister, always scanning.
"Is it your cough again?" she asked. "You sounded… worse, yesterday."
She already knows, Bilal murmured. Don't waste time pretending.
"I would insult your intelligence," Jinnah said, clasping his hands together, "if I told you it was nothing."
Fatima closed the book and set it aside. "So it is worse," she said quietly. "Have you spoken to the doctor again? Or are you still avoiding him the way you avoid rest?"
He gave the faintest suggestion of a shrug. "He reiterates the obvious," Jinnah replied. "Fatigue. Overwork. The climate. Insufficient rest. Too much tobacco."
"And?" she pressed.
"And," he continued, "he suggests what he has suggested before: a change. Of climate, of pace, of burden."
Fatima leaned back, eyes narrowing slightly. "A change to what?" she asked. "You have said this before, Bhai. Rest, less work, perhaps a season in some hill station. And then someone sends a brief from London, or a client from Delhi, and you are again in court, again at two in the morning reading papers."
She has your pattern memorised, Bilal noted. You cannot fob her off with vague 'rest' plans.
"For once," Jinnah said, "I intend to cooperate with the prescription, not merely admire it."
Fatima didn't smile. She waited.
"I am considering," he went on, "moving my base of practice — at least temporarily — from Bombay to Lahore."
There. It was out.
Fatima blinked. "Lahore?" she repeated. "The High Court there?"
"The Lahore bar is… active," Jinnah said. "It will not replace Bombay, but it would allow me to reduce the constant travel. I can take selected briefs there, nearer to the regions where the real questions will be decided."
Good, Bilal murmured. Give her the professional logic first. She believes those.
"You never do anything 'temporarily,'" Fatima said. "But go on."
He allowed himself the smallest of smiles. "Punjab," he continued, "will be central — economically, politically — to anything that follows the present struggle. It is useful to be known at that bar. To establish relationships with its judges, its bar leaders, its landholders."
"That sounds like strategy," Fatima said. "Not medicine."
"Sometimes they coincide," Jinnah replied. "The climate in Lahore is, at least, drier. And from there, one can reach the canal districts easily by train. The doctor has advised that I spend time away from this constant sea humidity."
Also, Bilal added silently, it puts you an overnight journey from Sandalbar instead of two made-up days of excuses.
Fatima watched him, weighing his words. "And Bombay?" she asked. "You would abandon your practice here? Your clients? The comfort of this house? You are not a young apprentice who can simply pack a trunk and chase a new bar."
"Abandon?" Jinnah repeated. "No. Diversify. Reduce. I will maintain chambers here; trusted juniors can handle much of the work. The more… delicate matters can be conducted by correspondence and occasional visits."
He adjusted his cufflinks, buying a moment. "There is another element," he said. "I have begun considering the purchase of land in Punjab. Near the canal colonies. Somewhere not far from a main line station — Montgomery district, perhaps. Ten minutes by tonga (buggy), another small halt down the track toward Harappa. A place that allows quiet. Space. A retreat."
Fatima's eyebrows rose. "An estate?" she asked. "You, of all people, want to become a landed gentleman now?"
"Spare me the ridicule," Jinnah said, though his tone had a dry edge of amusement. "I do not intend to play feudal lord, Fati. I require a place where the demands of the city cannot arrive every hour in the form of telegrams and visitors. A place where one can work… differently. Think. Breathe. And, when necessary, convalesce."
And build a ghost government, Bilal added. But we'll leave that out of the family briefing.
Fatima exhaled slowly. "So the lungs," she said. "This is really about your lungs."
He met her gaze. "Yes," he said simply. "And about time. I have less of both than most men. I prefer to spend them where they will do more good than arguing over one more resolution in one more hall of talkers."
Her eyes softened at that, though her mouth still held the familiar line of resistance. "And what about us?" she asked. "About me, about Dina? You cannot just decide to go and assume we will rearrange ourselves like your briefs."
There it was: the real question.
Careful, Bilal warned. This is where you usually defend with logic instead of answering the emotion. Try not to cross-examine your sister.
"I am not," Jinnah said slowly, "asking you to rearrange yourselves overnight." He leaned forward slightly. "I know," he went on, "that you are already carrying more than you should. You manage the house, you manage me, and you keep a watchful eye on a child who… does not always find me as impressive as my clients do."
A ghost of a smile flickered in Fatima's eyes at that. "Dina is eleven, Bhai," she said. "She finds very little impressive except stories and stubbornness."
"Stubbornness," he said lightly, "she comes by honestly." Then, more serious: "I do not intend," he said, "to drag you or her into half-built arrangements in some half-settled district. I will first establish a base in Lahore: chambers at the bar, suitable residence, trustworthy staff. I will see the land myself. I will arrange it so that our standard of living — yours and Dina's — is not compromised."
He held her gaze. "Only when I am satisfied," he said, "that you can come to Lahore and, if you wish, to the retreat, without losing comfort or dignity — then, and not before, will I ask you to move."
Fatima's eyes sharpened. "So you expect me to sit here," she said, "running a house you plan to abandon, managing a child you rarely see, while you go and play pioneer in Punjab?"
"That is not a fair summary," Jinnah replied, a trace of the barrister entering his voice. "I expect you to maintain stability for Dina while I create another stable point elsewhere. When I say 'standard of living,' I do not mean only servants and furniture, Fati. I mean schooling, social environment, security. You know very well that in Lahore we can replicate much of what we have here: good schools, a respectable circle, suitable house."
"And the land?" she asked. "This 'retreat'? Montgomery district, canal colonies — these are not exactly Malabar Hill."
"No," he agreed. "They are not. That is precisely the point. The retreat is not a place for soirées. It is a place for work and, sometimes, recovery. You and Dina will not be compelled to spend every season there. It will be… an additional axis in our lives, not a replacement for civilisation."
Translation, Bilal thought, Bombay for now, Lahore later, Sandalbar as the backend server room.
Fatima was quiet, thinking. "You speak," she said at last, "as if you have already decided."
"I am," Jinnah answered, "too old to indulge in idle hypotheticals. When I speak of a move, it is because I consider it likely. But I would not leave without making clear arrangements for you and for Dina."
He hesitated for a fraction of a second — an almost invisible glitch in his usual smooth delivery. "I will," he said, "write to her school. Ensure that, for now, nothing changes in her routine. You will remain here, with all necessary support. I will go ahead, reduce my load here, establish myself in Lahore and Sandalbar. When — not if — I have created something that meets our standards, I will send for you. Both of you. Or you may decide, of your own judgment, that Bombay remains preferable. I will not coerce you."
Fatima studied him, searching for the weak points in the argument as thoroughly as any opposing counsel. "And your health in the meantime?" she asked. "You promise to actually rest, Bhai? Or will you simply find new ways to kill yourself in a different city?"
He allowed himself a small sigh. "I promise," he said, "to reduce the number of fools I argue with in person."
"That is not the same as resting," she said dryly.
"It is the only form of rest I find tolerable," he replied. "Lahore offers enough work to keep me useful, but not the constant social and political circus of Bombay. In Punjab, between the bar and the land, I can control my timetable more tightly."
And we can build the prototype without twenty committees watching, Bilal added.
Fatima's expression softened, just a little. "This disease," she said quietly, "this fatigue… it is not imaginary. You know that."
"I know," he said.
"And you know," she added, "that if you collapse, it will be Dina and I who watch you die. Not the League. Not the Congress. Not the Empire."
"Yes," he replied. "That is precisely why I must choose where I stand when the collapse comes — mine or theirs."
She exhaled. "If I agree," she said, "to not fight you on this plan, I need some assurances."
"Name them," he said.
"One: regular letters," she began. "Not just to me, but to Dina. Not speeches masquerading as letters, but actual sentences she can understand."
"Agreed," he said.
"Two: you allow the doctor to examine you again before you leave," she continued. "Properly. Not just five minutes on the way to court."
"Agreed," he said again.
"Three: if at any point your health worsens in Lahore," she said, "you do not hide it from me. If you intend to die in some canal colony, you will not do it without warning."
A flicker — maybe of protest, maybe of dark amusement — crossed his face. "I have no intention," he said, "of turning my death into a surprise party. Agreed."
She nodded slowly. "Then I will not stand in your way," she said. "I don't like it. I don't like Lahore's winters, and I don't like the idea of you playing landlord even less. But if this gives you a chance to live longer — and to be useful in the way you think is necessary — then I will… tolerate it."
"That is the highest form of endorsement you have ever given anything," Jinnah said. "I accept it gratefully."
She shook her head, but a small, sad smile tugged at her mouth. "Just remember," she said, "Montgomery may be ten minutes from the station, but for Dina, you are always either here or not here. That is the only distance that matters to her."
He looked away, briefly. "I will try," he said quietly, "to be more often 'here,' wherever 'here' is."
That, Bilal thought, is the closest you will get to an apology. We'll take it.