by Jon Stock
The family walked past us out into the street. We both looked at the boy, who smiled shyly at us as he passed, the corners of his mouth still daubed with red.
“Maybe I could have done something to stop him, coped better, but I’d shared a chillum with Macaulay barely five minutes earlier. At least I thought it was a draw, but it wasn’t. It was some weird shit. I fell asleep on my bed. Next thing I was strapped to the chair, the taste of plastic in my mouth. Some mornings I can’t even remember my own name.”
“Where did this all happen?”
“Just across the border, in Tamil ‘Nard’, as Macaulay called it. We were meant to be going to Periyar, but we kept going. Driving all night. Macaulay was in a shit-mad mood, had been ever since he found me looking at the files. Never let me leave his sight. Always swearing at me. I don’t remember the name of the village where we finally stopped. Next thing I knew I was lying on a railway platform in Ernakulam.”
“What about the files? Can you remember anything about them? They were in his house on the island?” “Yeah, a kind of secret library. Revolving bookcases and all that.”
“Really?”
“Nah. It was in the basement. I was one of his special guests. You know, the ones who walked around with no clothes on. We got to go private side. Man, what a privilege that was.”
“But you were there because Sir Ian had sent you?”
“Yeah. I was. Kind of. Then things gained a momentum of their own. I was broke. Sir Ian kept promising to wire me money but it never came. Macaulay took me in, fed me, then he started paying me to wear nothing under my lunghi.” Dutchie laughed to himself. “Jesus, what a pervert. But hey, I needed to live. The money was good.”
“And you just had to be decorative? Nothing else?”
“Pretty much. There was another guy there who went further, did the business, you know. But he also got beaten up. It was part of the package. I guess when Macaulay tired of him, I would have been asked to fill the gap.” He laughed to himself again.
I kept him company with a nervous, encouraging laugh. “But you fell out of favour when you saw the files.”
“That’s one way of putting it. I’d visited the library a couple of times before Macaulay found out. The first time Paul caught me, but he said nothing.”
“Did you find out anything?”
“The library was divided into two parts. The first consisted of files from 1913 to 1947. The second was from 1955 to the present day.”
“1955?”
“Yeah. Although the files got thicker around 1960, when the government first announced the Commonwealth Immigration Act. There was a bit of a stampede between ’60 and ’62, when the Act was finally passed. Sir Ian’s told you about the Cardamom Club, right?”
“He has, yes,” I said, concluding that he had told more to Dutchie than he had to me. “Is that when the Club was formed, then? 1955?”
“It depends what you mean by formed. Macaulay never stopped. Someone in Whitehall began to listen to him in the early Sixties, read his reports. There was a lot of paranoia in those days. It’s never been official, though, has it? So who knows?”
“What sort of people were in the files?” I asked, desperate to inquire about my father.
“Pre-1947, it was all original IPI material, the usual suspects. Post-1955, it seemed to be anyone who had left India for Britain.”
“Did you look at any names in particular? The more recent files?”
“A few. But it’s a waste of time, man. There was nothing there. Innuendo, speculation.”
Dutchie glanced round at the window as he said the words, checking up and down the street.
“And it’s all in Cochin because you wouldn’t be allowed to keep that sort of shit on people in Britain.”
19
Dutchie and I must have made an odd couple as we sauntered down through the pine trees from McLeodganj to Dharamsala. Dutchie the archetypal Western traveller in his dishevelled Indian khadi clothes, and me, the Indian, looking like a stockbroker on holiday, wearing my Western chinos, Lacoste shirt and Timberlands. The stony track we were on zigzagged its way down the steep side of a valley, its progress occasionally broken by recent landslides that had left gaping holes in the stony earth. There was always an alternative route, though, a precarious higher path that had been quickly established by the monks who walked this way daily. We passed a few in their flowing robes, all smiling openly at us as they shuttled backwards and forwards across the hillside.
Dutchie’s health troubled me. He was suffering from a degree of post-traumatic stress disorder, a legacy of what he had seen and perhaps of what he had smoked that night. At times, he was as coherent as I imagined he ever got, at other moments he was a mess, convinced that someone was following us, crouching behind rocks when he heard a bird call, or a stone falling away beneath us. But it was the student monks perched on the hills all around who troubled him the most. To me, they were a beautiful, numinous sight, sitting cross-legged in their maroon robes as they looked out across the valley, a book on their laps, lips mumbling sacred Tibetan texts. But for Dutchie they stirred up something deep inside him, as if the sighting of each one were confirmation of another pair of eyes watching him.
Once, after he had suddenly noticed a monk high up above us on an outcrop of rock, he started to shake so badly that I had to restrain him with a hug. If I hadn’t, I feared he would have slipped and fallen down the valley. We sat for a while and I encouraged him to talk about his life before he came to India, something to root him to a less traumatic time. I was also curious to discover how he had come to work for someone like Sir Ian, how their wildly different paths had ever crossed. After a few minutes, I gave up searching for something stable and reassuring. His past was all too turbulent, too extreme, way beyond the parameters of my sheltered life in Scotland. I sat there, listening in appalled disbelief.
After dropping out of public school and a comfortable middle-class background, Dutchie had become a New Age anarchist, mixing it with the likes of Class War until he had fallen for a hippie traveller from Cornwall called Annalese. He had agreed, at her insistence, to drop the violence but then she was killed in a terrorist bomb blast in London, leaving Dutchie demented with rage, desperate for revenge. Through Walter, the American uncle Sir Ian had mentioned, Dutchie managed to contact the intelligence services and had offered to go after Annalese’s terrorist killers in return for a clean police record. They had agreed, he eventually tracked them down and his police files had been given back to him.
“It should have been a triumph, a moment of pure satisfaction,” Dutchie said, looking out across the valley. “But it turned out that she had been cheating on me. My file was full of her own reports.”
“Really?”
“She had been working for the filth all along. An informer, snitch. Five years later and I still can’t get over that. I thought we really had something going. And I was never able to challenge her, give her the chance to reply.”
“Perhaps she began as an informer, and then genuinely fell for you. It happens. You start off out of a sense of duty, and then something else takes over.”
“She filed up to the day before she died,” Dutchie said, throwing his cigarette stub away.
“She could have been under pressure. Had no choice,” I said, thinking of Priyanka and how Jamie had perversely tried to get me to pursue her. That was all irrelevant now.
“Maybe. I still hang on to that.” Dutchie was looking fragile again.
“Sir Ian says he knows your dad,” I said, quickly changing the subject.
“He knew Walter better. Ex-CIA.”
“And Sir Ian sent you to India.”
“I was here already, in an ashram. You know, one of those free-love, get-your-kit-off places.”
“Really?” I looked at him with surprise, wanting to know more.
“No. I tried. There’s a great place in Kerala where they have sex all the time, no questions, right in front of everyone. Mixed
dormitories, that kind of thing. But they wouldn’t let me in. Suspected my motives. I ended up over in Pondicherry, at the Sri Aurobindo. When Ian got to hear I was in India, he came down to see me, told me all about Macaulay. He didn’t know about the Cardamom Club then, nothing specific, anyway. He just wanted me to hang out, sniff around.”
“And you agreed.”
“Yeah. I liked him. Believed in what he had to say about India. Macaulay seemed to represent everything that was wrong with Britain. Keep India down where it belongs in the world, Tebbit’s Cricket Test, all that stuff. It was a chance to do something about it.”
“He sent me down to Cochin after you. Only in my case he knew about the Club but omitted to tell me.”
“Right,” he said. It took a few moments but a different level of comprehension began to spread across his face. “Macaulay must have loved you. Ha! Very clever. I get it. A real live British Asian. That’s the side I don’t like. Ian’ll use someone for his own ends. He knew you’d get further than me. I don’t suppose Macaulay had ever actually met a British Asian before.”
“Foreign Office, too.”
“Love it. He must have choked on his flaccid moussaka. You work for Ian in Delhi, then?”
“Not exactly. I’m a doctor, at the High Commission. I am also meant to run occasional errands for MI6. I was just helping Sir Ian out. He got me my posting here.”
“Ian’s a one-off, you know, a genuine Indophile. Of course, he’s interested in trade, like the rest of them, but there’s an understanding there, a real love for this place.”
I contemplated whether it was safe to tell him about Sir Ian’s departure.
“I’m afraid he’s been recalled,” I said, taking my chances.
“Recalled? When?” Dutchie’s eyes immediately started to flit from one side to the other, almost as if he were blind.
“Yesterday. Packed him off in an ambulance to the airport.”
“Jesus. Why?”
“Officially he was ill. Unofficially the Club was onto him. They must have got wind of his inquiries.”
“Us, you mean. Got wind of our inquiries.”
Dutchie was standing now, and starting to shake uncontrollably again. I wished I had brought some of the sedatives I had in my room.
“He always said that might happen. I’m dead if they know I’m back. I’m dead or another child’s dead. What does it matter? You’ve never seen a child kick out like that. Seen so much pain trapped inside such a small body.”
“Dutchie,” I said. I was standing up as well now, gripping his shoulders tightly. “Dutchie, listen to me. They don’t know you’re back. Okay? Nobody knows except me.”
“What about you? Ian sent you to Cochin. They’ll be after you as well.”
I looked around, not so much out of fear as to see whose peace we were disturbing. A monk on a distant hillock was looking our way but he turned his head when I caught his eye.
“We must be careful, of course we must, but they don’t know I’m here. All right? We’re safe.”
I glanced around again, scanning the countryside. The monk had disappeared.
*
By the time we reached Dharamsala, Dutchie was feeling more relaxed, less paranoid. My own anxiety, however, was mounting. Dutchie wanted to check his emails and I decided to do the same, in case my father had sent more details about his interrogation. There seemed to be internet cafés on every corner, interspersed with shoe shops, cheap hotels and meditation centres. We headed for the nearest, and both settled down in front of terminals.
I logged onto Hotmail and retrieved two messages. The first was from Frank. I opened the second one, which was from Priyanka. It read as follows:
“Where are you? M’s internet café has closed and his house on the island is shut up. I found Paul, badly beaten up in Mattancherry. He said M had gone up country. I’m coming back to Delhi. Magazine is holding story. Miss you. x”
I looked across at Dutchie, who was reading a message on his screen. The café was empty apart from us.
“Any luck?” I asked.
“One from the missus.”
“You’re married?” My voice was too loud, too full of surprise. “What’s her name?”
“Charlotte.”
“Very… nice,” I said, uncertainly, not sure if he was winding me up.
“Not what you would expect, huh?” He gave me a deranged grin that could have meant anything.
“I didn’t mean that,” I said, apologetically. “Not at all.”
“Yes you did.”
“What does she do? Class War?”
“Very witty. She’s a spook. One of the good ones.”
“Right,” I said, returning to my screen and clicking open the message from Frank. It was becoming clear Dutchie was less out of his depth in all this than I had thought he was. “How did you meet her? Through Sir Ian?”
“Stop calling him ‘Sir’, would you? She used to work for Walter. You?”
“Me?”
“Are you married?”
“Not yet,” I said, scrolling through Frank’s message. He had been busy. “Take a look at this.” I went back to the top of the email, which read as follows:
“Raj, eventually tracked down my old contact. Yes, your man in the south is ex-IPI. He was recruited in 1944 and returned to Britain after Independence, pushing papers around for MI5, before moving back to India for good in 1955. Sometime in between he managed to get his hands on IPI’s more sensitive files. He’s still sending in a steady stream of useless chatter from Cochin to London about Indian scientists, doctors and academics who have emigrated to Britain.
“As for our mutual friend, we know all about his touching approach to global harmony. Back in the early 1980s, the bad old days when he was following me around, he also became convinced that India was trying to infiltrate the more sensitive corners of the kingdom, ie Britain’s nuclear weapons programme. He believed New Delhi would try anything, even penetrate CND, to share its secrets.
“After the Pokhran tests in 98, he was given the dubious responsibility of undermining India’s claims to a place at the nuclear high table and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. ‘Spook with special responsibility for Pokhran propaganda.’ Don’t we just love these people? More later, Frank.”
“I’ve got to make a call,” I said, deleting the email. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
I knew I shouldn’t ring Priyanka, but I almost ran across the street to the nearest phone booth. A few seconds later and I was talking to her at Seven Days’ bureau in Delhi.
“I’ve been trying to ring you,” she said. “Where are you?” For a few moments I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t think of anything. The sound of her voice was electrifying, completely fusing everything in my mind. I had been a child the last time I felt this happy.
“Out of Delhi,” I managed to say, pressing the receiver close against my cheek.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine.”
“Listen, Macaulay’s news service,” she continued. “It’s not just an email circular to friends. It’s a major wire operation. Can you look at it now?”
“In a few minutes. Why?”
“A story’s just been flagged on its breaking news channel. Half an hour ago. About a case of sati in U. P. – Bijnor district.” I thought back to the etchings of sati in Macaulay’s house. “It says the ceremony has been planned for tomorrow evening. It’s going to be a media circus.”
“Are you going?”
“Of course. It’s unprecedented. Getting advance warning of something like this. Sensational. It must be a hoax. The police will be all over the area.”
I could see the East India Company official, standing under his umbrella. “If they haven’t already been bought off,” I said. “I’ll ring you back in a few minutes.”
“Raj?”
“Yes.”
She was adjusting the receiver in her hand.
“I’ve mi
ssed you.”
I walked back across the street to the internet café, unable to resist a small skip as I stepped inside. Dutchie was still there, composing a long email to Charlotte.
“Did you ever discover anything about Macaulay’s news service?” I asked.
“A little. Why?” Dutchie was concentrating on his screen.
“How much?”
“That he was circulating shite stories about India to all his pals. Things that amused him. Child labour, bride-burning, that kind of thing.”
“It’s more than just a circular,” I said, booting up the browser. A few moments later I was looking at the home page of the Cardamom Café. I pulled out my wallet, selected a credit card and clicked on the Cardamom News icon. It took a few minutes to sign up – it was too late to worry about Macaulay now – and then I was looking at a list of stories from the last few days. Priyanka was right: it was a comprehensive databank. I was annoyed that I hadn’t checked it out earlier. I clicked on the breaking news icon. The top item was about the sati case.
SATI FEARS IN U. P. VILLAGE
A sati is to be performed somewhere in the remote Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh, according to local reports.
Twenty-two-year-old Kalawati was widowed two days ago and has been under mounting pressure from her husband’s family to perform the illegal ceremony. The medieval practice involves throwing herself onto his funeral pyre, an act that followers believe will transform her into the goddess Sati, the consort of Shiva.
India’s most celebrated case in recent times was in September 1987, when an eighteen-year-old widow called Roop Kanwar died in Deorala village, Rajasthan. Her death shocked the world, but prompted a revival of sati worship in India.
Sati, also known as suttee, was outlawed by the British in 1929.
I browsed through some of the other stories. “Naked swami seeks world peace, bathes in boiling butter”; “Eunuch castrates himself”; “Bam Ram, the flesh-eating swami of Bihar” (80 per cent of his devotees driven insane by “burping” corpses). There was even an entire section dedicated to animals: “PM says it’s monkey business as usual” (marauding monkeys break into government offices and ransack sensitive filing cabinets); “Holy cow has bags of stomach” (four thousand plastic bags retrieved from the stomach of a cow in Bhuj); “Drunken elephant kills five in Assam”; “India’s dancing bears on their last legs” and so on.