I left about half an hour after Banerjee and the collector sahib, and went back to the Pilgrim Hotel. That late, Schrunk was the only reporter in the bar. His liver was probably as hard as other people’s ribs.
“Find her?” he said.
“Who?”
He leered at me. “The Wilder twot.”
“I never said I was looking for her.”
“She ain’t been around.”
I wasn’t especially annoyed with Schrunk, but I didn’t like him. I was annoyed with being pushed around, and beaten, and given no cooperation, and half drowned, and not being able to find Varley, and not being able to prevent what had happened to Wally Baker, and not even what had happened to the Ayyangar crone. I was annoyed with myself, so I told Schrunk, “What do you do, save your grammar for the column you write?”
“No offense,” he said. “I didn’t know it was like that between you and Marianne Wilder.”
“It isn’t like anything.”
He bought me a drink. I couldn’t talk him out of it. He wanted someone to drink with. Then he put a newspaper down on the bar in front of my face. “Seen this?”
It was a copy of the Benares edition of the English-language Delhi Times, tonight’s edition. The headline was: AMERICAN OBSERVER DIES ON EVE OF BENARES CONFERENCE.
I read the article, which was a rewrite of Banerjee’s leak to All-India Radio. “They don’t give a crap for us,” Schrunk said with drunken bitterness. “The first I seen of it was in the paper.”
That wasn’t surprising, considering where Schrunk spent his time. He solaced himself with another drink. I bought a bottle and went upstairs with it.
It was very hot in my room. I turned the overhead fan on and left the louvres open. I took off my shirt and pants. I itched all over from the filthy Ganges water. A mosquito whined in my ear. I had a shower, got into a fresh pair of shorts, and stretched out on the bed. The mosquito came back with his friends. I took the bottle of Scotch under the mosquito netting with me and belted it. I thought of Marianne and Wally. I ducked out of the netting and called the hospital to ask about Wally, but there hadn’t been any change.
I drank some more. I had one of those sharp, eyeball-plucking headaches, there was a knot of pain high up on my right arm, my left arm throbbed with dull pain from shoulder to wrist, and in general I felt ready to go three short rounds with Little Bo Peeps’s kid sister.
I thought of Schrunk. I put the bottle down and laughed. Not at Schrunk. Who the hell was I to get high and mighty about Schrunk? At least he did his solitary drinking at a bar. I got up, and dressed, and drove over to the railroad station in Marianne’s little Fiat. I sent a cable to the Senator who’d recommended me to Priscilla Varley. It said: TELL P.V. DESPITE WHAT SHE READS IN THE PAPERS BABY IS ALIVE AND KICKING. I was being indirect and cryptic, not cute, because there was no telling who might get to read the cable before it left Benares. On the other hand, Priscilla Varley would suffer until she got some news from me.
I went back to the hotel. When I drank this time it was different. Sending the cable, somehow, had done it. I was almost too restless to sleep. Whatever happened, I was through being kicked around. In the morning they would know it. They would know it all the way up to their Gandhi-hat-wearing Prime Minister, if necessary.
That was to be the morning of the day a lynch mob came for me.
19.
I CALLED the hospital before breakfast. The circuits were busy, but finally. I got through to Marianne. She sounded better than I had expected. The X rays had already been taken, she said, but although they showed no brain damage and no pressure on the brain, Wally was still in a coma. Her voice caught when she told me that.
I said, “The cops will probably want you to make a statement this evening.”
“The doctor told me. He thinks I ought to go there instead of having them come here. But if Wally’s still like this I won’t leave him.”
“Good. Then don’t.”
“Why? There’s nothing to worry about now, is there? Is there, Chet?”
“If Wally’s better and you change your mind, don’t go down there unless Banerjee—he’s the stocky guy who looks like he has no neck—escorts you personally.”
“If something’s the matter, tell me.”
“Nothing’s the matter, kid.”
“You’re worried about—about Ambedkar, aren’t you?”
“Nothing’s the matter, kid. I just trust Banerjee, that’s all.” But I couldn’t reassure her. I began to realize the doctor was right: the sooner she left the hopsital the better off she’d be.
“Call again soon, Chet?”
“Maybe I won’t be near a phone.”
“Where are you going? What are you going to do?”
“Some loose ends, baby.”
“Varley?”
“Depends.”
She tried a laugh. “All right, be the strong silent type.” The laugh choked off. “Just take care of yourself. Please, Chet.”
I went downstairs and had breakfast.
Benares was a different city. The change was almost miraculous. For one thing, the Pilgrim Hotel hummed with new guests wearing turbans and fezzes and either robes or the cardboard-stiff, peak-lapeled, double-breasted, chalk-striped business suits which were the ubiquitous uniform of reluctant Westernization in the East. For another, the stink of offal and sewage in the dusty, dirty streets was almost obliterated by the gasoline exhaust of the hundreds of cars provided by the Indian government for the lesser lights of the Conference who hadn’t been given housing in the pre-fab village near the university.
I drove out along the Panch Kosi Road in the Fiat. An enormous crowd milled outside the university building in which the Asian-African nations would map out the future of their part of the world. The hot, dusty path from the parking lot to the main entrance was strewn with flower petals. Flag-waving throngs lined the path. The roar of ten thousand voices crested through the crowd, and all of it wasn’t cheering. When some members of one of the European Observer Team went by, the ten thousand voices howled derisively and then commenced a deep-throated chant in a language I didn’t understand. It was a primeval cry for blood and it worked like a magnet on the short hairs at the back of my neck. There were no demonstrations, though. Not right then, there weren’t.…
I trudged along in the dust behind a party led by a huge man wearing a lavendar turban. He was very popular. Despite my obvious Western appearance, the mercurial crowd took me as one of his entourage.
The guards at the door did not. I stood at the base of wide, polished stone stairs, stared up at double doors intricately carved in the Hindu fashion in a marble facade more Moghul than Hindu, and showed the papers which said I was a member of the U.S. Observer Team. No one was there to toss flower petals like perfumed confetti, as had been the case with the man in the lavendar turban, but they let me pass.
Inside, there was a long dim marble hall which led to a wide rotunda. Men in chalk-stripe suits carrying briefcases hurried along the hall. At the center of the rotunda was a fountain. The spray cooled the hall amd the rotunda as effectively as air conditioning.
Halfway to the information desk beyond the fountain, I stopped dead. A man was coming toward me, short and trim in his chalk-stripe suit, his darkly pleasant, earnest young face that would have looked better over Brooks Brothers worsteds. He had what remained of a raised welt on each cheek where he had been struck with a switch of hill bamboo.
My fingers curled instinctively into fists as I took a step toward him. He backed away warily, looking around. “Don’t do anything foolish, Mr. Drum,” he said.
I hung a pint-sized smile on my face and said, “You’re safe here, buddy. It’s a different world. As a matter of fact, you’re just the guy I wanted to see.”
“Yes?” He smiled too. He was Eton rowing crew again. He was more a chameleon than any man I have ever known. The smile wandered back where it had come from and he said, “May I extend my condolences at the death of t
he American Observer?”
He was—just possibly—rattled to see me. But when the smile returned there was mockery in it. “It’s a pleasure to welcome you to our Conference.”
“Listen,” I said in what I hoped was a reluctantly self-effacing voice, “I’m a babe in the woods when it comes to this diplomatic game. How do I go about presenting myself to Sir Gaganvihari?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You see, they didn’t have time to appoint a bona fide new observer. As a detective, I …”
“No, no. I can’t believe it!” The smile was condescending now. “A private detective!”
“It’s not official, of course.”
“Oh, but this is wonderful. The United States Observer to the Benares Conference—a private detective.”
“Just a plain private eye,” I said defensively, “and I’d see your point. But I was with the F.B.I. a few years back.”
“The F.B.I.?” His face had gone chalky. “I underestimated you, Mr. Drum. My apologies.”
He went with me to the information desk, where I asked for Gaganvihari Mojindar. He was already in the hall. He would probably be in the hall most of the day. Would I care to wait? I looked at Ambedkar. He looked at me and smiled.
“Attend the first session of the Conference, by all means, Mr. Drum.” He scribbled something on a white card. “In the event of lengthy or late sessions, each delegation has its private lounge here at the hall.”He handed me the card. “Here is the location of the Indian lounge. Shall we say, directly after the session ends? I could introduce you personally to Sir Gaganvihari.”
“His houseboy?” Big deal, my tone said.
Now it was Ambedkar’s turn to bristle defensively. “In the New India, Mr. Drum, one’s background doesn’t matter. Besides, like the Prime Minister, I am a Brahmin. Until later, Mr. Drum?” I gave him a doubtful stare. He said, “A confidence for a confidence. Before the Conference ends, Mr. Drum, you may see me in the hall addressing the delegates. Until later?”
I nodded, and followed the briefcase and chalk-stripe suits to the Benares Hall of Nations.
An usher looked at my papers and led me to a seat high on the rim of the cup-shaped hall, only three rows above the point where field glasses would have done any good. I sat down and the usher went away. It seemed to be the European-American section; I didn’t see a single chalk-stripe suit.
I followed the long beam of a spotlight through the smoky haze and saw, far, far below, a black African who was slowly pounding the lectern to pulp with a fist only a little smaller than a bowling ball while he roared in a deep earthy basso what had to be invective in a language I had never heard before.
The man to my right poked my arm. It hurt, but he couldn’t know that. He smiled, took off his earphones and said, “Hello there, Mr. Drum.” It was Meadows, the Embassy driver on loan to the Observer Team. Apparently he was more than a driver—he had been taking notes in a steno pad. “Isn’t it a son of a bitch,” he whispered, “what happened to Mr. Varley?” The smile had dropped off his face. He looked bewildered. I realized that all these people around me, that everyone in the vast hall, thought Stewart Hoffman Varley, Jr., was dead.
I nodded. Meadows pointed to the back of the chair in front of me. “Why don’t you try the phones?”
A pair of earphones hung there. You had a choice of four holes for the plug: English, French, Hindi or Cantonese. I plugged the earphones in, put them on, and heard an unimpassioned high tenor version of the black African’s basso.
The big African’s tirade was typical of about a dozen others that first day of the Conference. Gaganvihari Mojindar, the African declared, had stuffed the Western Observers down all their throats. They did not want Western Observers. They could do without Western Observers. Their every move would be frustrated by Western Observers. Did the NATO powers invite Asian-African Observers to their meetings? They did not. Did the U.N. invite non-U.N. members? They did not. Besides, wasn’t it clear to the chief delegate from the host nation that the Western Observers wanted (a) to make fun of, or (b) to subvert the Conference?
Shouts of approval greeted and followed each speaker. It was very hot in the hall, particularly up where we sat. There were planned demonstrations, too, with marchers carrying posters and shouting at the top of their lungs. The Benares Conference began to remind me of a political convention.
Speaker followed speaker, drumming the theme home. University of Benares students, sweat pouring from them, circulated through the hall with tepid lemon squash. Three or four Western Observers were carried out, unconscious from heat prostration. After a few hours of it, the raw, angry hatred for the West became as palpable as the hot, humid air and the clothes which hung with limp wetness.
Then, toward the close of the afternoon, Gaganvihari Mojindar’s frail figure mounted the podium and stood before the lectern. I couldn’t see his face. He had a very small voice and spoke in Hindi. After the machine-gun pace of some of the earlier speakers, the translator had no trouble keeping up with him. He had three arguments. The angry delegates shouted each of them down. The first was a plea for self-restraint among the delegates, a condemnation of the hydra-headed mob in all their nations whose hatred the delegates reflected, and a reminder that that hatred was being beamed to the entire world. It took five minutes for the sergeant at arms to restore order. The second said that since certain nations hadn’t earned the right to membership in the U.N., such comparisons did not apply. At this point the Red Chinese delegation stalked out of the hall and the sergeant at arms had an even harder job. The third said that the delegates at Benares must borrow mistakes from the past performances of neither West nor East, had nothing to hide and thus should welcome the foreign observers, and should look with hope to the future instead of with old hatreds to the past.
Gaganvihari Mojindar sat down. The delegates hooted for a solid twenty minutes, then Mojindar mounted the podium again. He was a small figure in white, with a Gandhi hat on his head. He raised both hands and the hooting became a steady rhythmic chant. He waited, a sad, tired smile on his face, until the chanting subsided, when he said, “If you are determined to bring this Conference down in ruins, at least do not go back on your word to the Western governments, whose Observers have come to Benares at our invitation, until this evening’s session, which shall be addressed by a surprise speaker.”
There was a buzz of angry speculation, but the first session of the Conference was adjourned until this evening.
When Meadows and an Englishman who had been seated near us headed for the Observer bar, I excused myself and pointed my nose in the direction indicated on Ambedkar’s little white card.
Sumitra Mojindar opened the door of the Indian lounge for me. She wore a red-and-silver silk sari and a gold ring in her nose piercing one nostril and a ring in each ear too. Bracelets jangled on her arms. Her hair, which she usually wore drawn back tightly from her forehead and across her skull like patent leather, hung loose and glossy in black waves lapping at her shoulder blades. Her amazing amber eyes were windows on another more pagan world. If how she was made up meant anything, Sumitra Mojindar had gone native.
She had a scowl for me and lifted her arms as if to bar my way. The heavy bracelets jangled.
“All dressed up and no place to go,” I said. “Want company?”
“Why did you come here, Mr. Drum?”
I shrugged. “To hear your husband stand them on their ears, for one thing.”
“Yes. He did that, didn’t he?” She backed into the open doorway a few inches. I tried a flanking movement and barely made it inside before she shut the door.
“What do you want? I thought I made it clear the last time we met …”
“I’m supposed to meet Ambedkar here. If you’re playing hostess, didn’t he tell you?”
She shook her head, the three gold rings moving. “I haven’t seen Ranjit Ambedkar all day.”
“He’s going to introduce me officially to your husband. You see, I�
�m the new U.S. Observer here.”
The heavy bracelets jangled again as she lifted one hand to her head in a theatrical gesture of surprise and smiled at me. “The incredible, unpredictable Mr. Drum,” she said. “Although, as you probably realize by now, in politics my husband and Ranjit Ambedkar are worlds apart.”
“They’re worlds apart how?”
“First we ought to have a drink to your success. From private detective to unofficial ambassadorial rank—that’s a considerable move. Well, isn’t it?”
I followed Sumitra through two long rooms laid out like a railway flat. Beyond them was a door which she opened with a key and beyond the door was the pleasantly metallic odor and barely audible hum of an air-conditioning unit. The room contained functionally modern furniture in teak, rattan and glass. There was another door, closed, on the far wall, a window which contained a quarter-ton air conditioner, a picture of Gandhi in his round glasses and Gandhi hat on the wall, and nothing more deadly than a tray on a tea-and-glass cocktail table which held a crock of Holland gin, an ice bucket and some glasses.
Sumitra sat on the low rattan sofa behind the cocktail table and poured two drinks over ice. “Holland gin,” she said, “is a weakness of mine which my husband deplores. You see, it isn’t homespun—to misuse a word which has wide coinage here in India.”
She handed me a glass and we toasted each other. “To the new unofficial Observer,” she said, and drained her glass. I drank my Holland gin only after she had taken hers: Holland gin is to gin as vermouth is to wine—it has the kind of aromatic odor that can hide anything from sulphuric acid to potassium cyanide. Not that I expected Sumitra Mojindar to poison me, but she was up to something and it wasn’t off the top of her head. I congratulated myself on realizing that while she refilled our glasses. I hadn’t said anything about my status being unofficial; she had, which probably meant she’d been in a huddle with Ambedkar.
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