Truth Lake

by Shakuntala Banaji

  Sorrow put him off his food and he dropped onto his bed wearing nothing but a damp towel.

  The beeper was a new inspiration of Hàrélal's. Karmel could still see the light flare beneath the older man's eyelids when he'd realised that he had yet another way to control his young deputy, a device which, unlike a mobile phone, could never be switched off. Were he simply to throw the thing away, then he would be held accountable for destroying government property. And anyway, Karmel knew, he could not afford to offend his boss. The tenuous authority to which he had risen could only be maintained if he made himself indispensable. He'd had enough of being kicked around by many masters and Hàrélal was not as bad as others. So he hurried, naked and shining in the dusty morning sunlight, to his silenced mobile phone. His eyes felt heavy but Hàrélal's voice acted like spray from some particularly pungent citrus fruit.

  'My office. Ten minutes, Kailash.'

  'Sir . . .. I'm at home. Give me thirty.'

  'Home? It's five minutes past ten. How long does it take to wipe your arse? Over here. Now!' The connection was cut.

  Assaulted by the light pouring into the apartment all around him, Karmel blinked. This was his designated fortnightly day off but he knew that such trivialities would never occur to Hàrélal, whose only concern at the moment appeared to be the next set of crime statistics and the next chance at promotion to the post of Chief Superintendent.

  Karmel felt his stomach rumble as he pulled on his clothes. He hadn't eaten for twenty hours. He would have to eat on the way for he couldn't face a day of mindless chores without physical sustenance. He decided to stop at a stall that hawked hot pastries to passing motorists at one of the busiest intersections in the city. He'd become acquainted with the owner when he was sent to close this illegal business down. Karmel had persuaded his boss to try one of the pastries and, to the owner's gratitude, the stall had been granted a temporary reprieve. They'd been friends ever since, the steam of pastries mixing with noxious vapours and car emissions to remind them of life's fragility.

  Combing his hair in front of the mirror, Karmel examined a small lump on the side of his neck. It had been causing him sharp pain lately. A local physician had told him it might signal a hereditary disease. He was scheduled to have a biopsy done but perhaps the disease that awaited him lay not there but somewhere else. The heart, the lungs, the blood, the brain?

  His polished mirror reflected his symmetry as calmly as it always did: ironed cotton shirt, buttoned to the top, dark brown skin, stubble, silky black hair, large dark eyes, the left one with a barely perceptible cast to it. He cleared his throat, lifted the keys to his motorbike from the neat dressing table and left his flat, slamming the door behind him.

  His landlady peered from her barred window into the street below to see him riding off on his gleaming Honda. She had a strange feeling of affinity for this tenant of hers, but that did not stop her from taking the spare key that he left with her and entering his space as soon as he was out of sight each morning. Often in the darkness when he returned and padded around his flat he felt that things were eerily out of place, that his own feet were treading a path that had been warmed by other feet before his; he put these sensations down to exhaustion and never once thought that the fleshless grandmother who rented him the apartment might slip upstairs in the heated afternoons to sniff around his personal belongings, his comb and books and neatly polished shoes.

  He knew no mother, no father, no sisters, aunts or concerned cousins and his only visitor never revealed her purpose or her presence.

  2

  Nothing Karmel said seemed to calm the young foreigner. With her shabby sandals and her refined nose, she stared at him and wept until he thought she would wear a channel down her own face. And they had barely begun. Softly he paced the room, waiting for her anguish to exhaust her or for his own patience to dissolve.

  The boy they were keeping separate, in a small chamber designed for the secretarial aides of visiting diplomats; it contained a sofa and a plastic potted plant. He had chosen for himself and the girl a room that adjoined a tiny interior garden, hoping that the smell of fresh earth might remind her of pleasant things or that the sight of flowers would cheer her up. Twice Hàrélal had padded up to the door like a restrained tiger and peered impatiently at him and the dripping face of the girl. Hàrélal could never see the point of obtaining the story of an event several times and had tried to tell him what was the matter the moment he stepped through the office door. But Karmel always wanted to hear witnesses speak.

  Thus far he had ascertained only basic information such as her name, which was Sara Ann McMeckan, her companion's name, which was Adam Loach, and her reason for visiting India which was, allegedly, to meet up with a friend of theirs called Cameron Croft, who had written to them about a remote and delightful Himalayan idyll. She kept referring negatively to a book called The Beach and imploring him to understand that they had not come to India to smoke dope or to take part in any protest about trees. They were just tourists, hikers, there for the experience. She wore a twisted thread bracelet on her left wrist and as she spoke she twisted it violently around until her skin reddened to a mirroring line beneath it. Karmel wondered what Hàrélal had said to her to make her this fearful. Or what she had seen.

  He studied her twitching face and then seated himself beside her. She looked charmingly dishevelled and there was no wedding band on either of her hands.

  'Miss McMeckan.'

  'Sara, please.' She sniffed.

  'Okay, Sara.' He nodded at her; English words still tasted foreign on his tongue, but exciting, and full of possibility, not dry and formal as they seemed when Hàrélal spoke them. 'Why don't you try to describe your experiences, yes? That way I can judge what is dangerous and you can feel that your problem is being looked into. That's what we're here for.'

  She seemed inclined to disagree; was, perhaps, on the verge of telling him that the Indian police were known for almost everything but helping normal people and she'd have been right, he thought; but she changed her mind and began the tale that ended with himself, Karmel, on an Interstate bus at midnight, with a crammed rucksack and a head full of tears, torn flesh and suspicion.

  In preparation for his journey, Karmel had gone shopping. He'd bought a few things and borrowed a few from still-faced men at the backs of shops, acquaintances who loaned him their torches and walking boots, their soil manuals and their envy – for who wouldn't give up the stinking heat of a Delhi summer for the cooler, crisper air of the Himalayan meadows?

  He'd been purposeful in his preparations and stopped only once, by a glittering array of scarves in Khan Market, wondering whether he might need some objects with which to soften up the locals. Common sense dictated that he take only the essentials with him on a journey that might involve a lengthy climb, but his heart was always melting at the sight of beauty and his wallet was open even before the engine of his motorbike was quite dead. The Kashmiri youth who sold him the scarves eyed his Honda with lust; normally Karmel would have chatted for a while but he knew he had no time for gossip.

  At a traffic light on the way to his apartment, Karmel took a deep breath; petrol fumes lay thick and heavy at the intersection and bare feet sizzled faintly on pavements, scenting the air with an aroma of singed skin. The foreigners' faces shot back across his brain. A muscle at the side of his mouth began to twitch rhythmically, keeping time to the thud of his engine.

  The bus terminus at eleven was a roiling mass of hysterical Delhiites, hell-bent on getting away from their city, and desperate vehicles circling, backing, parking and leaving from various stalls, pavements and restricted areas. The jammed interior of his bus reminded him again of his frustration, for Hàrélal had decreed that he could not go on his bike and had further added to his humiliation by refusing him the use of one of the department jeeps on the slight excuse that it would attract too much attention. Karmel knew for a fact that Hàrélal had four of their jeeps on standby at all hours of the day and n
ight to follow his daughter around the city. That kind of paranoia made no sense to him and the curses he smothered were for himself but also on behalf of the beleaguered girl.

  Meanwhile, lying beside his snoring wife in their oddly bare bedchamber, Hàrélal pondered the actions of his day and came to the conclusion that he had put the situation into safe hands. Kailash Karmel would handle it. If there was any truth to this horrifying tale – and schooled by experience, Hàrélal knew that corpses were not rare, anywhere in the country – Kailash could be relied upon to find out. He was an astute boy.

  He then turned his mind to the more immediate problems of his digestive system, which was beginning to give way under an assault from imported prunes, parboiled vegetables and watery yoghurt, and his daughter, Tanya, who had announced that she wanted to go on a skiing holiday in Austria or, failing that, to practise in the profession for which her law degree had qualified her. Both thoughts appalled him.

  Knowing the kind of sleazy blokes who hung around outside courtrooms and preyed on human suffering, he was far from inclined to oblige her wish to practise. But something had to be done – the girl was too old to be going to discos and too obviously single to be allowed on a skiing trip.

  A bird called tenderly outside in the dark.

  They lived in a nice neighbourhood; not as posh as Hàrélal would have liked but still, fairly exclusive, only a few minutes walk away from some really rich people. How could he ensure that Tanya did nothing to jeopardise his reputation in this community? Or her own. How could he keep her safe?

  Perhaps when Kailash had wrapped up the Himalayan mystery he could take the girl out a few times, show her the Real World and tune her in to a more obedient frame of mind. Then she'd let her mother choose her a suitable boy. Yes, that was it. Kailash would help him tame her. On the verge of sleep, Hàrélal caught himself thinking in an almost fatherly manner of his young subordinate. He was worth more than those whiney Scottish kids; he smiled, having placed the accent at last.

  *

  'Sara. Sara? Babe, wake up. We gotta’ pack.' Adam, the second of Harélal’s two bedraggled tourists, stood over his companion with her jeans and shirt in his hands. They were in a large, beautifully decorated room, with yellow silk curtains and an antique bed. It was still dark outside and there were no sounds at all to suggest that anyone else was awake in the house. She turned over and felt around, the golden hairs on her naked arms glimmering faintly. After rummaging around in his rucksack for a few minutes and waiting for a response, he threw her clothes at her and whispered, 'I'll be outside.'

  Ten minutes later, having showered in the en suite bathroom and brushed her teeth, she was dressed and at his side. Her eyes were puffy and she looked worse than she had in the morning. Adam dropped a half-smoked cigarette onto the turf and stubbed at it desultorily with the toe of his sandal.

  'Where're we off to, Ad?'

  'Flight out of here.' Was the terse response.

  She looked around in surprise and noted Sadrettin in one of his immaculate linen suits. Her eyebrows shot up in consternation.

  'I thought . . . I thought that Antonio had arranged for us to go fly home day after tomorrow? Hadn't he, Ad? Adam?'

  'Don't know, babe. Obviously we got our wires crossed. This flight’s internal I think. To Goa, isn’t that right, Mr. Sadrettin? Anyway, we may as well go now that Antonio’s taken the trouble. Is there a chance we'll get free accommodation in Goa on any other vacation? Besides, classes don't start for a month.' Despite his cheery words, Adam looked gloomy and confused, even shabbier and more sunburnt than he had the day before. He placed an arm along her shoulders, but more as a gesture of silencing than comfort, for he sensed that she was going to argue. Sadrettin, Antonio Sinbari’s taciturn personal assistant, who’d ignored Adam’s earlier question, turned suddenly and summoned them both.

  'Car's here. Shall we move?' They acquiesced to his quiet command and were soon whizzing through the capital's deserted streets. At the airport there was noise and bustle but to Sara it all seemed dreamlike. A Sikh family with pretty twin daughters and lots of luggage squashed up next to then in the lounge. Holiday excitement or natural exuberance made them voluble and the mother turned to Sara and Adam as if to include them in the general mirth. With lowered lids, pretending to sleep, Sara listened to the girls’ chatter. How childlike they seemed. How untroubled. Not so different from some girls she knew back home.

  An hour later they were airborne. There had been only one hitch in their strangely smooth departure and it had come when a grim-faced woman guard ran the metal detector over Sara's body. The source of the noise had fast been located, however, as an oversized platinum-plated watch that she had in her pocket. Glancing surreptitiously at Adam, who had already passed through his body search and was now ahead of her, she retrieved it from the tray into which it had been dropped and clutched it silently as they were ushered onto their flight. Seated behind Adam with a row of empty seats to sleep on, she curled herself into a ball and opened her fist.

  The watch face clicked and glinted at Sara like a lewd admirer, familiar yet threatening. Her eyes began to sting and her heart thudded sickeningly. She turned the watch over and read the minute, spidery inscription on the back though she knew it off by heart, Darling Cam, find time for me. Always.

  3

  In another part of the country entirely, Karmel’s bus climbed and climbed. Sooty villages had flickered past in an equally sooty dark yet, now that they had left the plains behind and hints of colour were beginning to tease the sky, he could see nothing but nature.

  Bred in the city and accustomed to its odours, its noise and myriad human constructions, he felt discomfort stirring in his blood as shadowy rocks and trees hissed past. The air streaming in from open windows was chilly and fragrant. Even the most uncomfortably placed passengers had dozed off and he felt as if there was no one conscious except for himself and the driver. A sudden sharp turn brought them within sight of a tattered village.

  Several passengers alighted and the bus seemed to squat less heavily on its wheels. Steaming tea was offered and accepted. Women took their children off to urinate in nearby greenery and Karmel borrowed a smoke from the man who'd used his shoulder all night long.

  'Long night, huh brother?'

  'I hear there've been roads collapsing further ahead.'

  'Wife's sick. Got to get back.'

  'Tobacco?'

  'Damn the roads.'

  Wisps of speech drifted around and made them feel like a small community. Karmel flicked ash out of the window and felt his mind loosen. Motion induced nausea receded.

  The bus stalled continually after that stop. Some miles beyond another village, the driver asked the male passengers to get off and push the bus over a fallen heap of mud and stones. The fall was fresh but at least there had been no rain and the bus thudded, ungainly but manageable, over the rubble. As they drove on, higher and higher, the sun illuminated old waterfalls and sparkled off the thin trickles splashing the roadside.

  Karmel slept fitfully, anxiety about his trip mixing with older memories and images in his dreams. He had never left Delhi before but he had a disconcerting sense that he was going back to something familiar.

  By the time they reached Dilghum, their destination, there were only twelve people left on the bus and they were all, apart from Karmel, locals. Their sun-chapped skin and high cheek-bones would have marked them as different from him if their clothing and the alacrity of their disappearance once the bus halted had not confirmed his suspicion that he was the only 'tourist' in the area. Struggling to suppress a groan, he hefted his rucksack down to the ground and stood staring after the receding locals.

  The driver switched off the engine and alighted beside Karmel, then went off to drink, wash and gossip before turning his vehicle and driving it down to the depot at the base of the foothills.

  Looking around him, Karmel saw dark forested slopes disappearing against the light on three sides. Dilghum was cut i
nto the hillside above him, squat houses interspersed with sharply terraced rice fields and there was no road downwards visible – apart from the one along which he had arrived. A narrow cobbled path appeared to lead up through the centre of the village.

  The sun was directly overhead when Karmel wandered into Dilghum's only teashop. There were three men inside, though the interior was low-ceilinged and dark. They were all aged, stooped and crinkled. Their pipes seemed welded to their lips and the tin jug in front of them was scratched and dented.

  'Getting away from the heat?' one of them cackled at him, through a row of stained teeth. Feeling cheered by the directness of this approach, Karmel replied in a friendly manner that he was climbing, but for business not pleasure. The same old man enquired what business and there followed an elaborate tale of soil analysis and deforestation from Karmel that obviously caused his listeners more mirth than concern.

  'You are a university man, ha ha ha. I lived once in Delhi. You folks don't know the meaning of soil! Here, have some tea.' Scrambling to his feet the old man poured tea into a diminutive tin mug and offered it to Karmel, who accepted gratefully and unclenched his teeth for the first time since he'd left Delhi.

  Taking enormous strides so as not to let his feet be sucked into mud, Karmel manoeuvred his way up through Dilghum. Sweet faces peered at him from the shadowy interiors of huts and small brick dwellings, children smiled and ran beside him for a few minutes.

  Old men and boys had clustered around him as he headed up the track, offering advice and food, inviting him to stay in their homes when he returned from his soil harvest, his earth hunt. People admired his mobile phone, even though it would neither send nor receive at this altitude; someone shyly asked if he was married and, when he shook his head, suggested that he should be. Caught off guard by the unasked for familiarity, his pride melted at the ease of conversation.