'May I ask where we are going to invest the Konali funds?'
They began to walk. Behind Sadrettin's question lay years of experience about the changeable nature of property investment in the subcontinent and an intimate understanding of the methods they had used to satisfy their investors that Konali was indeed the perfect site for Randhor-Sinbari's latest tourist offering, an island just off the South-western coastline, almost deserted, tropical, utterly exclusive but quite unlike Goa in its bizarre abundance of caves and natural rock carvings that dated back hundreds of years.
The question went unanswered and, as Sadrettin held the door for his boss to enter the mirrored marble hall of the Sinbari mansion, he felt rather than saw the look of irritation on Sinbari's face. And perhaps he was right after all. The Tsunami has wrecked islands just to the East of Konali. People weren’t queuing up to go back there, despite the reassurances of the government.
They entered the home gymnasium together but Sadrettin said he didn't feel up to more exercise and excused himself. Stripping off his shirt he made straight for the showers.
He was a man of enterprise, just like his employer, he reassured himself. What was the point of questioning such business decisions? Money and morality never could be allowed to mix, he’d learned. Ethics made men sentimental, made them weak, and Sinbari certainly was not weak.
His previous boss had been too malleable, too slow, shallow, naïve; he had allowed political pressures and alliances to dominate and his employees to drift away. Sinbari had not pushed himself to this position by treading lightly on the anxieties or interests of others. Was there not something primordial and utterly admirable about a character who could take from its environment and shape all that crossed its path to suit itself? Others seemed as shadows or clouds on the horizon to Sinbari's vigorous and amoral stature.
Such thoughts made Sadrettin long to spend more time with his employer. That, and the delicate tracery of lines around the eyes, which made Antonio's tanned face seem so poignant and vulnerable when in fact he was at his most ruthless.
Sadrettin rarely allowed himself to dissect his sentiments towards the man who employed him and now urgency tugged at his gut. Their auditors would be furious. He would have to work fast so that International trading standards commissioners didn't get a whiff of the new deal and start arguing that the money was already committed elsewhere. But what was this new deal. . .? Where . . .?
Suddenly he stopped on his way to Sinbari's fourth shower room. Pivoting on his heal he hurried back towards the gym in time to see Sinbari's body disappearing under the glittering water of the indoor pool. A strange and utterly devastating feeling of alienation enveloped Sadrettin as he watched his lean Italian boss swim back and forth across the rectangular space like a caged shark. When he could bear the tearing sound of his own heart no longer, he turned and almost ran from the room.
*
Karmel had often run from things, since he was a boy, and now he wanted to fling his pack down on the dry, cindery path and fly from this place with its whispering women and its suspicious, taunting houses.
Instead of fleeing, however, he placed his hands together and faced the villagers with a smile curving his lips.
'Greetings' he called, with a ceremonial bow that he had dreamed of making when he was a child to the parents who never came to claim him. It seemed somehow fitting to treat these women with great respect – these inscrutable girl children who clutched at household objects and each other like talismans that would guard against him, these near-sighted, bent grandmothers with shining mountain caps and voluminous skirts. All around him the gesture was echoed slowly – reluctantly even – but it was echoed and he felt his poise return.
He was a member of the police force, a trained man, a city-dweller with more power and knowledge than these mountain people could ever dream of. There was nothing to fear here, surely. Why was he allowing a tale told by two naïve and inexperienced foreign tourists to affect him so much?
The young boys he had met had also been from this village. Their grandfather resided here and had only been gone some weeks, they'd said; there must be other men around the place, as well as boys who went up to higher, less forested areas during the daytime. And, now that he thought about it, there were no stout middle-aged women visible either which made the remaining villagers simply those too young or old to work. With a reassured shrug, he selected a lane that looked wider than the others and hoisted his pack.
The village would most probably have some central point or gathering place. He would rest there until a woman invited him in or until the heads of some households returned. True, it was unusual that he had not been greeted with more warmth but then, with his smouldering eyes, grimy clothing and week-old growth of beard, he must look an awe-inspiring sight to these fresh-faced, fair-haired people.
Seemingly lost in thought but actually quite alert, he descended along the path and a few girls followed him at a slight distance, stopping cautiously when he paused to look around. Most simply stayed where they were and followed his progress with their eyes. He had his back to them, or he would not have missed the unspoken communication between two of the watchers who stood, eyebrows raised, shoulders hunched against the cold, just inside a darkened doorway.
That same evening, at a table in a noisy joint on Demello Street, Aguada's prime tourist haunt for those bored by the sterility of other Goan resorts, the two erstwhile tourists were well into their fifth round of beer.
Although they were in Goa, nothing much about the room spoke of the Asian subcontinent. Apart from the obsequious and ubiquitous waiters, who seemed to watch everyone's every move and anticipate requests by a fraction of a second, there were no other Indian clientele.
A football match was being shown on a small screen across the room and most of the British patrons were absorbed in its progress. A Russian couple whispered to each other in a corner, clearly disappointed by the lack of local colour: during the evening they had requested some Goan music and been booed by a couple of drunks. After that they'd conceded defeat and were eating their shrimps and curried pork in hurried, furtive jerks. Shouts of 'Ged on it, Forrester, you dickhead!' and 'Off Side, Refereeee!' mingled with the chatter of a group of white college girls in another corner. Where are all the hot guys? How're you ever ginn'a get laid this way? Shurrup, you! This isn’t Aiya Napa. Their hair was gelled and sprayed into mountainous shapes and glitter adorned their sun-baked shoulders. Some of them wore bindis, the season's favourite fashion accessory. Watching them, Sara found herself becoming increasingly nervous.
What the hell were she and Adam doing in this place that was so far from what they were used to and so truly uninviting? Surely Adam knew as well as she did that nothing good could come of this procrastination? Her memories of the climb were as vivid as ever and she knew that his would not fade any time this decade. In fact, she was beginning to feel more distraught than she had when they left the mountains. Finally, a bit drunk and unable to bear her thoughts in silence any longer, she turned to Adam and moaned, 'You should ha' told them the trooth, you fool! You should ha' told them the trooth!'
And Adam, drunk too but still composed for all his liquor, hissed back, 'It wuz both of us that lied – both of us, Sara, babe. Don't you try’n’ forget that.'
6
Acting Chief of Police Hàrélal felt ill. His chest was tight and his air-conditioned office felt stuffy; the outside temperature had reached forty-three degrees already and he dared not open a window. He had been on the phone all morning in an attempt to ascertain the whereabouts of the ridiculous village in the Western Himalayas from which he had heard no word of his assistant and right hand man, Kailash Karmel, for nearly ten days. Today he felt the full absurdity and short-sightedness of sending his most trusted ambassador out into the wilderness, for this morning his wife had discovered that their daughter was missing from her bed.
Sweating and trying not to scream, the poor woman had sought her child first in the
garden and then, having failed to find her, had telephoned all her friends in a vain effort to keep him in ignorance and prevent his wrath from being visited on the foolish girl's head.
Tanya Hàrélal's personal escort – as he had named the men assigned to keep her under observation during the day – were always given the night off after she entered the premises of her father's home. She had returned by nine the previous evening and had seemed in reasonably good spirits. Now she was gone. Her bed had not been slept in and, to add to his terror, Jimmy Parikh Junior was sitting miserably in the outer office at this very moment swearing that he had not seen the girl for two days. Bruises on the young fellow's face – caused, no doubt, by Constable Makrand during the arrest or by Bokada's over-zealous interrogation – would have to be explained away to a very angry Jimmy Parikh senior who was currently on his way to collect his son.
Vain was all fury at Bokada, Makrand or anyone else; similarly pointless were the images of food that plagued his mind; the only thing that kept Hàrélal going was the possibility that his daughter might be off on one of her jaunts and would return safe and guilty in a few days.
The thought of kidnap preyed on his mind but he did not allow himself to dwell on it. Now was not time to dwell on his vocal declarations about not negotiating with terrorists. Instead he busied himself trying to summon Karmel back from his errand but discovered that here too he was being thwarted by circumstance, for the beeper signal failed to create any response and the mobile phone with which Karmel had been issued indicated ‘mobile out of range’.
He had personally spoken to the Chief Inspector of the region and asked if a team could be dispatched to search for his missing officer but – as he was not in a position to disclose what he had sent the man up there for and had to maintain that Karmel had taken leave, had gone on a private and solitary hike – the response he received was noncommittal: there were too many things going on in the region at the moment for them to be able to spare trained climbers. Messages would be left at the command post in Charmoli, the town geographically closest to Saahitaal. If Karmel showed up there he would be conveyed swiftly back to Delhi.
When he mentioned that Dilghum had been the point of departure for the trek, Hàrélal was chagrined to find that the route Karmel had been directed to take was utterly impractical and would have had him climbing up and down for days without bringing him any closer to Saahitaal. 'Monsoon should be here shortly', the fellow up at Charmoli had commented. That was not good. Definitely not good. If there was anything those two interfering tourist-idiots could add to the directions already given, he would personally have to send people after Karmel; he felt that he wouldn't be able to last much longer on his own with his suffering wife and Tanya gone. Karmel was like the son he had always wanted and who better to search for the girl than her brother?
He thought of the first time he had met the youngster – all those years ago – trying his best to seem like a decent applicant and yet utterly different from the other boys waiting to join the police force. Someone had commented contemptuously that Karmel looked like a jumper. In the department, that was code for someone who would try to commit suicide if they didn't get the job. They'd already had three in the preceding month, village lads who had slogged through examinations, caste prejudices and family turmoil in order to make the Delhi force and couldn't face the anguish of rejection.
Then merely a Chief Inspector, Hàrélal had been immediately drawn to the young Kailash.
It was not just that he knew him from somewhere, not just that he remembered him delivering flowers and running errands for the wife all those years ago – a good memory, Hàrélal had, that's how he'd stayed Inspector through a dozen riots and four successive governments – but it was the young man's poise that won Hàrélal's heart, his air of toughness that disguised and defeated the gutter from which he came, a worldliness that Hàrélal had craved and which totally seduced him. Instead of a 'jumper' or a desperate boy he saw in Kailash Karmel's face the possibility of an honest assistant.
When the boy's application was rejected Hàrélal offered him a job as his personal assistant. He trained him ruthlessly, sent him on courses to study forensic pathology and asked his wife's guru to bless the boy. Which, for a small fee, the guru did. Five years later he made sure Karmel got a post on the force. There were only three people on the interview panel and all of them owed Hàrélal for past favours.
Twelve years on, Hàrélal was more delighted than ever by his own sagacity in educating and protecting Kailash. The result for himself had been a series of promotions as he took uncomplicated credit for Karmel's successful investigations. Until this morning he had not realised fully the strength of his love for the young man or the immensity of his own weakness without him. So alone did he feel with Kailash gone that he was even now thinking more of how to get him back than he was of the missing Tanya. Shaking off his memories, he loosened his collar and dialled Antonio Sinbari's private line.
As the phone rang, he allowed himself one brief thought about his daughter. It pained Hàrélal immensely to admit that his wife could be right about anything, but he was beginning to think that he had been too inflexible with the girl. She had always been a tomboy, different from the mild little girls of his colleagues. He remembered her ferocious grin as a child when her mother tried to comb her hair only to discover in it chicken feathers and sand.
All kinds of gloomy scenarios played themselves out in Hàrélal's mind. He was trying to keep his daughter's disappearance quiet but he could see on the faces of his sergeants and detectives that they had somehow come to know; if she had left of her own free will that would be the end of her prospects in Delhi's marriage market. Perhaps he would have to seek a husband for her further north or even, God forbid, in the south.
'Who's this?' Jolted back to the present, he fumbled with the phone.
'Aaah, Mr Sinbari, this is Hàrélal here about your little Himalayan situation . . ..' He listened attentively for a moment, biting the corner of his sodden moustache.
Humiliation flitted across his face and then a slowly increasing wrath. 'Yes. Yes. Of course. Under control. But listen, could I have a word with one of the young chaps, aaah, fellows, no? We've run into one or two complicating factors . . .. Need some key information about the venue and all . . ..'
Sinbari's crisp response made Hàrélal's hair stand on end and his heart beat faster with fury. Was this the same man who had requested his help only ten days ago? What the hell was going on? Someone was going to pay for this! He replaced the receiver and cursed his bad luck and all the evil spirits guarding his enemies.
His secretary came rushing through the door and he looked up hoping that they had found his daughter; but Mrs Méghé was only checking to see why he had shouted.
*
Karmel could not find a place to sit, so tightly packed were the small dwellings. And when they ended, the forest took over once more, poking into his legs and brushing against his face on one side, trees growing almost at an angle out of overhanging rocks.
Abruptly the path flooded and he found himself on the brink of a dark, fast flowing stream that spurted out of the hillside and disappeared over the edge into the forest below. It was so utterly silent that he almost stepped into the water and was forced to step back in order to avoid soaking his boots. There was slime on the edges of the stream and moss on the stones beneath its surface, which suggested that it rarely dried.
He bent and tasted the water; it was cold and hurt his teeth. Then he squatted down right there in the middle of the path and lowered his pack. He was feeling disgruntled. No one had spoken to him but he could sense a presence at his back. He felt exactly as he had when as a child he had entered some up-market street and the homeowners had stopped their conversations to watch him in case he stole something or in some other way polluted their world. They too had watched with distaste as he made his way along beside their nicely manicured hedges and down one or the other of their driveways. In thos
e days he had simply been begging for work and had not expected a friendly reception. Being prepared for contempt and hostility was his best defence. His discomfort now arose from the realisation that he had forgotten to expect rejection. What did that make him, he wondered? A traitor to the heartsick street boy he'd been or a secure and normal survivor?
And so he sat for several hours, hunched beside the stream, chewing on his fingernails and thinking. His thoughts were so raucous that he missed the first invitation and only turned when a hand was placed on his shoulder.
'Brother, you've been here for many hours, my sister tells me?' There was a question in her voice. He replied hastily.
'Greetings. Your sister's absolutely correct. I felt that it was not proper to stop the other ladies from their work and I was in no hurry so I rested a while. Could you tell me the name of your village?'
She was a large woman, muscular and tall with a broad face and a birthmark on her throat. Her radiant grey eyes reminded him of a boy he had known when he was younger. She wore dull silver jewellery and had hitched her skirt up to ease her climb. Hastily Karmel withdrew his eyes from her toes, which were loaded with rings and covered in local dust.
When he mentioned the village, her eyebrows rose fractionally, sceptically perhaps, but she responded politely enough, 'Saahitaal, it is. Yes, like the lake above us, Saahitaal and the river below, Saahi. You saw them as you walked?'
'Surely, yes, sister. It was a real sight. I could not move away from it after all the trees! So grand and peaceful.' He was babbling and couldn't stop; 'You are very lucky to live near such a place.' She looked faintly amused by his praise of the scenery.
'You are tired then? You've been walking all day? Perhaps for many days?' He nodded, noting that her voice was husky as if she smoked too much or had a cold.
Truth Lake Page 5