'Come, let's walk to my home. As you must have seen, the animals have to go up to the pastures at this time of year. It's best for them. So you may wait many days if you wait for the men to invite you.' They began to walk side by side and he noticed that there were no others in sight. She questioned him steadily. 'Are you a traveller? You climb often? How far have you come? Did someone tell you about our village?'
'I began climbing at Dilghum. You know where it is?' She shook her head. 'Not much below this place, but far to the East, I understand', he continued. 'The truth is, I'm not much of a mountain climber, but I work with soil, with earth.' Karmel bent and lifted a pinch of soil between his fingers, realising as he did so that the gesture was over-dramatic. He rubbed the pale substance gently and allowed it to slide back to the ground. She was looking intrigued; Karmel felt that he was expected to continue the explanation. 'I'm a soil analyst. I check for levels of pollution, or erosion; I find out the effects of cutting down trees in a particular place.' At that she seemed startled and ceased walking.
'You've come to check up on us? Here, in Saahitaal? You're one of those men sent by the government, a sarkari man?' She sounded annoyed. He shook his head and showed her both his palms.
'No, no, sister. I just do research. Nothing big, no checking up, just for our records in Delhi. I go to lots of places all over India, quite random our work is.' His pack felt heavier every second and he was stationary on a slope. He hoped she'd continue walking soon. She did and he followed as nimbly as he could.
'Where did you go last time?' she asked as they came to a small timber and stone dwelling, climbed a flight of steps and stooped to go through the entrance.
He ducked to avoid a beam, using the moment as an excuse to think. No place seemed obvious. He rarely left Delhi and read more about other countries than his own. She was looking at him again.
'The Ganga.' he asserted suddenly, and she accepted that, not asking him where along that vast river he had been or what he had found, or any further details. Perhaps she had never been anywhere either.
'Put your bag there. Here's some water for you to wash yourself. I'll be making the food and you can help me by going to find my daughter; she's always off somewhere. Maya she's called – her cap is blue with yellow thread on it; just step outside and call her. If anyone asks you, say you are now with Thahéra, Maya's mother.'
Her voice fell low when she said her own name. As she spoke she was busy removing millet flour from a tin box and scooping it into a pile on a tin plate. With deft movements she parted it and looked for insects. Then she swept the millet to the middle of the plate, dabbed her finger into the pile to create a hole and sprinkled in a pinch of salt. She had splashed water into the mixture and begun to knead dough by the time Karmel registered what she had asked him to do; he stepped back out through the low doorway, conscious of her eyes on his back. When he could no longer see her or she him, he allowed himself to think that she was a truly beautiful woman.
His cheeks had felt hot, his breathing constricted in her presence. He took several gulping breaths.
As he meandered along various pathways, calling 'Maya', 'Maya' in embarrassment, and trying not to brush against the villagers who appeared from almost every direction carrying bundles of twigs and leaves on their heads or pots of water and babies in slings, he wondered why those tourists had disliked this place so much.
The women stared at him with unsubtle curiosity. But they displayed the same eager joking courtesy that had marked most of the other villagers on his journey. A few commented mischievously on his looks, making him blush strangely under his heavy stubble.
'Who calls me? Oh, it's you, stranger!' He encountered Thahéra’s daughter Maya as she stepped out of a large cabin at the very top of the village. A plump-cheeked girl with silky hair escaping from beneath her cap, she thanked him when he conveyed her mother's request, told him shyly she had seen him waiting by the stream, and then galloped off on bare feet, leaving him to walk alone. Before he could turn to follow, however, a voice hailed him from the doorway through which Maya had emerged; he turned to see a woman beckoning.
She was slim and haggard, her hair bound tightly by a dark cotton scarf and her expression stern. The skin around her cheekbones was pulled tight and shiny like over-stretched rubber and on her hands he could see the telltale marks of eczema, endemic in these parts. When he hesitated, the woman brusquely repeated her request for him to enter.
He did not feel that he could refuse her and followed her up a steep flight of stone steps into a spacious cabin.
Looking around him he noted how all the objects in the room he had entered were raised off the wooden floor on small tables made of polished wood. There were objects of grace and symmetry on every available surface, all wooden, all stained the same hue to resemble each other, although their textures suggested very different trees. Astounded, he turned to see the woman staring at him with disquieting intensity.
'Did you make these?'
She nodded.
'They're so complete. You are . . . gifted.' He struggled to look at her but found his gaze drawn back to her art, the splendid bowls and miniature tree trunks and the unnameable rectangular structures. But most of all he felt himself being guided by a force beyond his control to a pyramid constructed of small wooden globes, each the size of a tennis ball, absolutely perfect, unblemished, lacking even the faintest trace of wood grain.
'Can I touch them?' When she nodded her permission he lifted the topmost ball and rolled it around on his palm, delighted by the truth of his judgement and her craft – there wasn't a seam or a blemish. How had she achieved such unity? He looked up to find her staring at him with disconcerting interest. Suddenly he remembered his erstwhile rescuer who must have been waiting for him to return and eat her food. Replacing the ball he bowed to the artist with humility, one hand on his heart and a smile curving his lips.
'I'll certainly come back to speak to you tomorrow, if I may?' He said, and again she inclined her head but did not speak. Later, devouring hot soup with Thahéra and her children, Karmel recounted his awe at the priestess of wood, and forgot for a while about the disintegrating body buried beneath leaves by the murmuring river.
Back in Delhi, Hàrélal was beside himself and could think of nothing else.
There are times when even absolute capitulation to an idea will not bring one relief from doubt, for such certainty carries with it the possibility of absolute falsity. Better to doubt a little and thus retain the illusion of preparedness for any outcome. This was Hàrélal's philosophy. But in deference to Antonio Sinbari, hotelier extraordinaire, he had set aside his wisdom.
The possibility that the young tourists might have been anyone other than who they said they were had not entered Hàrélal's head. Now he was consumed by doubt and anger. Who was he to trust? His daughter had inexplicably been missing for nearly twenty hours; his wife had shut herself into a room to pray and for once he hoped that her prayers would take effect; Kailash would somehow have to be located and recalled from the mountain provinces before the Department got wind of the mess that was brewing. How was it possible for a man to be deceived as Sinbari claimed he had been?
Going over the conversation during his lunch hour, after arranging police protection for another dozen ministerial delegates and signing three release orders for rich young men picked up in the red light district as suspects in a kidnapping-brutality case, Hàrélal tried to recollect the tone of Sinbari's voice when he told him to call off the investigation.
All an unnecessary ruckus, the man had said. Most likely nothing to get so steamed up about; probably a silly trick, how do you say it, a prank, by those young environmentalists from Britain. Indeed they have no respect for tradition, no fear of authority and are merely trying to undermine my reputation. I have expressly warned my son not to contact them again. They have now left Delhi without any warning, having accomplished what they came for and must be laughing at us – but wasn't there a hint of lau
ghter in Sinbari's own voice?
Several things struck a false note.
Firstly, why had Sinbari waited for his call before notifying him of the tourists' departure? Perhaps the great man was embarrassed? But then, if he was, he could simply have told his puppy, Sadrettin, to call. In his mind's eye Hàrélal saw a vision of the assistant's curiously suave face and amended the description to 'puppy with teeth'.
Secondly, he had interrogated the youngsters together and Karmel had seen them separately; neither of them, trained for years to recognise deceit in others, had seen much wrong in the story – or at least he had not, and he hadn't bothered to read Karmel's report before sending him on his mission.
The girl’s horror and the boy’s fear had seemed genuine. But then, they were foreigners. Foreigners were subtle. They could achieve so much technologically and commercially; why would it be too much to expect them to dissemble plausibly before the Indian police? What if they were really journalists researching some aspect of Indian life and had set the whole thing up as a test! If word of that leaked out he was finished! He'd be a laughing stock. As yet few people other than Sinbari knew that he had sent Karmel up into the hills. So, what was he to do?
Around him in the mess-room where he rarely ate, the sound of loud clangs reminded him that the dining hour was long over and that there were men waiting to remove his plate and to close the counter. Yet Hàrélal was not prepared to raise his eyes from the table; nor could he bear to rise and ascend in the decrepit and spit-stained elevator back to his isolated office.
Was Antonio Sinbari simply a busy and reliable entrepreneur, having overreacted to the tale in the first place and now attempting to minimise his role in the whole thing? Or had Sinbari with all his wealth and local influence discovered something fresh, something that made him reluctant to link his name with the investigation and that centred around the identity of the corpse or its manner of death?
Hàrélal pictured city-bred Kailash up in the hills without food, backup or means of communication and, for all his self-centredness, a prickle of fear inched its way up his spine.
7
Free from the foreboding that plagued his chief, Karmel was sitting in the chilly sunshine beside lake Saahi, skimming stones with the boys, Chand and Sonu; around them goats grazed fitfully on the luxuriant vegetation.
'And when do you go to school?'
'School? We haven't been much for studies just now because it was not a good time for the animals. But we'll walk to Malundi soon, before rain starts. We go once, maybe twice in a week if the paths are dry enough. It takes three hours to get there. Four to get back. So our mother tells us only go two times. Otherwise who will take these fellows to feed? I would like to go further than Charmoli one day, see the cities down below.'
Karmel nodded, then smiled at the boy who continued, 'and have you walked very far? Have you seen many places?'
'Indeed, little one. Many places. But mostly around the capital, Delhi. That is big enough for a life time, in my opinion.' Chand sighed theatrically and repeated the word, 'Delhi', 'Dillhi'! Then he burst out laughing.
Karmel regarded the garrulous Chand with pleasure. He could rarely recollect having seen such a joyful youngster before. His hair, which was lightened in patches by malnutrition, gave the deceptive impression of health when it caught the light and shone around the boy's sweet face. His cap too was embroidered leather and had all the rustic charm of a tourist post-card in a Delhi mall.
'Can I come back with you to Delhi? Say yes! Our father's there, isn't he Sonu? – mother used to promise he would come home to take us all but now she says he can't. Our mother's sister, Thahéra aunty, also knows someone there –' a glance at his brother then, abruptly: 'anyway, women wouldn't like it in Delhi I think.'
'And why is that?' Karmel raised his eyebrows and the boy looked sheepish.
'Sahusingh told us that they all want to go to this place called “Ballywood” to become actresses. No actresses in Delhi, huh?'
'Really?' Karmel bit his index finger and turned his head at a coquettish angle, making both boys laugh.
He guessed that they were more familiar with old Hindi films that they might have seen on cable during rare excursions to wealthier homes in their village.
He found it hard to believe that the diminutive Chand was really fourteen or that his tall, delicate looking brother, Sonu, was only ten. Suddenly he altered the course of the conversation, studying their expressions.
'Do either of you boys remember a man who came to stay in the village some months ago, a ghora from down there, he maybe spoke English?' They looked at each other, then Chand nodded. Karmel felt a current of excitement pass across his back. He stopped skimming stones but did not turn fully towards the boys, allowing his eyes only the briefest glance towards them to show interest before returning his scrutiny to the water.
The lake reflected Chand's animated profile and Sonu's face, much stiller and more restrained.
'About four months back, he came. Sonu, remember?' Chand was obviously unaware of tension, bursting to speak, but Sonu had become pale and distracted; Chand cast a fleeting look at his brother and continued, his tone a little dampened.
'He was here for some time. It's hard to remember when he came.' Another oblique glance at his brother caused Karmel to wonder if Chand was apprehensive for some reason, but then the boy's recollection continued, 'I used to deliver milk for him from the goats sometimes. Yes, yes! He talked some Pahadi for sure! His voice made us young ones laugh at first. He had a cabin quite close belonging to our family, my aunt showed him, in our village, and then his friend–' Sonu had risen abruptly. ' –What's the matter little one?' The younger boy was shivering; despite the cold there was a fine beading of perspiration on his upper lip; he didn't respond to his brother. Then, without warning, he yelled 'Mother! Mother! Mother!' and leapt away from the lake, stumbling down the slope, startling the goats and disappearing into the dark space between two trees. Mother. Had he seen someone in the forest shadows below Saahitaal, Karmel wondered; had Thahéra’s sister been watching them all along? Or was Sonu calling on her for protection?
'Didn't your little brother like that man, that foreigner?' Karmel moved towards Chand and lightly touched the boy's arm.
'I don't know. I can't say.' Chand was looking puzzled. And worried. But he continued speaking politely. 'He talked to him more than I did. My brother is a very intelligent boy, sir,' a proud grin, 'but most people don't understand that. He speaks English more than any of us so he was the main one to talk to the foreigners.' Plural? Karmel was about to speak but Chand hadn't finished.
'If you don't mind, sir, I'll go and check on him. He's always been so nervous and mother tells me to keep an eye on him. He sees things, the little one does.'
Rising, the boy sped off after his brother clicking his tongue for the goats; abandoning Karmel with his curiosity and the iridescent shimmer of the lake.
He rubbed a hand across his face, touching the lump on his neck and then his stubble. Now he had a lead. Chand had confirmed the presence of at least one foreign tourist in the village.
Perhaps the man had fallen accidentally and injured himself. Distressing to have lain dying without being able to call for help, but still, less disturbing than a murder in the mountains with all the diplomatic frenzy that would cause now that it was public knowledge or at least now that foreigners knew of it. He felt ashamed of thinking so cynically but Hàrélal had taught him well and he could not forget all his mentor's precepts.
Waking that morning he had been for a few seconds utterly content, too comfortable to rise. Light was shining through a low doorway and he no longer felt either tired or cold. Despite the fact that the floor smelt of dung and his clothes were permeated by an aroma of smoke, he felt secure in a way that he had not done since leaving Delhi. Gratitude to his hostess had surged through him.
The previous evening when he was packing up to go out and find a place to pitch his tent she had insist
ed on letting him stay in her space; had, in fact, vacated the cabin to go and stay with her sister, allowing him and her boys to chat or sleep as they pleased. The older of the two boys, who was sullen and unwelcoming, had left soon after his mother and, as far as Karmel could tell, had not returned all night; the younger one had chatted to him about the forest, the flowers, the lichen which he collected and sold for cash; and the way he intended to finish school in order to leave the village and get a job nearer to the plains.
Karmel fell asleep thinking about wooden sculptures and drooping flowers on local trees.
When Thahéra and her daughter Maya had entered they'd found Karmel shaving in a corner, using a polished plate as a mirror. He apologised to them for having slept so late and kept them from their chores but they laughed, explaining that they had already cooked and had been in and out of the cabin and up beyond the lake for several hours gathering medicinal plants for drying before the rains began so that they could later be sold in towns below.
In the morning sunlight, everything in Saahitaal had seemed fresh, aromatic and alluring. Before they could ask him his plans for the day, Karmel had announced his decision to stay in the village a while longer and forestalled their surprise by explaining that he would be testing the water-retention of the soil around the lake or doing other tests for mineral residues amongst the trees.
'We will arrange a place for you to stay in the night', Thahéra had offered, smiling at what she had come to recognise as his enthusiasm. He for his part felt an odd emptiness at the base of his belly each time their eyes met.
Up at the lake he'd spotted Chand and Sonu and all the tension of his arrival was obliterated from his mind.
He decided that he must find the corpse of Sara's story and wrap up this investigation before his boss sent out a search party. Having heard the boys talk, he thought he would attempt to descend by a different route, going to Bhukta or to Charmoli in the west; he knew that it would be a dangerous climb down, much steeper than the route by which he'd arrived, but cars could be hired at Bhukta or so Thahéra's younger son had told him and he was in a hurry to be home. Eight – no, nine days had passed since he'd left Delhi. He didn't know why he was counting.
Truth Lake Page 6