Truth Lake

by Shakuntala Banaji

  Bitter thoughts of his stifling small-town existence with his parents recurred as they had not done in the past seven years of his life.

  When he'd joined the Randhor-Sinbari group he had thought he knew what he wanted: a modern cutthroat environment, quick promotion, plenty of cash. Anything that would keep him well away from the desperation he'd felt when trapped in his family home with his mother's whining reproofs and his father's frowning concern for propriety. When his sister eloped and converted to her husband's religion, the fury and recriminations around him had been almost unbearable. Listening to his relatives screaming out what they would do when they caught the couple, he'd decided to move to Delhi. When he left his first employer to work for Antonio, he'd left all thoughts of his background behind. Now he wondered if he had made the right choice.

  Resting his sleek head in his hands, Sadrettin gave himself over to a fantasy that was threadbare with use: it consisted of a vision made up of himself, wearing white briefs and seated at Antonio's feet on the edge of the pool; Antonio, from his deck chair, reached out a hand and raked it through his companion's hair. They were alone. It was night. Music played. Then they rose together and strode hand in hand towards the bedroom.

  Sadrettin left the communal living space in the guesthouse and slunk back to the murky room he shared with Nelson Cornell. It was empty and he lay down on his damp straw mattress. Outside, the wind lashed rain at the wooden shutters.

  They had been in Bhukta two days.

  *

  Further up the mountain, as they walked side by side on their way back from the day's 'soil-collecting' expedition, not touching, smiles fluttering around their lips, Karmel and Thahéra were greeted by villagers in a manner more friendly than that to which Karmel had become accustomed.

  Thahéra's daughter, Maya, came to meet them, shouting that the food was going cold; rain saturated their clothing and trickled damp pathways down their backs and made him want to laugh. Darkness seemed not to be dark.

  They ate merrily, entertaining Maya and each other with tales of unusual events and delightful coincidences and the absurdity of life. Their voices were too loud but they didn't notice. Thahéra's neighbour came in for a few moments to explain that her daughter was recovering, sleeping in a cool and placid manner. She addressed Thahéra and did not thank Karmel, but he noticed that her eyes were often upon him, in a peculiar and searching manner.

  During the meal Thahéra's boys returned after securing the animals. Her youngest, the talkative one, immediately joined them and began to chatter of his day's doings; the older son, the sullen one, grabbed his food and sat in a corner, watching them suspiciously and devouring his stepmother with his eyes. Intercepting his gaze, Karmel was jolted by the memory of his real work and the nameless, pitiful body that had brought him to these parts. He determined to confide in Thahéra and to ask for her help; but somehow, as they all sat around her fire, listening to each other's tales, he did not get an opportunity to do so.

  'We have an uncle', Thahéra's youngest told him, 'who can bite a sheep's tail off in a single bite.'

  'I have seen men who can break a bull's neck with a single chop of their hands', he responded.

  'Once, when I was a girl and I was visiting a relative in another village', recounted Thahéra, 'I watched a holy woman dancing with a snake. When the music ended she swallowed it whole!' As she stopped speaking, Karmel raised his brows in teasing irony and she smothered a laugh. Sensations from their morning's embrace trickled between them, inviting them to quench their thirst. Minutes passed and neither of them looked away.

  The young people fell asleep, exhausted by their chores. Thahéra swept the room, rinsed the plates, then lit a cigarette and invited him onto the veranda to share it with her.

  They sat beside each other on the stone porch and listened to the rain. A residual reluctance stopped him from telling her about his true purpose in coming to the hills.

  Whirling and eddying downhill, rivulets of mud were beginning to form everywhere and Karmel understood why most of the houses in Saahitaal were slightly raised off the ground, with animal quarters below and humans living above. He gazed down onto the dark pathway and wondered what the dead man had seen in here. Something had prompted him to write to his friends about this place. Could that invitation have been the cause of his death?

  'Tell me please,' he turned to Thahéra. 'Tell me about that foreigner who came here. I understand that you people all knew him; but no one says anything; and what about the other young foreigners? There are whispers. If something bad happened, you should tell me about it.' His companion had gone very still. It was a while before she spoke.

  'Why do you want to know, stranger?'

  'For God's sake, use my name!'

  'Okay, Arun, or whoever you are', she paused, but he was silent; 'why do you want to know?'

  'Come on, I'm curious. You people live in such an isolated place….'

  'People come and go here all the time. If there were foreigners … I can't remember when they came or why they left. I'm busy with my work. We all are. What else is there to do?'

  'That's not what I've heard.' Karmel felt angry but hid his emotions well. Thahéra was not so polite.

  'Are you saying I lie? What gives you the right?' She was breathing fast, her broad shoulders lifting with each inhalation. 'Can't you just look for your soil and then leave? Why are you wasting your time with us?' Her fingers twisted and untwisted a strand of her hair.

  'I'll leave if that's what you want.' Karmel's voice trembled. Memories of their morning's intimacy filled his mind. He wanted to protest, but also wanted to know what she was thinking. Clumsily he touched her left shoulder. 'Why don't you tell me if you know something. Are you afraid?'

  She studied her cigarette for a while and tapped out her ash into a grey-brown puddle. When she looked at him again there was a blank wall in her eyes where her soul had been and he felt a chill of tension. Their earlier harmony might never have existed. For a second it felt as if they were looking at each other through a distorting glass, seeing bits they'd never imagined. He wanted to take back his words and re-establish the connection between them.

  Her words were loud, and carried through the silent village. 'I remember nothing. No use asking me questions. I have to go now and sleep; you probably have more soil to collect in the morning.' Then she gathered her skirt and stood. For a second she seemed to tower over him, her shadow cutting off the light from the tiny lamp inside.

  Karmel rose reluctantly and descended to the path. Before he slept, he took pen and paper from his rucksack and wrote an account of the events that had taken place since the beginning of his journey. Meticulous as he was, he left out little, including the conversations he had had with the sculptress, Stitching Woman, as well as Thahéra, her sister and their children. No one except Chand had so much as nodded when he mentioned the foreigner, and he pointed out in his report that this in itself was highly suspicious. He squatted on his haunches till well past midnight trying to construct a plausible scenario that would exculpate the villagers yet explain their sinister silence in relation to the corpse that had so unpropitiously been deposited in his bed. Finally, he added to his report details of what he had discovered in the trunk:

  A rucksack of amber canvas containing camping stove and gas canisters, shirts, waterproof jacket and woollen sweaters, socks, shorts, patterned kurta, reel of twine, maps of the North West Indian region, stationary, books – two guides to the region and two on architectural design, magazine with an article on secession movements – post-card, written to some-one addressed as 'Darling' and detailing some of the beauties of the lake, but never finished; bandages, syringe, unused needles, box of pills.

  In one of the side pockets: drivers' licence, passport and credit cards all made out to 'Cameron Croft, 31, of 9, Lerrick Drive, Edinburgh, United Kingdom' and papers containing a signed contract between 'Randhor–Sinbari Hotel Management' and Cameron Croft, stating terms on which the young ma
n was to have examined the region for its potential as a resort site following his own suggestion. Furthermore, he had started working on the design of some kind and toting up material costs: pieces of paper with sketches and notes on them tucked into the pouch.

  In addition: four polished wooden globes, matching the ones in the house near the lake. And a state-of-the-art digital camera.

  Karmel underlined parts of the penultimate paragraph several times, reliving the sense of disgust that had coiled and uncoiled within him when he read Sinbari's name on the contract. The man was a criminal, to have deceived them all into thinking he did not know anything about the village or the area other than what the young guests had told him. But it would not do to become bitter, for part of the blame went to his own credulity; besides, Hàrélal was likely to be angry enough for both of them when he read the report.

  Now, twelve hours later, he recollected his sudden anxiety when he'd heard footsteps outside the cabin.

  He had stuffed all the items back into the trunk and slammed its lid, just as Thahéra began to push open the door. It took him some uneasy seconds to explain why his cot was obstructing her entry and to move it away. She had glanced at him curiously before displaying the food she'd brought and he had hurried her out of the place before she could note the lock lying beside the trunk.

  Shaking off his mood of tension, Karmel had proceeded to enjoy his day, chatting casually to his glowing companion as he mystified her and confused himself with tales of soil and trees. The aura of their earlier intimacy had clung to them throughout the day. Now he was sad. If only he had left it at that. If only he hadn't persisted with his questions. How coldly she had left him.

  He finished his report and placed it in his carry pouch, ready for the next day's trek. Sleep was brief and uncomfortable. In the morning he rose to find the sun hidden by glowering clouds, though no actual rain was falling. Breathing a sigh of relief, he battled his way through the trees in what he thought was the best way towards Bhukta. He did not use his map until he reached the lake and after that the going was so rough that he forgot all about the time.

  By noon he was halfway to his destination, just a stone's throw from the village known as Mulundi, and his stomach was cramping with hunger.

  Sadrettin and his party passed the first map-point on their way to Malundi at roughly the same time as Karmel did, but they did not see him. Two small boys overtook them, climbing upwards and disinclined for any interaction. Nor did any member of the Sinbari team feel equal to holding a conversation, so choked were they by the exertion of climbing and so repulsed by the mud into which they seemed to sink up to their ankles at each step. Saturated flowers shed their petals to give off a suffocating scent which hung at the back of the throat like powder, making them cough. Surveying hill locations in the past had been a breeze compared to this and all the sites they had developed in valleys or across the plains were like picnic spots to this jungle. Each of them was willing to believe that someone amongst them was responsible for planting this idea in the Boss's mind, for he was usually a gifted judge of location. Sadrettin knew better but had remained silent as Taylor battled it out with Rimi back in their damp lodgings. Now he was glad to be using his muscles again, but he was probably the only member of their irritable team to feel any modicum of satisfaction.

  Recollecting Sara and Adam's description of the pale and mottled corpse they'd discovered, he wondered briefly if some vestigial protection remained upon these hills, courtesy of a long dead saint, which meant that all who entered their confines with impure hearts were doomed to realise their errors at great and painful length. There was a simmering anger within his group that did not bode well for their mission.

  Part Two

  Women's World

  18

  Sara had been ill for three days. Her unwashed hair was fanned out across the pillow like a yellow rag. She had no energy even to take pills anymore and she had refused to allow the hotel maid to change her sheets. Since her trip to the police her fever had burned and burned. Visions of Cameron, dead and decomposing, brushed her consciousness and drove her deeper into delirium.

  They had been such a lively group of friends, the autumn she first met them. They'd gone to music festivals together and talked about the state of the environment. Holidaying in Algeria, and then in Australia on a shoestring, they'd discovered a passion for travelling which never altered. They'd read the same books, drunk endless bottles of cheap wine and sworn to go to the end of the world for each other. Or beyond. And she herself, a shy workaholic from a nouveau riche family, had never felt happier or more confident. With these friends she was home in a way that she’d never been with her parents.

  There was no exact moment when they stopped working together as a unit. Gradually in their third year they drifted into more serious academia, with ex-fisherman, Cameron, having to work much harder at his architecture courses and she herself finding that she didn't like failure. Only Adam, gifted only son of two local poets, continued to party hard and sleep through the day for he got firsts without trying, in all his compulsory subjects.

  Sipping coffees in between library sessions or during lecture breaks, she and Cameron grew closer. They were trown together on the same campus, and saw more of each other and less of Adam – or so she'd thought.

  Until she'd used her key to Cameron's room one day and found the two men in bed together. Which came as no shock where Adam was concerned, for she had long known his sexual preference.

  Sara acted cool about it all in public, cried in private until she could barely see through her swollen lids, and brought it up repeatedly with Cameron, who had simply lounged out of bed, drawn on a pair of pants and walked her from the flat. He laughed at her fears, told her to chill out, told her that love was not divisible, that she was still unique and that one should never close oneself off to different aspects of life.

  It was only weeks before this awful day that they'd met Vincent Sinbari, an Italian kid, in a pub; they'd all liked him at once, made it their business to find out how he came to be travelling alone and to befriend him. That was the last really relaxed weekend the three of them had spent together, joking around and showing a foreigner their city.

  He, for his part, was astounded by their friendliness, having experienced a kind of curt snobbery in London that almost made him wish he'd gone to India, as his father had suggested. When he left eleven days later, there were promises of return hospitality and embarrassed admissions about his father's wealth.

  It was about a year after this encounter that Sara proposed to Cameron, was accepted, and had the watch made for him; all without telling Adam. She could still remember how Cameron had closed his eyes for almost a minute outside the orthopaedic unit where she was working that afternoon. Shut them. Just like that. As if what she'd asked was the best thing he could imagine; or as if he was composing a letter in his head. She'd been holding his hand and Nurse Stolle had winked at them as he waddled past on bowed legs. That day. Magic.

  For weeks afterwards her only thought had been Cameron's face, his hands and eyes and hair and neck. Work, family, other friends, grades, music … nothing had been able to penetrate the cocoon she'd spun herself from his ardour. They’d shopped together – unless he had an 'appointment' – cooked together, gone to the movies. Happiness had filled her like bubble bath.

  And now she was lying here in India, eaten up by fever. And her beloved was long dead.

  She wasn't entirely alone, of course. Adam – friend, rival and metamour – was nursing her, but in a desultory fashion and without his usual gentleness. He hadn't, for example, bothered to clean the pan into which she'd urinated the night before and it sat in a corner of the room where she lay, its contents a darkening orange colour and its odour one of mortality. Although they weren't likely to have any visitors, he knew she was ashamed of the smell.

  His relationship with her had become more and more strained since their flight from Delhi. When she fell ill he had considered
packing her things and putting her on a plane back home but, hearing her speak deliriously one night, he had become intrigued, and now he was hanging around in the hope that she would say more. In fact, he was hooked and sat by her bed hour after hour, sweating in the heat of the room and not giving her any analgesics. He bit his nails and rubbed his stubble obsessively, hoping she would speak. For what she had said was so bizarre as to be almost intelligible, almost intelligent. And here she was again, repeating the same questions as clearly as if she'd been conscious and purposeful, 'Did you do it Adam? Adam, for God's sake! Did you kill him?'

  19

  It was the beginning of Karmel's third week away from Delhi and he suddenly found that while he was hungry for the neat apartment he had left behind and the freedom of the motorbike, he had also begun to think of Saahitaal as some kind of home. Having exhausted his knees by too jerky and erratic a descent to Bhukta, he was now seated in Bhukta Lodge, nursing some mountain liquor and his bruised bones. Determining not to indulge in lustful fantasies about Thahéra, he concentrated on finding out information that might aid his work. His landlord, a shrunken man with white hair and a flat nose, was seated opposite him and they were conversing about the area.

  'You won't find as many of us men here as there used to be.' The man intoned, as if it was a habitual opening. 'Everyone leaves for the plains or climbs with the cattle until only us old ones, or the boys remain. You asked me about Saahitaal – it is a very ancient settlement, an untouched place, some say it has been blessed.'