Truth Lake

by Shakuntala Banaji

  'Do you receive news from up there?' Karmel was curious but didn't think he'd hear anything purposeful.

  'Children come through once a week on their way to school in Charmoli. We send children to Malundi too and they come back with gossip. Sometimes women come down here to sell herbs or the men stop here when they are returning to their homes from the big cities. We hear all kinds of things.'

  'Such as?' Karmel was surprised by his host's eagerness to talk. Perhaps it was the alcohol that made him so quick to confide.

  'Well, sir, since you've been staying there I think you must be one of us in your heart, because not many people can live up there. It is a place of truth. People go there to face themselves.' As his host's tone grew more pompous, Karmel's head began to nod. Nevertheless, he tried to pursue the conversation.

  'Do you mean because of the isolation?'

  'In a manner of speaking, yes. In the last twenty years, I've only heard of four people who came from outside and spent longer than a few days up in Saahitaal. Two of them were foreigners – men. One of them came down here a couple of times, like yourself, to post letters – but mostly he'd send a boy. Pleasant fellow. The other I saw only once when he was asking directions to the village.'

  'You didn't happen to see a woman? A white woman going up there?'

  'White woman, you say? No. I did not.'

  'Do you know what happened to them? To the two foreign men?' Karmel saw the man losing interest. He preferred to hold forth, obviously.

  'Nah. Must have packed up and gone back where they came from I guess. Most people make a day's pilgrimage from Malundi and then go back there for the night. They don't choose to stay in Saahitaal.'

  'And why's that?'

  'Up there they are more suspicious of strangers than we are here. No men around, for most o the year…. I've got a relative there –'

  'You have?' Karmel was surprised.

  He hesitated. Rubbed his face lightly with a worn handkerchief. Then continued, 'my niece – older sister's daughter. Girl by the name of Gauri.'

  'That's a fine name.'

  'Hers is a strange story.' Karmel felt compelled to hear more though he was almost overcome by fatigue and the strength of the liquid in his tin mug. His host poured another drink, checked that his children were asleep in the next room and then began.

  'Seventeen years ago, my eldest sister and her husband were struck down by fever and they died. Their daughter, Gauri, was not married then, and their sons had left for the plains, so she continued living in their house – it's in another village, very small, only nineteen families. In those days she was a sickly girl, very thin and lacking in energy, but she liked to learn things; so her parents had allowed her to continue in school – they had no dowry to give and no one had expressed an interest in her. She was fifteen when they died and she could read and write better than any of the boys; in Pahadi she was considered something of a poet.

  'She was not popular with the men because of her sharp tongue, of course, and my brother, who had become her guardian, decided that she should be married before she spoilt her reputation irreparably.' Kailash coughed and the older man paused. As if sensing disapproval, he said, 'here our girls are many and the young men are few – it is important to become somebody's wife.'

  'I see.'

  'So my brother came up with a man from Saahitaal, maybe twenty-five years old, with a flock, a married older brother and an ailing mother; the girl wed him happily, sir; there was no force involved.'

  'Go on.'

  'For some months we heard nothing from her but other villagers brought us news. She was writing letters for all, she was making things. Then she conceived unexpectedly and gave birth to a boy; we thought everything was going well; but suddenly she decided that she didn't want to stay with her husband's family any more and she moved herself out of his home and tried to go back to my brother's house. She left her son behind.'

  'Ah. She met someone else?' Karmel was impatient but his host would not be rushed.

  'By this time, her old family homestead was being used by her cousins and there was no space for her. Besides which, she was causing a scandal and bringing trouble on everyone in the family.'

  'So she was seeing another man?'

  'We called a meeting and told her our views. We asked her to go back to her husband.' The man's voice was beginning to slur with alcohol and emotion.

  'It was then that she revealed her secret – I don't know why I'm telling you this, sir. Her husband, he was a weak man. That was why he delayed marrying so long.'

  'So why did she leave?'

  'Gauri told us she was forced.'

  'Forced?' Karmel found himself drawn into the narrative, aghast. He had shaken off his lethargy and was sitting upright in his seat. 'But her husband was not a violent man …'

  'Forced not by him but by her husband's brother.' The man's voice had dropped to a whisper. His slightly protuberant eyes were bloodshot; his breath stank. Karmel said nothing and the man began to babble. 'Who knows, sir? Maybe she fought him off. Maybe she didn't. Women are not like us. One day strong: one day weak. It was done anyway.' When Karmel remained silent the man concluded, 'you disagree, of course, you city men are strange too.' He paused. 'Shall I continue?'

  Not wishing to show his disgust too openly, Karmel acceded. But his eyes were strained, angry, and the lump on his neck throbbed visibly. The girl had been raped, inside the family. If he heard the story a thousand times, he would not get used to it.

  'After she complained to him about that incident, her husband no longer wanted to speak to her and he left for the plains. Alone. She had liked him, apparently, and was not willing to be abandoned in his household where his brother could continue to use her with his own wife's full knowledge and consent . . . So she left him. Left the child. Left them all. That's what she told us.' The man narrowed his eyes.

  'Did you believe her?' Karmel imagined what she had been through to tell her story in public.

  'We believed her – Gauri never spoke anything but the truth. Yet what she was saying should have been kept private and accepted by a good wife. We cast her off, as his brother had requested, and she was told to make her way back to her husband or leave the area.'

  His host reached into a pocket and withdrew a packet of thin cigarettes. He lit one and smoked silently. Against his better judgement, Karmel was forced to comment.

  'And do you believe what you are saying? You agreed with your relatives when they sent the girl away?'

  His host's tone became a whine. 'None of us are rich folk. I could not afford to go against the will of the community. My business depends on the good-will of others.'

  'She left, then? But you say you have a relative up there now?'

  'So we thought; young man, you are very sharp.' The man tried to snap his fingers and liquor splashed from his mug. 'Your agriculture department must be proud of you! We didn't hear of her for months. Then one day my wife – bless her, she's dead now, died last year – heard a rumour that Gauri had established herself near lake Saahi, not half a mile from her husband's family and that she was trying to set herself up in business! It was unheard of. They would have taken her back; they needed her in the fields, but she didn't care. She wanted to live alone. She was only eighteen then and very bitter.' He blew smoke through his nostrils and his voice trailed off. The tears, which had entered his eyes momentarily at the recollection of his wife, receded. 'I heard that her husband remarried on one of his trips from the city – to the sister of his brother's wife; yes, the very brother who had – you know . . .. The new wife has children too, I believe, including Gauri's boy, who was left with her. They are considered a wealthy family, for this region.'

  'And Gauri? She stayed and worked?'

  'Of course – but no one would buy her stuff.'

  'That's sad.'

  'You are young, and from a city. You people are scientific, you know soil and you do not hold with all our superstitions. Perhaps your wife is allowe
d to go outside the neighbourhood to work. Gauri is living in the wrong place and believe me, young fellow, she is lucky to be alive; there are those in the village who thought she deserved a far harsher punishment . . .. I've not met her for many years, not since she came to ask me to market her stuff and I, regretfully, turned her away – very good it is too, sir, as you will agree if you ever see it. Unusual designs.'

  The guesthouse was peaceful. Apart from their voices and the soft falling of rain that had started again during the evening, there were no sounds. And their lamp was almost out.

  'What does she make, your niece?' Karmel was getting a strange feeling in his head, partly due to the liquor and the lateness of the hour but due also to a sense of destiny pulling tiny strings.

  'She carves wood.'

  Karmel's eyes opened wide. His host's eyebrows rose.

  'Ah, now I see that you know her.'

  'I only met her very briefly and I assume we're speaking of the same woman.' Karmel recalled her feverish gaze, her haunting craft. 'Yes, her work is special; she's gifted.' He paused and rubbed his face, running his nails over the stubble, wondering inconsequentially whether there would be hot water in the morning. Then he thought again of the four burnished spheres beneath the dead man's clothes. Was she involved in his death – this tragic woman? Or did the foreigner, Cameron Croft, merely feel sympathy for her, like he himself felt, and decide to help her out, to buy her wares? The sculptress' fiery eyes came into his mind; she wasn't beautiful, but beauty was so relative … and perhaps wood was not the only thing she was selling?

  'You were saying, sir?'

  'I do feel that she may be quite ill, your Gauri; perhaps you should help her. After all, sixteen years have passed.'

  In the damp little room assigned to him, Karmel opened his pack and withdrew his incomplete report. His fingers passed in a measured manner across the paper.

  So, Sir, we have suspects and it would be well to look into those at your end; I will maintain surveillance out here for such time as seems reasonable.

  Kailash Karmel.

  It was one in the morning and he could barely stay upright. In a few hours, he would post his report to the chief and start the arduous climb back to Saahitaal, for the telephone lines and mobile masts in the district were down indefinitely.

  There were many things that he could have asked his landlord but had not. Who were Gauri's in-laws? If Saahitaal was their village and she came to live 'within a mile of them' perhaps he had met some of them. How did the 'new wife' cope? What had happened to Gauri's son – did he ever see her as she wandered through the village and wonder why she'd left him?

  But other concerns dwelt in his exhausted brain and the questions dispersed almost as they formed for they seemed irrelevant to the modern tale he was investigating. Besides, he was too tired, too repulsed by the grotesque harshness of it all, so reminiscent of his childhood experiences and so much part of the fabric of life in India. Sealing his report inside an envelope, Karmel printed out his boss's address. He was filled with anxiety when he realised that Hàrélal may have to wait a week before receiving his communication but all the phone lines were down and his mobile had run out of charge. He imagined his irate superior getting edgier by the day. He was not to know that his report would be the last thing on his boss's mind.

  20

  There are streets in Delhi where people like Tanya Hàrélal are rarely seen. Daubaba Lane is one such street. Its oily stench can be smelt across acres of land, through numerous tiny ill-lit dwellings and onwards to mix with the odours of the Yamuna river. Its reputation travels much further. Thus, when stall-holders on the left side of the street (stolen tyres, lead piping and gas cylinders only) noted Hàrélal's flash motor picking its way through the rubble, they were concerned less about who its occupant might be than about the possibility of finding a buyer for some of their illegal merchandise. They surrounded the car, shouting prices, wares and greetings, as in any normal market; they were used to visits from cut-throat builders, bent car dealers and government officials looking to make a quick buck or to demolish someone's residence on the cheap. Tanya was petrified but her nerve held and she managed to remain seated with the windows of her father's air-conditioned motor rolled safely up. Like any practiced buyer she had with her a bundle of notes and a bodyguard who doubled as her chauffeur. But she had not come to buy. Looking around, she noted the sagging roofs inundated with dirt yet used to spread freshly washed clothing; when she saw a ragged yellow flag flying above one house, the smile on her face transcended her fear and she leapt out of the car.

  Taken aback, the hordes of dealers around her fell silent. They continued to stare as she entered the decrepit building and strode up the stairs, taking with her the bundle of notes.

  Lal Bahuba watched her impassively from his position at the top of the stairs. He was chewing paan and wearing a crisp blue kurta that contrasted sharply with their squalid surroundings. His muscles were concealed beneath the ironed fabric, but his neck, thick and encircled by a gold chain, gave an impression of strength. He spat a stream of red juice into a corner and wiped his mouth on an ironed cotton handkerchief. When Tanya Hàrélal reached him he motioned for her to follow him. Tanya did so, almost unable to control her anticipation, lips curving involuntarily into a smile, a slight mark above her upper lip stretching to pale perfection with the muscles in her cheeks. She looked like a rich girl. A happy rich girl.

  From outside in the street noise continued to find its way into the building. Shouting, swearing and haggling, the spume of market life, wove a tapestry with the crying of babies from the other – largely residential – side of the street. The car in which Tanya had arrived could not have, through any conceivable manoeuvre, disguised its presence but the driver leaning against it rolling a cigarette did not appear to be uncomfortable or unduly anxious. He shouted obscenities at a cycle rickshaw that came too close but closed his mouth abruptly when he recognised its well-to-do passenger.

  Inside, Tanya's smile had slipped down to her belly and she could feel the tiny muscles in her pelvis dancing with pleasurable associations.

  Once they entered the high-ceilinged room, that might have been a warehouse for all its sparse furnishings and lack of comfort, Lal Bahuba's visage altered. It took on an expression of intense concentration. He shut the door gently but did not lock it, and led her by the hand to a mattress in the middle of the floor. Taking the bundle of notes from her trembling fingers he placed it delicately on the cool tiles. Then, pulling her down beside him, he began to lick her neck. She closed her eyes and listened to three hearts beating, smelling the scent of betel nut and tobacco on Lal's breath and wondering, irreverently, what Kailash Karmel would have smelt like if he had ever allowed her to kiss him. Which he never had.

  Flickering shapes and colours spun across her lids, tempting her with their realism; but she did not open her eyes. She, Tanya Hàrélal, was doing what she wanted to do, what she had dreamed of doing for many years. Her mind spiralled away, dissolved into and out of consciousness, pleasure, memory, anticipation.

  Lal Bahuba was biting her left ear when her father burst in upon them.

  Tanya watched as her lover attacked her father and pushed him to the ground. Her pants were off and bundled in a corner like a small, frightened animal; sunlight glanced across her thighs. She felt numb.

  Lal Bahuba Saané was trained in unarmed combat. He had won trophies during his junior and senior years in college. Because his father was in the army he'd viewed it as his mission in domestic life to make the boy into a fighter. Lal Bahuba had never disappointed his father. Tanya knew that her own father wouldn't stand a chance up against such a man.

  She barely felt herself rise from the mattress but when she regained some awareness, she was screaming and hitting Lal Bahuba on the back with her handbag. He shook her off but desisted from the beating he had been about to administer to Hàrélal, his erstwhile boss. The three of them stood panting and looking at each oth
er; characters in a farce, none of them could move or speak.

  Street sounds drifted like fired onion-smoke through the room. Anger and resentment thickened. Still no one spoke.

  Then Deputy Chief Hàrélal turned and shuffled towards the door.

  'Are you coming with me? Are you? Or are you going to remain with this gutter-snipe, this faithless, sister-fucking crook?'

  Lal Bahuba snorted but remained in position, his back to the room. Tanya didn't know what to say to her father. She was embarrassed, defiant, tired in the aftermath of arousal and anger and shock.

  'Shameless slut!', she heard him mutter, as he descended the stairs, but she wasn't sure if he meant it. The possibility that he might not roused her to action. Stepping into her underwear and then her pants, she ran after her father.

  When he reached the street he didn't bother to wipe away the trickle of blood that oozed from the corner of his mouth. Nor did he straighten the lanky bit of hair that had fallen askew across his partially bald skull. He climbed into the motor his daughter had 'borrowed' and ordered his chauffeur to drive him home. 'What about miss Tanya? What'll she do?' the man enquired but Hàrélal just shook his head and leaned back in the air-conditioned luxury of his soon-to be surrendered vehicle.

  Tanya watched him leave from a window off the stairwell. Emotion made her fingertips ache.

  She re-entered the room and stared at Lal Bahuba, the man with whom she had committed so many sins and tasted a recipe for bliss.

  He was counting the money she had brought him. Her heart-rate soared all over again.

  There was a cast of ill temper about his mouth that he did not drown or smooth away. She had been intending to stay; to apologise for her father; to ask about Lal's plans for the morrow. But the sight of him greedily flicking though the bundle of notes – her notes, carefully scrounged from mother and aunts over the months – appalled her. Perhaps she was just a selfish little rich girl used to being the centre of attention. Perhaps she'd never really liked Lal Bahuba or had seen too many movies in which disloyal daughters were punished by gaining worthless husbands. She reached a decision.