'So, why didn't anyone do anything?'
'It's more complicated than that – she'd developed a kind of coping mechanism.'
'What? Hit out at anyone who was nice to her?' Hearing her words, he shuddered, thinking of the way he'd been hurt outside Gauri's house. He still didn't know who had done it but the odds were stacked in Thahéra's favour. Recollecting the curtain across Gauri's room, the hastily hidden implements, he guessed why he'd been struck. She had been there all along, listening. She'd thought she was his prime suspect. Tortured by anxiety, she had tried to make him forget what Gauri had been saying. It was obviously a foolish, impulsive action and she had regretted it. All those kisses she'd showered on him when he woke had evidently been a sign of her repentance.
He saw that Tanya was staring at him, waiting for an answer.
'I don't think she attacked people often. Could be that day she just stopped Croft to get him to talk to her. Perhaps her father lunged for her and Croft stepped in between. Or perhaps her father really did intend to kill Croft . ... We'll never know.
'Is that what you put in your official report?' Tanya was twisting and untwisting a strand of her hair, peering at him as if she would read his mind.
'Yes.' Karmel didn't meet her eyes. He knew she didn't buy it.
'But your gut instinct tells you –?'
'That Thahéra did it. And it wasn't intentional. It was an accident but her father witnessed it. Then later she snapped and finished off her old man.'
'Then she's guilty as hell and you know it. She's committed two murders!' Tanya's voice was choked. She was breathing fast, remembering Sara's sorrow; Adam's self-destructive rage. Their eyes met at last.
Karmel and Tanya stared at each other in silence as this dreaded version of that day in the woods unfurled in Karmel's mind.
The damp leafy bank, the dappled sunlight, no hint of pain or menace.
The sounds of running water and laughter as the two white men tramped downhill, fingers loosely intertwined.
Their cheerful greetings when they met the village woman; then her bitter anguish when Croft told her he'd be leaving.
Poor woman, she had started to live again for him; and he, casual about his body, his charms, delighting in intimacy, he'd allowed too many hopes to be pinned on his love. The woman and Cameron had argued; and Adam – petulant, because he could not understand the language, and bored, by his position as a passive bystander – had stomped off in disgust.
Then they started to talk in earnest – one begging for fidelity, the other spinning explanations for his apparent duplicity – only to be interrupted by the hoarse shouts of her frenzied father. Devsingh. A man who despised women.
What a drama it must have been.
While his body went through the motions of drinking tea, and admiring Mrs Hàrélal's freshly watered lawn, while Tanya rocked the swing gently and gazed at his hands on the teacup, Karmel's mind followed the contours of that last fateful meeting in Saahital, feeling out nuances that had escaped him before.
When Thahéra's father had burst upon them all, dragging his accomplice, Gauri's unfortunate son, Thahéra must have been stunned; humiliated into silence. Devsingh would have been bellowing, most probably some putrid curses, and Croft would have put out his hand to touch her, to reassure her or offer comfort in the manner of such foreign men.
That touch would have been the last straw.
Still yards away, the old man would have shrieked and thrown his cane, aiming for his daughter. Rushing towards her, he must have seemed possessed, superhuman.
Gauri, watching, had feared for her friend's life and called out, without thinking, for her to defend herself.
So.
She'd have picked up the gnarled wooden stick – which had been used to beat her on so many occasions – raised it above her head in terror and brought it down with all her strength. Only to find that she had felled not her father but her lover, who'd stepped in between them. A Shakespearean moment.
Karmel remembered her muscled back, her powerful shoulders. She was a strong woman. Croft's head wound – a crushing blow to the skull from the side – was consistent with this scenario.
As for the old man – Karmel pushed the thought of poison from his mind, banished images of the swollen tongue and pulpy lips, the livid, flaking skin: Thahéra's father had had a stroke in the process of thrashing his younger daughter to death.
She had survived; but only just.
Who was to say it hadn't happened like that?
Once they'd read his report and uncovered the architect's corpse, none of the local detectives he'd directed to the village had bothered to ask more questions about the death of the old man suspected of the murder. Escaping from the mud, the insects and the relentless rain, they had quickly returned to their own quarters, glad that Delhi would handle it.
Tanya was looking quizzical. She'd called Thahéra a murderer. He had to answer her.
'Tani. Think about it. The law had nothing to do with it. At least to her people. You're always telling me that things are unfair, that women are treated twice as severely when they do anything unusual. I've always agreed with you. Everyone knew what she'd done yet they were sorry for her; they didn't think she should be punished.' It sounded reasonable now, and it had felt reasonable to him, the day he made the decision not to pursue her out to the lake: but would the rest of the world see it that way? Karmel thought not.
'What d'you think made her snap? You know, at the end, when she poisoned her old man. She must have planned it, after all, otherwise how did her children survive? He wouldn't just have stopped in the middle of his attack and eaten the poison. It stands to reason that she gave it to him before he hit her.' Tanya had pulled her own emotions under control. She was upright and cool now, staring at him with discerning eyes.
He looked away. He didn't want to tell her about his infatuation with Thahéra or its aftermath. He felt somehow ashamed and vulnerable. But then, Tanya had slept with a man she didn't love and become pregnant with his baby. So they were more than equals, in a manner of speaking.
Still, he couldn't tell her here, in this house with its servants and polished mirrors and ugly stone icons. Because telling her would mean reigniting a kind of ease he hadn't shared with her in a long while, an intimacy that, perhaps, had never existed between them; and if he allowed that to happen, he'd be lost. Lost.
She wasn't a child any more. He caught himself staring at her lips, full and dark as bitter chocolate with that tiny cut on the bottom lip. The longing he felt was neither cursory nor fleeting but the continuation of a desire he'd suppressed for half a dozen years.
Forcing himself to look away, he made his voice casual.
'Shall we go for a ride? I've brought the bike.' He was watching a bird alight on the lawn.
'Are you sure?' She put a hand up to his shoulder and turned him towards her. He hadn't offered to take her anywhere on the bike since she was a teenager, shying away from such physical proximity. She hadn't been expecting him to seek further time with her. In fact, his silences during their discussion had convinced her that he'd abandoned his heart somewhere up in the mountains. She'd been steeling herself for a separation.
'Would I ask, otherwise?'
She changed into jeans while Karmel spoke to her parents, assuring them that he would return her before nightfall and telling Hàrélal that he'd be available for duty on Monday morning. He was vaguely unnerved by the equanimity with which all his speeches were met but too distracted by the thought of the conversation he was about to have with Tanya to question her parents' quiescence.
Mr and Mrs Hàrélal came out to the porch to wave their daughter off. There was a flurry of humid breeze and dust swirled along the quiet lane where they resided. A white dog with a tooled-leather collar and a wagging tail sped out of a gate on the far-side of the lane and stood panting, gazing at their flowerbeds. It was followed out by a little boy, bouncing a ball. Casting an envious look at the gleaming Honda, he s
ketched a wave at his neighbours and then ran off, whistling for his dog to follow.
Neither Tanya nor Karmel saw the knowing look the older couple shared when their daughter hefted herself onto the bike. Nor did they witness the relief with which Mrs Hàrélal touched her husband's arm on re-entering the house. Outside, as the powerful engine snarled into life, Tanya placed a hand on Karmel's shoulder, her curls hiding her ecstatic smile.
Epilogue
Some months later Karmel was cleaning his bike in the smoky winter sunlight when he heard the gate open. He looked up with shining eyes, expecting his beloved back from the library, and found himself facing the postman instead. The man hovered, glanced up at the house a couple of times, before turning away.
'Looking for someone?' Karmel went towards him, wiping greasy hands on his shirt. The man hesitated. 'Do you know any Doshi living round here?' Karmel shook his head. 'I thought not.' The man smiled; 'It’s just that some yokel has got the idea that a Doshi lives here. Another letter for the bin, I expect. We get thousands like these every day. I wonder what they say.' Karmel laughed, catching a glimpse of a tattered yellow envelop, sheets of paper already protruding through one torn corner. About to go back to his task, he remembered Arun, the man he had been so many weeks ago. He was Doshi too. Perhaps the letter … 'Hoy!' He gave a shout.
The postman turned. 'Yes?'
'Me! The letter's for me! I'm Doshi.'
'Aw, sir! I know that trick … but there's no cash in it, I promise! We check that every time!' The postman let out a guffaw. Karmel felt his temper rising.
'Look, it's my letter. I don't want any money. Here.' He took a hundred rupee note from his jeans. 'Take this and give me the damn thing.' Shaking his head in astonishment at the foibles of South Delhiites, the postman grabbed the note and dropped the letter into Karmel's eager hands.
Upstairs in the gloom of their apartment – Tanya insisted on keeping the curtains closed most of the time in case their landlady tried to peer in as she had done that first day – Karmel unfolded the coarse sheets of paper with shaking hands. There were four in all and each one was closely written in tiny Hindi characters; even the margins had not been spared. Trembling so much he could barely keep his balance, Karmel looked to the last page and read the name at the end.
Gauri.
His hands ceased shaking abruptly. His pulse returned to normal. It was not from her. A letter from Gauri could mean anything; she was scribe to the entire community. Maybe she was writing to thank him for sending the doctor up to Thahéra's sister's place. Maybe she was asking him to help her son in some way. He took the letter out onto the bright terrace with him and sat on the parapet to peruse it, glancing towards the gate expectantly. But as soon as he read the first three lines, he was gripped and could think of nothing else. In a swirling rush, he was back in Saahitaal. He slid down towards the terrace floor and started the letter again.
Arun Sahib – I call you that in respect, for that is how I recall you despite your other name – snow lies once more on the ground in our village, as I write, and trees, burdened with it, droop down to our frozen lake. Like them, I too feel the weight of this cold. In my lungs and in my bones. I feel that if I do not shed this burden soon, it will be the end of me. And deservedly. As I have fought long and hard to build a life here, somehow, I am not ready to quit yet. So Arun, I have been forced to take up my pen to put right an injustice that allows me neither peace nor rest.
After you left, some men came to Saahitaal. You knew of it, I am sure. Perhaps that was your doing. And they removed from our midst the body of the young foreigner, which had lain so long neglected to our shame. This shame I speak of, however, is not equally deserved, nor equally felt. There are many in our midst who do not share it. Thahéra is one of those people.
Karmel started and dropped the letter. Tanya had come silently onto the terrace and was holding out a book towards him, a serious expression on her face. The shawl she wore didn't quite cover her burgeoning stomach. Blinking, he waved her away and took up the letter again.
How was it that we came to mislead you so? How was it that we allowed an innocent woman to take the blame for things she had not done? These are questions that you must be asking yourself now, as you read. Or perhaps you do not believe me. Perhaps you think I am defending her simply because she is my friend and I cannot bear to see the way she cries when she believes she is alone, heartbroken for all the losses she has endured?
Then read on and you will find the answers to your questions.
Not long after the foreign man came into our midst – Camran, his name, yes I knew it all along – he began an affair with Thahéra which would have been the talk of Saahitaal but for his discretion. As it was, she constantly chaffed against the secrecy we imposed on her, unable as we were to comprehend Camran's motives or his character. Thahéra has always been bold, daring, known in our village for her strength and humour. Taking the blame for things that others did, rarely flinching from the punishment. After I fled my marital abode and returned to reside in the village as a lonely outcast – to be near my son, you understand and for no other reason – above all the women in this village, I was honoured to have her as my friend.
I cringe with disgust that you will read how false I was to her, how my actions belied the friendship between us. But I must hurry on now, for a storm is coming and I wish to send this letter with my son to Bhukta before the blizzard breaks.
Of Thahéra's father, Devsingh, and his temper you are not unaware. Of the way the old man died too, you are surely cognisant. I will not bore you by repeating the truth: he was a devil in human shape and no one will ever fully comprehend the things he did to his wife and to his long-suffering girls and any who dared thwart him. He was born mean, the way some people are. I do not speculate on why this was so. He is gone now and no one mourns him, save perhaps my own pathetic son. Nevertheless, in all the things the old villain had done, he had not committed outright murder. So you can discount him. We would not have lied to protect Devsingh or his foul soul. Who then?
This will come as a surprise to you, perhaps, but Camran was not in truth an honourable man. He teased us all – ah, even me, and you have seen my ugliness – he played games, he was quicksilver in his caresses and lightning in his retreats. He told us that we could all learn to have and give love. He laughed at our conventions.
Many here desired him.
Thahéra gave her body to him, for she delighted in his interest. In secret, her sister too, gave her heart and soul to this man.
Does it shock you – a union between such a faded village woman and a bubbling youth from a different world? Probably not. Thahéra tells me that she thought you the wisest man she had ever known, wiser by far than her foreign lover.
When she thought he was leaving, it was Thahéra's sister who followed him out to the clearing. She went to beg him to stay or to take her with him. And I, fool that I am, followed her, through curiosity and pride, for I wished to witness her humiliation.
Why did I feel like that? I guess that her nature had never appealed to me – secretive, hard, mistrustful – she was everything I was not and I thought she was trying to steal a man from her sister. But the main reason, I weep as I write it, is that I had hated her for many years, hated her for knowing what her husband was doing to me when I still lived with their family, and taking no action to stop it, just as she took no action to stop her father when he hurt her mother, just as she allowed Thahéra to be punished when it was she who had burnt down that cowshed. Ah, you are truly shocked now. No courage, she had. No loyalty. The opposite of Thahéra. I do not even have to tell you about all the other times in her childhood when she deflected anger or blame onto her sister, knowing the girl was ready to take it; or implicated her in some ‘crime’ which she knew would drive their father into a frenzy. She reasoned that if she kept him busy hunting out the faults of others, then she would suffer less. She simply watched her own back. Always. Which is why it took their father
so long to find out about her and Camran, even though my poor, foolish son watched and reported with great accuracy and care.
The rest you must already know, Arun – the tension in the clearing that morning, the leaves, silent with anticipation, even the river utterly subdued. But I will repeat it anyway.
As they spoke together in front of the other foreign man, Thahéra's sister became more distraught than I'd ever seen her. She was desperate and begged him to take her away. She had no grasp on reality, no sense that for him she was merely a passing fling, a pleasure not a passion. He was gentle and tried to explain to her that he was to be married, that he was leaving in a few days but that he would be back in years to come to continue work on his project – the great hotel that he had planned for our village.
At that moment, Devsingh, her father, broke through the trees, pulling along my unfortunate son and shouting foul abuse; he was threatening them both with his stick – ah, his words stick in my mind even now. He taunted his eldest daughter for being a miserable creature, fit only for such dirty work as servicing a foreign man; and finally he told her that just as he had preferred her sister to her from their childhood, so had this foreign man chosen Thahéra over herself. Just as her husband had wanted Gauri – me, you understand, the old bastard was referring to the times her husband had molested me – more than he wanted her, so too did this foreigner desire other women far more than he desired her. He even desired men! Yes! Didn't she know it?
– Arun, her face was livid; but her father was implacable.
The boy in his spying had seen the two white men doing unspeakable things together, things fit only for devils and foreigners to do.
Devsingh was sneering in a frenzy of victory, for with each of his words Thahéra's sister was shaking more and more. You know what she normally looks like, cold as ice and as upright as a mountain. As he spoke she was utterly transfigured, broken, stooping like an ancient crone. Then he told her that he had always thought her the clean one, unlike her bastard sister, but now he was convinced that his blood did not run even in her veins.
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