MONEY TREE

by Gordon, Ferris,

  Quiet fell across the crowd as Anila and Meera moved through and stepped up to the front row. Meera faced the policeman.

  ‘My name is Meera Banerjee. I am the area manager for the People’s Bank.’

  The sub-inspector recognised the woman’s name. She was the trouble-maker who had made the complaint. If he had his way he would start with her, given her a roughing up to check her story and to repay her for the long, hot ride he’d endured. But he could not touch her. She had top contacts. This had been part of his briefing. The woman was talking again. As if she was an equal. The nerve of her.

  ‘And this is my client, Anila Jhabvala who was robbed. All the money of the People’s Bank in this village has been stolen and we want a suspect arrested.’

  The sub-inspector sweated harder. His annoyance grew. This had gone from a reported theft of a few rupees, to being a bank robbery! He wasn’t sure how that had come about but he knew what to do about it. There was a routine that could be applied to any situation. It would be an uncomfortable visit for someone, but it would get results.

  ‘First, you must furnish the details to me. We must complete an Accusation form. We will sit here and we will write down all the details. You will tell me when the money was stolen, and whom you suspect of perpetrating this criminal deed.’

  He signalled furiously at his three men and out of the back of the truck, they dragged a small trestle table and two folding chairs. They set them up carefully in the shade of a neem, shoving aside the people who had already claimed that vantage point. The sub-inspector, importantly, eased himself behind his desk, his long legs forcing his knees against the underside. He laid his baton with precision on the table, so that it sat as a symbol and barrier between himself and the complainants. A constable sat at the edge, on the second seat and took out a notebook and a set of crumpled forms from a battered briefcase.

  ‘Find another chair. Find two.’ He called out impatiently. Two stools were passed through the crowd and Meera and Anila sat down. ‘And push that crowd back!’

  His two remaining constables drew their long clubs and began to flail the people with a practised brutality that pleased the sub inspector. The crowd eddied back several feet, and like a tide exposing a rock, left two shining white faces stranded in front of the sub inspector. A chill ran down the inspector’s spine. The white people were gazing at him fearlessly and with frank curiosity. This unnerved him. What were they doing here and who were they? He hadn’t been briefed about them. White people tended to have authority and were important. He couldn’t imagine any tourist coming to this god-forsaken hole. He reached for his stick. He aimed it.

  ‘Who are you, please?’

  Ted and Erin moved forward, Ted towering over the tableau.

  ‘Good afternoon, officer. My name is Ted Saddler. I’m a reporter from the New York Tribune. This is Miss Erin Wishart. She is a representative of an international bank that is working with Miss Banerjee’s bank.’

  Ted smiled and waited for the sub-inspector. The sub-inspector was beginning to think that the police commissioner had a grudge against him. First this stupid little village has a bank robbery, next, they send a reporter from an international newspaper to cover it! And this very pretty white woman with impossible eyes was an important banker! Disquiet was added to annoyance and turning him angry.

  ‘This is not for reporting you understand! I cannot allow notes being taken. It is all sub judice you understand.’

  ‘No problem, officer. I’m not taking notes. We’re just here visiting.’

  Ted raised his arms to prove he had neither tape recorder nor notepad. The sub-inspector was scarcely mollified. Why would anyone visit this backwater without a reason?

  ‘Then stand back. Go on. Get back please.’ He turned back to the two women. ‘Now you will tell me what is happening here. My constable will write everything down on the Accusation form.’

  Meera made a conciliatory smile. ‘It is very simple, inspector.’ He liked being called inspector by this intelligent young woman. Though her hair was much too short.

  ‘My bank has been robbed and all the money taken.’

  There was a long pause while the constable laboriously scratched out this information on the form. The sub-inspector looked over his shoulder till he had finished the sentence.

  ‘How much money was taken please?’

  ‘4000 Rupees. It was the first deposit for our new branch in the village. And I am now fixing for much larger sums to be left here. I want to make sure my bank is properly protected and that the money is safe. I will soon install a metal safe but I want you to take responsibility for ensuring that the bank is not robbed again.’

  She smiled. The sub-inspector ran his finger round his collar. Words like ‘take responsibility’ made it tighter.

  To his scribe, ‘Don’t write that down, idiot! Just the amount that was uplifted unlawfully.’ To Meera, ‘It is very good that a proper safe will be installed here. Very good. But I cannot send any men to look after it. It is impossible out here.’

  ‘I understand. All that we are looking for is two things. First that you arrest the man everyone thinks robbed the bank. And second that we have a direct telephone line to you for emergencies.’

  ‘You have a telephone?’ the sub-inspector looked round. It seemed unlikely.

  ‘It is a solar powered, satellite telephone.’

  The sub-inspector was impressed. But he was quite certain that he would not be giving his own telephone number to this woman. He wanted nothing to do with this obviously career limiting set-up in the future.

  ‘Good. That is very good. Write that down! Now what is the name of the suspect? Who is this villainous party?’

  The sub-inspector thought that sounded properly formal and dramatic. He said ‘Ahah!’ when they denounced the money lender, as though it was something he’d already concluded from his analysis of the evidence. More notes were taken from Anila, provoking the sub-inspector to unwind from his desk and make an official visit to the crime scene. The hut was inspected and a constable with a camera-phone photographed the hole in the wall.

  After a sufficient amount of strutting to and fro and smacking of stick into hand, the sub-inspector signalled to his men. The whole circus moved towards the home of the money lender, even though it was generally known that the prime suspect, as the sub-inspector had it, was not in residence. They moved through the village in a babbling flow, like a festival.

  They found the suspect standing on the roof of his house, clutching at the balcony. He had crept back in the night and had had men running backwards and forwards for the past hour with news from the police investigation.

  ‘Mr Chowdury?’ the sub-inspector called up to him.

  ‘That is me, and you have got the whole situation all wrong, you know!’

  The money lender was already shouting, his nerves were stretched to the limit. No policeman had ever come out to the village, not since the outcry over the dam.

  ‘I must interview with you formally about an incident involving the suspected robbery of the bank. Get down immediately so that we can apprehend your whereabouts.’

  The words bank robbery seemed to have a bowel-loosening effect on the money lender. He fell to his knees on his balcony and clutched at the low railing as though trying out a life behind bars.

  ‘I cannot come down!’ He was weeping now. ‘You will beat me and arrest me and take me to the vile jail in the city, and I will never see my beloved wife again. I am too old. I will die very easily in prison.’

  At this, his wife appeared beside him on the balcony and fell on her knees alongside. The sub inspector looked disgusted. He turned to his men.

  ‘Get him out.’

  The two constables needed little urging. They heaved their way through the wooden door and were gone from sight for a minute. They reappeared on the terrace and began clubbing the money lender with quiet diligence. They stopped after a little while and dragged the now whimpering victim off the roof an
d out of sight. His wife was left wailing behind the parapet.

  Erin was shocked to her core. ‘Dear god, they’ve killed him!’

  She made to go forward and Ted held her back. ‘This isn’t the Upper East. There’s not a thing we can do here.’

  The two constables appeared with the accused hanging between them. He was stumbling, and red ran down his head and into his eyes. They pitched him at the feet of the sub inspector. Behind them the money lender’s shrieking wife appeared in the doorway and fell to her knees alongside him begging for mercy. The sub-inspector was satisfied with this display of his authority. Now they were getting somewhere.

  ‘Bring my table!’

  Two constables scurried off for the table and chairs. On their return, they recreated the outdoor interrogation room. The sub-inspector sat down with great solemnity. The accused was lifted up and placed in the chair opposite, where he sat swaying and bloodied. The sub-inspector raised his stick and pointed at the keening wife.

  ‘You will be quiet,’ he ordered. Her lamentations fell away to intermittent sobbing. He turned to the prisoner. ‘Now, I am taking notes of your situation and what is known about the robbery.’

  The money lender tried to speak but nothing came out. The sub-inspector signalled and the constables demanded water. A bowl was found and flung in the money lender’s face. Then he sipped a little and spat out some blood. It vanished into the dust. He tried again to speak and this time managed to mumble.

  ‘It was not a robbery.’

  The crowd buzzed at this unlikely statement but admired it as a fine opening gambit.

  ‘What do you mean? This woman had money in her wall. Now it is gone. Stolen. That is robbery. Explain yourself.’

  The prisoner took another sip and his voice strengthened a little. A cunning edge reappeared.

  ‘Perhaps it was not stolen? Perhaps it was simply taken for safe-keeping?’

  The sub-inspector reflected on this doubtful circumstance.

  ‘How is that different from robbery, if the person who owned the money was not told about its removal?’

  The crowd were filled with admiration for this shrewd policeman. With a sharp mind like his, he would make inspector-general one day, mark this moment! Seeing he had the advantage, the officer pressed it home.

  ‘Did you unlawfully take this woman’s money for so-called safe keeping?’

  The wailing began again from his wife until a club quietened her. The money lender looked round and saw his wife nursing her back and fighting back the sobs.

  ‘I did it to help Mrs Jhabvala. I took it to keep it safe. It was not safe in the wall and I was worried for Mrs Jhabvala and the People’s Bank and the women’s cooperative.’

  There was a collective ahhh from the crowd. This was deft. Preposterous but deft. It encouraged the money lender. He spat out another mouthful of blood.

  ‘I knew Mrs Jhabvala would not trust me if I said I would look after it. I have a big safe you know. It is the only proper place to keep money in the village. So I told my men to take it into safe-keeping so that the women would not lose their money if a criminal person was in the area.’

  Anila could stand it no longer. She stepped forward from the edge of the crowd. The beating she’d witnessed had terrified her and made her regret deeply what she’d brought down on the money lender’s head. But hearing his words, she stopped feeling sorry for him.

  ‘That is a terrible lie! You are a thief and a liar, Mr Chowdury! You and that wife of yours, who is also a thief, should be locked away! You took my money and now you say you were only keeping it safe for me?! What a lie! Do you think this police officer is stupid?’

  There was a babble of agreement from the villagers. The sub-inspector stiffened, wondering if he was being insulted and if so, how, and by whom. Then a thought came to him.

  ‘Silence! Do you still have the money in your safe?’

  ‘Yes sir’

  ‘Then you will take me inside and show it to me. Then we will decide what to do with you.’

  In the mind of the sub-inspector, there were two possible outcomes. One involved the completion of lengthy Accusation forms, interview notes, arrest notes, taking a man into custody, beating a full confession out of him and his ugly wife, more paperwork and probably having to come back to this hell-hole several times.

  The second option resulted in the money being given back, the case being dropped, the bank officials being happy and the sub-inspector never having to come this way again. Moreover, a money lender had money, did he not? The sub-inspector was sure the money lender would be properly grateful if the sub-inspector appeared to believe his story. He’d show them who was stupid.

  Half an hour later the police truck was trundling out of the village and everyone in sight – Anila, Meera, the policemen, the villagers – was smiling. The money lender and his wife chose to stay indoors. As the crowd dispersed, the wailing began from within the two storey house, as though a child had died.

  Meera handed Anila the 4000 rupees retrieved by the sub-inspector, together with a further 500 rupees ‘fine’ by which the money lender had avoided arrest and a further beating. The two women walked back up the hill to the hut, Anila near tears at the upturn in her fortunes.

  As the crowd thinned it exposed two people watching events with greedy eyes: a woman with her sari pulled over her head and a fat young man tugging at his sparse moustache. Their small hands were intertwined.

  FORTY SEVEN

  Ted and Erin took their last evening meal in the village at the house of Anila. They were still shaken by the official brutality they’d witnessed, but they tried to convince themselves that the end result was what mattered. Meera and Anila seemed less affected. They had enough experience of such goings-on to appreciate rough justice. Erin came to the door of the hut to see him walk off down the lane. She let him go a few steps, then called after him.

  ‘Ted?’

  He slowed and turned.

  ‘Ted, I’m sorry about last night.’

  She was hugging herself and twisting her shoulders nervously. He looked hard at her. Her hair was down again and the light from the hut was catching it from behind turning it dark auburn. He walked back and examined her face.

  ‘So am I, Erin. I was a dork. Taking the 17-again thing too literally.’

  Their smiles were rueful. They had so much else to say that they said nothing. Just nodded at each other.

  Ted turned and walked back to Ranil’s house with a sense of lost opportunity. He climbed up to the roof of his hut and decided to sit and watch a few shooting stars for a time. He reached for his pack and dug out his bottles. He left the unopened one by the side of his rucksack and walked over to the parapet with the other. He sat, gazing at the night, bottle cradled in his hands, but not yet drinking.

  He touched his mouth to see if he could rediscover the sensation of her lips from the night before. She hadn’t rejected his kiss; her mouth hadn’t been unyielding. And this morning she was definitely making an effort, maybe too hard. But why was she sorry for last night? Sorry he made a grab? Sorry she upset him in the first place? Sorry she pushed him away? What was happening here? What was happening to him?

  After so long drifting downwards, he’d stopped fighting gravity. There’d been a certain comfort in letting go. But if he was reading all the signs, he could, if he chose, come out of the dive. He was certainly going to need to be at the top of his game over the coming days. It would be hard and he could stall and fall all the harder. As for her - he might be acting like a big fool. Why would this high-stepping woman be interested in an old wreck like him? He squinted at the label on the bottle. For some reason she hated this stuff. Which was crazy. He didn’t need it. He knew the difference between a boozer and an alcoholic, didn’t he?

  He uncorked the bottle, sniffed, hefted it, then, in silent libation, leaned sideways to the drain hole on the roof and emptied the drink away. He shook his head at the arch symbolism. The perfume of the bourbon filled
the air in a sweet choking cloud.

  Erin Wishart decided this was the silliest thing she’d done in years. But then there was a lot of that lately. Her standard – and so far successful - response to awkward situations was to act. And act now, otherwise she wouldn’t sleep. It was the same attitude that had shattered her subordinates’ nights with phone calls as she travelled across time zones.

  She lay for a while tossing over the thought in her head and then rose and went to the door of Anila’s hut. Anila heard her rise and got up to be with her. Erin explained. Anila smiled in the dark and moved fast and quietly to waken her daughter and explain to her what was required. Erin was embarrassed at the fuss but the little girl was bright-eyed and beaming, willing to guide her through the quiet village. She gripped Aastha’s warm little hand as she was led through the alleys.

  Erin stood outside Ted’s hut, in sudden and uncharacteristic indecision. Under her arm she carried her sleeping bag. It seemed the sensible thing to do; in case they talked for a while and it got cool. And it might be nice mightn’t it, to lie side by side and watch the stars thunder overhead. Aastha tugged at her hand and drew her round the side of the hut to the back yard. She could see the steps leading up to the roof. Aastha squeezed her hand and then was gone into the night.

  Erin stood irresolute at the bottom of the stairs. She knew enough about men to tell when there was an interest. The problem was distinguishing between lust and anything else. She wasn’t sure where Ted was coming from. She didn’t want to be caught in the rebound from his wife. And for herself, the whole romantic thing of being stuck in the back of beyond with starry skies and a common enemy was almost too trite for words. Wasn’t this how she’d gone wrong before, letting her heart rule? But sometimes you had to take risks. Sometimes you had to let the kid inside have her day, or what was the point? It wasn’t that she was going to fling herself on him; just sit and talk, try to make sense of last night and not let the door close.