The Moon's Complexion

by Irene Black

  “Plane ticket? Where you are wanting to go, Madam?”

  “Bangalore. As soon as possible. Tonight if you can.”

  “It is not usual. You must go to airline office. But I will see what is possible. My cousin is working in airline office. You go and eat now. Afterwards you can come.”

  Best to be where there are lots of people, she thought and nodded, although food had been the last thing on her mind.

  Hannah went across to the Osman and picked at her meal. Then she went back to the hotel.

  Mr. Reddy called to her.

  “Madam, ticket I have arranged.”

  A sense of relief overwhelmed her. “When do I leave?”

  “Some problems we were having, Madam. All flights from Hyderabad to Bangalore full for whole of next week.”

  Her heart sank.

  “Never mind, Madam. I procured ticket to Chennai eight-thirty tomorrow morning, and from there flight to Bangalore morning after.”

  “Chennai? Where’s that?”

  “Indian name for Madras, Madam. Tickets my cousin will bring. You will please pay him then. I have made for you reservation also in Chennai at Hotel Pandava. Is good hotel, Madam, and price is okay.”

  In her gratitude Hannah pressed a hundred rupee note into the astonished man’s hand.

  “Oh, thank you, Madam, thank you.” He seemed to feel that this generosity merited further effort on his part. “Shall I reserve room at Chamundi Hotel in Bangalore also? Is international standard hotel, Madam. No worries.”

  “Thanks. I’d be really grateful.”

  Slipping back out of the hotel, Hannah headed off to the telecom office, picking her way through stinking puddles, mud, and blotches of spittle, blood red from chewed lime and betel nut paan. She felt safe amid the turmoil on the streets. Her memory had served her well, and she found the office without difficulty. Duncan would be at work. She wouldn’t have to talk to him.

  “Tomorrow Madras, Hotel Pandava,” she told the answering machine. “I’ll be in touch.”

  She returned to the hotel.

  “Please let me know when the tickets are here or if Miss Groot returns. I’ll be in my room.”

  “Of course, Madam, but why not sit in hotel lounge? English-language news broadcast is at eight o’clock on TV.”

  She watched the eight o’clock news intently, almost expecting to learn that some dreadful accident had befallen a Dutch tourist. To her relief, there was nothing. She stayed in the lounge until ten, waiting in the vain hope that Willi would return. Then she went up to her room and tried to formulate some sort of plan while she packed her rucksack. Her nemesis had followed her. So what now? Once more, she agonized over her vulnerability. Whatever had happened to the feisty Hannah that used to inhabit this skin? How had she ended up alone and, yes, she had to admit it, scared, in a dingy hotel room in India?

  A knock came at the door. Hannah leapt up.

  “Who is it?”

  “Message for you, Madam.” Unmistakably Mr. Reddy’s voice. She unlocked the door.

  Mr. Reddy handed her a rather dirty, scribbled note, written on the inside of a Charminar cigarette packet.

  Hannah—Met a friend. Won’t be back tonight. Willi.

  “Who brought this?”

  “Some small boy is delivering, Madam.”

  “When?”

  “Before ten minutes.”

  Hannah frowned. Somehow the note did not altogether dispel her uneasiness. Too curt and unapologetic. But perhaps it was simply a manifestation of Willi’s casual attitude. In any case, Hannah could do nothing about it.

  “Thanks, Mr. Reddy.” She slipped him ten rupees.

  Alone once more, she locked the door and leant against it with a sigh. She looked at her fingers. Trembling again. She cursed. Simply didn’t make sense. Hadn’t made sense for the past year.

  She took a deep breath. Well, be that as it may. She had to get to the bottom of it. Whatever the game was, it was serious enough for someone to have followed her here. So okay, let him come. She needed to face him. But, she conceded to herself, she had to have backup.

  Right—plan of campaign—first get to Bangalore.

  She smiled. That uncharacteristic impulsiveness had won again when she had asked Mr. Reddy to get her a ticket to Bangalore. Why hadn’t she said Colombo? It would have made much more sense. But Hannah hadn’t even decided whether she would bother to get in touch with her half-brother in Sri Lanka. They’d never met. There had been no contact between them. She didn’t even know if he’d want to see her. In any case, Sri Lanka was across the sea. She needed someone who knew India, someone who would not draw suspicion. If her unknown enemy knew so much about her, who’s to say he hadn’t found out about big brother George? So, Bangalore it was.

  Checking through her documents, she pulled a scrap of card out of her wallet and felt a flush of satisfaction. Still got what it takes, girl, she told herself. He didn’t suspect a thing. Hard work though. He didn’t seem at all keen. It was now or never when the plane touched down in Delhi. But I got there in the end.

  The piece of card in her hand had a Bangalore telephone number scribbled on it and underneath it a name.

  Somehow I know I can trust him, she thought, even if he doesn’t turn out after all to be the same Dr. Ashok Rao.

  Chapter 2

  Hotel Pandava on the Poonemale Road in Madras—or Chennai as it was now called—was an almighty celebration of art deco eccentricity. Hannah’s mood began to lift with the first glimpse of the coming night’s sanctuary.

  A central garden blazoned with flame trees and bougainvillea. Around it was a colonnaded walkway, and opening out onto it were the ground floor guest rooms. Perched over them, layered balconies, painted in a riot of yellow, lilac, red, cream, and blue checks, curves, and stripes. They reminded Hannah of Legoland.

  She was shown to one of the ground floor rooms. It was simple but functional. Two small windows at the front, shaded by the walkway, gave little chance for the sun to burn a pathway into the dark, wood-clad interior. Far from being somber, the room gave the feeling of a cool, cozy, log cabin. The bathroom was basic but contained a jug and bucket for showering and an antiquated flush toilet. A cheerful, embossed elephant motif smiled down from the rusty, cast iron cistern on the wall.

  Hannah ran a brush through her tangled mop of auburn hair and tied it back at the nape of her neck. Duncan had always hated it like that. Said it made her look too stern.

  Powerful women don’t need to advertise the fact, he’d said.

  And powerful men, she’d retorted, looking at him, it’s all right for them to look imposing, is it?

  She knew she’d paid him a backhanded compliment. The older he got, the more distinguished he seemed to look, in line with his growing reputation.

  She shook Duncan from her mind, irritated by his intrusion into her thoughts, and splashed her face with water, cooling her wrists with a spray of her favorite Fleurs de Provence cologne. Then she set off to explore. Secret stairways, snaking upward, connected the floors. Here and there, the stairs opened out onto a roof garden from where the back streets behind the hotel were visible, with their strange mix of architectture: ramshackle little dwellings and tiny roadside stores snuggling unselfconsciously up to the great, wedding cake pink façade of a Raj-era girls’ school.

  Hannah was soon caught up in the joyful eccentricity of the place. Seduced by her surroundings and intoxicated by garden fragrances in the searing heat, reality became blurred. India was a strange psychedelic wonderland, whose dark forces were manifested in the Qutab Shahi Tombs. Now she was in Sugar Candy Land, where no harm could come to her.

  She told herself that the atmosphere at the tombs had played tricks on her mind. There had been no attacker, merely a frightened Muslim woman who bumped into her in her haste to get out of that forbidden, claustrophobic place. She hoped she hadn’t hurt her when she lashed out with the camera. And the man’s voice must have been the Australian coming down the stair
s. Perhaps he’d tripped on the step. The flash of steel? A silver bracelet, maybe, or a watchstrap. Nothing ominous about it. How silly of her to have thought otherwise.

  Stepping out of the hotel, Hannah found herself engulfed in a different fantasy. The wide road was a pageant of color and sound. A perpetual stream of strange vehicles filed past noisily in all directions. Autorickshaws spluttered and coughed as their two-stroke engines were pushed beyond reasonable limits. Trucks, as brightly painted and lavishly decorated as Romany caravans, roared and hooted, scattering autos and scooters like foxes in a hencoop. Heavily laden with cricket bats, a cycle rickshaw plied its slow and steady course through the aggressive, mechanized competitors for road space. A solitary cow ambled obliviously, like a dropped stitch in a complex piece of knitting, through the center of the traffic, while chaos reigned around it, secure in the knowledge that it was indestructible.

  Hannah stopped at a fruit stall, a perfumed cornucopia of delights. Pyramids of limes, apples, oranges, and grapes jostled with papayas, wood apples, and pomegranates. Chilies, aubergines, tomatoes, cauliflowers, and fat green gherkins glistened in the late afternoon sun. Enormous bunches of red, green, and yellow bananas hung from the awning, together with large, juicy, bright golden pineapples and garlands of marigolds.

  The vendor grinned at her, his bald pate glowing like one of his own polished aubergines, his face ripe and round. A marvelous face. Oh, yes. This one she had to have. But first the negotiations. She pointed to a bunch of tiny, yellow bananas.

  “How much?”

  “How many you want, lady?”

  She held up five fingers.

  “Fifty rupees.”

  “Too much. Ten.”

  “Ten! Oh no, Madam. Thirty.”

  “Twenty. Twenty if you let me take your photograph.”

  The vendor’s head bobbed from side to side registering assent, and he wrapped the bananas in a newspaper bag. Then he laughingly let Hannah pose him next to a couple of fat, hanging aubergines and take his picture. The obedient clunk of the shutter in the late afternoon light was to Hannah like the pop of a cork on a good wine bottle. Knowing without tasting that the expense is justified.

  Hannah was pleased with her picture and with her bananas, although she was quite sure that she had paid a “foreigner” rather than a local price. But twenty rupees, when all was said and done, amounted to less than fifty pence.

  A family with a bicycle had stopped to watch her, father pushing, older daughter on the saddle, baby straddling the cross bar, mother walking alongside.

  “Photo?” The man gestured at his family.

  Hannah happily obliged. India was proving to be a photographer’s paradise. Before she had time to react, the fruit vendor took the camera from her and, amid much laughter, took a photograph of her with the bicycle family.

  The father placed his hands together in thanks, and, smiling broadly, the family cycled off into the mayhem, leaving Hannah to ponder the meaning of the act, leading her only to conclude that it was yet another of the many enigmas of this curious country.

  The puffy, brown afternoon clouds began to recede in the wake of a crimson sunset. Already Venus shone in the sky. Laughing girls, in pink and scarlet gymslips, returned home from some sporting fixture. High in the trees, emerald parakeets gathered noisily to welcome the night. The high pavements were dotted with potholes, and, fearing a fall in the fading light, Hannah decided to return to the hotel.

  As soon as she opened her hotel room door, Hannah sensed that something was wrong. It wasn’t simply that her bed had been made and her room had been tidied. It wasn’t only the slightly rotten smell in the air. She looked around. Everything was in place, exactly as she had left it. Neat and tidy. That was it. Too neat and tidy. Someone had been through her things. They’d made a good job of covering up, but it didn’t fool Hannah. She’d seen it too many times before: in Belfast, in America, even in England. It went with the job. She felt herself starting to shake again. Stop being a fool, she chided herself. It’s your imagination. Or it must have been the chambermaid having a nose around. She checked carefully through her rucksack. Nothing seemed to be missing. She relaxed.

  At that moment, a terrible cacophony erupted outside. She ran to investigate.

  The quiet, unobtrusive hotel garden was unrecognizable.

  A monster had landed on the grass: related, perhaps, to an old Hillman Imp, although this creature had been decapitated, so that instead of a passenger compartment, it carried a large platform on its carapace. The creature was brightly painted in red, yellow, and blue. Two huge loudspeakers, like terrible all-seeing eyes, were suspended on poles at the front of the platform. A banner running along the side proclaimed that this apparition was the “Gopal Band.”

  Seated upon the platform, hammering on a variety of drums and a keyboard, were some of the band members. Others were standing in front of the monster, blowing in apparently uncoordinated abandon on strange clarinets and cornets.

  Pristine uniforms. Black trousers with smart white side-stripes; cream shirt, covered with a riot of purple floral patterns; triangular epaulets with orange and gold fringes resting on the shoulders. The crowning glory: a shiny red ten-gallon hat, edged with blue ribbon.

  Once Hannah had recovered from the shock, she noticed the festooned and garlanded white horse standing patiently outside one of the opposite rooms, totally ignoring the chaotic din around it.

  “It is my brother’s wedding.”

  Words softly spoken, a gentle breeze in the flame tree.

  Hannah turned. She found a young woman, perhaps twenty years old, smiling at her. The smile was radiant, delivered through sparkling white teeth, set in a generous mouth. Hannah caught her breath. Before her stood a goddess. From the iridescent glow of her burnished skin, to her dark, laughing eyes, from the flawless arch of her eyebrows to the thick, black plait of hair that reached to her waist, she was unadulterated perfection.

  She wore a sari of richly embroidered burnt-orange shot silk and beneath it a light golden blouse, whose long sleeves shimmered when she moved. Heavy gold jewelry adorned her ears, her throat, her wrists, her fingers, and her ankles. Her hands were covered with intricate henna patterns, twists, curls, leaves, and flowers, such as you might find on a Kashmir carpet. Hannah struggled not to betray the sensuality that the girl aroused in her.

  “My name is Rasika.” The goddess placed her hands together in greeting. Hannah repeated the gesture, feeling slightly self-conscious at the unfamiliar expressiveness demanded of her own hands, as though the world were watching to make sure she got it right.

  “And your good name?”

  “Hannah. I’m Hannah.”

  “You are coming from UK?”

  Hannah nodded. The girl spoke English with just enough of an Indian lilt to accentuate the beauty of the voice, like a Welsh contralto.

  “Your English is excellent.”

  “I am taking English course at Chennai University. And you? You are coming to India for which purpose?”

  “To take photographs,” Hannah said simply. “Of people. For a book. I’ve only been here a couple of days. Already I’m hooked on your country.”

  “Hooked?”

  “Enchanted. Fascinated. Look,” Hannah continued, “I hope you won’t mind, but I’d like to take your portrait. May I get my camera?”

  Rasika bobbed her head happily. Hannah slipped through the growing crowd and returned with her camera a moment later. Rasika had assembled a retinue of womenfolk.

  “Please meet my mother. And my auntie.” The two older women beamed at Hannah. Both wore lavish saris, one yellow, one pink, the ends of which they had draped over their heads. When they laughed, which they did frequently, the rolls of fat on their exposed, well-upholstered midriffs wobbled in unselfconscious delight.

  “And this is my young sister.”

  The girl, almost as tall as Rasika, was dressed in an elaborate dark green silk shalwar kameez. In a few years time, Hannah th
ought, she will rival her sister.

  “Now,” Rasika said. “You will please to take photo?”

  Hannah took several close-up shots of Rasika, her mother, her aunt, and her sister. Someone took Hannah’s camera so she could be included in a group picture.

  Hannah returned to her room, intending to leave her camera and head off in search of a restaurant. On second thought, she went across to the entrance lobby and asked the receptionist to lock the camera in the hotel safe. When she came back, Rasika was waiting for her.

  “My mother is inviting you to my brother’s wedding. You will please come.”

  The invitation quickly dispelled a slight feeling of renewed unease. Hannah had discovered that something was, after all, missing from her room. The wretched chambermaid had removed from her bed a Krishna Hotel brochure, on which Mr. Reddy had written the words Chamundi Hotel, Bangalore.

  * * * *

  Ashok was stretched out in a garden hammock slung between the two coconut palms. It was early morning, and the family was still sleeping, but he had been too restless to spend any longer in bed. Today he would start doing the rounds of prospective brides. He had brought out with him a set of neatly-typed papers that his mother had given him shortly after his arrival home, each bearing particulars of a young woman. His parents had certainly been busy in the past few weeks, compiling a shortlist of eligible brides for him to consider. He read through the details several times and began to sort the candidates into some sort of order, according to his own mental list of required attributes for the ideal bride. As far as caste, education, and family background were concerned, he had no need to worry. His parents had seen to all that. They had vetted the possible candidates and eliminated any who did not meet their exacting standards. Each one had had her jataka carefully checked to ensure that nothing was incompatible in the horoscopes of prospective bride and groom. The rest was up to him—and her, of course. She had to like him, too.

  A slug of panic curled his stomach. Liking him wasn’t enough. She would have to be adaptable to fit into his English life, a life that would be completely alien to her. And how would he feel, his bachelor pad forever ringing with the presence of another person? No longer his retreat, his place of solitude, to which he could return after a stressful day and flop thankfully into the armchair with only Bach and a cold beer to keep him company; his chair, stylish in maroon leather and superbly comfortable. Would it still be his chair when she moved in, he wondered. Could he explain to his new wife that he was the only person allowed to sit in it? Or would everything become “ours” and the word “mine” disappear from his vocabulary? What would she think of his flat, so subdued in its cool tones? He found himself imagining the decor, as seen through the eyes of a newly arrived Indian bride. It was all so understated. The rosewood coffee table held no more excitement than the gray Axminster or the two-seater sofa that matched his armchair. Expensive, yes, and classy. But what would she care about such neutered elegance? The fine mahogany desk in the corner of his room drew his mind’s eye, reminding him that at least one item in the room would please her. Not the quality of the eighteenth century workmanship, superb though it was, but the brightly colored poster-painting of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, which hung above the desk—a small, joyous bastion of India shining forth in all its riotous glory through the facelessness of perceived good taste.