by Irene Black
Sod it, Ashok thought. Blown it! He had no option but to bluff it out.
“Well, actually, we just met him on train from Bangalore. He told he’d be staying here and would meet us for a coffee. He gave me his name, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it.”
The receptionist waggled his head and browsed through the hotel register.
“Mr. P. Fenton and Mr. R. Thomas, both from UK, were signing in at nine-fifteen,” he read, “and Mr. and Mrs. M. Heffer at nine-thirty, from UK also.”
“Mr. Fenton—do you know what he looks like?”
“Yes, Sir. He was here just now. But he is not your friend.”
“How do you know that?”
“Oh, Sir.” The receptionist laughed. “Mr. Fenton is one very big man. I mean, not slim at all, like your friend. And he has beard.”
“And Mr. Thomas?”
“I have not seen him, Sir.”
“Please tell me Mr. Thomas’s room number.”
“No need.” An elderly Indian gentleman had just walked up to the reception desk. He held out his hand. “I am Mr. Thomas. How can I help you?”
Mr. Thomas was an affable old man who accepted Ashok’s muttered excuse of “mistaken identity” with good humor.
Before he went back to Hannah, Ashok ordered two glasses of musambi juice. While he waited for them, he sat down in the foyer to glance at the latest copy of The Hindu. An article, submerged in the local news section, caught his eye and galvanized him. It was headed “Cab Hijack in Chennai.” He read on apprehensively.
Chennai cab driver, Mr. R.W. Ramsingh, survived with cuts and bruises when his cab was hijacked by a mysterious foreigner on Tuesday night. The foreigner, a woman, appears to have panicked when Mr. Ramsingh doubled back along the coast road to avoid a traffic snarl up, instead of taking the direct route from the city to the airport. After forcing Mr. Ramsingh to stop and luring him from the cab, she absconded in it, travelling several miles before finally abandoning it. The driver, in a reckless attempt to prevent the hijack, clung to the roof of the vehicle for some minutes before falling off. Fortunately neither driver nor cab nor a consignment of gobi, which was lodged on the back seat, sustained serious injuries. Mr. Ramsingh describes the woman as being blonde, in her forties, and wearing a blue dress. She may have had a German accent.
Ashok closed his eyes. Gobi, he said to himself. Bloody cauliflowers. He fell into a fit of laughter as he pictured the unfortunate man evicted from his own vehicle and Hannah hurtling with the malodorous vegetables down the back streets of Madras in a hijacked Hindustan Ambassador. The arrival of the sweet-lime juice forced him to pull himself together. He wiped the tears from his eyes, carefully tore the article out of the paper, and slid it into his pocket. Then he silently thanked God for providing such an unobservant cab driver.
So that settled it. The whole stalker thing was, after all, a figment of Hannah’s imagination. The man in the train was innocent, so was the donor of the pearls. His phone call? Only someone dialing the wrong room. Yes, that was probably it. How easily one could be taken in. His relief was suddenly clouded by foreboding. Hannah needed help, certainly, but it was a different type of help she needed. It would be a hard task, and he risked losing her trust. Gently does it, he told himself. Tomorrow at Mamallapuram. He’d tell her then.
“That was a close shave,” Hannah said when Ashok told her about his encounter with Mr. Thomas. “I didn’t know you were such a convincing liar.”
“You’ve taught me well.”
“Ouch! Anyway—what now? Since Mr. Thomas is innocent, and Mr. Heffer is with a Mrs., we’ve reached stalemate again.”
“Well,” Ashok said, “there’s absolutely no point in worrying. As there’s not much we can do about it, let’s hope we give him the slip tomorrow and can forget him for once.”
Chapter 7
The sea air was warm, despite the violence of pounding waves, as Ashok and Hannah strolled along the beach at Mamallapuram in the morning sunshine. Ahead, the twin spires of the Shore Temple kept watch over the Bay of Bengal, as they had done since the eighth century. Layers of sandstone carvings had been eroded by centuries of salt wind.
A group of women and children—rainbow saris and long skirts pulled up to reveal glimpses of slender, rust-brown ankles—were playing chicken with the tide, running to the water’s edge and retreating with excited shrieks as the dying waves rushed in and splashed their feet. The odor of rotting seaweed and salt-fish hung dankly in the air. Hannah told Ashok that it reminded her of a field trip to Morecambe Bay with Ashley House.
“One of the few happy memories of my school days,” she added, but then shook her head.
“What’s wrong?” Ashok asked.
“A clumsy comparison. Those graceful temple spires seem to disapprove, as if my mind has committed sacrilege.”
Ashok laughed. “Indian gods are broad-minded. They would be pleased that their temple reminds you of a place where you were happy. “ He added , “This temple is dedicated to Vishnu and Shiva, two of our greatest gods.”
“So many gods,” Hannah said, “and such harmony.”
“India has a million and more gods or one God, depending on how you look at it. Bhagavad-Gita teaches that all gods lead to God, as all rivers lead to the sea.” He smiled at her. “Anyway, they’re not always in harmony—take the story of Ganesh for example. His father Shiva lost his temper and chopped off his head. He then repented and sent out his servant to bring back first head he saw—which happened to be an elephant.”
They reached the temple compound and let its tranquility wash over them. The outer walls, where long lines of huge, stone bulls looked out to sea, had fared little better than the temple buildings themselves: time-ravaged but still recognizable.
Hannah said, “There is so much written in those stones.”
“Yes,” Ashok said, “but few take the trouble to read them. So what do you read in them?”
“Continuity, and at the same time they remind me of the transient nature of existence.”
“You’ve read the stones well. You have understood something fundamental about our religion. The gods would applaud your interpretation.”
Hannah walked across to the wall of bull figures. “Why the bulls?”
“Nandi the bull was the vahana, the vehicle of Shiva. Most of our gods have vahanas.”
“Even Ganesh?”
“Sure. His vahana is a mouse.”
“A mouse. Of course. I should have guessed.”
Now, he thought. Now I’ll tell her. “Talking about vehicles, Hannah. You know that incident—”
Just then a family came up to them—elderly parents and two adult sons with wives and a bunch of children. One of the young men pointed shyly at the camera slung around Hannah’s neck.
“Photo?” The family were already arranging themselves against the backcloth of the temple. Hannah obliged. “Ask them for their address so that I can send them a copy,” she said to Ashok, but the family, pressing their hands together in delighted thanks, were already laughingly on their way.
Hannah shook her head. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever really understand.”
“Most foreigners don’t,” Ashok replied, “although they like to think they do. But you—you think you don’t, but you have natural understanding. You don’t let preconceptions cloud your judgment—well, not much, anyway.” Perhaps that’s it, he thought. Too receptive, too open-minded for her own good. Ideas take root too easily, imagination runs riot. He would tell her about the taxi. Today. Now he’d have to wait again. For the right moment.
“Come on,” he said, taking her by the arm. “There’s a lot more to see.”
For three hours, they discovered Mamallapuram’s ancient sites, treading barefoot on the sacred soil. By now the sandy earth had become a frying pan for feet unaccustomed to the ferocity of India’s midday sun. Even Ashok, his soles grown delicate over the English years, hugged the narrow strips of remaining shade.
“The f
ive rathas,” Ashok explained as they came to an area dotted with rock cut temples and life-sized, granite animals.
“Rathas?”
“Chariots—used in processions to carry the gods out of the temple. But these rathas, they’re misnamed. They’re actually little temples cut out of a ridge of solid granite. Things aren’t always what they seem, Hannah. Which reminds me...”
“Oh, look at that stone elephant. It’s simply amazing.”
Damn. Was she doing this intentionally?
“That ratha is dedicated to the rain god, Indra, and the elephant is his vehicle. Hannah, I’m trying to tell you something—”
She placed a hand on his arm and looked into his eyes, her brow slightly furrowed. “Leave it, Ashok. I don’t want to think about it. Not now.”
“How do you know—”
“I just do. But please, here I want to be free of all that.”
For once, Ashok thought, she looks at peace. He nodded. “Okay. It’s good to see you so relaxed.”
“I feel as if I’m drowning in the impossible spirituality of this land.”
“India does that to people.”
Hannah stared at him. “Something’s happening to me, Ashok.”
“Happening? In what sense?”
“I don’t know. Somehow…I can’t explain.”
“You’re losing your anger.”
“Not my anger exactly. Injustice still exists. There’s still a sharp dividing line between rich and poor—even more here than at home. But all the things I’ve fought for and shouted about…I wonder what would have happened if I’d come here first.”
“You might have tackled things differently, you mean?”
“Maybe. This place turns everything inside out.”
They explored the site, overwhelmed by the forces of nature and man, one ferocious, the other sublime. Unable to linger at each shrine for more than a minute, they hopped constantly from foot to foot. By the time they had seen everything, their animated spirits could barely prop up their exhausted limbs.
They came out onto the village road and hurried into the shade of a roadside workshop, where a stone carver crouched on the ground, putting the finishing touches to a fist-sized, blue-gray soapstone Ganesh. Around him stood the fruits of his previous labors, gods and goddesses of every shape and size—some scarcely bigger than a thumbnail, others huge enough to stand alone upon a temple floor or grace the household shrine of a wealthy family.
“Stone-cutting is specialty of this region,” Ashok said.
Hannah picked up the newly completed Ganesh. Her eyes traveled over the reclining figure's curved lines and the curling trunk of the elephant head. “He’s perfect. He should be the god of happiness.” She ran her finger over the smooth surface of the stone.
“He who is attired in a white garment,” Ashok said, taking the figure gently from Hannah and smiling at her with his eyes, “and has the complexion of the moon; on him we meditate for the removal of obstacles.”
Hannah’s eyes smiled back at him, awe-inspiring and yet awed, radiating desire and allure in equal measure.
“It is part of a prayer to Lord Ganesha,” Ashok said. Would she still look at him like that after he confronted her with proof of her delusion? He tore himself from her gaze. He hated himself for what he had to do. For Hannah, even being pursued by a stalker would be preferable to having her rationality questioned. Ashok knew that. There were things he’d always known, although he had not admitted to Hannah quite how much Maighréad had told him about her family. He knew that Hannah’s was a tough inheritance: her ancestors lost in concentration camps across Europe; her own mother, arriving in England in a Kindertransport, taken in by an English family until Theresienstadt was liberated; her grandmother, one of only a handful of survivors, later joining her daughter in England. Then there was her father, who as a young teenager enrolled in the Danish Resistance, lying about his age. Hannah wasn’t one to stand aside and watch destructive elements tear away at the foundations of a stable and just society. To fight for what she believed in came as naturally as breathing. And to do this, she had to believe in herself. Ashok had worked this out from Maighréad’s ramblings. Strange. He should have been jealous, but he was fascinated. Perhaps he’d fallen in love with Hannah, even then, through the dream of her that Maighréad was weaving. Perhaps that was the real reason why he couldn’t commit to Maighréad.
Ashok spoke to the stone carver and, after a few moments of good-natured haggling, handed the Ganesh to Hannah.
“It’s yours. So that you’ll remember Mamallapuram.”
“I’ll treasure it. But do you really think I could forget today?”
Their eyes met again and made love in the unsuspecting crowd that had gathered around the carver’s workshop.
The Mandapas—ancient rock temple halls carved into a boulder-strewn hill—provided a refuge from the overbearing heat and comfort to their sore feet. Here they could study the carvings at leisure.
“Yalis,” Ashok explained, pointing to mythical leonine creatures at the base of a row of heavy entrance pillars. “They guard the temple. This mandapa is dedicated to Lord Krishna. He saved the people from the torrential wrath of Indra, by holding up a mountain to shield them from the flood. Look—it’s all carved on the wall.”
“You sound as if you believe it. Do you?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I do. My grandmother taught me to believe that anything is possible if we want to make it happen.”
Her gaze was searching. Ashok turned back to the wall carving.
“And under the mountain, life goes on as usual,” he said. “Milking the cow, carrying water, depicted for eternity.”
“Nothing is for eternity.”
“So you don’t believe in afterlife? I thought that was fundamental to Western religion.”
“Western? Remember that Judaism and Christianity, like Islam, sprang from the deserts of Arabia.”
“What do you believe in, Hannah?”
“Humanity.”
“You’re an atheist then.”
“I didn’t say that. What you said before, about all gods leading to God—sounds good to me.”
“Nothing is for eternity.” Ashok repeated Hannah’s words. “You dispute the existence of heaven?”
“I don’t know. I meant nothing earthly is for eternity. Even evil passes,” she added, a momentary vision appearing to cloud her pleasure.
Was this the moment to try again? After all, Ashok mused, she’d reintroduced the subject herself.
“Talking of which,” he said, trying to sound calm and casual, “you know that incident in…”
But Hannah had stiffened and was staring out of the cave temple into the sunlight beyond.
“Hannah, what is it?”
“That smell, that rotten, stinking smell.”
“It’s just sewage in the wind, that’s all. Locals use the northern beach as their toilet, I’m afraid.”
“No! Listen to me. There was another smell—just for a moment. It was the same smell as in my garden that night. The same as in the tomb. The same as in my hotel room at the Pandava. He’s here, I know it.”
She took hold of Ashok’s arm and pulled him out into the light. For a few seconds, they were blinded.
“There.” Hannah pointed to the top of the hill.
Ashok just managed to catch a glimpse of a disappearing figure. It told him nothing, probably only a tourist, but Hannah needed convincing.
“Wait by that yali. I’ll check him out.” He pointed to a pillar at the temple entrance, and, before Hannah had time to argue, he began to stride along the footpath up the boulder-strewn hillside.
Hannah rushed after him, but he was well ahead of her. Sensing that she was following, he stopped and turned. “Get back,” he called.
It was over in a flash. One moment he was on the path. The next, a small figure hurled itself at him from behind a boulder, knocking him off his feet—and out of the way of the football-sized rock that
came hurtling down the hill and crashed down on the spot where seconds earlier he had been standing.
* * * *
“What’s up with you?” Felicity, relaxing on the living room sofa, looked up from her magazine.
Before she had time to catch her breath, Duncan caught her by the shoulders, hauled her up, and rammed her so hard against the wall that her head slammed against it with an excruciating crack.
She shrieked. “What the hell are you doing? Have you gone mad?”
“Now,” he said, breathing rapidly, “you’re going to tell me exactly what you’re playing at. I want to know everything—how you got into the garden room, why you’ve been tampering with the phone there, what you’ve been doing with the information—everything, d’you hear?”
Felicity’s face registered a look of terror, but she said quietly, “I don’t know what the hell you’re on about.”
“Oh yes you do. It may be the last thing you do, but you’ll tell me.” He slammed her hard against the wall again, making her head spin with pain and confusion.
Felicity’s expression was spectral. “For God’s sake, Duncan. Let me sit down.”
Duncan thought she was about to pass out. Panic seized him. He’d lost control. He’d meant to scare her, but he didn’t know his own strength. He let go of her shoulders.
She slumped onto the sofa.
“Now talk. Everything. Talk. I want to know exactly what you were doing, tampering with my phone.”
“It wasn’t me, Duncan, honest it wasn’t. How could I have got into the garden room?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Felicity began to cry.
Duncan watched her, coldly.
“Oh, Duncan,” she said at length, “I’ve been such a fool.” Her tears appeared almost as if they were tears of relief that she had been found out. “Promise you won’t hate me?”
“Hate you?” For a moment, looking at her vulnerability, Duncan almost hated himself. Had he over-reacted? After all, she’d only listened to his phone messages. Was that such a big deal? But he knew it was. His garden room line was sacrosanct; Felicity was perfectly aware of that. It was his hotline to the office; the desk upon which it sat was often the repository of confidential documents. Apart from that, there was the promise he had made to Hannah—that despite his conviction of the absurdity of her stalking claims, he would keep her whereabouts secret.