The Moon's Complexion

by Irene Black

  Shit! Email’s still down. Better grasp the proverbial bull and phone the Chamundi.

  “Sorry, Sir. Miss Petersen is not available.”

  Daren’t leave another message. Too dangerous. Just keep trying the email.

  Chapter 10

  The bus for Mysore left from Bangalore Bus Station at nine in the morning. It glorified under the official designation of Non-stop Luxury Bus. Ashok, Hannah, and Willi had to sit separately, as it was so crowded.

  The young man seated at the window next to Hannah was clearly nervous, since he wrung his hands together and fidgeted continually while they were still at the bus station, waiting to set off. However, he seemed too distracted to concern himself with her and was thin, so she had plenty of room on the seat.

  Hannah saw that Willi, seated a row in front of her across the aisle, was squashed next to a woman with a small boy, who appeared to be fascinated by the strange, yellow-topped alien next to him. Open-mouthed and rigid, he stared at her. Willi was obviously trying to alleviate the stifling nature of his assault by grinning, pulling faces, showing off her knowledge of Kannada (namaskara), but all to no avail. The luminescent mop had him transfixed. His mother slept, blissfully.

  Ashok, three seats in front of Hannah, looked equally uncomfortable. His neighbor, an old woman in widow-white, made it perfectly plain by her disdainful look that she considered this invasion of her seat by a man to be a direct challenge to her feminine sanctity. Hannah giggled as she saw the widow hastily and with maximum fuss squeeze herself as far as she could into the corner.

  Suddenly, just as the driver climbed aboard, Hannah’s neighbor gave an exclamation of what sounded like terror, jumped up, banging his head on the luggage rack above him, leapt over Hannah, and rushed off the bus. Hannah, taking advantage of this, slid across to the window. She was just about to call Ashok to join her when an immense woman struggled onto the bus and, seeing the empty seat, bore down on her. Breathing heavily, the woman, who had apparently not noticed that half the seat was already occupied, heaved herself onto it, her buttock landing on Hannah with a resounding slap. Try as she might, Hannah was unable to extricate herself; by the time the first part of the one-hundred-forty-kilometer journey was over, half her body was rigid.

  Hannah concentrated on minimizing her physical discomfort by trying to forget it. She had a lot to take in as the bus leapfrogged its way across Karnataka. They sped past tiny palm-thatched dwellings, basic and impoverished; women washing children or collecting water at a village pump; prostrate bullocks with fettered feet, waiting at a blacksmith’s forge; a woman painstakingly sweeping the dust away from the front of her little hovel; a man tending his stall of carefully piled and polished aubergines; a boy wheeling a cart of oranges along the road. Everywhere, dogs, buffalo, and cows sauntered unchecked among the villagers. White bullocks tilled fields of sunflower and millet, sugar cane and paddy. The glossy leaves of a million mulberry trees awaited their fate as silkworm fodder. Bright, sari-clad women sifted rice by the roadside. Frequently, the bus drew to a halt, when impediments on the road demanded—an overturned truck, a level crossing, a sleeping cow.

  An hour and a half into the journey, the bus made its one scheduled halt. The passengers tumbled out and headed for the little café or the coconut vendor. Hannah limped across to her companions. Ashok had already ordered coconuts, but Hannah and Willi had more pressing needs.

  They were directed to what appeared to be a cave behind the café.

  The stench stopped Hannah in her tracks. Nausea overcame her. She forced herself to crouch down in the goo, holding her breath, like the rest of the women.

  By the time they returned to Ashok, he was wrestling with three large coconuts, prepared for drinking.

  Willi said, “If we don’t catch anything from that little detour, we must be tough old birds.”

  Hannah added, “I guess there’s all sorts of nasty germs flying around. TB, dysentery, typhoid...plague, even. What’s wrong?”

  Ashok was staring at her. “Oh...nothing. Just thinking.”

  “Salers?” Hannah said.

  “Yes...when you mentioned TB.”

  “I know. There was something else reminded me as well. The stink. There’s been that foul stench whenever I’ve had an encounter.”

  “If he’s in the terminal stages of TB, that would account for it,” Ashok said.

  * * * *

  Later, Ashok was thankful that he hadn’t worried Hannah with the unpleasant notion brought on by the conversation at the bus halt. What was it her attacker had said to her that night in the garden? I’m gonna give it you. Of course. He was trying to infect her. That explained why he...

  Ashok shuddered as he recalled Hannah’s graphic description of what had taken place. And the photographs. Yes. That was it. Hannah’s face: nothing but eyes in a white mask. The old name for TB: plague, white plague. Better get her checked out when we get back to Bangalore.

  * * * *

  Ashok couldn’t be sure how it had happened. Certainly it was unpremeditated.

  He had delivered Willi and Hannah safely to a taxi office in Mysore and ordered a car to take them to the palace, wait for them there, and drive them back to the taxi office, where he would meet them in two hours’ time. The journey to Mysore had exhausted him. Not being able to sit next to Hannah, he had hankered after her, missing their easy companionship, the scent of her Fleurs de Provence perfume, the candor in her green eyes. He missed her ideas, her zeal, yes, even her defensive feminism. He missed the vulnerability that she tried so hard to disguise. He missed her indomitable spirit. As the bus bounced along, his fears for her multiplied. He worried about what lay in store for her in Bandipur.

  Wasn’t he asking too much of her, after all that she’d been through? Then there was the matter of the TB. He slipped into imagining life without her—an emptiness too horrible to contemplate. The purpose of his trip to Mysore tormented him. He felt like a dishonest rat, and yet the thought of confessing the truth to Hannah terrified him. How could he ever expect her to understand? And the girl in Mysore—he’d liked her more than he’d let on to his parents and had almost decided to give the match a chance. But that was before Hannah had appeared on the scene. Now Hannah dominated his every thought. He recognized the irrationality of it but was trapped by his feelings. By the time the taxi turned up, he ached as if he were being torn apart.

  As they were about to get into the taxi, Willi spotted two women with trays of oranges balanced on their heads and rushed off to buy some to sustain them through the afternoon. The resulting moment alone with Hannah seemed to trigger some demonic impulse in Ashok’s brain. Hannah was already half in the car when he grabbed her in his arms and said, to his own amazement, “Marry me!”

  …to which she found herself answering unhesitatingly, “Yes.”

  Before any further communication was possible, Willi returned, triumphantly bearing bargain oranges; the car revved up and, hooting bombastically, disappeared in a cloud of Mysore dust.

  Ashok was left standing in the road, his mind, as well as his clothes, enveloped in the dust storm. As the dust settled, reality dawned. To his surprise, he felt elated, as though he had been set free from some unsuspected encumbrance. With a spring in his step, he set out to meet his father. He would go through the ordeal of speaking to his shy suitor once more, but now there would be no conflict, no dithering, no possibility of compromise for the sake of his parents. His decision had been made, and the contract sealed. In two hours, he would be on his way to join his...he smiled...his fiancée. As he walked, he began to daydream again. Everything seemed to slot into place. Hannah was the princess of his childhood fantasies. He would be Rama to her Sita; but unlike Rama, who, in the end, banished innocent Sita from his kingdom, he would always be by Hannah’s side.

  The girl’s mother plied Ashok and Srinivasa with cakes, samosas, Thums Up, bananas. Her father plied them with questions, politely, formally, diplomatically. He wanted to know about Engl
and, London, the weather, the public transport, schools, communication systems, cricket. The girl hovered in the background, eyes lowered, passing dishes to her mother. Srinivasa’s side glances at Ashok told him that his father was getting impatient. Ashok was making no attempt to talk to the girl.

  “Perhaps, Ashok, you would find Janaki’s university course of interest,” Srinivasa suggested in obvious desperation.

  “Of course,” Ashok replied politely. “Please tell me about it.”

  “Come, I will show you my books.”

  Ashok followed her downstairs into the reception room.

  “I was wondering when you were going to pluck up courage to speak to me,” she said, straightening her head and looking him in the eye. “I’m sure you are not really shy.”

  Her bluntness disarmed him. He saw her properly for the first time. He looked down into her steady gaze and saw beneath the stage make-up and costume jeweler that had been pressed upon her for his visit. She was young, but her poise was unnerving.

  “I’m not shy,” he said gently.

  “You just don’t want to marry me,” Janaki said.

  Ashok was overwhelmed by confusion and unaccountable sadness. He wanted to comfort her, to stroke her cheek, to take her in his arms. He fought to keep his hands from touching her.

  “Janaki,” he began, not knowing how to look at her. He wanted to tell her that she was lovely, she shone like the morning star, that if he’d had a chance to speak to her alone three days ago…that it was too late, that Hannah was now a part of him, the part that his gentle nature had hitherto never known and thus had never missed but, now knowing, could never relinquish. She was the spirit that breathed life into him. She was the kingfisher to his quiet brook.

  Janaki’s soft hand touched his arm. “I know,” she said. “Please don’t feel bad.”

  “You are very young,” he said to her helplessly. “It would be hard for you in England.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, “it would be very hard. And yes, I am young. I have been telling my father so and that I wish to continue my studies also, to pass examination for BTU so that I can pursue career in science. That would be very hard for a married woman, no? For me, it will be better to marry when I have secured my PhD only.”

  “Janaki,” Ashok began again, “please don’t think that I don’t like you. I like you very much. Very much. It is only that...only that...”

  “...that now is wrong time. For you as well as for me.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes. That’s all.”

  He could have been content with her, he thought, if only Hannah had not happened. They would have grown together, he and Janaki, at first side by side like two forest palms, later intertwining, yielding sweet, flawless fruit. But Hannah was the wind that ruffled the palm fronds and set them dancing. Without her now, the stillness would stifle him.

  “Perhaps we could write?”

  Mechanically, he nodded. It was a graceful, if temporary, way out of the dilemma.

  * * * *

  Ashok’s preposterous proposal and Hannah’s equally preposterous response to it left her feeling decidedly light-headed. Before she had time to digest what had happened, the tattered Morris Oxford look-alike roared off through the streets of Mysore like a crazed canine released into the garden after a bath. The road was fairly narrow and bumpy, with just enough room for two vehicles to pass. The driver’s hand was more or less permanently left on the horn.

  “The convention in India,” Willi shouted through the din, “is to sound the horn whenever you approach a vehicle, either from the front or the rear, which is just as well, as wing mirrors are something of a rarity.”

  Hannah pointed at a sign on the back of a van. “Sound horn—okay! Seems a somewhat superfluous instruction under the circumstances.”

  As they neared the palace, it was clear that the crowds were becoming unusually dense, even for Indian standards. The driver, Hannah noticed, was getting agitated. Angry men were gradually hemming in the car on all sides—anger not directed at them but nevertheless threatening and claustrophobic. Suddenly, the driver pulled across the road, almost pushing the nearest people out of the way with the car. Without stopping, he executed a U-turn and made his way back to the taxi office.

  “Could be problems,” he explained. “Better to go back.”

  The taxi chief greeted them with a worried expression. “I think it is not safe for you to stay in Mysore,” he told them. “You should go now to Bandipur. When he returns, I will explain to your friend. Other taxi we will be keeping for him.”

  Hannah and Willi were more than happy to agree to the man’s suggestion. Mysore suddenly looked ugly.

  Horn blaring, their taxi driver set off again, scattering bicycles, tongas drawn by delicate-looking ponies, cows and rickshaws, as he headed out of the town and into the open countryside. He tore noisily past cars, buses, and trucks.

  “We seem to have swapped one danger for another,” Hannah muttered, noting that at least they seemed to have left the threatening crowds behind.

  Willi wasn’t listening. “Oh, God!” she exclaimed, grasping Hannah’s arm and staring at the road in front. Some way ahead, traveling in the same direction as they were, was a large, wooden-wheeled cart, laden to the height of a small house with hay and pulled by a pair of oxen. Coming from the other direction was another one exactly the same. It was clear that if the taxi maintained its present speed, it would be at the point of overtaking at the precise moment that the carts would pass each other. Hannah and Willi were transfixed. Disbelievingly, they watched as the driver pulled out at full speed between them. There couldn’t have been more than an inch to spare either side of the taxi.

  “One can only admire his driving,” Hannah whispered.

  “I’m wondering about the bulls,” Willi said. “Look at them, plodding on their way, totally unconcerned. Are they brave, stupid, or blind?”

  Hannah laughed. “I guess it’s such a routine occurrence that they’re simply inured to it. Anyway, they’re bullocks, not bulls.”

  “I know that, Hannah. Bulls, bullocks, oxen—what does it matter?”

  The landscape became hilly as they wound their way upward onto the undulating plain between the Western Ghats and the Nilgiri Hills, leaving the last villages behind them.

  They spoke very little after the bullock cart incident, which had driven all other preoccupations, including Ashok, the stalker, and the unpleasantness in Mysore, out of Hannah’s head. She felt compelled to concentrate on the driving, as if she had some divine ability to guide the car safely to its destination as long as she willed the driver into making the right moves. Willi was also uncharacteristically quiet, as though the incident had triggered a chain of thoughts.

  “Cattle!” Willi burst out suddenly. “That’s it! They’re cattle. I knew something was bugging me.”

  Hannah stared out the window in confusion. For once, no cattle whatsoever were to be seen, only a burnt-out truck partly obstructing the road. The driver whizzed around it in his customary manner, without slowing down.

  “That can’t have been there long,” Hannah commented. “It’s still smoking. I don’t see any cattle.”

  “No! You don’t understand. Terry Bull. Mark Salers. They’re all to do with cattle.”

  “Salers?” Hannah raised her eyebrows.

  “It’s a breed of French cattle. I know these things, Hannah. My father’s a farmer.”

  Hannah frowned. “Well,” she said, “I hear what you’re saying, but it’s a bit of a long shot.”

  Willi was jumping up and down on her seat. “No! Listen! What did you say the name of the English couple at the Pandava was? The ones you didn’t check out?”

  Hannah tried to remember. “Oliphant...no…Heller…Heffer! That was it. Heffer.”

  Willi clapped her hands. “Heffer—like the word for young cow. There—I told you.”

  Hannah came to her senses. Salers would know about the meaning of his name; he was, after all, half F
rench. Nothing mattered now except Willi’s startling discovery. She and Ashok had worked deep into the night, compiling their list of possible suspects, but the finger was pointing more and more at Salers.

  “Only one thing,” Willi continued. “What about showing his passport at hotels?”

  “Salers used to be a journalist,” Hannah said. “He knows a trick or two. It wouldn’t be too difficult for him to get a few forgeries made up. Probably got some contacts while he was in prison, too. He’d have needed a forged one, anyway, to get out of England—he’s supposed to be on parole, remember? Also, let’s not underestimate him—he’s a clever sod. Always did have the gift of the gab. I’m sure he could think of a number of good reasons why he’s misplaced his passport.”

  Between them, they dredged up every word they could remember that had a bovine connection and that would double as a name. Willi wrote them down in a hand that mimicked the taxi’s jolts and judders as closely as an electrocardiogram echoed a heartbeat.

  “Bullock, Hurd, Lowe, White, Dexter...”

  “As soon as we’ve settled in, we’ll check the guest list,” Hannah said. “Hopefully, we’ll have something concrete to tell Ashok when he arrives later.”

  * * * *

  After he had left Janaki, Ashok said goodbye to his father, who was returning by bus to Bangalore. Neither of them mentioned Janaki after they had left her house. It seemed that Srinivasa had seen into his son’s heart and felt his confusion. The subject of Ashok’s impending trip to Bandipur with Hannah and Willi was tactfully avoided. Srinivasa said simply, “Let us see how you feel tomorrow.”

  Ashok walked back to the taxi office. Something was different about the crowds on the streets now. People were milling around. There was a lot of shouting. Ashok felt uneasy somehow. Several times he heard the word bandh. A strike. He wondered where.

  At the taxi office, the proprietor was nowhere to be seen; neither were Willi nor Hannah. Ashok was greeted by a new face behind the counter. A nervous face. Preoccupied perhaps by the chaos outside.