Buying the camera was an arduous and argumentative process. First, Marina’s camera was produced, and a duplicate demanded. As Marina could have told them, it was not available, since it was a specialized model. However, using Vijay as translator, she did her best to convince her captors that one of the cameras in the inventory of Halapur Cameras Ltd. was just as good, or even better. They examined a number of models, and at last settled on one that seemed satisfactory. Vijay paid the bill, and they turned away.
It was obvious, however, from the manner of their captors that Marina and Vijay were not to be released on the streets of Halapur, if they were released at all. They were close-marched around a corner from the camera shop to a van pulled up on the sidewalk, and hustled into the back. The doors were slammed shut and locked, and in minutes the van was picking up speed.
They sat on the floor, jolted with every movement of the van. “Now what?” Marina asked Vijay. “We bought the camera. Why haven’t they let us go?”
“I still believe they will do it. They have to be sure we can’t get to a police station and demand that they be arrested.”
“What’s to stop them from killing us? Or taking us to the boss, like they were hired to do in the first place?”
“Nothing. But I do not believe they’re killers. I have impressed them with our importance, and how much trouble our disappearance or deaths would cause. They both have cameras now. We shall have to wait and see.” After a pause he said, “If I’m mistaken, whatever happens is my fault. No one’s but mine.”
Fault. Blame. Marina was silent, sitting on the floor of the van as they bounced through the night. That’s what my life has been for the last ten years— a long process of finding fault and placing blame. Placing blame is my life’s work, and why? So I can make sure no blame falls on me.
I believed that if I studied disasters long enough, and reduced them to numbers, and got to the principles behind them, I could prove conclusively that it wasn’t my fault that Catherine died, that Agit More was killed. I still haven’t proved it. I’ll never be able to prove it.
The van slowed, then turned to the right. The new road was rougher, and the van was moving more slowly. It veered, went over another bump, and came to a stop. In a few moments the doors opened. They scrambled out. No words were exchanged.
Marina and Vijay crossed the road running. Marina heard the van doors slam, the motor race. They could still come after us. The moon had risen, indistinctly illuminating a landscape littered with boulders and scrub, without trees or shelter or signs of habitation. When at last they stopped to look back, the van’s taillights were tiny dots, moving away. The only sound was the rustle of scrub stirring under a hot breeze. They went forward through the darkness.
38
They continued a long time without stopping, through prickly undergrowth that tore at Marina’s bare legs, over rocks that bruised her sandaled feet. Her body was swept by chills unrelated to the temperature of the night.
A rock-strewn hillside bulked in front of them. In the faint moonlight Marina saw at the top a tumbledown structure. “A hill fort,” Vijay said. “We can rest there, perhaps.”
“Yes.” Marina did not think she could possibly continue. She stumbled up the hillside behind Vijay. What might threaten her now? Dacoits? Snakes? jackals? She didn’t care about any of them. She cared about stopping, lying down. That was all.
The entrance to the fort was partly blocked by fallen stones. Beyond them the opening looked totally black. “You will stay here for a moment,” said Vijay.
“Wait.” She searched through her bag, found her flashlight, and held it out to him.
He took it with a dry laugh. “This bag you carry is full of miracles.” She watched as, moonlight reflecting from his shirt, he climbed through the entrance and disappeared. At her last sight of him she wanted to cry out, to beg him not to leave her. She looked around, her scalp prickling.
There was a scrabbling sound, and several small animals darted over the pile of rocks at the entrance and disappeared into the undergrowth. Vijay appeared in the doorway and called softly, “You may come in now. It was rats only.” Shuddering, she climbed over the pile of stones and into the ruined fortress.
It was not as dark as it had looked from the outside. Moonlight came in through holes in the roof. The room was solid and square, the walls thick, the floor uneven. Marina and Vijay sat down by the wall.
They had been released, but without sustenance, in the middle of nowhere. And there was no guarantee that their captors wouldn’t come back to find them tomorrow, when they were even weaker than they were now. Why couldn’t she stop shivering? Marina moved closer to Vijay and leaned against his shoulder.
Vijay’s voice nibbled at her consciousness. “This is a good place. We are hidden. We must have water and food, but while it is dark we may pass by water and food and not know it. Tomorrow we will continue.”
“They might find us, when it’s light.”
“Possibly. Possibly not.”
Everything was silent. Marina said, “Vijay?”
“Yes.”
“I shouldn’t have gotten you into this. You didn’t deserve to have this situation pushed on you.”
He took a deep breath. “You tell me you’re sorry, but I am not at all sorry. And if you think back you will see that I was eager to participate. I was not pushed. You must not ever imagine that.”
She thought back. “There were times you seemed upset with me. Unhappy.”
He made a restless movement. “That’s true. I did not like to hear that you had— been with this Nagarajan. It made me angry. With him and with you. Yet with myself, too, because what was it to do with me? I felt a great, tearing anger.”
“It’s all right now? Because if we die, I don’t want to die thinking—”
His lips brushed her forehead. “It is all right. Do not think, anyway, that we shall die. We are warriors worthy of Shivaji himself.”
Marina closed her eyes. After a while, she fell into a restless sleep.
She awoke toward dawn, drenched with perspiration and racked with chills. Vijay’s face swam above her. “You are ill, Marina?”
She nodded. He put a hand on her burning face and gave a hiss of concern. “I can walk,” she said.
“I will come back in a moment,” said Vijay, and before she could reply he was climbing through the doorway. She huddled against the wall, shaking uncontrollably. I am a warrior worthy of Shivaji himself, she thought in counterpoint to the list of diseases running through her mind: malaria, cholera, typhus, typhoid. Could she really walk? She pulled herself to her feet and took a few wavering steps. She could. Her skin was so sensitive that her hair brushing her neck, the sleeves of her T-shirt against her arms, felt as rough as sandpaper. She peered out the door.
The rising sun bathed the countryside in pink light, starkly picking out the rocky hills. No air stirred. Vijay stood a few yards away, shading his eyes. He turned and saw her and said, “I think I see what we must do.” He pointed to a dark patch on the horizon. “There are trees. There will be water also, perhaps a farm or a village. If you can walk so far, we will go there.”
And if I can’t? “All right.”
As they descended the hill, the first rays of sun flooded the landscape. She did not dare look at the dark blur that was their destination. She kept her eyes just a few yards ahead of where she was, willing herself to go at least that far. Her legs continued moving. The sun rose higher, its rays pouring on her head like hot liquid.
After a long time she stumbled, and Vijay said, “You would like to stop and rest?”
“I’m afraid to. I might not be able to start again.” There was a bitter taste in her mouth.
“We will stop a moment.” Vijay led her to the shadow of a boulder. When she sat down, the earth seemed to undulate, and she dug her fingers in the sandy soil to steady herself. She retched violently, her body heaving and producing nothing. Eventually the retching eased, and she sat still.
“You should go on,” she said. “Leave me. Go as fast as you can, and send somebody back for me.”
“I will not do that, Marina. We will go or stay together.”
They kept walking. Vijay took her bag and, when her knees started to give, he supported her with his arm around her shoulders. She forgot to look a few yards ahead and then was not conscious of looking at anything at all. She was aware of the blinding sun, a bitter taste, and Vijay. At some point he took off his shirt and draped it over her head, and put his handkerchief over his own. You’ll burn, she wanted to say, looking at his smooth brown shoulders, his thin undershirt. You’ll burn, you’ll burn. “I’m burning,” she whispered.
She saw Catherine. Are you dead or not, Marina demanded. Catherine smiled slowly, frighteningly, and melted into a pool from which a sleek, shining cobra emerged.
Something brushed her face, and she cried out. Looking up, she saw leaves. Her face had been brushed by leaves, leaves that dappled the sun on Vijay’s shoulders. Down a slope she saw two women standing in a slow, muddy stream, their saris tucked up around their calves. The laundry they had been pounding on the flat, wet rocks hung in their hands as they looked up. She opened her mouth to say something, but her knees buckled and she whirled away.
39
The rhythmic thumping sound had been going on a long time. It insinuated itself behind Marina’s eyes, trying to force them open, but they did not want to open. The light behind her eyelids was a rich yellow-orange.
While listening to the thumping she became aware of an earthy, not-unpleasant smell of smoke, cut vegetation, cow dung. Soft voices exchanged a word or two. She tossed, momentarily frightened, and realized that she was lying on a cot of some sort, under a rough coverlet. She remembered swallowing something hot with a strong taste, seeing firelight dance in the lenses of Vijay’s glasses, feeling something cool pressed against her forehead.
She tossed again, and the thumping stopped. The voices spoke, and she heard rustling. She was able to open her eyes. Squinting, she found herself looking into the brown eyes and round dimpled face of a woman bending over her. Sunlight poured through a doorway behind the woman, illuminating another woman bent over a stone pestle. The thumping had been the women grinding grain. The light hurt Marina’s eyes, and she closed them again and slept.
She awoke fully later, to the smell of hot oil and the sound of a small child wailing. Through the doorway, she could see that it was dusk. Outside, one of the women squatted next to an open hearth, feeding the fire. A toddler, crying, clutched at her sari. Marina raised herself on her elbow, looking around her at mud walls, rolled mats, round clay water jars, sacks containing, she supposed, some kind of grain. From outside came the lowing of animals and masculine voices. She wanted water.
A little girl holding a baby on her hip came and stood in the doorway. The baby gobbled at its fist as the girl came a step closer. Marina moved her mouth to say “Hello,” but no sound emerged. The girl fled back outside, and Marina saw her whispering to the woman. The woman glanced toward Marina and then spoke to the girl in an authoritarian tone. In a few moments the girl was back, followed by Vijay.
Rumpled, his hair uncombed, he looked completely different from the fastidious Bombay “minor functionary” who had introduced himself at the Hotel Rama. He knelt beside her and put his hand on her forehead. “The fever is gone, I think. How do you feel?”
“Thirsty.”
He left. He came back with water in a gourd dipper, and she drank. “I must have slept all day,” she said.
He smiled. “All day and another day. It was yesterday that we reached this place.”
Yes, she remembered seeing firelight on Vijay’s glasses. That must have been last night, and now it was almost night again. “What happened?”
“You have been ill, with high fever. The nearest doctor is half a day’s ride by bullock cart. I wanted to go, but they said they would give something to you, and they made a medicine. I was worried for you to take it, but you were so bad I gave permission to go ahead.”
“Who are these people?”
“They are the family of Nathu Dada. They farm the bits of land that can be cultivated here. They own it themselves, which means they are better off than many small farmers. There is Nathu Dada, whose wife is dead, and two sons with their wives and children.”
“What’s the name of this place?”
“It has no name. We are far from cars or telephones. The closest village, Goti, is where the doctor is— half a day in the bullock cart, which is the only transport they have. For the moment, we are stranded.”
“Who did you tell them we are?”
“I said only that you were ill and we were in desperate trouble. You see, it is as it was at the house of Baburao. Our religion is full of stories of gods in disguise who knocked on doors and asked for help. The visitor, even unknown or unexpected, must be welcomed.”
“Has anyone come looking for us?”
“Not yet. We will not be easy to locate. But it worries me very much that Nagarajan, or whoever is pursuing us, might find this place. I do not want these people to be hurt, and neither do I want to frighten them with warnings of danger.”
“Then we have to get out of here.”
“Yes. I will discuss the matter of our departure with Nathu Dada. And you must recover as best you can. Can you eat something? I think you must try.”
The dimpled woman brought her a bowl of cooked grain, and Marina scooped it up with her fingers. She was relieved not to feel her stomach heaving in rebellion. Later, she lay watching the firelight flicker while the family and Vijay ate their evening meal. Before they finished, she was asleep again.
***
The next morning when she woke, Vijay was sitting beside her. “How are you?” he asked.
“Better.” She was shaky and weak, but no longer feverish. “Much better.”
“It is decided,” Vijay said. “The bullocks are needed today for farm work, but tomorrow we will travel to Goti in the bullock cart with Nathu Dada and his son. They will buy and sell at the market, but also they have heard that Baladeva will be there.”
“Baladeva? The dacoit?”
“Yes. For some of these peasant people he is a hero. He will hold darshan, something like a royal audience, and they will give him an offering. Possibly they hope this will remind him that he should rob the rich, and not their farm.”
“If he comes out in the open, won’t the police arrest him?”
“He will have his gang with him, well-armed. And who is to say the police do not admire and fear Baladeva as well? I hope we shall avoid all that. There will be a telephone at Goti. The bus comes there too, and perhaps there will even be a car for hire.”
They would go back tomorrow. They would tell Mr. Curtis about Nagarajan, and about their abduction, and that would start an investigation. She would insist on knowing the truth.
***
That afternoon she had improved enough to take a short walk with Vijay. The farm compound was surrounded by a mango grove which bordered a river. Not far away was a rutted track that would lead back to the world she knew. After she got up and bathed, Nathu Dada’s daughters-in-law indicated with gestures that they wanted to wash her filthy clothes. When Marina indicated that she had nothing else to wear, one of the women brought out a sari and offered it to her. Marina was wondering how to refuse when she remembered that she had bought a sari, at the emporium back in Halapur. She found her bag, took out the package, and unwrapped it. With the help of the giggling daughters-in-law, she was soon dressed and draped.
Marina had never worn a sari before. Catherine wore saris. Catherine had known this feeling of the cloth brushing against her legs when she took a step, the fluttering when a slight breeze caught at it.
She walked with Vijay on the river bank, looking out over the slowly eddying water. He told her about his conversations with Nathu Dada and his sons. “They like that I tell them about Bombay,” he said.
“What
do they think of it?”
“It is something they have not dreamed. I told them of the tall buildings, and they asked me how those people could keep their bullocks up so high.”
When they reached a bend in the river they turned back. Vijay said, “Seeing you in a sari— it is very odd.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. You will think I am foolish. It makes you more strange and more familiar at the same time.”
Tenderness for Vijay welled through her, cool and delicate, washing over his black hair, his glasses, his stained clothes. She put her hand against his face and kissed him.
She felt his lips quicken. She had wanted to kiss Vijay for a long time, she realized. “I love you, Vijay,” she said, and the words floated away as if they’d been spoken by someone else.
“I love you, Marina, and I have desired you very much,” Vijay said. She felt him breathe deeply. Then he stepped back. “It isn’t the time to speak of this now. Please, let’s agree.”
“All right.” What more, in any case, could they say? He helped her up the bank, and together they walked back to the compound.
40
The next morning started before dawn, with a flurry of preparations. Feeling badly rested and apprehensive, Marina dressed once again in the sari. That she should wear the sari instead of her Western clothes had been Vijay’s suggestion. “With this Baladeva about, it would be best not to call attention to yourself,” he had said. “With the sari you will blend into the crowd more easily.”
In the cool half-light she rolled up her T-shirt and skirt as small as she could and stuffed them in her shoulder bag.
At the first light, Nathu Dada, a taciturn, white-haired man, clucked to the bullocks and the cart lurched forward as its massive wooden wheels began to turn. Sitting next to Vijay in the back, Marina waved good-bye to the family whose kindness had saved her life. One of Nathu Dada’s sons was accompanying them, riding opposite Marina and Vijay. As they moved away, dust filmed Marina’s view of the people, the house, the mango grove. Only when all had shrunk into invisibility did she turn her face forward.
The Grand Tour: Four International Mysteries Page 79