The Venus of Konpara

by John Masters

  ‘Ohe baghini!’ he cried.

  The tigress’s ears flicked back, but she watched Mohan, and crouched lower, her tail lashing slowly. The rifle lay-three feet beyond his reach. He made up his mind. The tigress’s tail stiffened like a bar, he lunged for the rifle, and Smith, directly behind her, broke into a run at her, the staff held like a spear. Mohan loaded the rifle with a convulsive jerk of the wrist, and whipped it into the aim. The tigress bounded sideways with another huge roar. He fired and she vanished into the scrub. He held the rifle in the shoulder, following the crash and creak of the bushes in the jungle.

  They ceased. Smith said, ‘You hurt?’

  ‘Bruised,’ Mohan muttered. He moved his shoulder carefully, then his fingers, his legs. ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘The mare’s broken her leg,’ Smith said.

  ‘On the tigress?’

  ‘No. Kicked the rock wall in the cut just afterwards.’

  The mare stood head down, panting, her coat staring and flecked with foam, the soft eyes huge in her fine head, her near hind leg hanging twisted, the big white bone showing splintered through. Mohan walked carefully to her, put the rifle to her head, and shot her. At once he reloaded, and at once the roar of the shot was echoed by the tigress from the jungle, close to the east. The light evening breeze came from the west. It was becoming dark, fast.

  They stood back to back under a large tree at the head of the path up from the river. The whining singsong purr rolled through the jungle, now near, now far, just as he had heard it in the pit, but this time it was a personal message to him.

  ‘She means to have us,’ Smith said softly.

  ‘Was she lying in wait for us?’ Mohan said.

  Smith said, ‘Every time she was seen near Gharial, someone came or went along this path, in a hurry, not thinking of precautions. She knew.’

  ‘Should we try to get on to Gharial? Or back to the coolie camp?’

  ‘Too late,’ Smith said. ‘It’ll be dark long before we can reach either of them. There’s plenty of dry wood lying round here. This is as good a place as any. We’ll build a fire and wait here.’

  ‘Up the tree?’ Mohan asked.

  Smith shook his head. Too low, and you couldn’t fire accurately from it’ No, at the foot, with the tree trunk behind us.’

  He picked up a dead twig and placed it in position a few feet from the base of the tree; then another. The purring snarl droned on. Mohan could have sworn it went round and round them, but Smith muttered, ‘She’s downwind. Always has been, Watch that way... unless the wind dies completely.’

  The snarl closed in, and Mohan started up, every nerve tense. Smith dropped the big log he was dragging, and waited. The snarl suddenly ceased. They waited a long time.

  Smith said, ‘Trying to make us panic. She won’t attack until it’s dark. Match, please.’

  Mohan handed him the matches and he stooped to light the fire.

  Mohan said suddenly, ‘Why don’t we set fire to the jungle? Especially as she’s downwind.’

  ‘I’d thought of it,’ Smith said. ‘We might drive her away if we did - but we’d stand a very good chance of burning ourselves to death. Feel the wind now.’

  Mohan raised his head. The coolness of moving air touched his left cheek, then his right ‘Going every way,’ Smith said, ‘as the heat leaves the soil. We’ll have to protect this fire.’

  Deliberately he set fire to the brown grass round the fire, and stood ready with his shirt off and bunched in his hand. As the grass caught fire and advanced outward, before it could get out of control he smothered the flames. As darkness fell a ten-foot belt of burned grass surrounded their fire. Several big branches lay ready to hand. The glow of the fire reached fifty feet into the scattered trees ahead. Mohan twisted his head to look past the tree trunk against which his back rested. Smith said, ‘Don’t look round. She’s watching you, because you’ve got the rifle. She only needs a second’s start I’m looking behind, but I don’t think she’ll come that way.’

  Mohan nodded. The tree stood only six feet from the lip of the low cliff above the river bed. To attack from that angle the tigress would first have to leap up the cliff.

  The fire crackled. Mohan wished it would burn silently. Straining his ears to hear the slightest sound beyond the circle of light, the noises distracted him.

  He saw eyes, huge and yellow, burning in the jungle at the edge of the firelight and jerked the rifle into his shoulder with a gasp. The eyes vanished before he could fire. He held the rifle, trembling, in the aim.

  The tigress’s roar, coming from the side, shook the tree trunk against his back. He swung that way. Nothing. Smoke drifted suddenly into his eyes. They began to water, and smart. Everything blurred.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ Smith said. ‘I’ll hold the rifle.’

  Mohan closed his eyes and rubbed them desperately. He wondered, for a moment of insane fear, whether the tigress knew that Smith had vowed not to kill. His eyes felt a little better and he opened them. They watered freely and the fire was a yellow blur at his feet, all beyond invisible. After a time vision returned, and he took the rifle. The singsong purr moved slowly closer.

  ‘I can’t stand much of this,’ he muttered.

  His hands shook so much that if she attacked now he would not be able to aim. The smoke from the fire wavered towards him and he ducked with pure terror ... Another minute of blindness and he’d run screaming into the jungle, firing blindly until the magazine was empty. Then she would leap on his back.

  The tigress roared from close, directly behind them, the sound hollow and echoing. Mohan swung round convulsively. ‘She’s under the cliff,’ Smith said.

  Mohan struggled to his feet, ‘I’ll get her,’ he cried. ‘Shoot straight down...’

  The tigress roared again, a long low deep thundering murmur - from the left. Mohan sank to his knees. All sounds died.

  An hour passed, his eyes aching, his akin crawling, and the smell of fear so heavy that it made him retch. No sound from the jungle, the fire burning low. Smith pushed the log a little further into the red heart of the fire.

  A breath of fetid air drifted into his nostrils. ‘To the right,’ Smith murmured. ‘Close... Now follow round, left.’

  Mohan stared, his eyes burning. ‘Can you see her?’

  ‘No. The wind changed... I think she meant us to get the scent - but only for a moment.’

  The eyes suddenly glowed like strong lamps to the left, and Mohan jerked up the rifle and fired. The eyes vanished. ‘I got her, I got her!’ he cried, leaping to his feet.

  There was no sound. ‘Think,’ Smith said, his hand right on Mohan’s arm. ‘Think. Where were the sights? On the eyes?’

  Mohan tried to concentrate. The eyes had hung there, yellow and huge, and the black sights there, coming up, and then the jerk of his finger - nowhere near, the black V had been well below the eyes. Sick with despair he sank back. The singsong purr began again.

  After ten minutes it stopped. A moment later Smith touched his arm and muttered, ‘Listen.’

  Mohan could hear nothing. ‘Can’t hear,’ he moaned at last ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Voices,’ Smith said, listen.’

  Mohan shook his head. He had been trying to hear the pad of her huge paws, the sound of her breathing. Now the other was quite clear - the distant voices of men, raised in continual shouts, somewhere in the darkness ahead. A point of light -appeared, then another, and another . . . Lanterns, flaring torches.

  Smith muttered, ‘The men of Gharial’

  Smith’s grip was hard on his arm. ‘I don’t think she’s here,’ he said. ‘She’s gone, after them. ‘Come on.’

  ‘But...’ Mohan rose unwillingly, and nearly fell. He held the tree for support, and slowly strength flowed back into his legs.

  Smith waited. Mohan hated him with all his heart. They’d been through enough.

  He groaned. These men of Gharial were his people and they were risking their lives for him.

>   ‘Come on,’ he said. He broke into a fast walk, but Smith sprang ahead of him, throwing over his shoulder: ‘If I see her I’ll stand aside, or lie down. Shoot over me.’

  They moved fast along the, path. Mohan kept stumbling and tripping. How could Smith see where to put his feet in this nothingness? The lantern lights ahead had disappeared. He remembered dimly that there was a low rise in the jungle a mile beyond the river bed. The men must have been coming over that when they first saw and heard them. Now the jungle hid them.

  The lights appeared again, at their own level. Only a hundred yards of jungle separated them. Long, faint shafts of light illuminated the path. Smith broke into a run and Mohan ran at his heels, his heart pounding. The leading man of the party saw them and stopped, raising his lantern. The rhythmic shouts of the men behind him stopped. The leader shouted ‘Sahib?’

  The tigress broke from the jungle to the right, well short of the leading villager, and charged straight at him. A moment later and he’d have reached her, with no hope. Smith cried, ‘Now!’ and stepped aside. Mohan raised the rifle. The tigress was at full stretch - just beginning her leap. The man waited, his axe raised. Mohan fired. The tigress somersaulted in the air, rolled over and past her intended victim, knocking him flat, and bounding away into the darkness.

  Mohan ran forward. The men of Gharial were gathered in a tight knot now, facing the direction the tigress had gone, sticks and axes and a few spears pointed, torches flaring. Smith knelt over the man lying on the ground. He rose. ‘One or two broken ribs. She didn’t use claw or tooth.’ He helped the man to his feet ‘Back to Gharial now.’

  Mohan found that his fear had gone. He stood, breathing. deeply, looking at the men of Gharial. He said, ‘You are brave men. I shall not forget.’

  The leader said, ‘If the Suvala risks his life for such black men as us, how can we be backward?’ There were about a dozen men in the group - just villagers, fear and determination mixed on their dark, thin faces. The horse arrived, cut and bleeding at the village just before dark...’

  ‘On now,’ Mohan said. ’We can discuss it there. I’ll lead. Keep close.’

  ‘One moment,’ Smith said. ‘Bring a lantern here, bhai.’

  He bent low over the ground and pointed. ‘A little fur, and blood...’ He followed the path the tigress had taken in her somersault and escape. ‘More. You hit her.’

  ‘Not badly,’ Mohan said briefly.

  Smith said, ‘In the right forearm, I thought, when she bounded away. She’ll bleed from it every time she moves.’

  ‘We ought to follow her now then,’ Mohan said.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ Smith said gently. ‘We’ll get her tomorrow. No one is going to use this path now.’

  It took them three hours to cover the five miles to Gharial, and when they reached it Mohan’s head was swimming with the strain of long-continued utter concentration. The tigress had roared twice on the flank of the party in the first half-hour. After that, they had seen or heard nothing, and that had been worse.

  Gharial consisted of twenty houses huddled together in a jungle clearing. Every entrance was blocked by a dense zareba of thorns, and thin yellow bars of fight showed below every door. The lambardar, he with the broken ribs, took them into his own house. His wife hurried forward with warm milk in a brass pot Mohan drank, swaying on his feet. Smith said, ‘Sleep now, Mohan. I’ll wake you in good time.’

  Mohan lay down, waves of sleep rolling over him like an irresistible ocean swell, each one carrying him farther out towards the deep of extinction. ‘You didn’t run away,’ he mumbled. ‘You could have.’

  Smith’s voice reached him from the ever-more-distant shore. ‘Don’t forget the mare had a broken leg... And what would Rukmini say to me?’

  What would Rukmini say? Something full of trust and understanding. And love. He fell asleep.

  Chapter 24

  Foster lay awake, Barbara Kendrick beside him, her head on his shoulder, one arm across him, holding him tightly, one leg flung across his loins. After the passion, after the ecstasy that seemed more like pain, after the fitful twitchings of the first hour of sleep, she slept soundly against him, her breath slow and even.

  It must be nearly two o’clock. He had come in by the side door after dark, but probably the servants knew he was here. In India servants knew everything. Kendrick might return in a hurry, hearing of the tigress, though he was supposed to be away for two more days at least He was a jumpy, unstable man, and it would be just his luck to come back all prepared to deal with one situation and find another, and then lose his head.

  He kissed her, and whispered, ‘Time I went, love.’

  She stirred, yawned, and sat up. ‘Are you going to marry me?’

  ‘Of course, love,’ he said softly. ‘If you’ll have me.’

  ‘You aren’t worried about what you told me in the evening? About my being a lady and you, what you are. It doesn’t worry me, but it worried you.’

  ‘It does worry me,’ he said. ‘But not enough... We’ll find it a bit awkward at first, I expect India’s like a small village, and not many people of your sort are going to have much to do with us. Even without the divorce.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘I only want to be loved. No, I want something else. I must show you.’

  She slid out of the bed, and he followed her carefully across the room and down the dark passage. She opened the door of her workroom and went to the windows, carefully checking the curtains. Then she lighted the lamp on the table. You oughtn’t to be going about barefoot,’ he said reprovingly. There are scorpions and snakes and heavens knows what.’

  She turned quickly and flung her arms round his neck. ‘Oh, God, Jim, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that - that tenderness, someone caring what happens, thinking of me, not what I can do for him. I love you, I love you.’

  She broke away and bent over a tin box in the corner, found a key hidden behind the bookshelf and opened the box. From it she drew out three or four large sheets of cartridge paper and spread them on the table beside the lamp.

  A few strong lines in red and black charcoal were scrawled on the paper. At first he could see no form to them, and men the head of an Indian boy jumped out at him. He caught his breath sharply. The drawing wasn’t right. Nobody really looked like that. A kid could have done it better. But the boy’s hunger sprang out of the paper, and the glare of the sun, and a cringing terror before the world, where the boy had found no kindness.

  Barbara drew the picture away. The next was of the dam, and the coolies at work on it The same distortions - and the same power.

  The next was of Rukmini, naked, in an Indian dance pose, every curve of her body, speaking sex, and the pride of a queen in the carriage of her small head.

  ‘Did - did she pose for this?’ Jim asked.

  Barbara said, ‘Yes. Here.’ She leaned back against the table, her bead up. ‘These drawings, and my paintings, are going to make me famous, Jim. If not these, others. Really famous, and rich... Do you mind?’

  ‘Mind?’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t know what you mean, exactly. How can I mind?’

  She said, ‘You will be known as Barbara Foster’s husband. Not to me - to the world. You’ll never have to work again, unless you want to.’

  ‘Now look,’ he said firmly. ‘I do want to work, but how can I be jealous when I’m proud? You paint just what you want to, and I’ll see to the rest.’

  She had locked the box and hidden the key. She faced him, hands outstretched. ‘When shall we go?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘You showed me this, which you’ve been keeping secret from everyone except Rukmini.’

  ‘Mohan knows,’ she said. She waited, her eyes on him.

  ‘Now I’ve got to tell you something,’ he said. ‘That story about the gold bars being sent off for an assay wasn’t true. I meant to keep them. And I was going to steal the others when you came to warn me.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. In those days
you were that kind of person. That was why it took me so long to acknowledge what I really knew all the time - that you loved me... Let us not talk about it any more. We’ll have years and years to talk about each other. When are we going?’

  ‘Right after the dam’s opened,’ Jim said.

  She nodded. ‘Very well. I shall make ready ... I’ve tried and tried, Jim. Ten years. I can’t face it any more. I know Charles needs help, but it will have to come from someone else. I thought that my hate would give me strength to last him out - but soon after we came up here and the search for the Venus began, I knew I couldn’t.

  ‘What do you think he’ll do?’ Jim asked ‘I’m not afraid, mind. I don’t care what he does.’

  She didn’t answer for a time. Then she said, ‘I think he might try to kill me. Everyone in India would be saying, in a week, that Charles Kendrick can’t even keep a wife. It will be too much for him.’