by John Masters
He said, ‘I don’t know.’ He changed the subject. ‘I’m seeing the guru every day now. He wants you to go to him tomorrow.’
I said, ‘Saturday? What for?’
He said, ‘To talk to you. He wants to give you time before Monday to think over what you are doing.’
‘I won’t change my mind,’ I said bravely and quickly, not daring to face the truth. Of course I had thought of changing my mind—a hundred times—but where was I to go? Back to the sneers of Rose Mary?
Gently Ranjit took my hand. He said, ‘You are so good, Victoria. When we are married we will get a house and then—oh, it will be truly wonderful.’
‘You must get a house for us before we are married,’ I said sharply.
‘I’m trying,’ he muttered. ‘It is very difficult. There are not many houses, and those are expensive.’
I said, ‘I don’t care, you’ve got to get one, Ranjit.’ He looked so miserable that I put my hand on his cheek and stroked it gently. I said, ‘I’m sorry, but please cheer up, Ranjit. You make me feel we are going to be executed instead of married.’ The gauze curtain was there, and so was my old impatience with it, my desire to tear it down. I slid my hand round and rested it on the back of his neck. I whispered, ‘Kiss me. You promised.’
I felt the muscles in his neck stiffen, and he was trying to move his head back, but I held him and put my parted lips dose under his. He said, ‘Oh, Victoria, I can’t, I mustn’t! Look, they can see from across the yard.’
With a strong effort he jerked away from me. His eyes were wild and his chest heaving. He said, ‘I must not. I want to, Victoria, but I must not. When we are married everything will be all right, I promise you. I adore you so much. Victoria, I will do anything for you.’
I said, ‘Except leave your mother’s house. Or kiss me.’
He said, ‘I can’t.’
I turned away from him to dab my eyes. I didn’t feel insulted, only hurt and sad. The Sirdarni was holding him. Perhaps he had told her all about my wanting to be kissed, and asked what he should do. After we were married he wouldn’t be breaking over any barrier when he kissed me. Then he wouldn’t be choosing between his mother’s authority and my love. But now, if he kissed me, he would have done something important, and so would I.
I wondered if any woman had ever hung so much importance on a single kiss. But of course it would have ended beyond kissing. Not there in the office, but somewhere, that night, I would have brought him to me. Then I would have known whether I really loved him, and whether his mother’s hold on him was too strong for me to break.
So far, I had failed. Ranjit wouldn’t even kiss me. I would have to go farther along the course that I had set myself. I said, ‘I’ll go and see the guru. What time?’
He said, ‘In the evening. Don’t go now, Victoria. I like to look at you.’
I smiled at him and put my handkerchief away. I said, ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He said, ‘Victoria—do you know, are you allowed to tell me when the Gurkhas will reach our house?’
I said, ‘I know and I’ll tell you, whether I’m supposed to or not. About five o’clock. Not before. Why?’
He said, ‘I think I ought to be there. I am afraid my mother will do something that will get her into trouble.’
I couldn’t resist saying, ‘Could you stop her, Ranjit, if she had made up her mind?’
‘I don’t know,’ he answered seriously, ‘but I would try.’ I came as dose to the point of loving him then as I ever had.
When I got out into the yard I found the Collector and Savage and Second Lieutenant George Howland gathered round a six-by-six inside which were an old man and woman, roped together under guard, and half a dozen oblong boxes.
Howland was a burly young man with a loud and hearty voice and a sort of beefy slyness that got on most people’s nerves very quickly. He was telling Govindaswami how he had found the explosives. ‘Buried under the woodpile at the back, it was,’ he said triumphantly. ‘But I made ’em show me.’
‘They knew it was there?’ the Collector asked sharply.
‘Not ’arf they didn’t!’ Howland said. His cockney was meant to be funny, but also he spoke like that to hide the fact that he had a real, but slight, cockney accent.
Savage said quietly. ‘What do you mean? Tell me what you said to them.’
Howland said, ‘Well, sir, when we found it under the woodpile I showed ’em the bayonet and said, “You knew it was there, didn’t you?” and they gave in and said they did. I mean, they nodded.’
The old man quavered in Hindustani, ‘What is the young sahib saying now? We cannot understand him. How should I know what evil men hid these boxes under my woodpile?’ He was nodding his head all the time as he spoke.
Savage said, ‘You’re a bloody fool, Howland, as well as a born bully. Get that truck unloaded and get back to work.’ Howland saluted sulkily and turned away.
Govindaswami undid the old couple’s ropes and spoke quietly with them. Then he patted their shoulders and told them they could go home. Savage said, ‘I’ll take them. Who are they?’
Govindaswami said, ‘Darby and Joan. He’s a wheelwright—he was rather. He retired years ago. Someone dumped this stuff on them.’
Savage nodded and turned to help the trembling old woman into his jeep. When she hung back he bent and said something into her ear. She started and then burst out in a high delighted cackle. The old husband grasped Savage’s arm, and, all laughing, they drove away.
Govindaswami watched them go. When he noticed me there near him he said, ‘Our Colonel Savage is five parts genius and five parts fool. Or five parts angel and five parts devil. He is divided in both planes.’
Suddenly I got the strangest feeling of being sorry for Colonel Savage. He did have complexes, just as Molly Dickson said. I knew about inferiority complexes—good heavens, I ought to—but it made me shiver to think how Colonel Savage kept hating himself because he did things well and was lucky.
During the afternoon ammunition and explosives continued to pile up, until by a quarter to five only four hundred pounds of PEK and a few oddments, including fuse, were still missing. Several men had been questioned and released. One woman was in jail for further questioning. Govindaswami did not think any of them, except perhaps the woman in jail, knew anything about the explosives that had been found on their property—down dried wells, under the woodpiles, under the eaves, under bhoosa stacked in cattle sheds, among sacks of grain in the stores.
At ten to five Ranjit came down from his office and bicycled quickly away up the Street of Suttees.
A minute later it suddenly struck me to wonder why a curfew had not been imposed, why movements of trucks and cars and bullock carts had not been stopped I asked Chris Glass. He looked surprised and said, ‘Didn’t the Sahib tell you? He’s borrowed a couple of companies from the Thirtieth Raj Rif in Gondwara, and old Sammy’s borrowed police from all over the shop. There’s an outer cordon two miles out on every road and track. The whole of this searching business here is to frighten the stuff—and Roy—out of Bhowani. If we catch something in a cart, the carter’s got to know where it came from and where it’s going, hasn’t he?’
At a quarter past five Savage returned from a visit somewhere, presumably to the outer cordon, and ordered me into the jeep. He didn’t say where we were going, but I knew.
He stopped the jeep a hundred yards short of the Kasel house, got out, lit a cheroot, and stood for a few minutes watching the slow progress of his men down the street. They were doing ten or a dozen houses at a time, five or six on each side of the street, and other parties were working other streets in the quarter at the same time. I noticed that there was no guard at the end of the street, and thought again of the outer cordon.
A group consisting of a havildar, a naik, eight riflemen, and a foot-constable came out of a house near us and walked forward. Mr Lanson’s Chevrolet drove up. Lanson, a sub-inspector of police, a head consta
ble, and the Subadar-Major got out. Together they all advanced on the Sirdarni’s house. Mr Govindaswami’s Austin buzzed up. Savage and I saluted him, and then the three of us fell in at the back of the procession.
The outer door at the foot of the long stair was locked. The police sub-inspector banged on it and shouted, several times, ‘Open, in the name of the law,’ but the door did not open.
The sub-inspector, a tall and handsome old Moslem, turned to the D.S.P. with a question. Lanson nodded. The police tried to barge the door open with their backs, but it would not budge. Subadar-Major Manbir watched them and pulled restlessly at his drooping moustaches. After the third attempt had failed he spoke to the Gurkha havildar, who had a crowbar. Grinning cheerfully, and grunting with the force of his blows, the havildar broke down the door. We began to climb the gloomy stairs.
‘Halt or I fire!’
It was Mr Surabhai’s high voice, ringing and booming in the stairwell. We all stopped. Lanson called out, ‘Put that gun down! Have you got a licence for it?’
Mr Surabhai shouted, ‘A licence, now? Since what illegal ordinance or by-law must a gentlemen be in possession of a licence for his ancestral bow and arrow, Mr Lanson?’
Lanson muttered something unintelligible.
Mr Surabhai cried, ‘You are breaking and entering, and making burglarious entry, I warn you.’ A brilliant flash of light made me blink. Lanson ducked, and his hand dropped on to the butt of the pistol of his holster. Savage turned slowly to look at him, his eyebrows raised.
Mr Surabhai cried, ‘There, now I have the photographic record There will be more, mister. I know you have a search warrant. I say it is illegal claptrap. Every single thing which you do in this house shall be emblazoned across the headlines of the world, mister. Your brutal actions will jolly well show up in The Times and The New York Times and La Prensa and La Vie Parisienne. Come up now. Please be careful of yourselves, gentlemen, there is an unfortunate rut in the fourth step—here.’
He turned, and we followed him silently up the stairs. Savage’s face had hardened, and I knew him well enough to realize that he was shaking with laughter. Lanson was flushed and furious at having mistaken a flash-bulb for a pistol shot.
The search began. The Sirdarni sat motionless in her chair, with Ranjit standing behind her, and did not speak. Mr Surabhai and a small dark man followed the searchers everywhere. The small dark man’s name was Chandrabhan. He used to make a living by photographing British soldiers against a Taj Mahal backdrop in a shack outside the Sudder Savoy, and now he ran a studio near the station. His flash-bulbs popped regularly.
Govindaswami, Savage, Lanson, and I stayed in the big room but didn’t speak at all.
At last the sub-inspector came in to tell Lanson they had found nothing and nobody on this floor or the floor above.
‘What about the floor below?’ Lanson asked.
‘There is no floor below, sahib,’ the sub-inspector said, puzzled.
Lanson said, ‘Of course there is, Inspector-sahib. We came upstairs from the street, didn’t we?’ Lanson was still hot under the collar and would not meet Savage’s eyes. ‘There was a padlocked door on the left near the foot of the stairs,’ he said. ‘That must lead into a lower storey.’
‘There is a place, Mr Lanson. It belongs to my mother,’ Ranjit said suddenly. ‘It is a yard, and there is a room off it where empty sacks used to be stored. But my mother lets it to a merchant. It is quite empty now.’
‘No, it is not empty, dash it,’ Mr Surabhai said. He was wearing green socks and violet suspenders that day, and he was not carrying his umbrella. His hands were full with the ancient bow, and the quiver was slung across his back so that three or four-moth eaten arrows stuck up above his shoulder. He went on, ‘There is a sick lady resting there. She is a close friend to me. She can by no account be disturbed. Here is the primary evidence thereof—this had been photographed.’ He fished out a slip of paper and handed it triumphantly to Lanson.
Lanson said, ‘This is signed by Datt, Collector. You know—Datt.’ Datt was a doctor who specialized in youth pills for men and so on, and he was a well-known, Congress Left-winger in Bhowani.
Govindaswami said, ‘I know.’
Lanson read the note and said, ‘He says that the woman, Lakshmi, spinster, is seriously ill and may not on any account be moved or disturbed. Why is the lady here, Mr Surabhai? She must have been moved to get here.’
‘I moved her here in order to ensure perfect peace and quiet, that’s why,’ Mr Surabhai said, ‘Then Doctor Datt, L.R.C.P., Calcutta, gave me the attached notification. Not before! But you will search the place, neverthless, eh?’ He sounded suddenly anxious.
‘We shall search it, Mr Surabhai,’ Govindaswami said, ‘I won’t deprive you of any evidence of our brutality.’ Mr Surabhai looked relieved.
Govindaswami told me to come along, and I followed them down the stairs. Mr Surabhai refused to produce the key for the padlock, so the havildar took his crowbar and broke that door down too, to the accompaniment of popping flash-bulbs and the click of Chandrabhan’s large, old-fashioned Press camera.
The yard was small, square, and empty. The house had been built over it. Light filtered in above a high wall on the north side, and there was a room under the south side, with a grimy window and a door, Mr Surabhai took station in front of the door, his arms outspread. When Chandrabhan had photographed him defending the door against us, he stood aside.
Govindaswami was about to open the door when Chandrabhan said, ‘Excuse me, please, Collector-sahib. One moment.’ He changed plates, opened the door, and slipped inside. As he went in I got a glimpse of a thinly-clothed woman lying on a string charpoy. Govindaswami saw her too and raised his eyebrows at Mr Surabhai. Mr Surabhai said, ‘The poor unfortunate female is sick of the palsy. She is utterly respectable spinster, mind you, but Doctor Datt, L.R.C.P. Calcutta, has prescribed fresh wholesome air and no supernumerary weight of clothings, you see?’
‘I see,’ Govindaswami said, and walked in.
The woman started up on the charpoy, put her hands to her face, and let out a piercing scream. The flash-bulb exploded.
Govindaswami walked over to the bed. Chandrabhan murmured apologetically, ‘Collector-sahib, please have the goodness to go back to the door. The shutter did not trip. It is unfortunately a very old camera.’
The Collector walked back. The woman screamed again. That time the shutter tripped, and Chandrabhan thanked Govindaswami profusely. Savage was so pale with looking cold and stern that I thought he was going to faint. I knew enough of Indian politics and Indian-language newspapers, and of Mr Surabhai, to realize that all this was, for him, the core of the search. There might be explosives hidden in the house, there might be murderous revolutionaries in hiding nearby—but all that mattered was that he should get evidence of British brutality. He was of the old school of Indian politicians, who had developed this into a kind of game, which the British were kind enough to play with them. So, while my mind was obsessed with the real dangers, the visions of the diseased ‘rat i’ the arras’, poor dear Mr Surabhai led confidently to his set-piece—British officials and their Indian stooges viciously disturbing a sick woman in her seclusion.
‘Search the room,’ Lanson said angrily and muttered under his breath, ‘Damned farce!’ But he was wrong. The woman was a respectable member of the Congress group. She really was ill—Mr Surabhai wouldn’t be a party to any subterfuge. The screams were acting, but she was really in pain and was suffering, in mind and body, for the sake of India. It wasn’t farce. It was tragedy.
But Mr Surabhai thought it was drama. He cried, ‘Farce, you say? You will not find it any farce, no, nor drawing-room comedy high or low, when the photographs of this outrage are shown in all their infamous detail, I can tell you. Then you will say, “Blast!” nothing less.’
Govindaswami said to the woman, ‘I’m sorry you should lend yourself to this.’ She only stared at him, her lips tight and scornful.
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p; Govindaswami said, ‘Look under the bed. Then you’d better get the doctor to see her again, Surabhai. You may have done her real harm by moving her here.’
The sub-inspector got under the bed. Mr Surabhai stood tongue-tied in the middle of the very hot and overcrowded room, his eyes growing larger and larger until they were ready to pop out of his head, but no words came to relieve the pressure.
The handsome and distinguished-looking sub-inspector crawled out from under the charpoy with a lump of iron in his hand. He was very embarrassed from having a respectable lady just over him, and only on a string charpoy. To Lanson he said, ‘This, sahib, nothing else.’
Lanson turned the broken piece of fishplate over, then quickly fumbled in his pocket, got out a handkerchief, and wrapped one end of the fishplate in it. He held it under Mr Surabhai’s nose and said, ‘Did you put this there?’
Mr Surabhai stared at the black rusted blood, and the blond hairs sticking to it along one of the fishplate’s sharp edges. He whispered, That is—blood?’
Savage said, ‘Macaulay’s blood? Macaulay’s hair?’
Lanson shot him a quick, angry look. Mr Surabhai stammered, ‘M-murder! This is the same blunt instrument that committed murder?’
Of course it was. K. P. Roy hadn’t cleaned and buried the fishplate as he had said. He’d kept it, waiting to find the best opportunity to use it.
There was not enough air in there for me to breathe. I was beginning to suffocate. I wanted to scream that there was no need to get excited, because I had killed Macaulay and I had had good cause. It was necessary that I say something, because Mr Surabhai would have a stroke if I didn’t. Lanson was moving forward on him. But when I opened my mouth the hot, scented air rushed in and filled my whole head and my ears and nose, and blotted out the grimy light and the crowd, and the woman’s body swung slowly round with the bed, and up and up …
TWENTY-SEVEN
Ranjit was beside me again as I bowed before the holy book, as Ranjit’s had been the first face I saw when I recovered from fainting in that terribly smelly room below stairs in his mother’s house. His face had been above me, the fuzz of new beard growing like a halo round it, the cold metal of the new bangle on his wrist touching my neck. I had thought, He does love me, he’s left his mother upstaks and come running to me. I must have shrieked aloud.