He had an overwhelming desire to see Anasuyabehn once again, just to look upon her face. He told himself sardonically that one is permitted to look on the face of one’s dead. He did not wish to call on her; apart from it being too modern an idea for the Desais to accept, it would awaken again in her the despair she must have felt at having to go through with her marriage. But just to see her passing by was a gnawing need.
The servant came into the dining-room to inquire what he should do next, and Tilak instructed him to take his luggage to his rooms in the students’ hostel.
The servant looked scared, and whispered that perhaps the Sahib should not show himself there for the present. Wouldn’t a hotel be safer?’
Tilak told him roughly not to be a fool. The students were not going to hurt him. ‘For myself, I may stay a night or two with Bennett Sahib. I have to see him.’
Satisfied, the servant went away to find a porter.
After giving up his ticket, Tilak went through the barrier. He hesitated on the steps outside, and a motorcycle rickshaw drew up quickly by him. ‘Sahib?’ the man queried hopefully, revving his engine.
‘Do you know the Desai Society – the one in the city centre?’
‘Ji, hun. Everybody knows it.’
‘Right. Put me down fifty yards before you get to it.’
They drove through narrow alleyways thronged with people, then into an area where the alleys were little more than passages lined with the high boundary walls of various Societies. They came at last to a square which held the goldsmiths’ bazaar, and there the rickshaw wallah stopped.
He pointed to an archway on the other side of the square. ‘Through there, Sahib, is a vegetable bazaar. Opposite it, is the Desai Society’s gate.’
Tilak paid the man without comment. He had a shrewd suspicion that he had been taken on a tour of the old city and that probably there was a much shorter route from the station, but he could not be bothered to bargain; his mind was on Anasuyabehn.
Uncertain what to do, he walked through the archway and found the compound gate without difficulty. A few women and children were standing near the gate, sweepers or the very poor, and one or two professional beggars squatted with their backs against the Desais’ wall, their begging bowls in front of them. Tilak hastily crossed the tiny square and pretended to look through the vegetable bazaar.
‘What are the people waiting for?’ he asked a stallholder.
The stallholder told him of the great marriage just performed. Today, the rumour was that the bridegroom was going to take his bride on an aeroplane. He thought that the women were waiting, in case, at the time of departure, the Desais felt like giving a little more in charity.
As he was talking, a taxi came from the further side of the little square and drew up at the gate.
The compound gate was opened by a chowkidar, who immediately kicked one of the beggars to make him move out of the way. The grumbling beggar moved about six inches and then was forced to his feet by the rush of onlookers who closed in on the entrance. Tilak himself was propelled, not unwillingly, towards the gate by a couple of eager youths and three giggling country girls, and was soon hemmed in by a small crowd.
A servant put two suitcases into the taxi. Then a very old man in horn-rimmed spectacles was assisted in, while the crowd murmured in nervous awe; everyone knew of old Desai.
Surely, the bride would come now. The women pushed forward and Tilak, to his consternation, found himself to the front of the crowd with the beggar who had been so ignominously kicked, and rows of women pushing behind.
A murmur of women’s voices came from within the Society. Anasuyabehn, her face half obscured by her flowered silk sari, stepped on to the street, followed closely by a man in white khadi, who, Tilak presumed, was her husband. They were followed by several ladies and gentlemen who stood around the gateway. Anasuyabehn turned her head, as if to say goodbye to one of the ladies – and then she saw him.
For a moment she stood transfixed, the words of farewell unspoken. She lifted her sari further over her face to shield herself from the gaze of the jostling relations.
Oblivious of the reason for her momentary pause, Mahadev put his arm gently round her back to move her towards the taxi, and in the self-same second the beggar, knife in hand, lunged forward as if to stab her.
Tilak saw the knife flash as it was drawn and he leaped between them, taking the knife in his own back, as he and Anasuyabehn crashed to the ground.
She screamed as she fell and, in the rush of people towards her, the beggar turned and ran for his life.
A shocked Mahadev beheld a man with a knife in his back lying over his new bride. The crowd began to move hastily away, while the chowkidar lifted Tilak up slightly so that Mahadev could get at his wife. He pulled her free and lifted her to her feet. She was dust-covered and bruised, but was able to stand on her feet, one hand to her mouth, as Partner Uncle bent and very carefully withdrew the knife. He tore a light cotton shawl from round his neck and pressed it on the wound, while he shouted for someone to bring a string bed to carry the man into the compound.
From his more elevated position in the old-fashioned taxi, old Desai had watched with horror. Now he scrambled out and went to Mahadev. ‘Is she hurt?’ he asked anxiously.
Mahadev was gently wiping his wife’s bruised cheek. ‘No bones broken,’ he said. ‘The man seems to have taken most of the fall, somehow.’
Old Desai whipped round to look at his Partner Brother kneeling by Tilak. Partner Brother looked up and said, ‘He’s dead.’
Anasuyabehn turned her face into her husband’s shoulder, while a Desai aunt tried to persuade her back into the compound. Mahadev, his face deadly pale, held the shuddering young woman. ‘Wait a minute,’ he urged the aunt.
Old Desai turned back to his son. ‘Take your wife and go to the airport. Catch the plane. This is a police matter, and they’ll keep you here for weeks as a material witness. Your wife can tend her bruises and change her sari in the airport.’
Mahadev stared at him, overwhelmed for the moment by the sight of murder.
‘Go, boy, go,’ his father urged. ‘That knife was meant for you. Your wife nearly died instead of you, because just at the very second he struck, she moved in front of you. Seated in the taxi, I saw exactly what happened, and I fear there may be other dacoits nearby who will make a second attempt.’ He paused for breath, an old man fearing the loss of his eldest son. He caught at Mahadev’s sleeve. ‘Wake up, boy, and get into the taxi, quickly.’
Mahadev forced himself to speak firmly, as he wrapped Anasuyabehn’s sari end round her bruised arm. She was not weeping, only breathing heavily, her face almost colourless. He half-lifted her into the taxi and, when he followed her, she clung to him, burying her face in his shoulder. During the nights he had spent with her, he had been very gentle, making sure that she was pleasured. Last night, he thought with a sudden glow, she had turned willingly to him and had responded to his overtures.
Despite the shocked looks of two older ladies, who had scrambled into the taxi after him, he continued to hold her and to whisper to her not to be afraid; he would protect her.
Thankful to get away, the taxi driver hooted to persuade the stallholders, who had replaced the original crowd, to get out of his way while he turned in the small space.
At a point where the narrow street he was travelling debouched into a main thoroughfare, he was stopped by an armed policeman. The constable flung open all the doors, took a good look at the passengers, made sure no one was hiding under the seats, and then motioned them onwards.
Through his mirror, the driver saw a police jeep ease its way into the rabbit warren he had just left.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Immediately the police jeep was noticed coming down the lane, the stallholders shot back to their vegetables and began assiduously to rearrange them; the open-mouthed women pulled their plain white saris over their heads and became anonymous bundles hurrying through the far archway, fol
lowing their menfolk. After them ran a bunch of little urchins afraid of being left behind.
The old American army jeep slid to a stop on its smooth tyres, and the Bengali police chief leaped out. A constable dropped off the back of the vehicle and hammered on the door with his rifle butt. The iron bar across the inner side squeaked as it was turned, and the nervous chowkidar let in both the police chief and three constables.
Despite the melting away of possible witnesses, which he had observed as he came into the small bazaar, the Bengali was hopeful that he might now get a lead on the dacoits. In the back of his mind, he had rather expected that an attack might be made on Mahadev. The passengers in the held-up train would have seen only a vague collection of men with their faces covered; Mahadev had left his carriage and might easily have seen how they moved the loot.
Old Desai was amazed to see the police arrive so fast. He was in the process of going through Tilak’s pocket book, so that he could identify him when he himself telephoned the police.
‘I telephoned them as soon as I saw what had happened,’ his younger son told him.
The Bengali, as he approached and heard his remark, smiled with approbation on the stout accountant. ‘Very wise,’ he told him. ‘There are not many entrances to this area, and I sent men on bicycles to block them immediately.’ He shrugged, as he approached Tilak’s body, lying on a narrow bed in the shade of a loggia. ‘Of course, if the man climbed a wall and went through one of the Societies, we might not be lucky.’
Chairs and glasses of water were brought and, while his men lounged on the other side of the compound, the Bengali got down to detail. The contents of Tilak’s wallet had hardly yielded the letters about the Fellowship, which gave his name and Bombay address, before old Desai’s office telephone rang. A nervous clerk came to say that the police chief was wanted on the line.
The Bengali listened intently and said, ‘Charge him.’ He slammed the receiver down and came crossly back to the waiting Desais. While they waited, he sat down and lit a cigarette. At last, he addressed old Desai.
‘We’ve got the man. He ran into the arms of one of our men on his usual beat, struck the constable and was arrested for assaulting a police officer. He fits your description.’
Everybody present sighed with relief. The Bengali continued to stare at the body. Then he added, ‘He’s not a dacoit. He’s known to the beat constable. He was a shoe merchant on whom you foreclosed, and he’s been known to utter threats against you.’
‘I didn’t recognize him,’ said old Desai.
‘There’s a lot of difference between a well-to-do merchant and a mad, starving beggar,’ replied the Bengali and swung off his chair and on to his feet.
The group of men in front of him stiffened visibly, as they realized his contempt for them, in spite of their wealth.
The detective called his men over, and told them to bring a stretcher and remove the body.
He had seen a lot of death, had this small Bengali; yet it angered him that a man clever enough to obtain an English scholarship had died instead of one of these accursed moneylenders. His small, snakelike eyes regarded Desai. ‘You were fortunate that such a brave man was near. Otherwise, you would undoubtedly have lost your son.’
‘Yes,’ said Desai, who by this time was feeling that he had had as much as he could endure, ‘I am grateful to him – very grateful.’
Remorselessly, the Bengali then went on to upbraid him for allowing a material witness like Mahadev to depart from the country.
Old Desai was nearly sulky when he replied, ‘I was afraid there might be other dacoits in the crowd; they might have struck again. How was I to know he was only a debtor of ours?’
After warning old Desai to hold himself in readiness to attend the inquest and the subsequent trial, the detective followed his men swiftly out of the compound, and left the demoralized Desais to their own consciences.
As the stretcher-bearers lifted the stretcher to put it into a small van which had drawn up behind the jeep, the Bengali stopped them. He lifted the cloth laid over Tilak’s face and looked down at the beautiful, calm features. He was remembering a remark of one of the older ladies, when he asked if anyone knew the victim. She had said, ‘Our new daughter seemed to know him – she turned to look at him, before he was struck down.’
As he let the cloth drop, he muttered, ‘I wonder why you were in this unlikely part of town this morning? Was there a connection between you and the new bride?’
The puzzled bearers pushed the stretcher into the vehicle and slammed and locked the doors.
The Bengali returned to his jeep and climbed in beside the driver. He wondered if he had stumbled on a love affair as well as a murder, and, with all a Bengali’s understanding of the passions of human nature, he decided it was unnecessary to intercept the younger Desais at the airport; he could get a conviction without them. In his own mind he was certain that the victim had given his life for the sake of the girl – old Desai’s exact description of the movements of his son and his wife and the beggar at the moment of the tragedy made that fairly clear.
As his driver took him slowly through the ancient streets, he thought about Mahadev Desai and his new wife, and then about the fine scholar whose life had been so summarily ended. There was a story there, he was sure of it.
He threw his cigarette end out of the window and it was immediately pounced upon by a beggar. Who am I to muddy the water further, he asked himself angrily. Tilak Sahib, rest in peace; I’m going to hang the bastard that killed you; but it’s one of those cursed moneylenders who should be at the end of the rope – they drove him mad.
CHAPTER FORTY
The news of Tilak’s murder came too late for that day’s newspapers, and the Bengali police chief, taking his address from the letters found on him, informed only his family in Bombay. Neither John nor the barber who had come to cut his hair that afternoon, were, therefore, aware of it. John, however, was not in the best of tempers; he felt indescribably petulant and he had been unable to concentrate on his writings. The arrival of the barber had been a relief, and he limped out on to the veranda and sat down in his basket chair.
The barber wrapped a clean towel round his neck.
‘Have you got my comb and shaving brush?’ asked John. ‘I prefer them to yours.’ And he looked with distaste at the grubby shopping bag of barbering necessities lying on the veranda floor.
The barber looked pained and his beautifully waxed moustache twitched with irritation, but he answered, with a slight bow, ‘Of course, Sahib. Ranjit has brought everything, including hot water in your own lota.’ He pointed to the little brass vessel sitting on the veranda rail.
‘Good,’ grunted John. ‘Very well.’
The barber began to comb. Since all Englishmen have an unnatural interest in the weather, he talked about the weather. Diplomat, gossip, messenger, the barber studied all his customers, and, as he went from house to house and village to village, he retailed the news, views and scandal of the district, slanted according to the views he supposed his customer of the moment held.
‘Getting a little thin just here,’ he announced, planting an accusing finger on a non-existent bald patch amid the thick thatch on John’s head. He put down his comb and rummaged in his shopping bag.
‘To avoid losing one’s hair it’s important to oil it daily. Now I have here a new oil which many of my customers are finding most efficacious …’ and he waved a bottle in front of John’s nose.
John blinked as the bottle sailed dangerously near, but managed to read Asoka Medicinal Hair Tonic on a flower-decked label.
‘What does it smell like?’ he asked doubtfully.
The barber whipped out the cork and a tremendous perfume immediately enveloped them both.
‘I’d rather be bald,’ said John decisively.
The barber bit his lower lip and looked hurt, then he surveyed John’s head from the front, cocking his own head first on one side and then on the other. ‘Well, of course,
it doesn’t show in front,’ he said at last, ‘but it won’t be long.’
‘I couldn’t stand it,’ said John, all his sales resistance hastily marshalled. ‘Perfumes – er – perfumes make me sneeze,’ and he sneezed to demonstrate the fact.
The barber leaped out of range of any droplets, and said with a regretful sigh, ‘Pure mustard oil might help, though I think it’s really too far gone for that.’
Frown lines on John’s forehead warned him that his customer was getting irate.
‘Well, well, never mind,’ he said. ‘I expect you would like a shave, as usual, Sahib.’
‘Yes,’ John replied.
‘Ears cleaned? They need it – you’ve got hairs growing in them.’
‘Very well,’ his customer agreed resignedly.
‘Nice wedding Mehta Sahib had for his daughter,’ said the barber as his scissors clipped merrily.
‘I expect so,’ said John. ‘I didn’t go to the wedding – only to the reception for friends the next day.’
‘Oh, it was very fine indeed, though the number of guests was limited by the size of the compound. She has married a very fine gentleman – his toenails were clean and well clipped,’ he added as a professional detail.
‘Did you get the toe powdering job?’
‘Yes, indeed. I did his brother, too, when he was married.’
‘Decent tip?’
‘Fair, fair.’ The barber did a rapid run round John’s left ear with the scissors. ‘Of course, they’re moneylenders – but so rich, Sahib, it is unbelievable. You should have seen the gifts.’
‘I can imagine them.’ John ducked as the scissors shot across his forehead.
The Moneylenders of Shahpur Page 22