As if by Magic

by Angus Wilson

  Mr. Subramanian’s reactions were lost in a sudden pushing and shouting that nearly capsized Hamo’s long legs, as a group of youths shoved their way through the crowd; in a moment they had climbed on to the slender rim of the tank—four youths swaying a little in their delicate but sure balance with a sweet-spiced, warm breeze playing around them—and had begun to throw small stones at the helpless dugong. Most fell into the water and were dulled, but one caught the puzzled head and cut the skin above a nostril hole. Strange and horrible to see blood ooze out from fur-covered cardboard. Mr. Subramanian shouted louder than either Hamo or Erroll, perhaps to excuse his former hand-washing. In a moment, men among the crowd had secured three of the four youths for authority’s verdict, but the fourth, more slender, more agile, had swung himself from the parapet. Turning a moment his wonderful simian smile upon them, afraid yet mocking, he dived six feet into the water below.

  Hamo shouted, “Muthu! Muthu!” But, by the time he had forced his way through the jabbering excited crowd, Muthu was making his strong overarm strokes almost as a distant object through the smooth green waters. “We must get him back. Find out where the boy’s living, please, Mr. Subramanian. I must speak to him.”

  “Oh, let him go. I don’t intend to do more than reprimand these three others. They’re bred in a hard school, Mr. Langmuir. The R.S.P.C.A. means little in their lives. But I’ll order these men to release this creature in one of the lagoons near here. Who knows, poor cow she may find her way back to the herd. After all,” and he turned a shamed face into a laughing one, “I committed myself to the defence of the weak.”

  He turned to talk to the men, but Hamo with his huge strides was already running along the great causeway towards the disappearing figure. “Muthu!” he shouted. “Muthu!” Once it seemed to him that the youth hesitated for a moment and looked back, but surely the eyes showed only fear, for he immediately redoubled his strong swimming and was soon only a distant point in the far-stretching waters.

  When Hamo returned, six men had lifted the great tank and were carrying it shoulder-high, but the puzzled look in the dugong’s eyes was no different. We supply our own puzzles. This one at least would be registered for posterity on Erroll’s film.

  “It’s hard to think that mermaids appeared like that,” Mr. Subramanian said.

  “Look, I must speak to you about the boy who swam off. I have reason to . . .”

  Erroll interrupted, “Isn’t there a Scotch phrase—something about the end of an old song? If there isn’t, there should be.”

  Mr. Subramanian was puzzled, “Oh, you mean the mermaid’s song,” he said.

  The Chief knows what I mean.” Erroll spoke in tones so harsh and abrupt, even fierce, that Hamo believed he could actually hear the breaking of some link between them. But he couldn’t afford to repair it now.

  “I must explain to you, Mr. Subramanian,” he said, turning his back on Erroll to exclude him from the confidential stance he took up with his Tamil host, “that that boy who swam off is a boy from Colombo. He’s called Muthu. He was in the service of some, well, acquaintances of mine. And he ran away. Largely through my fault. It is vital that someone should persuade him to return.”

  “Oh,” said Mr. Subramanian. “You are the Englishman. I know the boy. He was in our service in Colombo. A few days ago he turned up here asking my wife for work. But his manner was very strange. He talked of some British gentleman. In any case, we have servants here from our own people. And also my wife does not care to employ anyone who has been with a Singhalese family. They spoil their servants, you know.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. I only know that I feel very responsible for his running away and I believe that he has no family.”

  Mr. Subramanian seemed about to lead the way back to the car, but Hamo’s agitation defied his reluctance to become involved.

  “This is not the kind of thing I care to be mixed up with. But you are a V.I.P., as the official gentleman from Colombo so repeatedly reminded me. More importantly you doubled our rice harvest. I shall do what I can to trace the boy. But it will take many days, if it can be done at all.”

  Hamo got out his cheque book and pen and he began to write. Mr. Subramanian raised his eyebrows.

  “Perhaps you will add a few pounds to recompense the men for the dugong.”

  It was hard to know whether he was speaking ironically. “By the way, will you be kind enough to say nothing of this to my wife? Our women are not broad-minded as they are in England, I am rather happy to say.”

  As they sat in the car, Hamo ostentatiously took out Alexandra’s letter from his wallet. Reading it, he composed a letter to his great-uncle: “Dear Uncle James, I believe that you have received an application from a young man named Rodrigo Knight for the post of . . . I cannot believe that you could do better than to give him a trial . . .” If Alexandra wanted it done, he should do it. If the young man was a good thing then it would enable them to marry as they should; if he was a bad thing, Uncle James’s testing authority would soon reveal his weaknesses to all, including Alexandra. It made him feel a bit better, in face of this Tamil chap’s disapproval, to be remembering his authority with someone so weighty in the world of affairs as his great-uncle.

  But then, sadness overwhelmed him. He knew why he was sad, even if he couldn’t exactly say what that sadness meant—like the victims of the mermaids of the Rhine. The Commander’s breezy shanty came back to him:

  The boy across the river has a bottom like a peach,

  But alas I cannot swim.

  And something sadder from his schooldays:

  Children dear, was it yesterday, call once more,

  that he went away?

  or something like that.

  *

  Ahead of him, directly in sight, as they bumped, interminably, and too fast he thought, along the dusty road, was always the chauffeur’s thick, bristly neck. He had occupied many long stretches of time, when silence seemed the only dignified way of expressing his growing anger, by counting and recounting the little pits, some black-headed, some not, in this neck—the counts never came to the same figure, but then he could never remember exactly what he had fixed as the qualification for a pit on previous rounds. The figure was about twenty-five. Sometimes, to break the charged silences, and sometimes, to stem the many and unaccommodating questions that poured out when Hamo’s anger burst into flooding words, Mr. Padmanabhan or some such name, anyway the annoying man who had taken charge of him at Tanjore, would indicate once again the great rock that always dominated the endless flat distance ahead of them.

  “They say it is like a three-headed demon, Mr. Langmuir. But I can’t see it. I think you must be an artist or a magician to see such shapes.”

  Occasionally, but decreasingly as Hamo made his loss of temper apparent, he added, hopefully, “But of course, I forget, you are a magician.”

  For a good two hours Hamo had kept his eyes steadfastly on this rock, for there, at Trichinopoly, he was to take plane and leave for what might (Good heavens! to be thinking in such terms) prove the better because more revolutionary state of Kerala. Right-wing Madras, go-ahead right-wing capitalist Madras, for there were areas so Right that they banished his Magic altogether from their conserved peasant economy. Anyway, Right, Left, for in some such ridiculous terms had he now been reduced by events to thinking—Left, Right; left, right. A refrain that was only not futile in an emergency, when a dark age threatened once more to engulf decency and knowledge, when men like his father had to put on uniform, drill and go to war. Left, right—silly enough terms when some lunatics to catch votes started to set up Ministries of Technology, to lay down interfering plans for national research, or with ignorant or, worse, half-ignorant committees, attempted to interfere with the Institute’s budget; but in such a cliff-hanging world as India, where in a second the sea or the opening ground can swallow up all, to be confronted with such silly sheep-dip marks—red, put your mark here, and so on. It was an outrage! His ow
n voting came back to him, for he had felt the ritual necessary since it was part of the English scheme of life—three times Conservative and once Labour; once, too, Liberal, but he regretted that gesture, it had had a senseless theatricality . . . But now, once again, he recalled the little group of young men with their foolish banner, or only foolish really because it was ragged, but then they were all in rags in these parts, the foolish and the weak . . . they had been hustled away when they wished to speak to him, and, for he could not get away from it, he had been, however politely, hustled away from them. Pulses he had not known to be in him—at the temples, beneath the ears—throbbed as his anger rose again. Whatever the rights or wrongs of it, it was clear that the Right was not all right here, had something to hide. He forced himself to speak very deliberately.

  “Mr. Padmanabhan, do I understand correctly that the owners of the large estates we saw today are absentee landlords?”

  “Yes, Mr. Langmuir. That is right.” The weariness of the reply grew each time, no doubt as a rebuke. “As you had in Ireland, I think. Or today in the U.K. many businessmen are investing in farming.”

  “Yes, yes, but that’s to do with income tax and making a loss.”

  “In India we have no money to lose.”

  Hamo heard for the first time in many weeks laughter that had no shy giggling intermixed.

  “No, Mr. Langmuir, thanks to your Magic, rice growing is now very profitable. Many of our richest men, our most responsible citizens are interested in farming. And so we can feed our great city populations. This is our chief problem.”

  “But these responsible citizens have taken away the small-holdings of all these people . . .”

  “Taken away? Come, Mr. Langmuir, I don’t think sociology suits you, Sir. How can a scientist who has trebled our crop by his mutation wish to preserve this farming where mass selection, all varieties mixed together—the more kinds the prouder these peasants are—has led to decades of deterioration of grain. I don’t understand how you favour such things.” He looked at once earnest and desperate. “Mr. Langmuir, nobody supposes that we are bringing the millennium—is that what you say? But we bring prosperity to some and, with prosperity, education and, with education, birth control. Then less people, less bad stock, less hopeless cases.”

  “Ah,” said Hamo. He felt ashamed of all his roles, as they had been and as they were. Mr. Padmanabhan perhaps sensed this, for his hard-pressed courtesy took on a teasing note that was hardly disguised aggression.

  “Now, I should like to ask you many questions in your field. Is the D.N.A. the same as the life-force? for example. But I don’t ask them, because I know that they will seem foolish to you. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I am afraid they would. But it’s not the same thing. If I understood that little man aright, these people have just lost all they have, because a mutation in rice that I induced has produced a sort of farming from which they are excluded.”

  “Not excluded, Mr. Langmuir. But these peasants are often very foolish. They borrow money from the village money-lenders, the jotedars. They get into debt. The crop is too small, the holdings are too small. This is hopeless cases. Now we have, for example, a system of traditional leasing by payment in kind, batai. If these men . . .”

  “Nevertheless, from what that little man said . . .”

  “Mr. Gupta’s English is very poor. I think you misunderstood him. In any case he is not of this country. He is from the North. He does not understand how hopeless many of our peasants here . . . These people can all have employment on the big farms.”

  “Yes, at such wages it seems that only those in rags will accept. And so when the less ragged ones tried to hold out for better pay, there was fighting. And people were killed. With mattocks. That’s true, isn’t it?”

  Oh, if only Erroll’s faithful Cockney tones could come to calm him, to prevent such an outburst. But Erroll was far away, had had enough for the time being; and then this man Coates . . .

  Mr. Padmanabhan said, “The story is very garbled. It was all some time ago. I shall get the Ministry to send you a full account of the affair since you wish it. Please say nothing until you have read the facts. By the way, you know, I suggest you do not speak of people in rags. These are their clothes. They are very poor.”

  And, indeed, Hamo could not think why the word “rags” was so tenacious. Something he had seen, something he was avoiding, somewhere in the swim of his vision . . .

  He turned his eyes firmly to the car side-window and confronted it. All along the roadside sat cross-legged, wrinkled, toothless old women, rows of their withered soles turned towards him like one of their temple friezes. The skimpy rags, yes rags . . . of cotton that served to clothe them seemed often insufficient to hide their stringy paps; yet their skull-like grey heads were always decently veiled. Before them, in the dust and cow dung, were squares of rag, extensions of themselves, and on these arranged in lines, drying in the sun, rows of rice grains, some scarlet, most ivory white, all wretched and quite un-Magical. Before he turned away in misery, he realized that the chauffeur, in avoidance of two great dewlapped cows lying in the road, had driven over two or three of these little rice hoards. He seized the man’s shoulder.

  “For God’s sake! Watch what you’re doing.”

  The driver turned in alarm and in so doing swerved towards the second cow. Mr. Padmanabhan cried out. Just in time, the car avoided the beast. But sacrilege had been close enough to rouse shouts from the crowds by the roadside. One of the old women shook her fist. Mr. Padmanabhan said something in command to the chauffeur. They increased their speed and were away in clouds of dust. Mr. Padmanabhan said nothing to Hamo.

  *

  “Look at them dipping. Like huge birds, cranes or something, feeding in the water. Beautiful. Clean lines too. Just like those Chinese drawings you see. And you won’t believe it, they are Chinese. Seems the Chinese came here fishing centuries ago. And they’ve kept the design of the nets. Very old place this, you know.”

  “Yes,” Hamo said, “I did know. All the same, it’s very peaceful.”

  He leaned back in the cushions of the cane and mahogany chaise-longue. He knew that what he had said must sound contradictory, but Erroll had startled him from a half-sleep, and he could not explain that in the peace of this tiny island, of this finely proportioned Dutch house, of this huge over-hanging bread-fruit tree with its great shiny fretted leaves, of the miles of blue water beneath the endless blue sky, he was minute by minute shedding the desperate sense of ageing that had weighed him down in the last months of disillusioning bustle. “Did you say birds? What birds?”

  “No, no birds. I was just saying how those Chinese nets looked like birds.”

  “What Chinese nets?”

  “Oh!” Erroll had clearly been brought to a surprised stop.

  A moment later he asked, “Haven’t you really seen the nets going up and down out there from the shores of that cape towards the ocean?”

  Hamo, once more dozing, forced himself to peer out across the vast bay towards the narrow neck of water that led to the sea.

  “Yes. I do see them. Like huge shrimp nets. Though I shouldn’t care to eat the fish brought up out of this bay, however colourful the water. A lazy life, too. Dipping and hauling in your livelihood. But that’s Asia all over. Some people live a lotus existence, others starve their life out scratching a bit of rock to make seed grow.” Seeking to dismiss the whole subject in easy generality, he fidgeted with the cushions. “Has Coates taken his film crew to Cochin? Why didn’t you go? He asked me, but I really know nothing about these Jews.”

  Erroll made no answer, but, after a silence, he said, “Look. It’s not for me to criticize and that. But I’m worried about you, Chief. Honestly I am. You’ve come all this way and all you can do is to belly-ache about the social conditions. In this wonderful country! Not to say the Philippines, not to say Thailand, not to say Java, not to say Malaya, not to say Ceylon. Living conditions, starving poor, exploited masses.
I don’t know. It began all right in the States and in Japan. Or I think so. And in Darwin everything seemed fine. But now. After all, every day’s a revelation in these places—something new to see, quite little things sometimes, even things that we’ve got at home but you wouldn’t notice them there, and then great extraordinary things like those nets sticking out from the shore. And you don’t even see them! I’m getting all the kicks and you’re paying for it all. After all, we came here part to see the labs and part to enjoy ourselves. Or so you kindly said. Well, we’ve seen some labs and I’ve enjoyed myself. But what have you done? Walked around a lot of muddy paddy-fields and got yourself a bloody conscience. At first I thought, why not? They make a fuss of him and he likes it. But you don’t, do you? First it was agricultural conditions. Now, judging by these interviews you’ve given to the papers here, it’s reached politics. It’s not my affair. But I don’t think you know what you’re getting into.” He looked at Hamo in enquiry, only to find him nodding his head in agreement. Erroll shrugged his shoulders. “Honestly, you’re hopeless.”

  “Yes,” said Hamo, “I am among that sad class. And to answer your other observations: It isn’t. And I don’t.”

  “Well, then, why don’t you take a rest? There’s nothing you can do to help the poor buggers. It’s the same the whole world over—and you can’t alter it. Stop here and rest for a few days. No larks and no lamentations. Just sun and sleep. Doctor Watton’s prescription.”

  “That’s just exactly what I am doing, Erroll.”

  “Good. Well, you couldn’t have chosen a better place.”

  Hamo lay back among the cushions. He looked up for a time at the intricately shaped glossy dark green. On one of the leaves a mantis bright as grass in Technicolor was in prayer. He tried to give himself up to the shapes, to the contrasting colours. But they brought no thoughts, no satisfactions. He gazed across the smooth water to the line of the coast. A staring white splash must be one of these Roman Catholic churches. Baroque, perhaps, or modern. Roman Catholicism seemed as flourishing now as then, or, then as now. He tried to make another sort of connection—the mantis in attitude of prayer, the kneeling fishermen in the church. But there was no satisfaction. Anyway the Jews, here from very ancient times, it seemed, had almost all left. He closed his eyes and dozed.