Monkey Wars (8 page)

M
ico had come to really enjoy the night exercises.

Once he'd learned to conquer his fear of the dark, he found that in many ways night was the soldier's friend. Although it was harder to see the enemy, it was easier to find hiding places, and because there was much less noise, it was possible to use each sound to read the darkness.

Tonight's exercise was a solo mission, “Going to Ground.” Mico had to dig himself into the undergrowth and stay there until dawn. At some point the instructors would come looking for him, and he had to try and avoid detection.

Judging by the position of the moon, Mico reckoned he was about halfway through. He'd made a shelter in a secluded corner between a collapsed headstone and the gully that ducted fresh water into the Great Vault. It had all gone pretty smoothly apart from the group of cockroaches that had tried to invade his camp, but after he'd eaten a few, they got the message and retreated. Now he was just sitting and waiting for any sign of the instructors.

It was a subtle splash, but Mico's ears immediately pricked up. He had listened to the steady babble of the water in the gully long enough to detect even the slightest change in sound.

He spun round and pulled back into the shadows, ears straining to track every movement.

Someone seemed to be wading down the gully toward him; their approach was cautious, as if they were checking every shadow.

Mico had expected the instructors to approach through the trees, as he'd assumed they wouldn't want to get their fur wet, but he'd obviously misjudged them. Quickly he worked out a plan: he'd wait until they were nearly on him then he'd slip out, double back and hide under a tomb they'd already checked. Whatever happened, he was determined not to get caught.

The splashing got closer and closer; they weren't changing their course—this was going to be easy.

Mico picked up a palm leaf and bored a small hole in it; then, lifting the leaf to his face, he leaned forward and peered down the gully. The leaf trick was something they'd just learned; it meant the whites of his eyes couldn't be seen and it was surprisingly effective.

He inched forward without a sound until he could see along the entire length of the stream…

Then he froze in shock.

Wading toward him was a small rhesus monkey up to her chest in water.

Cold dread seized Mico, the fur on his back bristled, he felt his heart start to pound…the enemy was
here
!

If this was an attack, he should raise the alarm. But if he moved they'd surely pounce on him.

They?

Mico looked again. The rhesus was alone. And far from being savage and dangerous, she looked rather vulnerable.

Suddenly she stopped, looked around cautiously, then climbed out of the stream and darted into the undergrowth.

Mico immediately followed. He had to track her, find out exactly what kind of sabotage she was planning. The rhesus was quick, and she seemed to know exactly where she was going. Dodging from shadow to shadow, she made her way to the perimeter wall, where she disappeared into the bushes.

Mico crept down the path. He could hear the rustling of leaves as she clambered through the dense shrubs. She obviously hadn't been taught the art of silent approach, unlike Mico, who slipped into the bushes and picked his way through the tangle of vegetation…

Creeping up on the rhesus, undetected…

Closer and closer…

Until he glimpsed her fur in the moonlight. Incredibly, she was crouched by the same niche in the wall Mico had discovered, and she was slowly unwrapping the little bamboo bundle, until she held the monkey carving in her hand.

Mico watched as she gazed at the three little monkeys longingly, running her fingers gently over the carved figures.

Instinctively he knew she wouldn't harm him.

Despite his oath of allegiance to Lord Gospodar, despite the punishments he risked, Mico couldn't help feeling that he wanted to help this rhesus. She was not a savage barbarian, but a frightened and lonely young monkey.

“So it was yours?” he whispered.

Papina spun round, fear pulsing through her body.

Mico pulled a branch aside, revealing his face. “I've been looking after it for you.”

Panic and confusion gripped Papina. She stumbled back, then turned and bolted toward the path.

“Wait!” Mico urged. But it was no use, he could hear her feet scampering away. He had to stop her or she'd run right into one of the night patrols, and then she'd be in real trouble.

Darting out of the shrubs, he leaped over a row of tombs and landed on the path in front of her.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?!”
he hissed.

Papina lashed out with her fists, trying to knock him out of the way, but Mico grabbed her arms.

“I won't harm you! But you have to be quiet!”

She stopped struggling and looked at him, her eyes searching his face for a clue to his intentions.

“You used to live here, didn't you?” Mico asked. “This was your home.”

“Until you destroyed it!” Papina retorted angrily.

Mico shook his head. “Not me.”

Papina looked him up and down. She knew he was too young to have been involved, but in her mind all langurs were guilty.

Mico pointed to the carving that she clasped in her hand. “What does it mean?”

The simple directness of the question caught Papina off guard. “Nothing. It doesn't mean anything. It's just a toy.”

She surrendered it to Mico as if handing over contraband, but he shook his head. “It's yours. Keep it.”

Kindness was the last thing Papina was expecting. She scrutinized Mico, noticing his soft eyes, not the eyes of the killers she'd been warned about.

Too proud to say thank you, Papina went instead for an explanation. “My father gave it to me. He stole it from a market stall. He said it was our family.”

Suddenly there was a deep sadness in Papina's eyes.

“Are they with you?” asked Mico.

“My mother's alive. My father…” She didn't need to finish the sentence. “I came back to see it one last time…where we lived.”

Mico shook his head. “It's impossible. Guards patrol all the main runs. If they found a rhesus…” Now it was his turn to leave the words unsaid.

But Papina had come too far to give up. “I miss him so much. I thought maybe I could find out what happened to him after he came back.”

A dreadful foreboding stirred in Mico's guts. “He came back after the battle?”

“Yes,” Papina said, daring to hope. “To try and set things right. He put the Universal Sign of Peace on his forehead.”

Mico hesitated as he remembered the male rhesus being butchered by the cemetery wall.

“Tell me,” Papina urged. “Please.”

“Your father was killed.” Mico said the words as gently as he could, but he saw Papina's face tense with pain.

“How?”

“Does it matter?”

She felt sick, but if she didn't find out the truth, she'd be condemned to spend the rest of her life wondering. “I need to know what happened.”

They made a strange sight creeping through the cemetery from shadow to shadow. Papina trusted Mico enough to follow his every move, freeze when he did, dart when he darted, yet she maintained a cautious distance between them, as if she suspected he might turn on her at any moment.

Finally they emerged by the section of the wall where Mico had found the bloody handprint.

The rain had long since washed the stain from the stones, but it would take more than the weather to erase the disturbing memories.

“This is where your father died.”

“How? How did it happen?”

“They chased him, from down there.” Mico pointed along the path. “They ambushed him.”

He saw a numbing wave of despair overwhelm Papina, but still she pressed on. “Did it last long?”

Mico shook his head. “He tried to talk to them; he said he had a family.”

Papina slumped onto her haunches.

“I'm sure his last thoughts were of you.”

In the silence of the night, Papina felt something inside her break, something that would never fully heal. She stared up at Mico; she should hate him, but as she looked into his eyes she realized that he shared her pain, that he felt the horror as keenly as she did.

Suddenly Mico tensed—he could hear movement down one of the paths. The night patrol.

“You have to go!”
he whispered urgently, pulling her back into the shadows.

As they retraced their steps, all Mico's training kicked in; he circled around the guards, doubling back, darting for the places they'd just checked. It was as if he was still on the night exercise, only this time his hand clasped his enemy's in a strange bond of trust—two monkeys betraying their own sides for something they didn't yet understand.

Eventually they made it back to the gully where Mico helped Papina slip into the water.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“I'm sorry…for everything,” Mico whispered.

But both knew the guilt and the blame lay elsewhere.

Then as Papina turned to go, Mico blurted out, “Tomorrow there won't be as many patrols.”

Papina looked at him uncertainly.

“They've finished the night exercises for a while. Perhaps…pe
rhaps you could tell me what life used to be like in the cemetery?”

Papina knew that Twitcher would be furious, but she couldn't let go of this last remaining thread that connected her to her father.

Sensing her confusion, Mico reached out and touched her hand gently. “I'll protect you. I promise.”

Despite everything she'd been told about the langur, Papina believed him. “All right, tomorrow.”

Then she turned and waded along the gully into the darkness.

“I
t's madness! You can't go back!”

For once Twitcher didn't hide behind a wry comment; he told Papina exactly what he thought. But she had already made up her mind; seeing the tree-lined avenues in the cemetery, rich with the distinctive sweet mosses that grew on the tombs, was like paying tribute to her father, and that felt good.

In any case, she told Twitcher the monkey she'd met was nothing like the langur thugs that everyone described; Mico could easily have betrayed her, but he hadn't.

“Exactly!” admonished Twitcher. “That's how cunning they are. He's probably trying to lure us
all
back so he and his pals can finish us off!”

Papina shook her head. “Spare me the hysterics. It wasn't like that.”

Twitcher growled impatiently and darted down an alley behind the trolleybus depot. They were nearly back at Temple Gardens now and he was starting to regret ever helping Papina. She was just the sort of monkey to have memorized the route from one outing, just the sort of willful character to attempt the journey on her own.

And that was exactly what happened.

The following night, Papina steeled her nerves and set off on the lonely journey across the restless city that was struggling to sleep under a blanket of humid air. Her courage was rewarded—b
efore long she found herself by the feeder pool in the cemetery wall.

This time there was no hesitation—she dived straight into the water, swam through the submerged hole and emerged into the gully…to find Mico already waiting for her.

He was determined that Papina should come to no harm, and had secretly found out from his father's counting stones about the rostering of the guards and the new schedule for the night exercises, so he knew exactly which areas of the cemetery to avoid.

As Papina shook the water from her fur, she tossed Mico a glistening pebble. “We used to hide them at the bottom of the pool. I thought you might like it.”

Mico turned the pebble over in his hand, admiring the flecks of color that glinted in the moonlight.

“My father would really love you!” he smiled.

And so began a secret friendship.

Mico and Papina started to meet every night, and she told him all about how life used to be when the cemetery had been home to the rhesus. As they stole around the dark paths she showed him the tomb where she had grown up, and the trees where her father had taught her to climb; she recounted how the Great Vault used to be a huge adventure playground, and she smiled wistfully as she remembered the long afternoons spent playing there, chasing shadows and digging up ants just for fun.

At other times, unable to roam for fear of running into the night patrol, Mico and Papina would stick close to the gully, which is when she told him all about the carved monkeys.

“The one covering its eyes is my father,” she explained. “So that he doesn't see where I'm going when we play hide-and-seek. The monkey covering its ears is me, stopping anyone from grooming my ears because I'm so ticklish. And this one is my mother.” She pointed to the monkey with its hands over its mouth. “She can do this trick where she blows through her fingers to make it sound like my name is floating on the breeze. She'd do that to wake me gently when I'd dozed off in the afternoon.”

The world Papina described was a far cry from the cemetery that Mico inhabited, and the more she saw of langur life, the more she understood why the troop was so successful. But success wasn't the same as happiness, and she wanted to show Mico a different way of life.

She waited until they were busy hunting for frogs one night, then nonchalantly asked, “Just for a change, why don't you come and see where I live?”

Mico blinked nervously. She pretended not to notice his anxiety and added, “After all, why is it always me who has to make the journey?”

Wild thoughts rushed into Mico's mind: Papina had been sent as a spy and had identified him as a weak link. She was feeding back valuable intelligence about guard patrols and defenses. Even as they spoke, rhesus attack squads were massing, ready to launch a devastating strike on the cemetery, and it would all be his fault—

“Are you all right?”

Mico jumped with a start as Papina touched his hand.

“You suddenly looked a bit queasy.”

Mico looked into her open face. No spy could be this good—a traitor's gaze wouldn't be so steady, her hand so cool and dry.

“I'm sorry. It's just…” But how could he explain without insulting her?

“What have they told you? That we're all monsters?” she quipped. But Mico looked at her earnestly.

“They really told you
that
?!” she exclaimed.

Mico nodded. For a moment Papina didn't know what to say; then she just burst out laughing at the absurdity of it. Mico tried to hush her up, but Papina couldn't stop. He leaped over to her and put his hand across her mouth, trying to suppress the noise.

“Tell me the truth!” he demanded.

“Come and see for yourself!” Papina retorted, pulling away, not wanting to make this any easier for him. “I trusted you. I put my life in your hands. Are you willing to do the same for me?”

The challenge had been laid down—Mico knew that if he didn't agree to go, it would be the end of their friendship.

“So you're not…I mean, you've never…They told us about cannibalism.”

Papina's eyes went wide. “Do I look like a cannibal?”

Even though he'd never met any cannibals, Mico had to admit he'd be surprised if they were as pretty as Papina. He shook his head.

“Good,” she said decisively. “We're all set. Tomorrow night I'll take you home.” Then she added under her breath, “Should keep the family fed for a few days.”

“What?!” exclaimed Mico.

“Sorry, couldn't resist,” said Papina as she dissolved into another fit of the giggles.

The next day passed nervously. Mico practiced his military drills, hoping to prepare for whatever dangers lay out in the city, but one of the sternest tests of his courage came before he'd even left the cemetery. He had very little experience of bathing, let alone diving underwater, and he couldn't hide his anxiety about plunging into the pool.

“Just hold your breath, keep your eyes open and head for the hole in the wall,” instructed Papina when she met him by the gully.

“Just?” thought Mico ruefully. Why do they always put “just” before the really difficult things in life? But he was not a quitter, and steeling his nerves, he took the deepest breath he could muster and plunged into the water.

Immediately he felt himself getting pushed back by the current; he tried to open his eyes, but the water stung and all he could see was a blurry confusion. Suddenly water was rushing up his nose and he started to panic. Just when he thought he wasn't going to make it, a hand grabbed his fur and hauled him up. Next thing he knew he was bursting to the surface in the pool outside the cemetery.

“Don't worry, first time's always the worst.” Papina smiled.

Mico coughed the water from his airways.
The first time?
How often did she think he was going to do this? But the one thing Mico was starting to learn about Papina was that she was very determined.

As they made their way through the city streets, Mico's eyes darted about nervously, checking every shadow.

Trying to make him relax, Papina started pointing out various landmarks across Kolkata, and even though she was just repeating things that Twitcher had told her, she liked playing the role of a worldly monkey. When they were halfway there, she darted through an archway and down an alley that opened onto a small piece of scrub ground dotted with beekeepers' sheds.

“Fancy a treat?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer, scrambled over the fencing and headed toward the hives.

The bees were silent in their hives, but it still made Mico nervous to be near such deadly insects. Anxiously he crept closer, until he found Papina sitting under one of the hives that had a long dribble of honey running down its front leg. She dipped her finger into the honey and offered it to Mico.

“Here…Try some.”

The taste exploded in his mouth, sending waves of pleasure through his body; it was so much more powerful than the sweetness of fruit.

“How do the humans do it?” he asked. “Why don't the bees sting them?”

“They've got special clothes.” She pointed to the netted hats hanging on the side of the shed. “But they look pretty stupid when they wear them.”

Mico swung over to have a closer look, then plucked one of the hats down and plonked it over his body, vanishing completely under the nets. Papina started giggling, which set Mico off as well—this honey was pretty strong stuff.

Buzzing from the sugar, they set off again, and by the time dawn was glimmering in the sky they were just a couple of streets away from Temple Gardens.

Instinctively Mico hung back. “Maybe this is far enough.”

“Oh no. You're not backing out now,” Papina said as she reached under a market stall to retrieve a squashed pomegranate.

Mico knew he must be out of his mind to be doing this—time and again dire warnings of rhesus barbarity had been drilled into him, yet here he was, about to walk right into the heart of their territory.

Papina squeezed the pith between her fingers and started to make a white mark on Mico's forehead—the Universal Sign of Peace.

“That won't help,” Mico said. The sign hadn't saved Papina's father; why would it save him?

“Trust me.” But Papina could feel the tension under his fur. “When I came to the cemetery, you promised to protect me.” She clasped his hand and whispered, “The promise works both ways.”

A few moments later, they were standing on the edge of Temple Gardens, Mico gazing up in wonder at the enormous statue of the monkey god. But if Papina was expecting his first question to be about Hanuman, she was wrong.

“Where's the wall?” he asked.

“What wall?”

“To protect you, to keep other monkeys out?”

“But we don't want to keep monkeys out,” Papina replied with disarming simplicity.

She waved her arm across the tranquil gardens. “So, do they look like monsters?”

Mico remained silent; everywhere he looked, he saw rhesus monkeys fast asleep, in the trees, under the shrubs, in the nooks and crannies of the statue.

“Do savages sleep so peacefully?” Papina wanted an admission from Mico that he'd been wrong.

Mico wasn't convinced—they might be peaceful now, but when they woke and found a langur in their midst it could turn very ugly. He looked up at the sky where the light streaks were getting broader by the heartbeat.

“I have to go back.”

“No! Not yet.”

“There's no time—”

“How do you know we're not cannibals unless you stay for breakfast?” Papina demanded.

“But my parents will think I've gone missing!”