It would take Mr Wilson a little time to get a successor for him here; not enough to run down the thakur’s murderers though. That job was begun, and he could only leave it to the new man to carry on, if the fellow had the courage. He shook his head, while Mr Wilson watched him closely. It wasn’t a question of courage. From the beginning -- and the woman at the pyre whom he had not allowed to die was the beginning -- he had been bound to this thing by special, personal chains. It had controlled not only his mind but his heart, and even his hands. Because of the woman at the pyre the little man Hussein had come to him, the man so simple that he preferred a red coat to the embrace of a goddess. No chance for Hussein to get a smart official coat through William’s help now.
He said, ‘Very well, sir. I presume I am to stay until you have appointed a successor and he has had time to come here?’
Mr Wilson’s strong face was almost respectful. He said gruffly, ‘Yes. It will be a few weeks, I expect. I will move as quickly as I can.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ William stopped abruptly and Solomon stopped purring. William said, ‘India holds us accountable . . . Won’t you go to the drawing-room, sir? Mary will be with you in a minute.’
He turned his back, pushed open the windows, slipped out, and walked across the garden. The door of his shed was unlocked and he opened it and went in. By the fitful light of flares and bonfires and rockets he found the oil lamp and lit it. He took a large block of teak and a chisel and began to work with single, expert strokes of the mallet. He had Mary, and his body growing in her, and his love in her. All the rest was gone. He would make a cradle, on traversely placed rockers, delicate, to move at Mary’s touch, but so heavy and strong it would not tip over whatever the child did.
He did not hear Mary come into the shop but knew in a minute that she was there. He said over his shoulder, ‘You haven’t left your father alone, have you?’
‘He’s gone to bed. When I went to the drawing-room he just kissed me and shook his head and went to bed. I think he knew I’d been listening. He looked very puzzled.’
William grunted and went on with his work. Mary did not use much perfume, but an alien sweetness of cologne water had come in with her to mix with the tang of the wood. The shop was so small that she seemed to be looking over his shoulder. He struck a shade too hard with the mallet and muttered, ‘Damn!’ Simultaneously Mary said, ‘Hadn’t we better talk about this?’ He said, ‘Please leave me alone.’ She was all he had, but the piece of wood was shapeless still, and she could not see what it would become.
She snapped back, ‘I’m concerned in this too! We’ve got to do something, quickly, about catching the murderers, not waste any time in here.’
He put down chisel and mallet and turned sadly to look at her. She was so young and strong. He ran his hand down the side of his head, over his hair and cheek and neck. She began to cry, and leaned forward, and burrowed her head into his chest. ‘I’m -- I’m sorry, darling. It’s the baby. I want him b-born here in Madhya.’
‘He? She!’ he said softly, stroking her hair.
She jerked up her head, shaking off his caressing hand. He stood away from her, deeply hurt. She was listening to something. After a minute she said, ‘I could have sworn I heard someone’s voice, speaking in Hindustani. Do you think it’s Hussein? Oh, I hope he comes! It was so faint it might have been inside my head. This baby!’
She was frightened, and he went over to the door and opened it and looked across the garden. He heard the voice plainly, but so low that he too could not tell in truth whether it came in through his ear or originated inside his head. Yet it had none of the sibilance of a whisper; it was a speaking voice, lower than he might ever have imagined, except that he had heard it before.
‘This is Hussein. Have your servants gone to bed, and the Bara-sahib?’
The hairs stood up on the nape of William’s neck. The sourceless voice chilled him. Could he answer an inner spirit?
Pulling himself together, he whispered hoarsely. ‘Where are you?’
‘Behind the door.’
‘The servants have gone to their quarters. The Bara-sahib is in bed.’
‘Go over to the house, the drawing-room. This shed is too like a box-trap. I’ll follow. When you get there, do not light a lamp.’
William caught Mary’s hand, muttered, ‘It is Hussein,’ and blew out the light. They walked mechanically towards the bungalow, went through the back door and along the passage and into the drawing-room. Mary stood in the middle of the room. William opened the french windows and stepped back beside her.
He was watching the window, but the after-ghost of the lamp in the shop still burned in his eyes and he saw no one come in. He felt Mary start and heard bare feet on the carpet. A bone creaked somewhere beside the escritoire. Staring, he thought a blacker human shape squatted against its dark bulk.
The voice came again. ‘I’ve come back. I told you I would. You shouldn’t have locked me up. I’ve heard what’s happened in the case of the thakur, and I’ve found out what I went away to find out. Now we can get on with the next part of the plan.’
‘It’s no use,’ William broke in sullenly. ‘I have been removed from my position and am only waiting until a new sahib, one better at figures, can be found to replace me.’
The voice said, ‘You have? Already? Good. Better than I dared hope. Now you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Like me. Do you think the order for your dismissal would be changed if you were to root out the servants of Kali from India?’
‘No.’
‘Haven’t I told you it is greater than anything you English suspect? You would uncover a million murders -- and end them.’
‘A million!’ William jumped. ‘In my district? It’s not possible!’
The voice was impatient. ‘Not in your district alone -- all over India. I told you -- Gopal -- that night at the grove by Kahari that this was the biggest thing in your life. Would the Lat Sahib then dare not to give you honour and a higher place?’
‘I suppose not.’
He was not sure. Organizations as big as the Honourable East India Company did not like admitting mistakes. The bigger the scandal uncovered, the more highly placed the official who would have to take the responsibility. No one would believe it, anyway. It couldn’t happen.
‘I suppose not,’ he said again slowly, ‘but -- ’
‘Will you promise to make me a chuprassi?’
‘What’s he saying?’ Mary broke in. ‘I’m sorry, darling, but I must know. It is awful just hearing you mutter and whisper -- oh, there’s a bat in the room!’
‘It won’t hurt you. He says he will lead me to uncover a million murders if I promise to make him a chuprassi. He’s mad.’
‘Promise me a deed in writing, in fadeless ink, with your thumb mark on it; then I will show you how we can do it.’ William stared at the shadow. What did it matter now? He had failed, and the taste of failure was not too bad. He would have to live with it in his mouth and had better learn to like it.
Mary said softly, ‘He’s not mad, William. He sounds very sane. A chuprassi has a lovely red coat with the arms of the Company on it, and is a part of something big, and doesn’t have to travel the roads. Find out what his plan is.’
William said to Hussein, ‘What is your proposal?’
The man on the floor was silent for a full two minutes. At last he spoke, beginning slowly, with gaps and pauses, gaining fluency and emphasis as he went. ‘First, the thakur is dead. And six men with him. You followed them and found them. Do you believe now that there is nothing more important in the world for you than this task of rooting out the men who did it?’
William said, ‘Yes,’ briefly and surely.
‘Well, you must see more. When you have seen, and learned to fear our gods, you will understand everything. You will understand why I want above all else to have a red coat and be like ordinary people. You must leave your law behind and become an Indian and take to the road with me. That will be possible because you have dark eyes and can speak good Hindi. We already know that, as an Indian, you look like Gopal the weaver -- which will be useful, and perhaps dangerous.’
‘Why?’ William interjected. ‘Surely Gopal’s dead?’
‘I don’t think so. But he’s far away. And he’s a servant of Kali. That’s what I had to find out. I told you in the jail . . . why I had to frighten your old fool of a jailer and escape. Now you must come away with me. You will be gone five months.’
‘Five months? What’s the need to stay out that length of time?’
‘To complete one whole travel season on the roads, from the beginning to the final dispersal of the bands. To understand. Anything less, and you’ll just scratch the surface. In all that time you have to keep silence. You will have to watch murder and do nothing; worse, perhaps, and say nothing, until we return and are ready to act. Oh!’ His voice changed as he thought of something. ‘Is it true that you white people eat with a knife and fork because your fingernails are poisonous? If it is -- ’
‘No,’ William interrupted impatiently. He had heard the superstition before. ‘We don’t like grease and food on our hands, that’s all. I can eat like an Indian. Are these servants of Kali called by any special name?’
‘Yes. The Deceivers.’
The shadow on the floor used an uncommon word, thug, derived from the verb thugna, to deceive. He said it as Mr Wilson might have said ‘Satan and all his angels.’
William said, ‘I’ve never heard of them.’
‘Others have. The Bara-sahib returns to Sagthali tomorrow morning, I hear. I will come for you tomorrow night at this hour. We have much to do. We need several days alone in the jungle before we set out, because you have to learn many things, many words. The Deceivers use a language of their own. Will you come?’
William waited for Mary to say something, to urge him on or hold him back. The question had been put in very simple, direct Hindustani: she must have understood. She did not speak. She was there beside him, warm and strong, but she did not speak.
He said, ‘I’ll come.’
The man on the floor said quietly, ‘You had no choice. Language, dress, customs are important, but our first need is a strong spirit. The goddess Kali is our adversary. Are you protected against her? Do you carry your God’s sign, the cross?’ William licked his lips. The bat in the room swooped across the open windows. The bonfires to Kali still burned in the town. He said, ‘I do not wear a cross. I believe my God is everywhere at my side.’ He supposed he believed that. Mr Wilson did -- but Mr Wilson would fight Kali in a different way, confronting her with an icy wall of disbelief. He could never understand her.
The shadow bulked higher and came close. William could see better now, and it was indeed Hussein, the lopsided ordinary man, whose eyes gleamed large and intense close to his own. The man’s voice was not steady. ‘Give me a cross, then. Allah and Mohammed his prophet have failed me against Kali. Give me a cross. Your God is a foreigner and does not know Kali’s strength, and will fight better against her than ours, who do, and are frightened. We must fear, but we must not fall. Give me a cross.’
Mary whispered, ‘What does he say? What does he want?’
‘He wants a cross to protect him in what he -- what we are going to do.’ Mr Wilson would have called it gross superstition, and it was.
Mary pulled out the tiny cross of English oak she wore inside her bosom, snapped the thin gold links of its chain, and gave the cross to Hussein. Hussein fingered it and muttered, ‘Wood. I was afraid if would be silver or gold. Wood is better.’ A spurt of affection for the man warmed William’s heart. Hussein too knew what the feel of plain wood meant; silver was something else, subtle, superior.
Hussein tucked the cross away. ‘Tomorrow. It doesn’t matter what plans you make to get away, except that you must let no on,
no one whatever
, know what you are doing. And you should try and prevent your absence being discovered for as long as possible. And have the paper ready for me about my post as a chuprassi.’
He was gone. The voice was silent, the shadow faded. The soundless beat of the bat’s wings, felt as a thud in the inner ear when the bat had passed close, died as it too flew out and over the drive.
Mary closed the windows and leaned back against them. ‘Is that man a bat? Now tell me everything. I know you’re going somewhere with him and, William’ -- she reached for his hand and held it tight -- ‘you have to. But I’m frightened. I’ve never been so frightened.’
He told her, and she was silent a long time. At last she said, ‘To let people be killed in order to save others. We’ve done it once already. To do evil that good may come of it. I don’t know what it will make of us. You’ll have to be very strong.’ She shivered, seeing visions William could not see. She clung tightly to him. ‘Promise me you will not kill anybody yourself. Darling, you’re my husband, promise, promise!’
‘Mary, I couldn’t murder anyone. You know I couldn’t.’ Her vehemence astonished him and touched him a little with her fear. He realized he was holding her tighter than he knew, because she could hardly breathe. He relaxed the grip of his hands on her.
Other, material fears closed in on him. Armed men roamed the roads, and he would be unarmed. Everywhere men died by violence, or died gently, their blood clogged by snake venom, or died in a ditch, excreting their life in cholera and dysentery. He saw the road now as an Indian saw it, and for the first time knew he would have to find the Indian, not the British, type of courage to face it.
He said, ‘I will go. I will not kill. How am I to get away?’ Mary’s trembling had stopped. She sat down carefully and looked up, a dim face and a white gleam in the chair. Her voice was steady. ‘That’s not going to be difficult. After Daddy’s gone, you pretend to fall ill and go to bed. Only Sher Dil and I will be allowed into your room. Sher Dil will have to know you’ve gone, of course, but that’s all. Later we’ll give out that you’re still weak and going to do the work from your bed. I’ll actually do it. Wait! You’ll have to have a bad wrist or something so that you can’t write. We’ll get found out -- two weeks, a month perhaps. Then I’ll say I don’t know what happened. You told me to do it but didn’t say why. You just vanished.’