The Setting Sun (27 page)

Back at the vehicle, a group has gathered to chat with the sub-inspector. I can’t understand where they’ve materialised
from. On either side, sugar cane spreads depthless and impenetrable. Only an abandoned-looking thatched hut is visible, fifty yards ahead. It sits beneath another gnarled banyan, against which a water buffalo rubs itself, chewing placidly. A spindly-legged egret picks at its ear, dazzling white except for its yellow bill. Catching sight of me, a man pulls up on his bicycle, a preposterously large sheaf of canes strapped like spears across his pannier. He’s very thin, with hennaed hair and pockmarked face, shirt smeared with oil. Phule presumably explains why we’re here because, propping the frame of his machine against one hip, he performs a
namaste
for my benefit.

‘Welcome to Chafal,’ he says in an almost indecipherable accent, ‘most welcome.’

The bystanders echo him good-naturedly. Despite myself, I’m blushing furiously.

Within minutes of resuming our journey, the main stupa of the Mahadeo temple comes into view, outlined starkly against the cloudless sky. This is it. No going back. I sit up straight and take some breaths. Phule pulls into the forecourt and parks beside a bright pink wall, along the top of which orange flags flap listlessly. Here are stalls selling nostril-crinking incense, marigold garlands, coconuts and brass statues of gods, the kind we had in our living room in Africa. Most of the other visitors are elderly, males in Nehru caps, women in saris all the gayer against their menfolk’s chaste white clothes. All have the demeanour of pilgrims.

Phule confers with someone and we’re led up a flight of steps into the temple compound. It’s breathtaking, quite the most beautiful building I’ve seen on my trip, clad in ivory marble, perhaps forty metres long and twenty to the top of the highest stupa. Despite its mass, it looks light as meringue, about to float free of the ground. The façade’s undecorated except for the occasional relief of a god executed in the same plain style. By the side porch is a grey stone fountain,
canopied with scarlet bougainvillea. Is this where the villagers were abused? I can hardly draw breath, I’m so tense. At once a youthful priest approaches, ash-smeared cheeks, orange wrap over one shoulder. He has a garland of marigolds and jasmine and Phule signals me to bow my head to receive it. The fragrance is peppery-sweet. The priest then gives me some pamphlets in Marathi, explaining its connections with Shivaji and Ramdas, his freedom-fighter guru.

Led by our guide, who rings a bell as he enters, we kick off our shoes and enter the shrine. Against the ivory walls, the three images at the far end are achingly bright under the neon strips which border their alcove. Dressed in dazzling orange and yellow, garlanded in the same fashion as I am, the trio of three-foot images stands on a plinth which brings their heads level with ours. To one side is an ugly square plastic clock, hands frozen.

‘Laxmi, Siva and Ram,’ Phule whispers, before preparing to do
puja
. Despite myself, I, too, entreat their intercession. As Phule continues with his prayers, I gaze up at the ceiling rose, a masterpiece of intricate concentric circles, the patterns carved so delicately they seem to have been caressed out of the marble. It’s so beautiful my heartbeat slows momentarily.

When he’s finished his devotions, Phule and I wander outside again. The compound is walled on three sides, the fourth open, looking onto a shallow river along which women squat, pounding clothes on laundry-stones. There’s a small footbridge which looks as though it’s been there for decades, next to a more recent single-lane crossing for cars. Through the canopy of trees on the far side, I catch my first glimpse of Chafal.

‘I need to look around over there,’ I tell Phule.

He looks bemused. ‘But only thing is this temple.’

‘When my father was in Satara, he conducted a big raid here. I want to see if anyone remembers it.’

I half expect him to return to the car and radio for
permission. But he simply nods and we set off across the footbridge. Should I take off my garland? It seems inappropriate to enter the village adorned like a god. However, I don’t want to cause offence at the outset, so I keep it on.

It’s two minutes to the outskirts and ten more to the centre of the village, down narrow alleys of mud-brick huts and corrugated-iron roofs. There’s an occasional scrawl of telephone wire and electricity cable, and one or two satellite dishes. Waste runs down gutters in the middle of the lanes, where scrawny chickens paddle, watched by skeletal yellow mongrels of the kind I remember from rural Tanzania. I’m glad now of my garland to ward off the smells. By the time we’ve reached what seems to be the principal building in the settlement, a solid stone construction with a raised flagstoned veranda, a crowd of the idle and curious has collected behind us.

‘Let me ask here in the
chavadi
,’ Phule says.

He comes back out with a grave-looking man who stares at me. Thankfully, however, he doesn’t seem hostile; perhaps he can’t afford to be, since my guide’s a policeman. The man barks an order to a youth who scampers up one of the side streets. More villagers have gathered by the time he returns, and he has some trouble boring a passage through them for Phule and me. A few minutes’ walk up another alley, littered with refuse, he taps at a corrugated-iron door, awry on its hinges. I’ve no idea who we’re going to see. But I’m praying it’s not one of the surviving victims.

Indoors, it’s smoky and dark. The floors are beaten earth, clothes and utensils hanging from nails in mud-rendered walls. There’s a warm, musty odour of livestock. We’re shown into a large, low room broken up by two rickety charpoys, each with its thin, worn bedroll, on which we’re invited to sit. Soon a very old man shuffles in, leaning on a stout staff. He’s tiny, unshaven, barefoot and wearing only a greyish vest and equally grimy dhoti. Behind him is an even more ancient-looking woman, stooped like a question mark.

‘She asks if you want tea,’ Phule translates.

‘Black please, no sugar.’

Once his wife retreats, the old man mutters unhappily.

‘He must put something on his head first,’ Phule explains, as our host exits again.

‘Who is he?’

‘One of the village watchmen the night of the raid.’

I sigh with relief. I wonder what Phule’s thinking. Even in the gloom, he doesn’t remove his shades.

By the time tea arrives, the old man’s back, almost unrecognisable beneath a gorgeous, elaborately knotted, sunflower-yellow headdress and collared shirt, a shade less grey than his vest. He takes a seat on the charpoy opposite, grasping his staff as if the years have rolled back and he’s once again on guard. I feed Phule the questions, and he translates the answers.

‘I remember that night. But first let me tell you what happened before. Around midnight, a car came from the direction of Patan.’

Where Bill rescued the woman tortured with cigarette butts, the one Modak washed his hands of. And where Yates reported the Mangs were on a criminal rampage.

‘It was travelling very slowly with cloth over its lights to dim them. We challenged the car and two armed men got out. They told us to go to our houses and stay inside, or there’d be trouble. There was no choice. We only had
lathis.’
He bangs his stick on the ground for emphasis. ‘Later, I heard shouting. It was coming from the home of the police
patil.’

‘Community guard,’ Phule murmurs, ‘not real police.’

‘Later, when it felt safe, I went to his house. Other watchmen were already there. The women were crying. The
patil
had been beaten and tied up. His injuries were not so serious but he was in shock. One of the women said she’d heard the car leaving. Another claimed this time it was crammed with men, not just the three who’d come. I knew at once who they
were. There had been rumours absconders were hiding in the village.’

‘Had you searched?’

The watchman shrugs. ‘They had many friends here. It was better not to inquire too deeply.’

‘What happened next?’

‘At about three or four in the morning, I heard more vehicles. There were so many we knew it was the police or army. They parked by the temple. In those days there was no bridge for vehicles. In minutes, there were hundreds of police in the village, running to seal the exits. They were led by Gilbert from Satara.’

Outside, the crowd’s murmuring, as if the villagers can hear all this, too. I’m unbearably hot all of a sudden.

‘What happened?’

It’s a shattering anticlimax when the man shakes his head.

‘I don’t know. I was told by one sub-inspector to secure the path into the forest and allow no one in or out. I was there until dawn. I only heard shouts, carrying on the wind. I was glad to be out of the way.’

Phule and I look at each other, bemused.

‘Sir, there’s someone outside who saw everything,’ the youth who brought us now declares.

Phule nods and I get up. But the former watchman isn’t finished yet. He insists on having his photograph taken. My hands are trembling so much I can barely manage.

The alley’s even more crammed than before. Everyone falls silent as we come out. I wonder if Phule, too, is nervous now. At any rate, he draws himself up to his full height as the youth beckons a distinguished-looking man towards us. He’s rather younger than the watchman, a spry seventy-odd years, I guess, with thick silver hair swept back from his brow, round glasses and a scored, kindly face.

‘I can tell you what happened,’ he declares. ‘Come with me.’

Our new guide pushes through the throng. It feels like the entire village is following. My garland’s beginning to weigh like a cross.

Indian villagers with lathis, 1940s

‘This is what it was like then,’ the man says. ‘The whole of Chafal was forced to go down to the
chavadi
. The police held lanterns and banged on every door, searching each house. Every man between fifteen and fifty was closely examined. Many were in tears and shaking, even grown men. Imagine the impression it made on me, a ten-year-old. We talked of nothing else for weeks.’

We find ourselves once more at the
chavadi
.

‘I will show you what Gilbert did.’ He mounts the step onto the veranda, motioning Phule and myself to stand before him. Behind us the villagers take up position, as if about to watch a play.

‘Gilbert started by saying that he had come to arrest some very bad men, six of them. He said they had committed some atrocities against two women falsely accused of being informers.’

‘What atrocities?’ I ask.

The man shrugs. ‘He stated simply that he knew the miscreants were hiding in Chafal and they must be surrendered at once. There was complete quiet, except for children wailing. Gilbert made a constable hold a light up close to him so everyone could see clearly. Then he did this.’

I’m spellbound. The man crosses his hands either side of his hips and mimes the drawing of pistols, pointing the first two fingers of each bunched fist at Phule and me. It’s like a gunfight clip from a western. Total silence descends on the audience behind me.

‘He waved his weapons and said there’d be serious trouble unless the men were given up. Everyone got very frightened and someone called out that the absconders had escaped an hour or two before in a car heading for Patan. Gilbert got very angry. He sent policemen into the crowd and the men were separated from their families and examined again. Then he called the police
patil
and watchmen from the crowd and took them inside the
chavadi
with his right-hand man, an evil-looking fellow. When they came back out, this man called six names and told them to come forward. The men summoned came unwillingly, some had to be pushed. When they were assembled, Gilbert ordered them to be taken over the river to the police vehicles. We saw hurricane lamps crossing the footbridge. Later, cries came from the temple enclosure. It was obvious they were being beaten.’

‘Who were the men?’

‘Those who’d sheltered the absconders. Relatives.’

This is bad. Shinde’s accusation is confirmed. ‘Then what happened?’

‘Later the men came back. They were crying and their clothes were torn. They were followed by the evil-looking man and about twenty constables.’

‘Was Gilbert with them?’

‘No, he stayed here and lectured us about the Prati Sarkar and how they were in league with Japan who wanted to
take over India and make us slaves. That they robbed under the pretext of politics and terrorised the innocent. He kept pointing to the
patil
beside him, who was bent over his stick in pain. That they tortured their victims, even women. That it was time they were given a taste of their own medicine.’

It’s too much. The tension that’s built inexorably since reading Shinde’s book in Mumbai University library boils over. My tears come, sudden and violent, but silently. The man looks alarmed and steps towards me. I take a deep breath. The sound of my voice takes me by surprise.

‘Tell the village that I’m sorry for what my father did. But I suppose he thought he was doing his duty.’