Authors: Shakuntala Banaji
Karmel stood by the door of the cabin at the bottom of whose stone steps he had been attacked.
Memories of that smouldering pain still invaded his thoughts, the gash on his head a reminder that a killer had stalked him too. Outside, dawn had washed Saahitaal in normality again. The village was still not homely – that it could never be; but daylight had robbed it of its terrifying potency. Slightly bedraggled, the dwellings seemed to slant towards each other and whisper the news of the night in terse breathless gasps. Or perhaps that was just the breeze stirring the dripping trees and rippling across the foggy lake. Women were leaving the cabin, pushing past him, descending the steps.
It was time to face them. There was nothing to be gained by running. Smoke, silence and sorrowful frowns were not as daunting as the thought of never hearing the answers he craved. Karmel confronted the women and met every pair of eyes, slowly scanning the chamber and looking last of all into the tearful brown pair of Thahéra's stepson. Startled by a sudden resemblance he turned his head and met Gauri's gaze. There was no mistaking their likeness: answers began to click into place in his head like tiny bones in a skeleton's spine.
The room now contained only Thahéra's sister, Stitching Woman and her daughter, the old man's corpse, the boy and Gauri. Karmel stepped in and pushed closed the door. Gauri took a slow grating breath, but it was Thahéra's stern sister who spoke.
'Stranger. We are grateful to you for all you have tried to do. We want you to know that. And we won't stop you if you feel that punishment is necessary.' Her pale eyes gleamed. Karmel inclined his head but something inside him shrank from her. He thought he knew what she was going to tell him but he wanted to hear her say it anyway, just for the record:
the boy was guilty
. He prepared himself for a bleak tale. In the event, he could not believe what he was hearing and had to sit down to prevent himself from falling.
'When I was seven years old', she began, 'Thahéra was born. Our father was the roughest and most feared man in the area. He had half-killed several low caste shepherds who had crossed him and nobody ever dared complain about his behaviour – least of all his wife. He was known to dislike women and girls and it was with alarm that the village heard his wife had given birth to a second daughter. It was even rumoured that he was not the father. The night he was told the news he was, however, extremely calm. He did not shout or get drunk. He simply sent me to stay with a neighbour. In the morning he asked for me back and I remember checking fearfully to see if my mother was hurt but she seemed to be fine, suckling the baby and lying on her side in a corner of our hut; the very same place where you have stayed all these days, stranger.'
Thahéra's sister stared at Karmel for a few minutes. Then she proceeded.
'However, when a neighbour came to massage my mother, she found that her left arm was broken in three places.' Karmel sighed. Thahéra, had tried to tell him about Devsingh's propensities. Such stories were not uncommon in Delhi, or elsewhere in the world for that matter. Hindered by romantic preconceptions about the innocence of these hill people, he hadn't given her a chance.
Gauri shifted restlessly in her seat and grew still when he glanced at her.
'My sister was the strangest girl – sometimes gentle and kind, sometimes wrathful and bold. She took to hanging around with our father and why he tolerated her presence we never knew. But one day when he was to take some of our cattle up to pasture, she wanted to go with him. He laughed in her face – just kept laughing at her until she was so ashamed. All the other shepherds saw it and they laughed too, as much from fear of my father as from sympathy with his humour. He dragged her by the elbow to the shed and he showed her, in the far corner, two little calves. He pointed to them, and kept laughing at her; all of us girls witnessed it, for we ran behind them in fear. He lifted her up in the air, pinching and squeezing her below the armpits and told her some horrible things,
truths
he called them, about the lives of calves and girls and women. Then he left with the others. You have talked a lot to her, but I bet she did not tell you this.'
'She did not.'
'A day later she burnt down that shed; she killed those calves and when he returned my father almost killed her.' Karmel swept the room with his eyes. Stitching Woman was staring at Thahéra's sister, opening her mouth to speak in what looked like rage, but Gauri interrupted with a brittle laugh, which became a suffocating cough. Finally, Stitching Woman grunted, opaque eyes gazing in Karmel's direction.
'Do you believe these old tales? What good are they to you? What interests you isn't history, it is the present time. A man was killed. Now another corpse lies before us. You would have it all neat and tidy, would you not? The wrongdoer mad or evil, the criminal punished. But you will be frustrated. Remember my words. Disenchanted. Disappointed. You will curse yourself. I told you at the beginning – ask only questions to which you know the answers. Otherwise you will hurt yourself needlessly and you'll be told more lies.' Her husky voice rose. She swung round on Thahéra's sister and stepson and hissed, 'Speak, speak, do I say the truth?'
The young man remained silent, bent over in mourning, seemingly unaware of any of them. He held Devsingh's hand in a tight grasp, despite the clammy skin and stiff fingers. It was the first time Karmel had really looked at Thahéra's stepson. This was the young man who was always grim, always scowling and watching him so suspiciously in the confines of his stepmother's home. This was the same youth who had followed him along the path he took with Sahusingh and confronted him in such a dramatic fashion only to flee in hysterical tears. Now he was grieving for a vicious old man to whom he wasn't even related?
Gauri rose and went to stand beside the youth. Karmel spoke before she did.
'He's your child. The one you ran away from?' Gauri nodded sadly.
'You can see it. Our village – so cut off here by the lake, such a dearth of eligible men … when I left my husband's home, his mother didn't have to look far for a replacement …'
'Thahéra.'
'Yes. But it isn't what you think. We were friends for many years before she married my one-time husband. She accepted him for my sake; so I could see my son.'
Karmel stared at Thahéra's sister, not hiding his pity, realising that it could be none other than
her
husband who had raped Gauri. This sullen lad was the product of a single brutal encounter between Gauri and her husband's brother; Thahéra's father, for all his cruelty, had been the only man in the boy's life.
But all this … what did it have to do with the foreigners, with Cameron Croft and his death? And why was Stitching Woman even now so contemptuous of him, so bitter? He felt dizzy and hot, yet the air in the room was cold, even glacial. An icy wind whistled round the cabin, reminding him of the altitude at which they were located, so far from his beloved metropolis. Gauri rubbed her eyes.
'You came to find out about that foreign man and we've talked to you about everything else. The shameful things that we tell only God. And you sit here and look at that old dog –' she gestured at the old man's corpse '– and wonder again what we are up to. You won't believe me if I tell you that what happened to the foreigner was not meant to be, that it happened by chance, misfortune, call it what you will.' She gasped. 'The truth is, most of us liked him.' She looked around the room, 'and he played with us.' Another pause. 'But
sadly
– I say sadly, Stranger, though I accept fate – he thought he was too clever to be trapped; he thought he was invisible, invincible. But he was found out and then he had to face the consequences.' She paused, looking glum, sweat dripping off her brow.
'You say his death was an
accident
. But you imply that it was his own fault; that he deserved to die.' Karmel's tone was sharp. Thahéra's sister jumped in and continued the tale.
She described the day on which Thahéra confronted Cameron and asked him to take her away from the village. Apparently, she was careless of everything then, knowing her father was in the area and letting go of her dignity. Afraid for her, Gauri had waited trembling in the shadows. Cameron was edgy, dismissive, but she continued to plead and he became agitated.
What had happened afterwards had been a mistake. A tragic twist of fate.
As the older woman spoke, Gauri put her hand on the boy's head.
'Tell him.' She said. 'Tell him now.' Her voice was hoarse and arid, empty of emotion. Obediently the young man released the old man's cold fingers and began to mutter. At first Karmel couldn't make out a word. Then he realised that the boy was talking to him.
'I followed. I followed them wherever. Saw things. Always follow everywhere,
he
said,
he
told me, follow them, see, listen, tell me…saw white man, saw them, heard them. Grunt. Grunt. Making noises.'
He was a spy, this pathetic boy? Karmel absorbed the information with disbelief.
'In the name of God, whom did you follow? Was it Thahéra? Your aunt? Your mother?' Karmel was leaning forward, the lump on his neck bulging, his hair awry. The boy nodded.
'When
he
was away. I saw them. I told
him
.
He
made me take him – out there, where they were. I buried man. Then I dug him up. Brought him to you. Wanted you to go and take him too. Give him injection. Maybe he get up again?' So, it had not been a warning or a threat, but rather a pathetic attempt to bring the dead back to life.
The boy was still talking, on and on in rigid fragments. '
He
made me promise. Then caught me doing wrong … with her –' he turned and pointed at Stitching Woman's beautiful daughter, ' – ask her! She knows. We did. Making noises. Together. She's my friend.' He looked at the girl and for the first time Karmel saw him smile; it was absurd: this damaged boy was going to be a father soon.
Karmel glanced at Stitching Woman's daughter, immediately dismissing the thought that she had somehow helped her young lover to kill Cameron Croft. Nothing about her spoke of any violence or deceit. As far as he could tell, the only 'wrong' they could have done together was the act that got her pregnant; that had been enough to cause her to fear for her life should Thahéra’s father have discovered their secret. It was
his
judgement she had been so dreading. Between his departure for Dahu, to settle the land dispute there, and his return, her body had betrayed her, stretching and growing to accommodate a new life. If the boy was her lover then she must have wondered too if he would cleave to her or to the old tyrant when a choice had to be made. She had a motive for murdering the old man – but none when it came to Cameron Croft.
Nor, having heard him speak and seen his face in an expression other than its scowl of concentration, could Karmel imagine the young man capable of causing the damage he'd noted to the foreigner's skull, the smashed pulpy skin, the cracked, distorted bone. He'd been forced to spy on his female relatives, had reported back to the man he considered his grandfather, had been used and manipulated in ways that he – simple as he was – could not comprehend.
'What are you going to do?' Gauri's voice was rough, exasperated. 'Will you question the boy further? He's exhausted, and has new responsibilities now. Don't you
understand
what happened to the foreigner? If you wish I can repeat what happened.' She faltered, gasped for breath. 'The foreigner was not meant to die.'
Neither of the older women spoke.
Finally Karmel met her eyes. 'I think I understand. For now we'll let it rest as it is. But if you think of anything you want to say to me, you can write to me in Delhi.' There was a hum of surprise in the room. He took out one of his cards, sodden and limp but still legible, and passed it to Gauri. Then he turned to face Thahéra's sister who had a strange and knowing look on her face. 'Should I send a doctor to Bhukta to examine Sonu? Would you be able to take your son down there for a few days?' She bowed her head in his direction.
Stitching Woman snorted, then began to laugh in great, thunderous bursts, although her face showed no signs of mirth. 'Well done, stranger, well done! You are so magnanimous, now that you've got it all figured out. You've heard us speak of our faults and you have apportioned blame. Your brain has done all the hard work. But how does it make you feel? Hah!
How does it make you feel?
' Her voice became a shriek.
Hearing her but determined to do things his own way, Karmel rose and climbed down the cabin steps. Freezing air swirled around him. He could hear the noises of the village at work.
What had he just been told? That Cameron's murder had been
a mistake
. If the old man had done it and the old man was dead then the blame would have been laid squarely at his door. But these women were too honest for their own good and balked at deception. So whom were they protecting? What was there to
understand
?
He thought he knew what had happened but he had lied to Gauri: he was not going to let it rest.
Was Karmel going to return from the mountains with a murderer in tow? Tanya Hàrélal doubted it.
When she thought of how Sara had lied to protect Adam and how Adam hated himself, it only made her angrier with Cameron. He had ended up mutilating so many lives. But what was the use of being cross with the dead? If he had been alive, perhaps no one would have been hurt, no one would even have known about his many lovers, or perhaps all would have shared for love of him! We don't plan our actions expecting to be taken out of the equation before the sum is finished.
And Antonio Sinbari? He had just been the catalyst. He had played on Cameron's greed, Adam's lust and Sara's fear, manipulating them for his own ends. But after all, he was a businessman, trained and ruthless – and who would really expect to win in a game of dice with him?
Deception all round and a waste of life. If Adam and Sara – who were innocent of all but personal betrayals – had covered for each other despite the consequences, it was unlikely that the tight-knit village community of Saahitaal would render up the guilty to justice. Ultimately, if we haven't already killed them, we try to protect those we love.
Tanya forced the tedious drone of the plane's engine to cover the jumble of sounds in her head. The side of her face was wet. She thought about her role in this strange saga and wondered if she was cut out to be a detective: probably more than she was cut out to be a mother.
Why had she gone to Goa? It was ostensibly to prove her father's competence and to right an injustice, which she felt was being perpetrated against him. But maybe it was also to placate him, to remind him that she was his deserving daughter. She sighed, knowing that she had other motives too – ones unconnected to her father that had made her pursue this strange investigation. Possibly she was running away from the fiasco with Lal Bahuba. She flushed with anger and bit her lip at the thought of him. But she knew she wasn't simply fleeing her ill-considered affair: she'd never been the type to hide from her failures.
She was running
towards
something then – towards self-esteem, a vocation, the antithesis of her mother's passive housebound life. She was trying to demonstrate her talent to someone. She was also – if only she'd allow herself to think it – trying to prove herself to Kailash Karmel.
Outside the plane's windows, unclouded sunshine belied their altitude and made the air seem balmy. Everyone appeared to know what they were doing and where they were going and what would happen when they got there, except her. Turning her face from the sunlit window she decided that sleep was the only cure for the agitation she was beginning to feel. What was the use of trying to win a man who despised her for what she represented?
Yet visions of Karmel rocked her slumbers and it was his smile that fluttered beneath her eyelids as the plane hovered above a rain-slickened Delhi runway.
*
Weary in ways he had never imagined he would be but nonetheless feverish with the need to wrap up his case, Karmel walked around the lake to Thahéra's sister's cabin where he'd left Thahéra sleeping. But when he reached his destination he found only the children there.
Chand called to him and Sonu smiled shyly. They were making something out of stones behind the cabin with their cousins, their cheeks and noses rouged by the icy breeze. Karmel waved to them and strode straight on.
He had to know who had swung the stick that day and why. He had to hear it from her.
He found Thahéra in her own cabin, on her knees, brushing the floor. There were few signs of the devastation and debris from the previous day: even her hair was bound tightly and invisible beneath a red scarf. The door was wide open and there was no fire, so the temperature was low: his breath made a cloud in front of his eyes.
Thahéra's skirt swirled around her like the Saahi around a rock. She looked up and tried to smile when she saw him but her face was so split and swollen that only her cheeks altered shape. He knelt beside her and gestured for her to come outside but she shook her head and led him to a low bench along the far wall where he had slept on his first night in the village. It seemed like such a long time ago – yet it was barely two weeks.
She had lied to him and lied to him; and he had allowed her to do it.
The weight of his pointless days in Saahitaal was crushing. He felt it as a physical burden. He had been here and despite that there had been violence and he was accepting it as if it didn't concern him. What was the use of pursuing answers to old problems when life went rushing on, careless, unsatisfied by the blood it had already taken?
He couldn't look at her face, so he looked at her feet – the callused skin, the silver rings encircling her toes and biting into the flesh as creepers mould themselves to trees; desire attacked his stomach like acid. If she didn't speak soon, if one of them didn't speak, he knew he was going to lose control and reach for her.
'Did they tell you everything? Did they tell you about me and the foreign man?' Apprehension and seduction danced around each other in her tone. He knew that what he was going to say would make her feel worse.
He shook his head. She tapped her foot on the ground rapidly. He watched the gesture for a moment and forced himself to continue.
'I've come to find out, from you, about the foreigner. And why
you
didn’t tell me before when you knew I wished to find out.' She turned her face away from him.
'If I tell you, what will you do?'
'Depends what you tell me.' He knew that he couldn't make promises to a murderer. If she had killed her father, then perhaps he could help her; for what was that if not self-defence? But if she had killed Cameron Croft . . ..
Her ankle continued its rhythmic jerking. He was tempted to bend and kiss it, to trace the hollows of her foot with his lips. To push the hem of her skirt up towards her thigh. If he had been one of the other men on Hàrélal's force, he would simply have seen her as easy prey. In fact, he could have convinced himself that she deserved to be raped. That was how some of his colleagues thought. He had heard them speak thus. He swallowed and nudged her gently with an elbow, then remembered her bruises and apologised.
'I don't have to tell you anything. Who are you after all? Just another stranger – and that too, a city man.' Her voice was bold, hard. He could see her swollen cheek, not her expression.
'True.' He concealed his frustration.
'Go then. There's no use you hanging around, is there,
soil collector
?' Sarcastic bitterness barely masked the disappointment and grief surging beneath her words.
He hated to do it but he felt he had to. Clamping his hand over her left wrist, he swung her suddenly round to face him. It must have hurt. The luminous grey eyes, already half-closed by the distended tissue around them, shut completely; she made no sound. She was brave – or out of her mind.
'Listen.' He spoke harshly. 'You can tell me what happened now or I can take that boy with me to a police cell in Bhukta and they can kick him till he screams out the answers. Maybe you don't care about him, but I'll wager that your friend Gauri does; and she won't protect you above him, if only because she feels guilty about what she's done to him.'
'The boy? You know about him.' Thahéra seemed to wilt in front of his eyes, her solid shoulders drooping, her firm torso going slack like an emptying sack of flour. It made him nauseous watching it happen. How many times had her father done exactly the same thing to her, bullied her, tried to crack her miraculous confidence: and now he was dead and another man was doing the same thing. He felt his resolve weaken. He couldn't force her to confess.
He was not cut out to be a cop: he wasn't even sure that he considered what she'd done to be a crime and in his undercover role he had failed to detect anything till it was too late. But there was more … and he still couldn't go through with it, couldn't make her tell him that she had been wielding the club that killed the architect. Didn't want to hear it. Wanted to think of her as she had seemed for the first week – a beautiful woman, a happy mother, a hardworking member of an idyllic village – not a victim: suspicious, betrayed and volatile. He had handcuffs in his pouch but didn't reach for them.
They stayed like that for a few minutes, his fingers around her wrist, though more loosely than before, breathing smoky clouds around their faces. Karmel thought of all the things about himself that he could have expressed to her but hadn't. Perhaps deep down he had never felt that she would understand him, only that she wanted him, for some reason of her own. And he had always resisted lust that came without intellectual companionship.
He felt her breathing change; thought she was going to cry. He began to speak, to tell her that it was okay, that she could keep her secrets, that he would not betray her; but the words never left his lips. With animal speed, Thahéra twisted herself up off the bench; Karmel was still clutching her arm and felt his body come off the bench with her. When his grasp tightened instinctively, she bent over and, in a single fluid motion, sank her teeth deep into his wrist.
By the time his cry of surprise and pain had echoed around the room, she was out of the cabin and stumbling towards the trees, shaking with sobs, gasping '
Enough! Enough!
' to herself, like a punishment or a lesson and then, sadly, '
What does he want from me? What, in God's name, does he want?
'