Truth Lake (30 page)

To this day she believes that you shunned her not for conspiring to murder the old tyrant but for the affair she'd had with the foreigner. To this day she has no idea that his was the body pulled from the earth below the village. She mourns you in a way that she never mourned him. I do believe that you are the
only man
whom she has ever truly loved. 

              Do I write this to bring you back here, filled by guilt and remorse? No. I do not. I hope that you are happy in Delhi, that your work is progressing well, and that you have won another woman who will see your good qualities for what they are. Thahéra – well she will slowly heal and, without her father's constant vicious ways, she may learn to take pleasure where-ever she can find it.  So, those are not the reasons for this letter. I write because I, like so many human beings, cannot bear the guilt of my conscience, the torture of each day of lying and deceit. I write to beg your forgiveness, because I cannot bear to beg hers, the woman who to me is more perfect than any creation of my hands. And so I will leave you, asking you not to torture yourself as I am doing, with thoughts of what might have been.

Gauri.

The sun was setting when Karmel finished the letter for the third time. Mosquitoes sung in the gloom and a chill breeze danced across the city.
Stitching Woman had tried to warn him.

His hands trembled; his face was wet with tears.
He knew her now, in Delhi, just as Sonu had said he would.

Inside his lighted room he could see Tanya lying on his bed, knees up, a book balanced on her stomach, her tiny frown of concentration now so familiar and dear. But up by that eerie lake . . .. What was Thahéra doing?

A bird called somewhere, sighing before it succumbed to the darkness. He folded his letter and stuffed it into a pocket of his shirt, right near his heart and, even hours later, when he was sitting with Tanya, he could feel it against his skin, like a talisman, a revelation, the elusive caress of a mountain woman.

THE END

Truth Lake
has taken more than a decade from its inception to reach you, my readers, and I have had unstinting support along the way. Particular thanks are due to Ammar Al-Ghabban, whose patience, kindness, intelligence and humour inspires me every single day and who accepts my crazy work schedule and nights of writing and editing without complaint. Also thanks are due to Sabrina Wilske who has helped me get the manuscript ready, brought all kinds of happiness into our lives, and listened to my endless stories with unfeigned interest; and my darling son Zinedine who designed the cover, broken thumb notwithstanding. Likewise, gratitude to my father and mother, Jairus and Rohini Banaji: I owe them my much of my sensibility about life in general, as well as my love of writing in all its forms; and my mother in particular for meticulous proof reading, comments, love and support at every stage of all my writing; I share with my aunt Savi a thrilling crime collection and a penchant for turning everything into a mystery. I will always be thankful to Theresa Chris, my agent for six years. Her sharp and perceptive reading strengthened my early drafts immensely, and her belief in my writing has remained with me. To my delightful and loving friends and family who have read and commented on drafts over the years – Patrick Yarker, Margaret Ould, Alice Lanzon-Miller, Ann Ninan, Sikha Ghosh, Eva Bognar, Maja Turnšek Hančič, Neeta Shah, Hyeon-Seon Jeong, Emma Bish, Sue Cranmer, Britta Ohm, Mary McDonagh, Rajiv Bidap, Leena Kumarappan, Murad Banaji, David Buckingham – I can only say your comments and kindness have been much appreciated. My grandparents and aunt Vijayatara who read this and were so loving about it, are now dead, but always remembered. And a very special thank you to Mukul Mangalik, who first took me to those mountains, villages and Himalayan lakes when I was just a girl.

Shakuntala Banaji lives and lectures in London, returning frequently to India to conduct research and visit friends and family. She is the author or editor of several non-fiction books, including
Reading ‘Bollywood’: the Young Audience and Hindi Film
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2006),
South Asian Media Cultures: Audiences, Representations, Contexts
(Anthem Press, 2010), and
The Civic Web: Young People, the Internet and Civic
Participation
(with David Buckingham, MIT Press, 2013).
Truth Lake
is her first novel.

   
Picture credit: Sabrina Wilske