The Deceivers (29 page)

Six months ago William could not have believed it. Now it all seemed plain enough. At some moment, centuries past perhaps, the Deceivers had descended on the village in strength and given it the choice: be destroyed, or provide refuge, hold silence, and receive an annual payment from the spoils. Embraced in the choice were immense difficulties, both moral and physical, for the people of the village. The Deceivers’ worship of Kali was genuinely religious. Indians of an older generation might have felt it impiety in them not to help these seekers after salvation, even if the Deceivers’ way to grace was not their own. Then, the payments would raise the community an inch or two above starvation; the danger of starvation, actual and ever present, does not breed respect for law. On the other hand, if the village refused and spoke up against the Deceivers, the local powers of order, which had sometimes been weak and always venal, could not have saved them from torture and annihilation. Probably the old rulers had received their percentage of the spoils too, in return for keeping their troops away and their eyes and ears shut. The close interlocking of so many self-interests formed a conspiracy of silence as effective as the conspiracy of murder.

In the nine years of the English Company’s rule nothing had been done against the Deceivers. But William realized now that most Indians knew at least of the existence of the Deceivers; and, knowing, they could not believe the English did not also know; therefore the English officials too were sharing in the spoils; so what was the use of informing? He had found Kali on the road, and followed her, and found her in palaces, and now in hovels. Kali’s hand truly lay over all India.

He fell to wondering again about the man who had seen him at the corn chandler’s and gone away so quickly.

Mary stood in the carpenter’s shop behind the bungalow, absently stroking the edge of the bench where William’s hands used to rest. For five months, once every week, she had come here in secret to oil his tools. She had finished: it was dark outside, and in a minute she would pick up the lamp and carry it to the bungalow. She was heavy now, and swollen out in the last month of her pregnancy. For five months she had bound herself in, and her young muscles had almost to the last contained and preserved her virginal beauty. Today, March 22nd, she had let it go and put on loose clothes, and all day worn pride instead of a cloak about her.

She picked up the lamp, closed and latched the door, and walked slowly to the bungalow. At the drawing-room she stopped in surprise and put the lamp down on a table. Chandra Sen, the patel of Padwa and Kahari, stood respectfully erect near the windows. George turned as she came in, and she saw the mixed anger and relief on his face. He said, ‘Oh, come in, Mary. Chandra Sen has some news. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad.’

‘I think I know where Savage-sahib is. Indeed, I am sure that I do,’ the patel said quietly. ‘I have just told Mr Angelsmith.’

‘He’s wandering round in native clothes, alone, begging his way. He’s in the district, came recently. A friend of Chandra Sen’s recognized him. I’m afraid he’s insane, Mary. I’ll have to go and get him.’

He looked at her as he spoke. Her happiness that William was alive warmed her heart and shone in her face. This was the first news she had had of him for five months. George’s lips tightened.

Chandra Sen said, ‘I do not think that would be safe, sahib. Your honour cannot travel without being remarked. People pass the word of your coming ahead of you. Everyone wants to know when the Collector is near, so that they can bring petitions to him.’

‘What of it? I’ve got to get hold of Captain Savage.’

‘Let me go, sahib. He is on the move, beyond Parsola. I can find out where he will be and come upon him suddenly. Unless we are very careful, he will disappear again. As it is, I fear he will do himself a mischief when we try to hold him. His mind is upside down. I have some experience in these matters. But I will do my best to bring him back safe.’

‘He won’t hurt himself,’ Mary burst out, ‘he’s -- ’ She bit off the sentence. William had agreed, at Hussein’s insistence, that no one must know why he had left Madhya. Chandra Sen looked at her thoughtfully. When she did not finish George said, ‘There’s always the risk with people whose minds are -- upset. I think Chandra Sen is right. Will you do that, then, patel-ji?’

‘Very well.’ Chandra Sen bowed slowly to each of them in turn and left the room. They heard a mutter of talk between the patel and his servant on the verandah, then the creak of saddlery, the quickening, dying beat of hoofs.

The sounds faded at last, and George said with sudden spite, ‘You knew all the time what William was doing. I saw it in your face just now. You lied to your father.’

‘I did not lie to anyone.’ She put a perceptible emphasis on the ‘anyone’. George was not thinking of her father but of his own misty hopes and of her subtle encouragement. It had never been much: it could not be, with William’s child growing in her: with another man it would have been nothing: but it had been enough. She had done her part, and by a look, a shrug, an implied promise, deceived George so that he had not used his power to track William down.

George shrugged petulantly. ‘Oh well, it’s all the same now. I’m afraid he’ll be put into an asylum.’

She felt tears coming and shook her head furiously. She would not cry in front of George. The baby stirred inside her, and all the loneliness of the months came to overwhelm her.

Words fell tiny and all but soundless into her ear. ‘Memsahib, it is I, Hussein. Let me in quickly.’

Astonishment held her without fear, and yet for weeks past she had expected to hear that faraway voice. She opened the windows through which Chandra Sen had five minutes ago left the bungalow. The moon shone bright on the drive and the wall and the road beyond. Hussein slipped into the room and stood beside the windows, where he could not be seen from the road.

George started up. ‘Who in hell are you? Mary, who is --’

Hussein ignored him and spoke to Mary in slow, clear Hindustani. ‘Your sahib needs help. He is at Parsola, with many Deceivers. He has found out all that is wanted. Tell this sahib now what he was doing. Make him send for all the cavalry, and come at once with them, or it will be too late. Your sahib is in danger.’

She understood from Hussein’s strained face and haunted eyes that it was not merely physical danger which threatened William. ‘Fear of the gods’ -- she remembered that, and looked out at the cold moonlight, and turned to George.

George said, ‘My good man, I can understand Hindustani better than the Memsahib. What’s all this about Deceivers? And’ -- he moved forward to get between Hussein and the windows -- ‘you stay there! I’ve heard of you. You’re the man with his head on one side who was implicated in the Chikhli murders and the Bhadora affair. You’re under arrest. Sher Dil!’ He raised his voice to a shout.

Hussein’s right hand trembled at his waistband. Then he gritted his teeth and stood motionless in George’s grip. He said, ‘Sahib, send for the cavalry! From Sagthali or Khapa, or both. They’ll take a day and a half to come, and meanwhile I will explain everything. Do not hold me. I do not want to run away, because if I go outside now I think I will die. But if I stay here, and you do nothing, Savage-sahib will die.’

‘Why will you die? George snarled. ‘Not that it matters. I’ve turned out the military before, on your account, you lying little swine! It’s on the scaffold that you’ll die! We happen to know where Savage-sahib really is -- and he’s not with or after any Deceivers. Chandra Sen, Patel of Padwa and Kahari, has gone to get him.’

Hussein hung his head. His expression of misery deepened, but his eyes gleamed and he looked sideways at Mary. Mary heard Sher Dil shuffling across the compound from the servants’ quarters. Sher Dil never hurried to obey George’s commands. Hussein seemed to shrink, and Mary, watching him, called out, ‘George!’ so that George turned to look at her. Hussein drove his bony left elbow into George’s stomach. Dumb amazement gaped in George’s open mouth. The windows rattled and Hussein was gone.

Sher Dil padded in. ‘Your honour called?’

George gripped his stomach and groaned. Mary’s mind raced but her feet were lead and she could not move. At last George said, ‘Man . . . Hussein . . . lopsided head . . . attacked me. Send for the police.’ Sher Dil ambled out of the room.

Mary ran to George and grabbed his arm. ‘Hussein is telling the truth! I promised not to tell you before, but William went off with him in the beginning, to track down the Deceivers.’

George sat limply in a chair and looked up at her. ‘I don’t believe it! And who are the Deceivers?’

‘Do you accuse me of lying?’ she whispered with a tense, sick fury.

He hesitated, quailing before the lightning in her eyes. ‘No, you’re accusing Chandra Sen of lying. I’d rather take his word than Hussein’s, damn it. The little swine’s a murderer. From what Chandra Sen said, we’d be as good as killing William if we descended on him with squadrons of cavalry. Is that what you want?’ He was concerned and bitter.

She said, ‘Are you. going to send for the cavalry?’

‘No.’

Her hands itched to claw his handsome face, pull out his golden curls in tufts and strew them on the floor. She gathered herself up, leaning over him in wordless rage. Then she rushed out of the room.

The morning of the sale William walked apart and alone in the jungles. Hussein might come at any time with news. Then he could put Kali behind him, but not before, because there were moments at night when she was still beautiful in his dreams. As the sun moved across the sky and the hour of the sale approached, he felt physical fear. Chandra Sen might be there. And yet it was not Chandra Sen, or death, that he feared. Kali would stand at the patel’s right hand and reproach him with her burning eyes, and his fear was of her.

The sun bent down, and before the night’s full moon set the sale would be over. A day or more, and eight hundred Deceivers would be on the way to wives and homes and children. And he among them. But he dared not face Mary and embrace her because he had embraced the brutalities of Kali. Mary would know at once, while he would remember the harlot girl at Manikwal. He walked slowly through the woods, head bent, and Hussein did not come to him.

At sunset, as the moon rose, his men took the jewels out of the bullock carts and loaded them in saddlebags on two pack- horses. The hyena set up its maniacal call; the bear shuffled and slavered in farewell. Piroo led the horses in tandem, and William walked behind. Three times on the path through the jungles a voice challenged them and the moon-splashed darkness. Three times Piroo prefaced his answering greeting with the words, ‘Ali, my brother.’ William never saw any of the challengers.

Lights blazed in Parsola, and the moving, eddying people lent the little place the excitement of a great city. Men and pack animals -- horses, donkeys, bullocks -- crowded the street. Piroo turned his head to say, ‘We’re the only band that needs two horses.’

They came to the barn. It was a large low building, made of earth and cow dung, a relic of times past when the local landowner had built it to hold his tributes of produce. William knew it; officially it had been in disuse for some years. The thatched roof had decayed and dropped down like an old drunken woman’s bonnet over the outsides of the walls. Four unglazed windows peered out on the side away from the street, and there was a great door in that wall.

Piroo led the horses inside, and William looked about him. Reeds and marsh rushes covered the earth floor. A few small lamps gave a feeble light; he could not see Chandra Sen anywhere. He found an empty space near the door, took the bridles, and said to Piroo, ‘Unload here.’

Piroo spread two blankets and quietly emptied the first saddle-bags. All over the barn these blankets covered the rushes, at least thirty of them, each afire with rings, bangles, and necklaces. By each blanket two men sat. Another score of men, marked plainly with the stamp of ‘bannia’, did not sit beside any blanket but wandered around, talking with one another and with the men on the floor.

Piroo went out to tether the animals. William again searched the yellow, sparkling gloom. He squatted slowly down on his haunches and closed his eyes. Suddenly he thought of the catacombs of Rome as he had imagined them when he was a boy. In those daydreams he had seen a place like this, where men brought their gifts to Holy Church, and sentries held guard against the Roman law, which was cold and did not know the Word.

Men closed the door behind him. He wanted to get up and run away, but could not. It was too late now. The hum of talk in the barn quietened, giving place to light and smell. Ten thousand gems threw up a spectral brilliance. The Deceivers were angels bathed in light. The roof of the barn, all grimed and smoky black, became a barred mosaic, a cathedral under the earth, a sacred arch held up by the worship of men’s hearts. Kali stepped down, and the smells of mould and damp, as from a grave, pierced his nostrils.

An unseen man raised his voice at the far end of the barn. ‘I ask silence, my friends and fellow Deceivers ...’

William recognized Chandra Sen’s voice and tried to keep his hands steady. The men behind him blocked the door. He strained to see the patel, but could pick only a white robe above the heads of the gathering. A trick of shadow concealed the face.

The high, familiar voice went on, ‘Before we start with the sale of these jewels, which are Kali’s gifts to us, there is something you must know. We have found a man who, having eaten Kali’s sugar, would deny her.’

The men in the barn groaned low, not angry but shocked and outraged. Still William could not see Chandra Sen’s head.

‘That man is here,’ the high voice cried. ‘On earth, we are the hands of Kali, and act for her. What does she wish us to do?’

William rose slowly to his feet. Here at the side of the barn he had no hope of escaping. He must get forward, speak to Chandra Sen, warn him that the cavalry were coming, tell him that no violence, only submission, might save him.