The Strangler Vine (7 page)

The afternoon was less humid than it had been and at the civilian’s suggestion I took a palanquin into the town, following the huge red dome of Sher Shah Suri’s tomb. I was brought to a large, still square tank, or artificial lake. In its midst, connected to the land by a narrow brick causeway, was a palace of a tomb. It was in some disrepair but still handsome, and made – one saw when one approached – of many thousands of small pink bricks. Its large main dome was intricately encircled by many smaller domed shelters and handsome terraces, punctuated by dark-shadowed arches. Though the water was not very clean and the building somewhat dilapidated, I realized I felt at peace and almost happy. I dismissed the bearers and, having strolled about the tank, wandered back through the bazaar. I examined a stall which sold inlaid boxes, and another which to my surprise displayed tiny dolls’ furniture. Further into the bazaar were the more prosaic stalls selling vegetables, firewood, oil and fresh-cooked foods. Without thinking I purchased a snack of fried gram served on a sal leaf, which I had seen Sameer eat – something I would never have done in Calcutta. It was crisp and hot and delicious.

There was little of the importuning by natives that one encountered in Calcutta and so I continued to meander past a white-domed temple and a small square tank rimmed by tiny child-sized steps. A crowd was gathered around a pan stall. I could see the potions and dried herbs. I stopped at a distance, attempting to work out what was happening. The crowd parted for a moment, and I saw Mir Aziz – I was sure it was he – bending over a native sitting in a chair. He was brandishing what looked like a long pointed sharp needle and seemed about to do the man in the chair some terrible injury while some of the crowd watched and others talked animatedly among themselves. Then some looked up, and for the first time I
had the feeling that I was where I should not be. I turned on my heel, then looked back, but the crowd had re-formed and I could see nothing. I walked back to the European part of town, extremely troubled by what I had seen.

Over dinner I did my best to look enthralled by my host’s talk of the Governor General Lord Auckland’s upcoming visit on his way north. My thoughts, however, kept returning to the needle and the bazaar.

‘Though of course the Governor General and his sisters will be travelling by boat up the Ganges,’ my host said, ‘the soldiers will mostly be coming up the road. It is naturally a great honour, of which I am very sensible, to put up the army, but we are only a small station, you know. Feeding and watering a 10,000-strong force here, well, we have had to scour the neighbourhood. I can tell you, the natives do not like it, not one bit. It is all a little worrying. There are whispers,’ he went on, ‘of famine further north. It all puts pressure on us, the civilians. We do not have a regular station of soldiers here, so if anything were to happen … It is of some concern to me,’ and he patted a handkerchief anxiously against his forehead. ‘More soup?’

I declined. ‘Might I, however, describe something I saw today in the bazaar to ask if you are familiar with it?’

I described the strange sight I had witnessed: one native apparently about to do violence to another seated before him, surrounded by a considerable audience. My host began to wring his hands, pulling his fingers back towards his knuckles in an anxious manner.

‘Goodness, what can it be? I have never heard of such a thing. It all sounds very alarming. I suppose I shall have to investigate. Dear, dear, more uncivilized native conduct. Very much not what we need just now, when there is enough muttering in the bazaar.’

He seemed a nice enough man and I was sorry I had worried him, but the prospect of a comfortable bed displaced all cares and I soon retired joyfully to its embrace. There in turn I began to worry. Whatever he had been doing, Mir Aziz’s proximity to the pan stall was especially concerning. My senior officers had warned me that pan stalls were havens of sedition, and native druggists were
charlatans peddling dangerous remedies. I felt a sneaking suspicion that his performance was connected to Blake. Perhaps, I thought, they had no intention of finding our quarry. Eventually, fatigue overcame me and I dropped off. At some point I was woken again by a thin clammy hand snaking unpleasantly around my waist. Holding as tight as I could to the shreds of sleep, I gave the body attached to it as hard a dig as possible with my elbow and then kicked backward to push it from the bed. There was a pained yelp.

‘I believe, sir,’ I said sleepily, ‘I accepted an invitation for dinner and a bed, not for company in it.’

‘I just thought …’ my host said plaintively.

‘You were mistaken then,’ I said. ‘I am extremely fatigued, sir. Kindly leave me to sleep.’

In the morning when I rejoined our party, I was constrained and awkward with Mir Aziz. He volunteered nothing about the previous day’s activities, and I could not bring myself to ask. I felt the former easiness and understanding between us disperse, and I regretted it. There were three days of riding until we would reach Benares. I bestirred myself to think only of that. But after ten days of hard travel we were all dog-tired. Even Mr Blake flagged. I caught him swaying in the saddle and I could see when he dismounted that he ached just as I did, though he never complained of it. Sameer was sulky; Nungoo clattered about with his cooking pot. I struggled to stay awake for my watch, cursed my sores and became morose and ill-tempered, especially with Mir Aziz. The landscape offered little respite. It became flat again, punctuated by the occasional tank, a small mosque or Hindoo temple and the obligatory skinny, half-naked sadoo, and a few poor huts. We began to pass large fields where small, curly-leafed plants were pushing up through the earth. Eventually we came upon the longest, ugliest grey building I had ever seen – a vast, vast rectangular thing that stretched on and on like a series of long barns. Despite my resolution not to depend on Mir Aziz, I could not resist asking what it was.

‘Manufactury for
afeem
. Opium poppy,’ he said. ‘It is new cultivation, maybe three, four year ago. Once this land was planted with indigo and lentil.’

I heard, or thought I heard, a note of disapproval in his voice and I pursued it coldly. ‘But this is not a bad thing, Mir Aziz?’ I said.

‘I do not know, sahib,’ he said.

‘Opium has made India rich,’ I announced. ‘It has repaired the fortunes of the Company, which has brought peace, order, roads, trade to all. Now it will be able to do more. Is that not a good thing?’ Ahead of me, I was sure I heard Blake snort, though it was quiet enough for me to wonder if I had imagined it.

‘Of course, sahib.’ I could tell he did not agree, but I had wanted to force him to bow to my opinion, and he had and I felt shabby for it. We did not speak for the rest of the day.

We came to Benares in the morning. From a distance it was like a tale from the
Arabian Nights
, a glitter of pale walls. Then as we came closer one could see the wide pewter-dark mirror of the Ganges with its yachts, pinnaces, steamboats and rafts, running past the city walls, with deep ghat steps leading down to it. From them, stretching up to an immense height, there were elegant old minarets, palaces with elaborately carved stone balconies, and Hindoo temples. The stone seemed to me at that moment to be all the colours of the dawn, from near white to pale pink to golden orange to red. On the ghats there were huge pale stone statues of Hindoo gods, sitting or reclining, and near them, tiny by comparison, hundreds of natives stood waist-deep in the water, washing or spreading their arms in prayer, or pouring liquid from brass bowls that glinted in the sun, their foreheads daubed with white smears. Other ghats were piled with hemp sacks of grain, cotton and opium ready to be loaded on to steamboats for transport down to Calcutta. From yet more twirled a constant plume of smoke, almost picturesque until one remembered it came from the burning bodies of the dead before they were tipped into the river. Closer to, Benares reminded me of Calcutta: it heaved with bodies and livestock. We made the river crossing in a shallow red boat, then pushed our way through the city gates and a labyrinth of narrow alleys to a stables where we exchanged our ponies and stowed our baggage.

Mir Aziz told me that Mr Blake had business in the city. I was free to spend the day as I preferred and might take Sameer if I wished. I
declined the offer. For a few hours I wanted nothing more than to be free of Blake’s arrangements, and I wished to pursue my own plans. I said I intended to seek out Lieutenant Keay’s regiment and his friend Jiggins, and that if I could get European accommodation for the night I should accept it. I hired a palanquin which took me some way beyond the walls, past the wide gravelled avenues of the European cantonment to the headquarters of Keay’s regiment, His Majesty’s 31st. In a small hot room off the parade ground I found a large, sandy-haired adjutant poring unenthusiastically over a pile of papers. When he saw me, he leapt from the table and vigorously pumped my hand.

‘A new phiz! Capital! And a new uniform. Where have you sprung from?’ He was a big, sturdy fellow, with a fair bit of flesh round him, and there were the beginnings of red whiskers on his chin. When he grinned he showed a row of large, even teeth. ‘Are you advance notice from Calcutta? We’re not expecting the Governor General for six weeks.’

‘I am up from Calcutta, but I’m travelling with a Company civilian to Jubbulpore. Do you know where I might find a Lieutenant Jiggins?’

‘I am the very man! Who sent you? Jubbulpore, eh? To see Thuggee Sleeman, I suppose?’ Seeing my expression of surprise he said, ‘Why else would you be going to Jubbulpore?’

‘Of course. Lieutenant Keay said I should—’

‘Cut-above Keay, the Prince of the Mofussil? He sent you? Prime!’

I laughed, and he said, ‘“Cut-above Keay” – it is good, isn’t it? From Calcutta, hey? Has he managed to catch himself a wife? Can’t imagine it would be too hard.’

‘We have been rivals, I’m afraid. I fear he’ll get the best of it. But he suggested I come find —’

‘Yes, of course! Do you have lodgings? I am sure I can set you up. How long are you here for? Are you a large party?’

I explained how few we were, how fast we had been travelling, and how at that moment the summit of my ambitions was to find something apart from the ground on which to sleep. His keenness was both appealing and a little overwhelming.

‘Fire and fury! Never heard anything like it! No servants? You
must be quite done up. Can’t have that. There is at least one empty bungalow and there are rooms at the chummery. I insist you dine at the mess tonight. We always want news from Calcutta.’

He began to summon natives from nowhere and issued a stream of orders. In just a few minutes he had found me a fleet of servants, directed me to my rooms, arranged for my luggage to be collected, ordered a bath and suggested we meet again at dusk. I drew a cold bath – a luxury so delightful at that moment it surpassed all others – and dozed. I woke after an hour determined to return to the ghats. Leaving my palanquin at the gates, I pushed my way into the alleys alone on foot. I could not say quite why I felt the need to return – Benares was impressively ancient and it had a decrepit beauty, but I did not warm to its crowded chaos. I roamed about the temples and shrines, and then to the bazaar, wandering between stalls selling sky blue and pink silks, heavy-smelling perfumes, piles of musty carpets, daggers, knives and elderly blunderbusses, and ventured as deep as I could into the native parts. There were more stalls selling inlaid ivory work, and jade and ivory bangles and hairpins. From a fearsome old woman who bit my coins, I chose a box of iridescent beetles’ wings for my sister in England, to sew on to a dress. Since we had left Calcutta I had put thoughts of her from me. Now I resolved to write to her. But I saw no sign of Mir Aziz.

Jiggins’s mess turned out to be a jolly place, smaller and friendlier than mine, and he was its master of revelries. I was stood a fine dinner and plied with Champagne – ‘
Simkin
, simkin, Avery, please,’ said Jiggins, ‘got to learn the local lingo’ – which, after two weeks of warm water from a skin bottle, was very nectar of the gods. The officers were a convivial bunch, loudly complaining about whiling away their days in Benares, while up in the north there were still battles to be fought and skirmishes to be had. They could not wait to follow the Governor General to Simla, and thence, they hoped, to the border. I envied them.

‘Have you seen a regiment march yet, Avery?’ said Jiggins. ‘It is something all right. The Governor General’s procession will be all that and more. It starts with his entourage and their servants. Then after it comes at least two divisions, and for every fighting man at
least five non-combatants – with large families even more. That’s a column of at least 20,000 people, and tens of thousands of camels, horses, mules, bullocks and elephants, grain, salt, silks, shoes, blacksmiths, saddlers, sweetmeat makers: a whole moving city, all trundling along. The front reaches its destination before the back has even started.’

‘But tell us, Avery,’ he went on, clapping an arm around my shoulders, and speaking for the benefit of the whole table, ‘how do you come to be pounding the miles to Jubbulpore with a mysterious civilian, in double-quick time and in disgraceful discomfort, without a bearer to your name?’

There was laughter.

‘We are going to Jubbulpore to see Major Sleeman. I can say no more.’ I am a poor liar and when Jiggins gave me a sidelong look, I blushed a little.

‘Sleeman is a remarkable fellow,’ another man said. ‘A politico, not a real soldier, of course.’ Politicos were officers who had transferred to the Political Department, taking civilian jobs running stations, as Macpherson had hoped to. ‘But they don’t find corpses lying in the road like they used to. Major Lawrence used to oversee the Thug-taking round here, and he’s done very well for himself. But they have all done well, Sleeman’s men.’

‘A bit of an old stick, Sleeman. Always going on about his sugar cane and his trees and his peasants.’

‘Still, they say the sugar cane got him that pretty French wife!’