Truth Lake (8 page)

Lights were glinting in the village as Karmel made his way up along the narrow lanes. The cottages appeared distorted in the gloom and he was unsure of his bearings.  Having found his way through the darkening forest, he had become quite confident about his sense of direction, but the sameness of the little cabins threw him. He was almost ready to step into one of them and ask directions when a shout made him turn his head; with relief he recognised Maya, Thahéra's girl, pulling a single reluctant goat along behind her.

'Stranger!' the girl exclaimed beginning to giggle behind her hand, 'My mother's been waiting for you. She's found you a place to sleep. Come.' Karmel was so fatigued by the day's bending and digging that he could barely keep up with her and did not have time to look around him though he could hear other youngsters rounding up their goats, whistling and whacking their sticks against their thighs.

They cut through tiny gaps between several cabins until they were once more within a few paces of the stream he had arrived at and where Thahéra had found him on the previous day; then they climbed again. Karmel realised that the village was larger than he had at first thought.

Thahéra did not greet him. Unaccountably his heart began to beat faster when he glimpsed her. She looked as she had in the morning with a small piece of multicoloured cloth tied tightly over her abundant hair. She was sitting in the doorway of a cabin with an oil lantern beside her, chatting to someone within. He could just make out a faded woman inside the room, with pale eyes and greying hair whom he presumed was her sister. He was about to step up to utter greetings when Thahéra rose, pulling the warped wooden door closed behind her before descending the steps and holding up her lantern so that she could look at him.

She shook her head at the sight of his grimy attire but said only, 'Let's go to the cabin.'

Had he been less exhausted and anxious about keeping his feet, Karmel might have admired her swaying hips as she guided him, and the firm calves that showed, where her skirt was hitched up. As it was, he stumbled several times for, where no light fell from the lantern she carried, the ground was invisible. The air was thinner than he remembered and he found it difficult to breathe.

The cabin was empty but for a string cot and a tin trunk with a lock on it. There were spiders' webs near the beams and small piles of sand in the corners suggesting that ants had been at work. Shadows fell around them and suddenly Karmel felt awkward.  He looked at the woman who had brought him here and wanted to thank her but something prevented him from speaking.  She was staring at him with a steady, serious expression and he felt himself blushing.

Her lips moved slightly. She lifted the lantern for his benefit and moved it around to show him the proportions of the room again.

'Is this suitable for you? If you wish, my sons can bring your stuff from our house and I can send some food with them? You are tired from walking? You wish to sleep now? Or you may want to eat with us?' He had come to recognise her many questions as one of the ways she guarded against mistakes. Her obvious wish not to be caught out in some cultural blunder made him wonder about her; he had not expected a mountain woman to be so proud or so precise. His mistake. He would have to be careful. Instead of responding to her enquiries, he asked, 'To whom does this place belong?'

              She seemed immediately uncomfortable but replied candidly enough, 'Oh it's ours. My sister and I … Our father .… He used to stay here but now he lives with us.' 

              'I'll stay here. It seems to suit me well. Plenty of space. But you must let me pay you. And for the food too. Tell me how much would be reasonable. Hundred rupees a night and would you make breakfast for me too?'

              She dropped her eyes and shook her head at first, making him think that she couldn't make food for him in the mornings or that she wanted more money but it turned out that she was upset by the offer and didn't wish to accept money at all. Karmel felt his stomach lurch at such courtesy from her. 

At last she accepted two hundred rupees with an embarrassed nod.  She didn't look at him again after that and he felt that he had offended her. Leaving the lantern with him, she hurried away into what – to him – was total darkness. Twenty minutes later her sullen older son appeared with Karmel's belongings and a steaming dish of food.  He refused to greet Karmel and did not speak all through the meal, sitting on the ground with twitchy hands and dark staring eyes.  Keeping his gaze on Karmel's face, he removed the dishes almost before the last morsel had left the plate and made off through the door. Karmel was alone for the night.

Returning late from work that same evening, Hàrélal opened his post at last and perused Karmel's letter with anxious haste.

Dear Sir,

forgive me for the delay but this place requires a prodigious journey. I am now speaking with a group of climbers from Delhi who assure me I am approaching my destination, and I'm forwarding this message through the same. 

Sir, I need to make two requests. Officially, only one, you understand, as this is partly a hunch of mine but please act with speed . . .

1)
   
Ensure that our young tourists are not permitted to depart Delhi without giving signed statements & ensure delay to their return as I must question them again. I do not believe that this is a matter to be kept under wraps.  Find out when and why they entered the country. Problems with time-scale as they've given it; also with their account of their climb and the directions given; sightings of a foreign woman without a man within the last month could indicate that they did not travel together as asserted. You will not be ignorant of what that may mean.

2)
   
Have a background check put in with the Ministry for Environment and Interior affairs about Mister Antonio Sinbari. Discretion required sir, please. Find out: Where are his latest projects located? Is he as unfamiliar with these mountains as he suggested?

Hope I am not chasing wild geese, sir. 

Your faithful

                      Kailash Karmel.

Hàrélal's brain spun through several hundred degrees and remained spinning. What was this? 
Ensure delay? Background check?
Kailash, my boy, why didn't you warn me before leaving?  You must be a psychic, son. No other explanation. How could you know what that motherfucker Sinbari was planning?

He buttoned his shirt with shaking hands. It had taken him exactly sixteen hours from the time of its delivery to open this letter and now he could only regret his hasty departure from the house in the morning.

He'd had a dreadful day, full of mistaken leads about his daughter Tanya, reproachful telephone calls from his wife's relatives and furious memos and emails from the Chief Minister, and the Foreign Minister's office requesting an immediate update on the Flights embargo situation and what he was doing to tackle ‘terrorism in the North’; never mind that it wasn't even his jurisdiction; never mind that he had no control over the press any more or that it was the Minister's job to brief him and not the other way around.

He had sobbed into a red handkerchief when a senior detective informed him that Tanya had been identified by a taxi driver from one of the suburbs but that the man had merely driven her to a very large open-air market and left her there. The man had been beaten severely, but had not been able to tell them anything else. His story had not varied in a single detail. He had been hailed by a young woman exactly like the one in the photograph when he was cruising near Safdarjang Hospital; he had dropped her off near a suburban street market. She hadn't haggled over the fare. 

As far as the taxi driver was concerned they could keep their fucking reward if they allowed him to go back to his wife and kids alive and with his manhood intact. As he left the building groaning he swore and shouted that he should have known better than to try to help the fucking cops. There were suppressed sniggers from the duty sergeant and his hangers on.

So at least Tanya'd been alive, until three days ago. But there was nothing more he could do to find her.

And now – at nine o' clock when all he wanted to do was to remove his tie and feed a pulped banana to his starving wife – this letter. Well, it was too late to act on the first of Kailash's hunches, the birds had already flown, so to speak, though of course he'd ascertain their arrival dates; but the second request, which involved checking on the man who had single-handedly buggered up his promotion and destroyed his reputation . . . well, he'd make damn sure he carried out that one. Nothing would give him more pleasure at the present moment, save perhaps the sight of his dear child safe and well in her mother's arms. 

By ten p.m. he was back in Central Delhi, treading the floor of his carpeted office suite like a hunched tiger, waiting for his dazed secretary and her ever-fresh computer to work their magic. 'The word is
Sinbari'
, he kept prompting her: 'S-I-N-B-A-R-R-I'.

Lights winked out one by one across the street from him. The neighbours were going to bed. Like Hàrélal's secretary, Antonio's assistant, Sadrettin, was surfing the net, facing the picturesque front window of his small but perfectly appointed New Delhi residence. In his clean white pyjamas he looked very young – too pretty for the job he was doing. He'd showered and had more than one vodka-cranberry, but nothing seemed to settle his nerves. Outside he thought he could hear the patter of the first few raindrops of the year. A smell of intense sensuous import suffused the air. The mouse clicked and clicked in tiny frustrated bursts. 

It was unusual for him to feel this restless in the night and he put it down to the fact that he had almost argued with Antonio that morning. 

It was several days since their last conversation about the Konali project and by now they were deep into the fall-out of the sudden withdrawal. Many of their investors were threatening to cut off their capital; apoplectic notes had been arriving for days from the various Ministries involved in the deal. Ma Randhor had almost boarded a plane for Delhi, so seriously was she taking this change of plan. Her accountants and lawyers were even now buzzing around Antonio's offices like a plague of mosquitoes. Sadrettin, of course, was taking all the flak.

The screen glowed intermittently and offered up more and more unwanted bits of information – landfill sites no longer used, old construction projects that had been abandoned due to lack of forethought, bankruptcy, acts of God; mountain locations recommended for health reasons; Alpine forests in Himachal advertised for tourists; tropical forests like those in Bengal for honeymoon couples up in the foothills; anywhere cool, anywhere cheap. And still his mind returned again and again to that unsatisfactory conversation.

'Put together a team. Go out there. You'll know the place at once.'

'But why
there
, sir? And why me? You know that's not what you hired me for.  I'm not good at location scouting. Rimi Charoot, Taylor, they're the ones to handle that.'

              'That's why I said put together a
team
.' Sinbari was patient. Reading his
Times
and eating a maple syrup and pecan pastry. You can buy anything in Delhi. 

He'd flown out to Rome for Vincent's graduation and back within forty hours.  He hadn't slept and he still looked amazing. Alert. Well manicured. Sleek. Sadrettin couldn't look away from him. 

              'Okay, I'll go. I'll take Rimi, Narayan, Taylor. But why don't you come with us?  You used to check it all out for yourself at the beginning. After all, this is
your
secret project – your El-Dorado?' His voice was sulky, then persuasive. The word 'secret' earned him a look that made him shut up for a few seconds, but he persisted, pretending not to notice his boss's irritated grimace.

              'Sir?'

              'I don't want to go anywhere at the moment. I have got plenty on my plate in Delhi and a trip home always takes it out of me. As you know. Vincent's a jerk, disrespects his Mama, wears a tongue stud. My own son's turned into a little anarchist. But never mind that, he’s still my boy, someone to count on, eh. Why don't you find yourself a wife? Have kids. Have a bit of fun before it's too late. Take them on expeditions like this one, huh?'

All of this without looking up from the newspaper. Sadrettin was too mortified to respond. Antonio knew how to hurt him. Sod him. Sod that village in the mountains.

*

Gradually all the little sounds of village life deserted the cabin. Unaccustomed to the scratchy cot, Karmel shifted back and forth, trying for a position which would not tip him into the sagging middle where the ropes were sharpest. He was beginning to feel the cold acutely, for he had foolishly removed his outer layers and wore only a cotton shirt under the sleeping bag. The previous night Thahéra's cottage had been heated by her cooking fire and the breath of its occupants. Even though it was the tail end of summer, this cabin seemed to have absorbed all the cold in the village and still had more which it allowed to curl around him in tiny waves of freezing air. He thought about clouds passing overhead but could not imagine any darkness deeper than this. He knew that if he wished to he could press the tiny protrusion on his watch to light up the dial and ascertain the time. It was probably no later than nine o' clock. Inertia stayed all action.

Unexpectedly, hands snatched at him, gripped him by the collar and hauled him up with a force powerful enough to rip the cloth and bruise his neck. He screamed but could not scream, twisted but felt his arms pinioned; someone was gagging him, dragging him roughly along the ground, out into the cold. Why were there no stars?   More hands, ripping at his shorts, tearing into his flesh, then pain – searing, utterly unexpected – like needles being drilled into his thighs, just below his buttocks; agony so terrifying that his bladder gave way and drenched him in a streaming mess. Then noise of some sort at last – hisses, clicked tongues and more chilling than even the pain, suppressed mirth.

Karmel awoke sweating. There seemed to be no noise anywhere in the universe.  Silence sliced at him from all sides. He wanted to move but did not dare to twitch even a muscle. Darkness flooded out all around. When he opened his mouth it seeped in between his teeth and slid over his tongue until it merged with the darkness inside him.

As an adult, watching American science fiction programmes on cable television, Karmel had witnessed reconstructions of what were known as 'alien abductions'.  Everything represented in these episodes – the panic, the dazed anger at unknown forces and the abject wish to stay alive that the abductees experienced – were also components of what he had felt as a child on the night when he was dragged from his smelly dormitory, from sleep and relative peace, to a squalid stone urinal and mutilated by persons unknown. They did not assault him sexually; but the outcome of their mischief was that he would fear such an assault for the rest of his life: in the morning, the ageing cook, suppressing hysteria, lifted him from the foetid pool in which he lay and deciphered for him the word bloodily tattooed across his thighs. Then she bustled about, wiping his face with her sari and telling him he was lucky to be alive. Still pursued by nightmares eighteen years later, Kailash Karmel was not often conscious of his own loneliness. He touched the sleeping bag and realised that it was only moist from his perspiration.

Gradually the horror and humiliation of his dream began to ease and he lifted his head. With his eyes open he strained to make out the lines of his palm near his face.  When he thought that he could see something of his fingers he relaxed a fraction.  Centring his mind on an image of the woman in whose cabin he found himself staying, he began to move himself gently. Her voice, disembodied, was enough to bring heat back to his limbs and a pulse to his cock. Her firm shoulders and dimpled elbows were still more erotic. He never imagined laying a hand on her, nor undressing her dignified frame, but nonetheless found himself shivering to a climax of startling fervour.

Removing his sweat-soaked shorts he cleaned himself vigorously and, curling his body into the centre of the sleeping bag, waited for light.

*

Adam was drinking again; if she looked out of the bedroom window of their spacious suite Sara could just about make out where he sat by the pool, hunched over in inscrutable contemplation. She hadn't spoken to him for hours and the fear of losing him entirely was haunting her. The last time she kissed his cheek he had mumbled at her to piss off and she'd had to bite her tongue to suppress an angry retort.

He was going down to the pool early and coming to bed late and she was aware of his hostility when they met. Back home she had other friends to talk to and enough work at the hospital to keep her up a dozen nights yet here she couldn't keep her mind on anything, for though the sea was blue, the pool glittered like a diamond and the palms were lush, she saw nothing but that village in the mountains. Finally, when her conscience could bear inactivity no longer, she returned to the little booth in the corner of the hotel lobby from which she had first phoned her mother.

She dialled fast and spoke with her head bowed.

She explained what she could about Cameron and what Adam had wanted from her and why they had lied; she tried to describe Sinbari, but words failed her; she spoke of their climb and the shock and the fleeing; she mentioned the corpse but did not dwell on it; Hàrélal entered her narrative as 'that patronising shite of a Police chief' and Karmel as a 'possibly the only trained cop – intelligent, cultured, but so astute it chilled you to say a word to him'; and then she spoke of Cameron's watch. Comprehending what her daughter meant at last, the woman gave a hiss of anguished surprise.

'
Ma!
What on earth shall I do?'

'Go back to the Police;
right now
!' was the only advice Mrs McMeckan would give; other than urging the girl to come home. Yes, home was where Sara should be, she went on, they would all look out for her and look after her.

But Sara, still tasting the horror she'd felt on seeing those bony fingers protruding from the earth, worms wriggling between ghastly digits, was wishing that she'd confided everything to Detective Karmel
before
she sent him to that brooding lakeside village.