The Artist of Disappearance (15 page)

She turned and ran.

 

When she heaved herself over the lip of the hill, hauling herself up by hands that were scratched and bleeding, and digging the toes of her boots into the gravelly earth, breathing hard from both fear and exertion, she found the jeep standing where they had left it—and desperately feared it might not be. Then, seeing Bhatia and Nakhu sitting there in sullen silence, her relief turned quickly to annoyance at the surly looks they directed at her.

'Where's Chand? We've been waiting for the two of you to come and tell us if you had found anything. We've been waiting for
hours'.

This was unfair, if true. Heatedly, she responded, 'We thought you were to follow us!'

'With all this stuff to carry? D'you think I could let it all go and get smashed? Or stolen from the jeep?'

This made sense of course and she pulled herself up into the jeep and sat there, unscrewing the top of a Thermos to gulp water and then wipe her face with her sleeve. Nakhu watched her inquisitively now that she had removed her dark glasses. She glared at him and put her glasses back on firmly, so.

It was a long wait till Chand finally returned to report on sites of illegal logging he had found, but there was no way they could carry their equipment down there: it was unfortunate that Nakhu was only partly and not completely a donkey.

'So let's just get back to town and find the office of the timber company or the mining business, and do interviews there,' Bhatia said with all the authority of reason, and neither Shalini nor Chand could put up a protest.

Bhatia told them of a tandoori restaurant he had seen near their hotel that looked promising and later that day, having washed and changed, they went there for dinner. But when he found the food was over-spiced and greasy, it was Bhatia who complained loudest and declared he would go to bed early, which left Shalini and Chand sitting in the hissing blaze of a Petromax to finish the last of the flat, warm beer they had been served, reluctant to go back to their flea-ridden rooms at the Honeymoon Hotel.

'So, we didn't get what we came for,' Chand sighed, seeing the expedition coming to the verge of collapse.

Shalini pushed her glasses up over the bridge of her nose. 'No,' she agreed, then ventured, 'Perhaps we can look at something else now that we're here.'

'What?' Chand's snort of contempt showed what he thought of the once-alluring, now decrepit and degraded mountains.

'I saw a strange place down below, on the way downhill,' Shalini admitted in a tone of unaccustomed uncertainty. 'I could show it to you.'

'Why?'

She would have to explain. It was a strange place she had stumbled on, made entirely
of
nature, yet not
by
nature. Someone had made it. Or was making it. Some kind of artist perhaps.

Now artists were a species for whom Chand had a grudging but profound respect. What they did was what he aspired to—or once had. Then, he had imagined his training in the year at film school in Pune would lead to it. Those had been the best times he had known. But he was also bitterly aware of how far he had strayed from any artistic ideals.

'And what kind of artist would
that
be?' he growled.

'I don't know. But you've heard of that man in Chandigarh, a road engineer or something, who collected all the scrap from his road projects and built a kind of sculpture garden of it? Kept it hidden because the land he built it on didn't belong to him? Then it was found and he became famous? What's his name, do you know?'

Chand threw her a surprised and wondering look in spite of himself.

Shalini took it for an aroused interest, and curiosity. 'We could go down tomorrow and look at it. Without Bhatia and Nakhu.'

That too appealed to Chand. He had had enough of those two, and he missed his girlfriend in Delhi, the easy-going, relaxed relationship he had with her, a divorcee in print journalism with whom he could have a drink at the Press Club any evening, and who seemed content with just that, someone to accompany her. He glanced at Shalini and decided he wouldn't mind an afternoon in her company, looking for this artist, this art—whatever it was.

Bhatia had no desire to accompany them on another bonejolting ride in the jeep to nowhere. In fact, he begged them to leave him behind—his stomach was in turmoil, he was sure it was that tandoori chicken—he couldn't think of going anywhere. Instead, he would track down 'contacts' right there in town. At the photographer's studio, his first stop since he needed some film and some lenses, he found the town was already aware of their presence and project. The photographer, chewing upon a wad of betel leaves in his cheek, asked juicily, 'You are making a movie, I hear?'

Bhatia, tired of explaining the difference between movies and television, snapped, 'What did you hear about it?'

The photographer shrugged, laughed. 'Many come to make movies here,' he said, which was no longer an original remark. 'Everybody likes the scenery here.'

'We're not interested in scenery,' Bhatia assured him and then, thinking this man might prove a 'contact', expanded: 'We are looking into illegal mines, illegal logging, reasons why this scenery of yours is getting spoilt.'

His instinct proved right. Not only did the photographer plant his elbows on the glass counter and begin giving him the inside story of the corruption and skullduggery going on in the town, but several of the men who had been slouching in the doorway, watching the street for something interesting to happen—so little did in the off-season—edged deeper into the shop and began to add their own stories, and suggestions. Bhatia grew more and more comfortable: this was his scene, this was how he had always known the project would work. Accepting betel leaves, handing out cigarettes, he asked his new acquaintances if they could set up some interviews for him.

 

Chand drove the jeep back to the milestone where they had first stopped. But Shalini could not find the track she had taken the day before. Of course they had to go downhill but this time the track she mistakenly chose led through a thick growth of pine and instead of coming to the glade from around the boulder, they came upon it from above, not even aware of it till they almost plunged off a shelf of rock into it, it was so well concealed in the fold between the hills by ferns and the shadows of ferns.

Shalini put out her hand to alert Chand. He stood with his hands on his hips, staring, and what he saw—what he could make out through the screen of foliage and shadows—affected him enough to make him silent, take out cigarettes and matches from his pocket, then put them away again, unlit.

'Good?' Shalini whispered, trying not to grin.

Good, bad—hardly the words that applied. He was not even sure this garden—this design, whatever it was—was man-made. How could anything man-made surpass the Himalayas themselves, the flow of hills from the plains to the snows, mounting from light into cloud into sky? Or the eagles slowly circling on currents of air in the golden valleys below, or the sound of water gushing from invisible sources above?

What he saw here, however, contained these elements, the essence of them, in constricted, concentrated form, as one glittering bee or beetle or single note of birdsong might contain an entire season.

He let out a low whistle and turned to nod to Shalini. Yes.

They drove back along the loop that ringed the hilltop to the tea stall where they had stopped on their first night for omelettes.

Nakhu had clearly kept his uncle informed of the television crew's doings. Balram greeted them with an almost familial welcome, wiping a table clear of flies for them, suggesting, 'Chai? Coffee? Omelette?'

Shalini and Chand unburdened themselves of their backpacks, and exchanged looks: shall we ask? Chand did, carefully. 'There is a garden down that hill. Whose is it? Who made it? Do you know?'

There was nothing Balram did not know: that was the reputation he liked to maintain. But here he encountered some uncertainty. His fingers searched for an answer in his moustache. 'On that hill?' he asked eventually. 'The one with the burnt house at the top?'

'We didn't see one.'

Now he could tell them about the burnt house, its reputation, its mystery. But as he was telling it, it occurred to him that he could tell them nothing about the survivor of the fire except that there was one. And what they called a 'garden' might belong to him. 'Ask Bhola,' he said at last. 'Bhola is the caretaker. He will know.'

'Where will we find him? Where is this house?'

'Nakhu is with you. Nakhu will show you the way.'

They had almost left Nakhu out of their plans, he had been of so little use. But now they had to include him. And Bhatia.

Over dinner, they listened silently to Bhatia boast about his day's achievements. 'Got some good interviews. Lots of info. You should see the men running these businesses. You won't believe, such goondas. They talked, they don't care who knows. They've got everyone in their pockets. The whole town is making money. So we can wrap it up here, and on the way down to Dehra Dun, stop at some of these quarries—right out in the open—for background, and finish off.'

'Wait!' Shalini cried agitatedly since Chand did not.

'For what?' Bhatia turned an annoyed look at her.

She turned to Chand to explain, so he did. 'We think there might be something for us to film. Shalini showed me. It is a kind of garden. Very private, no one knows about it. But if we can find who made it—is making it—it could make a beautiful ending for the film, Bhatia. Someone who is different, someone who is not destroying the land but making something of it, something beautiful. You can see whoever it is really understands this landscape, appreciates it. We need to speak to him and see if he will let us film his garden.'

Bhatia lowered his head into the palm of his hand and ground it, groaning. Suddenly he was sick of the whole project. Everything about it was wrong, hopeless. And he needed to get home, to his wife's cooking, her care. He had had enough discomfort. Now he needed to leave.

'It's true,' Shalini broke in eagerly. 'It will make the perfect ending. First, all the bad things happening here. Then finish with something beautiful. Hopeful.'

'It's worth trying for, Bhatia,' Chand urged. It was, after all, the closest he had come in his career to art.

'And how are you going to produce this magician? Have you even
seen
him?'

'We will, we will,' they assured him, 'just give us some time,' and they sent for Nakhu. Nakhu was to lead them to the burnt house, and the magician.

 

Ravi was sitting on the veranda steps in the late-evening light, waiting for the homestead below to settle into its familiar pattern, smoke to rise from the thatched roof, his meal brought to him as usual, but it was Bhola who came up the path, empty-handed and strangely hesitant in manner. In addition, he cleared his throat to make Ravi aware he had something to say, and that he had been right to sense some unease in the air, something he had not been able to identify.

'There are some people here from Delhi,' Bhola began, 'they came to see me. People have been talking about them. They are here to make a fill-um.'

Ravi decided he needed to give himself time to adjust to this information. He offered a biri to Bhola although Bhola never took one from him, and lighted one himself.

'They are here to make a film,' he echoed, and wondered why he was being told this. Surely Bhola knew he had no interest at all in anything that was happening in town.

'And they wish to come and talk to you.'

It was too dark to see the expressions on each other's faces but not so dark that Bhola could not see Ravi's hand, holding the lighted biri, remain in mid-air and his entire posture freeze.

'No!' The answer finally broke from Ravi like something breaking deep inside him. 'No!'

Bhola felt compelled to offer understanding, and comfort. 'I will tell them. I will tell them you will not speak to them.'

'Yes,' Ravi said from between tightly compressed lips, a tightly constricted throat. 'Tell them. Tell them that.'

'I will tell that boy Nakhu they have engaged. I know Nakhu. Nakhu will tell them.'

Bhola meant the words to be reassuring but they did not seem to reassure Ravi. That was clear from the way he got to his feet and went blundering up the steps to his room. Bhola waited to see if he would light his lamp but he did not. The room stayed dark.

Ravi did not come out next morning. The house remained shut and silent. But at dusk, after he had brought home the goats and cow and a load of firewood for his wife, Bhola climbed the path and, on not seeing Ravi, went up the stairs and opened the door to his room. This was unprecedented: he never intruded on Ravi for any reason. But now he stood in the doorway, silently, looking in, so Ravi should be aware he was there.

'They found your garden,' Bhola told him, and he was as upset as he knew Ravi would be on hearing of the trespass. 'They filmed it, and tomorrow they want to come here. Nakhu is to bring them. They pay him.'

He could make out that Ravi was sitting at the table by the abrupt movement he made now, half rising from his chair.

'Come with me,' Bhola said and, going up to him, took him by his arm and directed him out of the room, down the steps. On the path he loosened his hold a bit but still held him by his sleeve as they followed each other down the uneven, stony track.

The dogs ran up to them in a band, clamouring. Bhola silenced them gruffly, and they turned round and led the way to the hut. Bhola's wife Manju was in the cowshed, milking the cow he had brought back from grazing. The air was thick with the smell of straw and the milk she squirted into the tin pail. The children had been whooping around, driving the chickens into their pen, but now they fell silent and stared.

Bhola took Ravi into the hut where the fire had just been lit to make the evening meal. In the semi-dark, he took down some clothes that were hanging on a line across one corner of the room and handed them to Ravi. 'Here,' he said, 'change into these. Even if you are seen, no one will think it is you. I will tell them you are my brother, visiting.' He left the room, leaving Ravi to follow his instructions, removing his khaki trousers and white shirt and pulling on Bhola's old, ragged pyjamas and a long shirt that came down to his knees. He removed his shoes and let his feet find their way into a pair of stiff, cracked leather sandals.