The Moneylenders of Shahpur (16 page)

He agreed to do as she had said. How could he explain to her, he thought, that the shivering was caused by a fearful apprehension? A primitive scenting of danger to himself.

He was overwhelmed by worry that he would not be able to whisk Anasuyabehn safely away, before she was married to Mahadev, and that it was almost impossible to communicate with her. His nerves were screwed to breaking point and he did not know which way to turn.

At Mrs Jha’s house, John got down to see Diana safely to her door. He waited patiently while Mrs Jha could be heard fiddling with the great brass bolts on the other side. He looked down at Diana. She smiled at him, and very gently he bent down and kissed her on the cheek. At that moment Mrs Jha was checking on them through her peephole. She was greatly shocked. Her thin lips were even thinner, as she let her lodger in.

Diana herself was agreeably surprised and gave him another smile, as he said goodbye.

He climbed back into the carriage and said to Tilak, ‘We can go first to your hostel and the tongawallah can drop me on his way back to town.’

Tilak had been wrapped in his own thoughts, but he said that he would prefer to get down at John’s bungalow and walk over to the hostel.

‘But you’ve got fever,’ protested John.

‘It’s a fever of the mind,’ Tilak snapped, his voice full of wretchedness.

‘All right,’ agreed John, and at his bungalow they had an amiable argument as to who should pay the tongawallah. John won, on the grounds that he would have taken a tonga, anyway. He was worried enough about his friend to offer him a drink before he went to the hostel, and this was accepted by Tilak with evident relief.

Tilak sipped cautiously at his whisky and water. It did not taste quite as foul as he expected; he would rather have died than admit that he had never tasted whisky before. Shahpur was a prohibition area, and John obtained a small ration of whisky each month, on the grounds that he had drunk it all his life and was, therefore, an addict. He was much teased about it.

Troubled by the ravages wrought on his friend in a few distressing days, he watched Tilak thoughtfully, as he sipped his own drink.

The unaccustomed alcohol loosened Tilak’s tongue. He spoke first of the English Fellowship and then, more slowly, about his desire to take Anasuyabehn with him as his wife.

When he heard this, John sat up in his chair, pain in his legs forgotten.

‘Look here,’ he said. ‘The only way in which you can marry Anasuyabehn is by formally asking her father, or getting your uncle to ask for you.’

‘If she has a passport, she could be married to me in a civil ceremony in Bombay and we could go straight on to the ship. The problem is that the Fellowship does not commence until October, and she is scheduled to marry this Desai fellow next month.’

‘That would, anyway, be tantamount to an abduction in the eyes of the law, here. Dr Mehta is my old and trusted friend; I could never be party to the abduction of his daughter.’

‘I’m not asking you to be.’

‘Well, there’s another point. I wouldn’t like you to face a charge like that in a local court. Apart from its being a very serious charge, you’re a Maratha – and they’d have your blood.’

Tilak made a face. ‘Gujeratis are not very fond of us, are they? We are also not very fond of them.’ He sighed heavily. ‘You know perfectly well that the Dean wouldn’t even give me a hearing. Every time I meet him in the corridor I can see him trying not to throw up again – and some of his Arts colleagues are positively insulting.’

John sat taut and attentive. Unless he was stopped quickly, Tilak might ruin himself, and end up being thrown out of the world of scholars – and out of his family, as well. He suggested gently, ‘Look, Tilak. You’ve got this Fellowship. Take it. Go and work under Diamond – it’s a chance in a thousand. Forget about Anasuyabehn. Mahadev is a decent man in his way, and her father, I believe, knows it.’ He paused for breath, and then added persuasively, ‘There are other women in the world, Tilak, women educated to your level. You’ll find someone else in time.’

While John had been speaking, Tilak had left his chair and, with his hands clenched in his pockets, had been walking slowly up and down the room. Now, he went to
the door and flung it violently open. He glared out at the inky shadows in the compound.

He was furious; he dared not speak. One word would have loosed an avalanche of anger on to John – and in his heart he knew that John was the only true friend he had in Shahpur.

He ran down the steps into the darkness. The compound gate slammed after him.

Mrs Jha shut the door on John, replaced the padlock, and then turned to Diana. Beneath hooded lids, her black eyes were full of suspicion, and her lips were tight with disapproval; it was not seemly for a young woman to be seen home by a man. When previously Diana had been to meetings at Lallubhai’s house, she had always been driven home with a number of guests, both ladies and gentlemen, in the car. Once she had arrived home having been driven in solitary grandeur by Lallubhai’s chauffeur, which was bad enough; but after all a chauffeur was hardly a man at all. Now Mrs Jha awaited an explanation, while Diana stood in the hall in a half dream.

Mrs Jha rattled her keys, and Diana came out of her reverie. If she did not wish to lose her room, some explanation of John’s presence was necessary.

‘Mr Lallubhai asked Dr Bennett to bring me home,’ she said. ‘He’s a very learned man – some people say he is a sage – who lives near the University. He writes history books about the Gujerati people.’

Mrs Jha’s imagination was captured.

‘Books about us?’ she exclaimed.

‘Yes,’ replied Diana, with suitable gravity. ‘He’s made the Gujerat famous in America and England, as a place of learned and pious people.’

‘Ramji! Fancy, books about us. And he is a sage, you say?’

Diana smiled.

‘Well, not quite,’ she said, ‘but he lives a bit like a monk.’

Mrs Jha’s face fell. Although she had disapproved of Diana’s being accompanied home by a strange man, she was disappointed at being robbed of a secondary interest in a romance. A sage, indeed!

She moved down the passage, hitching her sari as she went, while Diana turned towards her room. Sages in ancient days were known to fall from grace, the old lady ruminated hopefully, and this one had certainly kissed the girl, which was quite shocking.

Diana took off her dress and wandered about her room in her cotton petticoat. With a mind hopelessly overstimulated, she abandoned all thoughts of going to bed for some time and decided that, in spite of the noise it would make, she would do her washing.

She got out the wooden paddle with which to beat the wet clothes on the veranda floor, a bucket of water made warm by the sun, a bar of common soap and the cardboard box of dirty clothes. Methodically, she sorted the clothes, taking each garment carefully out with her fingertips and shaking it well away from her, in case a scorpion or a snake should have taken up residence. Then she went through her skirt and blouse pockets to remove dirty handkerchiefs.

And there it was.

Fluttering silently to the floor from a handkerchief, a minute piece of paper with a blue line across its creamy whiteness. Diana watched it fall, her brows knitted in perplexity.

‘Now where did that come from?’ she muttered, and bent down to pick the scrap up.

The movement reminded her. Of course, she had picked it up on the way to Pandipura. She smiled at the thought of how she had amused herself by wondering how it came to be at the foot of a cactus in the bush.

Then the smile died, her eyes widened. She knew what it was.

The dead donkey! Her patient’s fear! The missing noise in the village! It all fell into place.

Her first thought was to run to the police. But, no. These were not like British policemen – she might find herself in a dreadful mess with them. Then go to ask John’s advice? That was hardly practical at eleven at night.

Her heart pounded and she ran her fingers feverishly through her red hair, as she sought for the best way of dealing with the unnerving revelation.

‘Perhaps I should do nothing at all,’ she dithered uncertainly. Then she remembered the Englishwoman lying dead in her First Class carriage in the robbed train, and indignation rose in her.

‘It might have been me,’ she thought.

Absent-mindedly, she picked up a garment, damped it and began to scrub soap into it. She rubbed and scrubbed and beat the washing in a spreading sea of soapsuds on the veranda floor. Then, as she rinsed her clothes in a bucket of fresh water, she decided that Dr Ferozeshah would be the best person to consult. He was intimately bound up in the life of the city and would understand all the factors involved.

‘I’ll ask him as soon as I go on duty,’ she decided, and shook out a towel so forcefully that it made a sound like the crack of a bullet.

Unwilling to take a tonga, which would draw too much attention to them, and having long since exhausted the limited bus service, the uncles of Mahadev trudged from village to village. Where there were Desai Societies in a settlement, they commenced their inquiries at them. Failing that, they went to a member of the Panchyat, the Village Council. They did not neglect the miserable corners in which lived the Untouchables; the weavers, the tanners, the lavatory cleaners. Though they tried to make their inquiries casual, the news flew from mouth to mouth and, at times, a train of curious children and officious, advice-giving elders trailed along with them.

Occasionally, their queries about a Bania they were to meet and had somehow missed, as they put it, caused an electrifying attention, and they discovered that police, on bicycles, had already been through some of the villages seeking clues to the train robbery and a missing man.

After he heard this, Partner Uncle hired bicycles from a small shop. He and his servant wobbled along sandy lanes, cursing the heat and the dust and the smells, but progressing at least a little faster that they had done previously.

Partner Uncle was not a young man and, by late afternoon, he was trembling so much from exhaustion that he could no longer balance on his bicycle. When they reached a small well, he bade his servant dismount.

A young Hindu shepherd was drawing water for his sheep. The flock baaed and swirled around him, as he filled
a trough for them from the waterskin. He paused, and politely offered water to the weary travellers. They thankfully squatted down, and he poured water from the skin into their hands. Trickles of the cool liquid ran down to their elbows and splashed pleasantly on to their sandalled feet.

With a grunt of relief, Partner Uncle wiped his dripping chin on his sleeve and sat down, cross-legged, under a nearby tree which gave a straggling bit of shade. His servant sat with him.

Both shepherd and sheep eyed them doubtfully. Then the shepherd settled his plum-coloured turban more firmly on his head and returned to watering his flock. As he guided the rope quickly over the well wheel, he shouted above the noise of the sheep, ‘Have you come far, Brother?’

‘We have,’ replied Partner Uncle. Then he asked, ‘The railway must run quite near here?’

‘Yes,’ agreed the young man and gestured towards the horizon. ‘You can see the telephone poles that run along the top of the cutting.’

Uncle scrambled up to have a look.

‘That’s where the train robbery took place,’ went on the shepherd.

‘Were you here when it happened?’ asked Partner Uncle, with sudden interest.

‘No, sir.’ He bent over the trough to empty the skin, still looking at the Banias out of the corner of his almond-shaped eyes. ‘I took the sheep home, because I felt a dust storm was coming. It was time for supper, anyway.’

‘Yes?’ encouraged Partner Uncle, sensing that there was more to come. A blankness crept across the shepherd’s handsome face, however, and he silently let down the waterskin into the well again. The wheel squeaked mockingly.

Frustrated, Partner Uncle tried again. ‘Have you seen another Bania going this way? We were to meet him at the village back there, and we have somehow missed him.’

This innocent question caused the shepherd to blench. His hand shook so much that the rope nearly came off the wheel.

Used to the evasions of bad payers, Partner Uncle suddenly roared at him, ‘You
have
seen him. Has he been hurt – or robbed?’

The boy cringed. ‘No, sir. No.’ His eyes were wide with stark fright. ‘No – no one’s passed this way, today – except for the milkmaids going to and from town – and the vegetable sellers very early this morning.’

The sheep scattered uneasily at the sharp voices. Uncle’s voice came like a trumpet. ‘Perhaps not today – but a day ot two back. He did, didn’t he?’

‘Sir, I don’t know your friend,’ came the fearful reply. ‘I’ve no remembrance of a stranger doing business in our village.’

Uncle’s voice dropped, and he wheedled, ‘Come, lad, I mean no harm – but I do need information about such a man. I’m sure no traveller would be assaulted in your village. You can, therefore, safely tell me what it is that you have seen.’ He palmed a couple of rupees and let them show out of the corner of his hand.

Grey-faced, but with his eyes on the money, the boy began to babble. ‘Sir, we stole nothing. We took good care of the stranger – yet, it’s best when dacoits are about to say nothing.’

‘Quite, quite,’ agreed Uncle, trying to be patient. He made himself smile as he looked down at his plain, respectable white shirt and homespun dhoti. ‘It’s obvious, at least, that I’m not a dacoit – only a businessman from Shahpur. You can speak safely to me. I’ll tell no one else.’

‘True, Bhai,’ replied the shepherd, trying to stop quivering.

‘Well, what happened?’

The shepherd gulped. ‘Sir, it was like this. My eldest brother was returning from market in our ox-cart – on the day of the storm. He knew a storm was coming, too, so he took the new road along by the railway – it’s easier for a cart to travel on, though it takes a little longer.’

‘This was on Monday afternoon?’

The boy counted on his fingers. ‘Ji, hun,’ he agreed. ‘It was already dark by the time he reached the cutting and the storm was howling round him. Being alone, he was afraid and he stopped to light the lantern for the cart. In the darkness and the wind, he couldn’t find his matches, and then he heard horses nickering and thought they must be tied to trees nearby. Now, horses are not much used here, sir. And my brother wondered who would stop in such a lonely place in a storm – they would surely press on to seek shelter in our village. My brother became too afraid to advance up the road, so, as quietly as he could, he drew the ox-cart off the road and tethered it, hoping that the cacti would mask his presence.’

Partner Uncle could well visualize the nervous, superstitious peasant caught in the storm and fearing devils, robbers, angry gods.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently.

‘My brother crept away from the cart and lay in a hollow. He saw flashlights flick on and off, but the dust was so thick and the night so dark, he couldn’t see who was holding them. Then, through the earth, he heard the vibrations of the Delhi Mail approaching. There was a big explosion – and rifle fire – and the train stopped, instead of roaring onwards.’

The shepherd had now forgotten his fear and was
absorbed by his story, embroidering in the details. ‘He thought for a moment that the war with Pakistan had started – because we’re only forty miles from the border, sir. Anyway, there were shrieks and cries – a woman screaming, and a rush of people, first down the cutting and then up again. Along the road and then across country the horses clattered, like devils sucked up into the sky.

‘My brother lay perfectly still, quite safe, thanks to the storm – and, after a while, he heard the railwaymen shouting to each other, and the train started up.’

‘The Bania?’

‘I’m coming to that, sir. Did you say two rupees, sir?’

‘Four, if you can tell me where he is now.’

‘I don’t know exactly where he is, sir.’

‘Well, what
do
you know? Why are you telling me this long tale, which I can read in any newspaper, if you don’t know?’

‘Peace, Brother,’ the shepherd’s voice began to shake again. ‘How will you understand if I don’t tell you from beginning to end?’

Anger being a mortal sin, Partner Uncle did his best to swallow his. ‘Well, what happened then?’

‘My brother lay a long time in his hiding place. When nothing more happened, he crept back to the ox, listening intently. He got the cart back on to the road again and wrapped his turban round his face, because the sand was still blowing. He led the ox, for he still feared to show a lantern light, and continued slowly down the road. He had not gone very far, sir, when he heard a loud groan, right at his feet. Now, what would you have done, sir?’

With eyes closed, Partner Uncle stood up and stretched himself. ‘I’d have fled,’ he said sarcastically and then swore under his breath, mentally promising forty-eight minutes of penance to wash out the oath.

‘Not my brother,’ boasted the shepherd with pride. ‘He looked about him, and, by the side of the road, saw a vague white bundle – like a fallen ghost.’ He paused for effect. ‘It moved a little. He advanced carefully, fearing it might be a wounded dacoit. It was a big, stout man weeping with pain – a townsman, he guessed.’ The shepherd spread out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘My brother didn’t know what to do. He went to the cart to get the lantern, however, and succeeded in lighting it.

‘The man was a sorry sight, his face all covered with blood.’

Partner Uncle exclaimed in alarm.

The shepherd nodded, and went on, ‘My brother wiped the blood from his nose and eyes. He tried to lift him up to put him on the cart and bring him home, but the man was too heavy for him and cried out in pain.’

Partner Uncle was, by this time, striding up and down in great apprehension. He stopped in front of the shepherd. ‘Well, what next?’

‘Brother took the blanket from round his own shoulders and covered the man with it – a good blanket, sir, now ruined by blood. He whispered to the man to try to keep quiet and he would bring help. He then tethered the ox again – because oxen are slow, sir – and ran home in the teeth of the storm.

‘Five of us went out in that terrible storm, sir, and found the man and put him in the cart and brought him to my father’s house. My mother washed away the blood and found he had two wounds, one on the top of his head and one in his shoulder. He was unconscious but mother said no bones had been broken. She bound him up – and all night we sat and wondered what to do. Ours is a very small village, sir, since the cholera killed so many, and my father is the eldest elder. The responsibility was his.’ The
shepherd paused for breath, and then asked, ‘He must have been a passenger on the train? Would he be your friend?’

‘I believe so,’ replied Partner Uncle, and then, as the shepherd showed no sign of continuing the story, he queried, ‘Well?’

The shepherd evaded Partner Uncle’s anxious glare. ‘Sir, the sun is going down. I must take the sheep home.’

Partner Uncle swelled with sudden rage; the veins on his forehead stood out. He swept his arms above his head and shook his fists, like an avenging god. ‘What is this?’ he shouted. ‘What happened to my nephew?’

The countryman cringed, and responded uncertainly, ‘Your nephew? Sir, you
must
speak to – to father.’

Partner Uncle screamed again in rage, his voice echoing round the empty countryside. Pointing a finger at the unfortunate shepherd, he advanced threateningly towards him, only to be brought up short by milling sheep. The boy stammered, ‘Come home with me, sir. Father will explain to you.’

The frightened sheep eddied between them. Afraid that his furious master would have a fit, the servant caught him by the arm, and implored, ‘Master, keep calm.’

Partner Uncle shook off the restraining hand, but he did thereafter try to control himself. ‘Very well,’ he snarled. He picked up the hired bicycle and motioned to the servant to pick up his. The sheep were called and herded to the path. In the blinding dust raised by ninety-six little feet, Partner Uncle followed the flock and its shepherd.

Partner Uncle found little solace in being half-choked by dust, but his anger cooled and his quick brain went to work. It did not take him long to realize why the boy had stopped his tale where he had. After cleansing the wounds, the old father would naturally look to see if his unexpected guest had been robbed, by checking his money belt; and if
it was indeed Mahadev and his money belt was still round his waist, the old man would have been faced with the terrible temptation of a fantastic fortune having arrived in his poverty-stricken hut. How easy to add to Mahadev’s wounds, take him back to the cutting during the night and bury the money belt under the floor until such time as it seemed safe to remove himself, his family and the fortune to another part of India.

During the twenty minutes’ uncomfortable walk, Partner Uncle felt it would be a miracle if Mahadev and the jewels were both safe.

Infinitely thin and wrinkled, Jivraj lay on his string bed. He struggled up to speak to Partner Uncle, however, and bade him sit beside him while he heard his business. Then with many a sly look over his shoulder, he confirmed his son’s story of the robbery, and sent for his elder son, his nephews and his brothers, who all corroborated it. Though dreadfully afraid, not one of them said a word of how the robbers themselves had pounced on the village, uttering terrible threats and sweeping away all their donkeys with a promise of their safe return in a few days’ time. In a matter of minutes in the dark night they had come and gone, leaving dismay and near panic behind them. And then, before the night was done, Jivraj had been faced with the problem of the wealthy, wounded stranger.

Now he must cope with this hard-faced Bania, just when it appeared that the train robbery was all but forgotten and all that remained was for the donkeys to be returned; he had no doubt that they would arrive home safely since their loss would cause comment all over the district, and the robbers would not wish to leave any indication of how they got out of the province.