The Strangler Vine (8 page)

‘She must have had a sweet tooth!’ said Jiggins, and there was general laughter and hooting. ‘But if you do not mind my asking, why travel so fast? What is wrong with a little comfort? Must be said, when I saw you this morning you looked as if you had been dragged through the Mofussil by a herd of careering water buffalo.’

‘My civilian, Jeremiah Blake, is a little eccentric. He wishes to make good time.’

‘Sounds a bit cracked if you ask me. No servants, no proper food, no proper drink, not even a camp cot to sleep on. Never heard the like. Why be in this country if you are going to deny yourself the few lowly comforts?’

‘Jeremiah Blake?’ said an older captain, slightly in his cups. ‘I remember a Jeremiah Blake. This one was a captain up near Sind when we were with the 11th Bengal infantry. Some kind of poor-house prodigy. Spoke everything: Maratha, Pashtun, Urdu, Persian. Promoted from the ranks. I can’t remember why. They gave him a native company. Sepoys would do anything for him. Never gave anything away, very quiet. Unless he was drunk – then he could swear like a fifty-year-old Irish trooper.’

While I salted this intelligence away, for a reason I could not quite divine I said, ‘I do not think it can be him.’

I was asked for news of Keay and gave as good an account as I could, admitting to our romantic rivalry to the guffaws of the company, and then recited as much Calcutta gossip as I could muster. The party had heard rumours of Xavier Mountstuart’s novel. They topped up my glass and roared at the details.

‘Ah, Mountstuart,’ someone said. ‘
The love of power, and rapid gain of gold/ The hardness by long habitude produced/ The dangerous life in which he had grown old.
’

‘
The mercy he had granted, oft push aside
,’ I continued,
‘The sights he was accustomed to behold/ The wild hills, and wild men with whom he’d ride/ Had cost his enemies a long repentence/ And made him a good friend, but bad acquaintance
. It is a marvellous poem,
The Lion of the Punjab
. I am a great admirer of his. I have been reading him since I was a boy. We are searching for him – among other things.’ I had a sudden lurch of discomfort. I had said too much. The whole table looked expectantly at me. I wondered what Blake would have thought.

‘Aha! Lost him, have you?’ said Jiggins, and there was more laughter. ‘So that’s it! Never fear. Secret’s safe with us.’

I blushed again. ‘I should not really speak of it, but as a matter of fact, yes. He was supposed to be going to Jubbulpore but no one has seen him since.’

‘So it would be something to find him then,’ mused Jiggins. ‘Are there clues in his verse to his whereabouts, do you think? Is that why they sent you?’ I smiled a little nervously. ‘Never read any of it myself. Always considered him a bit of a hero, though one hears things.’

‘How do you mean?’ I said.

‘I don’t know.’ Jiggins swung his arm vaguely. ‘Said to be a tricky cove. Irritable. Quick to take offence. Rather too keen on the natives. But that’s just talk.’

‘We’ve been told he went to Jubbulpore to meet with the captured Thugs. He is writing a poem about a Thug chief. But he went off and no one has seen him.’

‘How curious. We never saw him here,’ said Jiggins. ‘I suppose the Thugs might make a poem. Sleeman says they have their code and all that, not like your
dacoit
, who will do anything. Hope you are taking care on the roads, they can be dangerous round here. Of course, he might have gone to see old Vishwanath.’

‘Who is old Vishwanath?’

‘Rao of Dhoora. The one who keeps the white tigers. Princely state on the Poona road? You must have heard of him. Difficult old humbug he is too. Ignores every last request we make. Will not allow our soldiers within his boundaries for anything. Ignores summonses. Lords it up a storm. Likes his gemstones: dripping with rubies and sapphires. Mountstuart is famously his friend – or that’s what is said round here. Probably enjoying the Rao’s hospitality and lining his pockets with a few sapphires as we speak.’

It was a sore point that we Company men were no longer allowed – as we once had been – to accept gifts from native princes. We had to turn any such reward over to the Company treasury on pain of instant dismissal and possible court martial.

We toasted the King, smoked a little and toasted him again, and I was glad the subject had moved on. Eventually Jiggins said, ‘We’re planning a visit to a nautch. Will you come? Town’s full of
chaklas
too, probably go to one after. Some very pretty little creatures too, very obliging. Either way, a huqqa and a nautch is a fine way to end the evening. I’m sure we can find you something …’

By now I was in the grip of a great surge of gratitude and affection for Jiggins, and for Keay back in Calcutta too, and for all the world, and so we all set out in palanquins towards the city. We tumbled out in a part I did not recognize from my earlier explorations. It was dark but the night sky was bright and the endless small
temples glowed with light – in Benares someone seemed to be praying to some god at every minute of the day. The streets were still busy, the natives laughing and chatting among themselves. There was a sense of palpable anticipation in the air. Like me, Jiggins was a little drunk. He clapped his arm across my shoulder and pointed at a painted doorway. ‘Here it is. Marvellous place. Stay as long as you like, leave whenever you want. Bearers’ll take you back.’ At that moment sounds of clapping and whistling and shouting launched into the still night from a few hundred yards away. ‘Native gathering,’ said Jiggins. ‘They come to hear some local doxy sing old songs from a roof. Benares tradition. All whining and yowling to me.’

The thought of a courtesan singing from a rooftop caught my curiosity. ‘Might I go for a moment and take a look?’

‘Whatever you desire, Avery, my dear chap. Not much to see, I’d say. Should warn you they like to tease a white man if they can, and you will stand out like a fire in an icehouse. The Resident doesn’t approve of it, the singing, but doesn’t do anything about it. Harmless really. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I—?’ He pointed at the door. ‘The bearer can bring you back.’

‘Not at all, I will be but a moment.’

A bearer at my side, I followed the sounds of shouts and whistles across several streets until the way widened and I came to a small crowd that had gathered before an old house on a corner, three storeys high, with cracked open shutters. From the roof came a long, unnerving, almost whining note. The crowd was looking upward. A woman was singing in the native style, her coarse, full-throated voice keening and swooping, weaving in and out of minor keys in no sort of pattern I could make out. She leant over a parapet; her face was uncovered, but it was too dark to see her clearly. She wore pale wraps, and her arms, encased in bangles and exposed to the elbow, were large and heavy and moved in wide, graceful, circular motions. The song appeared to start as a lament with long, solemn notes, but swiftly her voice took on an arch and pointed quality. The audience – men of all ages, some bare-headed, others heavily turbanned or hooded, with a few children running about between their feet – was quiet at first. But then they began to chuckle and clap
appreciatively. I listened for a while until I felt I had gleaned what I could from the proceedings and turned to go. Immediately, the woman’s voice changed again. There was a gust of laughter and shouts. I turned round. It seemed that I was the target of the laughter. Her arms were pointed at me and the mocking note in her voice was unmistakeable. The crowd cheered. I took to my heels, marching as quickly and purposefully as I could, only half-attentive of where I was going. Something had caught my eye. Through the forest of heads I was sure I had seen Blake staring up at her, listening intently.

After some minutes I realized that I had not only lost all sense of where I was, but I had also misplaced my bearer. I returned the way I had come, but I must have missed a turn for I found myself in a small dirty square that I was sure I had not visited before. About the edges bodies lay under carts, and a few dark faces looked up at me. Again I tried to retrace my steps, listening for the whistles and shouts. But the streets had begun to empty and I was in a lane I did not recognize at all. I stood, trying to set myself a landmark to make for, but the street was illuminated only by slits of light emerging from cracked and louvred shutters, and the towers and minarets looked shadowily alike. I was soon entirely lost. There were occasional bursts of noise – the murmur of voices from a rooftop, the rattle of a window being closed, and from somewhere more distant a roar of voices – but I could not deduce their direction. I wandered for a while, and as I did so a creeping conviction came upon me that I was being followed. Shadows hovered behind me, yet when I turned there was no one. The streets were still peopled, men slept in doorways and under the lee of a temple, but now the festive mood had vanished, replaced by what I perceived as one almost of apprehension. The natives I accosted to inquire for directions back to the ghats glanced uncomfortably at my uniform then stared at the ground, or darted me furtive glances, refusing to understand even my bat phrases. They muttered anxiously and gestured vaguely until I them let them go.

Increasingly sober, I walked into an empty market square, where a number of ink-skinned men were talking intently in groups. There
was something strained, almost a smell of uneasiness, in the air, which my presence did nothing to alleviate. Nor could I put away the notion that someone was watching me. At a corner between two large, high-walled buildings, I withdrew into the shadow to take my bearings before I set out again. It began to rain. Something fell across my head and about my neck, and a hand reached around my shoulders.

‘It is not good time to be abroad, Chote Sahib,’ said Mir Aziz quietly. ‘Let us return to the ghats and find you a palanquin.’

He had thrown a large cotton blanket over my shoulders. Without a second thought, I bundled it around me against the rain and followed him. We walked briskly for about five minutes until we reached the part of the city that was full of temples washing light into the streets.

‘Mir Aziz?’ I said at last. ‘Why is it that I should not be on the streets?’

‘Let us continue,’ he said, with barely a backward glance.

‘No. No. Please, Mir Aziz, tell me this at least. I was with some officers in the city. I heard a woman singing from a rooftop. There was a crowd gathered below, laughing and cheering. When I left I became lost. The streets were suddenly quieter and there was something … What did I see? Do you say it is dangerous? Is there sedition in Benares?’

He pulled me to the side of the street. He paused and looked me directly in the eye. He said, ‘Not sedition, Chote Sahib. Just fear.’

‘Fear?’

‘There are tales of famine north of Allahabad, Chote Sahib.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I have heard of this. But the Company, the government, will make sure that the people are fed.’

‘Of course, sahib. But the Hindoo is frightened. He fears the coming of the Governor General and his army of many
lakh
of men. How to feed all? And then, after they have gone, will there be food left?’

‘I am sure the Company will find a way.’ I thought of the chaos of Calcutta and I was not sure at all.

‘I know this, but the Hindoo fears.’

He made to walk on, but I touched his shoulder lightly. ‘Thank you, Mir Aziz. Might I ask, is there more? Is this what the woman sings about?’ The thought came to me that I had never spoken so openly with a native.

‘No.’ He laughed. ‘The woman, she is one of the
tawaifs
, a courtesan, of Benares. They sing
ghazals
– the sad love songs – but also they are changing the words of the old songs to speak of gossip and scandal. She might sing of dishonest moneychanger, or of Company magistrate who makes taxes too high, or magistrate who likes too much Hindoo women.’

‘Is that what she spoke of tonight?’

‘I do not know, Chote Sahib, I was not there.’

I wanted very much to ask about the scene in the bazaar at Sahseram, but I hesitated. I said – more plaintively than I would have wished – ‘Mir Aziz, I see no sign that Blake is searching for Xavier Mountstuart, and I find no trace of him anywhere. Are we truly looking for him? Can you tell me at least something?’

I was sure that Mir Aziz was smiling. ‘Have faith, Chote Sahib, we search, we shall find.’

‘Mir Aziz, in Sahseram …’ But I could not bring myself to ask. ‘How is it that you are so well acquainted with the gossip of the bazaar?’

‘I tell you before, I am general factotum, I do everything. Now let us escape rain.’

We left Benares before the sun rose. It was eight days to Jubbulpore. I had a note from Jiggins asking me to look him up on my return, and a bad headache, but I had the sense to let no one know it. From time to time that day I would glance up to find Blake watching me. It was more attention than he usually paid me, and I found that look of his unsettling. As if he knew things about one. Perhaps, I thought, he has discovered my blunder about Mountstuart. Perhaps he knows that I saw him among the natives.

In the early afternoon outside Mirzapore we turned off the Grand Trunk Road for the road south-west. Mir Aziz told me we were to make a stop at Bindachal. The name was familiar, but I could not recall why.

‘It is old, old temple where Thugs come to worship goddess Kali,’ said Mir Aziz.

I remembered it then. It was the temple the Thugs made
pilgrimages to in order to bring tribute to their patron Kali, goddess of destruction, the demon devourer – she of the six arms full of weapons, and the necklace of severed heads. It was said the priests of the temple had once encouraged them in their murderous endeavours.

The landscape had become lush. The roadside was all soft green grasses, and every once in a while the trees would part and a small waterfall would tumble from rocky crags. The sound of water was everywhere. The day, however, was cloudy and heavy, and the going was muddy. Perspiration gathered in my brows and seeped into my eyelashes. The well-trodden path took us uphill a little and became stony. Along the way there were a few broken-down buildings: rude, moss-covered, thatched dwellings, an old tower, a small temple with garish painted columns all suggestive of more prosperous times. We passed several barefoot natives carrying a bowl or a wreath of flowers. Then, coming towards us, I saw a man covered in blood. It was smeared all over his face and arms and dribbled down his clothes. I looked away, appalled. At first I thought he must have been attacked, then I realized he must be a devotee of the goddess, as he was not failing and had a dogged, not pained, look about him, and he was accompanied by three grinning supporters. The day darkened and the hum of insects began almost to hurt my ears. In the trees one could see the fleeting forms of large black monkeys. At last we came to a flight of steps, worn down through many centuries of use, before which a few carts and livestock were tethered. Nungoo and Sameer remained with the horses. The trees thickened about us. Mir Aziz had been muttering with Blake. He now came to walk beside me.

‘Chote Sahib, is very sacred place. The Hindoos say this is where the left breast of Kali is falling after being sliced off by god Shiva.’ Through the trees we came to the place. The temple seemed to be a cave in the hill, but around it was a low wall enclosing an old stone courtyard, and across the entrance to the cave there was a carved and painted stone facade with steps up to it. There were three pilgrims in the courtyard: a wizened old man wrestling with a white goat; a farmer carrying a pail of oil and muttering in an unsettling,
unending monotone; and a younger native wearing nothing but a dhoti and leaning on a staff. Another old man, a priest I guessed, sat unsmiling at the top of the steps in a white dhoti, soliciting payment. There was an old well and a large, perfectly smooth and symmetrical upright stone covered in wreaths.

I asked Mir Aziz what it was. He smiled uncertainly.

‘It is Shiva lingam, sahib,’ he said.

It was obvious I was none the wiser, and the temptation to humiliate me was too much for Mr Blake, for as he passed me on his way to the temple he addressed me for the first time in two weeks.

‘It is a giant phallus, Mr Avery. They are revered by worshippers of the god Shiva.’

I turned away quickly. The old revulsion for India and its customs surged in me. What monstrous religion could place such a thing in public and demand its worship, or encourage its adherents to pray to the goddess of death and destruction?

Mr Blake mounted the steps and at the temple entrance stooped to give the sour-looking priest a coin and muttered something to him. He nodded and inclined his head. Mr Blake entered, then re-emerged a few moments later. He knelt down and raised his hands as if in abeyance to the old charlatan, then bowed. They began to talk. The sight of him pandering to the old priest, a creature devoted to the worship of Kali, annoyed me, but I kept my temper, reluctantly removed my boots and went in.

The place was dark and low-ceilinged and lit only by a few small flickering oil lamps, their effect diminished by wispy curls of smoke from incense burners. It smelt of damp, sweat, smoke, blood and age. It was not hard to imagine the veneration of a cult of murderers in that ancient hole. I had half expected a statue of Kali like those that I had seen illustrated in books: a grinning black she-devil with six arms, a ghastly poking red tongue, and a necklace of human heads. Instead, out of the smoky air loomed a squat black stone mounted on a plinth, with a flat face, oval silver sockets for eyes and a red smear for a mouth, like something from a child’s drawing. It was draped in orange flowers and beads. And yet for all that, it emanated an old malignancy, as if it had soaked up centuries of
blood and cruelty. Next to it, almost as unmoving, sat another old priest. He turned cold eyes upon me. On the ground before it there were small brass pans. One contained oil, another milk, yet another something which I eventually guessed must be hair. At the sides were a few old knives and coins. The chanting Hindoo pilgrim entered, carrying his vessel of oil. I stepped to the side. He poured it out before the idol, then fell to the ground, prostrating himself before it. As he rose the priest marked his forehead with a red painted finger and he struck a small bell three times. Then the younger native came in. Standing before the idol, he brought out a small bowl and a knife. Setting the former on the ground, he knelt and to my horror cut the palm of his hand, letting the blood drip into the small bowl. I felt my gorge rise and I pushed out into the light thinking I must leave or suffocate, and as I did so I remembered suddenly what William Sleeman had written about this place – that any honest Christian would want to pull it down and hang its priests.

Mr Blake was still muttering to the old priest. I pulled my boots on as quickly as I could and rose to go. With no warning, the old man with the goat dragged it forward, trying vainly to pull its struggling forelegs into its body, took out a knife and made a sudden downward slash into the beast’s throat in a ghastly act of sacrifice. Jets of bloody red spume shot forth from the creature’s neck and spattered on to the ground. The creature’s head was still attached to its body; its tongue pushed out and then withdrew a few times while its back legs collapsed and it twitched repeatedly. The old man waited for the spasms to end, then dipped his fingers in the blood on his blade and dabbed it upon his forehead.

‘Are you quite well, Chote Sahib?’ Mir Aziz was watching me anxiously.

‘I am quite well, Mir Aziz,’ I said. I felt sick. The place seemed to me heavy with evil, degradation and corruption, and I could not bear another moment in it. ‘I do not like this place. Do you not feel it? There is violence and destruction and ignorance, and I do not understand why we have come here!’

I marched down the hill, took my horse and rode until I felt better. They did not catch up with me for several hours. I guessed Mr Blake was displeased with me as his face was screwed into a frown all the afternoon. I did not expect him to speak to me again, but when we were removing our packs to make camp that evening he said, ‘Mr Avery, do not ride off alone in the future.’

‘I am sorry, Mr Blake, but the place revolted me. It is mired in evil, and I could not stay another moment. I find it hard to see why you were so enamoured of it.’

‘Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to,’ said Blake.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Nevertheless, you’re to stay with the party in the future. You do not know the roads.’

‘I am amazed that you noticed I was not present, Mr Blake.’

‘You think you have something to complain of?’ He spoke in a quiet, level tone with a hint of a threat. We had stopped in a clearing by the roadside; one could hear a stream nearby. The natives, I noticed, had all vanished, presumably to the waterside.

‘Nothing I would expect you to acknowledge. But since you ask, yes, I do. Why would I not be exasperated by forever following after, being ignored and kept in ignorance of even the most modest of your plans? Moreover, I fail to see any sign that you are actually in pursuit of the object of our journey. I thought that we were to seek out Xavier Mountstuart, but I have yet to see you do anything to further our endeavour. I, at least, have inquired after him of everyone I have encountered on our route. Then we find ourselves in that horrible, evil place – and for what reason? Perhaps, Mr Blake, you have no interest in the matter and are following some other quite different project of your own? I do not – mark you – complain about the, how shall I say, eccentric manner in which we travel, nor of the casual insolence of your natives.’

‘I think, Mr Avery, you just did.’

‘I do not complain of it, I note it. I wish to add,’ I said hastily, wishing to be just, ‘that Mir Aziz has been nothing but courtesy itself.’

‘So you have been asking about Mountstuart. Have you found any trace of him?’

‘Not one,’ I said, deflated. He fixed me with a look. I think I have already said I found his gaze discomfiting. It was as if he could see one’s weaknesses. But I stared back.

‘You write me off entirely, Mr Blake. You are wrong to, you know nothing of me.’

‘I know as much as I need to know.’ Now his usually level voice was exasperated. ‘You’re a young buck with the usual Calcutta opinions and manners. You nurse a sore head most mornings, you speak no local languages, you know nothing about this place or its customs – you understand nothing of what you have just seen at that temple. You’re inclined to believe what you’re told, though in that you’re no different from most griffins. And everything you think or feel is instantly etched upon your features. Let me ask you, what use can you be to me? And let’s see, you’re West Country from your accent. A youngest son. Your father’s the squire, so you see yourself a gentleman, but there’s little money or you wouldn’t be here. There’s a Company connection or you wouldn’t be in India at all, but it’s a modest one or you’d have had a commission sooner. Your mother made a pet of you, your father’s a tartar, so beneath all the bluster you want sympathy and you’re fretful. You fancy yourself in love with that girl from the levee.’

I was deeply taken aback; I hardly knew how to respond. ‘I can only assume you must have spied upon me.’ I wished to sound calm, but to my own ears my voice sounded hollow. ‘Do you have anything more to add?’

‘You can ride. You might be smartish but I can’t tell.’

I stood for a moment, staring at the ground. When I looked up, he was still gazing at me, but I saw in his face something more galling than dislike: the look I’d seen on my older brothers when they thought they’d hit me too hard. He rubbed the rough edge of his ear.

I turned away from him, suddenly tired, and trudged to my pack.