The Truth (15 page)

Mabbut was struggling to unpack his things by the dim glow of an old standard lamp when the light went out altogether. He heard
Farud’s voice and another angry exchange ensued. Mabbut was feeling his way over to the door when it flew open, striking him sharply on the side of the head. The man bustling in with a hurricane lamp gave a shriek of horror.

‘Oh, sir, so sorry,’ he protested, adding unnecessarily, ‘I have light for you.’

Behind him, Farud appeared, quivering visibly.

‘There will be no electric light for a few minutes. The generator has been removed to the kitchen so that they can prepare our food. This is the problem, Sir Keith, if I may say so, with changing plans. I would not have brought you here. Is your head damaged?’

Mabbut dismissed his worries, and before long they were eating a simple meal of rice and various vegetable curries in a cavernous room farther up the hill. There were no other guests and a huge central strip-light discouraged intimacy. Two beers had been produced and Farud was talkative again.

‘To my mind, Sir Keith, there was no finer flowering of art and architecture than in the days of Ashoka, and yet we know that human sacrifice was common at the time. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were killed at the monarch’s whim, yet their religion was Buddhism. These things did not take place under the Hindu rulers who followed, and who, incidentally, did not persecute the Buddhists but rather absorbed them into their religion, which is why you see so many symbols of the elephant in Hindu temples and why there are so many similarities in the motifs both religions use. It is indeed a lifetime that is needed to study these things, not if I may say so one day and a half.’

The light above their heads gave a brief shudder and died.

‘Ah. That is the end of dinner.’

Farud spoke matter-of-factly, without looking around.

‘It is very typical of these places.’

There was a bustling from outside and two men, the same two who had done everything, including cook the meal, appeared with lamps.

The older of the two, who had a fine-featured face and a habit of
sucking in sharply through a gap in his teeth, smiled broadly at Mabbut.

‘Your room all ready now, sir. Very comfortable. The light is good.’

He beckoned Mabbut to follow him. Farud hung back.

‘I will see you at eight thirty in the morning, Sir Keith,’ he said, adding, without enthusiasm, ‘I will try to find something of interest in this area.’

After taking a cold shower, Mabbut opened the window. A pleasant scent of jasmine wafted in but there was not a breath of wind. He took out his notebook and jotted down some details of the day. Then, having cleaned his teeth and taken some moments to decide whether he should lie on top of the sheet or beneath it, Mabbut stretched himself out on the low bed and fell into a deep sleep.

In his dream he was in thick jungle again, only this time with Farud and Krystyna, and Rex Naismith, who was wearing Highland dress. They were clawing and clambering their way through an impenetrable wall of vegetation. The ground shook uncontrollably, sending rocks and boulders raining down on top of them. They struggled ineffectually across the mossy bark of trees as the roar of the avalanche grew louder and louder until it was directly above them and around them and the forest canopy was suddenly split apart as a single gigantic slab hurtled towards them. Mabbut’s eyes sprang open. He lay rigid with fear, his heart pounding. The oddest thing was that although the images had gone, the sound remained. And it was real. The walls
were
vibrating. As he listened, the rumbling slowly faded away.

A hideous figure confronted them as they walked a little way off the road towards a bleached white shrine.

‘That is Kali,’ Farud said, pointing. ‘The black mother goddess.’

The statue’s mouth was open in a vicious snarl, around her neck hung a noose of human skulls, and in her left hand she bore a bloody, dismembered limb.

‘She is good.’

‘Good?’

‘She is the consort of Siva, the creator and the destroyer. She is destroying evil.’

‘She looks terrifying.’

Farud laughed drily.

‘So? Evil is terrifying. The destructive force is part of the creative force. Siva and Kali control the power of the universe. Siva is good, Kali is the avenger. Look here.’

Farud led Mabbut through a low archway to the small temple inside the shrine. Set into the walls was a series of roughly painted pink posts sticking up from the ground.

‘These are the linga. The lingam is the sign of Siva. And look here.’

In the second wall were a number of alcoves depicting scenes in which the lingam was being applied to the yoni quite vigorously and from many different angles. Farud, who struck Mabbut as possibly being a bit fastidious about such matters, seemed quite at ease with this cornucopia of copulation. Mabbut was struck by the irony of it. At home such explicitly sexual material would not even be displayed in cling-wrap on the top shelves of newsagents, let alone on the walls of religious buildings, whereas India, a much less sexualised society, seemed quite able to celebrate the erotic, provided it appeared in a temple.

‘You will find that there are not many temples like this out here. The people who live in the hills are very primitive. They are animist, you know, and there is little work of any quality.’

Mabbut walked around, looking at the walls. The perkily poking couples awakened all sorts of memories. Painful, in the case of Krystyna, happy in the case of Tess, complicated in the case of Mae. Reaching sexual maturity in the late sixties, on the cusp between liberation and guilt, Mabbut had initially erred on the side of guilt. However many times he was told it should just be fun, sex, for him, had implied a commitment, inseparable from an emotional relationship. To be honest, looking back now, he had made a meal of it. And in somehow trying to restrain his lust, he’d only made things worse. Fumblings, ill-timed lunges, dark gropings and desperate withdrawals. How different from the breezy figures on these walls.

Good, quiet, thoughtful sex had come only with Krystyna. She
was Catholic rather than catholic in her tastes. Monogamy for her was not a choice, it was a duty. This had had a relaxing effect on Mabbut, who, while defending promiscuity on political grounds, discovered himself to be much happier with constancy. And with sex and work in harmony they had been the perfect couple, having intercourse at a slightly higher frequency than in most newspaper surveys. So what had changed? Had it been the setbacks in his working life that had affected their sex life or the very repetitiveness of their sex life that had made him somehow dissatisfied with his work?

As their sex life slowed, without explanation, falling below the national average, Mabbut justified this as normal enough; that was what happened to married couples as they got older and physical sex became less important. When he and Krystyna separated, sex, or the lack of it, was never mentioned, it simply wasn’t an issue. Now, here, on a hot day on a high hill in eastern India, Mabbut realised that both of them had been lying. She had found sex with Rex (he was fairly sure) and he had found sex with Tess. In a way, the desire for new partners made them equal again. But then if they were to be truly equal he would have to admit that Tess was certainly less to him than Rex clearly was to his wife. A true equivalent would be the enigmatic Mae, for whom his feelings were not primarily about passion, or short-term relief – she was the only other person he’d ever considered spending the rest of his life with. The revelation that someone apart from him had wanted to spend the rest of their life with Krystyna had hurt him very much. Until that revelation he had always felt that he could step back from the brink and somehow reclaim her. But how hypocritical was that?

He took one last look at the carefree cavortings on the wall of the shrine. Rather than taking comfort from the innocent joyfulness, the little drawings made him aware of everything he’d lost.

Behind him, he heard a heavy clearing of the throat. He turned abruptly to find Farud eyeing him with a mixture of amusement and disdain.

‘Would you like to stay longer, sir?’

Mabbut cleared his own throat in what he hoped was a businesslike way.

‘No, no. Let’s go.’

When they reached the car, Mabbut took out his copy of Singh’s hastily typed notes. He unfolded the page, struggling to read the names.

‘The Masoka Hills?’

Farud nodded. ‘Of course, sir.’

They set off. The day was growing hotter and Mabbut gladly accepted the guilty pleasure of the air con as they pulled on to the road, heading north-west and still climbing.

After a long phone call Farud turned back to Mabbut.

‘I have found a small village near the Masoka Hills which we can see and where we can spend the night.’

He sounded less than enthusiastic.

‘It is a village of the Masira Kidonga tribe. It will not be comfortable but I have made sure that you will have suitable accommodation. Nirwan will erect a tent.’

Through the afternoon, progress became increasingly slow as the road surface deteriorated, the tarmac often reduced to nothing more than a gesture, a thin strip on the crown of the road. It was almost dusk and Farud was looking anxiously at his watch when they were all flung forward as Nirwan braked sharply, blasting the horn. They had rounded a bend to find a convoy of ten-wheeled flatbed trailers parked beside the road in front of them. Lashed to each one, and secured by steel cables, were colossal circular turbine drums, twenty metres long and rising five metres high. The drivers of the trucks, wearing dhotis and greasy striped kurtas, squatted in front of their vehicles and watched with detached amusement as Nirwan was forced to mount the opposite bank to get past them.

‘What on earth’s all that, Farud?’ Mabbut asked.

‘It is machinery,’ he shouted above the scream of the engine. ‘For the refinery. At Kowprah.’

The wheels of the Toyota spun wildly before Nirwan switched to four-wheel drive and re-established the car’s grip on the slippery mud. The onlookers spat betel juice on to the ground and laughed.
As they passed, Mabbut noted the lettering stencilled on the side of each of the colossal drums: ‘Astramex Corporation’.

Farud followed his gaze.

‘The Masoka Hills are rich in minerals. They are very important for India.’

‘Why are the trucks parked there?’

Farud consulted Nirwan.

‘They are waiting to move. The convoys are so big that they are only allowed to move during the night.’

During the night, thought Mabbut. And he thought of the nightmare that had awoken him in Guest House 42. Maybe those vehicles had been behind the sound of the avalanche.

They were still driving as darkness fell. Mabbut stared out of the window, trying to make some sense of the landscape, but all he could see was the outline of trees against a fading sky. This was the time of doubt, when travellers should be safely at their destination. In the city there were lights and people but out here in the countryside, there was nothing but darkness.

‘We are not far off now, sir, believe me,’ said Farud, without turning.

It was two hours later when Nirwan finally pulled the car off the road on to an uneven dirt track. Suddenly there were people ahead, shielding their eyes against the headlights, children in shorts and T-shirts prancing in and out of the beam. The car slowed and a middle-aged man in a sarong with a cartridge belt slung across his shoulders approached, shouting at the children and raising his hand. Farud looked distinctly nervous. Nirwan wound down his window and talked with the man. There was, in the Indian fashion, much head-shaking, before the man opened the back door and slipped in beside Mabbut. He began issuing vehement instructions to Nirwan.

‘Farud, is this the village?’

Farud didn’t answer straight away. In fact, he didn’t answer for some time. And when he did it was without his usual confidence.

‘I think this is not the village. It is another village.’

Under instructions, Nirwan drove the car into what seemed to be the centre of the settlement. Around them were the indistinct shapes of mud-walled houses. The curious crowds who’d greeted their arrival were being held back by a small group of youngish men and women wearing what looked like army fatigues. They wore expressions of solemn excitement and something told Mabbut that these people were no more welcome here than he was. One or two were armed. The older man, who appeared to be their ringleader, climbed out of the car and motioned for Mabbut to follow him. Mabbut leant forward to consult Farud, and even before the man with the cartridge belt started shouting at him he knew from the widening of his eyes that his guide was more than anxious. He was terrified.

The three of them were bundled out and pushed at gunpoint towards the concrete steps of a house. A low timber door was thrust open and they found themselves in a cramped, dimly lit interior. Rolls of bedding lay on the ground and in a corner were more weapons, AK-47s mostly, stacked neatly upright, one against the other. There was a not unpleasant scent of sandalwood. The man from the car issued more orders and Mabbut, Farud and Nirwan were pushed down on to their knees. Farud had begun to whimper. One of the women, with deep black eyes in a pretty, oval face, seized some fabric and began to tear it into strips. Through the half-closed door Mabbut could see three or four men searching the Toyota. They found something and held it up to the light from their torches. Then Mabbut’s head was jerked backwards and his eyes blindfolded. He heard Farud talking fast and beseechingly. Then there was a sharp hiss and he went quiet. Mabbut cried out as his arms were wrenched behind his back and his wrists tied. There was some voluble discussion, then the sound of soft footfalls heading for the door.