Truth Lake

by Shakuntala Banaji

  'How was Cameron when you got to Saahitaal? How was he acting? Was he pleased to see you?'

  'He was fucking fabulous. He had the villagers kissin’ his arse. A bunch of women; acting like they couldn't do enough for him. It wasn’t exactly what I'd been expecting . . .. We hardly had an hour alone together for the first two days. He went out those first nights and didn't show up till dawn. Then he was all moody and quiet. I was shattered so all I did was sleep.'

  'How long did that go on?'

  'A fair while. We did have three good days – he took me around to the lake and on long walks and we talked about the home he was going to design back home. Like old times. I'd missed him a lot. I'd had a job offer at Aberdeen University and I talked it over with him.'

  'You two were still lovers?' Tanya imagined her mother's disapproval, her father's disgust. How old-fashioned they were. Maybe she'd have turned out like them if she'd never met Kailash. Something about Cameron’s lifestyle appealed to her.

  'What d'you think? Eh?' Adam’s snarl didn’t worry her.

  'Yes, then.' Tanya glanced at Sara, who was staring at Adam with bitterness scribbled across her face, her lips pressed together against tears.

  'Um. If it's any business of yours. I'd been there a week when he announced that he had some work to do for a few days and I should come along with him. I said I'd visit a nearby town, Bookta? – and get some provisions.' Adam stopped. He seemed calmer.

  'You and Cameron never talked about his impending wedding to Sara? He never mentioned that he was engaged?'

  'I already told you – No and No! Do you think I'd have taken it quietly if he had? Two-timing bastards!' He grimaced and then dashed his hand against his eyes. Sara’s whole body was shaking, her foot beating an unsteady rhythm against the carpet.

  Tanya was implacable. 'What would you have done if he'd told you about his engagement, Adam? I'd like to know.'

  'Yes, Adam, tell miss, she'd like to know.' He mimicked her, picking fiercely at the skin beside his fingernails as he spoke. 'Course I'd've fucking talked him out of it! He'd never make it to his first anniversary with a woman.' Sara looked as if she was about to disagree, but Tanya held up a hand for her to be quiet.

  'So why were you rushing when Sara met you? What got you so panicked?'

  'I'm coming to that.' Adam got up. He walked across the room to the French doors and Tanya wondered if he was going to make a run for it, knowing that she would be no match for his speed. But he came back a moment later with a lighted cigarette in his hand.

  'Look, whatever-your-name-is detective, I was a total stranger in that village. I hadn't a clue what was going on or what Cameron's real work was and he didn't bother to fill me in. I couldn’t understand a single thing when he spoke to those villagers.'

  'He spoke their language?' Tanya was astonished.

  'I guess. He was a genius, wasn’t he, always had been.' Adam’s voice was sullen.

  'Sorry Adam, please go on.'

  'We set out together that day.’

  ‘When was that, exactly?’

  ‘Probably the end of June. It was a lovely old morning, cool, fantastic visibility, no mist. He was kidding around, trying to push me off the path, and I was relaxed too. I was going to Bookta for food, as I already told you, and he said he was off to Maloondi; he had some sketching to do there for this BIG secret project he was involved in. We'd walked for maybe ten minutes when some woman stumbled out of the trees and intercepted us.

  ‘What was she like? An Indian woman?’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, yes, an Indian woman, a villager, complete with headscarf and big frilly skirts. She started talking to Cameron all funny, clutching his arm, I think she was trying to embrace him – ack! – they kept talking and talking. I was pissed off.’

  ‘Because she tried to embrace him?’

  ‘Not exactly. You've got to understand – everyone in the village except the kids ignored me. It was like they saw me but didn’t see me . . .. But they were all over Cameron. “Sahib this and sahib that”! This was supposed to be a holiday, just the two of us. So when this woman came I told Cameron to sort his fucking problems out, and I’d go on ahead. I assumed he’d follow me.' Adam wouldn’t meet her eyes. If Cameron had been as insensitive as she guessed, perhaps Adam had been aggravated one time too many; perhaps he’d witnessed a kiss, or something even more graphic, that drove him beyond forbearance. Alone in the forest, he’d have had ample opportunity to kill his friend. And jealousy was a powerful motive.

  He licked his lips slowly, a gesture Tanya found particularly repugnant. Strangely it was her revulsion that forced her to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least until he had finished his tale.

  'I'd started off into the trees, gone maybe a hundred yards down when … I heard raised voices, and a fucking crazy long-drawn out howl; I turned back.'

  'Cameron's voice?'

  He shook his head. 'A woman, I'd have said.'

  Tanya and Sara listened, transfixed with dread, as Adam described what had happened. He let his ash fall to the carpet as he spoke and Sara moved further and further from him. Finally she started to cry, staring at him in horror. When he finished, Tanya was convinced that he'd told the truth and her heart writhed inside her as she tried to persuade him to go back to the police of his own free will.

  It was unkind to leave Sara alone with him but if she wanted to help her father, she had just under an hour to check herself onto the New Delhi flight.

  It was only once she was on the plane, with her feet up and a magazine on her lap, that she allowed herself to wonder if she was doing the right thing in trying to handle it all herself. Perhaps she should have taken the story straight to Mazumdar and Ribera, the two competent officers who had taken Sara’s statement in Goa. It made her sick to think of Kailash Karmel, all alone up there in the mountains with a decaying corpse and a village full of frowning, tight-lipped women, amongst whom some were, without a doubt, accessories to a brutal murder.

  38

  There was no air left in the world. Thahéra tried to open her eyes to see what was stopping the air but something was covering her lids. It couldn't be blood because she knew the feel of her own blood and this was more viscous, almost sweet. So, she had vomited. Now her mouth would not open properly. She felt as if she would drift away. With her left foot she could feel something large and lumpy. Underneath her, the floor seemed to change shape, to move and tremble like melting snow. She rolled with it and, with some last vestige of strength, angled herself from her stomach to her side. Though the world was still dark, she was able at least to take in oxygen.

  She knew where she was but she imagined she was a small child again, wrapped in a cloth and carried by her sister up a hill, feeling the branches and leaves tickle her face. It wasn't a pleasant sensation. Childhood had not been a pleasant time. Her mind wandered and she felt nauseous. There was a terrible smell in the room but she wasn't sure if it was real or in her mind. It reminded her of the seared cowshed. It reminded her of her fragile, sparrow-like mother.

  She felt herself choking and struggled to sit up; but the effort required was too great.

  Often when human beings are compared to animals, the intention is to demean, to debase or to insult. The comparison which Thahéra made between her mother and a timid bird was simply accurate: the woman had been too nervous to breathe; too petrified to eat or speak or play with her children. From the time that Thahéra could understand a word, her mother had whispered fear and caution. There had been no question in their home of winners and losers, of arguments, or fights or happiness. Thahéra's mother died when she was twenty-nine; she was found at the bottom of a mountain, neck broken. She left a fourteen-year-old and an eight-year-old behind her and a husband whose temper was legendary.

  Everybody knew that she had jumped and who had driven her to it.

  The fire dated from before their mother's death. It had started one afternoon in a corner of their cowshed. Brands from their stove had
been shoved between the rafters and against the piles of fodder in a corner. No one had stopped her. He was away; their mother was asleep; she didn't know then that her sister had followed her and was watching everything.

  The animals bellowed and stamped, her sister shrieked and moaned, but Thahéra heard nothing; all she could think about as she watched the flames was the smell – burning hide and hair and straw. People appeared whom she had never seen before and they doused the fire and they dragged the carcasses out and freed the living animals. There was silent compulsive activity: stones were brought and dung and plinths; neighbours stood in a chain and rebuilt the shed. Within two days it looked as it had before. There was only one calf missing; a similar one was brought from a neighbour's herd.

  Afterwards no one asked her about it, even though she wanted to tell them. When he returned, weeks later, she saw that he knew the difference and was biding his time, looking around with his mean eyes, just fixing on someone to blame.

  Until Thahéra told him she'd done it.

  It was the only time she'd ever seen him at a loss. He dragged her along to the shed, his fingers biting into her shoulders; he stared at it and everyone came out of their homes to stare too until he turned and they all went back inside and he snorted and threw her onto the ground. Then he went inside to check his stock and when he came out he was smiling. It was something so rare and unusual that she was amazed and couldn't stop looking at his face. She couldn't remember much after that, except the pain; there was plenty of that.

  Some loud noise roused her from her torpor. With the utmost effort she pried her eyelids apart, gagging for breath, wincing against the pain throbbing through her cheeks. She couldn't focus her eyes, let alone move a limb, and all she could discern were the feet of a person standing over her. She curled into herself, preparing for another blow. Don't let it be him, she thought, before she lost consciousness.

  Part Three

  Worlds Coalesce

  39

  They carried the bodies out of the devastated cabin. The rain had not abated and, apart from the lantern they bore, it was pitch dark. Karmel would not allow himself to stop, to reflect, to feel. Thahéra's unconscious figure was heavy but he managed to stagger the length of the path with it, thinking all the while of the ghastly symmetry of events, the way in which just the previous night she had been the one whose strong arms encircled him, carrying him to safety. When they reached her sister's cabin, he laid her down on a raised pallet and examined her devastated body.

  When he couldn’t bear to see the marks of violence on her any more he looked around him.

  Karmel had never been into this cabin. Here the rain had wreaked no havoc; the atmosphere was serene. Sonu, Chand and their cousins lay asleep in one corner, their backs to the firelight. Pots and pans were stacked neatly on a shelf; there was an old loom at one end of the spacious room and various agricultural implements hung from hooks set into the roof; the floor was covered in cow-dung, like that in all the other dwellings in the village. The walls were dry.

  It was a complete contrast to the scene that had greeted them when they reached Thahéra's home.

  There the floor had been covered in leftovers from the meal: vomit and blood and splintered wood mingled into a lethal sludge. The devastation was so thorough that when he’d raised his lantern to illuminate the scene, Thahéra’s sister had shrunk back moaning.

  Thahéra was sprawled on her side in the middle of the wreckage, one arm twisted beneath her; her father lay at an angle, crumpled into himself, his eyes and mouth open, swollen tongue lolling, and his face bluish-grey, gnarled fingers still clutching at his throat. It was a gruesome view.

  Thahéra’s sullen boy came swiftly into the room and threw himself at the old man’s feet, ignoring Karmel completely. Thahéra’s sister entered, as if against her will, and together the two of them hefted the old man from the ground. After one initial glance, neither one of them stooped to touch Thahéra.

  Karmel had given himself over to the task of reviving her.

  Splashing her face with water, he touched the bruising around her eyes with shaking fingers. Her body shuddered slightly and he noticed that she was regaining consciousness. He’d felt for her pulse. When he found it, jubilation flooded his chest.

  Now he wasn't sure where her eldest son and her sister had gone but he knew that they had not been far behind him; surely they would enter any minute, bearing the body of the old man, Thahéra's father. Whether it was a corpse or a body, and what had gone on in that terrible cabin, still remained to be seen.

  In the event, Karmel found himself alone with the sleeping children and Thahéra's prone form for the rest of the night. He sat and watched over her until sleep took him. Dawn found him hunched over on the floor, stiff with cold and discomfort. The fire had died but she was conscious now, he could tell; her breathing was regular and her eyelids fluttered, despite the great swelling around her nose and cheeks. He stretched and walked to the door, looking down the steps and up the path towards the lakeside pastures. His lungs felt tight.

  The night's rain had cleared the air but given it a sharp, icy tang; in the trees he could see droplets of moisture caught in spiders' webs. It was a cliché that gave him a jolt of pleasure. He turned into the cabin and bent to brush Thahéra's battered cheek with his fingers. She murmured, but did not wake.

  Five minutes later he was sliding and squelching his way up the path towards the lake. It was the logical place to look. If they had not come to this cabin then they had gone to Gauri's.

  She was the last link in the chain. He could not leave without speaking to her and hearing what Thahéra's sister had to say.

  When he pushed open Gauri's door, she looked up at him as if he had been long expected. He moved forward eagerly to ask questions, wanting to gain reassurance, to find that his theories were right. To his dismay, however, her cabin was crowded.

  In every corner sat villagers, wrapped in shawls and scarves, their voluminous skirts tucked about them, their faces tired and drawn. Some of them held babies, sleeping against them; some had unlit pipes in their hands. Others were stroking the wooden carvings that littered Gauri's dwelling. He recognised Thahéra's sister, and Stitching Woman – and her daughter.

  In the centre of the room, near Gauri's unlit fire, lay the body of the old man. Beside him, kneeling, Thahéra's eldest son, the only other man in the room. Karmel walked to the interior of the house, ignoring all the women. He pushed the youth aside and touched the cold body. There was no pulse and the limbs were stiff, the digits of one hand sill curled to form a fist. Looking at the face, he had known the man was dead. His guess was some kind of poison but he had no way of knowing for sure. The lips were discoloured and bloated. Fluid had run out of the mouth and was caked in the contours of the skinny neck. The man must have suffered greatly before he quit the world. Remembering Thahéra's torn lips, her shredded flesh, he sealed off any compassion and quelled his loathing; then he turned and stepped out of the door.

  40

  The plane dipped and straightened, an apology from the captain hanging disembodied in the sterile air. Most people had nodded off over their pre-lunch tipples. There were few families in business class. Tanya's earrings swung and glinted in the softly lit cabin, drawing the admiring eyes of more than just the South Indian banker to her left. However much she disguised her good looks, there was something about her disordered curls that always drew attention. The sleek curve of her shoulder beneath the orange blouse and the arc of her chin above it were reflected back at her in the glass window. She appeared to be dozing but actually her mind was awake, replaying the scene that Adam had conjured for her in that elegant Goan hotel room.

  According to him, he'd turned, amongst the trees and the undergrowth, and looked back towards the spot from which he could hear loud voices; but the foliage was such that he could see nothing. Knowing he was only a few hundred yards away from Cameron, he'd started back up the path.

  Adam found climbi
ng arduous and, since he was trying to move quietly, his progress as slow. Tanya had asked what was being said and he had laughed: of course he could not understand a word of it but there were three voices, one which sounded accusing, another enraged, the third might have been the woman's but he hadn't been paying enough attention to recognise it. He was breathless and scared as he climbed, wondering if Cameron was in some kind of trouble. The first thought which occurred to him, he'd admitted, was that Cameron's architectural plans for the area might have upset somebody powerful in the village. As he rushed back, he tried to recollect the faces of the two men he'd glimpsed approaching but it was all a blur. He thought that one of them was very young and that the other used a stick as a crutch, but he wasn't certain. Branches impeded his progress and he became more and more flustered as the shouting increased in volume.

  Tanya started. A flight attendant stood beside her. He was slim and black-haired, but she could see the age around his eyes.

  'Can I get you another drink, Ma'am? Mineral water? Juice?' She shook her head, wondering briefly what his life was like and whether it was true that all male flight attendants were gay. The man moved on down the aisle.

  Where had she got to? Adam finally managed to see what was going on. She'd questioned him sternly, she knew, forcing him to repeat himself time and again, humiliating him with her distrust, goading him to anger; chipping away at his story until it had satisfied her legal imagination. In a courtroom, she was certain, a jury would have been convinced: for better or worse, she'd felt, Sara had to know whether her friend was a coward or a killer.

  The whole incident had probably lasted no more than ten minutes – the time it took Adam to find his way back to the spot where he had said good-bye to his friend. But in that time the shouting had ceased, to be replaced by the muted splash of the river over rocks. As he peered back through the trees, Adam explained, he'd had the urge to stay hidden. At first he couldn't see anything and decided that he had overshot the mark and come too far up. Then he heard voices almost beside him, and withdrew into the undergrowth, cowering from sight.