MONEY TREE

by Gordon, Ferris,

  Customer Care

  If you want to find out how a bank works, ask the customer. That’s what your reporter has been doing in an effort to get to the reality behind the myths about the People’s Bank. Here in a village in the heart of India, in a dust bowl that used to be a fertile valley, we see first hand how this bank’s customers are being served.

  The People’s Bank truly seems to go the extra mile, or maybe 1000 miles. From New Delhi, the Tribune travelled out with a newly appointed district manager of the bank to set up a branch in the middle of nowhere special. But that’s the sort of service you expect if your customers are prepared to travel the same distance to open a new account…

  Erin read the text over Ted’s shoulder as he recounted Anila’s story and Meera’s response. Ted was conscious of the heat and scent of her body.

  ‘Have I missed anything?’

  ‘Only the bit about the big tough New York reporter shooting the breeze with village kids.’

  ‘So who’d be interested in that sort of stuff?’

  He was glad she couldn’t see his face properly in the poor light.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ she said.

  She let him finish, re-read and do some tidying up of the text and then hit the send key.

  ‘That’s official business out of the way. Let’s take a look at Oscar’s web site and see what we’ve got. Anila, is it all right to keep working here? Your mother does not mind?’

  Anila smiled and turned to her mother and posed the question. The old woman shook her head and smiled back.

  ‘Please, my mother says, her home is yours.’

  Erin thanked her and turned to her keyboard. She typed in the address: http://www.sevensilverbullets.com.

  ‘Am I missing something?’ Ted asked.

  ‘Silver bullets? The Lone Ranger?’

  ‘I thought he had a six-gun?’

  ‘Maybe one for luck.’

  Erin hit the key. The blast of ‘William Tell’ that filled the small hut brought Aastha and her mother back to the screen. The galloping figure in white raised grins all round. Then it was down to business. The material was set out in two broad categories and they began to plough through them, sifting and discarding the irrelevant.

  They began with the audio. Erin explained to Meera, who explained to Anila and Aastha that they were listening to recorded exchanges between her former boss and a variety of people that he phoned or talked to face to face in his office. They had to apologise several times for the language used. They got to the conversation between Stanstead and the President of the World Bank. They had to play it twice to be sure of what they were hearing.

  ‘Dear God,’ said Erin. ‘What are we into?’

  ‘And how do we use this stuff? I mean do you realise what we’ve got here?’

  ‘Of course I do. But is it legal? Would it stand up in court?’

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s see what else we’ve got.’

  They listened to three more, then had to sit back to get away from the screaming voice of Warwick Stanstead. It was the piece Oscar had sent them in the hotel. Castigating Joey for the blundered attack in Delhi. And sending him to take personal charge of doing the job properly. It wasn’t news but it reinforced the danger. Somewhere, out there, Joey was looking for them.

  ‘This is a small village in a big country, right?’

  Ted forced a bright voice and nodded at the walls of the tiny room as if to point up the absurdity of Joey making his way to Chandapur.

  ‘It’s not as if we left a forwarding address,’ said Erin.

  ‘Let’s take a peek at the written stuff.’

  Ted thought action would take their minds off the image of a mad gunman heading their way. Page after page of emails appeared. They flicked through them one by one. Occasionally they paused and re-read something to check they’d understood, or went back to tie one email or attachment to an earlier. Over half of the emails required password access to open them. Oscar had thoughtfully provided them with the keys.

  They grew aware of a frequently referenced word. Several emails between Stanstead and Nick Trevino, his technology director, mentioned Project Monsoon. The references were oblique and all were guarded by password protection – or so the originators had thought. They’d never met Oscar. Erin took charge of the keyboard.

  ‘This is the project that’s been tying up a third of our IT resources, Ted.’ She turned to Meera. ‘We’re looking at the evidence of Warwick’s assaults on your bank. And it’s obvious they’re not going to give up. Looks like they’re planning another one in -’ she checked her watch, ‘- three days. Better warn your father and CJ, Meera. This looks like it’s going to be a big one. Let’s hope Oscar and CJ’s techies are building some pretty high flood walls.’

  ‘Or an Ark,’ he said.

  Erin and Ted worked quietly away at their task, talking over their findings and categorising them. They shared a lot of common ground and skills. Both noticed a growing ease between them, but said nothing in case it evaporated. When they were finished, they emailed Oscar to tell him what a brilliant job he and Albert were doing, and pointing out what they’d done with the web site. Mostly they left the emails but they set up a document list itemising all the opened attachments. The web site now showed a clear chronology of the crimes of Warwick Stanstead.

  Throughout the concentrated collation task Meera had been a close observer. Finally she spoke into the quiet.

  ‘You are risking everything, aren’t you?’

  For the first time her voice and expression took on a note of approval.

  Ted and Erin could only shrug.

  ‘No more than Anila, here,’ said Erin.

  FORTY THREE

  The corruption was stifling. Ted and Erin needed air. They went outside and sat side by side on the rear running board of the jeep. The village was in darkness except for the little glows of oil lamps from some of the roofs and windows. They faced down the ragged lane and out across the valley. The crowd had long since dispersed. Finding themselves alone, Ted and Erin became shy with each other. They slumped forward, head in hand, and back bowed, quiet for a while with their own thoughts. Ted was wondering what he’d done to deserve this woman and her mad crusade, and half wishing he’d simply deleted the email from a certain Diogenes. Erin was more than ever convinced of the morality of her cause, but frightened of the consequences.

  Warm air settled on their limbs. Unfamiliar smells gathered on the new breeze. Smells of animals and cooking and burning wood. Smells of the lost river and dried grass, and of the earth, giving up the heat of the day. A dog barked for a while, then was quiet. It drew their attention to the million insects sawing away among the nearby fields.

  ‘I’d forgotten stars could look like this,’ she said.

  He looked up. ‘It’s the same from the hills above Denver. Last time I looked.’

  Erin gazed until she felt a need to throw herself on the ground and hold on or she’d be catapulted into space.

  ‘It’s great, but I could still make an argument for New York.’

  He snorted. ‘You’d argue with me if I said the sea was salty.’

  ‘Am I such a bitch?’

  The opening he’d been waiting for. His words grew a little hotter.

  ‘You don’t know when to stop.’

  ‘And you don’t know when to start!’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He lurched to his feet and stood in front of her, looking big and menacing against the night sky. She stood up and squared up to him.

  ‘Let’s face it, I had to jump-start your conscience.’

  ‘Are we sure it’s my conscience that’s fuelling this crazy trip?’

  ‘Look, I got you wrong, all right? You were incredible the other day with the muggers. There’s a lot more to you than -’

  ‘Meets the eye? So now I’m an iceberg?’

  ‘But melting fast.’

  She tried a smile in her voice to defuse him. He wou
ldn’t be softened. This had been brewing.

  ‘So why are you always needling me?’

  ‘Because you drink too much and you might, just might, be worth salvaging, you big dummy.’

  ‘You condescending English -’

  ‘- Scottish. Bitch?’

  ‘Whatever!’

  ‘You’re better, angry.’

  ‘What are you trying to do to me?!’

  ‘Get a reaction?’

  ‘Like this?’

  He took one step closer, took her by the shoulders and pulled her to him. She kept her eyes wide open in challenge right up to the moment he kissed her full on the mouth. She broke first.

  ‘Whoa boy. Stop.’

  He was breathing fast, and still had his hands on her.

  ‘I knew you’d be a teaser.’

  ‘It’s just not the time. Or place.’

  She tried to get him to see that somewhere, sometime there might be a place. He dropped his hands.

  ‘Then – don’t – lead – me – on. Goodnight, Miss Wishart.’

  He grabbed his gear from the jeep and blundered off into the night. Erin watched a small shadow race after him. She shivered and touched her mouth with her fingers.

  Ted found himself taken by the hand and led off proudly by the young boy who’d been his interpreter. Now Ted stood outside the boy’s own hut with his rucksack and a small brown paper bag, like a giant waif. The boy emerged highly excited, followed by a young man and woman. They bowed slightly and the man held out his hand and touched Ted’s tentatively, then shook it hard. The woman stayed in the background smiling nervously.

  ‘My father, Rajnish, is teacher. So he speaks English by me. That is how I understand.’

  ‘Speaks English to me, Ranil,’ he gently chided the boy. ‘Please sir, welcome sir. I would be most honoured if you spend this night with me and my family in our home. It is not a big apartment like New York I believe. However it offers you a room to yourself. Please enter.’

  ‘I am the one who is honoured, sir. May I ask your name? I am Ted Saddler. Please call me Ted.’

  The man beamed. ‘I am called Rajnish Tadvi, and this is my wife Hema. Will you please to call me Rajnish? And will you come into my house and take food with us?’

  Ted followed them in to the hut. It was twice the size of Anila’s but still little more than four brick walls coated with a dried mud and straw mix. It was dark, but cooler than he’d expected. The earth floor was well covered by woven mats of bright colours. A wood table and four chairs stood against the wall. On one wall was a shelf bearing a small, but clearly treasured set of books. Ted found he was trying not to breathe.

  There was a smell of worn clothes and unwashed humanity mixed in with farmyard and kitchen smells. He chided himself for his prissiness and sucked in the air. He’d survived sharing a tent with six marines in a Middle East war zone.

  He could choose to sleep here with the family or on the roof where it would be cooler. They took him out the through the back of the hut to the little yard. Two goats were tethered and fought with some chickens over scraps of vegetables and bread. A little stairway without handrails led to the roof enclosed by a low balustrade. Ted liked the idea of sleeping outside. Liked it a lot. The boy made up his bed for him in one corner, a straw mattress covered in rugs. His sleeping bag was carefully unrolled on top of it.

  Back inside Ted handed over the paper bag and was pleased with the response to the three cans of food and the last of the fresh vegetables they’d managed to buy at the store. It seemed a tiny offering but was clearly appreciated.

  Once more Ted was pumped, this time a little more grammatically but with no less interest. They served him some tea. It was like nothing he’d seen before. This was a rich creamy concoction. He’d watched it being poured and noticed its thick viscosity. All the ingredients had been boiled together for some time. He sipped a few drops and felt his teeth melt. The taste of sugar and hard tannin and rich milk would never leave his mouth. He grinned and applauded it as best he could. He had a sudden yearning for New York tap water. Or whiskey.

  Finally, still hungry but deeply concerned about eating them out of house and home, Ted took his leave, climbed up the steps in the back yard to the rooftop. He could see other roofs with bodies stretched out on them, like mortuary slabs.

  He rummaged inside his pack. He found the two bottles and drew them out. One full, the other three-quarters. He replaced the full one and took the other over to the low wall that ran round the roof. He sat down, feet dangling over the edge. He uncorked the bottle, took a pull and enjoyed the hit in his stomach. What with the pungent currents of evening air wafting around him, Ted found himself thinking about letting go of several things in his life that no longer seemed quite so important. Like his moribund career and the sorry state of his pension portfolio. Maybe it was time to ditch the book too; he’d been fooling himself for too long. But then what?

  Had he really just grabbed a kiss? He couldn’t remember when he’d last made a dive at a woman. Sixth grade? It constituted date rape these days didn’t it? Damn the woman. Plays it tough and cool for days then throws him a line. Just to see him fall on his face. That was how kids behaved: challenge, flirt, taunt and then the big let-down. He wasn’t up to these sort of games any more, or maybe he’d never learnt the rules.

  He shook his head in bafflement. He took one more good pull, coughed as it stung its way down, and recapped the bottle. He got to his feet and tucked the bottle away. He flicked some leaves out of his bedding, stripped to his underwear and tried a press-up on his sleeping bag. He managed eight before his arms quivered and gave way. That would have to change when – if - he got back. He got inside the bag but kept the zip down while the perspiration from his mild exertion dried in the warm night. He gazed up, and for the first time in way too long, felt engaged with life, with people. It scared and excited him all at once.

  He woke the next morning disorientated, and as stiff as after a first day’s skiing. He had to lie and stretch his back and his side before he could sit up. His face felt swollen. He found mosquito bites all over his head and hands. The sun wasn’t over the horizon yet but a pale glow seeped across the landscape. Other rooftop dwellers were struggling awake and standing and stretching. Some were greeting the day in prayer, raising their hands with small vessels in them and pouring water as an offering to their gods. Ted thought he understood how that worked and tried to give himself a moment’s contemplation. But his bites itched and his arm muscles ached, and he was thinking about what a fool he’d made of himself last night. That and the trial, and pal Joey, crowded in on his morning.

  His hosts were up and Hema was cooking a flat lump of bread on a griddle over the open fire glowing under the chimney in one wall. It smelled great. Before he ate he ran his little travel razor over the stubble, and managed to brush his teeth using water from the bottle Meera had supplied. They gave him a bowl of opaque water to bathe in, and he began to feel human again. A clean but creased shirt helped.

  He asked about the toilet. Ranil led him to the backyard and gave him a battered shovel with a broken handle. Ted caught the drift and went back for his pack and took out the roll of toilet paper he’d borrowed from the hotel in Delhi. Ranil walked him out of the village to a field behind a few scrubby bushes and two trees. Other men were already there. Ranil indicated the process. Ted dug a small hole, grimacing and thinking of his army training. This wasn’t so hard, he kept telling himself.

  ‘What happens when the field is used up?’

  ‘The Dalits come and plough up the earth and we move to another place.’

  ‘The women?’ He meant Erin.

  ‘Over there.’ Ranil indicated an area just to their left delineated by a pair of bushes.

  They went back to the hut and Ted washed as best he could. They had breakfast, Ted noticing that his gift of tinned fruit was being presented back to him. They saw his bites and were anxious. Hema fussed round him.

  ‘Did the le
aves not work? We are very sorry. They always work for us.’

  ‘You mean the leaves in my bedding? The ones I threw away?’

  She put her hand to her mouth to hide the laugh. ‘They are from one of our trees. They keep insects away.’

  ‘This wouldn’t be a tree called the neem would it?’

  Hema shook her head in smiling agreement with him. She went to one of her shelves and produced a small tub of grease.

  ‘What’s this?’

  Rajnish answered. ‘It is also from the neem. It is very good for insect bites. But it is best if you put it on before you get bitten.’ They all laughed with him.

  ‘This tree gets itself around,’ he answered as Hema indicated he should dip a finger into the pot.

  She couldn’t touch him of course. He took a dollop. It smelled of sulphur but he gently dabbed the cream on the bites and rubbed it in. It had an immediate soothing effect. He was glad there was no mirror.

  He thought he could find Erin’s hut again without help, and set off, causing chatter and diffident smiles wherever he went. He was amused to see the boy Ranil following him at a distance and hiding behind buildings as he twisted and turned through the alleys. As he got closer he found himself trying to shake off the sense that he was going into school the day after the Prom. Facing the girl – in a cordon of her giggling friends – after a fruitless fumbling behind the track-stand. Would she be mad or amused at him? Just spare me contempt, he silently pleaded. He found his feet dragging, and he slowed to make sure his hair was patted down and not sticking up like a clown’s. There was nothing he could do about the spots – acne as well, he thought. It figures.

  He arrived at the hut with an gaggle of kids wondering what new stories they’d get from him today. The scene that greeted him wasn’t so far from his remembered youth. Meera, Erin and little Aastha were sitting outside on wooden stools. Anila stood behind Erin brushing Erin’s hair. It was the first time he’d seen it down. It seemed thicker and wavier somehow. She looked better than she had in days. Erin coloured as he approached, but at least she smiled.