by Irene Black
“Where’s the owner? I ordered a taxi to Bandipur with friends.”
“Called away, Sir. You are Dr. Rao? I have message for you.”
“What message?” Ashok felt a surge of alarm.
“Our driver was experiencing some trouble getting through to Palace with those two ladies,” the man said, a somewhat obsequious smile forming to reveal stained gums and a solitary tooth. “So many crowds. There is talk of bandh. Water dispute. People are getting angry. And you know, Sir, angry crowd and Western ladies... So our driver was turning car round and coming back here.”
Ashok nodded. “So where are they?”
“Well, Sir. You are able see for yourself that situation here is not good. Boss was thinking if it is getting worse, it could be very bad for those ladies. Therefore, he was sending them back in car to Bangalore city.”
Chapter 11
Two hours after leaving Mysore, the taxi deposited Hannah and Willi at the reception center at the park lodge in Bandipur. The terrain was rough, grassy, dotted with deciduous trees. The air was clean and fresh despite the stifling heat. Apart from the lodge and half a dozen gray wooden bungalows, which were scattered nearby among the scrub, the place was isolated.
They were allocated one of the bungalows and also a wizened old attendant called Siraj to cook for them. He showed them the accommodation. It was simple but adequate. The two bedrooms each had two beds and basic bathroom facilities—a toilet and the usual jug-and-bucket showering system.
It also had a living room and a small kitchen where the crockery and cleaning materials were kept. The meals themselves were not prepared there but brought over from a communal kitchen.
Hannah opened the net mesh across the window of the bedroom that she and Ashok would share.
“No, no!” Siraj said. “Monkeys will come.”
She closed the mesh again hastily. “No thanks. I’d rather not share a bed with a monkey or have my luggage carried off into the jungle.”
The ranger at the park reception let Hannah see the list of people who had signed the visitors’ book.
“Not all have arrived yet,” he explained. “Some trouble on road to Ooty.”
There were not many visitors. Four names were in the book besides their own. Willi read them out.
“Mr. and Mrs. J.V. Chandrasekaran from Mysore, Dr. Kumar from Delhi, Ms. Gower from London, Mr. P.S. Nandi from London also. No oxen, bullocks, or lowing herds.”
“No?” Hannah said. “There’s a Mr. Nandi in bungalow three. You know who Nandi is, don’t you?”
“Of course. Shiva’s bull.” Willi was ecstatic. “Let’s get him.”
“Hold your horses, Willi. I promised I’d do nothing till Ashok gets here.” She turned to the ranger. “Mr. Nandi—is he English?”
The ranger looked puzzled. “He lives in UK, Madam. He was telling he was born in Tamil Nadu.”
“Is he a small man?”
“I think so, yes, Madam.”
“Did he speak to you in Tamil?”
By now, the ranger was totally perplexed. “Yes, Madam, but if you wish to meet him you should come on afternoon safari. He is sure to come also.”
From the terrace of their bungalow, they had a good view of the door to bungalow three, a view that Willi enhanced with the aid of binoculars.
“Let me know if he materializes, Willi.”
“What then?”
“If it is him, we’ll just watch him and keep out of his way till Ashok gets here and can hand him over to the law.”
Hannah was suddenly tired and more apprehensive about Salers than she cared to admit to Willi. She closed her eyes and focused her thoughts on Ashok and marriage. Marriage! Did he ask me to marry him? Did I say I would? How bizarre. She suddenly thought of Maighréad and her ill-fated marriage to Mark Salers. Poor Maighréad, she didn’t really stand a chance, did she? Not even Ashok could wipe out all those years with that monster. I wonder what she’d think of all this. What to do? Well, I said yes, didn’t I? Crazy, the pair of us. Okay, I’m in love with him. Is that enough? No, it isn’t. But there’s much more to it than that, isn’t there? We just understand each other. It doesn’t require analysis. All right, so we’ve both been evasive. I wish I knew what his secret is.
Soon she was fast asleep. She dreamt of their wedding day. She was in a marriage hall in Mysore. Ashok had arrived splendidly arrayed, on a white horse. She had an argument with the vicar, who would not allow the horse to give her away, but they compromised so that it was allowed to stamp on the wineglass. Four clarinetists from the Gopal Band held up the chuppah and played off-key, very loudly, throughout the ceremony. Since neither she nor Ashok could hear what the vicar was saying to them, they answered yes to everything. Consequently, she found that she had married the Rajasthani psychoanalyst and Ashok had married the horse. She woke in a panic.
“Where’s Ashok? Is he here yet? What’s been happening?”
“Nothing happening in bungalow three, I’m afraid. Maybe Ashok’s at the reception center. It’s time to go anyway, if we want to do the safari.”
* * * *
Ashok had chased back to Bangalore after Hannah and Willi, continually urging his driver to go faster. But even along the Mysore-Bangalore section of the road, travel was becoming precarious by now. Groups of angry men, clustered on the roadside, seemed menacing, and the taxi frequently skirted stones and boulders strewn on the tarmac. On two occasions, the car was forced to pull up at impromptu road blocks and only allowed to continue on its way when the self-styled guards manning the blocks had ascertained that neither Ashok nor the driver were Tamils. Two thoughts preoccupied Ashok. Had his father got home safely? And where were Hannah and Willi?
The taxi dropped him at the Chamundi and headed off. The driver was clearly nervous about getting back to Mysore and glad to be on his way. Ashok went straight up to Hannah’s room at the hotel. He received no reply to his knock on the door. Back down in reception, the clerk was nonplussed.
“Miss Petersen, Sir? No, she hasn’t returned, Sir. She has signed out for two nights. Look Sir, you can see for yourself. Oh, I do hope she decided not to go up to Bandipur after all, Sir. Things very bad on that road, Sir, very bad.”
Frustrated, Ashok took an autorickshaw to his parents’ house. He tried to suppress his worries. After all, he told himself, the two women had left Mysore well before he had and should have had little difficulty in getting back to Bangalore. Perhaps they’d gone into the city to do some sightseeing.
Srinivasa and Girija greeted him with relief, matched by his own relief that his father had also made it home safely.
“Radio news broadcast is telling that situation is bad,” Girija said. “It is good that you did not attempt to get through to Bandipur. Your two friends have returned with you?”
Ashok described briefly what had happened.
“We must hope and pray that they are not experiencing difficulties.”
How like his parents, he reflected, to behave with such impeccable decency, despite their obvious dismay over his involvement with Hannah.
“They have probably gone into the city,” Ashok said. “I am not too worried.”
He was bluffing. By now, he was very worried. As he had been talking to his parents, he’d suddenly remembered discussing the stalker situation with Hannah in Chennai. Money talks, he had said. Now he started wondering, uneasily, whether money had talked to the shifty man in the taxi office. Had he been bribed or even threatened into telling Ashok that the girls had gone back to Bangalore? If not, where were they? Surely they wouldn’t really have gone off sightseeing, knowing that he would come back to find them. Had they been sent to Bandipur perhaps, or...? It didn’t bear thinking about. Well, easy enough to find out if they were in Bandipur.
He dialed the number of the Park Reception Center.
“Oh yes, Sir. The ladies arrived some hours back. They are taking safari tour at this time. You will please call back in half hour to speak to them.”
“Can you get me a taxi?”
“Where you are wanting to go, Sir?”
“Bandipur.”
“Sorry, Sir. No taxi possible. Road is now closed. Situation is much too dangerous. No bus, no taxi, nothing.”
“How long is this likely to last?”
“Who can tell? Maybe one day, maybe more. They are burning lorries on road.”
* * * *
A group of a dozen or so people—mainly local, but some from as far away as Delhi and some “foreigners”—gathered outside the park reception center for the late afternoon safari.
Ashok was not there, and Hannah, while not unduly worried about him, realized that they had no contingency plans. She did not expect Salers to materialize at this point. He was sure to keep himself well hidden until nightfall.
Willi interrupted her thoughts. “Say, Hannah. What if this Nandi shows up? Do we jump him? Or what?”
“No, we don’t jump him. Even if we could restrain him, what then? I already told you. We need Ashok to deal with Indian officialdom. How d’you think the police would react to two foreign women kidnapping someone who hasn’t committed an obvious crime?”
“Yes, I see what you mean.”
“In any case, he won’t show himself until he thinks he can get me alone.”
The ranger called them. “We’re ready to leave.”
They scrambled into the battered off-road mini-bus. As Hannah had predicted, Mark Salers was not among the passengers. But Mr. Nandi was. He turned out to be a small, non-resident Indian, originally from Chennai.
“A wasted afternoon, spying on the poor chap,” Willi muttered through clenched teeth.
“At least we’ve eliminated him,” Hannah said as they set off. “But we’re back to square one.”
The vehicle was noisy, as it heaved its way along the potholed track. A forest ranger accompanied them to point out the wildlife, but soon everybody joined in, shouting to the driver to stop whenever they spotted anything interesting.
Abundant herds of chital, the graceful white spotted deer, congregated in the open spaces on both sides of the track, instead of hiding in the denser forest like many of the shyer animals. The land on each side of the track had been cleared for some thirty meters or so to allow for better game watching and to create a firebreak. Beyond this, dindalu and kakke trees, flame of the forest, and bamboo covered the ground fairly densely in some areas, less so in others, where single trees were scattered among the long, yellowing grass. Here were splendid views of the distant Nilgiri range, silhouetted against the skyline.
A sambar deer stag stood in a clearing, head erect, every muscle in its taut, gray body alert to the possibility of danger.
“Majestic,” Hannah breathed. Once again, as so often in the past few days, her fears had been washed away, and she was bathed in a kind of magical amnesia.
Farther along the track, two peahens moved jerkily through the long grass. Nearby, their mate strutted out, his feathers raining iridescence into the surrounding air. Hannah giggled. “Duncan,” she said to herself.
In the trees, langur monkeys danced among the branches or sat chewing leaves, staring down curiously. Thick, gray fur framed their black faces, giving them an air of aristocracy.
“Over there,” the sharp-eyed ranger whispered and pointed to the right. “Gaur. Largest of wild Indian cattle. Today we are lucky.”
There were four or five adult females and a number of calves standing some thirty meters away, at the edge of the thicker forest, their white-stockinged legs half hidden in the long grass. The beasts were an impressive sight, not only because of their massive size. The extraordinary splendor of their coats glowing liver-chestnut in the evening sun reminded Hannah of huge, polished bronze carvings.
The safari ended as the last rays evaporated the outlines of the distant hills and turned the trees to brooding shadows.
Back at the reception center, there was no sign of Ashok.
“Has Dr. Rao arrived yet?” Hannah asked the duty ranger.
“No, Madam. But he has telephoned. He is experiencing some difficulty. There is bandh. No vehicles are getting through at present. Dr. Rao will be telephoning again in twenty minutes’ time. You will please wait here for call.”
The two women stared at one another, aghast.
“A bandh? What’s that?” Hannah said.
“It’s a strike,” Willi said in a resigned voice. She turned to the ranger and accosted him angrily, as though the whole situation were somehow his fault. “What is it this time, this bandh? Why is the road closed?”
The ranger looked befuddled.
“Sorry, Madam. No more detail is there at present.”
The telephone rang.
“For you, Madam.” The ranger handed the receiver to Hannah. The line was fuzzy, and they spoke for only two minutes before they were cut off. Hannah replaced the receiver slowly, her face failing to hide her disappointment and worry.
“He’s in Bangalore. Someone in the taxi office told him we’d gone back there. There’s trouble on the road. Riots, apparently. Something to do with water. He thinks it’ll all be over by tomorrow. He’s still trying to get here. If he doesn’t make it, he said we should get a bus back to Mysore tomorrow morning. From there, we can get a bus or a car back to Bangalore.” She refrained from adding that Ashok had insisted that, in the event of any hint of further trouble on the roads, they should remain in Bandipur.
“Well, at least I could tell Ashok that Salers isn’t here. Obviously, he couldn’t get through, either,” she added.
“Hm,” Willi said, looking distracted. “Maybe.”
“Maybe? You’re about to dazzle me with another inspiration,” Hannah said. “I thought you were hatching some new theory on the way back.”
Willi smiled enigmatically and spoke to the duty ranger. “Can I have another look at the guest list, please?”
She studied it carefully.
“Aha! Thought as much. Look.” She was pointing to a name on the list.
“Ms. Gower,” Hannah said. “Bungalow five. She was here earlier. Remember?”
“Only it isn’t Ms. Gower. It’s M.S. Gower.”
“Yes? And?”
“Gower—you know—like those big cow things we just saw.”
“Gaur. Of course! Mark Salers Gower.” Hannah turned to the ranger. “What does M.S. Gower in bungalow five look like?”
“He is English, Madam. Very thin. I think maybe he had been unwell. He is always wearing dark glasses.”
* * * *
After Ashok had spoken to Hannah in the reception center at the Game Park, he felt less than reassured. He didn’t have time to reveal to her the full extent of what was taking place on the Mysore-Ootacamund road, as the line was poor and the connection brief. At least he’d had the chance to tell her that someone had deliberately diverted him back to Bangalore. So, in spite of her certainty that Salers was not at Bandipur, she would be extra vigilant until he got there. How on earth was this to be achieved? The road was impassable, so they said. But was it really? Well, one thing was clear. No taxi driver would be willing to chance it. He’d have to drive himself. The fact that he’d never driven in India was irrelevant. Ashok spoke to his father.
“Bapa, can I borrow the Fiat?”
His father shook his head. “Fiat is in repair-shop still, Ashok.”
Damn. He’d forgotten that his father had told him yesterday that the steering had gone and that it would be taken in for repair while they were in Mysore.
“When will it be ready?”
“Not before tomorrow morning. I hope you are not thinking of driving to Bandipur.”
“Well, I was, yes. Now I’ll have to take train to Mysore and try to get a car to take me from there.”
“Asho
k, don’t be foolish. There are riots. No one will be willing to take you.”
“I have to try.”
At the railway station, he found pandemonium. All trains to Mysore were cancelled. Tracks and signaling equipment had been damaged in the riots, and there was no knowing when the repairs would be completed. Dejected, he went back to the house. First thing tomorrow, he decided, pick up the Fiat then get through somehow.
“Some boy was delivering a parcel for you,” Girija said. “It is in your room.”
“Boy? What sort of boy?”
“He was telling he had come from Chamundi Hotel. An Englishman is giving to him early today and asking him to bring to this house.”
* * * *
Siraj, the bungalow attendant, brought Hannah and Willi a simple supper of vegetables and rice, which they ate in silence.
“I’ve been thinking,” Hannah said, while Siraj cleared away. “Salers is obviously ill. I reckon we’re a match for him. Let’s finish what we set out to do here.”
“You mean you’re going to sit on that hill and wait for him to get you?”
“No need. We know where he is. I’ll just get the warden to call the cops.”
Hannah told the warden that the man in number five was a dangerous British criminal. She couldn’t go into details. She simply wanted the police to pick him up. She would explain to them.
The warden’s comprehension of English suddenly appeared to desert him. “You want I should call police? There is problem?” He looked nonplussed but picked up the telephone and spoke briefly in Kannada before turning back to Hannah.
“Madam, police are tied up with bandh. Now is not possible. Tomorrow.”
Frustrated, the two women walked back to their bungalow. “Where the hell’s Ashok?” Hannah muttered. “He’ll get the cops to take us seriously.”
“Unlikely to arrive till morning now.”
Hannah nodded. “Let’s lock up and get some sleep.” She had half a mind to suggest that Willi should sleep in her room but decided it would be more sensible if they were not in the same place. That way, if anything happened to one of them, the other one would be free to fetch help.
