The Moon's Complexion

by Irene Black

  “Book?”

  “Unfortunately, you won’t live to see it on the shelves. So we’ll call it your epitaph.”

  Bloody hell, Hannah thought. A total fruitcake. But still the need to hear what Salers had to say drove her on, despite her inexplicable unease.

  “Someone saw you come out of my room at the Pandava. What were you doing there?”

  “Looking for your camera, of course. Careless of you to leave your itinerary lying around. That was a bonus.”

  “What about the taxi, later that night?”

  “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Hannah struggled to get her head around what the man was saying. Is he lying? Why? At any rate, he’s totally out of it. I’ve got to make my move.

  “I’m sorry,” she said carefully, “but whatever your problems may be, they’re not my fault. Now I think you’d better give me that key so that we can get you some help.” She stood up and started towards the bed.

  “Come one step nearer,” Salers said calmly, “and I’ll put a bullet through your heart.” He raised his right hand with infinite deliberation, while his eyes bored through her, and the grin on his face turned into a mocking snarl.

  Hannah saw in the raised hand a silver-colored pistol.

  Slowly she backed away until she felt the chair behind her. She lowered herself onto it. “You’re not going to achieve anything by keeping me here,” she said quietly. “The old man will come with my bed tea shortly. He’ll raise the alarm if there’s no answer.”

  “Don’t worry about the old man. He won’t bother us. We’ll just sit here and wait quietly, shall we?”

  God, what’s he done to the old chap? Hannah wondered but said, “Wait? What for?”

  For some moments, there was no response from Salers, who was wheezing heavily. At length he spoke. “I’m finished. Days, hours maybe. Who can tell? All I know is that you’re going before me. Today. In this room. When I’m right and ready.” He paused and fought for breath, wheezing as he clutched at his chest with his left hand, all the while keeping hold of the pistol with the other. “When you’ve suffered a little more. Not as much as I’d wanted. I’d hoped I’d be able to eke it out a week or two longer, but these damn riots have done for me.”

  He’s even crazier than I believed, Hannah thought. “Listen,” she said, trying to sound calm. “You need a doctor. Antibiotics. You don’t have to give in to this.”

  Salers became agitated. “Shut up, bitch. What do you know? I’m done for, I tell you. You’re going to pay for what you did to me.”

  “Perhaps you’ve just been given the wrong treatment. I know someone who can help you—”

  “Help me? You ignorant tart. Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you heard of the Superbug?”

  “There are always superbugs, so called incurable. The next thing we know, they’ve been cured.”

  “Oh yes. Like AIDS, you mean?”

  “You haven’t got AIDS. You’ve got TB.”

  “Ah—been doing your homework, I see. A damned Russian cellmate with AIDS gave it me in the first place.” Salers was working himself up into a frenzy, sweating profusely, eyes wild with desperation, fear, loathing. “And it’s all down to you and your conniving.”

  Salers was suddenly still. He was smiling. A gargoyle’s grisly grin. He glanced at Hannah. “Want to hear something funny?”

  Hannah stared silently at her feet. Salers crashed the keys down on the table next to the bed so that Hannah, for all her attempts at coolness, was visibly startled.

  “Answer, bitch. Do you?” Salers’ voice hovered between a shriek and a snarl.

  “Yes. Yes,” Hannah said quickly, “tell me.”

  “Enjoy that kiss in the garden, did you? I did. With a bit of luck, you’ll have got more than a pair of soggy knickers out of that moment of passion. Not that it matters now.”

  Keep cool, Hannah told herself. Don’t let him see you panic.

  “I’ve been following you. Waiting. Hoping. Did my little gift to you take root? I wanted to see you suffer. Like I suffered. But where’s the fun in hoping that you’ll die slowly, agonizingly, horribly just like me, if I’m not around to watch?”

  The room, imprisoned behind the closed curtains, was a heat trap, even at the early hour, and even with the one small, open window that the curtains had not managed to obscure. Hannah felt sick with terror and disgust at Salers’ revelation. Perspiration was soaking through her kameez onto the shrouded chair back. She felt a sudden, desperate desire to close her eyes and drown substantiality in sleep. Stay awake, she told herself, for God’s sake stay awake and keep him talking. She rallied her thoughts, choosing her words carefully.

  “I’m sorry about what has happened to you. If we could just talk about it, maybe we’d both understand each other. Maybe I could still help you. I could get you the very best medical treatment. I have money...”

  Salers’ eyes glinted with anger from the depths of their black holes. The pointing gun shook in his hand. “Shut up. D’you think I’d touch your tainted money? The evil fruit that burst from your tree of lies?”

  “If I told lies,” Hannah said slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on Salers’ face, “I did so in ignorance. I don’t understand what you’re saying. Please, you at least were tried in a court of law—you may not have agreed with the verdict, but you were given a chance. Now you’re condemning me without giving me the chance to defend myself. Do you want to have that on your conscience?”

  “Don’t preach to me about conscience.”

  Salers was again overcome by a coughing attack. Hannah glimpsed the terror in his eyes as he struggled to control his jerking, retching body. He snatched up a corner of the bed sheet with his left hand and pushed it over his mouth in an attempt to stem the attack, but the effluence of his illness seeped mercilessly through his fingers, staining the cloth crimson. After it was over, he leaned his head back against the pillow, overcome with exhaustion, but through it all Hannah saw that the pistol was still grasped in his right hand, and she was under no illusion. One false move on her part would swing Salers back into the full fury of his vendetta. His finger was on the trigger, his reflexes, through all his agony, razor sharp.

  Time crawled. Salers lay back on the bed, his eyes half closed, but Hannah knew that he was watching. She sat rigidly on the hard chair, aching with the effort to keep a grip on herself. Without moving her head, she managed to glance down at her watch. Nine o’clock. Oh, God, how much longer? Where was Willi? Surely someone would come along soon? And then, what? Would an interruption only increase the danger by making Salers angry? Or would the distraction give her a chance to leap out of the pistol’s range?

  Through her deliberations, Hannah’s eyes started to close again. It was only when her body gave an involuntary jerk that she realized that she had been drifting once more into a comforting netherworld. Her sudden movement jolted Salers back into consciousness, and his gun hand shot up, pointing unequivocally at Hannah’s chest.

  “Going somewhere?” he gurgled.

  “No, no. Just getting stiff, that’s all.”

  “Stiff? Well, you can go and get me some water from the bathroom. Leave the door open. I’m watching every move you make.”

  “There is no water. Just some damp mud. The taps aren’t working.”

  “That’ll do. Tear off some of that cloth and wet it.” He gestured with the gun at her chair covering. “No sudden movements.”

  With painstaking care, Hannah tore at the dustsheet. It was brittle as old parchment, and she soon had a handkerchief-sized piece. She stood up in slow motion and made her way across to the bathroom. No chance of escape, she decided. Between her and the bathroom was clear space. The bathroom door opened outwards, into the bedroom. It was still wide open, as she had left it. She had no reason to touch it. Any attempt to do so would certainly set the pistol into action. Salers had a clear view of the whole bathroom. Every part of it was within pistol range. In any case, no
thing was to be gained. The bathroom had no window to the exterior, only a narrow ventilation slit.

  The pistol traced her every movement. She bent down over the clay pot and dabbed the last remnants of brown water onto the cloth. The task had awakened her senses, and she was once again fully in command of her thoughts, if not her actions.

  “Now—very slowly, come over here,” Salers croaked. “Don’t even think about trying anything.”

  As she approached the bed, the stench from the dying man intensified. It was like last week’s fish in the rubbish bin, as if he were rotting from within. Only with a superhuman effort did she control herself. The sound of Salers’ breathing had turned into a rattle, like an old car engine turning over repeatedly with an ever-flatter battery.

  “Squeeze the cloth into my mouth,” he rasped.

  Hannah forced herself to act with detachment from her senses, as she mechanically wrung the filthy brew into the raw, stinking cavity. Salers sighed. In a sudden move, he grabbed hold of Hannah’s wrist with his left hand, keeping the pistol in his right trained on her.

  The strength and speed of his grasp stopped Hannah’s breath. She could sense his eyes boring into her face.

  He shook her wrist. “Look at me!” he growled. “Does it revolt you so much to see what you’ve done to me?”

  Hannah fought back panic. She forced her eyes onto his face. He let go. She inched her way slowly backwards to the chair and lowered herself onto it.

  Mark Salers’ eyes were closed once more. Impasse again. Nine-thirty. A bird with a voice like the tolling of a doomed ship sang outside the window. Ten o’clock. Time hung like the foul air around them. Hannah began to drift off again.

  She found herself wondering whether or not Salers could really have infected her that night in the garden. There had been only the one contact. Afterwards—so Duncan had told her, although she couldn't remember it herself—she had retched and spat and rinsed her mouth with Dettol. She was fairly sure that not a drop from that man’s body could have remained in hers. Fairly sure. She wrenched her mind back to her present predicament. What did it matter anyway? What did anything matter if Salers pulled the trigger?

  The heat intensified further. The poisonous exhalations from the bed mingled with the stifling humidity, and Hannah felt that she was being drowned slowly in stinking decay. At times the man seemed dead, but the slightest movement from Hannah brought the instant response of a sleeping Rottweiler. Hannah’s back began to ache, and her limbs were desperate to stretch out or to change position. This physical discomfort at least now prevented any danger of her drifting off into unconsciousness. She dredged her mind for any hints from her psychotherapy course that would help her to deal with this man, but now nothing seemed to fit the situation. She tried talking to him again.

  “Mark,” she began softly. He opened his eyes slowly. At least there was no instant rebuff. “Can’t we talk about what happened to...to Maighréad?”

  Salers gave a sharp laugh. “What happened to Maighréad? What happened to me, more like.”

  “She must have hurt you a lot, to make you...to make you do what you did to her.”

  She felt him burning her through narrowed eyes.

  “She hurt me,” he said slowly. “You know all about that. Don’t try pretending that I did anything to her.”

  Hannah measured her words. “Things were...difficult between the two of you, you know that. You were both hot headed, and she, being the weaker one, was bound to get injured when things got...well, physical.”

  “Cut the crap. Why do you insist on keeping up the lie?” He lay back and groaned then gasped for breath several times before spitting out the next words. “Whose idea was it, yours or hers, for her to smash herself up and blame me?”

  Hannah stifled a gasp. No, it can’t be true, she thought. It’s his twisted mind. But if it isn’t true, what’s this whole bloody business about? Why would he go to such lengths if he really didn’t think I’d wronged him? Why would he keep up the lie on his deathbed? She took as deep a breath as she dared without coating her lungs with putrefying air. The taste of it in her throat nauseated her.

  “If this is what she did, Mark, my only crime is ignorance. I really believed it was you.”

  “Ha!” Salers fought to breathe before continuing. “You must think I was born yesterday. You weren’t fooled by her little act.”

  “I don’t remember it ever being suggested in court that Maighréad’s wounds were self inflicted. So how come you kept it to yourself?”

  The man on the bed half closed his eyes once more. Hannah saw with horror that tears were creeping down his face, like drops from the final pressing of exhausted olives. She felt her stomach curdle with fear of the emerging facts, a fear still greater than that caused by the trembling gun.

  Salers’ fractured voice was little more than a whisper. “I loved her,” he croaked, “...believed that she would come through for me...couldn’t say anything...would have been like admitting to myself that she hated me, that she wanted me to go down...so sure that my silence would make her tell the truth...had to come from her, not from me, don’t you see?” He looked at Hannah, his thickened eyelids lifting slightly to reveal his tortured eyes.

  “Maighréad had a terrible past. You knew that, Mark. You couldn’t expect her to act rationally. It’s no wonder that something snapped after her parents were murdered by the Loyalists.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that crap.” Salers closed his eyes and seemed to drift off, exhausted by his efforts. Hannah shifted in her chair. He opened his eyes, and his hand tightened on the gun.

  “She had no parents,” he muttered, almost imperceptibly. “...grew up in the orphanage.”

  Hannah’s throat tightened. Keep calm. She glanced down at her watch. Ten-thirty. How much longer? If what the man was saying was true, she’d probably be better off dead anyway, rather than having to face the exposure of her celebrated book as a fraud, based on lies. And despite the man’s obvious insanity, his words seemed somehow credible. She thought of Ashok. Had they both been incredibly gullible? If so, it would devastate him. He would need her. They had to get through it together. Somehow she must survive.

  She said, “Is that why Maighréad hated you, Mark? Because you discovered the truth about her?”

  His nod was barely perceptible. His eyes, still half open, stared into space.

  Hannah waited several minutes then coughed. No response. She spoke again. “Do you understand now, Mark, that I didn’t know the truth until today?”

  No response.

  “Mark? Can you hear me?”

  Thank God. Hannah felt tears of relief. He’s dead. She waited a little longer to make sure and slowly rose to her feet.

  At first she wasn’t aware that she had been hit, only of an explosion searing her eardrums. As the floor came up to meet her, she struggled to fight it off. She tried to get up, but her leg kept giving way. She couldn’t see the figure on the bed from there, only the hand that held the still smoking gun.

  * * * *

  “You’re a brave man, Pandi,” Ashok shouted over the noise of the autorickshaw. He could see the driver’s grizzled face in the side mirror. It had become animated, alive, predacious.

  They headed out of the city. The countryside was deserted. Pandi turned off the radio. There was a breathless eeriness, like the air before a thunderstorm. After a few miles, they came to a section of the road that was littered with huge boulders, which Pandi tackled like an Olympic slalom skier.

  Ashok held his breath as they raced on. Ahead of them now, he saw a straight line of even bigger boulders blocking the road completely. Pandi would have to stop. Ashok clung to the hope that his medical papers would save him again. But the driver did not stop; he charged straight at the roadblock. Ashok watched, aghast, certain that his demise was seconds away. As they reached the roadblock, the auto swerved violently and shot full speed through a tiny gap that had been left between the two end boulders—a gap so small that
Ashok hadn’t even considered that they might get through it.

  At last they came to the outskirts of Nanjangud, where fourteen burnt out trucks lay smoldering, blocking the entire road for some hundred meters. Beyond them was the bridge, and shortly beyond that, the bungalow where Ashok hoped to find Hannah.

  As they neared the first truck, half a dozen shouting, gesticulating men jumped out into the road and waved them down. Once again, Pandi seemed to regard this as a challenge. Clearly, he had no intention of stopping. Instead, he veered to the side, onto a soft, narrow shoulder of grass hardly wider than the vehicle itself, between the road and a drop of several meters into the bordering field. He hurled the autorickshaw along this, vainly pursued by the village men who had tried to stop them.

  It was all over. They had left trucks, villagers, and bridge behind them and were turning into the driveway of a derelict bungalow. Pandi had known exactly where to find the place that Ashok had described. Nanjangud was his hometown.

  Ashok stopped the auto some distance from the house. As he clambered out, he handed the astonished driver fifty dollars. “And another fifty if you take us back to Mysore later.” Pandi wobbled his head happily, although Ashok had a sneaking feeling that Pandi would have done the trip for the sheer hell of it.

  Cautiously, Ashok approached the house. He sidled up to the big bay window on the left and peered through. No movement. Dust-sheeted furniture stood around. The bay on the other side of the house was obscured by tattered drapes. They were torn away at the top, and a small fanlight window was open. Too high up to investigate. Silence. Somehow ominous. Parked in front of it was a truck full of propane gas cylinders, which had presumably been backed into the shade of the house to keep it cool.

  The heavy front door under the ornate porch was slightly ajar. Ashok pushed it open slowly, stopping each time it threatened to groan and easing it through its crisis. Once inside the long, dark hall, he stood and listened. The room on the right was silent. Apprehension stopped him from trying the door. Something rotten lay behind it, he was sure. He knew that he had to get into the room without alerting the occupants. But how? He turned his attention to the door on his left. He had seen the room through the window. Lifeless but unthreatening. The door swung open easily and silently when he turned the knob. He stepped inside and closed it behind him.