by John Masters
There had been a few other people on the road, but most of them scurried by and seemed almost to avoid the mob now constituting the Nawab’s entourage. Then, just an hour ago, six men had ridden up from the south behind the column. The Nawab stopped singing and invited them to join his following. They refused with brusque courtesy. They were in a hurry, they said, and must press on. The Nawab shrugged petulantly, and in ten minutes the six were out of sight and their dust had settled, leaving no trace of their passage.
Piroo sidled up on the Nawab’s near side and said, ‘Great maharaj, where is your highness going to encamp tonight?’
The Nawab looked down superciliously. ‘I don’t know. Soon. Ohé!’ He raised his voice. ‘Who knows of a good camping place near here? Our friend Bat Ears has sore feet.’ William and Hussein cackled with laughter, as they had done a hundred times today and a hundred times yesterday.
Two men pushed forward, both speaking at once. Both said they had used this road often, but they had different opinions about camp sites. One urged the Nawab to go to a grove about two miles on; the other recommended a place a mile and a half farther on, a place where, he said, there was a small village and good fruit to be had.
The Nawab stroked his chin. ‘Fruit? What sort? Peaches from Kandahar—all this way? Pomegranates from Kagan? I like pomegranates.’
‘The nearer ground is the more desirable, maharaj,’ the man shouted. ‘I know them both. Cannot one of us, or your servant, go and get fruit from the village for your highness and all who want it?’
‘Why, yes, I suppose so. But I’ll take a look at this first place before deciding. If it’s as good as you say, we’ll go no farther. At least I won’t. You gentlemen are free to go where you wish.’
His audience laughed sycophantically at the notion that any of them would give up the honour of being in the Nawab’s train, or desert the protection of his name and his servants and their guns and the pistol in his highness’s sash.
The sun touched the western ridge and the valley widened out. A small track led off to the left, and the first man, walking beside the horse’s head, cried, ‘It is down here, great maharaj. See, I think someone is there already.’ He pointed to a trail of smoking horse dung on the ground and the jumbled imprints of hoofs in the dust. The Nawab frowned dubiously and peered down the little track into the depths of shadow cast by a stand of towering bijasal trees.
The would-be guide broke out anxiously, as if some award of money rested on the Nawab’s choice. ‘It is a paradise down there, maharaj. Running water, shady trees, cool grass under the trees——’
‘Any girls?’ said the Nawab, and again all within earshot burst out laughing and held their sides and nudged one another happily. The stragglers drifted up and formed a humble group, waiting at a little distance for the great man to make up his mind.
While the Nawab picked his nose thoughtfully and fiddled with the red leather embroidery on his reins, a man walked out of the hidden grove. Pausing, he raised his head, and then made a graceful salaam to the Nawab. He carried himself with dignity and his manner made clear that he was greeting an equal. William recognized him as one of the six men who had galloped past in such a hurry.
The Nawab returned the salutation, and the stranger said, ‘Sir, it is a pleasant place in there, where we are. May we not have the honour of your company? An hour ago we had to refuse. We meant to go much farther’—he shrugged—‘but a horse went lame. What can one do?’
Helped by his body-servant, the Nawab slipped off his horse and bowed. ‘It will be a pleasure to converse with you, sir. These others, my friends’—he waved his jewelled hand at the crowd, sneering at the word ‘friends’ as he said it—‘they are good fellows all, and my companions of the road. But they are not, for the most part, either intelligent or amusing.’
The crowd muttered in mild chorus of self-abasement, ‘No, no, we are uneducated people.’
The traveller who had wanted to go and camp by the village drew nervously away and joined his palms. ‘Maharaj, maharaj, I must go on. I have business to transact in that village, and I have come two hundred miles for it.’
The Nawab’s lip curled. ‘I expect we can survive without you, O dealer in rats’ droppings. Now at least we know why you lauded that place. It’s probably a filthy hole, but what would you care? You would have been inside the village. Go!’
‘We will go with him, maharaj.’ Three others spoke in whining unison from the outskirts of the crowd. ‘We too must move fast. We are near our homes. Is there permission?’
The Nawab shrugged his shoulders. ‘You, too, hurry? To surprise strange men putting out fires in your marriage beds! There is permission.’
He jerked his head irritably. On the road much of a man’s importance was assessed by the size of his following. The four deserters shuffled quickly away together, each obviously relieved that he would not have to cover the mile and a half alone. The crowd threw a few sneering taunts after them.
The main group of travellers entered the grove behind the Nawab and his new friend. Under the great trees they spread out and sought places to cook and sleep. A happy, tired clatter and chatter arose. Men unloaded the Nawab’s pack-horses and set up his green silk pavilion and the curtained annex that was his wives’ portion. The horses were watered and tethered at the downwind end of the grove, and their riders and grooms cut grass and threw it down before them.
William laid his belongings by the bank of the stream, collected dry twigs and leaves, lit them with flint and steel, and knelt to blow on the infant fire. Yasin Khan the dark man passed by, stooping to pick up firewood. With that distant softness he said: ‘After food. The Jemadar will give the signal: The stars are shining bright. Prayers now, for selected stranglers only. You come. Up that way. Three hundred paces.’
William gave no sign that he heard and went on with his blowing. Yasin Khan moved slowly away, lending his sacerdotal quality even to the task of picking up sticks.
The encampment did not seem to empty, but William was on the alert and watching carefully. Here and there a man would drift beyond the vaguely defined boundaries of the grove, drift back a minute later, and soon wander off once more, this time not to return. Unless he had been devoting his attenton to it, and unless he had known whom to watch, he could not have said whether any particular man was present or absent. He damped down his fire and followed their example, mooning carelessly about at the edge of the grove and at last walking unhurriedly past the farthest tree and into the jungle.
Outside a dense thicket three hundred yards in, Piroo was bent beside a game trail, picking up twigs. He jerked his head to the left. William turned and scrambled through thick scrub into a small clearing. A stunted neem tree stood in the centre of the clearing. All around the leaves were thick, enclosing the tree within a high green wall. A small stone idol lay on its face in the grass. It was very old; several centuries of sun and rain had weathered it and smoothed out its shape. Often William came across these fallen images in the jungle, and always, when he asked about them, received the same answer: They were kings of old time, turned to stone in battles against the heroes of the Mahabharata. But the men in the clearing ignored the idol. It was the tree, the dark evergreen neem, to which Yasin Khan made a short obeisance. William and the others followed suit. He saw with relief that Hussein was here, and the Jemadar, and five more.
Yasin said, ‘We have no time to waste, Jemadar-sahib. Shall I begin?’
‘Yes.’
Yasin fumbled under the blanket draping his shoulders and brought out a folded white sheet and a small pickaxe. The pick-axe had been hanging, haft downward, in an extra loop of his loincloth. William remembered that every day of the march Yasin had carried the pick-axe in that manner, and that he had seen it every day, and the pattern of whorls and triangles on it, and had not till this moment remarked the fact, or connected the pick-axe with those others he had found on the trail of the thakur’s murderers. True, many travellers carried tools and
weapons.… William rubbed his hands across his eyes and shivered.
Yasin spread the sheet on the grass, first removing twigs and loose dirt from under it. He glanced at the sky, where the stars were beginning to prick through dusty blue twilight, and laid the pick-axe on the sheet, its point toward the north, the direction of the band’s travel. Then he took position behind the sheet, facing west. The Jemadar and the rest arranged themselves in a line behind him.
Yasin joined his palms together, raised his eyes to the sky, and sighed, ‘O Kali, thy servants are waiting. Grant them thy approval, they pray.’
They stood with heads bowed, their faces purposeful and religiously calm. William heard his own heart beating and felt his nerves tightening with theirs. While Yasin spoke, he wondered what power made the Jemadar, and Yasin himself, who were Mohammedans, bow down and pray to the Hindu Destroyer-Goddess Kali. But whatever they waited for, whatever the reason or superstition that held them, he waited with them, and was held as they were held. Faintly through the trees he heard the sounds of the encampment, the whinny of a horse, a woman’s faint call. He waited long minutes, and in the clearing no one made a sound.
A jungle-fowl, frightened by an unknown enemy, rocketed into the treetops out of sight to the left. Catching the alarm, another rose, to the right.
The Deceivers sighed, breathed out, and relaxed their stiff shoulders. William let go his breath in a gasp. Yasin cried, in the voice of a warden of holy writ, low and awed and triumphant, ‘Kali, we hear! We are thy servants. We obey!’
He took up the pick-axe and tucked it into his waist, folded the sheet and hid it under his blanket. All the men except William, pulled rumals from their waistbands and ran them once or twice through their hands. Yasin moved down the line and gave each man a new silver rupee, murmuring a blessing as he did so. Then each man tied the silver coin into one end of the rumal, made a knot there, again ran the rumal two or three times through his fingers, and tucked it back into his waistband. All except the Jemadar and Yasin left a tiny corner showing. William felt a little spurt of craftsman’s pride; he could pull out the rumal without leaving a corner ready to his hand. That total concealment, he now knew, was the mark of a strangler who had been formally taught by a professor; it was the strangler’s doctorate. He had not been taught, but his hands had known without being told.
One by one the men left the clearing. The Jemadar turned to William. ‘I think that’ll do, don’t you? Kali will accept the prayers of us few as a token?’
William said, ‘Yes, I’m sure she will.’
The Jemadar took him by the arm. ‘The wonderful omens! I know they were granted because you’ve joined us.’ He embraced William happily. ‘This is the first time I’ve really had a chance to speak to you alone. You haven’t changed a bit. You always were marked out for Kali’s special favours.’
The affection of an old friend lit the Jemadar’s thin face. He had a pleasant voice, and a small curved nose with wide nostrils, and wore the green turban of a man who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca. William had examined him covertly on the road and could easily imagine that they had been friends. He smiled now and returned the Jemadar’s embraces, hug for hug.
The Jemadar said, ‘I’ll wager you haven’t lost any of your skill either, though you may be out of practice. Now I know we will have a good expedition. When we set out at Dussehra the omens were good. But since then we’ve fallen in with only two likely travellers, and they were miserable wretches—suspicious faces, sharp knives, and no money. We thought Kali was angry with us for some reason, and had given us the good omens only to lead us more surely to destruction. Allah knows the Deceivers aren’t what they used to be. But you never told me—what have you been doing all these years?’
William thought of the woman at the pyre by the Seonath. Gopal the weaver, whose personality he had assumed but whom he had never met, had tried to give up the goddess Kali for a woman. In the end, the goddess had come and reclaimed his spirit, so that he returned to her. William understood very clearly now; the woman at the pyre would haunt him for ever; he had chained her to a memory of her man; and her man had chained himself afresh to Kali.
William understood nearly everything. His brain worked with facile, unhurried speed. Never in his ordinary life had he found it so easy to think. His plan and his immediate action sprang up like obvious milestones before him.
Smiling, he answered the Jemadar’s question, ‘I got married.’
The Jemadar clapped him on the shoulder. ‘And couldn’t leave her day or night for so many years? Well, well! You’re back now, and still one of the greatest. You just need a little practice—and in the speech too. Only practice makes perfect. Even you will have to pay for those years in bed!’ He laughed, winked, and slipped out of the clearing.
Two minutes later William wandered back towards the grove, thinking hard. When he came near the first big trees Piroo rose up from nowhere, touched his arm, and pushed a bundle of twigs into his hand. ‘What have you been doing all this time, away from the camp? Are you so great you can ignore all common sense?’
William looked down and saw that the little man was furiously angry, his large ears trembling and red. He became angry in his turn and answered shortly, ‘I wasn’t collecting wood. My bowels are loose.’
‘Then where’s your lotah?’
Piroo glowered at him and his heart sank. That would indeed have been a foolish explanation to give to any idle questioner. He remembered that Piroo had not been in the clearing for the prayers. As an officer, it was probable that he usually attended. Also, William saw that Piroo used a black rumal, and the corner of it showed; so Piroo was self-taught. Piroo had been relegated, because of him, and Piroo was very jealous.
He wanted to apologize but could not find the words, so he took the wood, went to his place, crouched, and began to blow up his dying fire.
Hussein was a little distance off, his back turned, bending over his own fire. William whispered, trying to speak low in the manner of the Deceivers, ‘Did you hear that in the clearing with the Jemadar?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it all right?’
Hussein banged a small pot vehemently on to his fire. ‘All right? It depends. You realize you can’t have a sprained wrist for ever?’ William saw his shoulders shake and thought he was sobbing.
They began to eat. The Nawab ate seated on a carpet beside a roaring fire sixty feet from William’s place. The fire was so big that its leaping flames turned the grove into an amphitheatre of red light. The clean boles of the bijasals stood up like pillars in the circle, read on one side, indigo blue on the other. The sound of crackling branches dominated the encampment. All the travellers ate, and the only voices to be heard were low and unhurried.
When he had finished, William washed the pans in the water, cleaned them with dirt from the stream bed and ashes from the fire, and squatted down as if talking to Hussein, but Hussein only looked at him with large, sad eyes, and moved his lips, but spoke no words.
The slow twang of a zither tinkled under the trees, carrying out to the travellers the tune of a northern love song. The Nawab reclined in a silk robe on his carpet, the pipe of a hookah to his mouth. The old body-servant squatted at his feet. To the right the Nawab’s three wives showed as motionless, featureless shapes behind a screen of gold gauze hung between two trees. From every corner of the grove the travellers drifted across the grass toward the music and the light. William rose to his feet and looked at Hussein. Hussein nodded.
By the fire it was very like the scene in the grove near Kahari, where they had watched the murder of the Sikh and his son. Always at night on the road it was the same, because always travellers rested in these groves and lit fires, and sat around them. But there were more people here tonight, and William knew what would come, and feared it, but could not wish it away. He searched his mind and found no desire to warn the Nawab of his fate. He awaited the signal with gnawing eagerness.
It was the Jemadar wh
o played the zither. The crowd thickened about the fire. Before squatting down, each new arrival made low salaam to the Nawab and in the direction of the gold curtain. The Nawab’s eyes were half closed, and he nodded his head in time with the music. The Jemadar was singing softly:
‘Moon of the north, thy hands are lotus blossoms,
Moon of the north, thy lips are rose petals,
Petals stronger than steel,
Petals which touch the steel,
And bend it, and make it weak.
Moon of the north, dark eyed, shine on me!
Moon of the north …’
His voice wavered up and down the chromatic scale, sliding from note to note, slithering, holding. The zither twanged and twanged, the fire crackled. The audience relaxed in their places and sighed.
At the end they clapped their hands, beating them together at the wrists with low murmurs of appreciation. The Nawab said thickly, ‘Play on! What is your name, haji? Khuda Baksh? A humble jeweller! You are a bulbul, and worthy of a perch by the King’s ear at Delhi. Play on, sing on!’
The Jemadar began another song, low and muted in tone and sad.
‘The bird of the plains sings at dawn.
Who shall hear the lone bird in the morning?
But you, my love…?’
He sang a parable of the tragedy of love, despairing and endlessly long. Half the audience dozed off. Others closed their eyes and swayed gently on their heels in rhythms hardly distinguishable to William’s ear. The singer sang softer and lower. In time, with the torpor of the song, men moved slowly, like sleepwalkers, about the grove. Two stood entranced behind the Nawab’s carpet, three more at the sides of the gold cloth, but not so close that the old servitor would feel it necessary to tell them to keep their distance.
