The Deceivers

by John Masters

  The singer sang so quietly that he could be heard only because there was otherwise utter silence. The fire was quiet. The nasal whine traditional to this music went out of the singer’s voice. In the same low key, but in his ordinary speaking tone, he said, ‘The stars are shining bright.’

  With the sudden brilliance of lightning the Deceivers struck. Around the fire the cloths flew out, the rumals William had seen consecrated. Men, singly or in pairs, jumped behind their victims. Beside William a small sleepy man leaned forward in a doze; and beyond, the ascetic gentleman who had invited the Nawab into the grove. The gentleman’s delicate face froze in murder; he swung a rumal with his right hand. The weighted end, the rupee in it, whirled round the small man’s neck into his left hand. The strangler’s wrists were turned inward and pressed close together. With a savage explosion of effort he snapped his wrists inward and upward, the small man’s head jerked back, a horrible panic mixed with the calm of sleep on his face. The face of the strangler tightened in the firelight, and he drew back his lips and bared his teeth. His wrists cracked with an audible force, his knee drove into the small man’s back. A bone snapped, the small man’s brown eyes bolted, and he was dead.

  Across the fire the Nawab stared with bulging eyeballs into the flames, but he could not see anything, for he was dead. By his feet his servant writhed and heaved in colossal throes that threatened to upset Piroo, the strangler across his back. A knife flashed and blood spouted from Piroo’s thigh, staining his loincloth and pouring down over the old servant’s neck. The Jemadar called urgently, ‘Wait! Hold him!’ Stooping down, he drove a dagger into the old man’s side between the ribs.

  The gold curtain heaved and bulged. The three men who had been standing beside it were gone from sight. Except for the Jemadar’s cry there had been no sound. William squatted in his place, cold, turned to stone.

  The Jemadar came across to him. ‘You look amazed, Gopal.’ He wiped his dagger on a leaf, dropped the leaf carefully in the fire, and clapped William’s shoulder. ‘It wasn’t so neatly done as it should have been. Quick, to the grave!’

  He snapped his fingers at the stranglers, who stood in groups around the fire with exultant, sweaty faces. In pairs and threes they lifted up the corpses and staggered with them across the grove and through the jungle to the clearing where the afternoon’s ceremony had been held.

  Piroo led the way with a hand lantern, limping slightly from his wound; already he had bound it up so that neither the wound nor the bandage showed beneath his loincloth. He walked across the clearing, under the solitary neem, past the abandoned idol, and stopped at the far bushes. He held up the lamp while the others pushed past him, groaning with suppressed pride at the weight of their loads, and forced through the thorns. In a few seconds the Jemadar stopped under a dense clump of prickly bamboo. William, close on his heels, saw that a circular pit surrounded the bamboo’s multiple steps. The bamboo stood on a little island of earth, its murderous spines leaning out over the pit. The earth fill lay round the rim of the pit, and on the earth there were three sharpened bamboo stakes, a thick log, and a short roughhewn club.

  Piroo hurried up and set down the lantern. The men laid the bodies on the ground. Piroo and five others un-dressed down to the string about their loins and put their clothes carefully on one side. Then the six of them, working in pairs without a word spoken, began to break the victims’ joints at knee and elbow. They laid each body over the log and with the club smashed the joints. When that was done they dragged the body to one side, picked up a stake, lifted together, and drove it through and through the corpse’s belly. Then they lowered them one by one into the grave.

  Stiff-jawed, William stared down at the disarray of the women’s clothing; their wide eyes held the same mixed expressions that he had seen in the small man killed next to him. In each pasty brown face panic and disbelief mingled with the woman’s last previous emotion. The rapt pleasure at the jeweller’s song of love lingered on.

  The pit filled and became a welter of bloody cloth, bursting entrails, and staring eyes. The flame of the lamp jumped as the Deceivers moved past it, each time lending the mangled pieces another jerky moment of life. William held to a tree for support and strained to keep down the vomit in his throat. Hussein, crouching the other side of the pit under the bamboo spines, watched him.

  A party of stranglers returned to the encampment and came back with the belongings of the dead—the saddlebags and blankets and cooking pots, the Nawab’s silk tent and carpet, the women’s beautiful curtain, anything that was not worth taking or that might arouse enquiry. All went into the pit.

  The Jemadar said, ‘Finished? And ten bodies? That’s all, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Jemadar gave a sign. Piroo threw the stakes, the club, and the log into the pit. Other men worked with their hands to push back the earth fill, covering the bodies and raising a low circular mound around the bamboo. Bending under the spines they stamped down the earth, then smoothed it and spread leaves and grass over it. When all was done they rubbed their hands on the ground, carefully picked up their clothes, and stood waiting.

  The Jemadar said, ‘O diggers, come forward.’

  More men struggled through the bushes at the side, men William had never seen. The Jemadar said to one of them, ‘It was well done. Difficult digging here under the bamboo, but an excellent place. We didn’t hear a sound. When did you begin?’

  ‘As soon as your prayers were finished, Jemadar-sahib.’

  The Jemadar repeated, ‘It was well done. We will check here in daylight, as usual. Move on now to Manikwal. Meet us there. I think—I am sure—that this merits a feast. We’ll eat your damned bear, eh?’

  The leader of the diggers snickered, as at an old joke, and led his men away.

  The Jemadar picked up the lamp and walked back to the grove; the band followed in single file behind him. William walked among them, thinking. Hussein had told him earlier what would be done, and that it was at Kali’s command. Why? Hussein did not know. Who could read the mind of the Destroyer-Goddess? But William saw that a broken body took less space than a whole one; that a ripped belly released the gases of decomposition to filter up through the earth, while a whole belly swelled and at last forced up the soil, and caused wandering dogs and jackals to scratch and dig and run away, carrying a woman’s arm for all to see. Hussein said that Kali commanded the Deceivers to scatter the seeds of fleawort over the grave, as a sacrifice, but William knew no jackal would sniff twice where those peppery seeds stung his nostrils.

  Back by the remains of the great fire the Jemadar turned and raised his arms. ‘It was well enough done! Has Geb Khan’s party come back yet?’

  ‘No,’ Yasin answered. ‘I do not think we shall see them until morning. It depends when they found a chance with that fellow, the dealer in rats’ droppings.’ He laughed quietly. ‘Our little Nawab had a sort of sulky wit.’

  William realized they were talking about the man who had wanted to go on to the village. The three who had accompanied him were all Deceivers. That man would not reach the village. He, at least, would never report that a large party, including the Nawab-sahib of Dukwan, was coming up the road and might be momentarily expected. The goddess Kali gave her children a long sight as well as a strong hand.

  The Jemadar said, ‘We’ll divide the spoil now. The sentries are out?’

  ‘Yes,’ Yasin answered, ‘beside the main road. They say they cannot see the fire through the trees. They can smell it, though.’

  ‘It’s after midnight. We’ll risk that. Let’s begin.’

  The band ranged themselves on one side of the fire. Piroo borrowed the pick-axe from Yasin and turned the earth at his feet where the servant’s blood had spilled out. He and the other five body smashers had washed themselves in the stream and put on their clothes.

  Yasin spread two blankets. A sentry who had remained by the fire threw the loot in handfuls on to them. Rings and bangles, jewels and necklaces, sh
owered down. The Nawab’s sacks of gold mohurs poured out in a flashing torrent, and the fire became dim against the brilliance on the blankets. The sharing began, among good-tempered argument. The more valuable jewels were set aside in one heap, the coin and the lesser trinkets distributed.

  William’s hands hurt. He looked down and saw that he had pressed his nails through the skin on his palms. The pain nagged him, dragging his mind away from the glittering dreamland in which he sat, and forced him to think. The animation in his companions’ faces and the cheerful rasp of their voices made him realize who and where he was. For the last six hours he had forgotten. From the time he entered the clearing and saw the broken idol and stood among the Deceivers in that anxious ceremony, he had been an acolyte in an old relegion. Once, by the pit, he had tried to summon up again the shame of those previous nights when he had counted himself guilty of murders then uncommitted; but the shame would not come, only the embarrassed nausea of the new comrade, of the fledgling doctor. An aching half-religious lust had possessed him, to see what would happen next and be a part of it.

  He clenched his teeth and sought to justify himself. It was only that he had been eager to get back to his notes and write down all the wonders and mysteries of the proceedings—that was all. The memory of the dead women wrenched him. Only one of them had been over nineteen. There had been a child of four and a smaller baby. One of them might have been Mary and her child.

  The Jemadar was saying, ‘And my friend Gopal shall take part in the initial five per cent share-out to active stranglers. Of course he must also have the share allotted to all stranglers-by-rank in the general distribution.’

  ‘He can have the general share, if he is a strangler-by-rank,’ Piroo muttered sullenly, ‘but he has no right to any part of the five per cent unless he actually strangled this time. And he didn’t. The rules are clear.’

  The Jemadar said coldly, ‘Who are you to talk to me about the rules! Kali gave us this haul just because she loves him, not through any part of your bungling.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Piroo grumbled, cowed by his leader’s fierceness.

  ‘In fact, my friend,’ the Jemadar continued, ‘I am now going to appoint him to replace you as the assistant Jemadar, and you had better get used to the idea. You can buy the sugar still. But, tomorrow, stay behind here to check up at daylight. That might help to teach you manners. You have the fleawort seed? Good. Here, Gopal!’ He passed a palmful of gold and a few mohurs to William. William took them, murmured his thanks, and tucked them away. Hussein nudged him and gestured almost imperceptibly with his head. William rose to his feet.

  ‘I’m going to sleep now, Jemadar-sahib.’

  ‘All right. Get your wrist well quickly. Thanksgiving is at first light, in the clearing. Then we’ll get on to Manikwal. Do you want one of the Nawab’s horses?’

  ‘Ye-es.’ William hesitated. ‘Don’t you think they might be recognized?’

  ‘No. We’ll sell them in Manikwal, anyway, and get others. Sleep well.’

  William salaamed again and walked to his blanket. As he prepared for sleep he muttered to Hussein, ‘Thanksgiving is the ceremony of communion with Kali, isn’t it, when we all take the sugar?’

  Hussein said, ‘Yes. I don’t know what god to pray to but Kali, and she’s laughing at me. Please, Gopal, keep off the blanket tomorrow if you can. Don’t eat the consecrated sugar. Eat of the other, the part that is put aside before consecration.… What’s the use? You’ll have to, or Piroo will get more suspicious than he is already. And he can ruin us if anything makes him try. We’re trapped.’ He looked up suddenly and said, ‘I know. You want to eat the consecrated sugar.’

  William tried to laugh, but the laugh choked in his throat. At last, lying in his blanket and feeling hot and cold at once, he said, ‘I don’t want to, Hussein. I just don’t care. It is all superstition.’

  Hussein did not answer, and William said superstition, superstition, over and over to himself, and went to sleep, and did not dream.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was dark when William stepped shivering out of his blanket and stripped. He washed from head to foot in the stream, standing knee deep in the black rush of water. Afterward, as the light spread and mist wraiths crept out from the river, he walked through the jungle to the clearing. A heavy dew weighted the stems of grass and pearled the red sandstone robes of the idol. All the band, except the mysterious group of diggers who had appeared during the burial, stood in an untidy huddle round the neem tree. The light filtered grey and unwilling between the interstices of the jungle wall. It was cold, and William trembled. Last night in the grove everything had taken colour from the fire—the jewels catching it, the faces glowing from it, the blood brightened by it. This morning the world and the people in it were grey, dusty white, dull brown.

  The Jemadar greeted him solemnly, looked about as though counting, and said, ‘One on sentry, three buying merchandise up the road, the rest all here. Are you ready Yasin?’

  Yasin nodded and stepped out of the crowd. He spread his own and another blanket on the grass, side by side in front of the neem tree. He was carrying a brass lotah full of water in his right hand, holding it by the neck against the outside of his thigh. He set the lotah carefully down on the blankets and held out his hand imperiously. Piroo gave him a heavily filled cotton bag. Yasin held the bag upside down. A torrent of congealed lumps of coarse brown sugar poured out on to the blanket. He glanced over his shoulder. The Deceivers were separating into two groups: in one, the four or five men who William knew did not rank as stranglers; in the other, the rest—the stranglers.

  William tried to edge over to the smaller group, but the Jemadar held him back, whispering, ‘By rank. Stay here.’ William saw Piroo looking at him suspiciously, and Hussein’s worried eyes.

  Yasin counted the smaller group, carried a part of the sugar over to them, and set it on the grass. They bowed and stood behind their portion, facing west.

  Yasin returned to the blankets and placed a rupee from his scrip beside the sugar. He took the pick-axe from his waistband and dug a small hole in the earth just beyond the blankets. After cleaning the pick blade with his rumal, he laid the tool on the blanket beside the sugar and the rupee. He sat down at last on the forward edge of the blanket and crossed his legs.

  The stranglers paced slowly forward and sat down in two tight rows on the blanket, to left and right of Yasin and behind him. All faced west. William hesitated again, but he had to go. He sat down on the left of the second row.

  Yasin clasped his hands together, raised his eyes, and cried in a deep, thrilled chant, ‘Great goddess, as in old time thou vouchsafed one hundred and sixty-two thousand rupees to Jhora Naik and Koduk Bunwari in their need, so, we beseech thee, fulfil our desires.’

  The stranglers clasped their hands and bent forward from the waist, and William imitated them. They mutered together, repeating the prayer, ‘Great goddess, as in old time thou vouchsafed …’ William heard the murmur of the little group on the grass behind.

  All fell silent. No wind stirred the boughs of the neem. The mist had cleared, nothing blunted the hard edges of the dawn. Yasin picked up the rupee in his right hand and dropped it into the hole he had dug. He took a little sugar and crumbled it in his fingers over the hole, so that the sugar streamed down on the rupee. He took the lotah and sprinkled water into the hole. Lastly he put his rumal, folded, in his right hand, laid the pick-axe crosswise on the rumal, supported his right hand with his left, and raised the pick-axe level with his chest. He lifted his head once more.

  ‘O Kali, greatest Kali, thy servants thank thee for the magnificence of thy gift. We have done thy will, and wrought for thy glory. We pray now for thy further guidance and blessing. Guard us and keep us, as we guard thy memory among men, now and for evermore. Amen.’

  He raised the pick-axe slightly on his hands, repeating the action three times. The echoes of his voice died.

  A black crow descended squawking from the sky
and settled on the neem tree, behind and a little to the left of the blankets. At once a shrike started out of the bushes to the right and flew like an arrow between the trees, its insect prey in its beak.

  The Deceivers crooned in ecstasy. From the corner of his eye William saw the exaltation in the face of the man next to him.

  Yasin Khan’s organ voice boomed, ‘Kali, mighty Kali, we obey, we praise thy name, we are thine!’

  He stood up. With a whisper of cloth all the Deceivers stood. Yasin’s cupped right palm was full of the coarse sugar lumps, and his left hand supported his right. He turned and with slow steps approached the strangler who stood at the right edge of the front blanket. Yasin held out the sugar. The man took a piece, carried it to his mouth, bowed his head, and ate in silence.

  Yasin murmured, ‘Take, eat, this is the sweetness of Kali. You are hers and she is yours.’

  The strangler raised his head, and Yasin moved to the next man, always keeping his feet on the blankets. He held out the sugar. ‘Take, eat, this is the sweetness of Kali. You are hers and she is yours.’

  Take, eat, this is the sweetness of Kali.… Take, eat…. You are hers and she is yours.…

  Icicles of sweat pierced William’s forehead and splintered between his shoulder blades. His mouth ached. He would not be able to touch the sugar when it came to him. He wished desperately that he had something wooden, hard, to hold in his hands—a cross. Not silver, not sweet-smelling—only wood, rough bitter wood, would serve. The feel of it might help him to face what he had to, or give him strength to break away, spring off the enchanted blanket, and run. Hussein had a cross.

  He saw Yasin reach Hussein, in front of him. Yasin’s eyes were half closed and his prayer a litany. ‘Take, eat, this is the sweetness of Kali.’ Hussein held on to something at his waist, but he had to let go. Kali required both his hands. His fingers crawled out, so slowly that he seemed to be trying to pull them back against a force stronger than their own muscles. He took a piece of sugar at last, bowed, and swallowed. William closed his eyes.