The Venus of Konpara

by John Masters

  A woman sighed, and, much later, said, ‘Gold, too.’

  A man said, ‘Her power over the mind and the flesh is stronger than gold. By that she will lead them on. She has already captivated them.’

  A sickle-shaped cloud drifted across the face of the moon and all the people looked up. One of the blacker men made a cabalistic sign with his fingers, pointing at the moon. Every face was sheened with sweat and lined with anxiety. One of the men snapped irritably, ‘Put on more wood!’

  The little group huddled together until the fire flared up and the darkness, which had been creeping down on them from above, and inward along the rocky gorge, retreated.

  ‘But she...’ one of them said. ‘Is she, then, evil?’

  A woman said decisively, ‘No. But where she comes from, and must return to - there are the evil powers, which she will release, unknowing.’

  ‘What can we do?’ one cried in a kind of agony. ‘If the evil is going to come out upon us, after all these years, how can we prevent it? We are mortal’

  ‘It is our duty,’ another said sombrely. It is the duty laid upon us, as well as for our own preservation. But you are right, we cannot prevail by strength . . . They have found gold. Gold is the father of greed. Greed makes men blind ... the more gold, the more blind. They will see fame, and the ambition for fame makes men stupid. She can beckon and lead them, but greed, fear, jealousy, and ambition can be stronger. These we can create among them.’

  ‘Time, too, will work secretly against them,’ one said.

  ‘Time? Ah, yes. I had almost forgotten. They can do nothing after the rains come. And when the rains end, evil will lie choked to death, final death, under the new water.’

  They sat on in silence and though they were eight separate individuals, the fear encircling them, as real and as impalpable as the darkness, welded them and the little fire into a single entity that was at the same time more and less than human.

  One of the men, who seemed to be the prime thinker of the single mind, said, ‘All that we have, and are, and can be, all that we know and guess and feel - we will use. Let us think, and then speak by turn,’

  Chapter 6

  On the verandah of the Rest House Mr Smith watched a sickle-shaped cloud pass across the moon. It was past ten o’clock and the Rainbow Fall made a subdued murmur as it fell into Tiger Pool at the foot of the opposite cliffs. This Konpara was a strange and interesting place. At the stupa site he had worked in an aura of peace, the peace of the Buddha. Here sky and rock and water and all living things breathed an older and darker message. The people here were part of the land. The Gonds, the villagers, even the coolies, seemed to fit in grooves in the earth as though they had laboured here, at the same tasks, aeon upon aeon. The intruders stood out like Gulliver among the Houyhnhnms - Kendrick the Resident, an unfulfilled man; his silent, withdrawn wife; Foster the loud-mouthed contractor in the other part of the Rest House here; Mohan, heir to heaven knew how many thousand years of legend, of godhead, of absolute power, and clearly carrying in his awakening personality the fruit of that past, ready to seed; but, at the same time, a twenty-year-old youth just out of Sandhurst, alternately over-shy and over-aggressive, willing but unsure, standing hesitant at the most important crossroads of his life, ready to turn in any direction according as a strong enough force worked upon him. Two such forces approached him at this instant, from opposite points - Kendrick, and the girl Rukmini.

  It was late. He would like to stay here, but he could not, for he had not purpose here. Yawning slightly, he turned into his room. Foster’s, heavy tread approached along the verandah. A moment later the contractor knocked at the door. ‘Smith? Mind if I come in a minute?’

  ‘Not a bit,’ Smith answered, opening the door.

  The contractor came in, carrying a large sack. ‘Got something here that ought to interest you,’ he said. Smith waited. They had eaten dinner together in the common dining-room. Why had Foster not brought up this matter then? He waited, smiling slightly. Foster pulled a stone leg out of the sack and laid it on the table. .

  ‘There. What do you make of that?’

  Smith bent to examine the leg. There was no fold of stone at the ankle, the conventional representation of a transparent skirt The very oldest statues did not show it

  He said, ‘The woman was naked, of course. The attitude shows that she was probably not a maithuna, one of the women shown in sexual intercourse, but a dancer. Or just a beautiful woman.’

  ‘A sort of Venus, eh? Foster said. ‘Like that one with no arms - but with only one leg, instead. The Venus of Konpara!’ He laughed with boisterous nervousness. ‘How old is it?

  Smith said at once, ‘That I can’t tell. But it is very good.’

  Foster said, ‘Mohan’s pretty keen on digging up the rest of it That’s the young fellow...’

  ‘I’ve met him,’ Smith said.

  ‘Met his new piece, too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, she seems to have got him right under her thumb. My God, they’ve passed me half a dozen times this week, and he’s never seen me. Walking on air... Between you and me, she’s, the one who’s really anxious to find the rest of this statue. But they’ve got to get Kendrick’s permission, see, because it’s state land. Now, I want to find the rest of this woman, too - sort of caught my imagination, she has - but we’ve got to persuade Kendrick that it’s worth it You know him well?’

  Smith shook his head.

  ‘Well, he’s a bastard,’ Foster said angrily. ‘He’s always talking of what he’s going to do, and how he’s going to be a great man - then he doesn’t do anything. He hates everybody, that’s why. I don’t know how Mrs Kendrick sticks him. He . . .’ He cut himself off short

  Smith examined the leg more closely. It was certainly old, and whatever its age it was the work of a great artist. The complete statue might prove to be, a masterpiece. But Foster was not thinking of art, and Mohan Singh’s strange, wonderful girl was not thinking of art He had better find out what they were thinking of. Foster’s coat was heavily weighted on the right side, he noticed.

  Foster could not contain himself. He said, ‘There’s money in it, for both of us.’

  Smith kept his face non-committal. Poor Foster, who had obviously struggled up from the English slums, could not know that money had a subjective, not an objective value, which was different for different people.’

  Foster said gruffly, ‘I know you’re a sahib, and I know you’re broke, see. No clothes, no servants, no nothing. You’re a gent, and you’ve come on hard times. That’s right, isn’t it?

  ‘In a way,’ Smith said.

  Foster grinned expansively. ‘I’m not a gent Contractor, up and down the country, Burma, Ceylon. Well, God damn it, I do think that leg’s beautiful. . .But here’s my real reason for wanting to do some more looking.’

  He dipped into his right-hand pocket and lifted out a block of metal, six inches long by four inches wide by two inches deep, and laid it carefully on the table beside the leg. ‘That was found under the leg,’ he said. ‘Twelve inches deeper. That stuff on it is just encrusted dirt No rust The rest of it is gold, I’ve got another block in my room, just like that. I’m sending filings off - a long way off - for analysis, but there’s no doubt about it’

  ‘It’s gold,’ Smith agreed, hefting the bar in his hand.

  Foster said, ‘Do you know what the bar’s worth? Two thousand three hundred pounds. Thirty thousand rupees. That’s as much as I’ve saved in my whole life.’

  Smith turned the bar this way and that ‘It’s stamped,’ he said. ‘The device of a bow.’

  Foster nodded. ‘So’s the other... I’m a businessman, like I told you. When I made the contract with Deori for this irrigation scheme I got a ten-year lease to exploit all the minerals in the Konpara area. I gave them a good price on the contract, to allow for the value of the lease, because some of the land on the upper plateau looked as though it might have coal in it. Well, it hasn’t - but there ar
e other minerals besides coal. Silver’s a mineral. Diamonds are minerals. Gold’s a mineral.’ He paused. Smith said nothing.

  Foster roughened his voice. ‘The rains are due early in June. The Agent to the Governor-General is going to open the dam - on May the twenty-seventh. Let’s say we can dig till then. Today’s April the seventh. Seven weeks. You tell Kendrick it’s worth digging for the rest of the statue, and you want to be in charge yourself. I’ll get you a dozen coolies, to dig, and give you my foreman or his cousin to help look after them. I’ll pay all expenses, and give you 350 rupees for yourself over and above... if you take charge of this job until May the twenty-seventh. But two things aren’t going to show up in any agreement we make. One, you’re looking for more of this gold, as much as you’re looking for the rest of the Venus. Two, anything you find in that tine, anything at all - that’s mine. What do you say?’

  Smith said, ‘I doubt whether Mr Kendrick would regard a treasure from some previous age as ‘minerals’.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t,’ Foster said bluntly. ‘That’s why he’s got to hear nothing about it, see. All right Ten per cent of the value of anything you find in addition to everything else... I can’t do more than that, I’ve got to give Shahbaz Khan, that’s my foreman, another ten per cent, to keep him straight’

  Smith sighed slightly. ‘You’ve never accepted this kind of - responsibility before, I suppose?’ he asked.

  ‘Responsibility, what do you mean?’ Foster said.

  ‘For the destruction of beauty, of values which can’t be translated into money - like the value of history. No, I do not think I can accept your offer.’

  Foster jumped up incredulously. ‘What? What harm’s it going to do to anyone?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Smith said gently. ‘Perhaps that’s why I must refuse.’ He saw that Foster’s face was turning pale with a mixture of fear and anger. He said, ‘I shall not tell anyone of what I have seen or heard tonight, though.’

  ‘You’d better not,’ Foster growled. ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘No, it’s none of my business,’ Smith said. ‘Good night’ Foster pocketed the gold bar, took the leg and the sack, and left the room.

  Smith made his preparations for bed and, ten minutes later, blew out the lamp. He lay awhile in bed, his eyes open. It was not his business. None of the affairs of human beings around him should be his business, if he were to find what he was looking for. But his mind and heart always became involved and so his journey, instead of being fast and purposeful, became crooked and slow. Sighing, he closed his eyes and at once went to sleep.

  He awoke, hearing the faint sound, long before the door opened. The soft pad of bare feet approached across the room, and he relaxed. A woman. A hand touched his arm and a low, slightly hoarse voice whispered, ‘Mr Smith.’ From the angle of the moonlight he knew it was about one o’clock.

  ‘Rukrnini,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. May I close the curtains?’

  He got out of bed and, when the curtains were drawn, lit the lamp. She was standing in the middle of the room, wearing a gauzy sari of pale flame colour, with no border. She said, ‘I have come about this statue.’

  ‘The Venus of Konpara,’ he murmured.

  ‘What? Ah. That is a good name, in English... Mr Foster has spoken to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you decide?’

  ‘That it was no business of mine.’

  She glanced quickly at him and he thought, here is a woman who does not know what sexuality is. Her smallest, most careless movement, the texture of her skin, the gloss of her hair - spoke not of sexuality but of sex.

  She said, as though to herself, ‘Mr Foster has secret thoughts about the Venus, secret knowledge, perhaps. You do not want to involve yourself. No, I do not wish to hear more... Do you know of the Suvala-Gita?’

  ‘I know it well,’ he said. ‘I studied it carefully before excavating at the stupa site. I have a copy here.’ He opened the tin trunk in the corner, which carried all his possessions.

  She said, ‘You travel twice as lightly as I do. I have two such trunks - one for clothes and one for books.’

  Smith produced the smudgily printed copy of the Gita. It consisted of a rhymed couplet, in Sanskrit, for every year since 228 before Christ. Each couplet described the most important event of that year, in the history of the Suvalas.

  She said, ‘Do you know where a fortress is mentioned? An old priest in Deori told me that it is, and he said it was supposed to have been here, near Konpara.’

  Smith turned the pages. ‘Yes,’ he said. The couplet for 195 B.C. says, The sun hiding his face, the king made prayer at the ruined, sun-darkened fortress. I made enquiries from the State Archivist about this, because I thought the fortress might have been near the stupa site. He told me there was an eclipse of the sun in 195 B.C. Also, that the last total eclipse before that which could have been seen here was in 556 B.C.’

  Rnkmini said, ‘The first eclipse caused the fortress to be abandoned. That’s why it says ‘sun-darkened.’ I think this leg is from a statue which was in the fortress, or in a temple inside the fortress.’

  Smith calculated -- 556 plus 1890. The statue, if she was right, must be at least 2,446 years old.

  She said, ‘It will mean very much to me if we can find the rest of her. I have told Mohan. This statue is of a woman of my race, who danced, and was a queen. I must find her. Will you please tell Mr Kendrick it is a worthwhile and important search... and will you please take charge of it?’

  It was no use repeating, this is none of my business. The woman’s spirit had engaged his own in a wordless harmony the moment they had first met on the path this afternoon. He had entered her and she had accepted him as definitely as though the union were a physical one.

  He said, ‘I will’

  She joined her palms and spoke in Hindi, calling him ‘teacher’. ‘We shall succeed, guru-ji... It must not be for my sake that you undertake the task. Or even seem to be.’

  ‘It is not,’ Smith said, smiling. ‘I love a lady even more beautiful than you - and sometimes, also, terrible. Truth. As for my apparent motive, I shall accept Foster’s offer.’

  She said, ‘Thank you... We must not search as though in a closed room, no one in it but ourselves and the thing we are looking for hidden under a candlestick. Every action that we take affects others, and theirs affect us. I have been here seven days. Mohan hears nothing, sees nothing, but I know that already, down in Deori, his uncle spreads rumours that I have bewitched him. There will be trouble soon. And I know that the City Warden has spoken to Mr Kendrick about me.’

  ‘And I know that Mohan does not like me,’ Smith said’

  ‘Ah! Yes ... And Mr Foster has some secret...’

  ‘Two,’ Smith said, remembering the contractor’s emotion when he had spoken of Barbara Kendrick.

  She said, ‘If we know so much, already, think how much more we do not know! About Mrs Kendrick. About the villagers of Konpara. The Gonds. Our search will not be a simple game of hide-and-seek.’

  ‘No,’ Smith said. ‘There is greed, and jealousy, that we know of. There will be ambition...’

  ‘And fear,’ Rukmini said. ‘I can feel it, but I do not know yet where it is coming from. These are the enemies. Oh, I wish they could be poured out upon me, here, now. Then they would disappear.’ Her arms were out again in the embracing, accepting gesture, her legs a little spread and strongly braced.

  An old loneliness swept over Smith and he wanted to step into her arms and hold her, and be held. There could be no loneliness there, only love, of a kind that knew no difference between sacred and profane. It was this love which would fight against the greed and jealousy that had already revealed themselves, the fear and ambition that were coming.

  He said, ‘I shall tell Foster first thing in the morning.’

  She said no more, but arranged the sari over her head and moved to the door. He blew but the lamp and walked on to the ve
randah with her. A minute later she had disappeared among the trees.

  The moonlit ribbon of the waterfall stretched down the dark cliffs opposite. The night was hot and stiff. He began to walk up and down the lawn in his bare feet Tomorrow the search for the Venus would begin. Kendrick would certainly agree, for he had mentioned only this morning that the Agent to the Governor-General, a keen amateur archaeologist, would be disappointed to hear that nothing had been discovered at the stupa site. Obviously, Kendrick wanted to please his superior, and a great discovery here would shed some glory on both of them.

  So Kendrick would be impelled by ambition, Foster by greed, Rukmini by love . . . and himself? Since Rukmini had mentioned the fortress part of his mind had been pursuing a new line of thought She had said that the statue was of a Dravidian, and a queen, and that it came out of a fortress which had existed until 556 B.C. There was a possibility, then, that the Dravidians had originally built the fortress. The problem of the nature of Dravidian civilisation was important, not only to his own search but to Rukmini’s. For himself, it was something older than Brahminism and perhaps wiser; for her - when she said she was searching for a queen of her own race, she meant that she was searching also for the whole past glory of that race.

  The Aryans entered India about 1500 B.C. Shortly afterwards they wrote the oldest works of literature still extant, the three Vedas: the Rig-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the Yajur-Veda. The Vedas were religious and also epic, in that they gave detailed accounts of the Aryans’ battles, led by the god Indra, against the field armies of the Dravidians, and against their walled cities. But no trace of such cities had been found. The Vedas might be mere fables, no more to be trusted as history than the legends of King Arthur, but then the experts thought the same about Homer until Schliemann, following Homer exactly, found Troy where all scientific methods had failed.

  If the Vedas were more than fables Rukmmi’s Dravidian ancestors had built great cities, and presumably not out of nothing, but out of a powerful civilisation and an advanced culture. If that were so, if that could be proved by the finding of the cities and by uncovering the culture, it might be accented that the caste system, which had generally put the dark Dravidian at the bottom of the pile and the pale Aryan at the top, was not a law of God but a selfish product of conquest. It was important that the Hindi word for caste was varna, which meant colour.