The Venus of Konpara

by John Masters

  ‘I have no idea,’ Smith said.

  A little later they left the old gentleman, bowing profoundly outside his narrow door, and walked back to the main part of the palace. To Mohan the cave had taken on a reality, during their talk, that it had never had before. He found his mind running over with thoughts and ideas about it. From ridge to ridge.... Until the man-eaters came, a large party had been systematically searching the ground between the ridges. Perhaps it would be best, with time so short, to concentrate on the ridges themselves, if the battle had ended on one of them and immediately continued into the cave. That must mean that some of the defeated party had fought on in there - or taken refuge in it But the Konpara Ridge at least was dotted with human habitation - the village itself, Southdown and the Rest House with their servants’ quarters and caretakers’ huts, and the cart track, numerous footpaths. Surely if the mouth of the cave lay there it would have been discovered long ago? The Dobehari was more likely.

  ‘We must talk this over with Rukmini,’ Smith said. ‘Jim Foster’s an excellent chap, but he thinks in cubic yards. I think in logic, though I try to make it flexible. But Rukmini does not think, she feels.’

  On an impulse Mohan asked Smith to stay for dinner. Smith agreed, and they separated, Smith to walk in the city and Mohan to discuss palace affairs with the Chamberlain. After bathing and changing into his full Suvala costume, he went eagerly to the small drawing-room and found Smith waiting for him. For the first time he felt himself at ease with Smith. At first they discussed the Archivist’s theories, but soon they had exhausted the little concrete information they possessed, and the conversation widened.

  Mohan was reminded of something which Smith’s gentle manner had never before forced upon him - that the Englishman was nearly twenty years older than he, and had spent those years as much inside as outside the mind, producing an outlook of extraordinary depth and flexibility. Mohan began by listening to his guest’s far-reaching speculations, and thinking that the quiet, almost hesitant tone in which he put them forward was more convincing than Mr Kendrick’s flat statements had ever been. Soon be found himself joining in, advancing suggestions, discussing with a warm eagerness the life and beliefs of the past.

  Every few minutes he would catch a glimpse of himself in one of the long, ornate mirrors on the walls, and think. Is this I? How long ago did I leave Sandhurst, trying to grow a thin moustache on the upper lip and dreaming of cricket matches? He felt a certain pride that he could say something of value... or was it only the other’s courteous manner that gave his words value? ... but, more and more dominantly as the evening progressed, he felt that these hours with Smith marked the end of his youth, as definitely, in its sphere, as the coming of Rukmini had marked another end, another beginning. I am a man, he thought wonderingly. Smith had helped, Rukmini had helped... but, more than all, the Venus had done it, and the search for her, and the sense of peril, of unity, of great unexplored depths which the search had revealed and the realisation that however long he lived he would never live long enough, in one life. Only a month ago the years had stretched in endless boredom before him to the burning ghat. Now those years seemed few and short, for he was a man.

  Almost without interruption of their talk they had eaten, slowly, and Mohan had taken a couple of glasses of liqueur brandy - Smith drank only water. Now Mohan wanted to talk to Smith about more personal matters. He wanted to talk of himself and Rukmini, of Mrs Kendrick and Foster, of Kendrick himself, of the web of relationships’ into which the search for the Venus had drawn them.

  He poured himself a third brandy and prepared to introduce the subject.

  Smith rose to his feet with a smile. ‘And now, my most excellent host, I must be getting back.’

  ‘Now?’ Mohan exclaimed. ‘I had hoped ... it must be nearly ten o’clock.’

  ‘I like riding at night,’ Smith said

  Mohan felt a sudden strong resentment. Even as he acknowledged it, and tried to suppress it, he knew it was totally unworthy of him, now, but it would not be denied, and when he was alone he sat on, swirling the brandy round in his glass.

  What drew Smith back to Konpara at this time of night? If he’d waited till after breakfast tomorrow they could have gone back together. Was his show of interest in him, Mohan, merely a pretence? The debris from the last blasting had to be cleared out of the shaft, but there was no need to start on it at dawn. ‘We must talk it over with Rukmini,’ Smith had said. ‘Rukmini doesn’t think, she feels,’ Smith had said.

  A deputation from the Chamberlain’s department was announced, and Mohan stood up, still thinking of Smith. The Chamberlain himself came in, knelt at his feet, and handed him a small square of wood, punched with a hole in each comer, and a long loop of light cord threaded through the holes. Mohan tucked it impatiently into an inner pocket The Chamberlain’s chief assistant then handed him a white cloth, heavy with silver. He put that in the other pocket. The deputation left, and Mohan sat down, his train of thought hardly interrupted.

  The thoughts came fast and disjointed... Rukmini’s hint that if a man needed her as desperately as Barbara Kendrick had needed him she too would give what was asked. Smith hurrying off as though he had an appointment Rukmini in her sleep, moaning Go on, go on.

  The Suvala’s chosen favourite, whoring with casteless, English upstarts! Degrading him, and herself. The English thought they had the right to sleep with any Indian girl, just because they had conquered the country. Didn’t she have any personal pride, even if she didn’t care a damn about his?

  He poured another brandy. His thoughts circled: the cave, the Venus; Rukmini and Smith, embracing; the cave - who had the Venus been? Rukmini and Smith, talking, sharing an intimacy she wouldn’t share with him. Marriage. No, that’s what he wouldn’t share with her.

  He felt miserable. Was this, too, being a man, suffering this horrible, degrading jealousy?

  Near eleven o’clock he staggered to his feet and called the servant ‘Prepare my horse.’

  ‘Yes, lord, At once.’

  Tell the Chamberlain I have gone back to Konpara. Let him perform the ceremony in the morning.’

  The servant stood thunderstruck. ‘Back to Konpara, lord? But, but...’

  ‘Yes, back to Konpara,’ Mohan snarled. ‘Hasten now, or I will have you beaten,’

  The servant ran from the room. Ten minutes later, with the half-dressed Chamberlain wailing that now he would have to send for Mohan’s uncle, it was his duty, Mohan galloped out of the gates.

  The Chamberlain waddled after him, shouting, ‘Lord, lord? the sacrificial brooch! We do not have another prepared...,’

  But Mohan did not hear, for by then he was galloping through the crowded streets and the blaring music of the fair, the sleepy syce falling farther and farther behind.

  Chapter 22

  Lights burned in Cheltondale when he reached it, near one o’clock. That was strange. He dismounted and walked up the verandah steps, leaving the blown horse with dropped head and dangling reins. The major-domo met him on the verandah, running out of the front door as he walked in.

  ‘Lord...’ the man stammered.’

  ‘Out of the way,’ he said wearily. So she had bribed the servants.

  He walked into the house, the major-domo hurrying after him. He opened the bedroom door. The lamp burned low on the dressing-table but the bed was empty and had not been lain in. An enormous gush of relief swept away his weariness.

  The major-domo’s stammering words reached him. The lady Rukmini... has disappeared... They are over at Southdown, the sahibs, getting ready to search for her. A groom is preparing even now to ride into Deori to tell you...’

  ‘Disappeared’ Mohan repeated. He didn’t understand.

  The major-domo said, ‘She went to the Rest House...’

  Mohan aroused himself. ‘They are at Southdown?’

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  He ran out of the house. Now he had wits to notice that lights also blazed from Southdown acro
ss the shallow valley between the ridges. A few minutes later he dismounted on the lawn there, one of Kendrick’s syces running to the horse’s head. The light from two hurricane lanterns shone on the gathering.

  Kendrick, a rifle under his arm; Foster, a revolver strapped to his waist; Aitu, the Gond tracker, two syces in the background with horses; the headman and several villagers with long-handled axes. He searched the group quickly. Where was Smith?

  Smith stepped forward from the shadows and Mohan’s heart missed a beat His suspicion - half hope, half fear -vanished. Rukmini was really missing.

  Smith said, ‘I got back from Deori at about half-past eleven. I didn’t hurry. Foster was awake. Rukmini had passed by the Rest House a little earlier, and told him she wanted to see me as soon as I came back. I went down to Tiger Pool, and - ’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I knew that that was where she meant’ Smith’s steady look never faltered. ‘But she was not there. After twenty minutes I went back to Cheltondale, but she had not returned.’

  ‘She must have fallen down...’

  Kendrick interrupted, ‘No, Mohan, I fear not. We have already searched the path between Cheltondale, the Rest House, and the Pool’.

  Smith said, ‘She may be safe, but we cannot take the risk. We are just starting out to trail her.’

  ‘The tigress’ Mohan gasped.

  Kendrick said slowly, ‘I cannot deny that it is just possible. But it is very unlikely. When I left Gharial the tigress had just been heard ten miles away - in the opposite direction ... Aitu, are you ready?’

  Aitu handed back a piece of red cloth that he had been fondling and carefully sniffing. Mohan saw that it was one of Rukmini’s cholis.

  Kendrick quickly gave Mohan the instructions; While Aitu was tracking, no one must come closer than ten paces from him - downwind if there was any. On no account could anyone smoke. The horses, under the headman’s control, were to be kept at least twenty paces back.

  ‘Do we need horses?’ Mohan asked. ‘They’ll make so much noise.’

  Kendrick said, ‘She may be hurt.’

  They set off for Tiger Pool. Where the path from the Rest House reached it, Aim walked round in a circle, came back into the light of the hurricane lanterns, and raised one finger, then two. Kendrick muttered, Two men.’

  He stared over Mohan’s shoulder. ‘What are you doing here?’ he snapped. Mohan turned and saw Barbara Kendrick. She had not been among the group on the lawn, but she was here now, bareheaded, dressed in a long skirt and blouse, ‘I told you...’ Kendrick began. She interrupted him, her voice, polite but strained. ‘I was afraid to stay there alone.’ She turned to Mohan. ‘And I am the only other woman here. Rukmini may need me.’

  Kendrick turned away. ‘Go on,’ he told Aitu. Over his shoulder he flung at his wife, ‘Keep back with the horses.’

  The tracker headed west round the pool, crossed the bund, and continued west again on the left bank of the Deori River. Close at Kendrick’s side Mohan kept his ten paces from the tracker, a villager with a lantern a step behind. His anxiety grew steadily. The idea that Rukmini had actually vanished slowly forced itself deeper into his heart.

  They came to a cart track. A long delay followed, but eventually Aitu led on again, heading south-west now through thin jungle. Progress became very slow. At one of the innumerable checks Mohan could not contain his impatience. ‘We ought to have got some dogs from the village.’

  Kendrick said, ‘I’m afraid not, old chap. There are ways of putting a dog off the scent, or of killing it. Poisoned bait. A trained hound would ignore them - but there aren’t any here. Try not to worry.’

  ‘But what’s happened to her?’ Mohan cried. No one answered.

  After three o’clock now. Aitu could not find the trail. Suppose Kendrick didn’t want him to? He hated Rukmini. Suppose Aitu wasn’t even trying? The Gonds might have kidnapped her to rape her, or keep her as a goddess, or use her in a blood sacrifice. He was sweating heavily in the magnificent costume. Aitu was a Gond. He might be deliberately leading them astray. No one would know.

  Movement began again, continued for half an hour, then stopped .Began again, Barbara Kendrick walked just behind the villager with the lantern. She was paler than ever and her face shone, the hair raised and thick round it like an aureole in the glow of the lantern. She kept staring at him, Mohan.

  Movement stopped. Mohan hurried forward. Kendrick was speaking to Aitu. ‘Cast again.’

  ‘I am sure, sahib,’ the Good said, ‘At first, there seemed to be two trails, but now I am sure.’

  ‘Cast again,’ Kendrick said, his voice shaking slightly.’ ‘

  ‘If he’s sure...’ Mohan whispered in agony. ‘Let’s get on.’

  The Gond began to make another cast Kendrick gripped Mohan’s arm. ‘Get back. I know what I’m doing ... One mistake through trying to hurry and we will lose the trail altogether.’

  At last movement started again. Stopped.

  Mohan put his head in his hands and tried to think of nothing. But the jungle intruded, then the whole, land. No, it was he who intruded here. He was a visitor from another planet, another time. The dark figures crouched around him were carrying out some rite familiar to them. They belonged here. They had done this a thousand times before. Rocks and snakes, the swinging monkeys, the crackling heat of the jungle were not strange to them, but were parts of life and shareholders in the land, even in the village.

  He opened his eyes. Aitu was making a wider cast. Was there almost a trace of light? The horses back there had become something more than a sound of creaking leather and jingling bits.

  Barbara Kendrick said, ‘Please, Mohan. It’s been driving me mad. Why are you dressed like that?

  Why was he dressed like this? Deori. Something to do with a sacrifice. Ah, he remembered. ‘The Rite of the Labourers,’ he muttered.

  They’d been heading south-west, then west, then due north, south-west again, and now... south-east’ It wasn’t the land that had taken Rukmini. She knew it too well. It was people, men. What people? Why, why? Darkness and moonlight surrounded them, separately and together. Forces emanated from the silence. Not the forces of mechanics, but the forces that made a tiger take one man instead of another. That caused drought. That sent death. There was no counter-force in reason, only in fact, and in the response to fact Fear. Caution. Silence. Sacrifice.

  His hand touched a hardness in his upper pocket It was the sacrificial brooch which, in a few minutes now, he should have been fastening round the neck of the ritual victim in Deori. It was the same shape as the steatite brooches found among the bones under Indra’s Rock.

  For a moment he sat, blinded. Then he jumped to his feet, ran to Kendrick’s side, and cried, ‘Give me the rifle. Quick. Indra’s Rock!’

  He wrenched the rifle from Kendrick’s hand, ran back, and leaped into me saddle of one of the horses.

  Kendrick stood dumbfounded, but Smith had understood. He was already mounted on the other horse. ‘Due east,’ he called. Then they were off, at full gallop.

  The dawn spread fast through the scattered trees. Mohan rode as fast as the horse would go, the rifle across the saddle bow, the thin branches whipping his face.

  Smith touched his bridle hand. They dismounted. Smith held the horses. ‘Two hundred yards to the edge of the pit,’ he muttered. ‘Four or five hundred west of Indra’s Rock. Don’t let them hear you.’

  Mohan ran, slowed to a walk. The depths of the pit spread out suddenly below, close through the trees ahead. He dropped to his stomach and crawled the last five yards. He lay down on the very edge of the pit and looked along the line of cliffs to the east Indra’s Rock rose on his left, four hundred yards away, its sides striped with the decay of ages. Behind it the yellow day rolled along the dark crestline of the Dobehari Ridge. He pushed forward the safety catch, and set the sights.

  Doubt attacked him. Why had he come here? Perhaps she had fallen and broken her leg going back from the pool. . .had a
cramp swimming, drowned. No one had thought of that.

  The sun burst over the horizon, and a woman hobbled slowly out on to Indra’s Rock, alone, her arms and legs loosely bound. She stood there a moment, looking east and west along the cliff line. Then she turned and he thought that she was speaking, but he could hear nothing. She must be telling her captors she would not jump; they would have to throw her. No, that they were supposed to throw her. That was the ritual. They ought do the thing that was supposed to be done - that must be done. It would be wrong to hate them.

  Two men came out on the rock, both grey-coloured, naked, and carrying axes. Mohan aimed. They approached Rukmini, and put down the axes. Mohan fired. One of the men dropped, the other hesitated, then went forward again. Mohan fired again. The man reeled, hobbled on one leg, and fell. He sat up, holding his leg, and rocking from side to side. Rukmini turned slowly, looked in the direction of the shots, and stood still. ‘Lie down!’ Mohan shouted. There might be other men. They couldn’t see her if she lay down on the outer step. But she did not move. He struggled to his feet and ran along the cliff edge. Circling carefully round Indra’s Rock, he searched the jungle. No one was there. He climbed the rock. One man lay on his face in a lake of blood, a big red hole in the middle of his back. The other, his knee shattered, looked up at him without expression.

  He untied Rukmini’s bonds of jungle lantana. She rubbed her wrists slowly. ‘Thank you, my lord,’ she whispered. She took his hand, raised it to her lips, and touched it with them. Then she walked quickly over to the wounded man and knelt beside him. ‘Ah, my poor man,’ she cried. ‘But you will walk again. Do not fear.’ As she leaned forward a flat wooden object dangled from her neck on its loose cord. Mohan saw that the wounded man was also wearing one. And the corpse - he could see the cord, though the plate was hidden under the body.

  Smith came, riding one horse and leading the other. As he dismounted Rukmini ran to him and gripped him by the elbow. ‘Are you unhurt? I was afraid, when they took me, that they would take you, too.’