The Assassins
JEREMY TRAFFORD
Published by Spellbinding Media 2014
Copyright © Jeremy Trafford 2014
Jeremy Trafford has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. The characters featured in this story are fictitious and are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Spellbinding Media
www.spellbindingmedia.co.uk
Spellbinding Media Ltd Reg. No. 08482364
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781909964105
Digital ebook conversion by
The Copy Devil
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CHAPTER ONE
Clare and Max left the temple through the gateway of a soaring tower that was carved with a hundred gods and goddesses. They walked towards the main square, where an election meeting was taking place. A crowd was being fervently addressed through an amplifier. Clare watched Max as he threaded his way through the crowd towards the speaker. Huge silken flags rippled in the breeze. The orator’s voice, passionate and strong, reverberated and crackled around the square. Max got in closer, so he could take some photos of the man. The flags and glossy banners, and the enormous posters of would all make for an effective and dramatic background, he thought as he took his shots, with the ancient temple tower brooding over this tense, animated, modern scene. Two young men followed Max as he worked his way back to Clare. They thrust their way through the crowd. Clare, watching through the glare of a spotlight as her husband approached, could see the faces of his pursuers clearly. One of them was somewhat fat, with a thick moustache. The other was younger, hardly more than a boy. They seemed very determined to catch up with Max. He reached her side completely unaware of them.
The spotlight moved on over the crowd. Clare shouted out, seeing the boy trying to snatch Max’s camera. In response, Max seized him in a judo hold, twisting his arm up behind him until he shouted in pain, and the camera fell from his grip. As Max picked it up, the man with the moustache flicked open a knife and made a feint lunge; the steel glinted in the light. Max let go of the boy, who sprang to his feet and moved out of reach. Clare was struck by his tearful, flashing eyes, with their look of injury and anger. He stared at Max for an instant before darting away with his companion, who threw a threatening look behind him.
The crowd swayed and jostled. There were shouts and startled faces, and a growing murmur of excited sympathy. An old man with a huge, untidy turban yelled in indignation. A cow ambled forward, waving its heavy head as if it disapproved. The voice of the orator angrily rattled on, enunciating endless grievous facts, while, high above, a rushing explosion shook the air. Fireworks. They burst into a hundred glittering threads of light that illuminated a tall, bearded figure lurching heavily on his crutches towards Max and Clare. Upon reaching them, he opened his mouth and pointed into it, holding out his begging bowl with a solemn look of dignity upon his face. He was middle-aged, his beard flecked with grey. As Max gave the man some money he leant forward to peer into his face, then Clare’s, before touching his head in a gentle salutation and swinging away.
Clare saw the two youths dart out of the crowd to join the cripple in a tense debate. She noticed that the fat one seemed frustrated as he looked at Max, as if there was more to the attack than the theft of an expensive camera. But this was mere conjecture on her part. It worried her more to think that they were somehow connected with the cripple, that he might not have been as harmless as he’d appeared.
‘Max,’ she whispered urgently, ‘I think they might be planning to have another try.’
‘Let’s go,’ he replied.
As they walked away, Clare noticed with dismay that the youths were in pursuit, appearing and disappearing from view among the people milling about in the street. Sometimes they were silhouetted by exploding fireworks; sometimes they were hidden in the shadows. She could hear them calling out menacingly. One of the youths came near, as if about to lunge at Max again to seize his camera. The other shook his fist in the smoky air.
Eventually Clare and Max put some distance between themselves and the youths and managed to lose them. At least they could relax now, although Clare kept looking behind, just in case. As they walked, Max started talking about something else. He referred to the corruption that had recently become a major issue in Indian politics, and the courage of Venkataraman, the speaker in the square, in apparently confronting it so strongly.
‘But Westerners are not so spotlessly corrupt that they can condescend to India on the matter,’ Max added. ‘Not after some of our recent Congressional and Parliamentary financial scandals.’
Trying to dismiss the attempted mugging from her mind, Clare began to worry about her marriage instead, as she had for a while now. Who or what was taking her husband’s interest away from her? She imagined it might be Vijaya, a vivacious and humorous woman they’d got to know while staying with Vijaya’s brother, Narayan, in Chennai. As Clare thought about Vijaya’s luxuriant black hair, she considered her own, very English, looks: her pale, thirty-year-old face, blue eyes and auburn hair made her appear so conspicuous out here in Southern India. Max could conceivably have developed an attraction to Narayan’s sister because of his close friendship with Narayan, who occasionally seemed to subtly flirt with Clare. Or did she flatter herself in suspecting this? He’d surely never risk the comradeship with Max that had led to Max and Clare’s visit in the first place. However, Narayan had said Vijaya was very much in love with her cousin, Tamilazhagam, whose name they shortened to Tammy.
Tammy was an odd puzzle of a man, really. He’d come with them on this expedition but was waiting back at the hotel. He’d refused to join them at the temple, although he’d looked curiously torn when Clare had pressed him to do so.
As they reached the hotel, Clare watched a few streamers sail across the temple’s silhouette. They sputtered in the air, their delicate embers floating slowly down. She could make out the temple’s tower in the moonlight, looming above the crowded streets. She heard the resonant clanging of its bell. But then the brutal memory came back: the boy seizing the camera and then shouting in agony; the older one with his flick-knife; the glint of sharp steel. She imagined that knife ripping into Max’s muscular smooth body, and a sudden warmth of tenderness spread through her. Fearful, thinking Max could have been killed in that terrible moment, Clare decided to summon up the courage to discuss their marriage with him.
Tammy had been waiting on the veranda of the hotel. A meal was ordered and he listened, intrigued, as Max told him about the attempted theft of the camera.
‘They could’ve been ordinary thieves,’ Tammy said. ‘There are enough of those. Or they could, conceivably, have had political loyalties that your photography might’ve offended.’ He paused, looking at Max. ‘You can seem a touch intrusive with that telescopic lens of yours. They may not like their leaders being snapped without consent, especially by someone standing out as much as you do. They might think you a nosey foreign journalist, or a shady CIA agent.’
‘I try not to be too intrusive with my photos,’ Max said.
Tammy grinned broadly, as if wanting to emphasise that he’d been jokin
g. He led Max and Clare upstairs, where he produced a bottle of whisky. While he poured the drinks, he talked about being an economist in India.
‘I’m driven round the bend by the country’s problems,’ he said. ‘This is the sorry fate of many economists out here.’
The meal arrived.
‘Some vegetarian mess wrapped in a banana leaf,’ Tammy said with joke disparagement.
Max had come to like the spicy food.
‘Chilli hunger,’ Narayan had called it when telling Max and Clare back in Los Angeles how much he craved the pungent, vegetarian dishes of his homeland.
‘It keeps my Indian soul intact, even after a year of insidious Americanisation,’ he’d said laughingly. If only Narayan had come with them, Max thought for the hundredth time. He longed for Narayan’s lively curiosity and the way he talked about his background with the exuberant affection that characterised his general attitude. Still, he wasn’t there. Max turned his thoughts back to Tammy as they began to eat. He couldn’t understand why Tammy had been so keen to come to this distant town of Madurai, given that he hadn’t wanted to visit its famous temple.
A fan rotated sluggishly on the ceiling, squeaking in complaint as if every revolution was going to be its very last. Max ate using his fingers, Indian style, as Narayan had taught him. Clare, who was less ambitious, relied upon a spoon. Outside, the noise of the electioneering was getting louder. A parade was going around the town, heading in their direction. Tammy was telling them about a regional political figure who, after years of spectacular misrule, recently had the good grace to die.
‘He was a hammy film star earlier in his life, and his flashy ostentation commanded huge loyalty from the sheep-like masses. In truth, he was appallingly corrupt. He appointed sycophantic lackeys to overpaid positions. He handed out dodgy contracts to his backhanding cronies and ruthlessly suppressed any rivals. Now they’ve decided he was a monster and they clamour for change.’
Max listened sceptically to Tammy, whose political information seemed to be so luridly exaggerated. Max and Clare were working on a book together on India, Max taking the photographs to illustrate Clare’s prose. Their aim was to provide a balanced portrait of modern India, avoiding too much cynicism and doom as well as excessive optimism. It was through getting to know Narayan in Los Angeles that the ambition to produce the book had been born. Narayan had been flattered by Max’s interest in India. When he learned that Max had written a book on Mexico and had studied comparative religion, he suggested that Max write a book about India. Max had been flattered but wondered if he and Clare were really up to it. He still did at times, despite Narayan’s enthusiastic help, and Tammy’s. The insights provided by this economics lecturer were especially beneficial.
‘Of course,’ Tammy went on, ‘the chemical works and nuclear reactors have done wonders for India’s morale, regardless, that is, of the dire environmental side effects or the fact that we could’ve put the money to much better use by spreading it around more.’
‘Spending it on what in particular?’ asked Max. ‘What are the priorities in your view?’
‘We need drains and tractors, and mobile medical units, and drilling equipment to combat increasing water shortages. The trouble is, we’re far too keen on national prestige and less concerned with popular well-being. So we make these gestures of false affluence and ignore our real problems: poverty, disease and massive social inequality. There’s inadequate spending on health and education and on the feeding of our undernourished children.’
Tammy’s voice drifted away, or seemed to as far as Clare was concerned. She was thinking about her marriage again. She remembered the figure of Vishnu tenderly holding Lakshmi in the temple. It brought to mind an awareness of how open Hinduism was to amorous relationships, and how it celebrated sexual, married love such as she and Max had known for two years now. She and Max had met in a hilltop castle, eighty miles from Rome. They’d been on a study course that covered Italian language and civilisation. The castle had been reluctantly converted into a hostel, but it retained its leaking roof, reverberating plumbing and elderly, spasmodic electricity.
Max had shyly invited Clare up to his room, which overlooked a narrow valley that corkscrewed through the hills. She stood beside him at the window while he talked about his father, whose affection he’d always craved but whose political views he had abhorred. This came to a head with Bush’s invasion of Iraq, which his father had strenuously supported and Max had angrily opposed. He spoke of their bitter arguments, his father’s illness and their partial, uneasy reconciliation. He seemed so stressed about it that Clare felt the need to say he shouldn’t hand his father such power over him by caring so painfully about what he thought.
Max had kissed her then, on the lips, for the very first time. It had been diffident at first but it deepened as Clare responded. She’d sensed he would make no further moves unless invited, which she found both challenging and reassuring. As she said goodnight to him, she knew she wanted to go on seeing this troubled man who had been so open with her.
‘Look, I’d better join the crowds outside,’ Max said all of a sudden, breaking into Clare’s reverie. ‘There’s the potential for some really good pictures. Clare, don’t bother to come. It’s been a long day. You’re pretty whacked.’
Max got to his feet and reached for his camera. Tammy rose too, apologising to Max and hoping he hadn’t hogged the conversation.
‘Was I being too sweeping and dogmatic?’ he asked.
‘Oh don’t worry,’ Max said. ‘I like your critical spirit. It’s just my photographer’s neurosis coming into play. I’m terrified of missing out on some great photos.’
‘Sit down, Tammy,’ said Clare as Max departed. ‘Have more whisky.’
Tammy smiled at her, a little awkwardly. She liked his face but no one could convincingly call him good looking. He had a beaky nose and irregular features, and his skin was paler than Narayan’s. Clare thought Narayan more handsome, although he seemed genuinely oblivious to the fact. Vijaya was paler still. Her disarming little jokes and delicate gestures contrasted with the anger she expressed about the inferior status of most women in India. Clare wondered once more about Vijaya and Max, but her suspicion seemed far-fetched. Then she thought about Tammy’s feelings for Vijaya. He seldom mentioned her; when he did, he did so casually. He often assumed an air of cool indifference, as if he thought this made him seem self-possessed.
Clare decided she must press him gently on the subject – but not now.
‘Have you read the Bhagavad Gita?’ she asked him instead. ‘Or perhaps you’re so involved with the problems of modern India that your ancient classics seem irrelevant.’
‘You know, the trouble you India freaks cause us poor Indians,’ said Tammy, smiling. ‘I was shamed into reading it at Cambridge.’
‘In Sanskrit?’
‘You must be joking! Our classic language is Greek to me because of all that foreign education my Anglophile father insisted on. He sentenced me to a frigid English public school, in thrall to muscular Christianity, football and the sacred cricket pitch. I suffered from English insularity and just a touch of politely hidden racism. When I first returned to India, I felt like a sort of rootless and out-of-place expatriate.’
‘Did you do anything about that?’ Clare asked.
‘Yes. I travelled around India to find my roots. It’s an incredibly beautiful country, with its temples and mosques, great rivers, palaces and forts. Even the simple villages have a quiet beauty, with peacocks perching in banyan trees, and goats and monkeys and cattle ambling down the streets. The people are so friendly and smiling. And the vibrant colours of the clothing… the saris and turbans… I’d almost forgotten how gorgeous they could be. For the first time I fell in love with my own country, in spite of all its problems and basic poverty. One forgets the primitive sanitation!’
‘Did you do all this travelling alone?’
‘No. I went with an Indian Muslim friend, Shahpur. We met at
Cambridge, where we both read economics and became close friends. There are 180 million Muslims in India, and he opened my mind to their religion. I tried to give him some vague idea of mine, although he’s a practising Muslim and I’m a rather lapsed Hindu.’
‘How did he open your mind about Islam?’
‘Well, about jihad for instance. The non-Islamic world thinks this means only holy war, but it principally means our inner war, in the cause of God. It’s about the fight between good and evil in one’s own self, despite what a tiny minority of hotheads might assume. God is closer to us than our own jugular veins. There’s nothing between God and ourselves. It’s a fine religion. The Koran exalts compassion, brotherhood and social justice. It stresses the moral and spiritual equality of the sexes, giving women the legal rights of inheritance and divorce.’
‘I didn’t know all of that,’ Clare said. ‘Getting back to feeling like an expatriate, I’m one too, I suppose. An Englishwoman living in Los Angeles, married to an American. But does having a country really matter? Belonging to one exclusively, I mean.’
‘Your case is different. I’ve got my over-extended family here, and this is where I’m expected to settle down and marry. You’ve met Vijaya. She’s a nice, high caste, traditional Indian girl, although she deplores the caste system as much as I do. She’s very sweet and has quite a sense of humour. I just can’t see us making a success of being married.’
‘That depends on whether you find her anything more than sweet and nice. You speak of her very condescendingly. It’s very unappealing.’
‘I’m sorry, but she’s so limited. She’s hardly left her wondrous South India. Okay, she once went to stay with some old relatives in Kolkata, where they’re sacrilegious enough to actually eat meat. As much as she hates me pouring fiendish booze down my throat, she’s far more shocked if I gorge myself on the flesh of animals. She’s full of feminist outrage, and I sympathise. But beneath the surface sophistication, surely you can see how naive she is. How can I talk to her about the real India, about the blood and guts of the poor country?’
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