The Assassins

by Jeremy Trafford

  ‘Narayan and I had a really lousy row before we left. It was about my putting him into such a bad position, in relation to you… about his guilt.’

  ‘Didn’t he put himself into this position?’ Clare retorted. ‘Doesn’t he indulge his precious guilt?’

  ‘No, it genuinely makes him feel bad. He’s extremely fond of you, you know. He hated my deceiving you about him.’

  ‘Extremely fond of me!’ scoffed Clare. ‘Don’t kid yourself.’

  ‘He admires you, Clare… especially your courage. Why don’t you believe me?’

  ‘If he admires me that much, why has he gone with you behind my back?’

  ‘He’s only gone with me with great reluctance. I talked him into it.’

  ‘He should’ve resisted going with a married man, but I see you’re determined to defend him. So what did you row about, exactly?’

  ‘Oh Christ, the screwed-up things we’ve sometimes said to one another. He loathes the slightest idea of being patronised by me… of my being the superior one in our relationship. He has a thing about my money, I suppose. He’s not comfortable about my American money. He’s got a bit of a love-hate thing about America, for sure, admiring its scientific progress but resenting its top nation arrogance. I tell him to hell with my money. We’re absolutely equal in every way. He tends to be so instantly defensive, but in the end he longs to make things up.’

  ‘So now this wondrous peace offering.’

  ‘It’s a magnificent present. I’m really grateful. I’m immensely grateful to you too. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t so understanding and supportive. As little as I deserve it, I couldn’t exist without our marriage.’

  Max and Clare both needed to be alone at times, even when they were happy with each other. In his solitude, Max often thought of their times of special closeness. He’d always loved the physical closeness before they made love – the caresses, the murmured words, the hushed half-spoken language of their intimacy. His dread of its destruction was what held him back in his love for Narayan. Yes as his desire for Narayan grew he felt it was part of his true nature, and repressing a desire so basic and involuntary would be dishonest, even though he hated cheating on Clare, whom he desired just as intensely.

  Max recalled the strange course of events during Narayan’s last fortnight in Los Angeles. Paradoxically, it was Clare who reunited them by suggesting Max call Narayan. He resisted the idea at first, but that only made her more determined that he sort things out with him.

  ‘He’s so witty and amusing,’ she said. ‘I find his being Indian intriguingly exotic, and he’s so well informed about his country.’

  Eventually Max swallowed his defensive pride and rang Narayan.

  ‘I felt too strongly but now am more detached. I hope we can be friends again.’

  ‘I’d like that very much,’ Narayan answered.

  ‘I lost my temper with you. I hate to lose to lose my temper. It makes me feel a fool. I’m really sorry for it.’

  ‘We were angry at each other. We were both at fault, I think.’

  They agreed to meet; this time Clare was present, as she’d planned. She invited Narayan round for a vegetarian meal she’d specially prepared. She teased him, and her joking greatly eased the situation.

  ‘You’re a compulsive boffin, Narayan,’ she said. ‘You abandoned us on behalf of your wretched molecules. They sound so boringly predictable. Or is that my disgraceful ignorance of science, which secretly makes me feel a bit inferior?’

  After that, Narayan and Max met twice alone. The first time was at Venice Beach, Narayan’s favourite place in Los Angeles, where the two men watched the high-speed roller-skaters, the muscle-bound narcissists of Muscle Beach and the incredibly tall basketball players who leapt high in the air, hurling the ball jubilantly about. They ate in a cheap restaurant with bohemian pretensions, where José had taken Narayan. The burgers there were named after American literary figures: Max ate a Scott Fitzgerald while Narayan had a vegetarian one called Sylvia Plath. Narayan had read Plath’s poems, at José’s prompting.

  The second time was on Narayan’s last day. Max suggested they drive out to the beach house in Malibu, where they could surf together. By the time they got there, it was raining heavily, the wind was scouring across the sea and the waves were rising high. Max was surprised by the savagery of the ocean, and went to check on his speedboat, which was moored down by the jetty.

  As he walked towards the jetty, he noticed a dinghy some way out to sea, its sails wildly flapping. He recognised it as belonging to a young married couple from a nearby beach house.

  ‘They’re obviously in trouble,’ he shouted at Narayan. ‘We could take the speedboat out and rescue them.’

  Max ran along the jetty, with Narayan following him. The sea hurled its weight onto the thick wooden structure, making it creak beneath its heavy pounding. His speedboat was bucking on the waves and getting battered by the water. A wave descended and exploded onto the deck. Max was swept over the side of the jetty before he could climb on board. He grabbed at the stern as he fell. It rose with a jerk and came back down again. And then a sudden darkness overcame him.

  He was in a place of swirling movement. He gasped for air, but there was no air! He felt a mouth on his mouth, and then a heavy sucking at his straining lungs. He could hear his name being called, as if from far away. His lungs laboured in pain. He was being held by someone, then the mouth made contact with his mouth again, filling him with streaming air. He fell into unconsciousness once more.

  When Max came to, it seemed as if a long time had passed. The wind had died down. He couldn’t hear any crashing of waves. He was lying in a bed in the beach house. He remembered the couple in the dinghy: the woman with her blond ringlets and sensual mouth, the man with his thick biceps, unshaven face and dark blue eyes. He thought of their mutual absorption that had so struck him with its intensity.

  Narayan was there, beside him.

  ‘What happened to me?’ Max asked.

  ‘You were hit on the side of the head. Just a glancing blow, but it knocked you out. I pulled you out of the sea.’

  ‘And then gave me the kiss of life, I think.’

  Max felt gratitude course through him. He wanted to touch the mouth that had given him air and given him back his life – but suddenly he imagined the dinghy keeling over, swamped and sinking.

  ‘Do you think that couple have survived?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I rang the lifeguards in the area. They came round but have seen nothing.’

  ‘You took a bit of a risk you took, fishing me out,’ Max said.

  ‘Not really. I’m glad to have been of help,’ Narayan answered. He paused before adding, ‘I’m glad to have been able to show you something of what I feel for you.’

  Max looked at him.

  ‘And what do you feel for me?’ he asked, with feigned, jokey casualness. ‘Apart from my being tolerable when not making embarrassing emotional demands.’

  ‘Look, there’s more to me than being feebly embarrassed.’ Narayan seemed slightly indignant at Max’s irony. ‘Why didn’t you ring before? Why wait until just before I left?’

  ‘Couldn’t you have rung me?’ pointed out Max, recovering his strength and wits after almost drowning. ‘Wasn’t it you who was scared of getting too involved? You, with your idiot conformism. You, who couldn’t bear the thought of loving another man. Oh so unnatural and disgusting. And so inadmissible.’

  ‘You know it wasn’t mere conformism,’ Narayan protested. ‘Of course I think it’s natural. We’re part of nature, aren’t we? The disgust is mere social conditioning. No, it was guilt over Clare. But I overreacted, stupidly. I’m really sorry now. What a bloody awful waste it’s been.’

  Narayan smiled then, touching Max and gently kissing him. Max responded passionately. It was as if the danger of near death had filled him with the desire to hold on to life in its most exciting form. He and Narayan made love with mounting ardour. It
was as if the lost time could be retrieved, as if they could make up for all that had been wasted, all the passion rejected, all the desires unfulfilled. Max felt his excitement gather. He heard the beating of the waves outside as though they were the beating of the blood in his own veins. Outside their private world, the night with the storm blown over seemed strangely peaceful, as though reflecting the peace that came over them once they had reached their mutual climax. Max let his mind drift to the couple in the dinghy; he imagined them lying equally at peace in each other’s arms, their mouths pressed together. Through the window he saw the stars in a glittering diffusion, the moon casting its frail glimmer on the sea.

  Narayan’s head rested on Max’s shoulder, and Max looked down the length of their two naked bodies, admiring the contrast between their differing colours.

  ‘I’m so boringly colourless compared with you,’ Max joked.

  ‘Oh well, I know you were born that way. You can’t help it.’

  ‘You’re leaving tomorrow,’ Max said suddenly. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do without you now.’

  Narayan paused a while before replying.

  ‘I hate the idea of deceiving Clare but I hate the prospect of losing you far more. I hope you’ll tell her about us, though I fear she’s going to say you shouldn’t see me again. I know that is the likely outcome. I appreciate your dilemma now, as I failed to do before.’

  It was two in the morning when Max suggested they go for a swim. As they swam out to sea, Max recalled the night he and Clare had sighted the whales: the water swelling and splitting open, the soaring bulk of the enormous creature, its piercing eye and thrashing tail, and how they’d been in awe of its dark magnificence. His though of his lovemaking with Clare, saw its passion and its beauty, even as he swam to Narayan’s side to float with him in a loose embrace. Clare’s face came vividly to mind – her rapturous eyes and feminine soft mouth – as he faced Narayan alone in the sea, with his muscular arms and masculine features.

  As they walked along the beach after their swim, they both spotted something in the distance. At first it seemed like a glistening white shell among the seaweed, washed up on the sand. But no.

  ‘God,’ was all that Max could say. Narayan said nothing but exhaled slowly, taking in the sight.

  It was a face, with an arm stretched out above it. The body lay where the waves hissed on the sand. They rippled over the face, with its dead mouth and open eyes, stirring the blond, tangled hair. It was as if the woman had been delivered up by the now quiet waves in the position she was in when life had left her. It was as though she was reaching out for someone.

  Narayan closed the woman’s eyelids, then lifted the body over his shoulder. Her head fell back, the soaked hair dangling, the shirt half torn away. Her breasts were unmarked, though, as if the sea that had seized and drowned her had carefully preserved her skin. When they reached the beach house, Narayan gingerly arranged the limbs, the head, the strands of hair.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ Max said. ‘What a tragedy. I suppose her partner’s drowned as well.’

  ‘He must have,’ Narayan replied. ‘And to think they were parted as they drowned.’

  Narayan then knelt and prayed. Max, in his own form of silent prayer, offered up thoughts for the young man. Max knew he could have suffered the same fate were it not for Narayan. He imagined the woman desperately reaching for the man, and wondered where his body might be floating. Then his prayer turned to matters closer to him: his feelings for Narayan, his concern for Rick, his sorrow for Ben and, most importantly of all, his deep and enduring love for Clare.

  A month after Narayan’s departure, Rick called.

  ‘My affair with Mike has ended. I told him I was in love with Ben again. I said I still needed Mike and hoped he’d tolerate this love that unexpectedly recurred, brief and sexless as it has to be. I was astonished when Mike said he couldn’t. I was shocked by his jealous anger. The next day he packed his things and left.’

  Max found himself thinking ever more seriously about the new direction his life was taking. After Narayan returned to India, he exchanged texts with him several times a week. In those texts, Narayan revealed that he couldn’t stop thinking about Max and longed for him to come out to Chennai. Max thought of him incessantly, although he also thought of Rick and Ben and the happiness they’d resolved to seize from what little time they had left together.

  Max thought of how Clare had liked Narayan so much that she’d helped to reconcile them when they’d fallen out. She was grateful to Narayan for saving Max’s life. She knew the immense importance Max attached to their marriage and might concede the respect Narayan had for it. But he wondered if she would keep reacting with anger, pain and grief. Max felt anxious about this but knew he had to face up to reality, to live his life in accord with his divided nature. His love for Clare seemed only to intensify the more he loved Narayan. He dreaded losing his wife, but he could also lose Narayan. When he thought about not having Narayan in his life, he felt it was better to have loved and lost than never to have known this difficult but wondrous passion, to never have taken the risk at all.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘I’ve had a good sleep,’ Subramaniam said, addressing Max and Clare. ‘And now I’m looking forward to a nice, long chat. Narayan says you want to know more about our history, to help you with your book. Western people do need to know more about our old civilisation and ancient wisdoms, I believe.’ Max sat down beside him.

  ‘We do know that India achieved much more than the British thought,’ he said.

  ‘Indeed, yes,’ said Subramaniam. ‘In the fifth century, it was an Indian mathematician who pioneered the use of zero. One of our astronomers divined that the earth went around the sun, a thousand years before Galileo. Under the Gupta kings, we had an advanced iron technology, but no capital punishment, no slaughtering of animals. The British never recognised any of this, being so wilfully Eurocentric. They wished to justify the Raj, you see.’

  He paused, smiling at Clare a little awkwardly.

  ‘You are British, aren’t you? And your good husband is American. A most interesting mix.’

  Narayan came into the room then and shook Max’s hand with his usual warmth. Then he kissed Clare fondly on the cheek, a kiss she couldn’t easily refuse.

  ‘What a terrible experience you had in Madurai… you and Tammy,’ Narayan said. ‘I hear you were very brave. I can’t tell you the enormous sympathy I feel.’

  Clare found that difficult to accept when she hated the falsehood that she saw in him. Narayan, though, was delighted to hear that the present of the Shiva image, the Nataraja, had pleased both Clare and Max. After Max thanked Narayan, perhaps a bit too profusely, Vijaya touched the figure.

  ‘It’s so beautiful as well as so significant,’ she said, adding jokingly, ‘I have to confess, I’m really envious. I wish now that I’d kept it for myself.’

  ‘Envious?’ Narayan repeated. ‘But you have the figure of Yashoda and the infant Krishna. You’re so greedy and demanding.’ He turned and smiled at Clare. ‘You don’t know how much I’m hen-pecked, Clare, or rather chick-pecked. Chick-pecked by my little sister, who’s very bossy! She’s taking after the virago aunts. If you don’t look out, Vijaya, Tammy may take fright and have second thoughts.’

  ‘Really, Narayan,’ Vijaya retorted, too abruptly. ‘The ridiculous things you say.’

  ‘Narayan, my dear fellow,’ interposed Subramaniam, ‘all this you say about being chick-pecked and Tammy taking fright… some of your chatter is such nonsense. I wonder what America has done to you. Oh, no disrespect to you, Max. It’s just these young men go to their foreign places and come back so changed… it’s most confusing for me. And now he says is Vijaya is a bossy boots. And yet he jokes. He is a funny chap, our Narayan. Always joking, always laughing. Even as a little boy, he was always teasing poor Vijaya. And now he is so suddenly grown up.’

  Vijaya had left the room, and so she hadn’t heard Subramaniam’s words. Cla
re was wondering when Tammy would arrive. It was just as well he hadn’t heard that joke of Narayan’s about his having second thoughts, which had caused Vijaya’s mood to change so quickly. She returned with a tray of drinks, soft with one exception: a bottle of whisky.

  ‘Of course, Vijaya imagined I’d come back from the USA a totally American creature,’ said Narayan. ‘She thought I’d become a sort of Hollywood cowboy, swaggering into bars and endlessly knocking people out, or else a decadent pop idol with skin-tight, spangled trousers, saying “Yeah, man, yeah!” each time I gave myself another fix. Or maybe she saw me as a militant fitness freak, with gym-cultivated muscles, luridly covered with tattoos.’

  ‘He’s always mocking me,’ said Vijaya, assuming an air of confidence as she poured out alarming amounts of whisky for Clare and Max. ‘But Narayan came back with a definite American accent, and he started using all sorts of funny expressions. He talked of nothing but you, Max. Max says this… Max says that. Who is this Max person? Who is this mystery American always haunting you? All this fitness freakiness; he never did it so much before coming under your influence.’

  ‘I’m a bit of a fitness freak myself,’ said Subramaniam with one of his little chuckles. ‘I’ve always done hatha yoga. Yoga means union in Sanskrit – it’s about being at one with the universal spirit. Two thousand years old, our yoga is, while modern science is so very new, coldly trying to explain the world away and taking no account of its great mystery.’

  ‘Yes, the world is mysterious and ultimately inexplicable,’ said Narayan, ‘as many modern scientists might agree.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed. We live in a state of maya, of illusion. The physical world you study is full of freakish strangeness.’

  Vijaya now turned enquiringly to Subramaniam.

  ‘Yes, Vijaya,’ he said. ‘I’d like some nice refreshment. Mango juice, oh yes.’ He eyed the whisky, making a little joke. ‘And I’d like it neat, as well.’