The Assassins

by Jeremy Trafford

  ‘Of course you’re one of the three,’ Max said, laughing with some embarrassment. ‘Who in the world knows what the future holds for us?’

  Max was working hard while he was travelling, writing up his notes for the new book. He wished to emphasise the enormous amount of aid that would be needed to repair the damage. When he returned to Chennai he stayed with Clare and Tammy and initially avoided contacting Narayan. He tried to resist thinking of him too much, fearing it might affect the concentration he needed to write. He asked Tammy to come up with some conjectural figure for the losses in the fishing community.

  ‘About eighty per cent of the dead in Tamil Nadu were fishermen,’ Tammy said. ‘Almost forty thousand boats, plus miles of netting, have been destroyed. The remaining fishermen are already horribly in debt to the shark money lenders, as most of India’s poor have always been.’

  In his book, Max decided to put the need to help the tsunami victims into the context of aid in general. He set the promises of Western governments against what they’d actually got around to donating. Tammy provided him with more figures to substantiate his argument, stressing that the West spent about eighty billion dollars on aid to the Third World in 2004, compared with a thousand billion dollars on munitions. Almost half of that was spent by the USA, whose foreign aid amounted to four per cent of its arms bill; in the UK it was one-sixth. Galvanised by these figures and the priorities they represented, Max decided to write more about the need for medical aid.

  ‘Yes, it’s health that divides the rich and the poor worlds most of all,’ Tammy said when Max told him this. ‘Western countries should be subsidising Third World medical care, providing hospital equipment and drugs India can’t afford for more than a privileged minority. Our so-called economic boom gives the wrong impression. So much attention is focused on poverty in Africa, but there are more poor in India than in that entire continent.’

  ‘India seems to be two nations now,’ said Clare, ‘as England was in the nineteenth century.’

  ‘Yes, There a few MRI scanners for the prospering middle class,’ Tammy said. ‘But that obscures what happens among the disadvantaged. There’s a terrible lack of organised public health care. The poor have to rely on private doctors many can’t afford, and a lot of those medics have limited training. The immunisation of children is totally inadequate. Their under-nourishment leads to them being underweight and stunted, like that cripple’s daughter. The only hope for seeing any improvement is by publicising the facts more widely.’

  Clare was intensely relieved to hear that the boy assassin had finally had his death sentence commuted on appeal. She was now allowed to visit him in prison, and she asked Tammy to accompany her. They were vetted for drugs, sniffed at by dogs, and even required to have their mouths inspected. They were then led to the visiting room, which was beyond the bleak prison yard, its high walls surmounted by huge coils of barbed wire.

  Clare was having lessons in Tamil but Tammy helped to translate for them. A warder led the boy in, shackled and at first extremely shy. He glanced nervously at Clare and Tammy, as if puzzled why they wished to visit him or suspicious of their motives. He looked thinner; his hair had been closely cropped and he had a small bruise upon his forehead.

  He spoke eventually of his sorrow for the crime he had committed.

  ‘What I did was horrible. I remember it now like a dream. A kind of madness entered me. I was very frightened. I didn’t really know what I was doing.’

  He didn’t lay responsibility on his uncle and his brother for pressurising him. He said nothing about the fact they were now dead, as if mention of them would disturb him too much to go on. He didn’t speak of his parents, who had been killed in that communal riot, although he did talk about the village he’d been brought up in

  ‘I long again to climb the coconut palms… to hear the cocks crowing… to hear the jangling of goat bells and the lowing of the cows. I hope one day I’ll be free to go back.’

  ‘Do you have any relatives there still?’ Clare asked.

  ‘I have some aunts and cousins but they’re not allowed to visit me. One of them can write but I’m only allowed a letter once a month. I can’t read myself but I have an older friend who can.’

  ‘Were you ever tortured?’ Clare asked quietly.

  Tammy murmured the question because a guard stood nearby, although he looked rather bored and inattentive. To her inexpressible relief, the boy said no.

  ‘Are you were ever bullied by the other prisoners?’

  ‘Just a bit,’ he answered, ‘but I stand up for myself. And I have this older friend who helps defend me.’

  ‘Will they give you some training in technical work for when you’re released?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I hope so,’ he replied. ‘There are classes in plumbing and electricity. These things are much needed in my village.’

  ‘The prison service speaks of training of this sort but seldom manages to put it into action because of the crowded conditions and lack of money.’ Tammy told Clare. ‘The prisoners tend to fall into three categories: mad or sad or bad. This one’s a combination of all three, I think.’

  After half an hour, the warder fairly amiably said their time was up.

  ‘We’ll visit you again,’ Clare said. ‘I promise.’

  The boy smiled as he raised his shackled wrists to shake their hands. As Tammy and Clare walked out past the high, secure walls, she wondered how long his imprisonment would last. It was obvious he must be punished for the murder he had committed, and society must be protected, but she hoped he wouldn’t lose all hope in life in the harsh years that lay ahead of him. These thoughts made her more acutely aware of her own easy, privileged existence.

  A couple of days later, Clare went with Tammy to visit the cripple’s widow, whose name they now learnt was Kamila. She lived in a sprawling shantytown in the inland suburbs of Chennai, which had been spared the onslaught of the tsunami. Kamila lived alone in a ramshackle hut that had been patched with flattened kerosene tins and sacking. In the street outside was a malodorous, open drain. Rain was drumming on the corrugated iron roof when they arrived. Again, Tammy translated from Tamil.

  ‘I was married for fifteen years,’ Kamila said. ‘I miss my husband terribly, though I now know he did great wrong. I told the magistrate I didn’t know at the time what he was up to. He told me nothing. He wished me to stay innocent in case I was interrogated. I loved him very much. I was terrified appearing in the courtroom and answering all those questions. But in the end the magistrate was kind to me. He was like my father with his white hair and beard.’

  ‘You must also miss your daughter terribly,’ Clare said to her.

  ‘I do,’ Kamila answered. ‘The loss gets no better. Every morning I wake up to this weight upon my heart… this pain. I worry that I didn’t do enough for her. I took her to the mobile clinic but it was too late to stop the typhus. She had this purple rash and bad headaches. We put her to bed, where she soon became delirious. Her father was frantic about her. We tried to get a doctor to visit but there aren’t enough doctors. There aren’t enough drugs and medicines. She died in her fever, shaking and crying out.’

  ‘Tell her how deeply I sympathise,’ Clare said to Tammy, remembering Violet fighting for breath but then being put into an oxygen tent to relieve her suffering.

  ‘Is there any chance Kamila might marry again and have another child?’ Clare asked Tammy.

  ‘I think I’m unlikely to find another husband,’ Kamila replied when Tammy had posed Clare’s question. ‘There’s prejudice against men marrying widows. I can’t provide a dowry and I’m probably too old to conceive again.’

  ‘How old are you? Clare asked.

  ‘I don’t really know… perhaps forty.’ She smiled timidly. ‘Also I’m a Dalit and many village people look down on us.’ Clare felt she was quite unused to telling people this. ‘Also I can’t read or write. I’m trying to learn but I find it very difficult.’

  She said s
he was helping to look after the daughter of a neighbour, who was an Adavasi. The little girl eventually appeared, overcoming her embarrassment in front of these strangers. Kamila stroked the girl’s cheek and kissed her, and the little girl buried her face in the embroidered sari Kamila had specially put on for their visit.

  ‘Adavasi?’ Clare asked.

  ‘The Adavasis are tribal people who make up eight per cent of the population,’ Tammy explained. ‘The Dalits have become a fairly vocal political force, but the Adavasis, who suffer even worse social discrimination, are not yet this organised.’

  Kamila offered them tea. The water was boiled on a smoky primus stove, and the tea was the usual thick, milky and very sweet concoction that Clare had come to like. When they left, Kamila bowed her head and put her hands together. Clare stepped impulsively forward to kiss her on the cheek. Kamila looked embarrassed but also moved, so Clare didn’t think her impulse out of place.

  ‘Let’s provide the money for a dowry for her,’ Tammy suggested later. ‘It might help her marry one of the widowed fishermen who lost their wives and children in the tsunami.’

  Clare jumped at the idea and suggested something else. ‘If needed, let’s also pay for IVF treatment so that she might conceive again.’

  ‘That’s very rare in India,’ answered Tammy. ‘Only the extremely affluent could afford it. It’s a good idea, though, so let’s ask when we see her next. She might be too shy and modest to accept such an offer, though.’

  Clare was starting to conciliate Tammy’s relatives. She invited The Battleaxe aunt to a meal she’d prepared, having studied a Tamil cookery book, and managed to avoid making too many disastrous errors. As Tammy was seen as practically an alcoholic, The Battleaxe was impressed that Clare should drink only mango juice, unaware that such temperance had been briefly assumed for her benefit. A few days later, The Sergeant Majorette asked Clare around for a modest cup of camomile tea. At last she was prepared to overlook the disreputable fact that Clare was a divorcee, deciding she might even be sufficiently in love with Tammy not to capriciously get rid of him after a year or two in what she saw as the Western manner. She was also pleased to hear how much Clare wanted children, although disappointed when Tammy said they planned to have only two.

  The elephantine uncles relented far more quickly. They were delighted to discover that Clare now cooked Tamil dishes, and didn’t stint in the amount she fed them, which they consumed with joyous appetite and the occasional appraising belch. They guzzled formidable amounts of whisky too, and laughed at Tammy’s jokes about the aunts, even when they were subtly scabrous. They overflowed their chairs, quaffing and interminably smoking, shaking with raucous laughter, triple chins wobbling and bellies quaking.

  Clare had resigned her job as a charity fundraiser in Los Angeles, and applied to teach media studies in the university in Chennai, having gained a degree in that. If she succeeded, Tammy and Narayan would be her colleagues there. Maria would not be in Chennai, though, unless her Roman plans failed. Maria had phoned Clare recently.

  ‘The combat between Antonio and Sam, which is not always unarmed, seems to be drawing to a merciful conclusion. The Animal’s decided The Putto takes after him in looks, apart from his designer stubble and mane of greasy hair, which he mistakenly imagines to be so sexy. Certainly, they both favour the same malevolent expression when not having their own way, but they also share the same sweetie smile when they fondly imagine that they are. To tell the truth, I’m rather enjoying having two males in my affections. I’d only return to find a pacific, soulful Indian if a lethal civil war again breaks out between them.

  Clare now had even more of a soft spot for Maria. She relished hearing of the extravagant drama of her life, which she knew she partly created for Clare’s entertainment, and hoped she’d hear more of it through her impressively inventive exaggerations.

  After a fortnight, Max, now confident his work was progressing well, went to see Narayan, who seemed hurt that he’d not done so earlier.

  ‘I was starting to wonder if I’d scared you off,’ Narayan said, taking Max’s hand and holding it for several seconds, as was his wont. ‘With what I said on the phone, I mean, when you were in Banda Aceh. You didn’t think I was flinging myself at you, did you? If you did, I could always take it back.’

  ‘I flung myself at you once,’ Max reminded him, ‘but then I started to worry in case I’d scared you off! So, no… please don’t take it back.’

  ‘Here I am in love with you again, I think. Do you love me back or are you playing hard to get? Are you just trying to lead me on?’

  ‘These embarrassing leading questions,’ said Max. ‘I won’t answer them, thanks, if it’s all the same to you.’

  ‘Why not? Because you like to keep me in suspense or pay me back? You’re really horrible, Max.’ Narayan laughed. ‘I think I may go off you once again… if I still can.’

  Max found his directness as appealing as ever. He wasn’t yet sure if he was in love with Narayan again, but he was certainly beguiled by his amusing, unsentimental frankness.

  One morning, Clare divulged that she was pregnant. She and Tammy were both delighted. Max was x delight, a twinge of regret mingled with his delight and a sense of wasted opportunity. For a while he regretted losing her, but he knew he must stop these backward-looking hankerings and exult in her being pregnant by a man he much respected. He should now concentrate on the possible revival of his affair with Narayan, about which he ought to be more open with himself – more self-aware and so less unforgiving.

  Tammy and Clare were friendly with Narayan and invited him and Max to supper several times. Tammy stimulated Max with his opinions, and lent him his computer to carry out research.

  ‘Much of this financial aid will doubtless disappear into the wrong pockets,’ said Tammy, although Max thought he had lost some of his cynicism. ‘What does get through will be frustrated by the usual, bumbling officialdom. What’s more, people in the West will forget about the issue as soon as they’ve slaked their short-lived consciences.’

  ‘You miserable old pessimist,’ Clare said. ‘The tsunami’s revolutionised the situation. Individuals are giving to the destitute as they never have before.’

  ‘Bully for the bleeding-heart Western individuals. What about their stingy, dawdling governments?’

  ‘Their stingy governments are waking up to the problem,’ Max answered. ‘They’re now cancelling some national debts in Africa.’

  ‘Not before time,’ said Tammy, ‘even though some debts were incurred by monstrously corrupt dictators who salted the loot away in foreign bank accounts.’

  ‘Let’s hope that’s not used as an excuse to be less generous,’ Max replied. ‘Further aid needs to given, but I agree it needs greater control so it’s spent wisely and where it’s needed.’

  Prompted by these discussions, Max arranged to sell most of his securities and real estate, intending to donate the proceeds to the tsunami survivors. ‘One day I’ll probably have no capital at all, apart from what I can earn as a writer,’ he told Narayan.

  ‘You’ve always wanted that, and I love your wacky idealism,’ Narayan said. ‘I want us to live together, and I do have a salary of my own, you know.’

  Narayan’s airy carelessness about the matter of money charmed Max. He wanted to talk only about this plan to live together, and Max found himself responding with a keenness that surprised him. The next time they met, Narayan brought up the idea again, becoming more urgent the more Max opposed it.

  ‘You’re far wackier than I am,’ Max teased him. ‘You decide on things with such crazy suddenness. You change your mind and your affections, as you did with Mohini. You burn out your feelings by acting on them too fervently and too fast.’

  ‘Maybe I did once,’ Narayan conceded. ‘I was attracted to Mohini, but I didn’t love her as much as I should have… not enough to marry. I feel guilty about that, although she wasn’t as much in love with me as she’d imagined. I think she wanted to r
emarry to please her over-demanding parents, not anticipating how choosy they would prove to be. Look, my feelings for you won’t burn out, I promise.’

  ‘They did once before, remember?’

  ‘Why remind me, Max?’

  ‘I was horribly in love with you… certifiably insane!’

  ‘And don’t you think for my sake you could go insane again?’

  Max paused. For an instant he remembered Rick with all his old vitality and fun, diving clowningly into the swimming pool, twisting in the air and pulling loony faces. This led to his recalling Narayan strenuously climbing the temple a year ago, laughing at Max below for being so slow and tentative. Rick and Narayan: his memories of them seemed to briefly intermingle, and he was surprised by the exhilaration suddenly welling up within him. At last he answered with a certainty he didn’t know he had, in an attempt to match Narayan’s humour.

  ‘Yes, for your sake, I do think I could go insane again.’

  ‘Enough to want to marry me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  His answer came out so suddenly that Max couldn’t quite believe he’d actually said it. He leant forward to kiss Narayan on the mouth.

  ‘So you love me again?’ Narayan asked, kissing him back, and holding him. ‘Why did you take so long? His body was shaking in Max’s arms, shaking with the laughter of his intense euphoria. ‘Look, India’s light years away from gay marriages, I know. But let’s do something special, even if Tammy thinks it embarrassingly schmaltzy.’

  ‘He married Clare by exchanging rings,’ Max pointed out. ‘He refused to follow the Hindu custom. What’s the Hindu equivalent of a ring, incidentally?’

  ‘The man gives the woman a thali, a reddened cord. He puts it around her neck and ties it with a knot.’

  For a day they deliberated before telling Clare and Tammy.

  ‘We’re planning a kind of personal symbolic marriage. We want our close friends to know about our love.