The Artist of Disappearance

by Anita Desai

  'Television, hunh?' Balram had been meaning to buy a set for his shop, and would have if the electric supply were more dependable. What was the use of a television without that? he'd said to his son who clamoured for one.

  'And the documentary we have come to make is about these hills.'

  Balram gave a snicker of laughter. 'Many directors come for that. Scenery, they all like scenery.'

  'No, we're not interested in that. What we have heard is that the scenery is being spoilt, destroyed. Timber companies are cutting down the trees. Limestone quarries and phosphate mines are making the hills unstable. Soil erosion is taking place. Lots of landslides are occurring. That is what we have come to film.'

  Balram could not think of anything more dull, and unnecessary. He fingered his moustache in what was clearly scepticism if not derision.

  'So we need to go to spots where this is taking place.'

  Now that he saw they needed help, Balram decided to be magnanimous. He waved his hand, offering it all to them as if it were nothing to him. 'You can go,' he gave his permission. 'You can see.'

  But to them that sounded too vague and uncertain. They could see this was not his idea of a film. It was not scenic and had no commercial potential.

  'Can you get us a guide who can take us to such sites?'

  'Hmm.' It was a matter for thought and calculation, not to be dismissed in haste. Balram was a man to act judiciously, not rashly. Possibilities arose. He nodded. 'I will see.'

  'But soon?' Chand, anyone could see, was a man in a hurry. Nothing could happen fast enough. When nothing happened, he jigged his legs up and down, in and out. 'We only have three—four days here.'

  'Tell me where you are staying. I will bring you a guide.'

  'We need to find a hotel.'

  Now a light went on in Balram's face, in the form of a smooth glisten. This was more like it, his scene. He kept them on tenterhooks while he ran through suggestions, then dismissed them, and eventually chose. Hotel Honeymoon he could recommend confidently, he assured them, because it was where his cousin brother was manager. They would have every comfort there, and security. He had them write out the address and directions on a piece of paper. 'And tomorrow I will bring someone there, a guide.' He saw the horizons open out, thinking of all the relatives for whom he could do a favour, who would then be beholden to him, and began to smile. These city types, he could mould them like putty in his hands.

  When they had carried out their bags and got into the jeep, he cleared their table, flicked it over with his dishcloth, now richly and satisfyingly blackened, and took the dishes behind the shack where a tap ran onto stones. He could close the place now with a sense of a day well spent.

  The girl Shalini protested on seeing Hotel Honeymoon and did not want to dismount from the jeep, but they pointed out how late it was and how unlikely they were to find anything else at this hour. She went into her room sulkily, making Chand feel guilty, but not Bhatia. Bhatia had a strange sliding smile on his face and Chand could almost see the obscene thoughts behind it. He began removing his shoes, his clothes, reluctantly, while Bhatia stretched out on his cot under the light bulb that hung from the ceiling, flies adhering to its whole length.

  On the other side of the partition wall—it was scarcely more than a screen—they could hear the girl undressing, item by item. Chand could see Bhatia imagining what those items were. He gave a snort of disgust, but could say nothing: the screen did not provide privacy of speech any more than of action. He threw himself onto his cot so that the strings creaked, and folded his arms across his chest: somehow he had to endure the night. 'Bloody Balram,' he muttered before he shut his eyes to its irritations.

  In the morning Balram appeared at Hotel Honeymoon as the film crew were drinking tea and trying to eat greasy eggs with even greasier bread, hardly able to speak to one another for anger at the flea-bitten night they had endured. He brought along with him a boy. Who, what was he? An amalgam of virtues! Balram assured them: honesty, diligence, experience—

  'What experience?' Bhatia interrupted, discarding the hopeless breakfast and choosing a cigarette in its place. 'At what? What has he done?'

  Balram took a step back, spreading out his hands at this obviously unnecessary and offensive question. 'Everything,' he stated with absolute conviction, and what more could be required than that?

  'Such as?' The girl picked up Chand's scepticism although it was not for her to voice it. She was only the assistant, not the producer or the photographer. Still, she could not entirely suppress her opinion. It grew from the zeal she brought to the team of one whose first job it was out in the big world.

  The boy stood by, his posture slack, his eyes downcast, studying his nails—some of them were flecked with crimson—as he permitted Balram to speak for him; surely it was too much to expect him to do so, this boy fed by his mother's hand just this morning, his hair oiled and combed by her, his clean shirt picked out for him. And now it was for Balram, his mother's brother, to do the rest and secure the job for him—if that was what they wished. What the job was had not been divulged to him, but he had heard the thrilling word—movie—in the dialogue between brother and sister last night. Movie—now he knew about movies. Once a week he bought a ticket at the Picture Palace and saw whatever it offered. The confidence that he could step into that, the world of movies, had been growing through the morning's preparations but now was somewhat reduced in the presence of these three common-looking people in their disappointing hotel. Besides, he was at a certain disadvantage here: this was the hotel where he had once washed dishes and from where he had been thrown out for unsatisfactory work. What else had they expected?

  'Tell him, just tell him what you want,' Balram was saying in a loud voice as if to drown out all objections, even unspoken ones, 'and he will do.'

  Having no alternative, it was with him in their jeep that they drove to the spot that Balram had picked for them as the site of the entrance to an illegal phosphate mine. The boy's name was Nakhu. He seemed in a state of disbelief that this was happening to him and whether it would be good or bad was not yet possible to tell. Could it, would it lead to his dancing on-screen with a bejewelled Bombay belle? Or would it only—

  And abruptly the answer arrived: they had drawn up at the milestone Balram had suggested, under the overhang of a hill dense with shrub oak, at the edge of a precipice that dropped steeply downhill to what they could not see. It became immediately clear that the boy had not only never been here before but was incredulous that they seemed to think he had and that they expected him to dismount and let himself down a stony track that only a goat could have tackled, slipping and sliding downhill in an avalanche of rubble, taking all manner of risks with his nearly new jeans and his good shoes. He stood hesitating and teetering when Bhatia shouted, 'This is where Balram said we'd find the entrance to the mine. OK, so now take us there.'

  Chand and Shalini, exchanging looks, decided to take over the lead, asking the others to follow as they stumbled and slid their way down to the promised scene of environmental degradation they might film.

  The degradation did materialise, even without Nakhu's help. 'Look, look,' Shalini cried as they came upon a heap of fallen logs and charred stumps. 'Loggers have been here!'

  'Then why go further?' Bhatia had already given up following them and was panting: all this exercise was not for him. 'Forget the phosphate mine, let's just film here and get it over with.'

  Chand and Shalini exchanged disgusted looks. To them the effort was an essential part of their undertaking. If they had wanted to do something easy, they could have filmed in a studio, conducted interviews, put together a collage. But they had decided on filming actual sites, and sites would have to be found, perpetrators tracked down, caught red-handed if possible. Leaving Bhatia and Nakhu to follow, they continued down the slippery gravel, grasping at any bushes that seemed rooted, skirting agaves that sent out dangerously spiked spears, and got ahead—or, rather, further down the hillsid
e.

  It was dusty going and both were panting.

  'Where are we going?' Shalini finally asked, stopping to wipe her face of perspiration. The dark glasses were proving a distinct encumbrance. 'How far did Balram say we had to go to get to the mine?'

  Chand shook his head to show he didn't know but, on hearing the doubt in her voice, paused as well. It had occurred to him that the lower they went, the further they would have to climb on the way back. And even if they managed it, it was very doubtful that their equipment and equipment carriers would. 'That bloody Balram,' he swore. 'What sort of guide has he given us?'

  'Where is he? And where is Bhatia?'

  'With Nakhu.'

  'Shall we wait?'

  They stood and listened. Down below, concealed by the bushes, they could hear a stream running, a dog barking, someone hallooing, and up on the road they had left, a truck slowly grinding by.

  'We should have asked a few more people for directions,' Shalini said.

  Chand gave her a bitter look. He did not need her, his assistant, to give him advice. He was in charge of the project and it was time to take over. 'I'll go down to the river—they said there was a river—you take another direction, then double back. We'll meet at the jeep. Tell Bhatia to wait. Tell him not to risk bringing the equipment with him till we find the site.'

  Shalini seemed about to protest, not sure if she wanted to be left alone, but reminded herself that Chand was her boss. He was the one who had given her this chance to show her mettle. So she nodded and struck off along a narrow track that cut into the side of the hill. Goat droppings on the stones showed it was used by others. It should be the way to somewhere.

  After a while she realised what a relief it was to be on her own, not to feel the two men were keeping an eye on her, a critical, judging eye. She stopped to pick the berries of a wild raspberry bush, eating them with enjoyment even if they were tart and dry and bristly. Crushing them between her teeth, she found they revived a childhood memory of a holiday with pony rides, ice cream, a band playing in a gazebo on the Mall. Her family was not one that could often afford a holiday, it had been a rare one and memorable, but, until now, it had sunk so far back into her subconscious, she had forgotten it. Now she sniffed at the pine sap in the air with the pleasure of a renewed memory.

  She almost forgot she was supposed to be looking for the entrance to the phosphate mine, or the evidence of illegal logging. She concentrated on making her way along the track, grasping at grasses here, an overhanging branch there, watching small yellow birds dart low over the lantana bushes that crowded against her legs. When her hand brushed a nettle that seemed to set it on fire, she had to stop and suck at the burn, standing under the overhang of a boulder that jutted out of the hillside, obstructing her way.

  It seemed to be a natural barrier, the track was hardly likely to continue beyond it, but curiosity made her wonder if it did. The uncertainty had an edge not only of curiosity but also of fear—not exactly fear, but certainly a chill, an intimation of danger.

  She would go round the rock only to see if the track continued, then turn back. As she held onto it, edging her way cautiously around, various possibilities entered her mind like brief passing shadows—of a snake in hiding, or a man with bad intentions. Or simply of getting lost. In a strange place. She was, after all, a city girl.

  What she came upon was a kind of glade, so secluded it might have been undiscovered and untrodden by anyone. A wild place, half concealed from view by an enormous chestnut tree. It could have been the lair of a wild animal or perhaps even a secret hermitage.

  Instead, as she peered past the overhanging branches of the tree, she saw something entirely different—a place surely ordered by human design, human hands, not nature. Nature could not have created those circles within circles of perfectly identical stones in rings of pigeon shades of grey and blue and mauve, or hoisted fallen branches into sculpted shapes, or filled the cracks in granite and slate with what seemed to be garlands of beads and petals. It looked like a bower—but of bird, beast or man? Any one of these was barely credible.

  It seemed totally deserted, as composed and still as a work of art. Or nature. Or both, in uncommon harmony. The place thrummed with meaning. But what was the meaning? Was it a place of worship? But of what? There was no idol—unless that rock, that pattern of pebbles or that stripped branch constituted an idol. It actually seemed antithetical to any form or concept.

  So what there was was a secret. Shalini gave a quiver at having found it and felt a sudden desire to give a shout, a halloo, about her find, when she became aware of someone who had been out of sight behind some rocks emerging into the glade. She caught a glimpse of a bowed head, a sleeve, a hand wielding—what? what?

  She turned and ran.

  When she heaved herself over the lip of the hill, hauling herself up by hands that were scratched and bleeding, and digging the toes of her boots into the gravelly earth, breathing hard from both fear and exertion, she found the jeep standing where they had left it—and desperately feared it might not be. Then, seeing Bhatia and Nakhu sitting there in sullen silence, her relief turned quickly to annoyance at the surly looks they directed at her.

  'Where's Chand? We've been waiting for the two of you to come and tell us if you had found anything. We've been waiting for hours'.

  This was unfair, if true. Heatedly, she responded, 'We thought you were to follow us!'

  'With all this stuff to carry? D'you think I could let it all go and get smashed? Or stolen from the jeep?'

  This made sense of course and she pulled herself up into the jeep and sat there, unscrewing the top of a Thermos to gulp water and then wipe her face with her sleeve. Nakhu watched her inquisitively now that she had removed her dark glasses. She glared at him and put her glasses back on firmly, so.

  It was a long wait till Chand finally returned to report on sites of illegal logging he had found, but there was no way they could carry their equipment down there: it was unfortunate that Nakhu was only partly and not completely a donkey.

  'So let's just get back to town and find the office of the timber company or the mining business, and do interviews there,' Bhatia said with all the authority of reason, and neither Shalini nor Chand could put up a protest.

  Bhatia told them of a tandoori restaurant he had seen near their hotel that looked promising and later that day, having washed and changed, they went there for dinner. But when he found the food was over-spiced and greasy, it was Bhatia who complained loudest and declared he would go to bed early, which left Shalini and Chand sitting in the hissing blaze of a Petromax to finish the last of the flat, warm beer they had been served, reluctant to go back to their flea-ridden rooms at the Honeymoon Hotel.

  'So, we didn't get what we came for,' Chand sighed, seeing the expedition coming to the verge of collapse.

  Shalini pushed her glasses up over the bridge of her nose. 'No,' she agreed, then ventured, 'Perhaps we can look at something else now that we're here.'

  'What?' Chand's snort of contempt showed what he thought of the once-alluring, now decrepit and degraded mountains.

  'I saw a strange place down below, on the way downhill,' Shalini admitted in a tone of unaccustomed uncertainty. 'I could show it to you.'

  'Why?'

  She would have to explain. It was a strange place she had stumbled on, made entirely of nature, yet not by nature. Someone had made it. Or was making it. Some kind of artist perhaps.

  Now artists were a species for whom Chand had a grudging but profound respect. What they did was what he aspired to—or once had. Then, he had imagined his training in the year at film school in Pune would lead to it. Those had been the best times he had known. But he was also bitterly aware of how far he had strayed from any artistic ideals.

  'And what kind of artist would that be?' he growled.

  'I don't know. But you've heard of that man in Chandigarh, a road engineer or something, who collected all the scrap from his road projects and built
a kind of sculpture garden of it? Kept it hidden because the land he built it on didn't belong to him? Then it was found and he became famous? What's his name, do you know?'

  Chand threw her a surprised and wondering look in spite of himself.

  Shalini took it for an aroused interest, and curiosity. 'We could go down tomorrow and look at it. Without Bhatia and Nakhu.'

  That too appealed to Chand. He had had enough of those two, and he missed his girlfriend in Delhi, the easy-going, relaxed relationship he had with her, a divorcee in print journalism with whom he could have a drink at the Press Club any evening, and who seemed content with just that, someone to accompany her. He glanced at Shalini and decided he wouldn't mind an afternoon in her company, looking for this artist, this art—whatever it was.

  Bhatia had no desire to accompany them on another bonejolting ride in the jeep to nowhere. In fact, he begged them to leave him behind—his stomach was in turmoil, he was sure it was that tandoori chicken—he couldn't think of going anywhere. Instead, he would track down 'contacts' right there in town. At the photographer's studio, his first stop since he needed some film and some lenses, he found the town was already aware of their presence and project. The photographer, chewing upon a wad of betel leaves in his cheek, asked juicily, 'You are making a movie, I hear?'

  Bhatia, tired of explaining the difference between movies and television, snapped, 'What did you hear about it?'

  The photographer shrugged, laughed. 'Many come to make movies here,' he said, which was no longer an original remark. 'Everybody likes the scenery here.'

  'We're not interested in scenery,' Bhatia assured him and then, thinking this man might prove a 'contact', expanded: 'We are looking into illegal mines, illegal logging, reasons why this scenery of yours is getting spoilt.'

  His instinct proved right. Not only did the photographer plant his elbows on the glass counter and begin giving him the inside story of the corruption and skullduggery going on in the town, but several of the men who had been slouching in the doorway, watching the street for something interesting to happen—so little did in the off-season—edged deeper into the shop and began to add their own stories, and suggestions. Bhatia grew more and more comfortable: this was his scene, this was how he had always known the project would work. Accepting betel leaves, handing out cigarettes, he asked his new acquaintances if they could set up some interviews for him.