by Rumer Godden
… “For an Uberoi you need it,” Kanu had said. “All Uberois first class, modern, not like running-down old hotel …”
‘It seems,’ Mr Cromartie went on, ‘that Patna Hall is in financial trouble and he swears that the stealing of the Shiva statue was only a pretence. In fact, it was carefully planned, and by whom? This Mrs McIndoe – good old Miss Sanni herself. She had the fake one made – Kanu says she knows every image-maker or sculptor in the region. It was she who switched the statues and – I guess under her colonel husband’s advice – sent it to be sold. Kanu says he understands: “She did it to save Patna Hall.”’
‘Hm,’ Walter had said. ‘Who told him that?’
‘I assume Mrs McIndoe.’ Mr Cromartie was haughty now.
‘In a court case,’ Walter said, ‘we can’t assume. We have to prove.’
‘Isn’t it proof?’ Mr Cromartie had argued. ‘Kanu was privy to everything. She treated him like a son.’
‘So he says, but mothers don’t tell their sons everything, nor sons their mothers.’
‘But don’t you see? You all seem to set such store by this Professor’s testimony but Kanu’s story explains why Mrs McIndoe wouldn’t let anyone call the police and wanted it all to be kept hush-hush. It fits like a glove. You can’t deny that.’
‘I don’t, but from what I’ve heard of her it doesn’t fit Miss Sanni.’
‘Why?’
‘Kanu himself says the hotel is in financial difficulty yet she finds the money to send him on an expensive course – they always are expensive – just to help him further his ambitions. That sounds beneficent to me and not like someone who would make the statue vanish and blame it on someone else. As for Kanu, if she did tell him in confidence, he took the first opportunity to betray her. Mr Cromartie, why do you think he told you?’
‘For money,’ Mr Cromartie had said, as if that explained everything.
‘Then,’ said Walter, ‘for money he would betray you too. No, Mr Cromartie, I’m sure Sir George Fothergill would advise you not to proceed with this case.’
‘Drop it? When I’ve just discovered—’
‘It’s too tricky. You might lose a lot of money.’
‘That’s my business, so don’t bloody well try to talk me out of it. I have a watertight case. The statue was not stolen and I am not a receiver of stolen goods.’
‘I had one more try,’ Walter told Michael. ‘I felt I had to.’
… ‘Mr Cromartie, I admire your courage but you will have the whole weight of the Government of India against you, and they’ve brought in an added power, the God Shiva.’
‘I don’t listen to that sort of crap.’
‘No, but a jury might if it comes to it. In law, we’re taught to respect other people’s beliefs, and the God Shiva has great influence.’
‘Balls!’…
‘And he left as suddenly as he’d come,’ Walter finished.
‘I think he ran away,’ said Michael, and cried, ‘Hail, Shiva, Jai Shiv Shankara.’
Now, to see the Nataraja Michael had to be provided with an official pass. ‘They have to know exactly who you are,’ Mr Bhatacharya had told him. The police had left the Shiva in Sparkes’s strongroom, ‘Where it couldn’t be more safe, and we have given them a security guard round the clock.’
Michael’s arms ached from the inoculations and one had swollen, but with every prick he had felt more alert, expectant.
He made his way to a high old building in the quiet of St James’s Place. Premises seemed the right word for Sparkes’s. Michael knew it was one of the world’s chief specialists in oriental sculpture, paintings, objets d’art: Cromartie chose well, he thought. A commissionaire in a braided uniform was standing outside.
Michael was early, and spent the time looking in the windows. Though they were high and of plate glass, they were almost empty. In one was a sixth-century bronze incense burner. But for the card Michael would not have known what it was. The next window held only a Chinese ivory fan lying spread in all its delicacy on a length of crimson brocade, but another had a vast Tibetan banner with flowers, demons and flames in brilliant colours. Michael stood, trying to take it in, until the commissionaire beckoned him.
Inside it was more like a salon than a shop. He was met by a polished and poised young woman. ‘Mr Dean? Good morning. I’m Julia Macdonald and I look after our smaller artifacts.’ She offered him tea: ‘China or herbal?’ Out of curiosity Michael chose herbal. It came in small, handleless jade cups and he could not help thinking, Miss Julia, you’re showing off.
‘You’re the barrister for the defence?’ she was saying. ‘Have you met Mr Cromartie?’
‘No, but I gather he’s not the kind of client Sparkes’s would enjoy.’
‘Well, I felt we were a bit high-handed. I’m surprised he isn’t suing us. There was quite a scene.’ Julia Macdonald laughed then sobered. ‘And he did bring us the Nataraja, but here I am wasting your time when you must be longing to see it.’
Michael got up with alacrity – the herbal tea had been disgusting.
She called to the commissionaire and he brought in another man, who led the way down a flight of steps to a narrow passage without windows – Michael guessed it was below the shop. Then, in a small hall or vault, they were faced with double steel doors which the man opened with a combination of keys. The room behind was instantly lit, flooded with light by inset rays from overhead and along the walls. In the centre, set on a high table that fitted its plinth, was the Shiva, dancing in his hoop of miniature flames. Michael caught his breath.
The Nataraja seemed far larger than it was, dominating the room. The dancing limbs were naked in eternal energy. ‘The drum in his upper right hand makes the primordial sound of creation,’ whispered Julia Macdonald. ‘His left upper arm holds a flame, the flame of destruction, while the left points to his dancing left foot, which means release, and he is treading on a dwarf who lies prostrate, the dwarf of all ignorance and prejudice. Shiva wears men’s and women’s jewellery because although he had wives, his attachment to the world is without gender.’
Michael nearly said, ‘Hush.’ He wanted only to look. ‘“Statue” is too still a word for this. He’s living,’ he whispered, as if to himself but it stopped Julia.
‘Shiva is life,’ she whispered back.
‘Yes, look at his face, utterly detached, yet there’s something in-dwelling.’ Michael stopped in surprise. ‘That’s an odd word for me to use.’
‘It’s exactly right.’ There was no trace of the polished, poised, a little pretentious Miss Macdonald. ‘I come in here every night before I go home to find out what it is, but of course – it is in-dwelling. Yes, I might even bring him marigold garlands.’ She had recovered herself, and as Michael left, she said, ‘Mr Cromartie swears he bought the Nataraja in good faith. Maybe he did. Anything may happen but I know I wish …’
‘Wish what?’
‘That Shiva should go back to where he belongs. India.’
‘I can only try,’ said Michael.
‘So you leave tomorrow?’
‘Yes,’ said Michael. ‘I still can’t believe it.’ He had come to say goodbye to Sir George and Honor.
‘Have you all you need? Walter given you your papers?’
‘Everything, sir. I think he’d quite like to come.’
‘I can’t imagine that!’ Honor laughed.
Sir George got up – he did not believe in protracting things. ‘Well, goodbye and good luck. I’m sure you’ll do well.’
‘If I can have a free hand.’ Michael was Michael to the last.
‘Good God!’ Sir George expostulated, when Michael had gone. ‘There’s conceit for you – laying down conditions!’
‘George, he has to. He has no idea what he’ll find. Nor have we, but to do your best you have to believe in your case. I’m sure Michael does and will fight for it, no matter what it costs him. Isn’t Michael the fighting angel?’
INDIA
In his hired c
ar, an Indian-made Ambassador, Michael drove from the airport at Ghandara, Patna Hall’s nearest small town, along a dusty golden plain where white oxen were ploughing small fields and the road was filled with people, rickshaws and little black-and-gold three-wheeled taxis he did not remember having seen before. Then he came through a pair of great open gates, under a tall portico.
The first thing he heard as he got out of the car was the sound of the sea, although the portico faced inland. There seemed no one about so, taking his briefcase which he always kept with him, he walked round the house to find the beach.
The hotel stood high on its plinth of basements, which Michael knew held Henry Bertram’s wine cellar and ice room. The house itself was painted blue, now faded, a tribute to the indigo, and a wide flight of steps led to the lower veranda – as he looked up there seemed to be two, one on each floor stretching its full length. The flat roof was parapeted but he could see more rooms up there.
As he walked round, he discovered that Patna Hall was quite a demesne. There were domestic quarters, and, though he did not know it then, a separate house for the two head servants, Samuel and Hannah. There was a gatehouse, a side court with a row of offices, a large vegetable garden, a poultry yard, even a private cemetery. Behind the hotel was the village, but all Michael could see of it were palms and a few thatched roofs.
On the other side of the house, facing the sea, was a garden with a wide lawn, beds of English and Indian flowers and a path of stepping stones bordered with shells that led down to the hotel’s private, netted beach. As he walked down towards it the sound of the surf was a roar. He followed the stones and came on to dry white sands that stretched away on either side into dunes of feathery trees. Tamarisk, he guessed, and behind them were what he thought must be mango groves.
Beyond the sea had lost its sunlight and was beginning to glimmer. On the foreshore of hard wet sand, the great rollers of the Coromandel coast rose – he was amazed at their height – and crashed down, sending ripples far up the sand almost to his feet.
‘Sahib, I think you get your feet wet.’
It was a man’s voice, deep toned and speaking English; a giant of a man. It was too dark to see clearly but even in the fading light his skin was brown gold. He wore nothing but a loincloth and a short white chaddar shoulder wrap, and hanging from his hands were local fishermen’s helmets, made of woven wicker, immensely strong with a pointed peak, to break the waves – otherwise they stun you, Michael learned. The man was hanging them on a rail to dry. ‘For hotel bathing guests,’ he explained. ‘I Thambi, Patna Hall lifeguard.’
He spoke English slowly, as if he had by heart what he needed to say. ‘If Sahib swim tomorrow I help him.’ He gestured towards a high diving tower and a stack of surf boards.
‘Thank you, I will,’ said Michael.
There was a pause until Thambi said, ‘I am thinking you must be legal gentleman from England.’ He laughed. ‘And I thinking, too, that he will be important, older, with spectacles and perhaps a beard.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, I like, and pleased to see you. Miss Sanni very not happy about it at all.’
‘So you know about the case?’
‘Everybody know it. How not?’
‘But you have no idea who did it?’
At once Michael sensed a caginess. For all his impressive presence, a lifeguard was a servant at Patna Hall. It isn’t a cliché, thought Michael, to say that no one knows more about their masters than those who serve them, but he was sure that if Thambi knew anything about the Shiva he was not going to tell.
The sun was now completely gone. A little chill wind blew. Thambi gave a shiver. ‘I think better I take you to hotel.’ They walked up the stone path, then he showed Michael round to the portico and opened the car boot, took out the suitcase and brought it into the hall. ‘I put car away. Reception is there. Salaam, Sahib.’
The hall was panelled, as was the staircase leading up from it. Doors opened into the ground-floor veranda and the dining room. There was a fine grandfather clock, two carved low chests, and behind a long counter a young Indian waited with his telephone and ledgers. He was formally dressed, wearing a collar and tie – there was nothing casual about the service at Patna Hall. Kanu, Michael guessed.
‘Good evening, Mr Dean. We are expecting you. If you would just sign here, and I must have your passport, please. May I say welcome. Please call me Kanu.’
To Michael, there was something too glib – as if Kanu was copying what he had learned on his course in London. He was very good-looking, in a childish way – the thick hair that must have been curly once, long eyelashes, the charming smile, which vanished as a door opened. ‘Auntie Sanni is coming. She always like to welcome guests herself.’ He sounded a little peevish.
Kanu should not have said ‘Auntie Sanni’. To her staff and most guests she was Miss Sanni. ‘Auntie’, in Eurasian parlance, is the title given by children to any grown-up female, but with Mrs McIndoe not everyone was allowed to use it, and before she spoke to Michael, she said sharply, ‘Kanu, you should be at the bar. Go and put on your jacket at once.’ Then she advanced. ‘Mr Dean, we are so very glad to meet you.’
Michael saw a massive old woman wearing what he was to recognize as one of her usual voluminous cotton dresses that hung like a tent to her feet; she called them her Mother Hubbards, from the garments missionaries used to hand out to make the native women what they called respectable. ‘Well, I am a native,’ she would tell Michael. She had country sandals: ‘They suit me and are very comfortable.’ She said ‘very’ in the Eurasian way so that it became ‘veree’ with a little lift. ‘Well, I expect I am Eurasian. I expect my mother was Indian, maybe her mother. I never knew them. He didn’t marry my mother.’
‘Did you want him to?’
‘Why? That’s men’s business.’
To Sir George she would have been illegitimate, but to Auntie Sanni it was ‘natural’. Her skin was of the mixed-race complexion, the pale yellowish brown of old ivory and unwrinkled which, though she was old, made her look young. Eternally young, thought Michael, with her head of short curls, still auburn and glossy, while her eyes looked curiously light, sea-colour, now green, now blue. Mixed, like mine, thought Michael, but set wide like a child’s, although again he was to learn, as every perspicacious person who came to Patna Hall and every business person with whom she dealt soon learnt, while, above all, every servant and villager knew, that Auntie Sanni was no child.
‘And so you have come about this unfortunate case.’ Michael knew that the sea-blue eyes were taking him in – not only from head to foot, but heart and soul. He had not thought, until this case, that he believed in souls.
‘I hope I can help,’ he said, ‘but I’ve come really to help me understand.’
‘There could be no greater help,’ said Auntie Sanni, ‘no greater,’ she said. It was mysterious that at once he had ceased to think of her as Miss Sanni, certainly not as Mrs McIndoe. ‘Mr Dean, I have to confess that this case is very objectionable to me, but come, we will not talk of it tonight. You must be tired. Hannah, our housekeeper, will show you to your room. We have put you in a bedroom on the front where you can catch the sea breezes. Then perhaps you will join me and my husband, Colonel McIndoe, at our veranda bar and have a drink before dinner. Ah! Here is Hannah come to show you upstairs. She and her husband, Samuel, are the pillars of Patna Hall.’
Hannah was a big woman, though not compared with her mistress. She wore a crisp white cotton sari, bordered with red, and an old-fashioned red bodice high on the neck. Her scant grey hair was pinned in a knob at the back of her head, but in spite of this simplicity she was laden with silver jewellery: the lobes of her ears hung down with the weight of earrings, she had several necklaces, bracelets, finger rings, and toe rings on her gnarled bare feet. She beckoned to a houseboy in white trousers and brass-buttoned tunic, with a small round black embroidered hat on his head, who ran down the stairs to carry Michael’s suitcase. O
nce again Michael did not let his briefcase out of his hand.
They showed him to a high-ceilinged room off the top veranda, with a mosquito-netted bed, wardrobe, dressing-table and stool, a comfortable wicker chair, a table, flowers, a newspaper. Everything, thought Michael. ‘Give Kancha your keys,’ suggested Hannah as Michael stepped outside to look at the view. Before he came back, filled with it, Kancha had unpacked, putting things orderly in drawers, hair brushes on the dressing-table, ties on a rack, jackets and trousers on hangers; he was already laying out on the bed a clean shirt and the fine linen suit Michael had instinctively brought. ‘As I had guessed,’ he wrote later to Honor, ‘at Patna Hall we dress for dinner.’
When he had bathed and changed he did not go straight down but stopped again on the high veranda outside his room and looked far over the garden to the dark sea, quiet now, only the rollers glimmering white in the starlight. He stood there a moment, feeling cleansed and fresh, letting the breeze blow cool through his hair. It brought a scent of flowers, strong and sweet, and the hours of travel, closed in the small plastic world of aeroplanes, dropped away. Then, A drink would be nice, and he turned to the stairs, but at their foot he paused. Why not explore?
The rooms were all high and floored with red stone. Michael looked into the dining room, where it was evident that a ritual was going on: tables being meticulously laid by white-clad waiters, vases, each holding a single rose, brought in. The stone shone: indeed, every morning a posse of village women came in to sit on the floor, moving slowly backwards as they pushed empty wine bottles, their bases wrapped in waxed cloth, until it gleamed.
