by Rumer Godden
‘Nor did he most of the time. You didn’t know him as we knew him, my mother and I. When I think of the contrast between his life and ours, I boil with rage. He was usually away on one of his digs, making quite spectacular discoveries – I have some of that gift. He spent all he had on himself. It was Mum and her ordinary job who kept us going in our miserable little house. “He must have somewhere to go when he needs us,” she used to say. He never sent any money and she, of course, never took her difficulties to the social services.’
‘Why not?’ asked the Inspector.
‘Because she loved him. I hated him – and a child’s hatred is a terrible thing – though in a way, I suppose, I too was under his spell, so I should be grateful. He did at least call me Artemis, which was outside her sphere. Hers was a very little sphere, but, oh, how faithful and forgiving. He was cruel. I expect I got that from him. Yes, I’m cruel too. I see now that she maddened him. If only, I used to think, she would round on him just once! When I was about ten, after he had hit her – oh, yes, he used to beat her up and then sit covering his eyes in remorse, he always had remorse until next time – I got a chair and hit him over the head with it as hard as I could. After that he began to show an interest, even pride, in me, but all the same I made a vow – and it wasn’t a childish one – that I would never let a man be in a position where he could treat me like that, and never trust one. Until I met you, Michael. But it’s better not to talk about that now.’
After a moment, she went on, ‘My mother was an outstandingly pretty girl – otherwise he wouldn’t have married her – and I inherited their looks. I determined, again not childishly, to make myself fit for what I meant to do. I went in for athletics, running – I won races and was particularly good at swimming. They said I was a natural – I have silver cups and shields but they were only a means to an end. Mum helped. She never let me go out to work as I demanded – it had to be school, the university. Luckily I got grants – but we were always poor, going without things, hardly able to buy what we needed. All the same, she was proud of me. I got a first in archaeology, the only subject we knew anything about, yet she wanted to send me to drama school, knowing I had a secret ambition to be an actress.’
‘You would have made a very good one,’ said Professor Ellen bitterly.
‘Oh, Ellen, I’m so sorry, I truly am. Soon, there was no question of my being an actress. My mum,’ her voice quivered, ‘was worn down. Being an actress was too uncertain: I had to earn a salary. But luck came my way – I believe in luck if you give it plenty of help. I gained a post. There were twenty other applicants but I got it. I used my father’s name as a footstool and perhaps that helped. The post was as a research assistant in the Oriental Antiquities department of the British Museum, which I knew well. In fact, it was there that I saw my first Shiva Nataraja – they have a fine one. The keeper, Sir Richard Crewe, said he noticed me, a student, standing there gazing at it. Maybe it was that which made him take me.
‘He was extraordinarily kind, taught me from his own wide knowledge, put books my way and, more importantly, believed in me. It was he who first told me I ought to go to India. I couldn’t because my mother was so ill. Then she died – just when I could give her a little comfort and joy.’ Again Artemis was silent, biting her lip. ‘One day I saw an article on Professor Ellen’s tours. I showed it to Sir Richard. “It sounds the very thing,” he said. “South India. That’s the cradle of art. By all means go. I’ll try to get you a grant,” and he gave such a glowing testimonial of me to Ellen that she offered me the trip free of charge if I would act as her assistant. You see, it all began to fit in.’
‘I trusted you,’ said Professor Ellen.
‘I know you did. Sir Richard was pleased. He said, “It will be of great help to you in your career.” He didn’t know that all the time I wasn’t aiming at museums, no matter how prestigious, but, to me, the far more interesting and lucrative world of buying and selling. He unwittingly helped me in that way too. “I go to India whenever I can,” he told me, “and send out my spies,” but they looked in temples, burial grounds, far villages. They never thought of looking in Auntie Sanni’s drawing room where I found the little Shiva Nataraja, alone, unprotected and accessible.’
‘And I told you how valuable it was,’ mourned Professor Ellen. ‘God forgive me.’
‘It still needed three years. I had to think how to take the statue, make its replica and, more difficult still, how to smuggle it out of India. It would have been easy to lift it, but with Ellen there, a hue and cry would have been immediate. Every way out would be watched, airports, railways, docks, ships. There had to be another way. Anyway, I didn’t waste that first trip. I hired a car and went exploring. I found quite a few small antiques – bowls and vases, an ancient cooking spoon, a ninth-century amulet that Sir Richard bought. “You do have an eye!” he said. I went to the Gul Mahal and met Natram and Mahdhoo. I learned some Telegu. I can have infinite patience when I want something badly enough, like a cat waiting for a bird. Yet I think I must have been as blind as you were, Inspector. With all my explorations I had never explored our village. Now I began to make friends here – real friends. Then, when I went to visit Veeranna, I found the solution. Like you, Michael, I saw at once what an artist he is – was,’ she corrected herself, and she told the Inspector, ‘Unlike you, it took Michael to see that gleam of resentment in Veeranna’s eyes. Oh, Michael!’
‘Never mind Michael. Go on.’
‘Veeranna’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather had all been potters and image-makers so it was in his blood and I guessed he could copy anything exactly, and, given the means, could do it in metal. Somehow I would find the means but I still had to go step by step. First I had to get his trust and liking.’
‘And how did you do that – you who can do everything?’
‘All too easily. Veeranna loved whisky but could not afford it so I got him some. He was ambitious and knew he could work in metal if he were trained. I told him I would arrange it because he had been chosen by Shiva himself to do a great work. He positively shone.’
‘Poor, unfortunate Veeranna.’ Professor Ellen was full of pity but Artemis disregarded her.
‘I still had to take it step by step but they were firm steps. I knew Sri Satya Narayana long before you heard of him. While I was at the British Museum I had written letters to him from Sir Richard and I went to see him. I had hoped he would tell me if there was a potter or sculptor in the district, but now there was Veeranna. I wrote anonymously to Sri Satya Narayana, as if from a college of art centred in Delhi, asking if he would take Veeranna – under another name, of course – as a pupil and teach him the age-old cire perdu method on six-week courses, three times a year, and offering what I knew was an exorbitant fee. Then I sent the money in cash and with it Veeranna, who called himself Gopal. I paid his air fares, and it all went as I planned. Veeranna told me that Sri Narayana had told him that he was the most promising pupil he had ever had. Veeranna did three courses with him before the old man died. Then he worked at home, secretly in that little room off the big one where he hid the Shiva. You will remember I was to take it to Sri Narayana for rescue treatment but I took it instead to Veeranna – just as well because Sri Narayana died.
‘Veeranna had the Shiva for about four months, working on the copy. I provided materials, wax, clay, another kiln, tools. The villagers were so used to him drying his images in the shade that they never noticed that this one was different, and over and over again I told him that if he let out a word Shiva would punish him. I also had to manipulate you, Ellen.’
‘Me!’ Professor Ellen was indignant.
‘Yes. Talk you into telling Auntie Sanni the Shiva needed treatment for salt and you got her to let me take it supposedly to Sri Narayana when I went to Kashmir for the summer and pick it up four months later and bring it home. I had calculated that that was the time Veeranna would need.
‘Then I, with Auntie Sanni and the household, put the Nataraja
back in its niche. Only it was not the real Nataraja. That was securely hidden behind the rafters of Veeranna’s house. The niche had been made ready with flowers and lights as all the household came to worship. You know already that it was Ellen who eventually discovered the fake. What you don’t know is what I had to do next.
‘I had been perplexed, because when I had the Shiva how could I smuggle it out? Then I hit on the idea of the film unit, and engaged the two men to do a short film of the caves. I had worked with them before and knew that among their lighting equipment was a small cylinder made of black fibreboard that held the baby legs tripod, which would just fit the Nataraja. Late on the night before we left, when the crew had packed and put all the equipment ready in the hall, Veeranna and I removed the baby legs – he promised he would sell them – and put the Nataraja, well wrapped in soft rags and paper, into the cylinder, sealed it and put it back, because if you want to smuggle anything through an airport, the baggage of a tour or film unit is almost always untouched, especially if there is someone there in authority. As you were, Ellen.’
‘You mean I brought the Shiva out!’ Professor Ellen sounded faint.
‘You certainly did. All I had to do in New York was quietly take the cylinder and get in a taxi as fast as I could. It was clever, wasn’t it?’
‘You’re a devil.’
‘I agree. There was one thing more I had to do, perhaps more cruel than anything else. On our last night I had to take away everything I had given Veeranna for making the Nataraja – tools, materials, wax. I couldn’t risk anyone finding them. I promised him I would send him money so that he could buy what he needed gradually, which would have been believable, but I shall never forget his look of agony as he helped me pack it all into the car to the last scrap of wax or shredded clay.’
‘You forgot about the baby legs.’
‘I didn’t know about them. First thing in the morning I drove to our little sea port, hired a boat and dumped the rest of the tools far out to sea. I didn’t take Veeranna with me – he might have tried to retrieve them. No one will ever find them. There, that’s all.’
‘By no means all.’ Inspector Dutta came nearer. ‘Miss Knox, I put it to you that yesterday evening you came back here from the Gul Mahal, not to fetch your notes but to visit the potter, Veeranna.’
‘Of course, and to have a drink with him. As I have said before.’
‘But this was a very different drink.’
‘Yes.’
‘Now, Miss Knox—’
But Michael could bear no more. ‘Artemis. Why, oh, why, did you come back to Patna Hall? You were safely in New York.’
‘Yes, but I couldn’t keep away. It was like a call. You see, it wasn’t finished.’
‘You had the Shiva.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You didn’t?’ It was like a chorus.
‘No. It all turned bitter, bitter. Hasn’t it ever happened to you? You set your ambition on something, plan for it, work for it and when you attain it you don’t want it. In New York I kept the Nataraja hidden for weeks. I dared not look at it. At last I gave it to a good needy young dealer I knew, Narayan, on condition he didn’t mention me. I didn’t want money, though he tried to make me take a share. Like you, Auntie Sanni, I couldn’t take money for Shiva, and Narayan sold it to Mr Cromartie.
‘I thought it was finished and I could come back and it would all be the same. Instead, I found you, Inspector Dutta, and Michael. Oh, Michael. If you hadn’t come with your insight, everything would have been all right, but you saw – and said you must tell Inspector Dutta. You would never have guessed on your own,’ she threw at the Inspector. ‘Veeranna held out against you, Michael, because he liked and trusted you, but with Inspector Dutta’s “methods”.’ She shuddered. ‘At least I saved him from that.
‘Veeranna was the only one who could tell the truth. At first I thought I would tell Inspector Dutta myself. I thought that was why I had had that call. I forgot that everywhere you go you have to take yourself with you. I have never been afraid to do things, but now I was afraid of what I had done. You are quite right, Inspector, that that drink was a different one. I poisoned it and you needn’t trouble yourself to find out with what, I’ll tell you. It was the sap of the kaosi tree, quick and deadly. I should have taken it myself.’
Her eyes looked at Michael. ‘You gave me a chance when you made me that wonderful offer. You don’t know how wonderful it was. For a little while I let myself believe, but one mustn’t tamper with the gods. It’s your duty to arrest me, isn’t it?’
There was silence, shock and infinite dismay. Then Inspector Dutta spoke almost reluctantly, ‘Miss Knox, theft and murder are the gravest of crimes.’ Artemis had taken a few steps backwards as if she recoiled. The sergeant came closer. ‘My man will have taken down everything you have said. I shall ask you to sign it. Then, yes, Miss Knox, I shall arrest you.’
‘If you can.’ Eluding the sergeant, she had turned and was racing to the beach, running as only Artemis could.
‘After her. After her!’ the Inspector screamed to his men. The younger one shot away but the sergeant stopped to lay down his notebook.
Auntie Sanni, though, had risen in anticipation, ‘Thambi, come back,’ and she laid her hand on Michael’s arm. ‘No,’ she forbade him. ‘It’s better this way. Let her go.’
Michael shook off the hand and ran, but not to the beach, only as far as its entrance, and stopped.
Artemis was already on the high diving board, wearing the usual wicker helmet – she must have snatched it up from Thambi’s row. ‘She not risk to be stun.’ It was Thambi’s voice beside him. ‘She know just what she doing, Sahib,’ which, at that moment, was stripping off her dress, standing erect, naked. In the full glare of the sun she held her hands high in her pose and waited.
‘She judge when the waves roll back,’ Thambi whispered in admiration. ‘Ah!’
The dive took her far over the panting policemen’s heads, far over the surging surf. They saw the head go down, then come up again, as she swam to the protecting nets, dived under them and swam on out to sea.
‘There are sharks.’ Professor Ellen covered her eyes.
‘Please God, no,’ said Auntie Sanni.
Inspector Dutta stood furious and thwarted as Thambi, who had come back from the beach, said in defiance, ‘No one catch her now. She gone.’
LONDON
‘Is it true, Mrs McIndoe – or may I call you Miss Sanni?’ asked Sir George Fothergill, ‘– that you have never been away from Patna Hall, not even for a night?’
‘Never,’ said Auntie Sanni.
‘Didn’t you ever want to see the world? Meet people?’
‘The world comes to us, Sir George. People, too, or they used to.’
When Mr Cromartie had dropped the case – he could not do anything else as the Nataraja had clearly been stolen – and gone back to Canada, the Government of India had decided that it would be only fair to offer it back to Auntie Sanni as Henry Bertram’s granddaughter. ‘We will build you a temple.’
‘Please no,’ said Auntie Sanni. ‘We could not use a temple.’ Nor would she take a penny. ‘A gift is a gift,’ she said. ‘I only ask that it stays in this country where it belongs. There is a little temple in the hills …’
The Government had still brought her over to London. ‘We need you as we must have an official declaration of your wonderful gift of the Nataraja to India. Mr Bhatacharya and our London lawyers will see to that, and they are arranging for you to meet all the experts at a celebratory reception in your honour.’ To Michael’s surprise she had accepted, though nothing would stir the Colonel. She had had an official escort on the plane but Michael had been deputed to meet her and take her to stay with Honor Wyatt.
Auntie Sanni had made few concessions for London and still wore her Mother Hubbards, but she had shoes instead of sandals and was wrapped in a large paschmina shawl, its fine pure wool intricately embroidered.
‘Auntie
Sanni,’ Michael had asked her, ‘is there anything you would particularly like to do or see in these three days?’ She would not stay any longer.
‘Shops?’ suggested Honor.
‘I never shop.’
‘Would you come and visit my museum?’ That was Sir Richard Crewe.
‘Thank you, but no museums.’
‘A visit to the Houses of Parliament and lunch on the terrace?’ asked Mr Bhatacharya. ‘The foreign secretary would be delighted.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘The Tower and the Crown Jewels?’
‘I know jewels.’
‘Then what?’
‘Ordinary things. I should like to take a day just to see this city, if Michael would come with me. I suppose it would have to be by car – it is too big to walk. I should like to drive all round it, not to beauty spots or sights but everyday streets, homes, parks and especially the Thames.’
‘Why the Thames?’
‘It flows out to sea. That will bring me back to scale and I can go back refreshed.’
‘And you can really stay only three days?’
‘That is enough. Besides I have much to do at home. We are closing Patna Hall, Sir George. It has had its time.’
‘Sad,’ said Sir George. ‘I was hoping I could come and stay with you.’
‘We shall still have spare rooms for our friends and we shall still be there, the Colonel and I, Samuel our faithful butler and his wife Hannah, our housekeeper. Thambi, our lifeguard, will stay in his lodge but we shall demolish most of the main house. The sale of the land will pay for it.’
‘This is where we should help,’ said Mr Bhatacharya. ‘At least let us give something towards the cost.’
‘I can take no money for Shiva-ji.’
Honor had drawn Michael away. ‘This must be very painful for you.’ Michael had told her everything. ‘Poor Michael, you look five years older.’
