by Rumer Godden
‘That funny old fat man?’
‘That funny old fat man is a visionary. No one but a visionary would back me. I do not think’, said Krishnan, ‘poor Coomaraswamy will get his money back. A candidate can only be elected for five years, but he or she can retrieve his money, even make a fortune, by way of taking bribes, cheating, pulling strings, dispensing patronage, which must be paid for. The people know very well, if a village helps to get a candidate elected, it will be the first to get electricity or a well. If it resists, no electricity, no well. Patronage! I couldn’t patronise a bee, yet the dear Doctor has worked with me and my ideals for years.’
‘Years?’
‘Yes, you don’t think I came to this in five minutes? And all the time he has had to put up with a barrage from his terrible wife.’ Krishnan mocked again, ‘ “So easilee you are bamboozled, Hari” – Hari is Dr Coomaraswamy’s name.’ Krishnan, whose English was smoother, more rounded than most Englishmen’s, caught the wife’s accent to perfection. ‘ “And you are like a child with sweets so easily parted from your mon-ee.” But Uma is right,’ said Krishnan. ‘I am using Coomaraswamy but that is a good man, Mary. How he has helped us.’ Krishnan brooded again. ‘The fisherpeople should be all right, but they are, in fact, the very poorest, virtually bonded in debt to the middle men and victims of the powerful fish-market Mafia. Mary,’ he asked, ‘what do you think the village people most need?’
‘Water,’ Mary said at once.
‘Indeed, yes, and the wells will come faster if they work with us. I will not promise what I cannot do. What else?’
‘Trees. Seed.’
‘Yes, but not first.’ His eyes darkened. ‘Outside people coming in, would-do-goods, could plant a million trees – a million million – and change nothing because it would all begin again, but someone who plants ideas, knowledge, respect for our earth’, Krishnan was deeply in earnest, ‘might just succeed.’ Now his eyes seemed alight.
‘Mary, I have been trying to do that for the last five years and I know it works, otherwise I would never have presumed – yes, presumed – to be a people’s candidate. Let me tell you: I got one villager to let us use his piece of land that was bare – he would have said, of no use. He and his wife and children built mud walls and channels so that we could irrigate from quite far away. Then we came with saplings and seedlings. Now on his scruffy land he has an orchard, with pineapples and tea growing under the trees and enough grass to feed his cow and buffalo.’
‘If,’ said Krishnan, himself visionary, ‘if we can teach one or two villages to feed themselves and their animals, that may spread and save the whole continent. If not,’ the light went out of his eyes and he shrugged, ‘at least a few less villages have less hungry children.’
‘Lady Fisher told me’, said Mary, ‘that when there is great trouble in the world, Vishnu comes down in one form or another. I wish he would come now.’
‘It is a belief,’ said Krishnan. ‘Some people would call it a delusion but I believe it is a good belief.’
‘Love and war,’ said Mary. ‘Can politics be love?’
‘They can, thank God.’
Mary watched his hand stroking the contented squirrel.
‘I think you love everyone, everything,’ she said.
He laughed. ‘That wouldn’t be possible.’ Then he was serious again. ‘It is that I am everyone, everything, just as everything, everyone is me.’
‘Even the hateful ones?’
‘Particularly the hateful ones because I am very hateful, very often.’
‘But I . . . I like people and things – or dislike them – violently.’
‘That is because you are thinking of yourself, not them,’ which was true. ‘See, now,’ he said, ‘here is a creature’ – he says creatures, created things, not animals, thought Mary – ‘a creature who does like you. Birdie has brought you a bouquet.’
The little elephant – how can an elephant be little? thought Mary, but Birdie is – held in her trunk a whole stem of plantains, at least thirty small bananas on a stem. ‘I think you have stolen that,’ Krishnan told her. ‘Bad girl!’ but he patted her trunk. He broke off the plantains, gave two to Mary, took three for himself, bit off a small end for the squirrel, gave ten to Slippers, the rest back to Birdie. The stem he threw on the fire so that the flames leapt up. They munched in companionship. Mary liked the way Birdie ate, picking up a plantain in her trunk and delicately putting it in her mouth; Udata nibbled; Slippers’s bananas went round and round in his mouth – he would keep his the longest.
‘This is the last time I can speak with you,’ Krishnan said. ‘Tomorrow the vow must be absolute. I shall not know who might be listening.’
He sighed. ‘Ayyo! How my legs ache with all that sitting.’
‘I ache too, inside me,’ but Mary did not say it. She must not think back over the day, ‘But the sea was wonderful,’ she said. ‘Those waves!’
‘The sea. Yes. Let’s go and get clean.’ He jumped up and held out his hand to Mary.
On the beach he unwound his loin and shoulder cloths, leaving him with only a clout. Mary pulled her dress off over her head.
A pile of fishermen’s helmets had been left by a boat. ‘Put this on.’ He put on his own. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘Thambi and I have been swimming here since we were five years old.’ He took Mary straight through the waves, far out where he let her go. On the shore, Slippers, Birdie and a dot that was Udata had come out to watch. Mary could hear the thunder of the waves on the beach, here it was still; the water, warm and balmy, was dark blue. They swam, floated.
When Mary was tired, Krishnan came behind her, took her shoulders and let her rest. ‘Let’s stay here for ever,’ she said.
‘If only we could.’
Back on the beach, dressed, he and the animals walked her back but, before they reached the bungalow, Mary stopped. ‘Don’t come any nearer,’ she said, ‘it might be broken.’
Krishnan did not ask her what ‘it’ was.
Tuesday
‘Would anyone object’, Mr Menzies asked the whole dining room at breakfast, ‘if, because of the election, we put on the morning news?’ Without waiting for an answer he switched on the big verandah radio.
‘This is the English Programme of All India Radio. Here is the news.’
The news was always read in Tamil, Telegu and English.
Now the voice, speaking in English, was reading the headlines: ‘The drought is beginning to be felt in the Gamjam district. In Sri Kakylam there have been riots . . .’ The breakfasters listened with half an ear if they listened at all. ‘The bodies of two children, both boys, have been found in a field near the village of Palangaon. The trial, under Mr Justice Rajan, of the Englishman, Colin Armstrong, charged with fraud, embezzlement and trafficking in drugs, is drawing to a close . . . and now, the election in Konak.’
‘Aie!’ cried Dr Coomaraswamy and silence fell as everybody listened.
‘The débâcle that befell Mrs Padmina Retty’s People’s Shelter Party last night could not help but leave traces this morning. For one thing, the symbol of the umbrella has disappeared. All posters have been hastily torn down and there has been some hand-fighting in the square where these two rival Parties’ headquarters face one another. Mrs Retty, as befits a professional and long-accustomed campaigner, is cool and unperturbed. Her headquarters is buzzing with activity while the opposite building is strangely quiet and, except for two secretaries, empty. Again, there is no sign of Krishnan Bhanj.
‘ “I am not surprised,” says Mrs Retty. “After that antic last night” ’ – she used the same word as Blaise who smiled in self-congratulation. ‘ “After that antic, Krishnan dare not face me . . .”
‘But’, asked the voice on the radio, ‘could he outface her? Mrs Retty, it seems, has not heard of a lorry that, since dawn, has been driving through the countryside.’
‘I, myself, sent him out,’ Dr Coomaraswamy interrupted, he had a ray of hope. ‘But’ �
� once again ‘buts’ were flying like brickbats – ‘but was I wise?’ he sighed.
‘You couldn’t have stopped him,’ said Sir John.
‘Have you seen the morning papers?’ asked Mr Menzies.
Patna Hall’s Goanese cook, Alfredo, collected them when he went to do the marketing at Ghandara, as he did every morning. In time-honoured fashion, the papers were ironed and then Kuku laid them out on the verandah tables for the guests; Colonel McIndoe’s were taken by his bearer to his study. ‘Ah! The Madras Times. The Nilgiri Herald. All India Universal.’ Sir John picked up the Madras Times. ‘It’s the leading article.’
‘Read it. Read it,’ begged Dr Coomaraswamy.
Sir John read: ‘ “Is it disrespectful to ask if Krishnan Bhanj, candidate for the new Root and Flower Party, has taken his startling vow of silence in response to a direct commandment from the gods – in which case who dare say him ‘nay’?” That’s a tongue-in-cheek remark if ever I heard one,’ said Sir John. ‘ “Or is this rising young politician playing a wily game of cards? If so, he is playing it well. Mrs Retty was routed last night and without violence, simply by a superior display of that insidious and most deadly of weapons, ridicule, making a story that will be told as long as politics exist. Already a ripple is spreading through Konak, a ripple from town to town, village to village. It may be only curiosity, maybe it is reverence, but one can forecast that soon, Mrs Padmina Retty’s audience will have gone elsewhere, waiting for a garlanded lorry that has on it a pandal and, in the pandal, a young god silently blessing.” That’, said Sir John, ‘was written, I’m sure, by Ajax.’
‘Ah!’ Dr Coomaraswamy gave a very different sigh.
‘Who is Ajax?’ asked Mr Srinivasan.
‘Probably the best political correspondent in India and the Far East. If he is covering this election, you are in luck but he is best known for his gossip columns which spread on occasions to London and Europe. He is adept at dirt.’
‘Ayyo!’ Dr Coomaraswamy was well pleased.
‘Looking to see if anything has been cut?’
Coming out from breakfast, Sir John had found Mr Menzies at one of the verandah tables, studying the article in the Madras Times and, as he looked up startled, ‘You are, of course, Ajax,’ said Sir John.
‘I am.’ There was something more than self-satisfaction, insolence, in the way Mr Menzies said that. ‘And I don’t let them cut my stuff. Clever of you to guess,’ he told Sir John.
‘Not at all. It was quite transparent,’ and with a nod Sir John went on down the verandah leaving Mr Menzies slightly taken aback.
It is going to be a lovely empty day, thought Mary. They are all going away.
‘I am taking Mrs Manning to the train,’ Kuku told Mary. Her eyes were bright with the same brightness, Mary could not help thinking, that had been in the boys’ eyes when they were tormenting the squirrel. ‘I think she will be meeting someone.’
You want me to ask, ‘What sort of someone?’ thought Mary. Well, I won’t.
Kuku’s look said, ‘Prig.’
Professor Aaron was taking his group to see the famous Dawn Temple at Gorāghat, fifty miles along the coast.
Sir John, Lady Fisher and Blaise were going too.
‘I’d much rather be swimming or playing tennis,’ Blaise grumbled as he picked up his packed lunch, binoculars and hat.
‘Then why don’t you?’ asked Mary.
‘If Sir John goes, I must.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re always asking why.’ Blaise was irritable. ‘He’s a big noise, that’s why.’
‘I think he’ll know if you’re pretending.’
‘Pretend what? The Dawn Temple is very fine, even from the point of view of history. It’s marvellous how they carried those enormous blocks of stone to build it. It’s one of those things one should see.’
‘Even if you don’t want to? And it isn’t only history, it’s beauty,’ said Mary, ‘old, old beauty. Lady Fisher says it faces East and just at dawn, as the sun rises, the whole temple turns gold and rose-coloured.’
‘If it makes you so lyrical, why don’t you come?’ But Mary shook her head. ‘I’d like to go there early, early in the morning before dawn, all by myself, not in a coach full of people with cameras and binoculars and notebooks.’
Mary’s day turned out not to be empty, not at all: it was filled with Patna Hall. ‘Samuel is taking me to the bazaar,’ she had told Blaise.
‘You mean you would rather go with a servant to see an ordinary squalid bazaar than a splendid excursion like this, with Sir John, Professor Aaron, his group – and me?’
‘Much rather,’ said Mary.
‘I find you utterly incomprehensible.’
‘I know you do,’ said Mary sadly. ‘And I you,’ but she did not add that.
Blaise hated all bazaars. ‘All those rows of shanty huts and booths, corrugated iron, stucco houses blotched with damp! Even the temples are tawdry. Their silver roofs are made of beaten-out kerosene tins.’
‘I think that’s clever if you can’t afford silver,’ said Mary.
‘And the smells! Cess in the gutters . . . men squatting down to relieve themselves even while you pass. Rancid ghee from the cookshops and that horrible mustard oil they cook in. Rotting fruit and meat hung too long and flies, flies, flies. If you walk on the pavements – if they can be called pavements – you tread on phlegm and red betel where people have spat. Ugh! And all those beggars and children with swollen stomachs and sore eyes. Once, perhaps, one could find good things in the bazaar, muslins, pottery, but now it’s all machine-made, plastic, ugly. Mary, I hate you to go there. I know there are wonderful things to see in India but there are some things it’s better for you not to see.’
‘I want to see it whole.’
But Blaise had made up his mind. ‘You’re not to go,’ he said as authoritatively as Rory. ‘You’re not to go.’
‘I’m going,’ said Mary.
Auntie Sanni had overheard. ‘You’re not very kind to that husband of yours,’ she said.
‘He shouldn’t order me about. I’m not his child.’
‘Come. Come. He only wants to protect you,’ said Auntie Sanni. ‘If your husband is a real man, that is in-nate.’
‘I don’t want to be protected. Don’t you see?’ Mary was hot-cheeked. ‘I’ve never been anywhere, seen anything . . .’
‘Except, as I understand, Italy, Paris, Norway, Brussels . . .’
‘I meant India. Besides in those countries Rory always sent me to school.’ Mary said it as if it were the ultimate betrayal. ‘You don’t know, Auntie Sanni, what girls’ boarding schools are like, so – so little. I was – choked.’ Mary could not find the right word. ‘There was one,’ she had to admit, ‘a convent in Brussels which was part of something bigger. The nuns had something else to concern themselves with apart from girls.’ She said that word in scorn. ‘Even at home, Rory never let me be really free to do things – or thought he didn’t. Now Blaise thinks he won’t allow me either. Well, he has another think coming.’
‘It’s early days yet,’ said Auntie Sanni.
‘I knew you’d say that.’
‘I do say it,’ Auntie Sanni spoke sternly. ‘Mary, child, be careful. You may cause more damage than you mean.’
‘I’d like to go to the bazaar every day and do my own shopping,’ Mary was to tell Blaise. It was an every day she had not glimpsed before yet perhaps had sensed. Everything Blaise had said of the bazaar was true: the stench, the shanty huts and booths, the flies . . . but the first shop she and Samuel came to was the shop where kites were made and sold costing a few annas, kites of thinnest paper, in colours of pink, green, white, red, with a wicker spool to fly them from, wound with a pound of thread. The thread had been run through ground glass so that the boys – Samuel told Mary that kite-fliers were always boys – could challenge other kites, cross strings with them, cut them adrift and proudly tie another bob of paper on their own kite’s tail.
&
nbsp; The front of the moneychanger and jeweller’s shop was barred; he sat behind the bars on a red cushion, quilted with black and white flowers. Though this was South India he was a Marwari from Marwar in Rajasthan, known for businessmen and financiers. He had a small black cap on his head, steel spectacles and many ledgers. There was nothing in his shop but a safe, a pair of scales and a table a few inches high. In India jewellery is sold by weight, jewellery made of silver threads woven into patterns and flowers. Mary, watching fascinated, saw a man buying a ring – which the Marwari took out of his safe – and paying for it. The moneylender took the money and reckoned it by weighing.
‘Miss Baba like something – a nice brooch, nice ring?’ asked Samuel but Mary did not want to buy, only watch.
A little black goat came by with twin kids; they butted their mother in vain because her udders were covered by a neat white bag.
‘Goat milk very precious,’ said Samuel.
There was a bangle shop with most of the bangles made of glass in clear goblin fruit colours of green, blue, amber and red. ‘Miss Baba not buy,’ Samuel cautioned. ‘They break and cut very bad.’
The sari shop had the shimmering colours of heavy silk. ‘They expensive,’ said Samuel with feeling, remembering Lady Fisher’s gift to Kuku: cotton saris like Hannah’s had plain borders. Children’s dresses with low waists, cut square and flat, like paper-doll dresses, hung outside in the street. The grain shops had grain set out in different colours in black wicker baskets and with them were sold great purple roots and knots of ginger, chillies and spice. There was a stall devoted to selling only drinking coconuts which could be split there and then if the customer wanted. ‘Coconut milk very refresh,’ said Samuel.
‘I’d like to taste them,’ said Mary.
‘Not in the bazaar,’ said Samuel.
A tassel shop had silk tassels in vivid colours of scarlet, brilliant pink or blue, orange, violent yellow, and, ‘What are those for?’ Mary saw small velvet and gold thread balls.
