The Setting Sun (35 page)

‘Then you can helpfully correct my accent?’

As I tell him why I’m in Ratnagiri, he repeats some of the words to practise his pronunciation. We’ll have to work on his v’s and w’s.

Thibaw’s ‘palace’ is an enormous brick pile set on a bluff overlooking the estuary. It’s seemingly inspired by the stodgiest kind of northern British municipal architecture, and was completed shortly before World War One. It looks like it’s been coated in a treacly anti-rust paint, perhaps to protect against the monsoons and coastal damp. The couple of acres of grounds are being refurbished, though the old water features are clogged with sand and broken bricks, a few baby palms struggling to survive in drums.

The mysterious house in Ratnagiri

The interior’s largely empty, except for one room filled with lovely eighth-century stone sculptures excavated nearby. The only vestiges of the royal tenancy are two red velvet divans, a dark-varnished portrait of the king, his desk and bath, carved from a single block of caramel marble. After Thibaw’s death, our guide says, the building was used as a local government facility, but has since been vacant for several years. There’s a miniature durbar room, echoing with doves lodged in the wonderful carved teak beams. Imported from Burma, no doubt. We’re told that Thibaw’s daughter was so distraught at being confined under virtual house arrest that she eventually eloped with the carriage driver who delivered supplies from Ratnagiri. Her descendants live somewhere in town today.

The guide then takes us out onto the first-floor balcony, which has a jaw-dropping vista onto a wide brown river which quickly broadens out further into the estuary. It’s studded with fishing boats and outriggers, some sliding towards the ocean beneath a modern road bridge set on soaring pillars. In the distance are magnificent headlands, one crowned with what looks like another of Shivaji’s forts, the same style as Ajinkya Tara. I wonder what Thibaw felt as he paced this balcony, year after year, decade after decade, his once-vast domains now brutally truncated to the acre or so of grounds below. How he must have been drawn to the unbounded sea in front, tantalisingly out of reach, the forbidden highway home.

‘This dirty country,’ Keitan complains, wiping off some dog shit he’s stepped in as we prepare to get back on the scooter. He seems very upset. ‘It would be better if you British came back to rule us.’

It seems rather a large jump, especially after the stories we’ve just heard. ‘British politicians are hardly squeaky-clean.’ I describe some of the recent scandals.

Keitan looks startled. ‘But here, 24 per cent of federal parliamentarians have criminal charges outstanding. They just
pay the judges to postpone their cases year after year. Some are accused of murder, extortion, drugs.’

He launches into a bitter denunciation of Ratnagiri, the lack of job opportunities, the social conservatism. He’s not as articulate as Nayakwadi, but equally impassioned. I’m painfully struck by Keitan’s rose-tinted ideas about life in the West. More than anything, he seems lonely, his eyes swimming with vulnerability. I imagine he spends a lot of time hanging about outside hotels frequented by foreigners.

‘Come on, let’s go and get some tea.’

Keitan’s very particular about his diet. No black tea, no coffee, no alcohol. Only certain kinds of fruit, and those only on specific days. I infer that his parents are strictly orthodox and that’s really what he’s chafing against. We sit in the little playground across the road from Thibaw’s palace, where he tells me more about his course and his pen pals in New Zealand and Uzbekistan. I’ve got one eye on the shoreline far below us which extends in a shallow curve to the colossal bridge, after which it’s caster-sugar sand. I get out the photos of Bill in India, one of which has always puzzled me. It’s of an attractive thatched bungalow, surrounded by palms, the veranda screened with rattan punkah fans, a beach falling away in the foreground. In Aunt Pat’s album, there was no caption.

‘Do you think you could help me find this house?’ I point past the bridge. ‘I think that might be the beach it’s on. It’s the old part of Ratnagiri, yes?’ I don’t hold out any great hopes, but at worst it’s a chance to do something vaguely touristy. Perhaps, I add, I’ll find a nice spot for a swim.

To my surprise, Keitan looks uncomfortable. ‘We cannot go down into Bangladesh.’

‘Bangladesh? What are you talking about?’

‘That’s what we call the Muslim area. Down below. All the way up from the bridge, to Ratnagiri jetty.’

It floats like a pencil in the far distance.

‘You can’t be serious, Keitan. Come on, I’ll be with you.’ I
have all the confidence born of three weeks in India without the remotest hint of concern about my personal safety.

He looks uncertainly at the low sun above the sea, before nodding. ‘But we must be off the beach by dark. And I won’t take my scooter down there.’

I wonder whether I’m being pushy. But I want to explore contemporary Muslim India, if only for the fag-end of one afternoon. Keitan reaches for his helmet.

‘Let’s go, then. I will park on the bridge and we can walk down.’

I linger a moment once Keitan’s chained his scooter to the railings. From this height, the panorama’s awesome. Early indications are that the sunset will be spectacular, the water already taking on an opal sheen, the hazy sky turning oyster. Far below, the river meets the incoming tide in a turbulent series of brown flourishes. An incoming fishing smack labours against the current, buffeted by the frothing confluence.

‘You should see it during monsoon,’ Keitan observes, ‘the water’s ten feet higher.’ He sighs. ‘I’d like to hang-glide from up here.’

What? I can’t imagine anything more scary.

‘Do you know they used to have flying machines in ancient times in India?’

‘You mean like hang-gliders?’

‘No,’ he says solemnly. ‘With engines powered by mercury.’

I’m flummoxed. Keitan’s eyes ache with sincerity.

‘That is correct. With mercury, only. Yo, it says so in the Vedas.’

He doesn’t seem to want to pursue the topic, and turns instead towards the steps raking down the side of the bridge.

It’s many steep flights to the bottom. At ground level, the coastal road peels inland and an imposing series of colonial buildings, hidden by a dense canopy of foliage from where we were standing on the bridge, comes into view.

‘What’s that?’ I ask.

Keitan shrugs. ‘I think some school?’

It looks far too grand. Intrigued, I set off up the drive. Outside the first building, a group of youths is gathered. They’re mid-teens, judging by their shorts and the faint down on their upper lips. They examine us intently, before one says something which makes the others laugh. Keitan seems uncomfortable, so, taking him by the arm, I stride past the onlookers into the edifice. He’s right. It is – or was – some kind of school, a technical institute, judging by the ancient lathes huddled along one wall. A man comes forward, dressed in overalls. He’s not particularly friendly, and somewhat cursorily explains that it’s indeed an industrial training college, founded by the British.

‘Sorry if we’ve intruded,’ I say, ‘it looked like your students were on a break.’

He seems mollified and suggests we continue to the main campus, where we can get further information on the history of the college. I’m not that interested and suggest that we head for the beach now. Keitan nods, with an odd look of relief.

Outside, the group of youths has swelled. There are maybe fifteen now, white shirts or vests tucked into their khaki shorts. Some instinct puts me on guard. One of them, an undernourished lad with a thicker fuzz of moustache than the rest and pinched, pockmarked cheeks calls out something I don’t understand which Keitan seems unwilling to translate. I’m not sure the lad understands me, either, when I say we’re just looking around. But he smiles ambiguously as he mutters.

‘Gazza,’ is the only word I register in his response.

Imagining he’s referring to Paul Gascoigne, the eccentric former England soccer idol, I grin back, tapping one forefinger against the side of my head. The thin smile fades. Keitan pulls me away and I follow, puzzled and reluctant. Others in the group jostle forward and again I hear the word ‘Gazza’. The tone’s clearly menacing now. Perhaps they’re Tottenham
supporters, insulted by my disrespect to their one-time hero. Whatever, it’s definitely time to go.

Keitan remains tight-lipped as we make our way to the shoreline, and his hands seem to be shaking. However, I feel relaxed again by the time we cross a building site with cone-shaped piles of stones, pallets of brick and steel rods scattered like spillikins. The site’s deserted, but it looks as if an old breakwater is in the process of being refurbished. We pass through the yard and onto the sand. From here, the bridge looks very high, the noise of traffic indistinct. The first part of the beach is blinding white sand, stretching up to a line of scrub, along what looks like a shallow ditch voiding into the sea. About a mile away is the jetty. I pause for a moment, to get out the photo of the bungalow I’m looking for.

‘You OK, Keitan? What were those boys saying?’

He’s bug-eyed with tension. ‘I told you. This is Bangladesh. They’re angry.’

‘What about?’

‘Gaza. A full-scale land invasion began this morning. Many civilians have been killed.’

I’m mortified. Perhaps the youths thought I was mocking their co-religionists while Israeli F-16s continue to brave the slingshots of Palestinian youths to dump more white phosphorus bombs to cover their tanks and infantry.

Just as we resume our walk, a plume of sand fans out prettily six feet in front of us, like some bird landing heavily. When the next stone whistles overhead, however, Keitan grabs me.

‘Run!’

I do so until we reach the brake of scrub ahead. Jumping across the ditch and crouching behind a bush, I look back the way we’ve come. About a dozen lads from the Technical Institute are bent over, selecting missiles from the piles of builders’ material. Two or three are already advancing down the beach. Perhaps it’s the policeman’s genes which take over.

‘Wait a minute,’ I tell Keitan as he prepares to make another crouching run down the beach.

Letting the youths advance a few paces, I jump out from our hiding place and rush at them, yelling at the top of my voice. The vanguards spin round instantly and race back towards their comrades. When they’re halfway there, I turn again and toil back towards Keitan, lungs burning so much I can hardly suck in breath.

‘Come on, let’s go.’

The next half hour’s a nightmare. I’m shaking like a leaf and pouring with sweat by the time we slow to a walk. It’s frustration and fear and panic. And, to my consternation, white-hot anger, too. Behind us the beach is empty. Keitan’s adamant that we can’t cut inland to the road. It’s curtained behind scrub and bushes.

‘They may be coming up that way,’ he insists.

So we stick to the water’s edge, a thousand of the most disgusting yards I’ve ever trudged. This is the original flush toilet, in use aeons before Thomas Crapper patented his invention. Every few yards, piles of more or less desiccated turds wait for the sea to carry them off. The wilful tide, however, has simply returned many, higher on the beach. It’s like a minefield, the stink almost vomit-making. To make matters worse, every so often someone steps out of the thicket screening the road and strides purposefully towards us. Each apparition makes me jump. But they’re dressed in lungis, not shorts, thank heavens. Picking their way expertly through the waste, they find a patch of pristine sand, hitch up their robes, squat down and deposit their mess, all the while gazing nonchalantly as we pass.

When we reach the jetty, Keitan’s relief is palpable. ‘Is all Hindu now,’ he mutters, climbing up a gangway onto the pavement, ‘no more Bangladesh.’

‘I’m really sorry, Keitan, I should have listened.’

He shrugs. ‘I didn’t say anything at the school because I hoped they might think I was a Muslim, too, who had brought
you. They were saying bad things from the moment we arrived.’

I explain the mistake I made, but he doesn’t seem to understand about Gazza and Tottenham.

‘Should I go to the police, do you think?’ I explain my connections with DSP Indore.

Keitan looks alarmed. ‘They will question me. Why I took you there.’

‘But it was me who made you go.’

My escort looks unconvinced. ‘If they come, they will beat every youth they find. They won’t care about who was involved or not.’

I don’t care, either. I just want them punished. Keitan’s beseeching look pulls me up. No, I don’t want that. Not after Chafal. Nor do I want my unwilling guide to be further harassed. Or to waste hours driving round in a squad car or, more likely, on the back of a terrifying motorbike, trying to identify the perpetrators.

Across the invisible boundary we’ve just traversed, it’s another world. The sun’s a vivid saffron balloon, sagging just above the sea, which is now the mobile silver of a fish’s belly. The beach beyond the jetty is busy with families enjoying the early-evening breeze. There are camel-rides and impromptu games of cricket. Girls wander past, sipping at candyfloss. No one, however, is in the water, not even paddling. Little wonder. We flop into chairs at a tea-house on the front and I begin to relax a little, even managing a bitter half-smile at the irony of being presumed guilty by association with the ‘enemy’ in ‘the war on terror’.