Truth Lake (13 page)

Recollecting Sara and Adam's description of the pale and mottled corpse they'd discovered, he wondered briefly if some vestigial protection remained upon these hills, courtesy of a long dead saint, which meant that all who entered their confines with impure hearts were doomed to realise their errors at great and painful length. There was a simmering anger within his group that did not bode well for their mission. 

Sara had been ill for three days. Her unwashed hair was fanned out across the pillow like a yellow rag. She had no energy even to take pills anymore and she had refused to allow the hotel maid to change her sheets. Since her trip to the police her fever had burned and burned. Visions of Cameron, dead and decomposing, brushed her consciousness and drove her deeper into delirium. 

They had been such a lively group of friends, the autumn she first met them. They'd gone to music festivals together and talked about the state of the environment. Holidaying in Algeria, and then in Australia on a shoestring, they'd discovered a passion for travelling which never altered. They'd read the same books, drunk endless bottles of cheap wine and sworn to go to the end of the world for each other. Or beyond. And she herself, a shy workaholic from a nouveau riche family, had never felt happier or more confident. With these friends she was home in a way that she’d never been with her parents.

There was no exact moment when they stopped working together as a unit.  Gradually in their third year they drifted into more serious academia, with ex-fisherman, Cameron, having to work much harder at his architecture courses and she herself finding that she didn't like failure. Only Adam, gifted only son of two local poets, continued to party hard and sleep through the day for he got firsts without trying, in all his compulsory subjects.

Sipping coffees in between library sessions or during lecture breaks, she and Cameron grew closer. They were trown together on the same campus, and saw more of each other and less of Adam – or so she'd thought. 

Until she'd used her key to Cameron's room one day and found the two men in bed together. Which came as no shock where Adam was concerned, for she had long known his sexual preference.

Sara acted cool about it all in public, cried in private until she could barely see through her swollen lids, and brought it up repeatedly with Cameron, who had simply lounged out of bed, drawn on a pair of pants and walked her from the flat. He laughed at her fears, told her to chill out, told her that love was not divisible, that she was still unique and that one should never close oneself off to different aspects of life.

It was only weeks before this awful day that they'd met Vincent Sinbari, an Italian kid, in a pub; they'd all liked him at once, made it their business to find out how he came to be travelling alone and to befriend him. That was the last really relaxed weekend the three of them had spent together, joking around and showing a foreigner their city.

He, for his part, was astounded by their friendliness, having experienced a kind of curt snobbery in London that almost made him wish he'd gone to India, as his father had suggested. When he left eleven days later, there were promises of return hospitality and embarrassed admissions about his father's wealth. 

It was about a year after this encounter that Sara proposed to Cameron, was accepted, and had the watch made for him; all without telling Adam. She could still remember how Cameron had closed his eyes for almost a minute outside the orthopaedic unit where she was working that afternoon. Shut them. Just like that. As if what she'd asked was the best thing he could imagine; or as if he was composing a letter in his head. She'd been holding his hand and Nurse Stolle had winked at them as he waddled past on bowed legs. That day. Magic.

For weeks afterwards her only thought had been Cameron's face, his hands and eyes and hair and neck. Work, family, other friends, grades, music … nothing had been able to penetrate the cocoon she'd spun herself from his ardour. They’d shopped together – unless he had an 'appointment' – cooked together, gone to the movies. Happiness had filled her like bubble bath.

And now she was lying here in India, eaten up by fever. And her beloved was long dead.

She wasn't entirely alone, of course. Adam – friend, rival and metamour – was nursing her, but in a desultory fashion and without his usual gentleness. He hadn't, for example, bothered to clean the pan into which she'd urinated the night before and it sat in a corner of the room where she lay, its contents a darkening orange colour and its odour one of mortality. Although they weren't likely to have any visitors, he knew she was ashamed of the smell.

His relationship with her had become more and more strained since their flight from Delhi. When she fell ill he had considered packing her things and putting her on a plane back home but, hearing her speak deliriously one night, he had become intrigued, and now he was hanging around in the hope that she would say more. In fact, he was hooked and sat by her bed hour after hour, sweating in the heat of the room and not giving her any analgesics. He bit his nails and rubbed his stubble obsessively, hoping she would speak. For what she had said was so bizarre as to be almost intelligible, almost intelligent. And here she was again, repeating the same questions as clearly as if she'd been conscious and purposeful, 'Did
you
do it Adam?
Adam, for God's sake!
Did you kill him?
'

It was the beginning of Karmel's third week away from Delhi and he suddenly found that while he was hungry for the neat apartment he had left behind and the freedom of the motorbike, he had also begun to think of Saahitaal as some kind of home.  Having exhausted his knees by too jerky and erratic a descent to Bhukta, he was now seated in Bhukta Lodge, nursing some mountain liquor and his bruised bones.  Determining not to indulge in lustful fantasies about Thahéra, he concentrated on finding out information that might aid his work. His landlord, a shrunken man with white hair and a flat nose, was seated opposite him and they were conversing about the area.

'You won't find as many of us men here as there used to be.' The man intoned, as if it was a habitual opening. 'Everyone leaves for the plains or climbs with the cattle until only us old ones, or the boys remain. You asked me about Saahitaal – it is a very ancient settlement, an untouched place, some say it has been blessed.'

'Do you receive news from up there?' Karmel was curious but didn't think he'd hear anything purposeful.

'Children come through once a week on their way to school in Charmoli. We send children to Malundi too and they come back with gossip.  Sometimes women come down here to sell herbs or the men stop here when they are returning to their homes from the big cities. We hear all kinds of things.'

'Such as?' Karmel was surprised by his host's eagerness to talk.  Perhaps it was the alcohol that made him so quick to confide.

'Well, sir, since you've been staying there I think you must be one of us in your heart, because not many people can live up there. It is a place of truth. People go there to face themselves.' As his host's tone grew more pompous, Karmel's head began to nod. Nevertheless, he tried to pursue the conversation.

'Do you mean because of the isolation?'

'In a manner of speaking, yes. In the last twenty years, I've only heard of four people who came from outside and spent longer than a few days up in Saahitaal. Two of them were foreigners – men. One of them came down here a couple of times, like yourself, to post letters – but mostly he'd send a boy. Pleasant fellow. The other I saw only once when he was asking directions to the village.'

              'You didn't happen to see a woman? A white woman going up there?'

              'White woman, you say? No. I did not.'

'Do you know what happened to them? To the two foreign men?' Karmel saw the man losing interest. He preferred to hold forth, obviously.

'Nah. Must have packed up and gone back where they came from I guess. Most people make a day's pilgrimage from Malundi and then go back there for the night. They don't choose to stay in Saahitaal.'

'And why's that?'

'Up there they are more suspicious of strangers than we are here. No men around, for most o the year…. I've got a relative there –'

'You have?' Karmel was surprised.

He hesitated. Rubbed his face lightly with a worn handkerchief. Then continued, 'my niece – older sister's daughter. Girl by the name of Gauri.'

'That's a fine name.'

'Hers is a strange story.' Karmel felt compelled to hear more though he was almost overcome by fatigue and the strength of the liquid in his tin mug. His host poured another drink, checked that his children were asleep in the next room and then began.

'Seventeen years ago, my eldest sister and her husband were struck down by fever and they died. Their daughter, Gauri, was not married then, and their sons had left for the plains, so she continued living in their house – it's in another village, very small, only nineteen families.  In those days she was a sickly girl, very thin and lacking in energy, but she liked to learn things; so her parents had allowed her to continue in school – they had no dowry to give and no one had expressed an interest in her. She was fifteen when they died and she could read and write better than any of the boys; in Pahadi she was considered something of a poet. 

'She was not popular with the men because of her sharp tongue, of course, and my brother, who had become her guardian, decided that she should be married before she spoilt her reputation irreparably.' Kailash coughed and the older man paused.  As if sensing disapproval, he said, 'here our girls are many and the young men are few – it is important to become somebody's wife.'

'I see.'

'So my brother came up with a man from Saahitaal, maybe twenty-five years old, with a flock, a married older brother and an ailing mother; the girl wed him happily, sir; there was no force involved.'

'Go on.' 

'For some months we heard nothing from her but other villagers brought us news.  She was writing letters for all, she was making things. Then she conceived unexpectedly and gave birth to a boy; we thought everything was going well; but suddenly she decided that she didn't want to stay with her husband's family any more and she moved herself out of his home and tried to go back to my brother's house. She left her son behind.'

'Ah.  She met someone else?'  Karmel was impatient but his host would not be rushed.

'By this time, her old family homestead was being used by her cousins and there was no space for her.  Besides which, she was causing a scandal and bringing trouble on everyone in the family.'

'So she
was
seeing another man?' 

'We called a meeting and told her our views. We asked her to go back to her husband.' The man's voice was beginning to slur with alcohol and emotion.  

'It was then that she revealed her secret – I don't know why I'm telling you this, sir. Her husband, he was a weak man. That was why he delayed marrying so long.'

'So why did she leave?'

'Gauri told us she was forced.' 

'Forced?
' Karmel found himself drawn into the narrative, aghast. He had shaken off his lethargy and was sitting upright in his seat. 'But her husband was not a violent man …' 

'Forced
not by him
but
by her husband's brother
.'  The man's voice had dropped to a whisper. His slightly protuberant eyes were bloodshot; his breath stank. Karmel said nothing and the man began to babble. 'Who knows, sir? Maybe she fought him off. Maybe she didn't. Women are not like us. One day strong: one day weak. It was done anyway.' When Karmel remained silent the man concluded, 'you disagree, of course, you city men are strange too.' He paused. 'Shall I continue?' 

Not wishing to show his disgust too openly, Karmel acceded. But his eyes were strained, angry, and the lump on his neck throbbed visibly. The girl had been raped, inside the family. If he heard the story a thousand times, he would not get used to it.

'After she complained to him about that incident, her husband no longer wanted to speak to her and he left for the plains.
Alone
. She had liked him, apparently, and was not willing to be abandoned in his household where his brother could continue to use her with his own wife's full knowledge and consent . . . So she left him.
Left the child
. Left them all. That's what she told us.' The man narrowed his eyes.

'Did you believe her?' Karmel imagined what she had been through to tell her story in public. 

'We believed her – Gauri never spoke anything but the truth. Yet what she was saying should have been kept private and accepted by a good wife. We cast her off, as his brother had requested, and she was told to make her way back to her husband or leave the area.' 

His host reached into a pocket and withdrew a packet of thin cigarettes. He lit one and smoked silently. Against his better judgement, Karmel was forced to comment.

'And do you believe what you are saying? You agreed with your relatives when they sent the girl away?' 

His host's tone became a whine. 'None of us are rich folk. I could not afford to go against the will of the community. My business depends on the good-will of others.'

'She left, then? But you say you have a relative up there now?'

'So we thought; young man, you are very sharp.' The man tried to snap his fingers and liquor splashed from his mug. 'Your agriculture department must be proud of you! We didn't hear of her for months. Then one day my wife – bless her, she's dead now, died last year – heard a rumour that Gauri had established herself near lake Saahi, not half a mile from her husband's family and that she was trying to set herself up in business! It was unheard of. They would have taken her back; they needed her in the fields, but she didn't care. She
wanted
to live alone. She was only eighteen then and very bitter.' He blew smoke through his nostrils and his voice trailed off. The tears, which had entered his eyes momentarily at the recollection of his wife, receded. 'I heard that her husband remarried on one of his trips from the city – to the
sister
of his brother's wife; yes, the very brother who had – you know . . .. The new wife has children too, I believe, including Gauri's boy, who was left with her. They are considered a wealthy family, for this region.'

'And Gauri? She stayed and worked?' 

'Of course – but no one would buy her stuff.' 

'That's sad.'

'You are young, and from a city.  You people are scientific, you know soil and you do not hold with all our superstitions.  Perhaps your wife is allowed to go outside the neighbourhood to work.  Gauri is living in the wrong place and believe me, young fellow, she is lucky to be alive; there are those in the village who thought she deserved a far harsher punishment . . ..  I've not met her for many years, not since she came to ask me to market her stuff and I, regretfully, turned her away – very good it is too, sir, as you will agree if you ever see it. Unusual designs.'

The guesthouse was peaceful. Apart from their voices and the soft falling of rain that had started again during the evening, there were no sounds. And their lamp was almost out.

'What does she make, your niece?' Karmel was getting a strange feeling in his head, partly due to the liquor and the lateness of the hour but due also to a sense of destiny pulling tiny strings. 

'She carves wood.'

Karmel's eyes opened wide. His host's eyebrows rose. 

'Ah, now I see that you know her.' 

'I only met her very briefly and I assume we're speaking of the same woman.'  Karmel recalled her feverish gaze, her haunting craft. 'Yes, her work is special; she's gifted.'  He paused and rubbed his face, running his nails over the stubble, wondering inconsequentially whether there would be hot water in the morning. Then he thought again of the four burnished spheres beneath the dead man's clothes. Was she involved in his death – this tragic woman? Or did the foreigner, Cameron Croft, merely feel sympathy for her, like he himself felt, and decide to help her out, to buy her wares? The sculptress' fiery eyes came into his mind; she wasn't beautiful, but beauty was so relative … and perhaps wood was not the only thing she was selling? 

'You were saying, sir?'

'I do feel that she may be quite ill, your Gauri; perhaps you should help her. After all,
sixteen
years have passed.' 

In the damp little room assigned to him, Karmel opened his pack and withdrew his incomplete report. His fingers passed in a measured manner across the paper.

So, Sir, we have suspects and it would be well to look into those at your end; I will maintain surveillance out here for such time as seems reasonable. 

Kailash Karmel.

It was one in the morning and he could barely stay upright. In a few hours, he would post his report to the chief and start the arduous climb back to Saahitaal, for the telephone lines and mobile masts in the district were down indefinitely. 

There were many things that he could have asked his landlord but had not. Who were Gauri's in-laws? If Saahitaal was their village and she came to live 'within a mile of them' perhaps he had met some of them. How did the 'new wife' cope? What had happened to Gauri's son – did he ever see her as she wandered through the village and wonder why she'd left him? 

But other concerns dwelt in his exhausted brain and the questions dispersed almost as they formed for they seemed irrelevant to the modern tale he was investigating. Besides, he was too tired, too repulsed by the grotesque harshness of it all, so reminiscent of his childhood experiences and so much part of the fabric of life in India. Sealing his report inside an envelope, Karmel printed out his boss's address. He was filled with anxiety when he realised that Hàrélal may have to wait a week before receiving his communication but all the phone lines were down and his mobile had run out of charge. He imagined his irate superior getting edgier by the day. He was not to know that his report would be the last thing on his boss's mind.