Death to the Landlords

Nine

Nagarcoil: Friday Morning

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They drove out from the gate in the early morning, Priya between Dominic and Larry in the front sea, Purushottam among the luggage in the back, where Lakshman would be most likely to ride. Lakshman himself waved them away from the terrace, realistically enough. If there was a watcher, the picture was there for him to see. But it was hard to believe in it, except when the ruins of the office fell away on their left side, and the edge of desolation touched them afresh, and made the morning air seem suddenly preternaturally cold. They were all thinking of Patti, who had been so challengingly alive, and was now a mere broken body, not yet released from police custody. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. ‘To the born sure is death, to the dead sure is birth; so for an issue that may not be escaped thou dost not well to sorrow.’

Priya had said earnestly to the Swami, before they climbed aboard the Land-Rover: ‘They must not see her. It would be better to take home only her ashes and her belongings.’

And he had said: ‘I will take care of everything.’ For Priya had seen her, and Priya had strong feelings about what bereaved parents should and should not be asked to endure. It was a field in which he had some experience, too, but he respected hers.

To Dominic, and privately, he had said: ‘Telephone me each evening until we meet again. And if anything occurs, anything that seems to you significant, or to have anything to do with this matter, then telephone me at any time, as soon as possible. We do not yet know whether the thread will stay here with us, or go there with you.’

But when they were through the gates, and Dominic was driving down the dirt road from the village, in the astonishing brightness of early morning, it was more than they could do not to turn their heads and their eyes away from the wreckage behind, and towards the world ahead, which was varied and beautiful, and had a welcome waiting for them.

They passed through Tirunelveli at about nine o’clock, and they were in the most Christianised district in the whole of India, though until they crossed the bridge over the Tambrapurni river, and saw the tall spire of the C. M. S. church soar in front of them, there was nothing to make them aware of the characteristic. From Palamkottai southwards they were on the main, unmetalled road to Cape Comorin, and the landscape was a sequence of palm groves deployed among rice paddies, thatched villages, the occasional gopuram of a minor temple, and always the accompanying shapes, misty and deeply blue-green under their jungle growth, of the Western Ghats on their right hand. Monkeys crouched under the trees along the road, unstartled, peering at them with their sad, wizened faces, and jack-fruit like huge, lumpy, holly-green Rugby footballs dangled on their thin, drooping stems from the branches.

‘Soon,’ said Priya, her face brighter now and her eyes wide with anticipation, ‘we must turn off to the right for Nagarcoil.’

They were no more than eight or nine miles from the sea now in either direction, south-east or south-west. At the fork they took the more westerly road, as Priya directed. India had already demonstrated in its invariable manner the nearness of the ocean which its people, apart from a few fishing communities, do not love. The sky was almost an English sky, no more than half of it blue, the rest scudding cloud, driven fast, though there was no wind at ground-level, and forming and re-forming in constantly-changing masses and temples and towers. The light had become a maritime light, moist and charged with melting colours, scintillating instead of glaring.

The road widened at the same time as it seemed to narrow, because lines of small houses had begun to frame it on either side. It acquired the texture of a street, and other and taller buildings sprang up behind the first, and became the beginnings of a town of more than a hundred thousand souls. A nondescript textile town, where among other things, they make hand-loomed towels of all kinds and sizes. A town with Jain associations, and Christian ones, too, of several persuasions; and in its way a pleasant place, more spacious than most of its kind, and with something of the air of a country market town, with energy and time to spare.

‘Now we are coming into Nagarcoil,’ said Priya.

The house lay off one of the quieter and narrower streets at the edge of the central shopping area. There was a space of beaten earth drawn back in an open square from the street, with a solitary tree at one front corner, and in its shade a patch of bleached grass. Each of the three closed sides of the square was a little, deep-eaved, whitewashed house one storey high and overhung by a red-tiled roof. They were as neat and clean as brand-new dolls’ houses, and not much larger. Purushottam’s ranch-like dwelling would have contained ten of them, and his compound at least fifty. And the children who came tumbling out of the house on the right, as soon as the Land-Rover turned into the yard, were as bright and spruce and petite as dolls. Little girls in minute cotton dresses, western style, little boys in cotton shorts and white shirts; all of them huge-eyed and smiling and excited, but perfectly silent, and all the girls wearing little crowns of flowers. The moment they had fully taken in the Land-Rover, and confirmed for themselves its veritable arrival, they shot back into the house as precipitately as they had frothed out of it, and the voices that had been mute outside were loosed in a torrent of shrill Tamil, spreading the news. Before the travellers had all climbed out and shaken off the dust of their journey, Priya’s parents appeared in the deep doorway at the head of the five shallow steps. They marshalled before them the three littlest girls, who held up at the full stretch of their short arms dewy garlands of lotus buds and roses and jasmine. With formidable solemnity they descended the steps, taking passionate care not to trip over their burdens, and advanced upon the visitors.

‘Good God!’ said Larry blankly, between consternation and delight. ‘What have you got us into, Priya?’

‘You have never been garlanded before?’ she said innocently. ‘In my family we do things properly.’ And she went to meet the little girls, lifted the necklaces for them, and hoisted the first over Larry’s head, and the second over Dominic’s. But Purushottam, his face brighter than they had ever yet seen it, sat down on his heels to be on a level with the panting littlest, and let her hang her garland round his neck with her own hands. He had an unfair advantage, for he could talk to his hostess, who chattered back to him in high delight.

‘All the ones who go to school know English,’ Priya said reassuringly. ‘Come, I would like to introduce you to my parents.’

Mr Madhavan was probably in his late forties, no more; a short, square, muscular man with crisp hair just greying at the temples. His wife was plump and round, with a cheerful face that smiled even in repose. Their best festival wear was plain, practical cotton, whites for him and sensible wine-coloured sari for her, laundered many times but laundered superlatively. There was no wealth here, only a hard-won and shrewdly-planned living, and a great deal of good humour as oil for the machinery of making-do. There was a cheerful flurry of greetings, blessedly in English; and with ceremony which hardly seemed ceremonious because it was so exuberant in its warmth, the visitors were brought into the cool of the house.

‘Not all the children,’ Priya said, reading their minds, ‘are ours. Two of the littlest belong to my eldest married brother, and two to my married sister – they both live quite close – and one or two from the neighbours seem to have joined the party, too. You are a great event, you mustn’t grudge them gate-crashing.’

There was also a beautiful girl of about seventeen, a plain but engaging one of fifteen and two boys aged eleven and nine. They were so many and so colourful and the little ones so light and rapid in movement that it was like being surrounded by a cloud of butterflies.

How even the ones who belonged in the house ever found room there remained a mystery. So far as they saw, it consisted of only two rooms, though the kitchen was obviously elsewhere. The room into which they were brought was furnished very simply with a couple of cushioned benches which must also have done duty for beds, a large table and a few chairs, a chest of drawers against one wall, covered with an embroidered cloth and proudly presenting the parents’ wedding photograph, two or three other family pictures, a carved box, and a bowl in which flowers floated. A curtained doorway led through into a second and smaller room with two charpoys draped with bright covers, and a little table loaded with family ornaments and souvenirs. The bright calendar hanging on one wall showed a blue, effeminate, mischievous Krishna leading a timorous Radha through the grove. But on another wall there was an unexpected reproduction of a modern Christian nativity, romantic and sugary-sweet, complete with ox and ass. Purushottam studied it with dazed interest, and turned to look wide-eyed at Priya.

As for Priya herself, she was perfectly at her ease, composed, even a little amused, certainly proud of her poor, prolific, hospitable and gracious family. She helped her mother to settle the guests comfortably, relieved them of their garlands, and brought, before everything else, glasses of cold water. Then the women vanished to the sacred and invisible kitchen. They also herded the small children out into the yard to play, though until their curiosity waned they tended to creep back and stand in a little rainbow cluster in the doorway, frankly and greedily staring.

‘My daughter tells me,’ said Mr Madhavan, sitting down with his guests, ‘that you will go on to Cape Comorin. It is only about eight miles from here. But you are a South Indian yourself, Mr Narayanan, and doubtless you already know it.’ He was feeling his way towards a subject which must be mentioned, to set everything in clear order, but equally must not be allowed to cast too long a shadow upon this gathering. ‘You will understand, we were expecting Priya to bring her friend with her. All my girls were looking forward very much to her visit. Priya has told us already, by courtesy of our good friend, Mr Achmed, who has a shop close by, what has happened. It is a terrible tragedy, and we are deeply sorry. For her parents especially. Such a dreadful loss for them. Death is not an ending, of course, but it is a separation.’ It did not sound so far from the Swami’s: ‘To the born sure is death…’ But it caused Purushottam to cast a fleeting glance at the pretty, Christmas-card Bethlehem on the wall.

Mr Madhavan followed the look, and smiled understandingly. ‘Perhaps Priya did not explain us. We are Salvationists. Oh, yes, you will find we have quite a strong community here. Since my grandfather’s day our family has belonged to the Salvation Army. There is an excellent Army school here, all our children attend it.’

It seemed utterly fitting that the good friend Mr Achmed, who took the telephone messages for the family, should be a Muslim, Purushottam breathed deeply, and warned himself, half-heartedly, not to expect too much; but so much had been lavished already that he found it difficult not to feel encouraged. Instead of the orthodox, narrow Hindu family he had feared, all the more insistent on the proper procedures because they were not rich, adamant about suitabilities of caste and background, here was this cheerful, exuberant, free-thinking tribe with a door wide open to friends of all creeds, and professing not merely Christianity – which after all might have been a disadvantage rather than otherwise in some of its manifestations – but the most down-to-earth, hearty and extrovert brand of Christianity possible. Exotics themselves in this conformist India, they were surely capable of assimilating even such an exotic as Purushottam Narayanan, half-westernised, a non-believer in caste, and about to beggar himself – comparatively speaking – by turning his lands into a co-operative farm, if the state authorities did not block his plans out of spite towards the central government, which was always a possibility. He had not admitted to himself until then how much he valued and wanted Priya, with all her quietness and her dignity, her courage and self-respect, the occasional spark of demure mischief in her eyes, and in particular, and most daunting of all, her sturdy ability to stand on her own feet and be independent even of him, in a world heavily weighted against feminine independence. Now he had qualms on only one score, that as yet he did not know whether she felt the same way about him. But one fence at a time!

‘My middle son plays the trumpet in the Army band,’ said Mr Madhavan, confirming with every word the good impression he had already made. ‘My eldest son – he will probably come in for coffee afterwards if he can get away from the shop where he works – has on the other hand reverted to his great-grandfather’s Vaishnovite persuasion. It is a change without a difference, don’t you think so? Largely a matter of what label one uses. But if a man feels more at home and more suited with one than with another, and finds the kind of help he needs, that is what matters. We get on very well together.’

Faced with so interesting a set-up, Larry came out of his shell and began to ask question after question, none apparently being barred, and none that he was likely to frame resented. It was not often he had such an opportunity, with someone at once as articulate and as artless as Mr Madhavan. And the children gazed and listened in fascination until the women reappeared in procession from some outhouse kitchen, and shooed them out again to play.

The fifteen-year-old spread the table with a cotton cloth, and the seventeen-year-old brought in four huge, glossy green banana leaves, delicately holding two, folded edge-to-edge, between thumb and forefinger of either hand, and laid them for plates. They were newly washed, and drops of water sparkled in the veins that ran down into the stems. Then Priya and her mother brought in the dishes, and stood and served as the men ate. There was rice, spiced and tinted with saffron, a variety of vegetables, and a chicken curry; and afterwards, some of the ultra-sweet Indian sweets made with coconut, which treacherously soak you with a fountain of syrup unless you know how to eat them. Forks had been thoughtfully provided for the foreign guests, but both of them chose to eat with the fingers, like the rest of the party. The two teenage daughters went off to feed the gaggle of hungry children in the kitchen, and the feast overflowed into the yard and into the street.

When everyone else was taken care of, Mrs Madhavan and Priya also helped themselves and sat down with the menfolk. And by the time the younger girls brought coffee Mr Achmed the silversmith had arrived, and the eldest son with his wife, and the married daughter with her husband, to meet the visitors and to reclaim their various children. The walls of the little house bulged.

Out in the centre of the open square the Land-Rover stood all this time, a magnet for the interest of the whole district. Word went round from one to another, and half the neighbourhood came to see.

Priya emerged from the kitchen with a new pot of coffee, and crossed to the steps of the house. The Land-Rover had nearly disappeared beneath a cloud of gaily-coloured children; but they were in pride and awe of it, more concerned with being seen to belong to it than anything else, and there seemed no need to call them away. It was because she was looking in their direction, however, that as she passed she looked beyond them, to where the solitary tree stood rooted in the baked earth, sheltering its little mat of grass.

There was a man in a yellow robe sitting cross-legged in the shade there, dappled with the sunlight filtering through the leaves over him. She saw the coils of wooden beads and coloured cords round his neck, the tangle of black hair, and the ash-smeared forehead with the cult mark of Siva. He was motionless, his body facing the street, but his head turned towards her father’s house.

For one instant she had checked at sight of him; and though she resumed her purposeful walk at once, she could not be sure that he had not noticed and understood. She went on into the house, and poured fresh coffee; and then, without a word to anyone, and hardly missed among so many, she darted out again, down the steps and straight across towards the tree. For he could not be a coincidence, and she knew he was no illusion. She had no idea what she was going to say to him, or how he would answer her; but she must confront him, challenge him, and at least get a close look at him, face to face, so that in future she would be able to identify him wherever they met, and through whatever disguise he might put on. Here on the public street, among so many people, what could happen to her?

The grass-plot under the tree was empty, the scintillation of leaves quivered over the place where he had sat only a minute ago. The sadhu was gone.

She went on into the street, and searched in both directions for the flutter of saffron cloth, or a glimpse of the tangled, oily black hair; but he had vanished utterly.

She walked back slowly to the house. Now, she thought, I know that it was Purushottam they wanted, and not Patti, and having failed, they will try again. However he did it, this spy, he has found us. He is not wasting his time watching Lakshman from a distance at Malaikuppam; he is here, hard on our heels. And now, what are we to do?

He knows that I’ve seen him, this man. He went away because he didn’t want me to see him more closely. So he knows we’re warned. Would it be best to stay here, in a town, surrounded by people, where nothing can happen without instant detection, where action would be suicide? But no, we’ve seen already that they will contemplate suicide without a qualm, if they must. Death does not frighten them, not even their own. No, hundreds of innocent people passing by would be no protection, they would still toss a bomb in at the door and kill as many as need be, just to kill one…

A private part of her mind said, and she heard it and did not try to pretend deafness: ‘… that one!’

She had a family, parents, all those younger brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces…

No, she thought, we must go. Get out of here as soon as we can. The departure of the Land-Rover will be sign enough. If we can whip it away unobserved, now, while he is keeping out of my way for his own ends, I can guide it by a roundabout route, and not pass where we should pass on the direct road to the Cape. We may be able to lose them completely, and yet the fact that the Land-Rover is gone should leave my family undisturbed. All will be quiet here. The visitors gone – any neighbour will tell them. But not where! I must warn my father not to tell anyone where we are going.

All along, of course, it had been ‘we’. She knew that she had never meant to remain here, and let him go on without her, still under that shadow. Not even before she had sighted the pursuit, much less now. Not until the threat had passed, once for all, would she part company with Purushottam.

She went back into the house, which was full of voices, and made her own quiet voice cut through them all, clapping her hands under her chin with a bright, apologetic smile. Purushottam had been trying for half an hour to raise his courage, and find the right words in which to request that she might be allowed to travel on to the Cape with them, and even in this liberating atmosphere he had found it a hard thing to do. Yet if he did not make some move now to continue the acquaintance, how could he hope to revive it later through the good offices of his one surviving aunt, who in any case would think the match most ill-advised? But Priya simply raised the pitch of her soft voice a couple of tones, and said deprecatingly: ‘I am so sorry, but it is quite time that we should think of leaving now. Please forgive us!’ and everything was resolved.