Death to the Landlords

Epilogue

Malaikuppam

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The police came and went at Malaikuppam, took statement after statement, congratulated the household and one another, even condescended to fill in a detail or two which had emerged later, such as Romesh Iyar’s mode of transport on that last chase. It seemed that a motor-cycle had been stolen, and later found abandoned at Nagarcoil, where he had rediscovered the Bessancourts through happening on their car, and had managed to get himself added to their party. And having completed all inquiries to their own satisfaction, Inspector Tilak and Inspector Raju closed the case, and departed. The terrorist was dead, the file completed, and this particular danger, at least, over for good.

The Galloways came and departed, also. During the three days that they stayed, every other person in the house walked delicately, tuned only to their needs and wishes. They were the essence of what Patti had once called suburban Cheltenham, unobtrusively well-bred, well-dressed and unadventurous. But they had also the advantages of their kind, reticence, consideration, honesty and fortitude, and the kind of durability which outlives empire. They would probably never do anything very big, very important, or very imaginative, but equally they were unlikely ever to do anything very mean, very cruel or crassly unimaginative. Their grief was contained but profound; they were not the kind to embarrass anyone with too intimate an insight into their troubles. Priya, who still had a week of leave, stayed and devoted herself to them until they left for the airport at Madurai, with Patti’s ashes, en route for Bombay and home. And when they were driven away, Larry, who had also felt impelled to stay and see the affair out to its close, gazed after the departing car with a thoughtful frown, and said:

‘The more I see of the New Left, the more I begin to value middle-class virtues.’ To add the next moment, in case anyone had got the wrong idea: ‘Virtues, I said. I know they’ve got their vices, too.’

He and Lakshman were the nexxt to leave, heading westward over the Ghats to Trivandrum and up-coast to Cochin; but when their tour ended, Lakshman was to return to his college with a grant guaranteed by the Mission, and Larry, too, had asked, noncommittally enough, to be informed if ever the work of restoring the old irrigation tanks should be seriously contemplated. They would both be back; at least to visit and remember, quite probably to stay.

Then Purushottam drove Priya home to Nagarcoil, to spend her last few days of leave with her family; not to broach the idea of marriage yet – that would be a job for someone else in the first instance – but surely to keep a sharp eye open for the quality of his own welcome, in the light of all that had happened. He came back cautiously elated; very thoughtful, but with a happy, hopeful thoughtfulness that looked forward, not back. And as for Sushil Dastur, turned loose on all the papers that had been salvaged from the office, dealing with abstract things like figures, which obeyed and never nagged him, he had never been so happy in his life.

And the next day Dominic drove the Swami to Madurai in the hired car, on their way back to Madras.

The whole household waved them away from the gates. As soon as they lost sight of the wall, and were threading the dusty centre of the village, the Swami sat back with a sigh in the front passenger seat, and turned his face to the future; but not yet his thoughts, not completely, for in a few moments he said, summing up: ‘Well, it is over. Not, perhaps, without loss, but I think as economically as possible.’

‘Except,’ said Dominic, accelerating as they drew clear of the last fringe of the village, ‘that justice has not been done. And you know it.’

The Swami gazed ahead, along the reddish-yellow, rutted ribbon of road, and pondered that without haste.

‘In what particular?’ he asked at length.

‘Granted it was Romesh Iyar who planted the bomb in Bakhle’s boat at Thekady, and set up the other boat-boy to take the rap, granted it was Romesh who hunted us to the Cape when he found Purushottam and Lakshman had changed places, and did everything that was done there – planting the krait, kidnapping Priya as bait, and setting the trap to shoot Purushottam – all that, yes. But not the second bomb, the one in the office. He had nothing to do with that. He couldn’t have had. He was at Tenkasi, and the police were getting regular reports from him. He was there doing casual work around the junction until he was told on Thursday evening that he could go where he liked, and needn’t report any more. He was fifty miles from Malaikuppam when that bomb was planted. And you know it. And so does Inspector Raju!’

‘There is this matter of the stolen motor-cycle. Fifty miles is not a great distance,’ said the Swami experimentally.

‘Yes, I noticed that Inspector Raju mentioned that the motor-bike was found at Nagarcoil, abandoned after Romesh hit on the idea of attaching himself to the Bessancourts. But he never said where or when it was reported missing.’ Dominic smiled along his shoulder, with affection, and even a little rueful amusement. ‘Oh, no, I wasn’t stupid enough to ask Inspector Raju, he might not have told me this time. But I did ask Sergeant Gokhale. Everyone got the desired impression that it was stolen in Tenkasi, at some unspecified time, and that he used it to commute up here by night. But actually it vanished right here in Koilpatti during Thursday night. After the police had told Romesh he needn’t report any more. After Patti’s death was in the papers. He didn’t leave Tenkasi until then, and he left by train. He pinched the motor-bike to get up to Malaikuppam from the station, and he kept it to follow us south when he saw us set off next morning without Lakshman – and with Purushottam.’

‘The others,’ said the Swami reasonably, having absorbed all this without apparent discomfiture, ‘have not questioned the police conclusions.’

‘The others don’t happen to have that bit of information I got from Inspector Raju, as he was leaving on Thursday evening. I was asking about all the others, Romesh was only mentioned among the rest. But that’s how I know he was still waiting in Tenkasi when Patti was killed in Malaikuppam.’

The Swami denied nothing of all this. He contemplated the road ahead, and looked a little tired, but not at all discomposed. ‘And why have you said no word of this in front of everyone?’

‘I suppose,’ said Dominic gently, ‘my reasons must be much the same as yours. I said justice hadn’t been done – I didn’t say I necessarily wanted it done.’

‘And how long,’ asked the Swami, after another considering silence, ‘have you known?’

‘Not long. Not even after we went to identify Romesh Iyar’s body. I only began to understand,’ he said, ‘when you evaded Priya’s question about how and why Patti died. It was because of her recognition or non-recognition of the sadhu’s face, you said, that Patti died. So it was. It was because she didn’t recognise him again in Romesh, not because she did. If she’d known him when she met him again, she might have been alive today. Not,’ he added honestly, ‘that it would necessarily have been much better for her. But it was after you said that, that I began to put things together, and to remember everything that seemed insignificant at the time, and yet made absolute sense once I had the clue. Such as, for instance, that if only we’d taken the girls with us when we went to look over the estate and the old irrigation channels, again, Patti might have been alive today.’

They were out on the main road, turning left towards Koilpatti.

‘As Purushottam said, at a moment when his every word merited attention,’ the Swami remarked, ‘we should not and must not turn to saying: “If only…” We do what we must, what seems right to us at the time, and none of us can do more.’ He added with reserve, but with respect and resignation, too: ‘Tell me, then, since you know so much—’

‘Only because, in the first place, you told me! To see you confronted with the absolute necessity for telling a lie, and still managing not to tell one, is a revelation.’

‘I see that you begin to know me too well, and to be as irreverent as a real son, my son,’ lamented the Swami, with a sigh and a smile of detached affection. ‘Tell me, then, if Romesh Iyar did not put the bomb in Purushottam’s office – who did?’

‘Patti did,’ said Dominic. ‘Of course!’

‘Go on,’ said the Swami, his face neither consenting nor denying.

‘She came from England, already in rebellion against everything that represented her parents and the establishment. She came innocent, romantic, idealistic, silly if you like, a sucker for left-wing causes, and kidded into hoping to find the wonderful, easy, metaphysical way here in India. And India kicked her in the teeth, the way it does – in the belly, too, sometimes – showing her, as it shows to all silly idealists, its most deprived and venomous and ugly and venal side. She was absolutely ripe to be a fall guy. The obvious ills of India made her a sitting target for the Naxalite contacts I don’t doubt she made in Calcutta – through the most vocal and articulate section of her society. It isn’t any chore to sell the slogan of: “Death to the landlords!” to a girl like that, who’d never even seen anyone kick a kitten until she came here. To her violence was all abstract, until she had to see it with her own eyes, all the blood and mess that you can imagine away as long as it’s still only in the mind. I don’t know who got hold of her, there among the Bengali teachers and students, but someone did. And when she came on leave south, they got her to bring the two bombs from Calcutta. She had her orders about handing them over, and she knew the names of the parties for whom they were intended…’

‘You are sure of that?’ asked the Swami, pricking up his ears.

‘Quite sure. In the boat she got the shock of her life when Romesh mentioned the name of Mahendralal Bakhle. Seeing him hadn’t meant a thing to her, she hadn’t known what he looked like; but she knew the name, all right. She passed it off by saying she’d read about his labour riots in the papers, but from then on she was dead quiet that day. Until then, I think, she’d sort of felt that she’d washed her hands of the first bomb, and nothing would really happen, nothing she would ever have to know about – and suddenly there was the man who was condemned to death, on the same lake with her, and she knew it was real. And again later, when we had to tell Inspector Raju where we could be contacted, and we said we were going to Purushottam Narayanan’s house at Malaikuppam, she at once changed her plans and asked if she and Priya could travel with us. Oh, yes, Patti knew who the victims were. But the rest – her contact here – everything to do with the Naxalite organisation itself – no, they took good care she should know as little as possible about all that.’

‘So the deliveries of those two bombs she carried, you think, were clearly laid down for her, in such a way as to prevent her from identifying the receiver?’

‘It looks that way. The first – of course you know it – was dropped into the sadhu’s begging bowl by the lingam shrine, along with her few naye paise…’

‘Yes… the face only she saw, and by twilight, behind its ash and paint, and failed to know again in Romesh Iyar.’

‘And the second, I think, was to have been delivered in exactly the same way to the sadhu at Tenkasi Junction, when she and Priya de-trained there for Kuttalam. Why else should he set off for there the next day, and wait there three days? He thought she knew him, and had understood everything – or perhaps he merely thought that she would obey instructions, and use no initiative herself. Let’s say, at least, that it never entered his head that she would accept the set-up at its face value, and believe absolutely that Ajit Ghose was her contact, and that he’d sacrificed his own life to fulfil his mission.’

‘And therefore,’ said the Swami sadly, ‘that she was now orphaned – bereft of her partner, and challenged to be as selfless and as ruthless as he. That she was on her own – with a bomb, and a known victim.’

‘When we found that boat it hit her like a thunderbolt,’ said Dominic, sweating as he remembered the leaking hull swaying sluggishly with its wash of water and blood among the tall reeds. ‘She’d never seen violence before – damn it, I don’t suppose she’d ever seen death before. You contemplate it with heroic calm, yes – as long as it stays a thousand miles away from you. When you see it, smell it, touch it, that’s another matter. Priya has never thought of violent injury but with compassion and the urge to jump right in and help. She’s never willed it, and it doesn’t frighten her. Patti had willed it, and then she saw it, and it was sickening. She collapsed, she was out of the reckoning all that night. And in the morning, Priya said, she was very calm, and talked of having to see Inspector Raju. Priya thought that was only because she hadn’t been fit the night before, and felt a statement would be required from her. I think it was more. I think she had slept on it, then, and made up her mind to confess, and hand over the second bomb. Not because of Bakhle, so much as because she thought that her heroes, the activists, the Naxalites, had turned out to be nothing but callous murderers, to whom an innocent, incidental boat-boy was of no account, and could be wiped out like swatting a fly. In a country, my God, where the Jains won’t even risk inhaling a fly! And she was right then. But afterwards, when she did see Inspector Raju, it was only to have it confirmed that so far from being an innocent victim, Ajit Ghose was the assassin, and a martyr for his cause, willing to die to carry out his assignment. And it was then she changed course again. She didn’t confess, she didn’t hand over the second bomb. On the contrary, when she heard we were to be Purushottam’s guests she hitched a ride along with us. Poor Priya was shocked. One doesn’t do such things, in a land where hospitality is in any case so instant, and so lavish. But Patti had risen to the occasion then, she was exalted. Ghose was dead, no longer able to take care of his second assignment. And she was confronted with his monstrous example. She was English, insubordinate, used to being allowed initiative. Romesh Iyar, who was sure she would just go ahead as planned, made off to Tenkasi to wait for her, never doubting she would come. Patti, believing she was left to hold up the world alone, and delivered from the ghastly thought that her heroes wrote off the humble as expendable – no, more than that, convinced that they regarded themselves as expendable – came with us to Malaikuppam dedicated to killing Purushottam.’

‘You are very sure,’ said the Swami, with sincere sorrow.

‘Very sure. Aren’t you? Who else was ever alone in Purushottam’s office that day? She asked to use his typewriter to catch up with her letters, and she was in there, I suppose, an hour and a half before Priya and I went to see how she was getting on, and bring her back to the house. I don’t know what she did with the bomb – taped it underneath the desk, maybe – I expect the police know. Anyhow, she left it there, set for somewhere around half past seven. You remember, we were to leave about seven, and the lawyer was to come at eight. She didn’t want to kill the lawyer, she knew nothing about him. She knew nothing about Purushottam, either – I blame all of us for that, but as you say, “If only… ” has no meaning. We’d talked so much in front of her about farming on a big scale, and the uselessness of a small-holding economy here – but never, until the morning we were to leave, did we mention the word co-operative in her hearing, or let her into the secret that Purushottam was not setting out to enrich himself but to give away everything he had. Without realising it, we must have confirmed her ten times over in thinking she had the right to dispatch him out of the world. But in the morning, just when we were ready to set out – I remember almost every word now – we were talking as if she wasn’t there, about the welfare of the villages, about how he was aiming at transforming the district and financing the change himself… If we’d said it openly earlier – but how can you use it as a reproach against anyone that he doesn’t talk a lot about his own good deeds? No, there was nothing we could have done.

‘But Patti was standing there close beside us, and she heard, then, and understood. It hit her like lightning-stroke. She suddenly started rummaging in her bag, and then gasped out something about having left her diary in the office, and having to fetch it. There wasn’t any diary, she wasn’t the diary type, but how did we know? We barely knew her at all, even Priya. And she ran to undo what she’d done, to save Purushottam, who wasn’t what she’d thought he was. It was her last change of course, it would have involved confession – everything – though I don’t suppose she thought of that at all. But the bomb went off early, and killed her.

‘And that’s all,’ he said sombrely, steering the car with care through the narrow, chaotic streets of Koilpatti, and out on the northward run to Sattur and Madurai.

‘It is enough,’ said the Swami. ‘Do you not think so? Has she not partially answered you? Do you think that justice consists in revealing everything to everyone? I think not. Why should we discomfort those two sad people by telling them that their daughter became a dedicated terrorist, willing to kill for a cause? And do you think it would redress that balance if we also told them that afterwards she proved herself, no less, a girl with the honesty and courage to turn back just as vehemently when her eyes were opened? To undo what she had done at the cost of her own life? No, I think not. They would not be at home with either aspect. Let them continue to believe in her as in an innocent victim, too bland for either role. I believe they will be happier so. And she…’

‘And she?’ said Dominic.

‘Do not despair of Patti. Do not despair for her. She accepted the evidence that refuted her. She ran without hesitation or fear to undo what she had done, as soon as she knew it to be unjustified – even by her own lights. By mine no violence is justified. Think of it! Your departure was already some minutes delayed, it was past seven o’clock, but still she ran to prevent Purushottam’s death. And having detached the bomb – for I doubt if she knew how to stop the clock mechanism once it was set – what do you suppose she meant to do with it? How dispose of it?’

Dominic watched the road, and kept his hands steady and competent on the wheel. ‘I had thought of that. The office was turned away from the courtyard, with its windows on the kitchen garden. It was quite big and empty out there. I doubt if she’d thought about it at all in advance, but once there, with a bomb in her hands due to go off in about twenty minutes at the outside, I suppose her instinct would be to throw it out of the window as far as she could.’

‘Yes,’ said the Swami, ‘so one supposes. And have you forgotten what you told me? There were three of the household children playing there in the kitchen garden. There were things Patti could not do, and that was one of them. She could not throw out the bomb where the innocents might be harmed, no, not for her own life. And then she did not know what to do. I think she was still holding it in her hands when it blew up and killed her.’

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[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away]

[A 3S Release— v1, html]

[August 01, 2007]