CHAPTER 19

Jaya never told Arthur where she was staying in Calcutta. And when they met every few weeks at the pools, somehow she was always there before him, so he didn’t even know from which direction she came. Nothing about her appearance gave a clue to her new living quarters, except that she looked clean enough to not be on the street. Or perhaps she cared enough about Arthur to clean up and look presentable for him. In any case, he was also forbidden from following her when she left. Jaya told him it was for their safety—they didn’t know what malice the judge was capable of, and should the judge decide to tie up loose ends, it was best that Arthur know nothing. Still, Arthur felt the pain, the shame, of being unable to protect her.

In their meetings, Jaya also pressed on him the importance of appearing normal around the house, acting as though nothing of importance had happened to him. The Hintons didn’t know about their relationship, and she cared too much about Arthur, she said, to risk his losing his job.

To keep his mind off her, he worked at his chores and kept his hands busy. It seemed to work well until midweek, when he realized, kneeling in front of the perfectly polished leg of the dining table with a rag in one hand and a worn walnut piece in the other, that there was nothing left to do.

As he stood behind his hut one afternoon, freshly lit bidi in hand, the cheers and whoops of the boys carried over from the track. He peered around the corner to see what was going on. The two older boys were the ones making all the noise, waving branches above their heads as Gene sprinted out in front of them.

“See?” John yelled, trailing behind. “He just needs a bit of persuasion.”

“Yaw! Yaw! Calo ya’i!” Will hollered at Gene’s heels. “The race is day after tomorrow, you know!”

Arthur shook his head and put the bidi to his lips. Its earthy taste enveloped his tongue. They wouldn’t see him, not from all the way over there. Gene had his head down, chin glued to his chest as he pumped his legs. It actually worked—his brothers were falling behind.

Watching the boys chase each other all up and down the track reminded him of his own childhood in Kharagpur. Days were longer then, it seemed—empty and ready to be filled with play. But there was only so much a single child could do before he began to get bored—or lonely. As Arthur tapped the ashes off, he tried to conjure the faces of the children that had grown up along his country road. There was the boy who was pudgy around the middle, making him stand out among the other malnourished children. There was the girl with braided hair all the way down to her legs, around whom Arthur had been too shy to say hello. He had been so happy one evening when she shouted “Arthin!” from down the road. He had stood there, elated that she actually knew his name, when a cart wallah began hollering from behind him. He had leaped to the side at the last moment and looked down the street at her frowning face. She had meant only to warn him to get out of the way.

Was that like having an older sister? Someone to watch out for you, to call you by your true name and remind you of who you were before?

From all the days Arthur had spent around the Hinton boys, it was plain to see how horrible they were to each other. Not one of them seemed to have the fear of God in them to make them behave. When the judge had arrived, Arthur noticed a brief change in their manners, but here they were, back to their tricks again. He watched as John took a whack at Gene’s calves.

“Ouch!” the boy yelped. He stopped altogether and examined the back of his leg. Even Arthur could see it was nothing serious. But immediately Gene was roaring about it; he lunged for the branch, trying to tug it out of John’s hands. The two older boys just cackled, fending him off easily.

Arthur laughed, too, even though he liked Gene. But couldn’t he figure out, after so many times, that his brothers just wanted to get a rise out of him? How could he not know he was playing their game and losing every time? If only he stopped playing, he would win.

Through the clouds of dust in the air, Arthur could make out the judge at the center of the track, Moti at his side. He was dressed in what Arthur could only assume was a tennis ensemble, the kind he had seen other Britishers and even the Hintons wear. The crisp, white collar and creased shorts were apparently necessary for the athleticism of training a dog to beg at one’s feet. Arthur watched the judge drag a piece of last night’s mutton around his legs, luring her like a fish on a line, until she came to a stop between his legs directly underneath him. He still withheld the morsel, so Moti kept still, drops of her saliva sprinkling her paws. Then Moti’s inner wildness overcame this new domesticated “Ella,” and she jumped with both paws on the judge’s rotund paunch, inclined to take the taunting treat by force.

Surprisingly, the judge was not angered at all. “That’s the spirit!” he said with an encouraging pat to her chin. “No dog of mine will wait for things she has earned.”

“Come on, Uncle Ellis, enough with the tricks,” John whined. “Leave the dog for a while and help us train!”

The judge chuckled as he leaned down and grasped Moti’s chin, then wiggled it back and forth in some form of affection. Arthur pulled again on his bidi.

“All right, run along.” The judge dismissed her, but she didn’t budge. Instead, she stared up at him, waiting for a command she could understand. “I don’t know, boys, she’s gotten quite attached,” he said.

“Just tell Arthur to look after her,” Will said. “I bet he can teach her something new in the time it takes us to run four 400s.”

“Arthur!” the judge barked.

Shit.

Arthur pressed the bidi out against the wall, hid it under the crawl space, and wiped his fingers on his shirt. “Yes, sahib!” he called, trotting over.

“Take her and . . . teach her something worthwhile,” the judge said, tossing him a piece of biscuit that Arthur assumed was his training material.

“Like what, sahib?”

“I don’t know, come up with something. Something I can use. Now, hurry up, keep her out of our way while I whip these boys into shape.”

The judge turned away and checked his gun to start their race. Moti, elated to see Arthur, was already leaning into his shins and lapping at his toes.

“She certainly took to you,” the judge said, watching them.

Arthur thought he caught an edge to his voice, but before he could think of an explanation, the judge had turned away again.

“Come on,” he whispered to Moti, who seemed all too happy to run away with him.

In the shade behind his hut, Arthur gave Moti the entire biscuit at once and then pushed her over to rub her belly.

“What are you doing with him?” he asked. A contented sigh was her response.

Though her wagging tail and pricked ears showed how eager she was to learn from humans, Arthur refused to believe it equated to love or devotion for the judge. He held on to the belief that she was simply a curious being, a hungry thing willing to entertain anyone who gave her attention, to savor life and all its opportunities. He had to believe there were still creatures as plain and good as that. He regretted not playing with her more when he had the chance—the chance to revel in her innocence before the judge stepped in and claimed her for himself and trained her for his own vanity. Arthur knew it was his fault for leading her to the Big House, unintentional though it was. She was trapped here—even if she didn’t know it herself.

For all Moti’s intelligence, Arthur could see no way to teach her that the judge was a bad man. It had always been said that dogs knew people from good and evil, but that didn’t account for the juicy meat offered freely and the particularly ravenous bellies of Bengali pariah dogs. There was no way for him to teach her the danger of humans. After all, he himself was one.

They passed the time in play, Arthur tossing sticks and rocks and handfuls of leaves and Moti chasing after anything that moved, only occasionally bringing it back to him to throw again. She much preferred to chew the sticks to shreds after hunting them down in the grass. After a while, Arthur squatted in the dirt and rested his chin in his hands. It was the simplest of pleasures, watching her.

Time escaped them both, moving shadows across the ground without their noticing. Eventually, she tired of the game and came to lay at his feet. He took a velvet ear in between his fingers and caressed it, the softness like a salve to his roughened hands. “Moti, Moti, Moti,” he murmured. “My Moti.”

“Your what?” a voice interrupted them. The burra sahib stood not five paces away, his calm face betraying nothing.

Arthur stood up so swiftly that the blood rushed to his head. “Sahib,” he said, his throat scratchy. “It—it is only an endearment. Like love or darling. You know.”

Then Arthur folded his arms behind his back and meant to walk away, eager to get far from this interaction. But the judge took a step and blocked his way.

“Show me what you taught her.”

“Pardon?”

“Well, what have you been working on this whole time?”

“Kindly, sahib, we were only playing. She seemed not in the mood.” Arthur attempted a weak smile in the hopes that the judge would find it funny.

“You didn’t obey me?”

Arthur shifted his feet and looked stupidly at Moti, as if she’d know what to say.

But the judge continued. “I don’t care if I ask you to train her or shoot her, I expect you to obey my order.”

He knew what the proper response would be: I’m very sorry, sir, it won’t happen again. But the words tasted bitter and would not release from his tongue. Maybe it was the loosening effects of the bidi or the diversion of playing with Moti or simply the heat of the late afternoon gone to his head, but something made Arthur clear his throat and say, without really thinking, “I don’t work for you.”

The air inflated between them. Arthur held the judge’s gaze, waiting to see what he would do next. The recklessness was like a drug. It felt good not to think about the consequences of what he just said. He tried to ignore the pounding in his chest as the judge appraised him with fresh eyes.

“This is your hut, isn’t it?” The judge, still with a blank face, gestured at the building that shaded them.

“Yes, sahib,” Arthur whispered, enough sense coming back to him to keep his voice down, anything to appear submissive.

“Mm.” The judge looked it up and down, the crumbling walls, the thatched roof, the pathetic size. “A place of your own must be a luxury. You know, I see many officers’ homes, and almost none of them have a dwelling like this for the help. In fact, I’ve no idea where they must go after their work is done. The streets, I imagine.”

Arthur felt vaguely offended by this, but he had no intention of prolonging this conversation, so he simply nodded in reply.

The judge took a step to the side, almost enough to let Arthur by, but not enough to be sure. Then he drew another piece of mutton out of his pocket. “I suppose you remember the first time I visited here?”

The judge waited, apparently wanting a response. He dangled the mutton over Moti’s head, just out of reach. She stretched her neck for it, drool glistening on her jowls.

Arthur swallowed. “Yes, sahib.”

“Of course you remember me. I take great care to be someone people never forget. But what you may not know is that I remembered you.”

His words made Arthur’s hair stand on end, the back of his neck grow cold. For all the judge’s cruelty toward him, his one comfort was knowing that the judge forgot him as soon as he was out of sight, that any given interaction would never last beyond the present. But if the judge remembered him, then that meant he had thought of Arthur—retained him in his mind like an animal caught in a trap.

“I remembered you had the cleanest pair of shoes for Sunday sermon, a rarity for people like you. And I remember watching you ride away on Mr. Hinton’s bicycle one day, off to do some errand or other, and I thought to myself, My word, they trust their servant quite a lot to let him do such a thing.

“At first I was baffled that you brought the bicycle back, good as new. Why wouldn’t you try to sell it? You could say it was stolen and pocket the profits for yourself. Or even those nice shoes—surely you could find someone who would pay good money for those, and again, you could say something happened to them. Dogs are always chewing shoes.” At this, he knelt down to Moti and began petting her head slowly, so forcefully her eyes stretched back. In his other hand, the mutton remained just out of her reach. Moti let out a high-pitched whine.

“And the more I thought of it, the more I realized how intelligent you are. You have a good deal going here. The Hintons, they don’t live lavishly like I do—they keep an automobile that will break if you so much as look at it, and they have no nice things save for what I buy them. But to you . . . why, this hut is practically Buckingham Palace.”

Arthur’s mouth had gone dry. He gulped a breath and felt his ribs tighten.

“So I decided to try something. I tried testing your loyalty. How far would you go to keep this deal going? At first I simply called you names, little insults I picked up at the Officers Club. When you didn’t bat an eye, I had to start getting creative. Would you still do nothing if I . . . put a hand on Mrs. Hinton’s waist when no one else was watching? Or follow her up the stairs after Mr. Hinton had fallen asleep in his chair? Let you listen when I called her darling.”

Arthur’s stomach was in knots by now, to hear such dark things he had known all along spoken aloud after all this time. For the judge was right: Arthur had seen everything.

The judge’s face shone with sweat. He stood up again. Moti reacted by sitting straight in front of him, staring at the piece of meat.

“So you know my secrets, and hers as well. Hell—you must know everyone’s secrets in this place, enough to bring the whole family to ruin if you wanted. You could tell everyone how virtuous the Hinton family really is. They would be expelled from their mission. They would be disgraced. They would leave India. You could bring all this upon them. But you won’t. Because if they go, you have nothing. Do you see how that works?”

The judge teased Moti again with the morsel, almost allowing her to get it before snapping it back. She laid down on her stomach, trying a more submissive position to get her treat. “You may not work for me.” He let go of the meat. In the split second it fell, Moti sprang from her haunches and snatched it midair, spit spraying, and devoured it by the time she landed on her paws again. “But I own you just the same.”

The judge turned and walked back to the track. Moti didn’t need to be called to follow. The taste of meat on her tongue was enough to lure her along. Arthur sank back against his hut, his vision swimming. He stayed still for some time, minutes or hours, until he finally willed himself to move and take on his usual duties. He passed the rest of the day in a haze. He served supper. He cleared the table. He retired early from the house. He lay numb on his charpoy, watching the moonlight stream through the cracks around the door of his hut. He had never felt more trapped in his life.

Everything was gray in the first light of morning. Arthur awoke to a world dry and dull; he yearned for the monsoons to come. He lurched out of bed and prepared for his Friday walk to the market, searching for his red cap and rucksack. What else was there to do but carry on? The judge’s words played in his head all the sleepless night, and he couldn’t wait to get away from the Big House and spend the day in town.

As he gathered his things around the hut, a shot rang out. The sound of it shook him. His eyes widened. Mind raced. A gun, that much was certain. But who? The judge had guns. Arthur could remember the pistol clearly. Suddenly he began to imagine every possible scenario. Oh no. Surely the boys weren’t foolish enough to . . .? Or the judge had been acting glum all these weeks. Could he have . . .? It could also be nothing, just the guards practicing. But the shot sounded so close. Too close.

A sharp whistle jolted him as the shuffle of feet ran past his door. The guards. Could they have shot at someone? A trespasser. He remembered the men with the black arm bands, the streets full of them. But a trespasser could also be—

Arthur put a hand to his mouth, stifling a yelp. He flung the door open and ran out toward the house, thinking over and over in his head, No, no, no.

“Stop!”

A guard ran toward him, gripping his gun. He drew up in front of Arthur and said something, but Arthur couldn’t hear it over the pounding in his ears. Without thinking, Arthur grabbed the guard’s shoulder and pushed him aside, fleeing past him before the guard could steady himself.

As he approached the front of the house, he thought back to that day when he had seen Jaya’s body lying in the grass, sunlight reflecting off her glossy hair like a mirror that showed him his barest self.

Fresh tears blurred his vision. He could see the spot in the grass now where something lay unmoving. He let out a sob and did not attempt to stifle it this time. All he could think was that he must look, see her one last time. But as he wiped his eyes, it all became clear.

The leopard.

There, in the dry grass and feeble rays of the dawn, the leopard’s body lay crumpled like a pile of rags, the angles all wrong, the limbs splayed unnaturally, one giant paw held in front of its tired face as if in shame. And there, between the eyes, like a jewel fixed in the skull, the black hole where the bullet entered.

Arthur felt hands grab his body and force him to the ground, smash his face into the dirt. Arthur didn’t feel anger toward them; they were reacting the only way they knew how when they hear a sudden gunshot. Get the native, take him down. From his sideways view, he watched the other guards rush at the leopard, pelting it with rocks to make sure it was dead. But couldn’t they see all the blood?

“Don’t touch it!”

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut. He did not want to see the horrible face of the judge. But there was his voice all the same, coming from the open guest room window. He relaxed his eyes and opened them.

The judge emerged from the front door barefoot, fastening his trousers, an unbuttoned shirt hanging off his shoulders and billowing behind him as he strode down the verandah steps, howdah pistol in hand.

“Damn good shot. Damn good. Ha!” he said, stooping over the leopard.

Arthur felt his legs move beneath him, attempting to stand up, but the soldiers gripped him harder and shoved him again into the ground.

“Payback!” shouted the judge. “To think those rajputlians put on those ridiculous hunts to bag one of these. And I shoot this old boy from my bedroom window!” The judge tossed the pistol into the grass and took hold of the leopard’s paw, and for one horrific moment, Arthur thought the judge might begin waving it at him. But instead, the judge stretched the paw upward at the house, shaking it in the direction of the sleeping porch, where four heads peeked over the railing. “Wave hello!” he sneered, as the grotesque paw jerked in the air next to the judge’s red face. “That’s why you practice your shot, boys. You might just get lucky.”

The judge began to laugh, a wheezing sound that emanated from his throat. But no one else said a word. The boys gaped, frozen in shock. The guards glanced between themselves, embarrassed to look at the scene in front of them.

Arthur wished he could sink into the earth, will the guards to push him harder until he broke through the solid ground. Because what else was there to do? What else mattered now but disappearing, leaving this earth where senseless killing could happen and be laughed about? Everything seemed to stand still. The pounding in his ears had stopped and there was a sudden clarity in the air, as if God had wanted him to see this moment plainly, arranged as though on a stage, the judge and leopard center, the pistol cast aside, the guards waiting in the wings.

But instead, the guards let go of him and retreated, finally realizing he had nothing to do with the gunshot. Arthur struggled to get up. His legs had gone numb, a thousand needles stuck all up and down. He sat back on his heels and did not attempt to get up again.

“Well, come on, let’s get a picture,” the judge said. “Hinton! Where are you?”

There in the front doorway, Mr. Hinton stood with his arms crossed. He bowed his head and passed a hand over his face. Mrs. Hinton stood behind, her disheveled hair and sleepy face just visible in the darkness of the house.

“Well?” the judge said again as he propped the leopard’s head upright.

“Ellis.” The Padre Sahib strode toward the judge, his leather sandals crunching in the dirt.

“Still have that Retina I gave you? Boys! Come down and—”

“Ellis!”

Arthur turned his head to look at them upright, the minister standing over the judge, who drew himself up. They were the same height. Arthur could just barely hear the padre speak, in a tone he had never heard before.

“What have you done?”

The judge reddened more. His eyes narrowed as he leaned in closer. “What do you mean, what have I done? What have you done? You’ve had this thing lurking in the woods around your house this entire time, and you never did a single thing to protect yourself. It could have attacked your children. Your wife!”

Mr. Hinton shook his head. “My wife?” He let out a small laugh. “You of all people,” he said, “should know by now to leave things well enough alone.” He stepped around the judge and knelt beside the leopard, examining its face. He sighed long and slow, letting the air out as though he’d been holding it this whole time. “What did it ever do to you?”

The judge faced the house, his back to Mr. Hinton and the leopard. He raised his head and gazed at the sky all afire with the dawn. “Do you remember,” he said, “down in Contai, that first little house you lived in? There were cobras in your bedroom. And the grass roof had been whittled down by the cows to practically nothing. And when that storm rolled in and ripped the rest of that roof off and crumbled your walls, do you remember? Do you remember how frightened she was? How she begged you to let her go home after that—home, to America? And you almost said yes. You thought you should leave. You thought you weren’t strong enough, didn’t you? You wanted to go back. But I wouldn’t let you. There’s something in you this damned country needs, and I saw it when you wouldn’t see it in yourself.”

“Don’t.” Mr. Hinton’s voice was softer than a whisper. He glanced up at the sleeping porch. “Don’t you dare try to pretend you’ve ever supported my work.”

“I put you up in my own house. For months! Do you remember!”

“Yes!” the Padre Sahib shouted, his face a surprising red. “But it was never because you believed in me. You may be able to convince yourself that your motives aren’t selfish, but you can’t convince me.” Here his voice lowered to a snarl, as though he didn’t want anyone to hear what came next: “Is that how it all started between you two? You stick around because of her, not because of my work. Do you think I don’t notice? You’ve never cared a lick about God or sin, they’re one and the same to you.”

“I stick around for her because you dragged her into the jungle! She needs me, and you need me, and I’m the only one civilized enough around here to know it!”

“What do we need you for?”

“I’m a bloody high court judge—”

“You’re disgraced. You’ve practically been banished; they don’t want you back in Simla, and they don’t want you here either. Perhaps you’ll never work again. That business in Simla was too much trouble.”

The judge stiffened.

“Tell me”—the Padre Sahib’s voice kept low, like a snake in the grass—“where will you go when the whole country wants you out?”

Before anyone knew what was happening, the judge whirled and sprang toward Mr. Hinton, where he still knelt over the leopard. The judge’s meaty hand closed around the padre’s collar and yanked him up like a noose, but the padre’s face remained still and stoic, as though in a medieval painting, waiting for the will of God to fall upon him.

“Enough!” Mrs. Hinton’s shriek echoed from the house, where she stood in the darkness, ashamed, her blood-drained face like a ghost. Yet somehow her single word stayed the judge’s hand. His purple face froze in its hateful sneer, allowing Mr. Hinton to extract himself from his grasp. He made for the front door, and she moved aside to let him through. He came out again with a white sheet and laid it down beside the leopard, giving neither the judge nor his wife nor the audience of guards any notice. They all stood in shock, the silence of these two men’s cease-fire weighing in the air.

“Let’s get it out of here,” Mr. Hinton said.

The judge let out his breath. With a last glare at the padre, he flicked his wrist at his guards, gesturing toward the leopard.

“No,” said Mr. Hinton. “You and me, Ellis. We’ll take it to the shed.”

Arthur, still kneeling, was paralyzed. The servant in him knew he should help, but the leopard had been young, not even fully grown. The guards all appeared saddened yet disgusted, willing to feel sorry for the leopard but not to touch its dead body. Arthur could understand that. Evil spirits were already flocking to the smell of death.

After Mr. Hinton and the judge carried the body to the shed and covered it with the sheet, they still had not spoken to each other. They had already said enough. Not two minutes later, the judge had dressed himself and sped off in his car, not telling when he’d be back. But the judge’s sudden departure could not undo the damage he’d caused.

Arthur put his hand on the shed door and nudged it open. He thought about all the times he had walked the woods without knowing the leopard had been there. Were there moments he had passed it, and it had let him go free? Had it watched him from the shadows as he’d run to Jaya? Had it seen him naked in the pools, bathing in the starlight?

The white sheet was larger than the leopard and covered the animal completely. The outline of the body was so much smaller than it had appeared out there in the grass. Arthur stood in the doorway, his shadow falling over the sheet. For a moment, he kept still, wishing that the leopard would move, show some sign of life. He laughed. Never in all his years had he wished so hard to be in a room with a live leopard. But there it was, at his feet, with nothing but drops of blood here and there as proof that it once lived. He bit his lip and suddenly found it hard to breathe. What was the point, he thought, of having such fine things in India?

After a while of just standing there in the doorway, it became clear that he did not have the strength to look under the sheet. He knew it was there anyway. And what good would it really do to see it? It was never coming back. He began to pull the shed door closed.

“Wait.”

A little voice like a bird behind him. Gene.

“Sah—” Arthur’s throat caught.

“You don’t have to,” Gene said. Then he inched closer and lowered his eyes. “I wanted to see it.”

Arthur relaxed his shoulders and stepped back into the shed, opening the door again. He stood aside to let Gene in, but the boy did not come closer. He kept outside the shed, where it was barely possible to see the sheet.

Gene swallowed. “Will you lift it for me?”

Arthur couldn’t tell if the boy was scared or fascinated or something else entirely. He thought back to the day they had seen the leopard on that hike and tried to recall how Gene had reacted. Had he backed away slowly, or had he crept forward? Had he screamed, or had he held his breath? Had he run away as soon as it was safe, or had he searched after the leopard as it tore away into the forest? It all seemed so long ago, and look how things had changed.

Arthur reached out and peeled back a corner of the sheet. When Gene seemed to have had enough, he gently placed it back. Arthur didn’t look.

As Arthur stepped out of the shed, he felt the need to comfort the boy, though he himself was in just as much shock. But wasn’t that what adults were supposed to do for children? He laid a hesitant hand on the boy’s golden hair and removed it after a second. How much had the boy seen?

Gene looked up, his eyes wide and gentle. Not knowing what to say, Arthur took a deep breath and looked away. He continued walking from the shed, knowing only that he needed to get far from here, far from the house’s curse he had been denying all these years.

“Arthur?” Gene said.

But he kept walking, his legs carrying him toward the statue on the edge of the lawn and past it down the winding trail that led into the trees.