Travellers continued to disappear, all over India, at, perhaps, a slightly faster rate. Still no women were taken – no other women. Still no bodies were found. Still no witnesses came forward with anything helpful to the police. Still police spies, wherever posted, came back empty handed: or failed to come back.
Colly’s account of the murders he had seen was on file. No one believed a word of it.
Colly and Sandro visited a number of places in the Plain of the Ganges where disappearances had occurred. Sometimes they were in disguise, sometimes not. Usually they adopted a kind of disguise meant to be penetrated.
They were followed and watched all the time. It was well done, but not quite well enough for them to be unaware of it. They tried several times to ambush a watcher. The only time they succeeded the man had a fit. A doctor said it was epilepsy and the man was near death.
They were not attacked or harassed in any way: simply watched.
They were driven three-quarters mad by their helplessness. Still no ransom demand came; nothing came; with each hour that went by the chance of a message was smaller. Why should a kidnapper wait?
They had learned something in the back alleys of Benares, and on the burning-ghat, and on the stone-barge. They had learned that they could not take on this thing without an army: but also that no useful army could be recruited locally, because of security leaks, and none could be brought in from outside.
Veena fell easily into the routine of the village and of the house of Muni, her future mother-in-law.
As soon as the cool pink sun lifted over the rim of the desert there came, from all around, the clash of brass pots and jugs. Veena would at once join the other women among the houses, and walk with them, all chattering like birds, to the well which was the preserve of their caste. She learned quickly, since her figure was upright and her carriage graceful, to balance a great brass bowl on a pad on her head.
Then she helped feed chaff from a bunker to the cattle in the pen, and to carry the fresh milk as it was drawn from the cows and buffaloes. Immediately she helped Muni to rake the night’s dung into a pile, knead it with bare feet into a proper texture, shape it into cakes by hand, and slap the cakes in rows on to a wall to dry. It was necessary then to bathe with ritual thoroughness before eating, although cowdung, the emission of a sacred animal, is not in the least dirty.
Veena helped Muni make wheaten chappatis and savoury vegetable curries, and yoghurt and curds and cheese. She carried milk to the bazaar for sale. Becoming daily more fluent, speaking no English, she chattered to the other women of the village and played with the swarms of children.
In the cool of the evening the household, like every other, climbed up to the roof after dinner; they sat by oil-lamp or moonlight, with the huge desert stretching all round, its savagery muted by darkness. Sometimes Muni sang, or the children of the aunts and cousins who made up the household. (There were many men besides Kashi, but all were away on unexplained business. He received frequent messages from them; he seemed to Veena to be in some sort in charge of these male relations, although not with them because of his forthcoming marriage.)
They all slept on the roof. The sky was cool and full of stars.
Veena began to learn Ramasi, a language known to, but not usually used by, everyone in the village: a language with no relationship to any other that Veena had met.
She did not understand why the villagers all knew a language additional to all the ordinary languages of India. She realised that it was special to certain people, of whom she was now, or would shortly be, one. She did understand that this was why she herself must learn it, and why her children must learn it. She did not know what was special about herself, her new family, the neighbours. She accepted it placidly, as something which was written. She had acquired, as though born to it, the docility of Indian women and the fatalism of all Indians. She accepted that she would marry Kashi and that her children would be Kashi’s.
It did not seem to her that she had chosen Kashi – that he had sought her acceptance of her hand and been granted it. It seemed to her that she was obliged, by forces entirely beyond her control or understanding, to marry him. It was what she was to do: there was an end of it.
She accepted this fate without excitement but without repugnance. Kashi was as considerate and gentle as a man could be. He was evidently a very good son to Muni, a popular and respected man in the village, absolutely honest in his dealings, trusted, often consulted. He was generous with alms and with help to his friends. He was intelligent and interesting. Though not widely read, he had travelled a great deal in every part of India except the south, and told Veena much that interested and amused her.
Veena’s future was clear. It was in no doubt. Everybody in the village knew it. She was fully adjusted to the prospect. In any case she had no choice. Had Kashi been odious to her, the village hateful, she could not have left. She was never alone. Dozens of people were always about her, every one of whom knew her, every one of whom was loyal to Kashi. She could not, by day or night, have crossed the desert to the nearest town.
The wedding was imminent, the date having been established by reference to horoscopes.
Three weeks had crawled by. To wait was no longer endurable.
Ishur Ghose seemed to have suffered as much as Sandro and Colly. He blamed himself, though they told him not to: he had aged, shrunk; the affable torrent of his conversation slowed to an unhappy dribble.
Colly said, “That’s it. No message. No hope.”
“No,” said Sandro.
“Let’s go out and hit them.”
“How?” asked Ishur Ghose.
“We’ll find some. We did before, we can again. Or they’ll find us. They know what we look like. We’ll meet them, a bunch of them, and―”
“Use guns,” said Sandro.
“Yes, guns.”
“You will be killed,” said Ishur Ghose.
Colly looked at him woodenly. “Do you think we care?”
Sandro said, “We will maybe not be killed, not at once. If we are killed it will not be before we have done much killing. The people who attacked us in Benares were not armed. Or, if they had guns or knives, they did not use them. We shall kill many of them, molti molti.”
“Is that right? Right to do? Morally right?” asked the gentle old Indian.
“Yes,” said Colly. “They killed nearly a thousand people, and one of them is Jenny, and nobody even dented them yet.”
Muni talked long to Veena, in the soft cool evenings on the roof of the white house.
From the old woman Veena learned that many things had enabled the people – the people who were now her people – to survive and flourish from their birth at the very dawn of the world. Veena learned about their absolute secrecy, their private language of signals and speech, their knowledge of what was to be done by others, which came from the highest government offices and flew from one end of India to the other. She knew that the people – like other peoples – inherited strictly from father to son, and no son could escape his destiny; that they had now, as they had always had, a blinding religious certainty about the sanctity of their form of worshipping the Goddess Kali.
And this also had protected them, Veena learned: when not on expedition, they were respectable citizens, hard-working farmers, officials of unusual honesty, or diligent craftsmen. They were law-abiding, thrifty, and of good report.
“Like Kashi,” said Veena.
“Like Kashi, and like his friends. Your friends.”
No breath of suspicion attached to any of them, anywhere in India. They were often leading members of the communities in which they lived, exceptional only in their extended absences from home.
Sometimes not even in this: for there had been, said Muni, many whole villages in which every household had been born into the brotherhood. Now there were again such villages. One was the home of Muni and Kashi and now of Veena.
Veena saw that some of the older men, older even than Sanghavi, left the village on expeditions. This surprised her, as she was beginning to understand that their worship of Kali required a man to be strong and active and quick in his movements.
Muni explained that when men grew too old for the rigours of the expeditions, their devotion and their usefulness were by no means at an end. They became watchmen, spies, or dressers of food.
“Very many of us,” said Muni, “have become important men in the councils of princes. Some have been tax-collectors. Some now are officers in the police. When these ones become old, they can still tell us very many things which it is useful for us to know.”
Veena noddet, dutifully learning.
Muni said, “The same is true of us, of wives and female relatives. We are usually of the same inheritance as our men. You are an exception, dear Veena, because my son saw and loved you, and knew you would be a good mother to his sons. We understand, though we do not share, the work and worship of our menfolk.”
“It is an honour,” said Veena.
“Yes. It is an honour.”
“Now?” said Colly.
“Now,” said Sandro.
“Very well,” sighed Ishur Ghose. “Tell me if I can be of any help.”
The old man hobbled out to visit a friend, but said that he would be back; he begged them not to set off on their battle until he had seen them again.
“I thought,” said Veena, one evening of particular beauty, when soft music came from the neighbouring rooftops, and the cattle stamped and breathed contentedly in their pen, “I thought our people were destroyed by the English.”
“The English thought likewise,” said Muni. She laughed gently. “They condemned our women to solitary lives so that they should breed no more of our people. But some whom they so condemned were already great with child. The children were born into our brotherhood and the heritage of the brotherhood. But our people were asleep for a long time. We waited, hiding, biding our time, endlessly patient. We never forgot who we were, but our ancestors sinned, and the judgement of Kali was that we should spend long years waiting for her sign. Then came a man who had the sign. He showed it to us. He was an old man, much older even than I. He was a great scholar. He had been important and trusted in the government, so that he knew many secrets. He is still trusted in the government, and he still knows many secrets. It is of great help and value. He was the midwife of our rebirth.”
“May he help us for a long time,” said Veena.
“That is our prayer.”
Ishur Ghose’s telephone rang. Colly answered it.
The voice was strange: a young man, speaking good but flowery English. He said the young lady from foreign-side was alive. She was quite well, in satisfactory health. She was a prisoner but well treated. Where she was neither they nor anyone could find her. He could vouch for that, give a one hundred percent guarantee. But she would soon be near Bombay. Not tomorrow or the next day, but in eight days or perhaps ten or twelve or twenty. Not in Bombay but fifty miles away. She would be at Ajanta or Ellora, the great temples. There was a reason for her to be taken there. The caller knew this beyond possibility of doubt. He was telling them, at great risk to himself, because he did not approve of the abduction of women, of young female persons. It was a dreadful way to behave, and disgrace to the New India. He was calling from nearby, from Ramnagar. His name was of no importance. He wanted neither rewards nor even thanks.
Ishur Ghose, late at night, read one of his old books, sent to him from Calcutta. He was smoking his English pipe.
He read an English translation of the account, written in 1666, by the French traveller Thevenot, of the many mysterious deaths on the roads of India, and of the sect responsible for them:
“They have another cunning trick, also, to catch travellers with. They send out a handsome woman upon the road who, with her hair dishevelled, seems to be all in tears, sighing and complaining of some misfortune which she pretends has befallen her. Now, as she takes the same way as the traveller goes, he easily falls into conversation with her and, finding her beautiful, offers her his assistance, which she accepts. But he hath no sooner taken her up behind him on horseback, but she throws the snare about his neck and strangles him; or at least stuns him, until the robbers – who lie hid – come running to her assistance and complete what she hath begun.”
“I make a journey,” said Kashi to Veena in Hindi.
“Yes?”
“This time you will come with me.”
“Very well,” said Veena, pleased. “A journey to what place?”
“A long way, to a very great and ancient temple, a wonder of the world, a most sacred place to us.”
“Very well.”
“There is a thing that must be done. Then we shall come back for the wedding.”
They smiled at each other under the stars; Muni gurgled sentimentally.
It was an important expedition. The pujah that preceeded it was of exceptional length and complexity.
Veena did not see or hear the ceremony, nor would she ever do so, but she was aware that it was being held.
She knew – Muni had taught her – that departure might not be announced on any Wednesday or Thursday, or in any day in July, September or December.
She knew that after departure was announced, it was necessary to wait for the omens. There were very many omens, favourable and unfavourable, which were the secret messages of the Goddess Kali to her secret followers, and understood only by them.
After days of waiting, Kashi came home in unusual excitement. He reported that the cry of a crane had been heard on the left hand followed by the cry of a crane on the right hand. This was an excellent omen for departure.
The men who were coming with them on their journey fasted for seven days, eating only fish, dal, which was dried beans, and gur, which was unrefined sugar, and of special magical importance. The men did not shave their faces, nor wash their garments, nor give alms during the seven days. All feasted on green vegetables on the seventh day.
After an expedition had started, Kashi told Veena, stricter men did not brush their teeth unless the expedition lasted for more than a year. Smiling, he said that although they were careful to keep all their ancient laws, this one few of them kept.