“But I was telling you, Inspector. It is just outside the boundary of the city. We can go by taxi. It would not take too long. But, first, there is a place near here where you can get very excellent thandai, the most cooling drink existing. With a nice amount of bhang mixed in, and, perhaps better even for giving soul-cleansing blessing, one pinch of Ganges silt itself. You should try.”

  “Inspector,” Ghote spat out, hardly checking his rage, “let me say it once more. I am here in Banares for just only one thing. To find out what Mrs. Shoba Popatkar came here for. What made some person unknown follow her all the way back to Bombay and strangle her. And this perhaps we will discover as soon as we are getting to your B.H.U. So, take me there. Now. Take, take, take.”

  FIVE

  The peon from the office downstairs sidled in when H. K. Verma, in answer to a knock at the door that had been somehow both timid and urgent, called “Come.” There was a look of scared apology on his face.

  “What is it, Raman? Do not stand there like a stupid owl only. What it is?”

  “Oh, sahib, it is—”

  “Speak up, speak up, man. What has got into you?”

  “Sir, it is police. Sir, an inspector. From Bombay, sir.”

  Raman thrust out the card he had been given. H. K. Verma ignored it. He hardly even saw it. A great frozen block seemed to have occupied his whole head, his whole body.

  At last he heard Raman speak again.

  “Sahib, he is wanting to see. Must I bring him upstairs, sahib?”

  “No.”

  It was all he could manage to utter.

  But after a long moment, hearing inside himself now the tiny thunder of his heart, beating and knocking, he forced some more words out.

  “No. No, say it is too late. I cannot see anybody just now. Say he is to come back. Tomorrow. Another day.”

  Raman looked as if that was a message he could not see himself delivering. He made no effort to go.

  H. K. Verma moved to give him a slap. But at once thought better of it.

  His mind had abruptly become unlocked from his state of ice-bound fear. Ideas, wild notions, absurd fantasies raced one after another through him.

  He would prevent Raman going down and the fellow below would just turn tail and go away. Back to Bombay. Back to Bombay from where he should never have come. From where it was impossible that he had come.

  He would get away himself, leap down into the galli below, somehow land on his feet like a cat, run and run and run. There must be somewhere to hide. To hide forever. A temple? A math, where he could live out the life of a monk, one among a hundred anonymous orange-robed figures?

  He would go down now, at once, and … and … and obliterate this Bombay fellow. Wipe him from the face of the earth. Nevermore to be heard of. They would forget all about him back where he had come from. The inquiry would disappear like dust blown away in the hot summer wind.

  Mrs. Popatkar had not been killed. She was alive. Alive again and well. But no. No, she must not be alive. Not alive to tell the world what K.K. had believed before he died.

  The thought brought back sobriety.

  It would be no use sending away this fellow now, if even he would consent to go. No. No, he must be faced. The worst must be faced. And perhaps, after all, this was not the worst. How could this Bombay inspector, how could anybody, truly know what had happened in that bare little flat? No one could. This fellow must be just only guessing. If that.

  “No, Raman,” he said, wondering at the simple calm in his voice. “No, I might as well be seeing. Bring him up.”

  “Ji haan, sahib.”

  Ghote stepped in past the peon, a one-eyed fellow. For a moment, first seeing him, he had remembered the superstition from his childhood: A one-eyed man means evil. But this man had seemed more scared than wicked.

  The room was large and bare. Three or four narrow sofas covered in red rexine were pushed up against the walls. A table in one corner was just big enough for a TV set under its embroidered dustcover and a cream-coloured telephone. From up near the ceiling a row of stained-glass ventilators sent light from the massive illuminations on the Vishvanatha Temple, the Golden Temple, in multicoloured rays sliding across the floor and the blue-painted walls. On one, a reddish oblong cut across a large framed photograph of a group of white-capped politicians: “Lucky Friends With Respected Party Leader H. K. Verma.”

  Dominating the whole room, however, was the party leader himself, the man the librarian at Banares Hindu University had said it was necessary to see before anyone could inspect Krishnan Kalgutkar’s Recollections. A commanding presence, seated in a massive woven-cane peacock-throne chair, its back widespread behind him, his hands firmly placed on its broad arms. A white kurta of homespun khadi fell from his broad shoulders. A dhoti in the same pure white lay draped in graceful folds from sail-swelling belly down over well-rounded knees.

  A big well-fleshed face with dark, brooding eyes, deep-set under a wide brow. A faint, ambiguous smile on full orator’s lips.

  “Good evening, sir. I am by name Inspector Ghote, of the Bombay C.I.D. I am sorry to have to trouble you at this hour. But I am in Banares to make inquiries concerning the death of Mrs. Shoba Popatkar in Bombay. You are perhaps aware Mrs. Popatkar, a lady well known in our history, has been murdered?”

  A muscle in H. K. Verma’s big, sad-eyed face flickered for an instant.

  “Yes, yes. I was of course reading the obituary in Times of India. A very terrible business. Very terrible.”

  “Yes, sir. And that is why we are pursuing each and every angle with all our efforts and energies. That is why I am here in Banares myself.”

  “Yes, Inspector. But sit, sit. No formalities. Sit. But, tell me, how is it that inquiries into a murder in Bombay have brought you here, so many hundred miles distant?”

  Ghote, perching himself on one of the narrow rexine sofas at a considerable distance from the party leader, gave a little cough.

  “It is quite simple, sir. You see, we were learning from inquiries in Bombay that Mrs. Popatkar had come here shortly before her death without informing anyone of reason for her visit. And we have found also a witness, a fellow from the UP itself, who is stating that just only before the time she was attacked—the culprit was strangling his victim, sir—a man speaking Hindi with what he was recognising as very much of a Bhojpuri accent was asking where Mrs. Popatkar is staying.”

  H. K. Verma remained silent for so long that Ghote began to wonder whether his reasons for coming to Banares had appeared absurd.

  But at last there came an answer.

  “I see, Inspector. And … and do you have a good description of this UPite?”

  “No, sir. I regret to say not. The witness was not at all realising he had heard that familiar accent until the man had gone altogether out of sight.”

  “I see. A great pity.”

  H. K. Verma appeared to be pondering the implications.

  “Otherwise,” he said at last, “you might have already been able to lay hands on this … this murderer.”

  “Yes, sir. But we are hopeful still. You see, it is our belief that the culprit went to Bombay because of something Mrs. Popatkar must have learnt or discovered here itself. And, sir, today only I was finding what that might be.”

  Again no response.

  No wonder this fellow has not succeeded to lead his party to more than a handful of Lok Sabha members from up and down India, Ghote thought. For all the weight of his presence he is slow as a buffalo.

  “Yes, Inspector, and what is that?”

  The big, brown, deep-set eyes were fixed on him with sombre intentness, as if his answer was somehow of major importance.

  “Oh, sir, it is quite simple. You see, I was able to trace Mrs. Popatkar from the Cantonment Station where she was arriving. … You know she is always travelling by train, not plane, and in lowest class also?”

  “Yes, yes. I did not ever have the honour to meet Mrs. Popatkar, but that is a well-known fact. A well-known fact, after all.”

  “Well, sir, with the assistance of a former officer of the Banares police, a very helpful colleague for me, I was able to trace Mrs. Popatkar’s steps from the station to the Banares Hindu University, sir.”

  “Yes, yes. And then?”

  A spark of impatience.

  Was he saying too much? Was he irritating this influential fellow?

  “Oh, then, sir, I found she had gone to a small library at the B.H.U. A place that is devoted to preserving what they are calling contemporary documents, sir.”

  “Is there such a—”

  H. K. Verma abruptly stopped. A loud and prolonged cough followed.

  “Ah, but no,” he resumed eventually. “No, I am well knowing the place you mean. Mr. Srivastava, the librarian there, is a good friend of mine.”

  “Yes, sir. He was the gentleman who was giving me your name. You see, sir, he was telling me that Mrs. Popatkar had come to his library for the purposes of consulting one document only, the Recollections of Mr. Krishnan Kalgutkar, sir, the founder of your party.”

  Once again H. K. Verma was slow to react.

  But at last he answered.

  “And it is because of that you have come to me?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. You see, Mr. Srivastava was stating no one is permitted to see that document for one hundred and one years, sir. Even though Mrs. Popatkar had insisted to do it, and he had not been able to prevent. So, sir, you see, I am thinking that what it was she read there may be a clue to why this person from Banares was needing to end her life. So, sir, I have come to you to take special permission to go through these Recollections myself. Mr. Srivastava was saying there is no other way.”

  “No, Inspector,” H. K. Verma brought himself to say.

  But if the world did ever learn the founder of our party was believing at his life’s end he had been wrong … that all we stood for in so many wilderness years was wrong … then we would be laughingstocks only. The High Command would never dare take us in, not however much they are needing the few of our votes-block.

  Then blankness overwhelmed him. He could think of no possible reason to forbid this Bombay C.I.D. walla from poking his nose into the Recollections. And if he did, what could he find but those appalling last words of K.K.’s. Then what conclusion would he reach but that, once made public, they would be the end of any hopes the party had? And the fellow must know already, or he would very soon read it in the papers, that the leader of the party was about to take his votes-bank into Government and be given a Cabinet seat as Minister for Social Upliftment.

  The finger will point to me only. And when more inquiries are made … So many weak points waiting. Things I thought would never come to light. The girl at Babatpur Airport I lost my temper with. All the other attempts I made to get a flight. The people who fuelled Vikram’s plane. Vikram himself, even. The authorities in Bombay who must have logged his plane’s arrival. A dozen lurking dangers. A hundred. Each one adding little by little to the case they will make against me.

  “Sir, no?”

  The fellow sounded mystified. Will my refusal alone be enough to confirm whatever suspicions he has? I must think of something more to say. Something to put the fellow off.

  “No, Inspector. You will be disappointed, I know. But it is not at all possible.”

  Why would it not be possible? I must produce some better reason. Something altogether convincing.

  “You see, Inspector, as Mr. Srivastava was telling you, there is a strict embargo on anyone whosoever seeing those Recollections. For one hundred and one years after Krishnan Kalgutkar’s death. So …”

  Can I make some sort of a joke about it? Will that put this fellow off?

  “So, Inspector, I am afraid you will have a very long stay here in Banares. Ninety-seven years, if I am getting right my sums.”

  “Well, of course, I am not able to wait that long, sir. You see, what is in that document is perhaps vital evidence. And … and, sir, I must mention there is Section 186 of Indian Penal Code, ‘Obstructing a public servant in the discharge of public functions,’ sir.”

  The impertinent rat.

  “I hope you are not threatening me, Inspector.”

  “Oh, no, sir, no. No, I was mentioning only. Because, you see, sir, it is vital that I am seeing these Recollections.”

  Time to make him altogether give this up. With one good lie, since it has to be.

  “Inspector, I am not at all understanding why it is so vital. K.K. himself was speaking about the Recollections to me shortly before his sad demise. He died, I am happy to say, here in Banares itself, a part of his body immersed in the waters of Holy Ganges. Now I am able to assure you that, though he said there were personal matters there it would be better not to let come to the light for many years, there was nothing else that needed to be concealed. There is, therefore, nothing that could have caused anybody to murder Mrs. Shoba Popatkar. Nothing that can have any possible bearing on your inquiries. Nothing.”

  “Then, sir, if these Recollections have in them nothing that needs to be concealed, why may I not see?”

  “Inspector.”

  Thunder here. Trumpet like an elephant in rage itself.

  “Inspector, are you having no sense of decency whatsoever? The Recollections are under the ban of a dying man. Are you daring to defy his most sacred wishes?”

  “No, sir. Not at all.”

  Ha! I have done it. I have put this bandicoot in a cage where he belongs. Let him squeak there as long as he likes.

  Yes, now the fellow was getting up from his seat. Looking weary and defeated, too. Well, good riddance only.

  “Then I must take your word for it, sir. But … but I think I must say also that, if my inquiries do not produce any other reason for that man coming from here so soon after Mrs. Popatkar had made her visit, then I may have to return and definitely take your permission.”

  Well, let him. Let him return and return. So long as he is never getting to see the Recollections I am safe.

  Ghote, lying on bedding whose cleanliness he did not feel altogether happy about, realised that sleep was going to escape him. The clamour of the city all round, the clang-clang of bells as worshippers went into the temples, the rise and fall of bhajan singing, the grinding of traffic in the street outside, the shouts and yells of life going on far into the night, all had ceased some time before. But the thoughts churning in his head were keeping him awake just as effectively.

  Had he been right to have left H. K. Verma without forcing out of him permission to inspect Krishnan Kalgutkar’s Recollections? Then could he go to that library and insist, like Mrs. Popatkar, on seeing the document, permission or no permission? No, Mr. Srivastava had apparently already got into deep troubles over allowing it be read once. He would never let it happen a second time.

  And had he been right to have accepted H. K. Verma’s assurance that there was nothing in the Recollections that could have caused anybody to attempt to shut Mrs. Popatkar’s mouth? Was there, as he had half thought at the time, something, somehow, a little wrong about the way that assurance had been given? What had it been? Nothing he could lay a finger on even now.

  Or was that niggle of doubt no more than his imagination?

  And then, damn it, there was the way he had been landed with camping in this hotel. That fool Mishra about to tell him, as they were going from the B.H.U. to H. K. Verma’s house, about some famous theft from the Golden Temple, had suddenly shouted to the driver to stop.

  “Look, look. Here is the very place where you must put up, Inspector. Very good hotel. I am knowing it well. Hotel Relax. Relax by name, relax also by nature. It would begin to give you an idea of our Banarasi way of life, of masti itself, happy relaxing.”

  And before he had had time to object or even agree, the fellow had stopped the autorickshaw, jumped down, run into the place. He had thought of protesting. But he had to stay somewhere. And in any case as soon as Mishra had returned he had plunged back into his story.

  “You are knowing what is the Golden Yoni?”

  He had felt obliged to answer.

  “Yoni, yes, I am knowing. Everyone is knowing. Object of worship, the opposite of lingam, the female organ instead of the male. I suppose the Golden Yoni was stolen from this Golden Temple.”

  “Yes, yes. From Golden Temple itself,” Mishra replied, eyes glowing with enjoyment. “The greatest theft in the world. The lingam only those fellows were leaving. Even our stop-at-nothing goondas are knowing what is a hundred and one percent sacred. And afterwards … You can imagine. Entire Banares was desolate. If those thieves had been found they would have been torn to pieces.”

  “So you were never able to track down culprits? But I am supposing they were able to wash away that sin the next day even, going down at sunrise to the Ganges?”

  He had felt entitled to that jibe. But Mishra had quickly got his own back. Shouting above the noise all round, the yammer of the motorcycle engine in front, the incessant tonk-tonk of temple entrance bells, the jabber of voices, the bleatings of beggars, the bawling of hawkers, he had produced his answer.

  “No, Inspector, you are altogether wrong if you are believing the Golden Yoni thieves were able to escape the outcome of their wrongdoings. You see, if you are committing a sin inside Banares itself it is what they are calling vajralepa, hard as rock. Not even Ganga jal can wash it away. No, no, those fellows are doomed to their next lives as the lowest of the low. As mosquitoes every one.”

  And now, whining as if it was one of the Golden Yoni thieves in his next life itself, a mosquito had got into the room and seemed intent on landing anywhere it could on his hot and restless body.

  Oh, and in his rush to leave for this place he had forgotten to pack sharp-smelling Odomos cream. Completely without any defence.

  And completely, too, he thought with a heavy thump of dismay, without an idea of where to carry on his inquiries when morning came. If ever it did come in this cursed night.

  SIX

  H. K. Verma had slept badly. Try as he might he had not been able to stop the thoughts fighting each other in his head. This Inspector Ghote from Bombay, did he suspect something? Or was he just only in truth wanting to see K.K.’s Recollections? But even if that was all he wanted, it was the path down, down, downwards to ruin only.

 

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