Mourning Raga

ground at last and find something to hold by.

‘Gladly,’ said Ashok, ‘I shall look forward to it.’ He had asked no questions, and even now he asked only one: ‘Her father has not yet come to take charge of her?’

‘We’ve heard from him, indirectly,’ said Dominic, picking his way among thorns. ‘I hope he’ll be with her very soon.’

‘Good, so it was worth waiting a little.’ Ashok nodded his splendid Epstein head in contentment, and picked up his light overcoat, draping it over one shoulder of his grey achkan like a hussar cloak. ‘Until tomorrow, then! And my reverences to Miss Barber and Anjli.’

He had a taxi waiting for him in the courtyard, one of the biggest Dominic had ever seen; and at the first step he took into the open air the car came smoothly alongside, placing its rear door-handle confidingly in his hand. That was the kind of service Ashok, for all his reticence and modesty, commanded in Delhi, and probably throughout India, for that matter.

The Swami’s Rolls stood in tattered majesty at the end of the ground-floor arcade. The taxi driver gave it a long, respectful look as he turned his own car to drive away, and Ashok, from the rear seat, eyed it even more thoughtfully. Dominic noted, before he turned to go back upstairs in haste, that for once Girish was nowhere in evidence.

The second telephone call came on the stroke of eight, and thereby held up the one for which they were waiting. But the voice that demanded briskly and cheerfully: ‘Have you got my co-director there?’ was merely that of Ganesh Rao, back from Sarnath a couple of days ahead of schedule with the Deer Park scenes in the can, and anxious to get some early co-operation over the rushes.

‘Let me talk to him! ’ Felder took over the receiver. ‘Yes, Felder here! Sure, I’ll be out at Hauz Khas in an hour or two, if all goes well. Have you got the whole bunch back safely at the villas? You must have made good time.’ In the background he could hear the usual exuberant babel of voices, the girls shrilling and laughing, Channa the charioteer fluting mellifluously, the young American technicians deploying their large, easy drawls, the clinking of glasses, the usual party atmosphere. When he hung up his face was grey with strain; and as soon as the receiver hung in the cradle it pealed again, viciously.

Dominic snatched it from under Felder’s hand. This time it must be, this time it had to be, no one could stand much more of this.

‘I am calling,’ said the unpleasant, clacking old voice, rattling consonants like bones, ‘in answer to your advertisement.’

Without a word Dominic held out the receiver to Kumar, who was already stretching out his hand for it. For a moment they could clearly hear the juiceless tones continuing, then Kumar cut them off sharply.

‘Listen to me, and let us be clear. I am Kumar. You have what I want, and I am prepared to pay for it. But there will be no deal, there will be no discussion, even, until I have seen for myself that my daughter still lives. Not one rupee until then. No, I will not even speak of money until I am satisfied. You have my word that I have taken no steps to try and trace this call, or to find you, nor shall I do so. If you restore me what I want, neither I nor any of the people here with me will take any action against you. It is my word, it will have to be enough for you. If you cannot trust me far, you must know I cannot trust you at all. You will show my daughter to me, and to these friends of mine who have seen her more recently than I have. You will show her to us in good condition, or you will get nothing. I am a business man, I do not buy pigs in pokes. Then we will talk terms, and arrange an exchange which will protect both of us. You understand me?’

The old voice hectored, rising, growing angry.

‘You hold just one saleable article, my friend,’ snapped Kumar, ‘and I am offering to buy it… when I have satisfied myself that it is exactly what you are representing it to be. I have promised you we will do no more than that. I have promised you a high price. If you do not want to deal on those terms, where do you think you will find a higher bidder? The circumstances are your problem, not mine. Make up your mind.’

There were brief, acrimonious questions, a note of something like anxiety now in the tone.

‘Certainly. If you make it possible, the exchange can take place tomorrow. First let us see her. Then call me here, and I shall make no more difficulties than I must to ensure that she remains as we have seen her. There is no question of trust. Each of us must formulate his own safeguards. But do you question that my word is worth more than yours? Make your dispositions, then, we are waiting.’

After that he sat quite silent, listening with admirable concentration and patience for some minutes, the clapper vibrating viciously in his ear. He heaved a long, careful sigh. ‘Very well! On behalf of all of us here, I agree.’

Very slowly, as if the smoothness and silence of the action mattered vitally, he cradled the receiver, and sat back in his chair with a shivering gasp, wiping his moist hands frenziedly on a vast silk handkerchief.

‘Well, it’s arranged! Tomorrow, at twelve o’clock, all five of us – oh, yes, whoever he is, he knows how many of us there are! – are to meet for lunch in the first-floor restaurant at Sawyers’, on Connaught Circus, near Radial Road Number Five. A window table will be booked for us in advance – in my name! There is a sweet shop just opposite. Promptly at a quarter past twelve Anjli will be brought by taxi to that shop to buy sweets. He says we shall see her clearly. But if any one of us attempts to leave the table and interfere with her, we shall never see her again. And if we all obey orders, and finish our lunch and go home, then he will call us again to talk terms and make arrangements for the exchange.’

‘And do you believe,’ asked Tossa in a whisper, ‘that he’ll keep his word?’

‘I think,’ said the Swami Premanathanand, very gently but with complete detachment, ‘that he will greatly prefer money and no trouble rather than no money, a dead Anjli and a great deal of trouble. Do you not agree, Mr Felder?’

Felder made a small, protesting sound of revulsion and distaste. Of the impersonal mental processes of India he had had more than enough. ‘I think he took her for money, and he’ll twist circumstances all the ways he has to, to get money for her. So far he hasn’t committed any capital crime, why should he take such a risk now?’

‘No capital crime? Well, of course,’ said the Swami deprecatingly, ‘there is only the little matter of Arjun Baba.’

‘Who,’ asked Felder simply, ‘is Arjun Baba?’

It came as a shock, if a minor shock, to realise that he was in perfectly good faith. They had rushed to confide in him about Anjli, ready to take advantage of sympathy and help wherever it offered, they had mentioned the old