‘
‘Mahendralal Bakhle. You know that name, memsahib?’
‘Not exactly – it just sounds familiar, somehow. I think I’ve read it somewhere,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t there something about him in the papers – about trouble on his farms, and some labourers who were killed? I’m nearly sure that was the name.’
‘It is possible. He is a big landlord, own much land down in plains, near Sattur.’
‘But surely,’ Dominic objected, ‘there’s a limit to the amount of land any one person can own now – twenty-five acres, or something quite modest like that.’
‘Oh, yes, sahib, that is true, but there are ways. Some landlords say that they part with their land, give it to their womenfolk, but often it is not true. Mr Bakhle, he still controls everything, all that land.’ Romesh’s English failed him, and he waved a frustrated hand, and addressed himself to Lakshman in Malayalam.
‘He says,’ Lakshman reported, ‘that Bakhle was mixed up not long ago in some very nasty trouble with his Harijan labourers. That must be what Miss Galloway is thinking about. They wanted a rise in pay, and then there was an armed raid on their village, and several people were killed. Everyone seems sure that Bakhle had hired the strong-arm men to do the job for him.’ He lifted his shoulders in helpless distaste. ‘It could happen. Such things have been known.’
Priya, who was so silent and self-contained, and yet missed nothing, said simply: ‘I have known such casualties come into our wards. There is very strong feeling among the Harijan labourers, and there is also great pressure being used against them.’
‘Not, in fact, a very popular man, this Bakhle,’ Larry deduced.
‘With reason, it seems,’ said Patti, casting a last long, dark look after his boat before she turned her back on it.
‘Very much disliked, so Romesh says,’ agreed Lakshman. ‘But also very much envied and courted. Money is money, it talks loudly everywhere.’
‘Prefer present company,’ said Romesh boldly, and showed his teeth again in a bountiful smile.
‘Well, thanks,’ said Larry drily. ‘Even if this doesn’t turn out to be a very generous tip, either?’
‘Even if there is
The Manis must have been invited to lunch at the villa, for they did not reappear at the hotel until nearly three- thirty, when it was time to embark again for the afternoon watering. Sunday whites and Sunday saris were assembling again in the party launch, and among them the sombre Bessancourts sat like monuments to France. And in from the gardens came Sudha Mani, the folds of her rose-coloured sari fluting round her plump ankles, her bracelets jingling with triumph, Gopal Krishna treading ponderously at her back, and Sushil Dastur at heel like a tired little dog.
‘Sushil Dastur, go and order tea.’ She sank into a cane chair among the palms and fanned herself gracefully. ‘And see what kinds of sweets they have, and choose me some of those I like. Be quick! No, give me the flowers, you are dropping them.’ She installed her booty on a spare chair, and beamed at Patti and Priya, who were just going out to the landing-stage. ‘From Mr Bakhle’s garden! So beautiful, aren’t they? He has such a fine garden. Was it not wonderful this morning?’
‘Wonderful!’ they agreed truthfully.
The afternoon cruise was curiously different from the morning one; a completely changed light draped the hills, clear, yellowish, very still. The sky was washed nearly clean of cloud, and of a wonderfully pale, bright and remote blue. They remembered that dusk would come early here, and deceptively; there would still be full daylight in the open water when the many deep inlets were already drenched in darkness. But as yet it was bright sunlight, only just slanting towards the west.
‘Look, Bakhle’s out again!’ Larry pointed a finger into one of the still, green aisles of the lake as they passed; and there was the immaculate white launch idling gently off-shore, with the silk-clad figure of Mahendralal Bakhle lolling at ease on his cushions, perhaps asleep, or near it. He had no voluble guests to entertain now, and the boat-boy was ready to respond to his every inclination, mindful of that fat tip he expected at the end of the day from a man so rich. The thought made Romesh chuckle happily and wickedly to himself as he observed them.
‘That Ajit Ghose, he is so clever! Those people from Bengal, they think everyone in the south is stupid.’
‘Their mistake,’ said Patti drily. ‘He’s from Bengal, is he?’
‘Yes, memsahib. He is not bad fellow, only he does not talk with us much, not friendly. Maybe only he is a long way from home.’
‘And you don’t know why he came south to work? I’d have thought the south had its own unemployment problem.’
Romesh shrugged and let that go, having nothing to say on the subject. ‘See – elephant!’ His pointing finger indicated them with precision, high on the steep hillside where the sun filtered through the trees and turned animals and earth to moving gold and static gold. In orderly file they paced after their tusker leader, the cows and calves following confidently; and though they seemed to move with the deliberation of doomsday, they covered the ground at an amazing pace, bearing obliquely downhill to the water. And now they were more playful and more relaxed than in the morning, scratching themselves meditatively on the ghostly trees, surging through the breast-deep water with a bow-wave breaking in phosphorescence before them, the little ones bouncing and frolicking in abandoned joy, the elders curling their trunks over them protectively.
Patti said: ‘I love elephants!’ And after a moment of silent watching she said sadly: ‘Why can’t we have a community like that, as placid and as natural and as perfect!’ And indeed there was a conviction of untroubled happiness and kindliness here which at this moment seemed to justify her.
‘Some worlds,’ Larry said dourly, ‘are simpler than others. You take what’s dished out to you, and pay for it. Not like the Spanish proverb!’
