Death to the Landlords

closer terms with him. Lakshman, whether he knew his place or not, certainly knew his employer’s place, and firmly kept him there. With the greatest of deference, amiability and consideration, but implacably. He had done this sort of courier-interpreter job before, with other lone tourists, and had encountered, or so Larry judged, patrons with very different views on this relationship from those Larry himself held. Give him time, and he’d make any necessary adjustments himself; no sense in trying to rush him. Lakshman was the youngest of the three of them, barely twenty and still a student, until want of funds had driven him out to earn money for further study by such journeys as this. He had to get everything right, and he was taking no risks. Perhaps he didn’t even want to slide unsuspectingly into a friendship for which he hadn’t bargained. A cool young person, shy, soft-voiced, self- possessed and efficient, he spoke both Tamil and Malayalam in addition to his own Hindi, so he was equally effective in the north or the south. Sometimes, Larry suspected, Lakshman had difficulty in remembering to keep Dominic at the same distance as Larry himself; Dominic wasn’t paying his wages.

The bungalow, seen by the glow from its own windows and the Land-Rover’s side-lights, was a pleasant, solid building of brick and plaster, with a deep, arcaded porch, and looked big enough to house quite a number of travellers, if the usual tourist bedroom-cum-livingroom in India had not been about as big as a barn, and with its own bathroom or shower attached. Three such suites, say, plus the kitchen quarters, and there would be no room left. No matter, the Land-Rover was good enough.

Lakshman came back gesturing mildly from a distance, and shaking his head; and behind his back the khansama stuck out a bearded head in a loose cotton turban from the kitchen door to take a look at his latest guests.

‘The place is quite full, but he will feed us. And there is a chowkidar.’ The security of the bungalow’s grounds and the protection of its watchman were not to be despised.

‘Good, then how about borrowing a shower, before the proper tenants get to that stage?’

‘It can be arranged. ’ He was looking from them to the anonymous black car, and his smile was less demure than usual. ‘Do you know who is also here?’

His look and his tone said that they were hardly likely to thank him for the information, though it might enliven their stay in its own fashion. It was not often that Lakshman looked mischievous, and even now he had his features well in hand.

‘Sure we know, ’ said Larry obtusely, his mind on his shower, ‘madame la patronne and her mari.’

Prompt on the close of his sentence, as if responding to a clue, a high, clacking voice screeched: ‘Sushil Dastur! Sushil Dastur!’ from an open window, in a rising shriek that could have been heard a mile into the forest; and light, obsequious footsteps slapped hurriedly along the hallway inside the open door to answer the summons.

‘Oh, no!’ groaned Larry. ‘Not the Manis! So that’s the chauffeur-driven party, is it? We might have known! What did I tell you? Start touring anywhere you like, and within a hundred miles radius you keep seeing the same faces.’

‘And hearing the same voices, ’ Dominic remarked ruefully. ‘Poor little Sushil, he certainly hears plenty of that one. I wonder he stands it. And Bengali women don’t usually squawk – they have soft, pleasant voices.’

‘Not this one!’ It was scolding volubly now in Bengali, somewhere within the house, punctuated by placating monosyllables from a man’s voice, anxious, inured and resigned. ‘Maybe he doesn’t even listen, really, just makes the right sounds and shuts up his mind. Otherwise he’d go up the wall. And his boss is worse, if anything, even if he doesn’t split the eardrums quite like his missus. Jobs must be hard to come by, or Sushil would have quit long ago.’

‘I get the impression he is a relative, ’ Lakshman said with sympathy. ‘Of the lady, perhaps – a poor cousin. And you are quite right, for a clerk with no paper qualifications it is not at all easy to find a good post. And perhaps he is more comfortable with this one than we suppose. It is security of a kind.’

They had run into the Manis twice since leaving Madras, once briefly at Kancheepuram, plodding doggedly round that fantastic city’s many temples, and once at an overnight stop at Tiruchirapalli, where Mr Mani had constituted himself chairman of the evening gathering of guests at the travellers’ bungalow, and unfolded his and his wife’s life story in impressive detail. They were from Calcutta, where they had several textile shops, and they had come south to Madras for the first time to visit their married daughter, whose husband ran a highly successful travel agency. Thus they had the best possible help and advice in planning an extended tour of the south of India. Ganesh had made all the arrangements, Ganesh had ensured that they should not miss one famous sight while they were here. They had certainly missed none in Tiruchi. They had been observed in the early morning, before the stone steps were too hot for comfort, toiling dauntlessly all up the exposed face of the rock, Mrs Mani with her elaborate sari kilted in both hands, and Sushil Dastur scurrying behind with her handbag, her husband’s camera and the scarf she had dispensed with after the first morning chill passed; and again later taking pictures of the budding lotus in the temple tank below. And in the afternoon they had taken a taxi out to Srirangam, and toiled relentlessly round every inch of that tremendous temple, with very little in their faces to indicate what they thought of its stunning sculptures, or indeed whether they thought at all.

Mr Mani’s name was Gopal Krishna, and he was a firm, thickset, compact person of perhaps fifty, smoothly golden-brown of face, with crisp greying hair and large, imperious eyes that fixed the listener like bolts shackling him to his chair. He was so clean-shaven that it was difficult to believe he ever grew any whiskers to shave, and so immaculate, whether in spotless cream silk suit or loose white cotton shirt and trousers, or even, occasionally, a dhoti, that he made everyone else around feel crumpled, angular and grubby. He walked ponderously and impressively; one thought of a small, lightweight but inordinately pompous elephant. His voice was mellifluous but pedantic; it acquired an edge only when it addressed Sushil Dastur.

Sudha Mani was softer, rounder and plumper than her husband, and some years younger, and to do her justice, she was a pretty woman, with her pale gold cheeks and huge, limpid eyes, and curled, crisp rosebud of a mouth. But the eyes stared almost aggressively, and the tightness of the rosebud never moved a degree nearer blooming; and when the petals did part, she squawked like a parrot. She wore beautiful, expensive saris and rather too much jewellery, all of it genuine; but everyone here put capital into gold and silver ornaments. And she wore flowers in the huge knot of black hair coiled on her neck, but the flowers never seemed to survive long.

From her they had heard all about her first grandchild, and her troubles with servants, and the extreme sensitivity of her temperament. And from Gopal Krishna all about the state of the textile business, and his own commercial astuteness and consequent wealth.

Only almost accidentally had they ever discovered more than his name about Sushil Dastur, who fetched and carried, ran errands, took dictation, conferred long-distance with the management of the Calcutta shops and generally did everything that needed doing and many things that didn’t around the Mani menage. His name they couldn’t help discovering within half an hour. ‘Sushil Dastur!’ echoed and re-echoed at ten minute intervals, and in varying tones of command, displeasure, reproach and menace, wherever the Manis pitched camp. Private secretary,