There was a moment of silence, while the Swami gazed back at her with great gentleness and profound respect.
‘It was surely by reason of her recognition or non-recognition of that face that she died. For surely
‘Patti is the thing I find hardest to forgive,’ said Priya.
‘I, too,’ said the Swami, ‘hardest of all.’ He cast down his eyes, regarding with calm abstraction the cupped palms of his hands. In the half-lit room, cross-legged with soles upturned in the cushions of the couch against the wall, he looked more than ever like an antique bronze. He said mysteriously, and apparently as much to himself as to them: ‘The Lord said: “He who at his last hour, when he casts off the body, goes hence remembering me, goes assuredly into my being.” ’
Epilogue
« ^
The police came and went at Malaikuppam, took statement after statement, congratulated the household and one another, even condescended to fill in a detail or two which had emerged later, such as Romesh Iyar’s mode of transport on that last chase. It seemed that a motor-cycle had been stolen, and later found abandoned at Nagarcoil, where he had rediscovered the Bessancourts through happening on their car, and had managed to get himself added to their party. And having completed all inquiries to their own satisfaction, Inspector Tilak and Inspector Raju closed the case, and departed. The terrorist was dead, the file completed, and this particular danger, at least, over for good.
The Galloways came and departed, also. During the three days that they stayed, every other person in the house walked delicately, tuned only to their needs and wishes. They were the essence of what Patti had once called suburban Cheltenham, unobtrusively well-bred, well-dressed and unadventurous. But they had also the advantages of their kind, reticence, consideration, honesty and fortitude, and the kind of durability which outlives empire. They would probably never do anything very big, very important, or very imaginative, but equally they were unlikely ever to do anything very mean, very cruel or crassly unimaginative. Their grief was contained but profound; they were not the kind to embarrass anyone with too intimate an insight into their troubles. Priya, who still had a week of leave, stayed and devoted herself to them until they left for the airport at Madurai, with Patti’s ashes, en route for Bombay and home. And when they were driven away, Larry, who had also felt impelled to stay and see the affair out to its close, gazed after the departing car with a thoughtful frown, and said:
‘The more I see of the New Left, the more I begin to value middle-class virtues.’ To add the next moment, in case anyone had got the wrong idea: ‘Virtues, I said. I know they’ve got their vices, too.’
He and Lakshman were the nexxt to leave, heading westward over the Ghats to Trivandrum and up-coast to Cochin; but when their tour ended, Lakshman was to return to his college with a grant guaranteed by the Mission, and Larry, too, had asked, noncommittally enough, to be informed if ever the work of restoring the old irrigation tanks should be seriously contemplated. They would both be back; at least to visit and remember, quite probably to stay.
Then Purushottam drove Priya home to Nagarcoil, to spend her last few days of leave with her family; not to broach the idea of marriage yet – that would be a job for someone else in the first instance – but surely to keep a sharp eye open for the quality of his own welcome, in the light of all that had happened. He came back cautiously elated; very thoughtful, but with a happy, hopeful thoughtfulness that looked forward, not back. And as for Sushil Dastur, turned loose on all the papers that had been salvaged from the office, dealing with abstract things like figures, which obeyed and never nagged him, he had never been so happy in his life.
And the next day Dominic drove the Swami to Madurai in the hired car, on their way back to Madras.
The whole household waved them away from the gates. As soon as they lost sight of the wall, and were threading the dusty centre of the village, the Swami sat back with a sigh in the front passenger seat, and turned his face to the future; but not yet his thoughts, not completely, for in a few moments he said, summing up: ‘Well, it is over. Not, perhaps, without loss, but I think as economically as possible.’
‘Except,’ said Dominic, accelerating as they drew clear of the last fringe of the village, ‘that justice has not been done. And you know it.’
The Swami gazed ahead, along the reddish-yellow, rutted ribbon of road, and pondered that without haste.
‘In what particular?’ he asked at length.
‘Granted it was Romesh Iyar who planted the bomb in Bakhle’s boat at Thekady, and set up the other boat-boy to take the rap, granted it was Romesh who hunted us to the Cape when he found Purushottam and Lakshman had changed places, and did everything that was done there – planting the krait, kidnapping Priya as bait, and setting the trap to shoot Purushottam – all that, yes. But not the second bomb, the one in the office. He had nothing to do with that. He couldn’t have had. He was at Tenkasi, and the police were getting regular reports from him. He was there doing casual work around the junction until he was told on Thursday evening that he could go where he liked, and needn’t report any more. He was fifty miles from Malaikuppam when that bomb was planted. And you know it. And so does Inspector Raju!’
‘There is this matter of the stolen motor-cycle. Fifty miles is not a great distance,’ said the Swami experimentally.
‘Yes, I noticed that Inspector Raju mentioned that the motor-bike was found at Nagarcoil, abandoned after Romesh hit on the idea of attaching himself to the Bessancourts. But he never said where or when it was reported missing.’ Dominic smiled along his shoulder, with affection, and even a little rueful amusement. ‘Oh, no, I wasn’t stupid enough to ask Inspector Raju, he might not have told me this time. But I did ask Sergeant Gokhale. Everyone got the desired impression that it was stolen in Tenkasi, at some unspecified time, and that he used it to commute up here by night. But actually it vanished right here in Koilpatti during Thursday night. After the police had told Romesh he needn’t report any more. After Patti’s death was in the papers. He didn’t leave Tenkasi until then, and he left by train. He pinched the motor-bike to get up to Malaikuppam from the station, and he kept it to follow us south when he saw us set off next morning without Lakshman – and with Purushottam.’
‘The others,’ said the Swami reasonably, having absorbed all this without apparent discomfiture, ‘have not questioned the police conclusions.’
‘The others don’t happen to have that bit of information I got from Inspector Raju, as he was leaving on Thursday evening. I was asking about all the others, Romesh was only mentioned among the rest. But that’s how I know he was still waiting in Tenkasi when Patti was killed in Malaikuppam.’
