That Savage Water (7 page)

LES 3 CHEVALIERS remains etched on a wall in S-21 prison. It means “the three knights.'”

The police had already cordoned off the entrance to the rocky path that snaked four kilometres up to the Naina Devi temple. A crowd had gathered along the road and most of them were crying, throwing their arms up in the air and forcing the stiff-backed policemen to restrain them from running up the trail. Carter looked out over the valley and then to the flashing lights of the ambulances and wondered if being crushed under a stampede felt anything like knowing about what he knew but not being able to stop it.


Maybe she won't do it
– he thought –
She's only trying to scare me. That's how it works.

It was unlikely, but he thought it anyway.

From the base of the hill, Carter could see out over the roofs of the houses that were stacked up the side of the valley to the road where the cars were parked. Farther in the distance low peaks emerged, patched with orchards and meadow-like carpets of wild flowers. They weren't marigolds; their petals were the same colour but with stems that seemed as though they would break more easily. The base of the hills was stepped in terraces of rice and as the emerald slopes rose, their colour faded to brown from the scree and then to white where the snowy tips of the Himachal Pradesh disappeared into wisps of cloud.

Om Prakash stood next to Carter – I believe I have the beginning, sir. Please tell me if you like it – then he read from a notepad that shook slightly in his hand –
One hundred forty-five Hindu pilgrims were trampled to death during a stampede at a northern Indian temple…

No, no – Carter interrupted – You can't begin like that.
Trampled
makes them sound like cattle.

Cattle, sir?

Were they trampled by cattle?

No, sir. By other people.

Prakash, the world won't tolerate Indians being written about like that anymore. Maybe in the fifties you could get away with it, but not now. No more
memsahib
or tiger hunts, you know that, right? The sun never sets and all that? Begin with how their clothes are brightly coloured.

Brightly coloured…

That way it's not all chaos, you see. Now it's all engineers and hydro dams, female doctors and such. At least that's what they want you to believe, Prakash. Seems everyone's forgotten that most of India is still a poor garbage heap.

Carter felt the muscles in his stomach clench and the air rush from his lungs as he remembered again and wondered whether or not she would go through with it. The feeling was involuntary. Like a sudden nausea that wakes you in the dead of sleep, he was at the feeling's mercy. She had promised she would do it and even though she had said it all from spite, the look in her eyes had said –
I'd do it just to prove I would.

No panic then?

What?

A stampede is about panic, sir.

Right. Of course there should be panic…

My wish is to preserve the accuracy of the event. I would not like to lose sight of what really happened.

Om Prakash spoke deliberately and respectfully. Carter appreciated that but didn't like how long this was taking. Reuters had a strict deadline for filing evening reports and he wanted this article taken care of before they returned to Delhi. Carter took a drink from his water bottle, closed his eyes, and wondered if he could still make it back in time to catch the overnight flight to London.


Maybe there's time
– he thought –
If we hurry, there might just be time.

He spoke to Om Prakash, who had started writing in his notepad again.

Do you have a wife, Prakash?

A wife?

Or are you engaged to be with someone?

Prakash blushed – No, sir. I do not have a wife.

Carter looked out at the peaks of the mountains – A male friend then? A buddy or something?

Prakash's blush deepened – No, sir. That is not even legal in India, if that is what you mean.

It should be – Carter said – Things might be a lot easier for you.

He looked at Prakash and wondered if he might be lying.

That man in the blue shirt and white dhoti, do you see him?

Yes.

That one over there.

Yes, sir.

The man stood wailing in the shade of a tree, his hands pressed to his face. He had a moustache and was shaking his head distraughtly at something being said to him.

That man claims there were rumours of landslides…

Landslides?

Because of the rain. Write that –
Carter said – Incessant rains had loosened the soil and rumours of landslides startled the crowd…

With all due respect, sir,
startled
sounds like cattle too.

Does it? Maybe if I had said
spooked
I could see that, but
startled
seems appropriate. Hard work getting this right, isn't it, Prakash? Are you sure you want to be a journalist?

Om Prakash looked at him – Yes, sir.

There will always be difficult things in life. A journalist must try to portray them all correctly to the world. Passionately, but correctly. That's the job. You think you can do that?

Yes, sir. I'd like to interview a family member, if you wouldn't mind.

Fine, Prakash, but make sure they're upset. You'll need a strong headline.

Om Prakash walked over to the group of mourners and began speaking with an old woman. Carter watched her as she wailed and thought –
What should I believe? That she was only threatening to leave me? That she said so as a last resort? Goddammit. Prakash should hurry up. I could get back to Delhi and be in London by tomorrow.

Carter knew he deserved it if she left, but the pain in his stomach didn't seem fair. All this churning inside him didn't seem fair at all. He looked out over the valley, and in the distance he could barely make out a tiny hut sitting on the edge of a green rice field. A thread of grey smoke spiraled into the air from some sort of rubbish fire and for a moment he deeply envied whoever lived there –
Why does everything have to be so complicated?

Carter watched Om Prakash write furiously in his notebook as the crowd of mourners gathered around him, each eager to cry out their version of the events. Prakash took tiny steps back on the gravel and every time the crowd inched forward. He could understand the disgust of the British but he wasn't allowed to say it. His job was to report the news and to keep personal opinions to himself. India was becoming too difficult to write about these days. One had to be so careful.

The police carried the dead bodies down from the temple and were lining them up at the guardrail near the edge of the cliff. Carter looked at his watch –
Dammit, Prakash. Hurry up.

Om Prakash turned his back to the mourners and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He walked over to Carter and said – They say the guardrail broke. Many people fell to their deaths, it seems.

So they weren't trampled after all?

Some were. Others fell, sir. One woman said she saw her children… – Prakash read from his notebook –
…tumbling down the hillside.

Terrible – Carter said – But make sure you mention those children.

One man lost all three. He said to me, ‘I fail to see why God was so cruel.'

Cruelty is relative
– Carter thought –
There are many ways for the gods to be cruel.
He looked at Om Prakash and said – You see there, a fine headline.

Such a tragedy – Om Prakash said, looking out at the valley – to be trampled under human feet. There are too many horrible things in the world. Aren't there, sir? Does a journalist ever grow tired of seeing them all?

Carter looked at the tiny hut in the distance. The sun had begun to tilt the shadow of the mountains towards where Carter and Prakash were standing, but a gap of silver light remained between them. Carter mentally marked the sun's boundary with a boulder resting at its edge. He forced himself to reply.

A journalist must never become tired of the truth, Prakash. Our job is to show others what they're unable to see for themselves. Isn't that right?

Carter looked back at the boulder hoping the sun had moved. It had, but only slightly. He looked at Om Prakash again – I'm going to ask you a personal question.

Yes, sir.

Carter hesitated and then said – Where will you go tonight, once we're back in Delhi?

You mean for dinner, sir?

Well, yes. That. But more generally too. What I mean is, will you sleep alone?

Sir?

Alone…as in by yourself. Never mind, Prakash. You're an idiot sometimes. I really think so.

She was going to break his heart; he should resign himself to that. He should prepare himself so that when he returned to London and she wasn't there, he would be ready.


I should never have let myself care about anyone in the first place
– he thought. His stomach still felt coiled in knots and he could feel it all thudding in his chest.

If you must know, sir – Om Prakash said – I will sleep alone tonight. And tomorrow night and the night after that. For myself, sir, I think this is the safest way for a man to live.

Perhaps – Carter said – You could damn well be right about that.

Yes, sir.

And you didn't have girlfriends in school?

No, sir. I studied and played cricket mostly.

Better that way. Women love a cricketer, don't they? – he turned towards the sound of the wailing again.

I don't know, sir.

But a shame to sleep alone…

Sir?

Carter didn't answer.

By the time Om Prakash had finished, the mountain's shadow stretched well beyond the boulder. The police began to load the bodies into ambulances that were driven down the hill to the hospital in Shimla. Carter watched Om Prakash as he walked over to the driver of the car they had hired in Delhi. He would have to pay him extra for staying longer. They would be too late now to make it back in time for a flight to London. She would have left and he would be too late to stop her. Carter's face felt oily and his shirt stuck to his back where the sweat had pooled. Prakash's brown skin looked dry and clean by contrast.


She would have done it by now
– he thought. He would go back to London and she would have done it like she'd threatened to. Carter watched Prakash gather their things and pack them into the car.


Not a bad-looking man
– Carter thought –
But not nearly bright enough to ever make it as a journalist.

They would be back in Delhi in a few hours and Prakash would leave to eat dinner alone. Carter would file the story to Reuters, take a cool shower and then lay on his bed in his towel. Slowly, at the bottom of his stomach, the panic would begin to expand: If she was gone, he would be alone.

And then what?

Bosh looked over his shoulder, back into the rustling damp of the jungle. The trees and bushes were alive with a nighttime chorus of insects that made it all sound like busted machinery.

That's the wrong sound – he said – You listen, Miles. Tell me if that isn't the wrong sound.

Miles pretended not to hear him and continued shaving the husk of an empty coconut with the rusted machete.

Bosh said – Hey! – and chucked a handful of sand at Miles' lap – I said the jungle's making the wrong sound. What're you deaf or something?

Leave it – I said – There isn't anything we can do now. The jungle makes all sorts of noises when you just leave it be.

Bosh stared at Miles shaving the coconut – Christ, doesn't he look like he'll kill you?

Miles said – I won't kill anyone.

Ha! – Bosh said – Won't kill anyone. Would you listen to that noise? Jungle's out to eat somebody tonight. That's the wrong sound, Carl, isn't it?

I said it sounded different from other nights, but nothing so bad it could have torn us apart in our sleep or changed what we were planning on doing that night. At least not before the boat came. Probably not before the boat came.

Anchored offshore between our island and that of Ko Yao shone the lights of the army boat, a full-sized troop carrier squatting in the water of the channel. It sat there, fat and omnipotent, its radar spinning silently on top like it knew something we didn't. On its deck, dim outlines of soldiers paused by the railings with mouths full of cigarettes and quick Thai. They congregated in groups, coughed and adjusted their hats, staring out onto the beach of Ko Yao and probably up the whole Malay Peninsula all the way to Bangkok.

Must be flooded by now – Bosh stared at the island, bobbing his head to the dull thud of the techno beat that carried over – I hope you got the stuff hidden well, Carl. They've brought in the army. They mean business.

I said – It's fine. We won't get searched. There are ten thousand people on that beach, no one's going to bother us.

Bosh said – You can tell those army boys are aching for a catch of drugged-up farang. Remember how they strip-search in Thailand, Miles? Want me to show you?

Miles said – Fuck off.

They don't change gloves, see. They bend you over, grease your crack with jelly and stick it in you, same glove as the guy before.

Miles kept shaving the coconut.

Looking for drugs and weapons mostly. You never heard of that? That's how they do it here.

Bosh nodded his head with the techno beat again. It drifted over the water like the muffled cough of a clock. Miles dug the tip of the machete into the sand and stood up. Hairs from the coconut stuck to his shorts.

I'm going to check for the boat – he said, and walked off towards the boulders.

If you don't come back, what'll we tell your folks? – Bosh hollered at Miles' back – Should we tell 'em you fucked a twelve-year-old then gave her the wrong currency as payment? – He began to laugh – Remember, Carl? Should we tell 'em that, Miles? Huh? Want us to pass that on to the family? Christ, what a shit-dick.