The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) (75 page)

“How did you know what Barr-Taylor-Sahib told me?” I demanded.

“I have powers beyond the extent of your reasoning. As you sat on your verandah, smoking and drinking, he told you that I am more than two hundred years old. This is true, sahib. Indeed, I am very much more than that. I was blessed with an inexorable will, a gift from the gods which has enabled me to defy death.”

Aditya changed tack suddenly, his tone becoming less intense, more gentle. “Rowan-sahib, for me the two most powerful forces are those of sex and death, and thus far I have been in total control of both.
Despite my great age, I am proud that Chandira and myself still enjoy frequent and vigorous couplings.”

He gestured around the room. “Look about you, young sahib, look at the gods I keep in my dwelling. There is Prithivi, and yonder sits Yama, King of the dead. Here is Kama, controller of our desires, and there and there, Shiva and Kali, the Destroyers.

“But even I cannot defer death forever.” The rishi smiled ruefully, “Which is why I have settled in this village, for it is my fate to end my days here.”

Aditya stood abruptly. “Come with me, Rowan-sahib. I will give you a demonstration of my power over death.” He had exited before I realized it.

At the doorway, I turned to thank the rishi’s wife for her hospitality. My words were awkward for I was still shaken by Aditya’s frankness in front of the woman.

After the inner gloom, the sunlight dazzled and the rishi took my arm to guide me. As we walked, he murmured, “There will be a service you can perform for me, sahib.”

“Of course, if I can What is it?”

“You will know when the time comes,” he replied, “Ah, I think this will do.”

He had led me to the far edge of the village and I became aware of a disgusting stink nearby.

Stepping a few yards into the fringes of the jungle, Aditya kicked aside some heavy grasses to reveal the rotting corpse of a pi-dog. A great cloud of flies arose and with them the smothering stench of death and corruption. The body had an oddly collapsed look about it and I noticed a long trail of ants coming and going from the anal region. Ribs were laid bare and shreds of ripped innards exposed where some small scavenger had been burrowing. The sockets were empty, the eyes no doubt pecked away by crows.

“I think you will agree that this dog is dead, Rowan-sahib?”

“Disgustingly so,” I said, holding my handkerchief to my nose and mouth, trying to refrain from gagging.

“Then please, stand back a few yards and observe what happens.”

I moved back as requested and carefully watched the rishi. He became motionless and his eyes rolled back until only the whites showed. It was hideously still, for even the normal forest cacophony had quieted. Then I heard a curious grunting noise and my attention was drawn towards the pi-dog.

The dead creature was lurching to its feet, its movements stiff and feeble, like those of a badly-strung puppet. Having gained a precarious standing position, it turned and began to stagger towards me, remnant of tail wagging half-heartedly. A swollen, blackened
tongue, partly gnawed by something, lolled from the side of its mouth, and the blind holes gazed into my face. Deep in the sockets, I could see writhing nests of maggots and . . .

. . . And I think it was then that I yelled like a banshee and ran. I was in a blue funk and I’m not ashamed to admit to it.

I ran back through the village square, where Mushtaq Khan still sat with the leaders, dashed to my horse and galloped away. I was to find later that the poor creature was badly marked where I had spurred it so savagely, something I had never done to a horse before.

The Pathan caught up with me about a mile or so down the road, catching at my reins and pulling my horse to a halt. “What is it, sahib, what ails you?”

“The holy man . . . he . . .” I shook my head. “I cannot tell you, Mushtaq Khan. He . . . showed me something. It’s enough of a burden for me. I just want to forget, and I never want to see the rishi again.”

“Come, sahib, come with me. Let us go to a place of peace.” And probably against all of his instincts, the old Pathan led me to that temple in the jungle where I stayed for a long time, staring at the welcoming goddess and trying to find some mental peace.

Life went on. I wrote Barr-Taylor a brief report of my visit to Katachari, mentioning that Aditya had welcomed me into his home. I omitted all reference to the rishi’s conversation and nothing would have compelled me to mention the dead dog.

I immersed myself in work, went up country to visit other places, did anything I could to forget that dreadful experience. For a few weeks I had intermittent nightmares, usually involving dead animals, then they faded away. Gradually, as I overcame my horror, I persuaded myself of something that I should have thought of in the first instance. I became convinced that the rishi had somehow drugged or hypnotised me.

I was in my office one evening, smoking a cigar and sipping at a glass of lime juice as I struggled to balance my monthly accounts. It was stiflingly hot and the lazy flapping of the punkah did little to stir the air. I could not be bothered to urge greater efforts from the young lad paid a few annas to perform this menial task. He was probably as jaded by the heat as I was.

I stood up to stretch and to ease the aching muscles around my neck and shoulders, when I became aware of something out of the corner of my eye. I turned and found myself staring at the rishi, although how he had entered the room so quietly I have no notion. His palms were together in namaste, his eyes were closed, and there was a slight smile on his face. Then as I was about to greet him, somewhat irascibly, he
faded from sight and I was faced by nothing more than a cornerful of shadows.

“
Sweet Jesus
!” The sweat on my body turned to ice as I lurched across the room to the drinks cabinet. Then came my next shock. As I fumbled with the top of the whisky bottle, I heard a scratching noise outside, on the other side from the verandah. Almost without thinking, I snatched my Webley pistol from the drawer where I kept it and threw back the shutters.

Staring in at me was the startled face of Yasim, an elderly harijan employed to tend the grounds around my bungalow. I snatched breath in sheer relief.

“Yasim! What are you doing out there? Why lurk about like a sneak thief? You must know that if you wish to see me you need only knock at the door. What is it you want, man?”

My visitor shook his head urgently and raised a finger to his lips. “I should not be here, Rowan-sahib, for there is great danger for me. I am come to tell you of a rumour that is rife in the district. They say that the rishi, Aditya, is very near to death. It may even be that he is gone now.”

I cannot say that I was greatly disturbed by this news. The mention of the holy man’s name brought back that scene of horror at the forest’s edge, and my instinct was that the sooner he died the better.

Then I remembered the rishi’s words. “There will be a service you can perform for me . . . you will know what it is when the time comes.” The apparition, vision, hallucination, whatever it was that I had just experienced. Had this been some kind of telepathy? Had this been the rishi’s way of calling on my services?

“I must go to Katachari, then,” I said, “Aditya-sahib will wish me to attend the funeral rites, to represent the Raj.”

There was a frightened look in the gardener’s eyes. “Sahib, if ever asked, I will deny having told you this, such is the peril. I have to tell you the same rumours whisper that the holy man’s wife intends to become suttee.”

Suttee
. The word chilled me. I knew of it – who born and raised in India did not? Which well-read person or seasoned traveller did not shudder at the hideous and alien concept? Which district officer in the land did not pray that he would never encounter it?

Suttee
. A Sanskrit word. Literally, it means a virtuous woman. In practice, it means the self-immolation of a Hindu widow on her husband’s funeral pyre for, it is held, why would a virtuous woman wish to survive her husband? And it need not always be
self
-immolation, for it had been known for reluctant widows to be bound and cast into the flames.

The practice had been outlawed some sixty or seventy years
previously, but it was tacitly accepted that it continued in remoter places. Now it was to happen in Katachari and it was my duty to stop it.

Early in the morning I arose before anyone else and sneaked out of the bungalow. I saddled my horse and led the beast a good distance away before I mounted and began to ride.

I reached Katachari as the villagers were stirring. Plumes of smoke from early morning fires formed thin columns in the air and I could smell naan-bread baking and tea brewing. I had heard the sounds of chatter among families and neighbours but these fell silent as I rode into the square. I saw a boy running to Gokul’s home and moments later the zamindar was scurrying towards me, a small crowd at his heels.

“Rowan-sahib!” His voice sounded anxious. “What are you doing here? And so early in the day?”

“Katachari is part of my district, is it not?” I demanded haughtily, “Surely I have the right to visit when I wish?”

Gokul lowered his eyes and muttered, “Yes, sahib.”

“Anyway, I have heard that the rishi is unwell and I have come to pay my respects.”

Gokul sighed. “Then I regret that the Rowan-sahib has made a wasted journey, for the holy man died several hours ago. The funeral is to be held at dawn tomorrow. There will be no need for you to stay now, sahib.”

“I am sad to hear this,” I lied, “I must then, of course, pay my respects to the rishi’s widow.”

“That would be most unseemly.”

I stared hard at the man. “I don’t see why,” I told him. “In my country, it is an obligation to condole with a widowed person. I am a representative of the Queen-Empress, and it is her respects which I bear. Surely there is nothing wrong with that, Gokul-sahib?”

Gokul looked around frantically at his cronies, but it seemed that none wished to give him support.

“Anyway,” I added, bending the truth somewhat, “it was the rishi’s own wish that I do him the service of seeing that all is well with his widow. He told me this himself when we met. You would not wish to go against Aditya’s own will.”

The zamindar gave in with bad grace and led me to Aditya’s hut. Chandira was waiting at the doorway, as if she was expecting me. She was still wearing the burkha and veil. As I neared, she made namaste and said, “You are welcome, Rowan-sahib, please enter our home.”

Gokul made as if to wait at the entrance but I stared hard at him until, with obvious bad grace, he made off. Waiting only to ensure that he had truly gone, I accepted Chandira’s invitation.

It seemed that even more incense sticks were being burned within the dwelling, and that Chandira had used rather more of her heady perfume than previously. This was understandable, though, for beneath the richness of the scents I caught a faint whiff of death.

I looked around for Chandira and saw that she had taken up position at the far side of the room by the small stove upon which flickered a small fire.

Aditya’s white-clad corpse lay on his charpoy, arms resting by the sides, a garland of variegated flowers about the neck. I stepped over and gazed down. The rishi’s flesh had assumed a greyish pallor, while the eyelids and cheeks were already beginning to fall in. I studied the lines and folds on that dead face and suddenly I had an inkling that Aditya’s claims for greatly advanced age might well be true.

I turned to Chandira, deciding that this was not the time for the customary florid overtures. I was blunt. “I hear gossip that you wish to become suttee.”

The woman inclined her covered head a little. “Not gossip but truth, Rowan-sahib,” she told me.

I sighed heavily and sat down on one of the stools. “Why do this thing?”

“It is what I wish for, more than anything in the world.”

I made a contemptuous gesture at Aditya’s still form. “You mean it’s what he wished for.”

“No, it is
my
wish, my desire even.” Chandira shook her head. “
He
died without even having expressed an opinion about it. If it was a matter of
his
wish, and I was able, I might well defy it, for he has used me ill and I have good reason to detest him.”

“You know that suttee is outlawed,” I said, “And that it is my duty to prevent your death.”

“Perhaps I can persuade the sahib that I should be allowed to do this thing.” Chandira lowered her veil, showing to me a face of sublime beauty, a face which could have been that of a temple statue given life. Dark and fascinating eyes were lined with kohl and rich, full lips were painted scarlet. I felt breath tightening in my chest.

She took away the covering from her head and then started to loosen her gown.

I found myself torn between a well of longing and a flame of indignation. Chandira was about to offer me the use of her body now in exchange for her right to die tomorrow.

The lonely young man in me wanted to leap up and clasp her in my arms. The well-trained bureaucrat suppressed the young man.

“Stop this now, Chandira!” I snapped. “My duty is clear and I will not let you seduce me from it!”

She paused, and then she laughed. It was a sad, empty noise which made me feel immensely foolish and pompous.

“Be at ease, Rowan-sahib,” she told me, “I have no intention of offering you love, or even the sham of love. But I must show you, so that you understand.”

Moments later the burkha fell about her feet and she stood there naked. Something in her tone of voice had chilled me, and now I was able to gaze at her without desire.

Chandira’s form was graceful, alluring, but in that dim light it seemed somehow to be disproportionate. There also appeared to be some disparity in the flesh tints, and many parts of her body – her neck, for instance, and at the joints – were encircled by weird, bangle-like tattoos. She walked towards me, until just inches separated us.

She offered her right hand and against my will I took it in one of mine. Her palm was silken soft and surprisingly cool. With her free hand she indicated the marking about her wrist.