'But they were nothing like what they seemed. You couldn't get to the bottom of them. They'd been living way up in those hills I don't know how many centuries, and whatever it is they were doing, they weren't going to let a stranger in on it. They called themselves Moslems, just like the lowlanders, but I'm sure there must have been a few bush-gods mixed in. I thought they were primitive, at first, I mean, some of their rituals - you wouldn't believe it. But now ! think they weren't primitive at all. They just kept those rituals because they enjoyed them!' He tried to smile; it just accentuated the lines of his face.
'Oh, they seemed friendly enough in the beginning,' he said. 'You could approach them, do a bit of trading, watch them breed their animals. You could even talk to them about Salvation. And they'd just keep smiling, smiling all the time. As if they really liked you.'
I could hear the disappointment in his voice, and something else.
'You know,' he confided, suddenly leaning closer, 'down in the lowlands, in the pastures, there's an animal, a kind of snail, the Malays kill on sight. A little yellow thing, but it scares them silly: they believe that if it passes over the shadow of their cattle, it'll suck out the cattle's life-force. They used to call it a
"Chaucha snail." Now I know why.''Why?' I asked.
He looked around the plane, and seemed to sigh. 'You understand, at this stage we were still living in tents. We had yet to build anything. Well, the weather got bad, the mosquitoes got worse, and after the grounds keeper disappeared the others took off. I think the guide persuaded them to go. Of course, this let me-'
Wait. You say your grounds keeper disappeared?'
'Yes, before the first week was out. It was late afternoon. We'd been pacing out one of the fields less than a hundred yards from the tents, and I was pushing through the long grass thinking he was behind me, and I turned around and he wasn't.'
He was speaking all in a rush now. I had visions out of 1940s movies, frightened natives sneaking off with the supplies, and I wondered how much of this was true.
'So with the others gone, too,' he said, 'I had no way of communicating with the Chauchas, except through a kind of pidgin language, a mixture of Malay and their tongue. But I knew what was going on. All that week they kept laughing about something. Openly. And I got the impression that they were somehow responsible. I mean, for the man's disappearance. You understand? He'd been the one I trusted.' His expression was pained. 'A week later, when they showed him to me, he was still alive. But he couldn't speak. I think they wanted it that way. You see, they'd - they'd grown something in him.' He shuddered.
Just as that moment, from directly behind us came an inhumanly high-pitched caterwauling that pierced the air like a siren, rising above the whine of the engines. It came with heart-stopping suddenness, and we both went rigid. I saw my companion's mouth gape as if to echo the scream. So much for the past; we'd become two old men gone all white and clutching at themselves. It was really quite comical. A full minute must have passed before I could bring myself to turn around.
By this time the stewardess had arrived and was dabbing at the place where the man behind me, dozing, had dropped his cigarette on his lap. The surrounding passengers, whites especially, were casting angry glances at him, and I thought I smelled burnt flesh. He was at last helped to his feet by the stewardess and one of his teammates, the latter chuckling uneasily.
Minor as it was, the accident had derailed our conversation and unnerved my companion; it was as if he'd retreated into his beard. He would talk no further, except to ask me ordinary and rather trivial questions about food prices and accommodations. He said he was bound for Florida, looking forward to a summer of, as he put it, 'R and R,' apparently financed by his sect. I asked him, a bit forlornly, what had happened in the end to the grounds keeper; he said that he had died. Drinks were served; the North American continent swung towards us from the south, first a finger of ice, soon a jagged line of green. I found myself giving the man my sister's address - Indian Creek was just outside Miami, where he'd be staying - and immediately regretted doing so. What did I know of him, after all? He told me his name was Ambrose Mortimer. 'It means "Dead Sea,"' he said. 'From the Crusades.'
When I persisted in bringing up the subject of the mission, he waved me off. 'I can't call myself a missionary anymore,' he said. 'Yesterday, when I left the country, I gave up that right.' He attempted a smile. 'Honest, I'm just a civilian now.'
'What makes you think they're after you?' I asked. The smile vanished. 'I'm not so sure they are,' he said, not very convincingly. 'I may just be getting paranoid in my old age. But I could swear that in New Delhi, and again at Heathrow, I heard someone singing - singing a certain song. Once it was in the men's room, on the other side of a partition; once it was behind me on line. And it was a song I recognized. It's in the Old Language.' He shrugged. 'I don't even know what the words mean.'
'Why would anyone be singing? I mean, if they were following you?'
'That's just it. I don't know.' He shook his head. 'But
I think - I think it's part of the ritual.''What sort of ritual?'
'I don't know,' he said again. He looked quite pained, and I resolved to bring this inquisition to an end. The ventilators had not yet dissipated the smell of charred cloth and flesh.
'But you'd heard the song before,' I said. 'You told me you recognized it.'
'Yeah.' He turned away and stared at the approaching clouds. We were passing over Maine.
Suddenly the earth seemed a very small place. 'I'd heard some of the Chaucha women singing it,' he said at last. 'It was a sort of farming song. It's supposed to make things grow.'
Ahead of us loomed the saffron yellow smog that covers Manhattan like a dome. The 'No Smoking' light winked silently on the console above us.
'I was hoping I wouldn't have to change planes,' my companion said presently. 'But the Miami flight doesn't leave for an hour and a half. I guess I'll get off and walk around a bit, stretch my legs.
I wonder how long customs'11 take.' He seemed to be talking more to himself than to me. Once more I regretted my impulsiveness in giving him Maude's address. I was half tempted to make up some contagious disease for her, or a jealous husband. But then, quite likely he'd never call on her anyway; he hadn't even bothered to write down the name. And if he did pay a call - well, I told myself, perhaps he'd unwind when he realized he was safe among friends. He might even turn out to be good company; after all, he and my sister were practically the same age.
As the plane gave up the struggle and sank deeper into the warm encircling air, passengers shut books and magazines, organized their belongings, made last hurried forays to the bathroom to pat cold water on their faces. I wiped my spectacles and smoothed back what remained of my hair. My companion was staring out the window, the green Air Malay bag in his lap, his hands folded on it as if in prayer. We were already becoming strangers.
'Please return seat backs to the upright position,' ordered a disembodied voice. Out beyond the window, past the head now turned completely away from me, the ground rose to meet us and we bumped along the pavement, jets roaring in reverse. Already stewardesses were rushing up and down the aisles pulling coats and jackets from the overhead bins; executive types, ignoring instructions, were scrambling to their feet and thrashing into raincoats. Outside I could see uniformed figures moving back and forth in what promised to be a warm grey drizzle. 'Well,' I said lamely, 'we made it.' I got to my feet.
He turned and flashed me a sickly grin. 'Good-bye,' he said. 'This really has been a pleasure.' He reached for my hand.