The shooting by the river never let up. It was as if someone were throwing stones at the bottom of a barrel.
“Monsieur Nagar is crazy.” Stowne’s florid face creased in a frown. “You were a soldier, so you instinctively avoid him. Sometimes I’ve gone out with him for quail, and I had to crawl because he was shooting like a tank in all directions. I was never under such fire on any front in the war.”
“He wants to be king of the hunt,” Terey said mockingly.
“And you’ll see: he will be. I know him. A real fox. He told the lads who retrieve the ducks for us that for each one they brought him they would get half a rupee. Well, didn’t I tell you? And where is yours?”
Istvan looked around the bushes. The Hindu disappeared; the tufts of reeds swayed almost imperceptibly. He lifted the bird he had just brought down. It had lain with wings outspread, its blue patch dazzling, its neck iridescent. He fastened it to a strap on his belt.
“Eh, what? Did I get it right?” the gray-haired major said triumphantly. “You can stay here as long as you don’t disturb the ducks or, above all, me. It’s a good place. It will do for us both.”
But Istvan only tipped his hat, pushed the tangled reeds apart and moved wordlessly away.
He dodged and wove for a long time, wrestling with the undergrowth that clutched at his feet like a snare. Time after time he heard the flapping of ducks’ wings in the air and their quacking, but reeds and shrubs twice his height covered his field of vision. He came upon a swampy depression — a tiny stream was trickling somewhere under the layers of colorless grasses — and he had to get around it; he had no wish to emerge drenched and plastered with mud. He had gone so far away that he could hear no shots. He was tired and the sun, though invisible, was broiling. He decided to go back — to make his way to the high bank, circle through the fields, and approach the camp from the road by which they had come.
I am at the hunt, as Margit requested. But she would not be satisfied, because I am alone. After all, she wanted me to enjoy myself, to break out of my solitude.
As he came onto the dry meadows he shot one more bird, which had flown recklessly near his barrel. It was not a clean shot; the cluster of pellets had been too large and had ripped apart the belly. When he picked up the duck, warm blood ran over his hand. He wiped it on the grass but it stuck to the butt of his gun. Swarms of flies swirled around his face and settled around the open beaks of the birds strapped to his belt.
“Hello, Mr. Terey!” He heard an elated voice behind him. From the direction of the bare, rocky fields and patches of corn stripped of its ripe ears, from among the stalks whitened by the sun, Bradley heaved into view. He looked like an overgrown peasant with chubby cheeks and bristling, tousled blond hair. “Look what I bagged! Not just any silly duck.”
Above the American’s fist a small head was sticking up amid a comb of pertly waving royal blue feathers. A long sheaf of shifting, fiery colors — the tail — swept the dust.
It was a peacock.
“Hide that this minute!” Istvan commanded.
“Why? This is a tasty bird.”
“But sacred.”
“I never dreamed—”
“There will be trouble. We all could be stoned. These people are not so docile.”
Bradley let go of the peacock and stood over it, hesitating.
“Tear off the tail. Cut away the wings and legs. Wrap the rest in anything you have and put it in your car right away.”
“Damn! It was the tail I wanted most.” He nudged the bird with his shoe. “Curse this country! They won’t eat these things themselves and they won’t give them to anybody else.”
Terey did not wait but walked rapidly on. Bradley caught up with him.
“Are you afraid or what?”
“No. I’m just hungry.”
“And my throat’s burning. God! I’d drink three cans of beer as long as there was ice. Surely they have it.”
“Of course they do. Nagar does — I’ll vouch for it.”
“For beer on ice I’d give him the Suez. But the French got hit where it hurts there, though they took no losses. A defeat with worse repercussions than Dien Bien Phu: they have all the Arabs against them. They’ve taken a kick.”
“Don’t bother me about politics,” Terey snapped.
They walked along the path side by side. Shadows lay on the decaying grass from which whitish stones, worn smooth by the river, protruded like bones. Lizards warmed themselves on them — darting little skeletons sheathed in greenish skins.
“You know, Fanny’s not so bad,” Bradley began. “But that other one — some fellow made a move on Fanny and she invited him home. They did some drinking and went to bed, and when the guy had finished, Fanny called, ‘Come ’ere, Moufi. Come, sis, and I’ll show you a real man. That’s a rarity today.’ Well, and what was a fellow to do? He saved his honor. He took the poor little dear in her quilted housecoat with forget-me-nots, and Fanny perched on the couch and watched to see that everything happened as it ought—” he burst into a loud laugh.
“He told you that himself?”
“No,” he admitted, frowning. “Fanny was bragging. She’s a lot of fun.”
“That’s just publicity.”
“Probably. Everybody likes her, but as a friend, not as a woman. Sure, she told it to make an impression. But Miss Shankar could be in a Coca-Cola ad. Oh, the delightful smell of roast duck!” He rubbed his big palms together. “Istvan”—he clapped him on the back with a heavy hand—“we’ll knock back a few.”
“We’ll hit Nagar up. I’m ready to give him my ducks if he’ll just break out the whiskey. The king of the hunt must stand everyone a drink.”
“I like you, Terey. One must make sacrifices for the future. Especially when it smells so good.”
A joyful hubbub greeted their appearance. Girlish voices asked how many birds they had shot. Istvan shook the few undistinguished ducks that hung from his belt, and Bradley roared, “I shot a great big bird, but it flew beyond the river—”
“The Air India plane, no doubt,” Nagar said. “And you certainly didn’t hit it…I have fourteen ducks.”
“Long live the king!” Bradley called in a thunderous voice. “Hey, fill the bumpers! Only — can Comrade Terey drink a toast like that?” he asked in a stage whisper. “Maybe I’ll drink for him.”
The guests lay on blankets under shady trees, relaxing. Nagar dismantled his gun and tried to impress them by tooting on the barrel as if it were a trumpet, but the sound was not at all similar, which sent Bradley into spasms of laughter. Fanny Partridge added to the merriment by proposing to the American, announcing that it would be a marriage with something extra, and pointed to her blushing sister. Even the Hindus smiled, though with restraint.
“I have to eat first,” Bradley stipulated. He sat crosslegged, balancing a tin mess plate on his knees and eating rice soaked in spicy sauce with a spoon. “When I have eaten, you will draw straws”—he licked the spoon with a knowing wink—“to see which one of you will have the honor of chasing flies off me when I’m lying down.”
Major Stowne leaned toward Terey and said an undertone, “A gentleman does not behave this way.” He shook his head ruefully. “Many things may be said, but not in front of the servants.”
The villagers who had retrieved the ducks stood in a group under the trees. Each had a ladleful of rice in a bowl made from a leaf. They ate with their fingers, looking over the faces of the picnickers with eyes full of astonishment and bovine mildness.