“This government will not sustain itself. Delhi will remove it. If the matter of smuggling people to Ceylon should come to light now, it will only be a card in the game; at least that is the way the opposition will treat it. They will say the communists are concerned about whipping up the passions of the voters, not about justice. Those drowned refugees from Pakistan — from another country — are people from nowhere.”
“Do I understand that you are against the communists, and yet you have not given up on seeing justice done?” Terey brandished his glass. The sunlight rested on his bare, sandaled feet caressingly, like a fawning cat.
“You have put it well. If you file a deposition and my brother does not confirm it…after all, you do not know Malayalam.”
“But Daniel…”
“Your attendant translated a classic poem. Right, my boy?” He turned to Daniel, who was sitting crosslegged in the shadow of the house, gazing with longing at the undulating vastness of the sea.
“Yes, sahib.”
“When one has money, one can do much. I am here a day and I know almost everything. Even if they were arrested, they would escape the ultimate penalty. Trust me a little.”
“When it is not right for me to be silent—” he said in a hard voice.
“You have already been silent for three days. I know; you were waiting for me. There are other justifications. It is not necessary to trumpet everything one knows right away. Silence is not a lie; it only leaves room for deliberation. If you file a statement, they will treat it as a pawn in a political game: you are from the communist side. Please trust me. I will attend to this.”
“What guarantee do I have that they will not load a new cargo of runaways tonight and leave them to be eaten by sharks?”
“None, except for my word.”
“I don’t even know your name.”
“And what is the point of your knowing it?” The dark eyes looked sternly at him and the lips under the close-clipped mustache narrowed in a malevolent smile. “They meant to kill my brother. He was saved because he is a sadhu, a singer of the gods. The gods allowed the blind man to see the truth. You are only one link in the chain. You received him, fed him, conducted him to a safe place, and summoned me. The rest is my business. My brother’s life is worth more than that ship full of beggars. Just now I have hurried here; I am not like him. He has greater riches, riches inaccessible to me, but I have rupees enough to find hands that will assist the cause of justice. Do you believe me?”
He leaned toward Terey and gazed into his face. On the fingers of both his hands were thick gold rings with rubies.
“Yes. I believe you. I have no choice.”
“How much should I pay you for your help? Answer without restraint. I have plenty, and what you did for my mad, saintly brother is beyond price.”
Terey saw that Daniel had raised his head and was looking tensely at him, moving his sticky lips as if he wanted to shout something.
“Nothing. I really did nothing for him.”
“I apologize,” the man whispered, “for speaking in front of them.” He motioned toward Daniel and the open door to the bedroom. “Here is a notebook; write something here. You are with the diplomatic corps; you are afraid that there will be trouble. I swear, no one will know.”
“No. I would have taken in anyone in need of help.”
In the silence gulls uttered nagging cries. A flock of gray crows shrieked hoarsely as they snatched with their beaks at the jellyfish that gleamed like clouding glass in the sun.
“If not with money, how may I repay you?”
He heard a quiet call, as if Margit had suddenly thought of a way: “Istvan, come here for a moment.”
He jumped up, almost stepping on the hat the wind had blown off the windowsill without anyone’s noticing.
“What do you want, darling?”
She sat with her head tilted a little like a listening bird, her matted hair pulled back and held tightly behind her ears with small combs. Her blue eyes beamed exultantly. She motioned for him to lean over.
“Tell him to take his brother to a good oculist. I’ll give him the address. Surgery can remove the cataracts and his sight will be restored.”
He kissed her forehead, which was a little cooler now. He repeated her suggestion to the Hindu, who was smoking a cigarette. The shadows of gulls tame as doves, gliding toward the rubbish bins behind the hotel, flitted over his knees and his face, which was bathed in glare.
“We have spoken of this more than once. After all, I am not a peasant from the countryside with the hindquarters of a buffalo obscuring my view of the world. No, dear sir, neither I nor my brother would agree to that. Are you sure that what I can offer him is better than what he creates? I know the beauty and greatness of it. More than once I have been brought to tears listening to his songs. He is a poet. All India is his. All that charms us would be lost without him. His song is like a blossoming branch.”
“Have it written down and publish it.”
“I have tried, but the resonance and the gestures are not there. The parts that cannot be reproduced fall away like petals from boughs in bloom.”
“There is still the tape recorder. The tape will preserve it forever.”
“And where will you find the light of that hour, the glow of clay walls, the dust soft as a carpet, and the cry of the thirsty hawk? The faces of the peasants listening with rapt attention, who abandoned their unsatisfied bodies — he carried them away, he involved them in the fates of the warring gods. No, that is not my brother,” he said loyally. “None of this concerns you: your kindness is devoid of understanding. To you he is just one blind man. But you are cripples. You hear his songs and do not understand them, for you do not know Malayalam,” he burst out, clawing the air. “I went to the mission school. I know who Homer was. I want you to understand! Would you dare suggest to Homer that he try to recover his sight? Do you understand what a pathetically ludicrous idea that is? What can you give him that is more than what he has, what he brings from inside himself?”
His brother must be the object of his love and pride. It seemed to Istvan that the man could tear an opponent to bits like a tigress defending her young if something threatened the singer. The two of them are mad. It is impossible to arrive at an understanding with them. They have the advantage over us; they are in no hurry. They believe that they will live on innumerable times, drawn ineluctably into vortexes of change.
“So you want nothing from me.” There was a note of irritation in the man’s voice. “I do not like being a debtor.”
“Support the mission. They gave him shelter there.”
“They are not our friends. They teach that we live only once. They implant an alien sense of hurry. I cannot give a paisa to that mission.”
He bent to retrieve his hat, but Daniel, standing on the sand below the steps, was already handing it to him.
“Thank you again.” He seized Terey’s hand like a beast of prey and pressed it until it hurt. He must be a practitioner of yoga, he thought. Strong — and he seems so unimposing.
The Hindu nodded to the attendant, who ran behind him eagerly and listened deferentially to his orders. His head with its curly black hair bobbed in zealous agreement, like the head of a bird pecking grain.
A sea of tilting mirrors gave off silver fire. The two Englishwomen were returning from the beach under parasols as light as those in paintings by Renoir. They were accompanied by a young man with a bronze tan who waved colorful bathing suits and wrung rainbow-tinted sparks out of them.
“Unhappy thought,” Margit said apologetically, extending her hand with a meek smile, “we will never come to understand this India.”