Some Kind of Grace, page 19
She beckoned McLeod over to the window. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I had to say it in front of a witness. I don’t care whether you believe me or not, Mr. McLeod. As I have said, it’s our business, Donald’s and mine; but I wanted to say it in front of someone. I don’t know why.’
‘He is very ill.’
‘Yes.’
‘And there’s nothing can be done?’
‘Nothing.’
‘If he was in a hospital, could anything be done?’
‘He could be given injections to lull the pain.’
‘And that’s all?’
‘I think so.’
He noticed she was trembling, and her hands, upon her stomach, kept clasping and unclasping.
‘Well, it’s certainly out of the question for him to travel.’
‘Yes.’
It had to be said. ‘How long do you think he’s got?’
‘I don’t know. Any day, any moment. You can see for yourself
‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘And what will you do then?’
‘I shall remain here.’
He thought it hardly worth while to remind her that Azim might not want her to stay.
‘You mean, until the child’s born?’
‘Yes. After then, too, perhaps.’
If the child should turn out not to be Donald’s. The doctor at Mazarat could have been mistaken, or even could have lied, as Donald said, in order to reassure her or to save himself and the authorities trouble.
Whatever was done to her, she must, for her religion’s sake, see a good purpose in it. What would strike McLeod as a hellish misfortune, she was obliged to turn into a benefit. Fruit that he would have no hesitation in refusing to let ripen, or survive when ripe, she must accept and preserve and cherish. If she should need the remoteness of this valley, and the absence of fellow Christians, in order to attempt and achieve that acceptance, he would certainly never blame her.
She herself was remote. He still did not understand her, but he knew that in her there was a depth and intricacy of suffering, and also a faith that it could be profitably endured. She reminded him of the old, half-blind woman and Rafiq’s mother.
Behind him he heard Kemp whisper: ‘Johnny.’
He turned. Recognition, as well as pain, was now in the glittering eyes.
‘I want to talk to you, Johnny.’
‘Should I?’
‘What difference can it make?’ she answered. ‘It might even help him to take his mind off the pain. Try not to let him get excited. I’ll go and fetch more water.’
When she had gone out, McLeod went over to the bed and sat down on a stool there.
‘I’m not going to scart a grey heid, Johnny, as they say up the Royal Mile. It’s just as well. I’d never have found the vision I was looking for. Yet for years I was sure of it. I was going to get rid of all the mushmouthery. I was the height of the Buddha at Kalak. But, Johnny, I didn’t know what to do with the presumptuous midgets. I wanted to squash the guts out of them. Don’t ask me why, for Christ’s sake. I just hated them. The Christ-tamers. That’s my name for them, Johnny, the Christ-tamers. You’ve seen the fellows who travel about in the East with a tiny monkey dressed up to look like a man? They waylay you outside your hotel, or come knocking at your gate, to show you how clever the monkey is; they make it stand on its head, turn somersaults, hold out its paw for alms. That’s them; my Christ-tamers.’
He rested for a minute or two, panting but smiling.
‘Once, though, Johnny, I think I did have the god’s eye view. You were with me. Do you remember, on Liatach, with Tom Forsyth?’
McLeod recalled the occasion. Liatach was a mountain in Wester Ross. With another student he and Donald had climbed it one summer’s day. Seated by the cairn, Donald had caught sight through binoculars of a climber and his girl bathing naked in a lochan in a corrie below. They had afterwards romped to dry themselves, and finally had sunk down on the heather to complete their joy, first taking care to spread out some garments to lie on.
As peeping-toms Kemp and his companions had been hilarious, witty, and fall of an Olympian loving-kindness towards their victims.
‘I lie here, Johnny, looking out at those peaks, and I remember it. We were looking down on Eden then, and we didn’t know it. That was before the Christ-tamers took command. How can you call something love that they indulge in, behind the plush curtains of their respectability, on the spring mattresses of their conceit? I did make that vow, Johnny, and I’ve kept it. You saw me swear it on the Bible. I called Meg a liar. That wasn’t right. How can she be expected to say the child she’s carrying is the seed of a drug-maddened, thigh-tormented, human rat. Yes, I’ve slept beside her, Johnny, close, too, for warmth and protection; but that was all, Johnny, I swear by Christ that was all.’
A whine had come into his voice, disconcerting McLeod.
‘You believe me, Johnny?’
‘Yes, I believe you.’
‘But you’re thinking I ought to lie about it, for Meg’s sake. I should please her by saying the child’s mine. After all, won’t I be dead by the time it’s born? But, Johnny, for weeks I’ve been lying here, dying in agony. How can I lie now? I daren’t pretend. Surely you understand that, Johnny? Better in the end to keep to the truth. I’ve advised Meg, have the child, but when it’s born, get rid of it, drop it on a stone, throw it into the river, abandon it in the forest, put an end to it in any way she can. They’d be shocked by that advice, the Christ-tamers; but wouldn’t they make the poor little misbegotten bastard’s life one long humiliation? If you commit murder, Johnny, and you’re so ill it looks as if you’re going to cheat them, they give you the best attention, show you any amount of Christian compassion, so that they can get the satisfaction of hanging you.’
His voice had grown so weak McLeod had to bend low to make out what he was saying.
‘Convince her, Johnny. Go and convince her.’
McLeod rose. ‘All right, Donald. You had better rest now.’
Kemp’s lips kept forming the words: ‘Convince her.’
Before leaving, McLeod had to go over to the stove and move the pot in which the water was boiling away.
Simpler, thought McLeod, as he walked to where Margaret seemed to be praying by the spring, to attribute every misfortune to the malice of fate, and prepare accordingly.
A few yards away, he saw that though her hands were clasped and her eyes shut, apparently in prayer, she was weeping; tears streamed down her cheeks. He halted for a moment, smitten by doubt and pity. Slowly in his mind formed the understanding that it was logical enough to believe in God’s omnipotence and at the same time concede Him His right not to exert it on one’s own behalf, however one pleaded, and however worthy one might think oneself. It was possible too, he realised, for a believer to accept as from God what an unbeliever like himself would regard as one of malicious fate’s dirtiest blows. The former, however blindly, and with no matter how many failures of reverence, must cherish what had been given; the latter at best could only achieve a bitter dignity of acceptance.
When she looked up and saw him there watching her, she made no attempt to hide her face or even wipe the tears from it. Instead, she tried to smile at him, with a ruefulness breaking into, but by no means dispelling, the prayerful earnestness of her face. He seemed then to see in her the child she had been twenty years ago, and also the young, zealous missionary-nurse who had left the comfort and safety of home to tend hideously ravaged black bodies and nourish the souls within them.
‘I am sorry I was angry with him,’ she said.
‘I don’t blame you.’
‘I blame myself. He is suffering great pain most of the time. It is like torture. He says often what he does not mean. He gets relief, I think, by saying things that outrage his true beliefs.’
‘Yes.’ But McLeod was by no means sure she was right. It seemed to him Kemp had meant what he had said.
‘The people in his care in India loved him, and he loved them. He had a wonderful effect on them. If he just spoke to them they gained confidence. It’s not surprising really that he’s now lost his own. He was like a saint, Mr. McLeod.’ She looked at McLeod as she carefiilly chose the word. ‘Yes, a saint. He never gave the slightest thought to his own welfare. He would have worked twenty hours a day if we had let him. You know he gave up his career as a diplomat.’
‘Yes.’ McLeod remembered Minn’s indignant description of that sacrifice.
‘I love him. And whatever he says, he loves me. In the eyes of God, we are husband and wife. I’m not ashamed of what we have done. I know he is going to die, very soon. Though I know that death is not the end of our pilgrimage, I don’t think I could bear to go on living without him if I didn’t have his child to look forward to. It is his child, Mr. McLeod.’
He could not ask her if she was absolutely sure of that. If it turned out not to be Donald’s, what did she do then? One thing at least was certain: he could never convince her to take Donald’s advice. He did not even want to try.
‘If you did decide to remain here, as you said, what would you want me to tell the people outside?’
‘They think I am dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would it not be better to let them keep on thinking it?’
‘Your own people, too?’
‘Yes. If they knew, everybody would know. Do you think I have a right to do that, Mr. McLeod?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘But I am not sure I have. This is very difficult for me to decide. There is also your part to be considered. I should be asking you to deceive people. You would have to lie. Even if you remained silent, it would be a lie.’
‘Don’t worry about me. As you’ve said yourself, it’s your business.’
‘I should be able to do the work I pledged myself to do. There is every opportunity here.’
‘Whatever you decided, it wouldn’t be irrevocable. After a year, two, three, twenty, you could go back if you wanted to. But if you do decide to stay, I’d like to know you had of your own free will made that decision. I’d also like to know what happened to Donald. Perhaps, after the baby’s born, you could send a message to me, at the Embassy. I’ll not be there, but it would be sent on to me. If in it you said you had decided to stay, then I go on keeping quiet; but if you said you wished to return home, then I’d be pleased to give you all the help I could.’
‘Thank you. I shall think about it.’
‘Azim will have to be consulted, too.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She rose up. ‘I shall have to get back to the house. Donald may need me. Was he asleep when you left?’
‘He was trying to.’
‘He seldom sleeps, even at night.’
Carrying the water-bag, he walked by her side towards the house.
Nineteen
When McLeod went to see Azim he found that a holiday had been declared and a feast got ready in his honour. Near the headman’s house, rising out of a level field shaded with trees, was a natural mound, as flat on the top as a table and itself ringed with trees. There the grass had been covered with many red carpets, round the edges of which the men of the valley, more than fifty of them, were already seated, waiting for him. In the field below women, dressed in their gaudy Sunday best, nursed their babies. Some boys flew kites, while others, on ponies, played a kind of buz-kashi, using a skin bag stuffed with grass as the buz.
When McLeod appeared, hesitant because he thought he might be intruding, there was an immediate clapping of hands and a cheering that astonished him with its enthusiasm and duration. When Azim, dressed in white from turban to shoes with upturned toes, came down to welcome him, the applause grew still louder until McLeod suddenly realised that in it must be an element of hysteria. This was their way of showing that the recent nightmare, in which they saw themselves murdering their guests, was at last over.
Azim’s first words proved him right. The tall, bearded headman met him with outstretched arms, and a smile strange on his bearded face because of its shy, child-like joy that the necessity of distrust was past. For a moment McLeod wondered on whose face he had lately seen a smile like that; and then he remembered that it had been on Jamil’s, in prison.
‘Welcome, my friend,’ cried Azim. ‘On my own behalf, and on behalf of everyone in the valley, man, woman, and child, I make you welcome.’
Looking round, moved and surprised almost to tears, McLeod could only nod and smile. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘The evil dream is past. We are awake again, and see all things clearly, as we did before. We see them as manifestations of God’s goodness to us. We are grateful to you, my friend. Your coming has helped to waken us. But for you that dream might have darkened our lives forever. We hope you will come and rejoice with us.’
‘I shall be greatly honoured.’
‘Your friend, is he able to come? Look, Aman has been brought here on a charpoy, which his sons have carried. Many hands will be pleased to carry your friend here to join us.’
McLeod shook his head. ‘I’m afraid it is not possible. He is too ill.’
‘We are all sorry to hear that. Perhaps, with his wife’s nursing, he will soon get well.’
‘I do not think so.’
‘Is he going to die?’
‘I think so. Soon. Azim, afterwards when we are alone, I should like to speak to you about the woman. She tells me that if her husband dies here, and her child is born here, she herself will not wish to leave. Would she be allowed to stay?’
‘We shall talk about it after we have eaten.’
Then, taking McLeod’s hand, the headman led him up the steps cut in the bank to the place of honour that had strewn in front of it masses of flowers. Rafiq, dressed also in white, jumped up and helped him into his place. Two others, whom Azim introduced as his brothers, acted as hosts, too.
Old Aman was close by, propped up by two of his sons. He insisted that McLeod should come and shake his hand. ‘I am very glad,’ he croaked. ‘Now I can look up at the mountains again, without shame.’
Seen through the branches of the pines those mountains then, in the warm sunshine with the sky blue above, were extremely beautiful. McLeod, too, found his heart lighter as he looked up at them.
At the blowing of a horn women and boys began to stream, in single file like ants, from the houses, carrying platefuls of food which they brought and set down upon the carpets. There were huge plates of pilau, white and orange rice, with pieces of chicken and mutton embedded in it; of fruit of all kinds, including melons and grapes and juicy pears; of native bread and cakes; and of kebab, pieces of tender roasted meat on long thin skewers. There were many small teapots and bowls of sugar.
As the feast began, with his fellow guests carrying meat and rice to their mild bearded mouths with their tawny fingers, McLeod had the feeling that this might well have been an episode in the life of Christ. Almost every man there, except McLeod himself, could have been taken for one of the disciples. When he thought of that, another thought flashed irrelevantly through his mind: Judas, like Kemp, had been red-bearded.
At first the conversation among those beside McLeod was about his previous visit to the valley, and his travels since. Then they wanted to know why he wasn’t yet married with half a dozen sons. When he suggested that perhaps they could provide him with a wife, they took it merrily for the joke it was, and put forward nominees. In the end they agreed that the most likely, because the most beautiful, was the sister of Rafiq’s wife. According to Rafiq, eager but shy, the girl thought McLeod was very handsome.
She was seen among the women in the field below, and pointed out to him. He asked her age. Fourteen, he was told. As he laughed and protested that was far too young for him, he was wondering what might happen to Margaret Duncan if she did remain here. She must be, he thought, about thirty, perhaps a year or so younger: double the age which they preferred a bride to be here. She would be regarded as old, almost past the age when she could be expected to produce vigorous sons. No man would be willing to marry her, and yet how could she, in a primitive community of this kind, support herself as a widow with a child? Her fate might be to become some kind-hearted man’s second wife, an extra bedmate and drudge for him. As a woman, too, even the consolation of prayer might be denied her. If she prayed, it would have to be in secrecy; which might be difficult, since even the relieving of nature had to be done in the open, behind some communal rock. As for her child, whether Donald’s or not, it might well find life as hard here as it would among Donald’s Christ-tamers.
Hours later, in the evening, the feast over, McLeod went with Azim, his two brothers, and Rafiq, to the headman’s house, where they sat in a quiet room taking turns at smoking a blue hubble-bubble pipe with the stem decorated with thousands of tiny red-and-white beads. Aman, exhausted, had been carried home. Fakir had not been invited; he had stood dourly watching them go off without him. He had obviously suspected that the business of the two guests was going to be discussed, and thought he was entitled to take part. But no doubt his attitude, of prejudiced opposition, was known, and rejected. Still, if Margaret did remain, she might find him an awkward enemy.
At first they talked about McLeod’s own plans. He wanted to stay for a few days, and then leave, either over the mountain again or through the pass, whichever they thought advisable. If he could be taken to where he had left his car, he would be grateful. Rafiq at once offered to escort him through the pass; it was possible to avoid the soldiers quartered there if one knew the way.
Azim agreed, and said two others would go with them, to make a strong escort.
Then it was time to speak about Kemp and Margaret.
‘It is a pity my friend is too ill to travel,’ said McLeod.
They murmured sympathetically, but their eyes were steady and watchful.
‘He is very ill?’ asked Rafiq.
